Winter setting in in Chandigarh

Motherhood has made me extremely sensitive to absolutely anything to do with children. I don't know if it is the hormones, or it is this little creature that gives me so much happiness every day, but the sight of a suffering or crying child makes me sick...

So I guess you will understand why this news - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090928/ap_on_re_as/as_australia_homeopathic_death that i first read in The Times Of India this morning has been hounding me all day long.

It is about an India-born Australian couple who let their 9-month old daughter die of acute eczema, because they refused to treat her with conventional medicine, and kept giving her homeopathy. I am a very big fan of homeopathy. I swear by my homeopathic doctor and trust her enormously. And I would use it, for sure, if Ravi was to get ill.

However, it was obvious that it did not work in this little girl's case. But the parents continued, even after her hair turned white, even after she got weaker and weaker, even after an infection started eating at her cornea...

I wonder how could they wake up every morning and see their baby in so much pain (she had to be given morphine in the hospital!). How could they watch her slowly fade away? How could they look in these big innocent eyes and keep on stubbornly feeding her something which obviously was not working.

Everyone makes mistakes. But a mistake that lasted for so many months, a suffering that went on and on pointlessly... I wonder how a family member, a neighbour or a friend did not make them see reason! I wonder how this mother did not go insane seeing her child in so much pain?

Not only I am happy they are going to prison, but I really feel it is not enough!

Children do not ask to be born in this world. They are an expression of OUR desire, of our love for another human being. For months, years, we are their universe. They live through and for us. They have no other vehicle than us to express their feelings and needs. They have no one else to make sure they are loved and healthy. We should look after them well not just because we love them, but because it is our responsibility and there is no scope for error with someone so small and fragile.

Bulgarians are everywhere!

Yes, it's true! We are just about 8 million of us, but wherever you go in the world, you would meet at least one. It is a mystery how exactly we do it and yet survive as a nation. The phenomenon of 'brain leakage' out of the country has been written about ever since I can remember myself. And one Bulgarian out of three you meet on home soil will definitely share with you an elaborate plan or at least a dream of living abroad. I guess it is in our genes. Maybe because we have always been a people on a crossroad, and our very DNA fabric is made of migrating tribes (which is why in Bulgaria, on such a small territory, you will find people who look like Indian gypsies, alongside people who look like nordic Vikings).
As a Bulgarian, I have to always be careful what I do or say at international airports, because you never know where a compatriot will be lurking and listening. I have myself been a 'victim' of flirty lines in the Parisian metro by two guys who thought I don't understand them. I just missed a violin concert by a Bulgarian musician visiting Mumbai from France. I have met countless people from countless countries who either have Bulgarian friends or have studied with one.
I have been asked many times if I am the only Bulgarian married to an Indian in Mumbai. To which I had always replied that in a 16-million people city, you never know. But as far as I know, I was... There are a few ladies married to Indians living in Delhi, whom I had met. There are plenty of Indians studying in Bulgaria, and a few of them had also found their life partners there. Women of different generations, who had gone through different stages of the development of India. An elderly one, married to a veterinary doctor, remembers stitching her own kaftans upon arrival in Delhi. Another bubbly girl married into a traditional Sikh family and her beturbaned husband speaks better Bulgarian than me! I have heard of a couple of others who are married into such staunch families, that they don't even come to the receptions at the Bulgarian embassy despite being invited.
So while I was highly amused, I was not very surprised when the other day a French friend of mine smsed me: "Your child's position as a Punjabi-Bulgarian interpreter at the UN is compromised! I just met a friend whose brother-in-law is married to a Bulgarian girl!"
So now I know - since 8 months I am not the only one!
"A" met her Punjabi husband in New York while they were both studying together. They also had a tumultuous long distance relationship before she finally shifted here 8 months ago. We met over dinner at my French friend's friend place and had a fun dinner sprinkled with lots of alcohol (I was just watching, of course) and laughter. I discovered that most Punjabis are the same - they love driving (our host had done something that till now I could attribute only to Gurtaj - driving to Goa for 11 hours just to have a beer on the beach and head back), drinking, stupid jokes... So even there I am not the only one!
A was curious to know how the first few months of my arrival in Mumbai were. She is not working currently, and finds it extremely difficult to be independent in a city where someone has to drive you everywhere. She is still very rough at edges where I have softened - like unexpected and endless family visits. And she has a big advantage over me - she has the guts to drive here!
She has come to India at a very different time. Nine years ago when I arrived here, Bombay was not the same city. There was strictly nothing to do and nowhere to go out, except to 5-star hotels. Foreigners were a rarity and I was cheated and ogled at everywhere I went. Finding food I like was nearly impossible. It was tough.
I tried to explain this to A and tell her how lucky she is to have come at a much more exciting time.
She also shared my views of living here with candid and upfront honesty. Difficulties that I tend to brush under the carpet and things she does not agree with. So I wondered if I am compromising too much with what I believe in. I was shocked to realize how Indianised I have become (I am not saying this is a bad thing) and as our hosts admired my Indian accent, I wondered how much of myself I have lost along the way, how much I have forgotten and mutated to fit in.
It was great to have this sort of a mirror in front of me which brought upon all these reflections again. I hope I can meet A again and get in touch with my inner Bulgarian more often.