Red with rage

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, There are three gates leading to the hell — Lust, Anger and Greed. Every sane man should give these up, for they lead to the degradation of the Soul."

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, One develops attachment for the sense objects by thinking about the sense objects. Desire for sense objects comes from attachment to them, and anger comes from unfulfilled desires."

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, Delusion or wild idea arises from anger. The mind is bewildered by delusion. Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered. One falls down from the right path when reasoning is destroyed."

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, Those who are free from anger and all material desires, who are self-realized, self-disciplined and constantly endeavoring for perfection, are assured of liberation in the God in the very near future."

"Sri Krishna said: O Arjuna, Pride, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness and ignorance—these qualities belong to those people who are of demoniac nature."

This is what the Bhagwad Gita says on "anger".

It is but rational that every human being falls into the anger trap. And I am no exception. I admit that some of it is inherited from paternal genes. As one grows up especially when the euphoria of adolescence embraces delirium all worldly sense gets derailed. With the budding of youth, life is at the crossroads - awkward and riotous. The booby trap of anger is cavernous enough for a free flat fall. Realisation of rationale dawns at a time when you find yourself to have missed the bus long gone. You mellow down to a life not cherished with acquiescence.

 

Is flushed with rage worth? Over the years with age beckoning maturity, I realised my physical strength dissipated at a horrendous speed after a deadly brawl sucked in rage. That left me spiritless for days together and clueless when conducting activities that needed utmost zeal. I even lost my appetite for food and roamed around the house in unkempt hair. Surprisingly my lips got sealed for hours right after the raging episode. What sapped me most was lack of concentration on any book I read or any activity I carried out that needed mental vigour. I acted silly, taking stride of my pride hurt, exaggerating on an imaginary victimhood. Eventually I got myself doused in depression.

 

Now when I turn my thoughts to those volatile fuming episodes I find them utterly capricious and graceless. That was certainly not me. No oddity in guessing your instincts correct once smitten.            

 

As changing seasons caress and make love to the nature regaling her with a sense and spirit so do age and actions leave man, from buoyant youth to maturing grey, in bare introspection. I consulted my family doctor - the first steps were embarrassing but the next ones were easy. Speaking out helped. At every time I became angry at the behest of someone else's actions or words I started writing down in my diary: what was the issue, the settings that made things go wrong, what was my stance and continued inventing words and lines on paper until I found the tide inside me ebbing. On top of it my love for travel acted as a fillip in rejuvenating my senses. Long walks to the nearby gardens or the city library and lakes, bookshops and bistros, spa and salon brought back the laughter in my life.

To me travelling and reading, the dear choices I have made in this life, conditions the frail nerves a lot. I have observed and felt strongly that on many a passages, while meeting strangers and re-living their established routines that are in no ways different from what I travel through, my resilience to endure the tests of time take roots that are profound; bit by bit etching into my anger and arrogance, pride and parsimony and sulk and suspicion.

"Travel makes one modest, you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world" - Gustave Flaubert.    

I also know people who enjoys cooking or swimming or watering flowered pots or shaking a leg when their blood boils. Trust me these pills act perfect.

It is easy to address but hard to act. Anger is such a demonic constraint in our everyday lives, accentuated in cities and corporate spheres that can harm not only a man's senses but also pollute a soul. With my own experiments I have found that forgiveness ushers humility to one's character. Anger in a way is weighty in nature. One cannot do away with burdens overnight but only with patience and perseverance. In many cases I still have miles to walk and really unsure of the extent of chagrin within when life throws the gamble at you - there are no definite solutions or thumb rule to follow. To remain calm inside is a hard choice to make but we have to adapt and adhere to it strongly. Yoga and meditation, as in detoxifying agents, swab a handful of mental clog.

The outward manifestation of cheer, through physical journeys to distant lands or mental journeys through the pages of a book, is but an inward reflection of a mind, body and soul in contemplation. Dag Hammarskjold justly said that "The longest journey of any person is the journey inward."

 

Bookshop fables

Belonging to a kaleidoscopic nation gilded in culture and traditions, food and festivals, humanity and hospitality, I am but natural akin to love books, cherish and cultivate art and literature. More so when it has been handed down to you from one's parents who takes delight in reading. 

