Two stunning bits of news from back home in Bombay - one great and hard-worked for, the other terrible and deeply shocking!

The good news first - Bombay will soon have its own 100-car vintage car museum. The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation is converting the space below flyovers into museums, with two flyovers in Mahim and Vakola taking the lead. Mahim will have a museum of vintage cars, while the space below the Vakola flyover will have an Indian art museum. This is something that we at the Vintage and Classic Car Club of India (VCCCI) have been campaigning for a long, long time!! It will be a multi-level display of approximately 100 cars within finely-lit acrylic walls, placed in such a way that they can be viewed by the motorists on the roads. Can't wait to get back to Bombay and sink my teeth into this project!!!!!

The second news is terrible - Nafisa Joseph, former Miss India, model-turned-VJ and animal rights activist, committed suicide by hanging herself from a ceiling fan in her Versova flat yesterday. She was just 25-years-old. The police and her family lay the blame on her fiancé Gautam Khanduja, who she was set to marry on August 7 this year. The engagement was apparently broken off a couple of days back when Nafisa discovered that Gautam was already married and his divorce papers were not in order. Others, however, deliberate that the engagement was broken off because Nafisa recenty had recurrent episodes of epilepsy.

Whatever the reason, I find it difficult to believe that a smart and intelligent girl like Nafisa could take such a drastic step over a failed relationship. Or for any other reason. I have personally been through some severe depressive episodes in the last few months, and I know that sometimes ending it all just seems to be the only way out. But please step back for a moment and think of all the hurt that you leave those who care for you with. Nafisa's mom, my friends in the modelling industry tell me, is totally shattered. Not surprisingly. Life can get terrible at times, but this is one path from which there is no coming back - EVER.

That said, I am just trying to think of the extreme anguish of a 25-year-old who is forced to take such a major step. Having met Nafisa a few times, I know that she was a wonderful person and my heart goes out to her. Hope you have finally found peace Nafisa, wherever you may be.