Unsung Heroines

Vasantha works for the Municipality. She holds five posts simultaneously (being paid for one) and jokes 'Im responsible for the health of the entire district'. Reason, people haven't been posted to the other 4." If I hadn't gone today, those 150 babies would have gone back and their health programme would have been upset. There's no one else to to carry it out" she said....

Deepavali sights What does शुभ लाभ mean?

शुभ लाभ - These words are evident in small and big business establishments. What do they mean?.....

Breadfruit

Breadfruit is a staple food in many tropical areas. The tree can grow up to 20m height. It is a prolific producer yielding about 200 fruits per season. The fruit can be boiled, baked, curried, sautéed or made into paste.....

What has happened to my friend?

I got a call on my mobile. The voice was familiar but I couldn’t get the name. The caller identified himself. He was my good long lost friend.
”I have been wanting to get in touch with you for long, but could never get through your number or email,” I said, quite happy to pick up the thread again. ”Where are you?” I asked him....

Aravind Adiga rides atop his Tiger

Aravind Adiga’s tiger brought mixed reaction from the Indian populace. Some say this is the true India while some are shocked and feel insulted. How dare an Indian demean the 'ready to shine in a few years' India thus? Won’t the rest of the world (whom Indians look up to!) have more reasons to continue looking down?.....

Diwali Wishes

Happy Deepavali

The festive spirit rules and one can see the enthusiasm of the people, especially when it comes to shopping. Newspapers, magazines and the television are blazing with colourful advertisements for clothes, sweets and snacks, and firecrackers. Along with these are ads for refrigerators,microwaves, pressure cookers, mixies and so on – because many companies give festival bonuses to their staff now, and they have to be helped to spend it.

Two interesting quotes

Now Churchill himself had spent many years in India as a war correspondent and was a staunch believer that the British withdrawal from India would weaken Britain as well as create huge turmoil in India due to all kinds of violence and bloodshed. He was proved somewhat right, but his rude utterance above alienated even conservatives from his policies. .....

Meherengarh Fort, Jodhpur

The Meherengarh Fort of Jodhpur was founded 15th century by Rathore Rajputs. Today this fort is converted in to a museum, managed by the royal trust...

Morning mist, Mysore

Extra! Extra! The Lavender Path

Grandma lived only a short distance away.
We could walk there.
But the journey was an adventure.
Excitement was my companion.

Happy Diwali!

Yesterday I went to office and found out that I was the only one in office besides a broom and mop in a bucket. Most people had taken the day off as today is the official Diwali holiday for us. That made for an extended weekend for out of town folks here. It was pure bliss working in a near empty office.....

Anglos in The Wind

'Anglos in The Wind'.It did not occur to me to ask Harry MacLure why he chose this name for his magazine.Yet, there is a ring to this name. Perhaps a zing that makes it click.And click ii has.Recently, Harry's quarterly on the Anglo Indian community celebrated its tenth anniversary with a fantastic blast at a hall in this city.....

Coming to terms with a dialect of English

Long ago, my English teacher had marked "Expression!" in red on the margin, while checking a certain phrase in my shool-level essay. I realised that the phrase did not read quite well, and that's how I learn about "expression" in written language. Now of course, I go by the maxim "Does this phrase or sentence sound right to the polished ear?"....

Ponnozhukum Thodu: The stream where gold flows

The picture shows a scene from the Ponnozhukum Thodu – rice fields, cattle grazing in the distance, an ancient structure that is called ‘madom’ in which the ground floor is storage space and above that is an old Kerala style hall.....

Two Silhouettes

Has the world turned real?

Some people have been asking me if all the talk of recession and hard days ahead is true or just a creation of the media. Well, my answer has been that it’s no creation of the media. Renowned economists are forecasting tough days.....

Click Maadi

The brother and sister, immediately link arms and the sister who is elder between the two hugs his brother. I took a picture and immediately both the kids, unlink and rush to see how both of them appear in the photograph.....

Remembering Director Sridhar

“I saw ‘Kalyana Parisu’ when I was at the impresionable age of 12. And I remembered the copious tears I shed because of the 'star-crossed lovers’ tribulations'. I loved the songs, the grace of Saroja Devi, the cruel twist of fate which prevented her from marrying Gemini when he was free.When I saw the movie again 25 years ago on DD’s weekend feature, I was still moved to tears.....

