Very many people have dealt with loss of a loved one in their lives. Death is inevitable and irrespective of how much anyone may have read about it, when it comes calling on someone close to your heart, confronting the loss square-on and dealing with it, is entirely another matter. Theory is so easy. It is practicals that is more challenging. How much anyone is missed, I think, comes down to each individual. Some cope with it far better than others. We are often quick to judge others on how they are looking and reacting following a loss. Many of us are quick to the draw in being judgmental anyway, regardless of the situation, but I will leave that topic aside for another blog post another time. Is the person crying? Is he looking forlorn? Is he looking the same? Is he/ she able to remain stoic after the event? So many questions and like so many other things, the
Steps towards security
News channels and media outlets have been awash with reports of the sad demise of a 8 year old boy inside the school premises in Gurugram. As can be expected, there is an outpouring of indignation and anxiety from many quarters all across the country. Times like these spark a conversation around security in schools. The bigger problem, to me, seems to be that this happened in a private school, which has a majority of students from middle to upper middle-class families only. There may be many such incidents happening throughout our country in schools in the hinterlands. Those go unreported and perhaps, happen to the less privileged, hence the lack of media coverage. As parents, even my wife and I will inquire about the measures that the school that our kid goes to, is taking, in the wake of such an incident. We want our child to be safe. Over the past many years, news of sexual abuse of
Review of "When Breath Becomes Air"
“When Breath Becomes Air” – it is fair to say that I have not read a book like it in my life. There are multiple reasons that the book resonates so strongly with me, not the least because the protagonist (also the author) was of my present age when he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He was a Neuro-surgeon, just completing his residency at Stanford and like his accomplishments speak for themselves, he was all set to be a very, very good one. Paul Kalanithi’s insights into life as a neuro-surgeon and his ability to talk candidly about everything, starting from his childhood, to his medical studies, to his realization of terminal cancer, is simply stunning and though provoking. The parallels in his story line were simply too much for me to take. This was a book that made me stop reading many a time, if only to contemplate what Paul had written and ruminate over it for a
Pangarchulla – Days 5 and 6
The new day dawned with the sun out in all its glory. Life seemed to be so much happier and I thought we had all recovered very well after the arduous trek the previous day. I had been through the final night of sleeping in a bag and in a tent. 3 nights in that cold is enough. I couldn’t wait to get back to sleeping on a bed and being spoilt with the comforts of a modern day city life. We were asked to clean up any and all debris lying on the ground after we had finished rolling up the tents and sleeping bags one final time. We started on the descent at 9:00 a.m. The first 5-6 kms of the descent was fun as everyone was in good spirits and a round of Antakshari duly followed. Post lunch, the group split up into smaller chunks as those that were energetic sped down quickly and reached the point
Pangarchulla – Day 4
A poor night’s sleep for all those going on the trek. We were up at 3:00 a.m for some hot breakfast and tea. We set off at 4 a.m, in the dark. It was quite an experience, walking uphill in the cold and the dark as we made our way through on some stones and a meadow to reach our first halt at about 5:30 a.m. At this point, 8 of the 20 in the group decided to take up an offer to go and visit Kuari Pass, which was a much easier trek compared to scaling Pangarchulla. At this point, I decided to leave my head torch (a bulky and powerful one) underneath some stones, to be picked up on the way back. Then, we set off onwards towards Pangarchulla. Walking in those mountains is quite an experience. Yes, it is tiring and you do wonder why even bother with all this torture to the body. But then, you
Mithun's Musings 