It’s a kind of roller-coaster ride, this thing called bereavement. I never usually think that things like birthdays (after the first ten are over) are big deals, but I felt really low today, because today my brother would have turned 51. I remembered the lovely party my sis in law organized for him last year…KM and I went…did we even imagine that that would be his last birthday? Definitely not.

One nice anecdote out of the past: My parents had bought us both expensive badminton rackets, and during a quarrel, my brother broke mine. Weeping, I went to my mother to complain. My brother followed almost immediately, with a happy smile on his face. “Sorry, I know I shouldn’t have broken your racket!” he said; “I felt very bad, so I have broken mine also, I hope you will be OK now!” My mother was most certainly not OK!

And the commentlessness…I keep my blog post public and even enable anonymous posting because I am interested in dialogue….today, my stat counter informs me that I had 111 unique visitors..did not even ONE of them feel like making a single comment? Expressing their point of view, plus or minus?

Oh well. Friends came by, and cheered me up again….and let me post, from my trip to Nandi Hills, this image, that I call “Stairway to Heaven” (isn’t that a beautiful song by Eric Clapton?)

With all the crowds and cars and trash, Nandi Hills is still an incredibly beautiful place….