14 items in this section. Displaying page 2 of 2
Killing them Surely
Where: Surat, Gujarat, India November 4, 2000: When a member of the Parsi community dies, according to their religion, the body is not buried or consigned to flames. It is placed in the “Tower of Silence” for the scavenger birds or vultures to feed on them so that even in death the body is of use. In Surat, Gujarat, till a few years ago, the body would be eaten up in no time in the Tower of Silence or the Dhokma as it is locally called....
They See!
March 19: Among the relief workers who rushed to Kutch, Gujarat, to help the quake-affected people, was 26-year-old Sudha Patel. Sudha, who is the sarpanch or village head of Changa village in the Anand district of Gujarat, began by collecting woollen clothes, foodgrains, blankets and donations of food packs and mineral water. Then she began to send “family kits” consisting of tea, sugar and other necessary items, to the quake victims. Sudha is visually impaired....
Say Cheese!
My nephew was six when he received the first whiff of a peachy odour, later identified to him as Parmesan cheese. A gift from a “foreign returned” relative, the cheese by the time it came home had got slightly rancid. But all the same, he gobbled it up with relish. There was never a dull moment thereafter and he started ferreting out large chunks of cheese and butter from sundry fridges without as much as a whey and what-for....
A Debt Repaid
February 14: More than 60 years ago, the Maharaja of Jamnagar, a princely state in Gujarat, offered shelter to 600 Polish child refugees who had got orphaned during the Second World War. The children were housed near Balachadi, near Jamnagar. It was a deed that the Poles did not forget. For, as the news of the devastating earthquake that hit Gujarat spread across the world on January 26, the Polish government was among the first foreign nations to rush in with aid....
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