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An ode to life (and Rina)

Rina lived in London for 50 years and died last week in a local hospital.

Sunanda K Datta-Ray
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While Britain mourns Prince Philip, my thoughts are with my cousin Rina who lived in London for 50 years and died last week in a local hospital.
My wife and I saw her last on October 22, 2020, the day we landed at Heathrow airport amidst a whirlpool of alarming stories. No one was sure what the pandemic permitted and what it didn’t. The authorities seemed to be in a daze. Unofficially, we were warned to remain in self-imposed isolation, going out only for essential medicines. Food had to be ordered online through a special mobile app we didn’t have.
Although crippled and frequently in pain, Rina rose heroically to the occasion. Actually, we wouldn’t even have been in England if she had not completed the formidable paperwork, offering herself as guarantor, necessary to convince Britain’s suspicious officialdom that her cousins from Kolkata were not illegals and subversives. She fixed a car to meet us at Heathrow and got her c
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First Published: Apr 15 2021 | 10:20 PM IST

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