Let's back the local lads

Hockey team of lads from the 'kuppams' of Besant Nagar, backed by an autodriver, practise at the uneven Corporation ground. They were beaten in the local league...because they can't afford sports shoes...Perhaps actor Vikram, who is also a Besant Nagar resident, will do a Shah Rukh Khan and sponsor this hockey team...More...

Trfficking in women

Did you know that India is a major destination for trafficking in women and children? So says a UN report. The country is a source and transit point as well...
Globally, human trafficking is the third largest criminal business after arms and drugs...More...

Obama's take: 'Yes, we can'

It's funny that in the world’s greatest nation people can’t look beyond these physical attributes. Probably it’s because there'sn't anything else to choose, with both Obama and Hillary speaking pretty much the same thing...More...

Djokovic and his onstage didoes...

Djokovic is well known for his mimicry, and has done impersonations of others like Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick and Roger Federer...But this girl Sharapova is really a good sport and didn't add too much of mirch masala to all these merriment and took it in the right spirit...More...

Dyslexia: Some 'whys' and 'hows'

Some children would have experienced delays in speech acquirement and development, which later leads to language processing difficulty...Children who suffer from constant colds and coughs and ear infections may later develop auditory perceptual difficulties...More...

Animal torture

Seven bulls were sacrificed in this most cruel manner. Lakhs of people were witness to this barbaric ritual telecast by E TV Kannada On January 22 2008. This comes on the close heels of an another ritual of a differeent kind of torture of animals...More...

Feedback on tree-corridor idea

Without providing for manpower and resources for proper after-care of planted saplings, there is little point in thinking big, according to Janet.The point is, Janet may not be aware that her tree-sponsorship idea has sparks of morphing into a civic movement...More...

Londonstani – electrifying read

To a certain extent, you should have lived in UK to really feel the book, but well, it is an interesting read…helps you understand the youth of today and the alienation they face with cross cultures, backgrounds, the vicious racial pressures that alternatively hold them or push them in varying directions...More...

A few moments of panic

I could see a boy picking up something and giving it to an elderly man. I ran faster. Panting, I looked at what the man had in his hand. It was something black, and I immediately recognised it was my wallet...More...

Mango: Season's first at Olavipe

it stems from the Tamil word mangkay. The Portuguese called it manga. That is the Malayalam name as well. According to Wikipedia, the Vedas refer to it as ‘food of the gods’...More...

Dyslexia: Of kids with writing difficulty

If a child has very severe degree of difficulty to write, then the child is said to have dysgraphia.Since these children have poor spatial ability, they can not understand how much space would be required to write a longer word at the end of a line...More...

Of punkahs

Not only the palaces and the bungalows but also churches in India had punkahs, rows of them. The New York Times dated January 6, 1884 carried an interesting report on the subject...More...

Dyslexia: the right handling

It is wrong to force a child to use his/her right hand while the child may prefer the left hand. The left or right handedness depends upon the dominance of the left or the right hemisphere of the brain...More...

A tattooed head

A boy with a head mower.

A great win

Ishant Sharma. How old is he? 19? He keeps the seam of the ball straight till it reaches the destination. Apart from him, only Sreesanth seems to have this quality among India’s current fast bowlers. With the pacers in the team performing so well, Sreesanth may find it difficult to get back into the Indian side...More...

Miracle at Perth

A series in Australia is the ultimate conundrum to solve for the visiting teams; more often than not, the riddle remains unsolved and the overseas teams are always found wanting. This can be due to a myriad of factors, apart from the usual cricketing skill of the players...More...

ERR for empowering umpires

Umpires make their decisions in few milliseconds, and the experts watch it from all angles for around 15 minutes to condemn the umpires! The spectators watch that for days and take a decision as to whose effigies have to be burnt!...More...

Season of passion

It is not simply a description of Nature. As Chandra Rajan says, "it is an interweaving of the beauty of nature and woman, with the emotional response to both". Kalidasa sees nature, not as a backdrop, but as an active participant...If you'd like to read Ritusamharam, try Kalidasa, the Loom of Time from Penguin Classics. It is a selection of his plays and poems, including Meghadutam and Abhignyanasakuntalam...More...