Diwali Celebration At Espire

Today (24th October, 2008) we had a nice party in the evening at our Espire Infolabs office, to celebrate the auspicious occasion of Diwali.Though the celebrations began only after 4 pm, the office was in a festive mood from the morning itself. Most of the Espirians were dressed in ethnic wear.....

Change or no change?

Well, that's how things work in India. In US, people would automatically align themselves in the order of arrival, but in India, the haphazardness is brought to an orderly fashion by something that is inbuilt in us. It is just the way we are brought up. In India, there just cannot be something called as solitude (well, that's what some of the foreign aficionados would say), but I prefer to call it loneliness......

Keep It Going, Dr.Natashekar

You don’t have to be a doctor to make a mark as a stage singer. But being one serves as your calling card to open the door of opportunity. I wonder if Dr Natashekar’s musical talent would have had such public exposure, if the singer had been a shop assistant, instead of an ENT specialist. He is known widely as doctor who also sings well.......

Review of BODY OF LIES - All lies, no fun!

Inspite of the star cast of Leo di Caprio, Russel Crowe and some very handsome actors such as Mark Strong (Hani), Ali Suliman (Sadiki) and the beautiful Iranian actress, Golshifteh Farahani (Aisha, now how does that song go?), the movie lacks imagination and direction, including the wayward movement from extreme Amman, Jordan to Washington DC......

At Guru Shikhar...

At Guru Shikhar, we met this man earning his daily bread with his old telescope. What does he do? Well, he lets you see all important landmarks of his home town, Mt. Abu, through his telescope....

Ramdass takes a power-walk

Mr Ramdass has a bunch of people walking with him, even at 5.30 a m. His pre-dawn walks attract media attention. Neighbourhood residents await him with petitions and grievances. Municipal officials pay attention because they believe MrRamdass has CM's ears.This is not padayatra; it's power-walk, by a man who knows how touse his position....

The Knack

And I was plumpish, rather short,
Bespectacled to boot,
And every other girl at school
Seemed so petite and cute.

Stripped

It gets me wondering who am I? Stripped of so-and-so-'s wife, so-and-so's daughter, would I get any recognition? I don't work any more so I've lost that identity which acts a good front that people can relate to. And slot me easily.When I travel, I do find the loss of identity and instant recognition rather disconcerting.....

Brownie Points!

I started turning out simple breads from 'The Good Housekeeping Cookbook' and 'Woman's Weekly Magazine' recipes to fulfil this new demand for brown bread....

Chandrayaan - launched

What else was evident during the countdown over the past few days? One could hear professional-sounding amateur news persons talk about 'colonising', 'moon real estate development' and more .....

Sense and Nonsense of air and train fares

There is some unfairness about Tatkal. It does not differentiate between senior citizens and others. Everybody pays the same. The very concept of special consideration for the elders is nullified. Last month onward journey by 2 AC from Chennai to Cochin booked through Tatkal, cost me Rs.1376....

Elections round the corner

Let the Congress (who will get a chance to gain its lost credibility) be backed by the communists who will keep on shouting ‘foul’. I think this balance would be fine. An unbridled Congress is a danger to the country and it needs the Communists (whatever their motives be) to shout ‘foul’ so that at least the citizens are kept abreast of the happenings.....

Current Woes

But the human(read our) spirit is resilient and finds ways to overcome the problems. From the next day, we switched on the motor at an earlier hour, checked mail before 6 am, and decided to postpone baths and cooking till the power returned. We try not to switch on all the appliances at the same time for fear of a heavy load causing a fuse to go off....

Poor Ivar Kreuger

Ivar Kreuger killed himself on March 12th, firing a bullet through his heart, as media puts it, to escape creditors following the NYSE crash. The story of his death was reported by Time with some background material to boot and titled aptly ‘Poor Kreuger’. His rise to richness is simply mind boggling; even Kreuger did not know how much he made......

Tables and table covers

went and looked for some dining tables and regular tables as well at one of those trade show exhibits out there in the city center. As I moved along those lovely wooden marvels, I realised a good table is complete only with those exquisite table covers.....

Shankar Math at Mt. Abu

This is a small temple but unique. It is made out of red stone, the top part of the temple structure is given the shape of ‘Shiva Linga’ believed to be washed with rain waters by Lord Indra himself....

Bloom in Brussels

Delhi by Metro - Tour training in progress!

Here are photos from the practice runs we've been having. These are sample photos from only one half of the tour, the Old Delhi portion. Thank you, all of you who've volunteered to be the first guinea pigs for this tour! I'm sure you'll have a great time....