 

In my childhood it was a monthly ritual for my father to take me to his friend's brother's bookshop "Katha - o - Kahani" at College Street in north Calcutta. College Street is every book lover's sanctuary. Hundreds of big and small bookshops and publishing houses dot the narrow lanes and bylanes of the old part of the regal city gracefully sealing approvals even to the meagre booksellers to lay out their limited yet assorted treasures on the shrunken pavements lining the College Street. The archaic buildings of the University of Calcutta, the quaint Coffee House, colleges and administrative offices gave the Street a labyrinthine setting resplendent with a glorious past.

 

Tales of the Coffee House confabulations, that was similar to “Foro Romano”, where who's who of the Calcutta politico-literary circle gathered over cups of coffee and tea, sandwiches and snacks and a comradely smoke for meetings and interactions, debates and discussions are now retro profusely narrated inside and out by literary zealots. 

 

I remember the times when I was sent inside the brightly lit standard sized bookshop with my father leaving strict instructions to his acquaintance to look over me while he ventured out on his errands. Barely aged six or seven and steadily holding onto a piece of paper which I had taken extreme pains to copy the authors and books from newspapers and magazines or overheard in school parleys, I would hand it out to one of the shop's assistant who bade me to sit on wooden stool in a remote corner out of the active shop entrance passage and vanished with my dear list.

It had to be a long day and my father's friend's brother engaged me with Russian fables, Thakumar Jhuli, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Asterix, Goldilocks and Rudyard Kipling, blank pages and crayons to get me started. He was magnanimous to order sandesh from the adjacent shop every time I visited. I was a quiet child and do not think I ever caused any alarm on a busy business day of the bookshop. I found myself contented enough to gaze at the neatly stacked shelves, the fingers of the assistants running through the lines briskly picking up the author or publisher they were shouted at over the counter. The smell of the fresh hot off the press pages of a book and the old coat of the paint of the bookshelves was fetching - the musty young odour hung in my senses for long.

Growing up I was given a free hand to go through the pages of any new book I laid my hands on in the shop or any title or author that caught my fancy. With age I could freak out to other bookshops in the vicinity, peak inside the dimly lit printing houses on the College Street and linger for hours on a book at a store on which I have laid my heart on but budget did not comply.

One of my college friends was very good at bargaining and that is a skill you need to fiercely manifest while buying any good from a peddler on the streets of Calcutta and unfortunately that I was not blessed with. My friend hugely helped me procure some gems, although second-hand, at prices beyond my imagination easing the burden on my pocket. Till this day I owe her (my friend) gratitude beyond words as she used to travel through the traffic snarls of the north part of the city from down south accompanying me just for my cause.  

My parents never said "no" to any book I wished to possess but of course they delimited a sum that I could spend on books in a month. I was as happy as any child could be when given a candy and more so my parents readily indulged as I had no other wish to yap at.

Many years have passed by then, with each changing city and country my local bookshops swapped one for the other. The lanes altered, the landscapes expanded, I read more authors unknown of  in the pre-internet days, hobnobbed with new publishing houses but the charm of delving deep into the chock-full and colourful lines of a book shelf at a store is riveting even to this day.

I admit that over the years the world changed for better and worse and so did our books, publishing houses, our writing style, our reading habits and our snippety book-learning habits. Today I am really not surprised to see the veneer of the bookshops with all its ostentatious decor, swanky coffee places, jazzy audiobook corners, richly hued wallpapers, lucent kids' corners replete with books, glitzy stationery, stuffed toys and shelves done in bold colours jammed with books from moneyed publishing houses. The cacophony of the trade in these mega bookshops is more pronounced than the clairvoyance that germinates from the pages of a book that a shelf is so proud of. Mushrooming e-book business start-ups, with limitless choice and discounted prices on offer, also have led bookshops to lose their gloss.

There are small towns, till to this day, housing Gothic contoured neat and painted bookshops intact. What is more surprising is that here we end up reading books in death of silence and get to know of small time publishers devoid of any advertising blitzkrieg. Often I have found Doric paintings shielding the sodden plaster peeling-off walls of such treasure houses.            

 

"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page" - Saint Augustine. Our journey into the edification of the bodhi is often in the lookout for the bathhouses of tome. The pus from the pen on the paper is just what a soul needs for prescience and prudence. There is nothing else to prove.   