Abandoned at Matheran

The place is populated with two kinds of bipeds. One, a hairy, ravenous, loudly chattering species native to the Indian state of Gujarat. The other, rhesus macaque. Because of both of these, the place rocks and the wife and kids enjoyed it enormously.I thought the whole place was a little tatty...More...

Pongal at Kilpauk

This annual get together is like a local jamboree of games, events, food and sales.
As it grew bigger and the demands stronger, the sales have tended to dominate the utsav, robbing it of the warmth and informality that it began with.At least that is the feeling of some of Kilpauk's residents...More...

Potters save my life

A woman in the potter’s colony had seen the accident and had raised alarm. In no time the Jeep was lifted and I was pulled out. They carried me to one of the huts and laid me on a mat...But for the potters I would have died of a broken neck at the age of 34...More...

Dyslexia: Different strokes

At 2 1/2 to 3 yrs, they start looking at letters in books and are made to understand that certain letters may look similar, but the direction of the strokes and curves differentiate them from each other. Children with visual perceptual problem will not be able to understand this concept and hence unable to discriminate between similar looking letters...More...

Guarding the borders

Here was a grim looking aurat looking me down through her eye glasses, through the bullet proof windows. The lady had still not finished deciding whether my passport was genuine and if I was a terrorist or not...More...

Cochini Jews – Dreams don’t die

Last Sunday I happened to watch parts of the 2003 Malayalam movie ‘Gramophone’ by Director Kamal on TV. I had seen it, a good one, earlier. The story takes place in Jew Town, Cochin. Basically it involves two dreams...More...

Dyslexia: When a child is at risk

There are developmental norms in various domains of child development and children differ in their pace of attaining these norms. If they persist beyond the age of 8, then special assessments for LD need to be done...More...

Rush ... to Head Start...

Participation is holistic, from all the players in the innovation lifecycle: academicians, researchers, entrepreneurs, solution architects, marketers, large companies, technology geeks, venture capitalists and customers...The synergy ...is one of the focal spark points to accelerate the pace of innovation in India...More...

Ajay Devgun encounters Naren Shenoy

Thus, when Ajay Devgan, Arshad Warsi and Ayesha Takia walked into a Provogue store in Malad West, I was standing non-chalantly, leaning against a wall and making snide remarks that I had seen better looking personnel in airlines and restaurants while the wife and kids were busy swooning...More...

Dyslexia: Its indicators

Here we need to understand that there is no pressure upon the child to narrate the dialogues of a hero nor will the child be evaluated by anybody for at the end of this task! And the child has learnt it of his/her own free will...More...

Lives that long for family support

Ramesh accidentally hit his car against the car of the former prime minister and local Janata Dal (S) politician, Deve Gowda. The accident happened in the morning, but by evening the young man, Ramesh, had committed suicide...More...

The mind in a burger

We were traveling together on a California highway and had to reach the stadium in time for the game. Paul is my guide and mentor for the stranger ways of this land...More...

A festival needs its community

Vallabhi had her fingers crossed. Would she get her papers through on time and fly back from Muscat to volunteer at the Mylapore Festival 2008? She made it on time...It is the community spirit that we wish to strengthen, year after year...More...

Are we talking too much on blogs?

Barkha Dutt, who was moderating, had been the target of several rumors on various blogs so she was clearly anti-blogging to start with. But being an intelligent person, she saw the way the wind was blowing and dropped her stance by the end...More...

Bye bye, Bangalore; saying it with saplings

If everyone who goes abroad the first time – students, IT professionals or baby-sitting NRI parents – were to plant a roadside sapling to mark the occasion, we could have a green corridor all along the way to the airport in three to five years...More...

Dyslexia: a neural disconnect

For all this to happen, the necessary neural pathways in the brain need to be well connected or wired. If there is any problem at any stage of the wiring, learning may not take place properly or what has been learnt may not be recalled when needed...More...

Taare Zamin Par and Dyslexia

It has touched viewers and succeeded in bringing awareness about dyslexia. But many cinema goers forget the whole message once they get back to their other pressing commitments...More...

