my romantic tryst with cancer

is it not strange how common this word is becoming in our lexicon... it is more than just me but I am more than it will ever be

Life, I have learned over the past year of my life,  is not ours to give or take, to keep or give up,  it is only ours to live... Live it with truth, beauty, and With love, always

My friend Barbara from Napoli would always tell me, when she'd read my mind on my face- "you feel, therefore you live". Feel, and live. Things happen when you know the peripheries of your own skin, love the boundaries of your emotions, and forget the limits of possibility... (excerpted from an email I sent a friend earlier today)

Mohammedali Road, Mumbai.

This is the view from the porch at the Radio Club where we had lunch this afternoon...

The attached picture is one of Mumbai's many famous landmarks. A neo-gothic wonder that rivalled anything the empire had back home- the Rajabai Clock Tower on the Bombay University campus. Rumour has it that they closed it off a few decades ago when it turned into a suicide magnet for students who did not fare that well in their exams. The maidan (field) in the foreground, now cricket central, was once the vast open areas the Brits cultivated around their forts to have clear firing range on any attackers. Ironically the university was built on the footprint of the fort's walls, and the expanse of open space, once Bombay's lungs and emerald jewels, has been whittled into irrelevance by generations of land grabs, corruption and negligence. Behind where I stand and take this picture stood a row of fine Art Deco apartments, now renovated into nouveau riche hell. I decided to let my legs take me around the City today and walked and walked for a few hours along familiar

I promised a few pictures... A bit disturbing today. I decided to ta ke a walk through the old Crawford Market and it's surrounds. Here's the transcript of a chat I had a bit later with a friend. TM: am a little shaken today- saw a group of street kids tearing a little puppy apart... we're breeding animals in this smokestack... how can the future every be bright? Friend:  oh, there's work to be done, all right. Makes me wonder if staying in the ivory tower and working toward a phd is the way i want to spend my twenties/prepare for a career and a life... TM:  the water will reach our feet sooner or later... the ivory tower does give perspective though that's hard to find if you're on the ground. I'm getting a bit tired of people telling me "you'll get used to it"- it's a danger to start getting indifferent about things that matter Friend:  yes, i don't really want to get "used to it" A grounding, but is it a wake up