The way we paint life

What can be more beautiful and laid-back to start 2015? Happyily recoiled on my sofa with a mug of hot chocolate in one hand and a good book in the other. I am talking of my present close knitted affair with "The Snow Leopard" by Peter Matthiessen. Travel writings have a wonderful way of bringing us close to landscapes, people and habitats, culture and traditions, soul and sanity, and obliteration and oblivion.

A book, an act or a place transports us to meditate on life and its philosophy. Sometimes we despair and sometimes we laugh out loud. Who facilitates our reflections on life? Who is the harbinger of one's introspections? Life is a vast cauldron where the cook empties ingredients both bitter and bland. The meal prepared is feasted upon by all but taste buds differ. But then feasting environs differ from one man to another.

"Keeping steps with that restless, rapid music,
seasons come dancing and pass away -
colours, tunes and perfumes pour
in endless cascades in the abounding joy
that scatters and gives up and dies every moment."
                                                                    Gitanjali, Rabindranath Tagore.  

What is fascinating about life is that it is not important what humans think of it - we are just a miniscule in the entire canvas - but how life raptures us in its splendour. Some may qualify the phase as a "trance" but I love calling it "comma" before a "full stop". The life we weave around before hitting the "comma" glorifies the texture, the pattern and the shade of one's fabric. None of us are skilled at what we weave but we are crafty in spirit living every moment of our lives though most of us fail to realise the essence of life's art.

Life is a fascinating subject. The birth of an heir in a Hindu household is ushered in by blowing conch shells signifying the celebration of "life" or the existence of being. The hallmark of a man speaks of the life one conceptualises. The shades of character in a man vary that owes its allegiance to the roots of his birth, cultural sanctuary, knowledge and experience. A man's ethos in conducting one's mind and soul to steer clear of the grim scenery at hand makes for a fitting tribute to life. In today's world we very often term it as "crisis management" or "reputation management" bringing out the light of the man and a leader is born.

Living in adherence to one's convictions throughout a man's existence is a "life" in cognizance. Rarely a man succeeds. The seasons that come and go during his being brings with it sun and snow, rain and rarity. The canvas has all colours in it, only the painter's incandescent style gives the life's framework a whiff of fresh air. That does not mean non-existence of a drab portrait whose insipid strokes cannot be brought to "life". Like in death - the shell of the soul perishes but not the soul that is yet reborn. Of course this has to do with the way of how I see "life".  

"All life is a journey, not a home; it is a road, not the country; and those transient enjoyments which you have in this life, lawful in their way,—those incidental and evanescent pleasures which you may sip,—are not home; they are little inns only upon the road-side of life, where you are refreshed for a moment, that you may take again the pilgrim-staff and journey on, seeking what is still before you" - Anon.  

In the company of bibliophile

"The habit of reading is the only enjoyment I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will be there to support you when all other resources are gone. It will be present to you when the energies of your body have fallen away from you. It will last you until your death. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live." - Anthony Trollope

 

Books have been my world ever since life's epicarp mellowed. In my earlier posts I have written about my love for pen and paper especially the printed ones, smell of the de novo pages unwrapped from a plastic sheath just bought or the yellow crusty pages of a book pulled from the shelves of a library. The touch and feel of the inked words spun a magic on me and even today the whiff of the mad rush charging my senses of holding a book in my hands is no different. Reading and collecting books, more so, adds to the space my soul yearns for in this life.   

 

To me, the joy of reading books and reliving the author's fine prints of life knows no bounds. I can happily stretch my lazy bones on an elbow chair for hours together unmindful of the clock chimes and way behind the usual meal timings. Giving a miss to baths too. I am candid enough to voice that in yielding to the euphoria of the book world, I am, from childhood days quite remote and reserved.

Often your love for something can reach the brim of someone's benevolence. People mistake your aloofness as conceitedness. Not all kinsmen regard your conduct pleasing. You tend to become clumsy in all that is sociable.  If your life's priorities are notably different from that of others and not conventional enough to suit the society's fabric, you'll be cut out of the customary pie.

Folks who know you long enough will be happy to tow the line of conformance in all walks of life as long as you lie low in their circle. Folks who feign unfamiliarity of your nature often try best to exploit you going miles that are preposterous in nature. Knowingly they enjoy opening the can of worms for someone who rarely mingles with the crowd let alone talk. Those who genuinely don't know your "outlier" character is bound to misinterpret you.