Of human nature

I am amazed by what Dr. Jacob Taliat, Dr. Kesaan Nair, Dr. Modgil and Sir CP did for a total stranger. Their kindness and generosity help one to reaffirm the faith in humanity...More...

A kada seller at gurudwara

What fascinates me about Sikhs, actually, is that they have gender-neutral first names. Sikh women use the same first names as men. Further, Sikh women dont have to take their fathers' or husbands' name...More...

Hold my hand

Sindhu calls up 5 minutes after the train has left the station. 'Dont scream, but... can you send me my certificates by courier .' I don't scream- yes, outwardly, but inwardly I'm at fever pitch...One would think that a young adult on her way to a job interview would have taken care of her certificates first...More...

Will Nano dent Maruti's 800?

I think, Tata's Nano has a great future in developed countries where smaller towns are better developed. In India, we still have no plans to develop smaller cities and towns...More...

Home cooking's old hat

Well, the drive for profit and a good life is taking us to outrageous extents. Who ever imagined that the days of home cooking are slowly but steadily being replaced by these manufactured foods with all kinds of permitted colors, additives and substances??...More...

A quiet annotation...

The wind was there but as meek as a mouse, while I sat there. It blew mildly past the enclosed wagon, as I sat with my head snoozed against the glass window of the Metro train. The weather was cold and dry...More...

Tamilnadu's dollar city

Manal kadigai by M. Gopalakrishnan is the ultimate book on Tirupur, South India...It follows the lives of 5 young boys who leave school and start working in Tirupur’s sweat shops;...More...

How to tell Australian cricketers from monkeys

...experts like Harbhajan Singh have been known to make mistakes (he recently called the Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds a monkey and nearly got suspended. Silly of him. He should have said "ape", which scientists will tell you is different from "monkey")...More...

He blogs to study at London School of Economics

His endeavour has evoked much word-of-blog support and several bloggers have put Ankur on their blogroll. What gets him readers, however, would depend on the appeal of Ankur’s posts...More...

A hacker at work

What do you do when you get e-mail from a friend in distress and seeking your help? I got such mail earlier today, purported to be from Durai Swami Krishnan, pleading for financial help to bail him out of trouble in distant Nigeria...More...

Abraham's paradise on earth

Lazy afternoons. Sunset over the lake is usually colorful. Evenings can extend as long as you want. Then retire. Lie quietly listening to the silence. It is occasionally punctured by the call of a nigh bird. Slowly, sleep overtakes.Come morning and the cycle starts again...More...

Sydney show wasn't cricket

It is a game synonymous with sportsmanship and chivalrous behaviour. Great cricketers are respected all over the world not only for their technical skills, but because they are gentlemen...More...

Benezir's death: Shenoy's perspective

In an effort to make sense of the myriad theories about Ms. Benazir Bhutto's death, this blog decided to depute its worthless-but-devoted-to-journalism founder Narendra Shenoy to Pakistan to find the truth...More...

The Harbhajan issue and Indian pride

The Sydney Test between India and Australia will be remembered for all the non-cricketing reasons -- not one but many. How quickly over five days it degenerated and plummeted to shameful levels...More...

Adoption: Why and the how of it

Many couples these days want to remain childless by choice, go in for adoption, regardless of their fertility factor, to give a loving and caring home to a child in need...More...

Enterprising Malayalees

The first Malayali who took up a short job in Greece dates back perhaps to the days of Ptolemy (115BC). Half dead, he was washed up on the Red Sea shores after a shipwreck. He did not know any other language (Malayalam and a smattering of Arabic maybe)...More...

Saying good bye

With the beginning of the month of December, the number of students who attended classes began to gradually decline. I should have realized it then. But I just couldn’t face the fact that it was time to say ‘good-bye’ so soon...More...

Grandpa

For every little question that I had, I would turn to my grandpa for the answers. Invariably, the solutions seemed too logical to doubt them even for a second. He seemed to have the right answers even for the wrong questions...More...

An Unsung Hero : Girish Bharadwaj

His story should inspire those who wish to bring about a change by engaging in action-less dialogues and debates in television channels. Much of the development is centered around urban areas and most of us, in these concrete jungles, do not have enough time for making a change in the bowels of India...More...