To Spell or Not to Spell!

The proponents of spelling reform
Are certainly thin on the ground.
The conventional types seem to swarm!
I'm outnumbered, I've constantly found.

Fission, Fusion, Confusion?

I wish I had paid more attention to Physics when it was being forced down our throat," he now said with a touch of sadness. "I should have taken good old Mr Swaminathan a little more seriously," he said recalling our old Physics master from the school. Same here, I nodded.
I looked around. His desk was littered as always with tomes, monographs, papers, clippings...

Case against God

We all pass through good and bad times. When it is good, we hardly realise it. But when something goes wrong, by even a small margin, we crib, throw tantrums, lose cool, and try to find fault with any number of people around.....

Local civic campaigns

As we negotiated the streets and lanes we discovered a new zone - streets where tailors, cutters and masters produce hundreds and hundreds of affordable, simple informal wear for men, youth and children.At first, I assumed these one room places were recycling leftover cloth and making utility products out of them.....

The other side of the line

Recently, I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about how the terrific power cuts in Tamil Nadu are going to bring down Karunanidhi. This is the middle class talking. Yesterday, in my class I heard echoes of what the ‘poorer class’ is talking through their children.....

Spot the birds

SkyWatch Football

Core Banking, Coffee Powder, and rupees two

And there was my coffee powder shop, Sarasu Coffee, next door to the Xerox shop. Bhaskar, the owner, was there and I decided to ask him for a loan of Rs. 2/ -. He was only too happy to oblige and insisted on escorting me to the Xerox shop and telling them my requirements.After finishing my work there I went back to Sarasu ....

Zoo animal adoption

Now we know it costs Rs 90,000 a year to keep a tiger in captivity.That is how much our chief minster Mr B S Yeddyurappa paid for the upkeep of a Bengal tiger in the Mysore zoo.His gesture made headlines; and the zoo authorities got publicity mileage for their animal adoption scheme.
Anyone could adopt a peacock for Rs.3,000. A chimp costs Rs 65,000 a year....

Shelley, Nair and Lawrence

The Malabar community, Nair’s in particular has been a subject of great curiosity from Roman times and a number of legends have been attributed to them in traveler’s tales. Many of them are far fetched and meant for the only purpose of evoking extreme reactions. Books have been written about them, notably by Fawcett and Forbes.....

Peacocks of Rajasthan

Through out the drive along the roads of Rajasthan we spotted peacocks moving freely in abundance. Mornings we woke up to the calls of the peacocks “may-awe, may-awe”....

SpeedNetworking

Mr Barrett believes speednetworking gets people talking ideas; it helps them find answers; and brings together people who don't know each other,and want to buildconnections fast. All you need is a venue, a whistle and a gathering. When you blow the whistle, everyone finds someone to talk to......

Bring Global Handwash into Mid-Day Meals

Since a majority of schools provide hot midday meals to our children, if we can incorporate a system of thorough handwash with soap and drying up with a clean towel, it would be a major preventive and precautionary step and an important step in the right direction. It is not easy to put in to practice everyday and weeks and months. It needs great involvement from the school, the staff, the support staff and the parents themselves........

Happy Birthday, Blake!

Of course, Blake is a Big Boy now.
Today he's turning TEN!
And it seems in a twinkling of an eye
Little boys turn into men.

Providence issues visiting cards!

That's when Providence wound down the window, lent a polite ear, quickly understood the situation and said - "Take the turn to the left as soon as you start moving, then a right, and you'll reach the station just in time". We - my guests and I conveyed our thanks, and continued with prayers - all that we could do sitting there!....

Karimeen, A Fish in God's Own Country

Karimeen (Pearl Spot or Pearlspot), which belongs to the Cichlidae family is a perennial favorite with the fish loving Keralites. It is a brackish water fish found in the lakes, rice fields, canals and ponds of South India and Sri Lanka but can survive in fresh water and highly saline water for short periods.....

October's Excesses

The mornings are chilly and clear, and they seem to promise that the cold weather is on its way. By eleven, the sun is scorching down from clear post-monsoon skies, and the heat, glare and humidity are enervating....

Booker Prize for Adiga

Making his motherland and fellow Indians proud, debutante Indian novelist Aravind Adiga won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction for 2008, for his novel The White Tiger. 33 years old Adiga won the 50,000 pound ($47,000) prize by beating other prominent authors in the fray, who included established Indian author Amitav Ghosh......