So is the company of a bibliophile welcoming?  The response would be a mixed one I suppose. Observing all these years, especially in the circle of kith and kin, a muted affair holds onto the twig of the ties. For people who share their lives with such oddities can be burdensome. Normal people whose activities are commonplace, works the other way around - they coax bookworms to come out of their safe ports and engage more with the life's flow. Their perceptions are, indeed, baffling sometimes unnerving themselves completely. Very few weigh their options well with the booklovers and take delight in sharing their mindspace with them.

However bibliophiles seek no pleasure in disquieting their mindset and hardly view life's prism from common man's lens. To them, books are paragon of excellence offering insights and wisdom of both the acknowledged and the anonymous world, answering life's uncharted territories. They rarely bow down to peer pressure, albeit a few, and freely ride the road less travelled.

I have often believed that holding onto one's love resolutely leaves you with a deep satisfaction abound. Book readers and lovers may not have a goal to score but they are spirited inwards searching for life's cognizance. The gladdening of the heart, while holding a book in hand, is immeasurable. Maniacs they may sound yet they become monstrous upon finding any damage done to his/her precious collection. For the love of books, imagination soars, innovation runs deep, impact is creative and the future of mankind metamorphoses into absoluteness.

Relish  reading!            

Mejo mama and me

I lost my mama, 'mejo mama' as we fondly addressed him, last month to a disease that is yet not known to our family and neither his doctors. As William Hale White rightly mentions in his book Clara Hopgood: “Whenever anybody whom we love dies, we discover that although death is commonplace it is terribly original. We may have thought about it all our lives, but if it comes close to us, it is quite a new, strange thing to us, for which we are entirely unprepared. It may, perhaps, not be the bare loss so much as the strength of the bond which is broken that is the surprise, and we are debtors in a way to death for revealing something in us which ordinary life disguises.” So very true.

 

Mejo mama was my mom's elder brother but not the eldest in the family. My maternal grandparents had five children - my mom being the only doting daughter. The family had already lost a son, who had been terminally ill, in his spring. With my maternal grandparents long gone, mejo mama's demise knelled death in the family after a period of twenty years or so. And of all my mom's brothers and cousins, mejo mama was my favourite.

 

The difficult part lies in explaining my darling handsome mama. It was my parents' annual ritual to ferry us to our both paternal and maternal households every autumn during the Durga Puja school holidays. Dividing between the two households and trying best to keep pace with our parents, my sister and myself fitted well into our mom's childhood den. Not to forget the mollycoddling of all our three mamas.  

 

Somehow I was more attentive to mejo mama since my childhood days. This fact did not dawn on me till I lost him. Mejo mama, matured and measured in every word he uttered, could enthral his immediate audience dishing out tales of all hues and shades from his official postings all over the country. I, for one, would regale and remain spellbound to such chinfests. He would summon complete attention from all huddling nearby and narrate buoyant, jocular and spirited anecdotes of his travel journeys, office colleagues and environment replete with culture connotations from all corners of India. Mama would recount each story, be it food, festivals, climate, personality or culture and ways and means of life, with impeccable details. His odysseys were all ambrosial. Driving back memory lane I can say that his vivaciousness and zestful attitude towards life hooked me as his steadfast admirer. More so my love for travel can be credited, in some measure, to his chronicles.

 

Ranajit Mukhopadhyay née mejo mama was a stickler for spruceness and unswayable discipline although he was not difficult. A morning person, he would routinely do his pranayam and yoga for better health after waking up and perform his morning ablutions followed by puja. He would then comfortably squat on a hand-woven 'asan' or sit on an old chair by the window side to devour the regional daily, happily tended to by mami, his wife, with frequent cups of tea and a big breakfast. His Sundays would unravel with cleaning the house surroundings, picking up veggies and groceries for the week ahead, washing his own clothes, putting them on clothesline, ironing his cleaned and dried office wear and polishing his shoes spotless. An avid organiser of accoutrements, his books, notes and family albums remained uncluttered and chronologically stacked. 

Eating habits in all my mamas' households are nothing to be noteworthy of barring my mejo mama's place and this too can be held accountable to my mama who took immense delight in picking up the fresh green veggies and river water fish for daily consumption. He also took much joy in inviting people at home for lunch or dinner. Never once did I miss his earnest invites which I readily looked forward to. Mejo mama's yearly voyage to places far and wide or sometimes nearby his hometown with a coterie of friends was a score on its own. Renowned for deft organisational skills and a genuine companion, he was the brain behind every sojourn. This character trait of his etched a personality whose service was often called upon by friends and families.