Sculpture in green

The art of Topiary - to carve out images out of hedges and plants will serve as an environmentally appropriate tribute to our past leaders.The green sculpture here is by German Artist Malanders at a park In Germany...More...

Adoption: Parental consensus

When one of the parents was not too willing for adoption, issues have cropped up at a later stage when they start blaming each other and blame the adoption for whatever differences / ills that have happened to the relationships. This can have a devastating effect upon the adopted child...More...

Confidence...

This person, GS had come all the way from Rajasthan and it was his first trip to the city, to showcase and sell his artifacts to the city folks. This was the first time, GS had crossed the borders of Rajasthan,...More...

Our neighbourhood treasures

Suri and I do our final recce of the Treasure Hunt. Both of us enjoyed this exercise. And we learnt a lot about our men and women and about our neighbourhood.
Of bungalows whose history can be traced from their name stones. Of men who lie in peace six feet below. Of the local ration shop which is a hole in the wall and reflects the times that our grandfathers lived in...More...

Painful joy

Parents of NRIs seem to have it even harder. They go as baby sitters, nursemaids, cooks and cleaners for about 6 months, get extremely attached to the children and then have to return home empty handed. 'It breaks my heart', one lady was saying. 'Why do I have to undergo this cycle?'...More...

Their mission: a neat and unlittered Mysore

There is immense optimism that the vision and the dream that we all have for this city, both individually and collectively, is realizable given the fact that Mysore is not as yet unwieldy and together we can control its destiny, thereby our own...More...

Obama, Huckabee off to a great start

America has one of the most complicated process of electing its President -- arguably the most powerful person on earth. Whether one likes it or not, America, its politicians, policies, and society have a great influence on rest of the world...More...

Krishna Vattam takes you back to 1975

I got lost going through the interim report of the Shah Commission when the New Year ticked by, Indian Standard Time. Not the best way to bid 'bye, bye' to 2007, but it wasn't my conscious decision to spend this moment refreshing myself about our days during the Emergency (1975-77)...More...

Dinu's Mysore glimpses

From Dinakar's photo album...More

An ad. with warmth and charm

This ad is far out… Set in the Middle East (Morocco as I understand), it has music, I believe, scored by AR Rahman. Watch it, turn up the volume and you will realize the beauty and warmth of the ad...More...

Jasmine has many uses

You are spending a night in some remote village. It is well past midnight. Suddenly you are awake and become aware of an exotic fragrance that wafts in through the open windows. It lingers...More...

Adoption: Making sense of it

An older child needs time to make sense of adoption, the absence of its birth parents, may show curiosity to know more about its past and understand the significance of the whole matter. The new set of parents needs to be extremely patient and sensitive to be with the child in its new journey together with them...More...

Cakes are big business here

Mampally Bakers of Tellicherry exported their products to several countries and perhaps for the troops as well, during the First World War! Even today the bakery is popular and is a must visit place for travelers to the historic town...More...

Mysore biofuel initiative needs closer scrutiny

Jatropha is a wasteland plant. And allowing a bio-fuel company to landscape 40 acres of ‘lung space’ close to P K Sanatorium with jatropha plantation appears wasteful; but, at any rate, would need closer scrutiny by environmentalists...More...

Thank God, cricket isn't on DD

When DD does not win the deal, viewers are happy. Look now, how beautiful it is to watch live action from Australlia. Not much commercials to interrupt the flow of action and coverage...More...

Lunch at MTR

You wonder why people are willing to queue up for so long, when you get good food elsewhere. The ambiance is in no way glitzy 5-star. It's ordinary; the interiors like that of a middle class traditional house...More...

Adoption: When to tell the child

When should the Parent inform the child about its adoption status? This is a very tricky, important issue that goes wrong many a times. Parents wait for the ‘right age’ to inform the child and when they feel the right age has come, they suddenly are caught by the fear, “what if the child rejects them now?” and they keep postponing this ‘revealing’ endlessly...More...

Of God's special kids...

People would be quick to disapprove of a child who won’t listen, who pulls things off their plates in buses and trains, who will lie down and scream in frustration when she can’t express herself and nobody can understand her...More...