Hi!

I am in Pune at my net cafe - my alternate home, and a sense of deja vu pervades.
I came here to give daughter Neha company and no sooner have I arrived, she is ready to pack her bags and go to MY favourite place - Goa!! Training time, it seems : but WHAT can you train people for in Goa I wonder ? The many ways to drink feni? Lie under a coconut palm and meditate on life? Or more pro-active 'sports' like getting out to the pool side/ beachside and grabbing a 'lounge' before the phirangis all get them? ( It is SO frustrating, I tell you! The last time I was in a nice resort at Goa, i couldn't get to lie around at all on any of the deck chairs provided by the hotel - from the crack of the morning, which in Goa happens around 9a.m. at the earliest - to sunset ALL places were always taken by these half nanga goras or their soaking wet towels, and if you tried removing one, someone else would pounce on you and declare - hey! my friend's coming back over there...Do we have to 'reserve' a place for ourselves in our own country?) But no - what they are hopefully, wishfully training these ppl is in Taxation. Good luck to them!

I said it's deja vu because this happened the very first time I came to Pune on a visit like this 3 years ago too. She had to go to Mahad that time for audit. Tried to talk her boss into cancelling it, said her mother would be all alone...and boss said " well, isn't your mother a BIG girl now? I am sure she can look after herself..."

So here i am, stuck alone again wondering how I will "kill time" for 4 days and a strange thought occured to me - not strange so much as illuminating -

Do we kill time or does time kill us?

Just think - time is supposed to be endless, it has no beginning and no end, it is WE perishable mortals who have tried to 'capture' it in hours and days and weeks...there will come a 'time' when you and I will be%