By Girija Madhavan
Before I left San Francisco last year to return to Mysuru, I went for a walk on a promontory in the bay of San Francisco to the jetty that protects the Small Boat harbour in the Marina District. It was a lovely day, pelicans and other water birds were on the wing against the skyscape. To my delight, as leek sea otter bobbed in the water, weaving among the trim craft moored in the boat harbour. It was sunny but crisply cold and windy too. The straggly path was weedy and the paving uneven but the views on either side of it were breathtaking. To the left, on the broad sweep of the sea, white capped waves rolled ashore. On the horizon loomed the grim and rocky former prison of Alcatraz, while to the right, the buildings of San Francisco rose in serried ranks on their escarpments.