Malleswaram, Bangalore!!!

After having booked my tickets three months well in advance, I was waiting with bated anticipation for the visit to Bangalore, well after three years. It was a mixture of unexplainable emotions and nostalgia, as I touched base at the brand new fantastic Bangalore International airport ....

Landscaping sidewalks

Age Related

'How old are you, Grandma?'
Zac was keen to know.
I suppose he saw me getting
Just a trifle grey and slow.

Virtual Dreams

There were unlimited games, virtual rewards, and an opportunity to claim a non—existent creature as my own. The internet told me an attractive lie, and I easily fell into the vicious trap. Every day, my “virtual” pets would demand some food, clothing, shelter, a companion, and it was my responsibility to satisfy their cravings.....

Mysore Palace Gates

Singing in Sri Sai Baba Temple

Last week, on Vijaya Dasami, when our van landed at Sri Sai Temple (in Krishnakarani village) on the Mahasamadhi Day of Sri Shirdi Saibaba, and unloaded a group of not so young ladies, we were taken for a group of devotees who had come in from Chennai.....

RTI Forum At Noida

The seminar – which also included a short documentary on the RTI movement in India – was both informative and interactive in nature. One interesting aspect of the event was the presence of one Mr. Sushant, a software professional turned full time RTI activist. Members of the audience had the opportunity to discuss their various problems with Mr. Sushant.....

Nano’s ‘no,no’ to West Bengal

Mamata Banerjee, by ‘pulling the trigger’ as Ratan Tata put it, may have scored a political point. The Trinamool Congress supremo, unrepentent, and still on a protest mode, is crying ’state-sponsored terrorism’;she has cautioned chief minister Buddhadeb Battacharjee not to ‘play with fire’.The chief minister, on his part, accuses the opposition of being ‘very, very irresponsible’. He claims his government has lost a battle, but not the war....

Sabarmati Ashram

Gandhiji lived in this Ashram from 1918 to 1930. The house where he stayed was named ‘Hriday Kunj’ by Kakasaheb Kalelkar as it was in the heart (Hriday) of the Ashram....

Coastal erosion: A green wall for protection and for profit?

How do plants prevent soil erosion? When rain water runs off to lower levels or waves recede to the sea, they take away loosened soil with them. The stem of trees and the roots mitigate the erosive force of flowing water, thereby preventing soil being carried off....

Residual Romanticism

“Residual romanticism” is nothing but the residues of wonder and awe that are evoked in childhood when these young men were younger and read or heard about the exploits and achievements of heroes, conquerors, Formula one stars, Sport stars, famous investigative journalists, social workers, advertising legends etc.....

My Guru

Coming home before us, we found out in due course that he would have had his share of coffee and tiffin at our place, for he came here straight from school to teach us. By the time we three sat in front of him with our home work, almost everyday he would start napping, snoring loudly. This noise used to wake him up with a start....

Congratulations Miss Mamta Banerjee

Hello Miss Mamta Banerjee! Please accept a bagful of hearty congratulations for successfully driving out TATA’s Nano project (read 10, 000 jobs) from West Bengal.You have proved yourself to be a genuinely "energetic" and "enterprising" Opposition leader....

The Best Navaratri Kolus

My memorable Navaratri experience this year was at the kolu that the Avvai Kalai Kazhagam, a womens group hosted in Royapuram. In 15 panels, they highlighted the stories associated with Thirugnanasambandar. All the minute 'model' work was executed by these women and the kolu was open to the community of this area.....

Library

So, a pledge has been created on a site to spread the word. Anyone who finds this idea interesting and worthwhile and wishes to help and can help in any way, please do sign up. This pledge needs a lot of helping hands and hearts and they have to be found fast....

US National Debt - Entropy in the 21st century

Ridiculous? Incredible? Mind-boggling? Flabbergasting? Indecent? There is probably no single word to help convey all that the obese(!) US national debt figures will eventually mean to humans alive now and to several future generations. So the counter ran out of digits, did it?Where did it all go? We should surely be able to see where -- in glass fronted sky-high edifices?...

Elephants and Deers

A Himalayan Sky Watch

This picture was taken near a little stream that flows into the Teesta River. It is as if the monsoon doesn't want to leave us - we had a rainy morning and it was a cloudy, breezy afternoon when this picture was taken....

