And, the skies opened up and it poured. The mother joked “you deciding to make a list and sticking to it, is enough for it to rain like that”

It began raining at some 3.30 in the morning – we live on the ground floor and I was woken up by the sound of rain. usually I sleep like a 10 year old – not even my dog barking near my ear can awaken me easily …but I got up exhausted & disoriented … yesterday had taken its toll plus It was another  lecture day. (note to my self – a days gap between two lecture days is a must)

I was supposed to meet the 3rd year students for a screening, lecture and seminar … with the third years – teaching becomes more of sharing and interaction. I impress on them, that there is no right or wrong as far as their paper is concerned. They need to take a stand and justify that stand in their exam papers.

When the mother finally woke me up at 6 it was with the instruction “cancel the lecture” it has been raining non-stop and don’t put your students at risk… My mother is an alumnus of Sophia College and then taught there for eons … And, for her to tell me to cancel a lecture is the equivalent of Mother Superior at Sopha asking me to go to a Protestant Mass…(she won’t. I don’t even know if there is a Mother Superior at Sophia) … i cancelled.

By ten it was clear that i wasn’t going to work … No one was going to turn up … flooded houses, flooded suburbs etal.. plus there we aren’t on active project mode with impeding deadlines ..

So a day off.. A day to myself… I could say i worked from home – but answering two phone calls is not work 😀 .. I did catch up with a dear friend – who spent the day on a film shoot floor where she is the creative, and her husband is the director

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Read the story of the trial of Hemant Lakhani – in Amatava Kumar’s excellent book Evidence of Suspicion. The chapter talks about how a 60+year old Gujarati Hindu business, with Quixotic delusions ended up as a bali ka bakra in the war on terror.  While Kumar highlights the facts and the FBI’s case against Lakhani, you can’t but help but sense that the author feels sorry for the man. Lakhani wanted to be famous, rich and respected … he ended up in an American Jail. How?well he told a FBI informant that he could get him a missile from Russia… Lakhani didn’t know one end of missile from the other… He just wanted to show off …

If i was making this as a movie, it would be a comedy. Lakhani would be played by someone like Om Prakash … and everyone would live happily ever after… but, this is not a film

Do read. the S A R Geelani – a man arrested and tortured in the Parliament attack case, and then let off by a Delhi court –  essay that i read some months ago is also excellent. now to finish the rest of the book. chapter by chapter.

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Photo – Day 3