I have learnt:

Not that it's of the least interest to anyone, but an obscure demographic: The state of Maharashtra, in India, is the second largest sub-national entity in existence in terms of its population.
This is the perfect explanation for why, unless I extend this PhD into a ten year full time job at the head of a team of 20 highly trained and better paid researchers, I should be perfectly happy to smirk that I can actually cover one measly taluka.

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Men are despicable.
No exceptions.
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It's my mother's birthday today.
Also the anniversary of her mother's passing.
Generation 1 slipped quietly into heaven on this day. Generation 2 is celebrating life and love and inshallah, yet another year of happiness, health and joy. Generation 3 is wondering if there's a priceless life lesson embedded into this particular date.
But mostly, she's instinctively grasped it, methinks, because she lived today to the fullest, wished her mother a happy birthday from the bottom of her heart and vowed to keep 'waking up' in the middle of the day every day and appreciating how precious it is that her loved ones are alive, happy, well, safe, warm (mostly), and, well, that she has more than she can count on the fingers of one hand. Which is twice more than anyone's deserved share, and infinitely more than hers.

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Those silk cushions I mentioned in the last post?
One of them has turned into a spectacular success. She is a snow white square (particularly apposite considering that the whole of England is currently this colour), and with a large square of blindly brilliant glittery flat silver sequins on the front. She's sitting in front of the other cushions on my bed and heh heh, she single handedly lights the room. And doesn't come with an off-switch. Goody.

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Just to reiterate:
Men are despicable.
No exceptions.
(Except definitely Papa and perhaps the cat.)