The last supermoon of 2025.

All these are today's shots of the supermoon at different times of the evening between 6.00pm and 10.00pm. The yellowish ones are just after the moonrise and other are nearly 4 hours after the moonrise.

The first picture is a collage of the following six pictures. 

I had taken some more shots and they all look similar with minor and unnoticeable differences.

Do you notice any significant difference? 

Supermoon/Cold moon.

December 04, 2025.

Delhi.

Book Review - One Little Finger, by Malini Chib.

This autobiography of Malini Chib was first published in 2011. Malini was born with Cerebral Palsy, a condition in which the brain gets damaged due to lack of oxygen to the brain usually at the childbirth but it could occur immediately before or after. This neurological disorder affects movement, muscle tone, coordination, balance, posture. It is the most common motor disability in childhood and it is non-progressive (doesn't worsen with time). There is no cure to this. However, the training can improve learning, manoeuvrabilty and communication.

Malini's story is inspiring, she was born when the umbilical cord attached to her got entangled and stopped the oxygen supply to her brain, to the horror of doctors and parents. At her birth doctors had given chances of her survival nil beyond 72 hours. But a born fighter, she survived. Her parents were well to do. Mother Shoma Bose (later changed her name to Mithu Alur) studied at DU's famous Miranda house and father Ranjit Chib, a post graduate in Economics from Cambridge, UK. Ranjit had an illustrious market research career and at the time of Malini's birth he was a TAS executive at Tata Steels. Both sides of her family were well educated with over two generations having studied in Oxbridge. Realising that the child may not get good treatment in India, Ranjit and Shoma decided to move to London for treatment. Over the years Malini fought her condition and managed to communicate that gradually improved with technology aids. The "burden" of a child with disability often brings tension between parents and Chib family was not an exception, since both parents were career ambitious they couldn't manage to spend enough time with the work in the office at home and with the child. Although medical facilities and special schools were excellent, parents still had to work very hard to manage work and home. In between Shoma and Ranjit had another normal and healthy child Nikhil (Nick). They both loved the children, but for the reasons mentioned they decided to shift back to India where domestic help and care was affordable but even that did not help and eventually they separated. 

There were plenty of challenges for a disabled person in India much more than that in the UK or any other developed nation. Life was full of disappointments at schools and everywhere else. While still in the school, Mailini's mother made "making life for disabled people near normal" as her mission and the "Spastic society of India" was founded. Shoma decided to shift to London for higher studies and that provided another opportunity to Malini to study in the UK. After her O level they moved back to Bombay and she got accepted at St Xavier from where she managed to complete her BA against all odds of attending classes in inaccessible lecture halls and uncooperative teachers. But she managed to have some traces of normalcy when made some friends and a lot of her classmates who helped her in studies and movement within the college.

Malini moved back to the UK and studied at Oxford Polytechnic. At each of these places she still had issues with her mobility, access etc. However, she fought her way without getting disheartened. She made friends,managed to live without her carers, travelled to Paris with friends and at each step of her life she was determined to live a normal life. She also got attracted to her male friend and wanted to live a normal sex life but it didn't materialise, however, she was determined to live an independent and normal life. She went to London Metropolitan University, lived in an apartment on her own (with a carer), travelled in London buses, went to restaurants, pubs, cafes. and during this time she also started some activism for disability and started writing essays, articles and lecturing about the subject. During her stay in London she also finished her second masters degree. She talks about the discrimination from employers for offering her jobs but she finally manages to work.

Her mother has done some pioneeting work for spastics in India and found a partner in Saathi Alur who intially came to work for her later tied a knot. They both supported Malini at every stage of her life and believed in her. Their efforts brought many changes in the disability laws in the country, making ramps in all the public places and inclusion of wheelchair runners in marathon races are just a few of those. 

Life in a wheelchair could be quite challenging but the determination and love for life can transform you, when you start believing that there are no obstacles and you are as good as able bodied people. That belief has brought so much change in the society, including in India, and given a hope for people with disability to live a normal life.. work, read, play and have fun. Thanks to people like Malini and her mother Mithu Alur who dedicated their lives to making an inclusive society. The book tells much more. Hats off to Malini, she inspires through and through with her "one little finger".

Malini Chib, 59, currently serves as founder and co-chair of the ADAPT Rights group and works at Tata Sons. Having lived in London for a long time, the city offers her familiarity and comforts and it could be called her second home. Her monther Mithu Alur (Shoma Bose) is founding chairperson of ADAPT (able disable all people together, formerly Spastic Society of India) focusing on inclusive education and disability rights). Ranjit Chib, her biological father, founded IMRB in 1971 and founded his own market research firm MRAS in 1979. He sold MRAS to D&B in 1995. Post that he was a consultant to Nilesen until 2015. He died in 2023. Saathi Alur (Malini's step father is a chartered accountant, a social policy analyst and disability rights advocate associated with ADAPT.