Slaughtered at the stock market

The financial market, poised to get worse before it gets better, would eventually be back to normal. But the toll the turmoil took in terms of lives and human enterprise can’t be fixed by the $700b bailout or the G7 five-point plan. An NRI who lost his millions in the stock market, Karthik Rajaram,45,shot his 39-year-old wife Subashri, their three sons, and his mother-in-law, before taking his own life at their gated community residence in Los Angeles....

Roxane and the Rakhi

If you look around the legends surrounding the tying of a “Rakhi’, you will chance upon mentions of Alexander (known to Indians as Iskandar or Sikandar), Porus his nemesis, friend and enemy (all in one!!!), and Alexander’s wife Roxane. Very interesting, I thought as my original plan was to study the real story behind the Elephant medallions.....

Robotic Romance

In forty years I want Blake to say
'My Grandmother was wonderful.'
Well, she was.
She took him to see 'Wall-E'.

One night at the Ispahani Center

Some of us quizzers (mostly hungry souls) met at the CCD, Ispahani building with a fake agenda and no money whatsoever - just for the heck of meeting.
Enter: the Chitlapakkam Cheerers Ananth and Sanandan
Ananth: Hey dude, where are the others? Where's PP?.....

Community Journalism online - Arcot Road Times

In the summer of May 2008, we took another step in community journalism.We launched www.arcotroadtimes.com, a web site focused on the neighbourhoods across K. K. Nagar, Vadapalani, Virugambakkam and Valasarawakkam....

Rock On

Rock On is about 4 ageing dudes who come together 10 years after they disbanded their band to play again. Of course the idea of youth revived and friendship and fun revisited is appealing to us ageing types. After the friends find each other and meet together for jamming sessions every evening

The Smell of Joseph

Joseph is the night watchman at the wedding center where she works. He does not need his room at night. She models expensive saris and fabulous jewelry till the shop closes -dressed up all day, continuously smiling at potential customers, turning and twisting all the time to show off the wares from different angles.....

Durga Pooja in a tea garden-3

At this time of year, three forms of the Goddess are worshipped in Bengal, and at three different phases of the moon. Durga Puja is at the time of the growing moon....

Will the smokers face extinction?

Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has come out with yet another wonder, the ban on smoking in public. As soon as the law came into effect, we saw the media well prepared to handle this fun with lines like,
Smoking ban goes up in smoke…..
The smokers puffing the law away .. etc etc.

Want to be a part of it? M.I.L.K

The contest titled M.I.L.K.(Moments of Intimacy, Laughter and Kinship) is open to any photographer and that’s the best part of it.To give a small background about this contest, it goes like this. In 1999, British publisher Hodder Headline (now Hachette Livre) held a global photographic competition called M.I.L.K., inspired by the 1950s landmark photographic exhibition, 'The Family of Man'......

Navarathri Kolus and some memories

Once upon a time, my Navarathri evenings were filled with visiting the kolus of other people – neighbours , friends and relatives.....

Smart cows of Devaraj Urs Rd.

Morning walkers on Mysore’s Devaraja Urs Rd. spot daily a bunch of cows in front of Raghavendra bakery, waiting for its owner to open shop. And the first job they do, on opening the bakery, is feed the cows with crumbs and cut vegetables.....

Writings on the board

The notice board says it all - about the maintenance of a green patch in front of the Maharaja's high school on JLB Road in Mysore....

The little genius - Satwik

Reid's Revenge

Oh dear! Reid cannot play the cornet!
He's been bitten by a hornet.
He was on his way to play
But at home he had to stay.

Musings of an obscure blogger...

You have to strike a chord with the reader. And this happens naturally. No power or widget on earth can do that for you. Some of you may connect while some will not, no matter how hard you try. And this is the secret of the popularity of certain personal bloggers like Sidin and Great Bong. It all boils down to the blogger.....

A bitter sweet day and a promise

There, in a coffee shop, sipping some Butterscotch Frappe’, we let the conversation carry us endlessly from one topic to another, shifting pace, drifting into one memory after another, and thoughts of how much we would miss each other in the days to come. And then, we made a promise.....

Until the next time

was, indeed time for 'goodbye'; and the clock said it was time for us to leave. Unlike at an earlier send-off when Siddarth wouldn't let us go, he was cool this time, and even smiling, as we proceeded for the security check, disappearing from his view...

