Is as does.

Bangalore Mirror, 18 January 2016, page 1

(Note: please see the post-script for a happier ending!)

It takes a special kind of stupid, I thought, after reading this article about a new luxury tax on hospital Intensive Care Units.

No, I'm not trying to insult the politicians who came up with this novel idea to fill coffers (and coffins). All they are guilty of is a large helping of greed, no doubt, sprinkled liberally with India's favourite condiment, corruption.

Stupid is out here, among all of us -- who will read news like this, tut over it for a while, and then at election time, do what we always do:  simply hand back the keys to people whom we know will do little more than drive our city/state/country into the same old rut, again and again.

Bangalore Mirror, a couple days later (forgot the date!)

A Happier Post-Script!

An angry Chief Minister makes me happy - was glad to see in the news a few days later, that our Siddu lost his cool when he heard about the new tax, and ensured that it was thrown out! Good for him.

Astronomer's delight.

They say there is a star, a Christmas star. It is filled with light. It brings a message of hope. It inspires those it touches to be more than they dream. It draws, like tide, the inner courage to do more than they dare.

I know it as a myth. There is no such star. We have searched galaxies, the scientists and I, and never found it. We have scoured books and histories and never caught an echo.

Still, Christmas is around the corner and it's time to sing.

So I went to a Christmas concert at a retirement home, to watch my friend lead a choir of eighty- and ninety-year-olds. I watched her coax them into performing solos, words and melodies painstakingly memorised, into giving it their all, and they did.

I know her voice well enough to be able to hear her sing along with them. Hers is a beautiful powerful voice that could fill a hall on its own strength, but not tonight. Tonight she sang gently and softly, just loud enough to guide and support them, as they put on the show.

I watched them sing. They sang about that star, the one that does not exist. The one that disobeys the laws of physics, and follows donkeys on desert nights.

I have the facts. I could have turned aside with a smirk, but I looked at my friend instead. I watched her touch, inspire and love them.

I looked at her face, and I found the Christmas star there.

Happy days.

Happy birthday, Dorothy!
Happy birthday, me!
I knew I'd be a writer.
I've known since I was three.
I don't know how I know that,
with memories blocked or lost.
Is that the price we pay for a gift?
Must childhood be the cost?

But happy birthday all the same.
It's not about THAT day.