condole

Social media activist Phillip Ogola once aptly captured the response of politicians to a disaster as follows: "Rush to the scene, condole families, donate items, issue a tough statement, form a commission, wait for another disaster, repeat above".

In my own personal experience, people were far more willing to approach, and condole, my first, late miscarriage of twins than my other earlier miscarriages — I think it was much to do with being able to conceptualize those two babies as ‘babies’: they were somehow ‘in the world’ more.

“We condole with the family, but we tried,” he said.

"The sound of the bells is a wake-up call for a nation that no longer knows how to condole with the bereaved," and that was too "cowardly" to condemn the violence, he said.

Sharma has come to “condole” the family of Mohammed Akhlaq, a 50-year-old labourer beaten to death by a mob in his small two-storey home in the centre of Bishara village, about an hour’s drive beyond the outskirts of Delhi, India’s capital, last Monday night.