My Trees

My landmarks across Bangalore used to be trees...and I rarely remembered street names or other features. In the late 90s I moved out of Bangalore for a decade. And when I came back, I could not find my way around my home city. They had chopped down that lovely old Butea on 15th cross.....

Through A Stained Glass

I've been interviewing the staff of the Library for the souvenir. And I'm struck so much by how much our attitudes colour the way we look at life.Here is U, an Anglo Indian. Now past 70, its hard to see the beauty she once must have been when she was crowned Ms.Bombay. Having lived it up as long as she could; she settled down late in life with someone she feels was second best.....

The Charkha

"Take to spinning to find peace of mind. The music of the wheel will be as balm to our soul. I believe that the yarn we spin is capable of mending the broken warp and woof of our life. The charkha (spinning wheel) is the symbol for nonviolence on which all life, if it is to be real life, must be based."Mahatma Gandhi - Harijan, April 27, 1947, p. 122....

How dare you lecture me!

Once upon a time Nasrudin and his master went hunting in the forest. The master cut his thumb while shooting his bow and arrow because he held it incorrectly. Nasrudin stopped the bleeding and bandaged the deep wound as his master moaned in pain....

A Light Moment

Gloom, gloom… Hope

As the newspaper I work for is wrapping up its edition, news trickles in via TV of explosions in Guajarat. Again? that was the first reaction. Only earlier in the day there were reports of many crude bombs found in Ahmedabad. We think blasts are in Ahmedabad but it turns out the tragedy has struck Modasa town ....

(fog)ed

Navrathri---A season for dolls

It is called Navarathri, nine nights of celebrating the Goddesses Lakshmi, Parvathi and Saraswathi, here in Tamilnadu. Elsewhere it is Dussehra, celebrating Ramlila, or Durga Pooja in Bengal ......

Is It Right To Remember "Mahatma" At The Cost of Shastriji?

But does that mean that we will focus entirely on celebrating Mahatma's birthday, while completely overlooking this fact that 2nd October is also the birth anniversary of Lal Bahadur Shastri, one of the best Prime Ministers that our nation has ever had? Why it is so that the media (both electronic and print) carries just a scanty mention of the latter's birth anniversary...

Reliving and Awaiting...

As the title of the movie hits you in different Indian languages, you can't help but feel the patriotic fervour gripping you. I couldn't watch the movie completely, but the combination of Bachelor of Arts and Swades over the last couple of days was enough for me to relive the happenings at home, and look ahead eagerly, in all excitement, my impending trip to India in just a week's time....

World's best Masala Dosa and Vada at CTR and Janata

It is where True Bangalore lives. Beautiful, breezy, clean, no pollution. Nice. Anyways, getting back to food, He had mentioned two joints, each famous for different things.....

Mahatma Gandhi & William Shirer

It was in 1980, that Chicago born William Shirer wrote the book ‘Gandhi – A memoir’. It is not very well known or easily available in India (because of the last chapters I guess), and I was fortunate to find it at the vast Milwaukee airport second hand bookstore. As I got my teeth into it, I found it fascinating, covering many facets of Gandhi not previously talked about....

Valencia dies

That was the subject of an email which I happened to chance upon when I was at my colleague's desk. I said to myself, is that a headline. The Quizzer in me did a mental google on valencia, and left me wondering who it could be...

Delhi by Metro (A very different kind of tour!)

The guides for the tour are special too. They are a group of youngsters from Manzil, an NGO that works in children's education. The kids at Manzil come from diverse backgrounds, but they are all united by a keen sense of wanting to learn,.....

Extra! Extra!

Georgie's sweeping up his mess.
Seems he's under some duress.
When he scarpas at the double
Someone else can face the rubble!

Hey, where did my country go?

Has the world changed irrevocably with the CNN and the internet? Are we denizens of the clich�d global village, inhabitants of a flat world without borders or boundaries? Are the local and the global merging? Yes and no......

Little acts of kindness

What makes these people so different from others? Why do some guys try to mow you down or speed up when they see you crossing the road while others slow down to help you along?When you are so used to an insensitive and callous world, such random acts of kindness leaves lasting impressions on you! Today as I drove to office I saw an old lady trying to cross the road. I stopped the car and she smiled gratefully and crossed the road....

Navrathri

My first recollection of this nine-day festival is that a kolu would appear overnight in our pooja room like magic. Arranged on nine steps covered with a white cloth, the images of all the gods and goddesses, along with the family’s collection of curios, arranged artistically under a canopy of white cloth...