I remember, when during my adolescence, I was diagnosed with Cushing's syndrome and had to be rushed to Christian Medical College, Vellore for better and proper treatment, he did not for a moment hesitate to accompany my mom there. My family was passing through a rough patch but mejo mama acted as a beacon to my already devastated mom. During our stay in Vellore, my mama used to frequent the roadside eateries and on one such occasion I recall mama happily furnishing out details to my mom of his gluttonous 'dosa' eating venture. My mom had to restrain such exploits of mama as she was afraid of him falling ill on the journey leg. Not only did he cherish food, more of the roadside variety, but also spiritedly referred others of his recent findings.

 

On our journey back to Calcutta he felt ill and that was clearly showing on his face. His feeble nature surfaced whenever he exceeded his physical limits - here was one such case when my mom was apt to understand that mama's body became dehydrated. Inwardly frightened as she was yet outwardly for the sake of mami and given the nature of the timing when we had to depart from the health city, my mom's poised nature, astuteness and decisiveness helped mama regain his original bouncy self - he was made to sip lemonade every half an hour till we reached home.

 

Not only did he accompany his relations to other metropolitan cities in India for better treatment facilities but also his friends who easily banked on his sense and sharpness. Moreover his pan India postings helped him to be coherent in all his dealings especially with professionals. His lithe nature saw him actively involved in most of our family weddings and other events' organisation.  

 

My mom echoes that mama's arduous efforts in building the family's economical backbone stands out from those of his other brothers. Yet somehow he was not at peace with himself, remained much unstructured all his life. His knotty familial relations plagued much of his thoughts that acted like a ball and chain to his mental grit. Mama was greatly instrumental in designing houses of his kith and kin yet he vehemently failed in building his own edifice. The labyrinthine like relationship fringes belayed his facile individuality. 

 

"J-O-O-Y-E-E-T-A" was his beloved ahoy on spotting me - the man whose cessation of life made us all fall down virulently as mejo mama's physical presence was an umbilical connection to his soul. Mejo mama - RIP. 

 

 

 

 

Mejo mama (right) with my mami (left) - photo taken shortly after their marraige

 

The canopy overhead

A long time ago when the planet Earth came into existence with vast water bodies and vicissitudes of land mass the canopy overhead echoed Percy Bysshe Shelley:

 

"Heaven's ebon vault,
Studded with stars unutterably bright,
Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,
Seems like a canopy which love has spread
To curtain her sleeping world."

During my childhood days I wished I would open my eyes to a rose cushioned sky just before the majestic sun spread its rays over Mother Earth. But city lives are frenzy. You wake up to see concrete monoliths outside your room. Over the years on my travels I always preferred putting up at rooms with wide open windows or verandah unveiling a pie of unclogged nature. Waking up I could just gaze at a stretch, for hours, at the open sky or the lush hills or the sky kissing the sea below. Simply to devour what nature gifts us every day that we rarely acknowledge.

The sky as we see it leased mankind key ingredients for sustenance - sunlight, pregnant clouds, rain, hailstorms and a starlit marquee for the nights. Nature's aura is unrivalled. Without them the entire ecosystem would not have thrived in the first place. Notwithstanding the sky is marvellous in its embellishment. It never reveals itself without a splendid palate of hues and shades - joyous and jubilant, sadness and surprise, fear and fury, anger and antagonism.

I have often found myself fixed at an open rugged natural landscape unlacing its charm slowly to the huge canopy overhead making love. The sky radiates a unique glow sculpting its exuberance seamlessly. The euphemism is limitless. The sky, all of a sudden, can change its conniption raving and ranting in ecstasy.

"When you realise how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky" - Buddha. 

 

What a journey it would be if you happen to be a floating cloud on the sky! I could traverse millions of miles effortlessly hanging loose over the earth feeling so very pleased to pass over the cherished places held dear to my heart. Globe-trotting as viewed through a 'cloud' lens.

In old days we did not have the privilege to study space and science and record the services of meteorologists. In villages men with good eyesight have a long history of observing and recording the weather’s 
ups and downs and predicting what it may 
do next. One can watch the film 'Swadesh' to understand how people reined in the ability to talk about the weather - well not the ignorant masses I mean.

