this is the year of making new friends, just when I thought I was too old for that. one a classmate's sister from when I was 12-13. another a neighbor. and yet another, much more surprisingly, a much younger colleague who joined this place with me and turns out is a lot like me and has lived a similar trajectory of life (our dads shared a profession). 

but something scary is happening in my country. this whole political polarisation of the two main religious communities against each other is going a little too far, getting a little dangerous now. where my shuttle picks up commuters from the metro station, there was a small riot a week or so ago. (my reaction to the question of whether I should continue commuting that way was "what sort of a riot is this with no deaths?!"; I have become so inured, such a cynic). and then y'day mom told me some houses were razed down in a demolition drive. there have been similar demolition drives in some other places, predominantly homes of people of a particular religion. (I haven't had the time to read news lately; or there isn't any pleasure in reading them anyway). and now I connect that with the removal of loudspeakers from mosques. I love the call to namaaz. but we are still not doing anything, we are still silent. my father supports all of this, and so do many other relatives. that is the scariest bit here.

birds start chattering in large numbers these days very early in the morning when it's still dark; I haven't seen this anywhere else. It's fascinating to hear but also jolts me out of my sleep if i do. so I protest sleepily when he invites me to come see.

I've been so busy lately and so overworked; also nervous about how exams would play out etc.; that metro has become my retreat to catch up on precious sleep. and then someday when I drive, I feel like the car and me don't get to see each other enough these days. One day Google maps tried to help me by saving me the hassle of road closures and traffic delays on the highway to sonepat; I ended up lost on unpaved paths in rural haryana and it took me a while to find a way out. but even there an electric blue flash of a Kingfisher flew by.

Neutering dogs makes them more gender equal; it empowers the females. I feel like I've said this here before. in Udaipur recently there was a pair in the homestay where we stayed: the female growled at me when we reached and I tried to pat her. I realised then she had just been raped; the male next to her still had its unnaturally large (compared to its tiny frame) penis out. I wanted to click but I restrained myself. the owners lived what their daughter called "sustainably". it's not like they were blind to the female's plight; they talked about it like it was an unavoidable nuisance.

I saw the white throated (or browed) fantail there; a day or two after i heard his beautiful song. there was also something that kept screaming a monosyllabic sound like a warning or an alarm; haven't yet been able to identify it. and we had a bay window where if u lay u felt like u were lying in the trees.