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.