Reflection
What a trip this one was. Activity is wonderful, and I loved being with my children, my sisters and brothers, my Dad, my nieces and nephews and my friends – but, as usual, I forgot to leave any white space in my days. Almost without exception, every moment was PACKED: lunches, dinners, museums, long walks, […]
Dr Steven Jerome Parker: a friend to babies all . . .
I have been dreading the news of his death for a long time. My friend Steven Parker told me about his diagnosis of Mutliple Myeloma, a rare form of cancer, three years ago and it changed the nature of our relationship in a profound way. Now every time I met him, every time I heard […]
The Lonely Crowd
A few days ago, I read this tiny news item in the Times of India: “Cafe Manager Kills Self“ A 23 year old man allegedly committed suicide on Tuesday morning by hanging himself from the ceiling fan in his home in Malviya Nagar. The victim, Harsh Saini, was working as a manager in a Cafe […]
Apgar Scores or A Baby’s Best Friend
I first learned about the Apgar Score when I studied to become a midwife. (That was over 25 years ago and for my class project, I got pregnant with Anand and delivered him halfway through the course.) APGAR stands for: Activity Pulse Grimace Appearance Respiration and is, in my humble opinion, a clumsy acronym for […]
Water Wars
On Friday I attended a two-day conference at Muskaan, a wonderful organization in Delhi for adults with mental handicap. As I was a speaker, I was put up in the building itself. I arrived late at night and went straight to bed. When I got up the next morning, I was surprised to discover that […]
Republic Day III: Special Mention
Given the current climate of distrust and fear in the country, Rizwan’s prose poem, which he adapted from an ancient Persian poem, was particularly apt. “Hindu, Muslim: what difference does a bomb know?” was the haunting refrain.
A Death on the Road
This is not the man I am going to tell you about, but he might as well be, for he represents Everyman for me here in India. I use his photo frequently in slide shows and reports and though I don’t know him, I have looked at his face so often, I feel as if […]
Reflections on Mumbai, Terror and Living in Fear
“It is by little and by little that we are saved.” That’s a line from Dorothy Day, my personal hero and our family saint. She believed in doing the work of God through one person at a time, yet never lost sight of the larger systemmic issues which needed to change. Like us, she lived […]
Secrets
Oh, the hectic inner lives of children! Who knows what they are saying, what they are thinking, what they are revealing and what they are still holding inside? I love to watch them, just to remind myself of how spacious and textured their landscapes really are, how deeply they care and how closely they observe. […]
Review Meeting
It started with this guy. Bhagirath Gop and his colleague Dr Vikram Gupta, both Program Officers at the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, came to visit us in August to check out the work of the Foundation and, in particular, the functioning of the Early Intervention Centre. We think they liked what they saw, but they […]