‘My children are ashamed of me and my wife, they mock our English, and when we go out these days, the elder one tries to keep away’ said Shahid, my Pakistani car driver. It was to be a fairly long drive, from Norwich to London, and as is my wont, I started a conversation with him within five minutes of getting into the car. He described how he had to flee…
transformation
The dark side of funny!!
‘Wow, she is so fair, now your parents have their OWN baby. Didn’t you know, they got you from the curry leaves vendor since they didn’t have a baby and wanted one’ (curry leaves vendor since curry leaves is synonymous with dark in South India!) The neighbour who said this thought it was very funny; so did my parents unfortunately…..unfortunately since they allowed her to repeat it often, laughed at…
Ask and ye shall receive……………
I learnt the art of asking, along with driving and I guess I received my licence for both simultaneously. I am probably better at asking than at driving, as the male chauvinists in my life would like to have me believe. Anyway, let me share the story of how I learnt to ask. In 1995, I used to commute from home to Taj Coromandel and back home in auto-rickshaws. Vexed with…
Whats your black thread?
When Ashwin was a little baby, we spent many an evening at the paediatrician’s clinic, since he was a child who fell sick very often – so often, that the paediatrician eventually because a very good friend. I remember one such evening, where we had entered his room, and were waiting for him to see us. The child before us was about 11 months old, and was sporting ugly and…
Curiosity did not kill this cat!
I am not an engineer. I did not learn to write code, learn programming languages, nothing! I do not have any kind of formal education on anything to do with technology. As a matter of fact, my first introduction to computers was when I joined, in 1990, the Hotel Management School, and had to roster my students into the practical sessions. I had to do this, to my horror, on…
I do because I want to…………………..
I am not a blogger, I have tweeted once in my life, and I have only authored work related documents. No sir, my writing days ended with my school, where I probably left the world of ‘what if’ and beautiful day dreams behind. However, as I move into a different stage in my career, the single piece of advice to me has been to start writing. At the least ‘tweet’,…
The lost child
Friday evening, sitting at the Bombay Airport, waiting to get back, after another week away from home. Multiple thoughts racing in my head, from the two meetings I missed, to the unfinished tasks of the week, to the fact that my maid is still missing, my dad’s toothache………. As I look abstractedly around me, I see nothing different – men and women, young, middle aged, old, all lost in their…