Descrying is the blue sweep overhead - from farmers, space enthusiasts, star-gazers to kids and outdoor sportsmen all look up above the lofty sky for a glimpse of their interests and passions. It is a haven of solace and sentiments. Often people who read the sky rhetorically are mesmerised by its enigmatic behaviour - its transports one's emotions far and wide and play a Delphian dude with our ethos. Even nature spruces up to perfection.

A dark and dismal mind gifts the sky deep roots penetrating its veil looking for the essence of life wafting in out of the blue. The sky, in turn, reads our mind lifting our fettle for the glittering stars, away from pain and remorse, from sadness and shame. The sky, in its reflection on water, is contemplative of life itself. The mirror of water connotes an augury of life where the canopy ruptures to shreds. The sky is an echo of the nature's big league called 'life'.

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky" - Rabindranath Tagore.



Random spray of amber lights donning the sky

 
 

 

Being an Indian abroad

 

Dear Mr Prime Minister Narendra Modi,

 

First and foremost please accept my heartfelt congratulations on your spectacular win in the recently concluded General Elections and sincerely wishing you good luck on your journey ahead as the 15th Prime Minister of India. You made history that was well-deserved.

 

You can well understand reading my blog title that I am writing from a corner of the world that transcends Indian borders. Ever since the few state elections in India in 2013 unravelled its rainbow I started following you on social media, listening to each and every electoral rally you spoke at and devouring every bit of news published on electronic media that informed about you, your style and strategies - both good and bad. 

 

This does not mean I was all agog about a Mr Narendra Modi from the very onset but the elections, as the Indian media said, was truly polarised - it was a rare show in a democratic election where the Agenda became 'Modi vs. the rest' - how, when and why have been discussed at length by many eminent journalists  and TV anchors and continue to rule the media headlines even today. 

 

What prompted me to back you, I tweeted earlier, was your steely determination, avowed dedication and unflinching direction coupled with the astute experience you'd being the chief minister of a prosperous Indian state. What made me to shun the ruling party at the helm of Indian affairs was misgovernance, lack of clarity and communication, withering leadership and the elitist arrogance. 

 

I might draw flak here from many of my fellow Indians who would take this opportunity to echo 'Another non-available and non-visible Indian harping on profound sentiments'. Well they have every right to say as I, an annual visitor to my country, never experience the bitter pangs of my countrymen. I enjoy 24X7 electricity and water services which many in India still do not.

 

However in the beginning of 2014 my name allegedly went missing from the electoral rolls and later heard that my name featured (quite surprisingly) although someone had cast the vote in my name!  The irony is I come from an Indian state, governed by a 'peppered' tigress, where our loved ones back home meet 'fear' at every turn in the alley and not tourists or travellers.

 

You would wonder what took me so long to pen my thoughts and wishes to you. I participated indirectly in the biggest festival of democracy whose voice surely got lost in the deluge of the saffron spirit of the nation.

Also I thought to tell you a short story, apologies for encroaching on your precious time, to which I am a part of. Who else is the best person I can relate to apart from our newly elected Prime Minister who superbly connects with the masses?

This evening I was shopping at a health and beauty store when the ever smiling sales woman asked me where I was from knowing pretty well that I was unsure of the products I was picking at in the store. Soon popped my answer and with pride. Going by the nature of women we eventually started sharing the social morsels of our lives. Sad that the parley came to an abrupt end when the lady candidly hit it "Oh you are from India, a big and beautiful country but very unsafe. My husband took our entire family to Mauritius on a holiday last summer. I was interested to visit India, having heard so much about the diverse country and so near to Mauritius. Sorry, said my husband, as India is no longer safe for women".

Well I acted following Mark Twain's quote: "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt".

For acts and activities, for publications and policies, for conducts and conversations that we are not part of yet being an Indian abroad we are bound to be nit-picked by people of that nation where we are temporarily put up. Being an Indian abroad I represent the image of India, black and white or colour, and need to relentlessly preserve my country's reel negatives.

I hope you have a great week ahead and keep cool in the severe Delhi heat. I know you enjoy relishing Indian cucumber raita which is a sure shot health tonic in scorching summers.

I hope to keep in touch with you.

With warm regards

An Indian abroad

PS: I truly cherish your hard work. To me recently you'd been a ball of fire rousing my lulled spirits. I believe in good faith that you're the right person at the right time my India most needs.