Powerpoints and Wreaths..

Today was a mixed day .

I was a guest lecturer today for the Women Entrepreneurs Program at IIM Bangalore , and it was wonderful to interact with 65 sharp young women . A great hour and a half , very alive, very high energy , plugged in . Lots of give and take. A realisation that I was so much older than these young women , just a touch of grey . But as I rushed off for another meeting ( that I was of course late for ) , and I heard some of their feedback , specific questions, requests for email address, I was all puffed up in my own esteem.



I return back via the long traffic jams , to Hosur Road to attend the burial of an old friend's wife. Anna was a psychiatrist at NIMHANS , a very kind and caring woman , who sustained and patiently supported many a distressed person, fand their family . Many reached out to her in a crises, or a problem , and she was always there . I hear often about people being described as angels when they are gone, as if non-life automatically entitles you to a set of wings. But Anna really was a Angel - not a bad bone in her body , just kindness and caring . She died of a sudden asthma attack , and although brain dead on arrival to the hospital within the campus , she was resuscitated, and kept on ventilator for nearly a month before she passed on yesterday .



I see fresh earth on her grave , covered by a colorful profusion of what seems like a 100 bouquets , her grieving husband and young daughters beside it , and I take a moment to remember Anna. As did hundreds of people who came by to pay their respects to her . As I stood there looking down at her covered mortal remains , with the profusion of green grass and the bleak black graves and headstones , the splotchy orange of the drenched gulmohar in bloom ,and the increasing moody rain ; I said a prayer for her . I dont know what I want to leave behind when I am gone , but good deeds and caring is a start .



A mixed day.