Squirrels feed!

On Friday morning I was lucky to get close enough to take these pics with my camera phone. Often one might see pigeons and parrots feed along with the squirrels. The Residency and the Botanical Gardens are the only peaceful places because the zoo remains too crowded.

Nancy J Powell

Audrey (my wife) and I visited the Residency Friday (Aug 31) morning for a walk.  We do this two or three times a week. This time, however,  it was to be different from the instructions being given at the entrance gate to spruce up the place because of an important visitor. We wondered who could it be!

The place has two main gates, one which is always in use and the other that allows VIP motorcars in. Near the VIP side we found about a dozen cops in riot gear. The path was being swept and lined with lime (chuna) with arrows pointing out the way - no room was being left for error. Obviously this was a very special guest but I couldn't even start guessing who was visiting. It would have been different had I glanced at the newspaper before coming out. We returned to our walk for health and returned to the other side to wait. Finally, the visitors came along led by a lady in slacks with a long-lens camera in her hand. Walking past us she said 'morning' and we replied and the tall guy with the West Point hairstyle said "Namash-kaar!'

Only when I checked the newspapers I came to know that we had met the US Ambassador, Ms Nancy J Powell. I regretted not asking her if I could take a pic. The top one was taken from too far when she looking down. The lady in front is a member of her staff whose name I learnt later is Anna Martz. Ms Powell on Thursday had attended a party thrown in her honour by Mr Ammar Rizvi while earlier in the day she had met the CM Akhlesh Yadav and other state officials.