Five Birthdays!

Yes, we celebrated five birthdays, actually I celebrated the fifth one.....

Baba's birthday (18 August) was celebrated by everyone (baba turned 59)! And yet, he seems to get younger with the years.....

The three other birthdays were of the pups to whom Laila gave birth. They are really very cute, two of them black and one brown with one of them male and the other two female. Ha, there birthday lies on the same day as that of baba's, so it would be easy to remember their birthdays.

The next birthday was of Palak (19 August) which we (Disha, Purva, Simmi, Priya, Astha, Niharika, Vidushi, Jagriti, Sneha and me) celebrated in school. Palak had brought a cake, a bottle of pepsi which lasted for 1 hour only. Next we bought stuff from canteen and after the break, we realized that no one's tiffin had been touched! Huh! We had loads of fun.

Celebrated five birthdays in two days.

A note of condolence from a former Pakistan Air Force pilot...

• Qais Hussain writes to daughter of Indian pilot, whose aircraft he shot down in 1965.
• He receives a response from Farida Singh.

In an unusual heart-gesture, some five-decades after Pakistan Air Force shot down a civilian aircraft in Gujarat, the pilot sent a note of condolence to the daughter of the Indian pilot killed in the incident. and on Wednesday he received a response.

Connecting across the border courtesy e-mail, Qais Hussain, a Flying Officer during the 1965 India-Pakistan conflict, sent a quiet note after tracing Farida Singh, daughter of Jahangir 'Jangoo' Engineer, who was flying a Satate government plane, about the circumstances under which he brought it down.

"I have received an excellent response from Ms. Farida Singh. If I took one step, she has taken two, but I respect her privacy and would share the contents of her response only after receiving her consent," the 70-year-old Mr. Hussain told The Hindu over telephone from Islamabad on Wednesday.

The story by well-known journalist Beena Sarwar appeared on Tuesday on a Pakistan website http://www.thenews.com.pk and was picked up by some Indian newspapers.

A resident of Lahore, Mr. Hussain said he wrote an e-mail to Ms. Singh on August 5 with the note of condolence as well as details of the incident. He also thanked the people through whom he was able to reach her and convey what happened 46 years ago.

In his e-mail, the former Pakistan Air Force Officer stated that he shot the Beechcraft aircraft that was being flown by her father - one of three famous Engineer brothers in the Indian Air Force - after it showed up on the Pakistani radars, having drifted by many miles and going up and down over the border area of Rann of Kutch for quite some time.

Having read accounts in the Indian media, which, he said, were not accurate, Mr. Hussain said he followed the orders of his controller and had a sense of achievement after completing the mission.

"Nonetheless, the unfortunate part in all this is that I had to execute the orders of my controller. Mrs. Singh, I have chosen to go into this detail to tell you that it all happened in the line of duty and it was not governed by the concept that 'everything is fair in love and war,' the way it has been portrayed by the Indian media due to lack of information. I did not play foul and went by the rules of the business but the unfortunate loss of precious lives, no matter how it happens, hurts each human and I am no exception. I feel sorry for you, your family and the other seven families who lost their dearest ones. I feel greatly grieved that you lost your brother Noshir recently.

If an opportunity ever arises that I could meet you face to face to condole the death of your father 46 years back i would grab it with both hands. I would highly appreciate if you please convey my feelings to the other members of your family, who were equally hurt by the untimely departure of Jungoo to the next world. I hope and pray that you and your family stay well. My best wishes....Qais.

An awesome weekend and Friendship day!

Yes, today is Friendship Day....the day which we always forget! But I remembered it and have wished all my friends a very happy one! Since we aren't allowed to bring friendship-bands and other fancy materials to school, we now just simply wish each other.....

And we had loads of fun in the class today (excluding the 'horrifying' marks of Maths and Chemistry....the teachers of the respective subjects showed us our answer sheets today!). We (Tavleen, Ashlesha, Smmi, Jaisleen, Nimisha, Mansi and me) ate chips in the class in the 3rd period. Then ate toffees and chocolate in the last two periods...........what? You find that all against the school rules? Oh, come on, you would also get bored of the Hindi period when ma'am has nothing to do but to make us sleep! Well, Ashlesha actually slept today cause ma'am was showing papers to all the students who didn't see them first. But trust me, school life is the best phase of one's life and one should enjoy it to the fullest no matter what, after all, these good old days will not return, neither will time wait for you!

And yes, I would say that my past weekend was awesome and a fun-filled one! Rupali di, Sandeep jiju, Neil and Saanya with Usha fufu and Mamaji came over for dinner. Ma cooked delicious food and that's when I realized her talent in cooking, I mean, we don't always get to eat such tasty 'lauki ke kofte' and 'daal'! O wow, the dinner was very good and was made perfect with the sweet dish - 'kheer' at last. Manan and I had lots of fun with Neil and Saanya. They both are real cuties!

It was really good to meet Rupali di after such a long time..... She brought a very cute bracelet for me and a couple of books for baba (the books were so heavy and yes, none of my business-I mean, dude, they had such difficult titles, a child would really get nightmares by seeing them). But I hope to read those books in future. Rupali di gave a very nice lecture on how to choose the right profession for yourself in life.

At last, I had the awesomest weekend (with the marks of English 1 and English 2 and also of History/Civics - got 19/20 in all of them).