Rallies in Bangalore, Belgaum protest Savita’s death
Bangalore : Demonstrations were held here and in Belgaum Friday to protest the death of Savita Halappanavar in an Irish hospital after doctors there reportedly declined to abort her foetus on the ground that Ireland is a “Catholic country”.
The rally in Bangalore was a candle-light demonstration, the one in Savita’s hometown Belgaum, 400 km from here, was organised by a students’ group, police said.
In a letter to Savita’s parents, Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar condoled her death and sought to know if his government could be of any help.
Savita, 31, a dentist from Belgaum who was working in Ireland, died of septicaemia Oct 28.
She had gone to Galway University Hospital Oct 21 complaining of back pain and she was found to be miscarrying at 17 weeks.
While her parents Andaneppa Yalagi and Mahadevi have demanded changes in Irish abortion laws, her husband Praveen Halappanavar, who works at Boston Scientific in Galway, said he would return to Ireland soon to fight for justice for his wife.
He had brought Savita’s body to Belgaum for her funeral which took place Nov 3.
To Anan: Thank you. True, the picture panits the road the way it looked that day. Silence in such settings can be scary, it hides that which if revealed might ‘assure’ us, for, not knowing sows apprehension, and thrill too, especially if it hints at the dangers that might lurk round the corner.Without that hint to instill fear, it merely becomes the proverbial ‘Ignorance is bliss’.To Rohini: Thank you. It’s a pleasure.To Anon: True, Anan likes them, maybe because adjectives condense plain-speaking while highlighting that which is not ordinary about the ordinary :)To Cardine: Thank you. Somehow, I find Robert Frost’s works enigmatic, with a touch of sadness as in loss. A projected loss as opposed to actual loss. A loss that is experienced in seeing or experiencing something memorable which in turn evokes concern in the beholder that it won’t last long, and will be lost to time. So, that which is beautiful evokes a longing that is partly sad because the beautiful may not last long. I can’t help but get this feeling when I read Frost.To Anjaly: Not that day, though we saw signs aplenty at Kaskond where we ran into plenty of Giant Wood Spiders and their webs as we took a detour through thickets, getting bitten by lots of ticks that left marks on the skin after they died where they’d bitten us. This was because ticks proliferate in bison country, riding the mighty bovines, and Goa’s forests being primarily decidous, it is ideal bison country. That is only if you hack through dense thickets as we did that day, brushing leaves and accumulating the ticks that’re deposited there when bisons pass that way. With six kilometres trekking done in Kaskond, we crossed over to the other side and trekked up a mountain in the blazing Goan summer when folks sweat all that they ingest in fluids. At over 600 metres it was the highest peak in that wildlife sanctuary. We climbed about 9 kilometres up the mountain, negotiating 37 bends along the way up, and were completely drained by the time we reached the summit, passing plenty of evidence of the leopard that day. But it was on another trip along the route up the same mountain that we came close to a leopard, much closer than we’d ever imagined, or wanted to. I’ve written up that briefly in To Grafxgurl: Very much so. Leaves change the tenor of the path, turning it sublime.