The Indian Express - December 23, 2012
The happily-ever-after formula at the dining table. Being a creature of habit, I still use the original plug point and spend many an evening guarding my precious computer from man and beast. Rajat bhai and my husband faithfully replicated all the flaws in the old flat as if their sense of well-being depended on that. It reminded me of the joke about the man who married a second time and no matter what wonderful things his second wife served him at breakfast, he would shake his head mournfully and say, “Not like what my first wife made”. Accidentally one day, she burnt the toast and ruined the coffee. Her husband beamed and said, “Exactly like my first wife made it”. I used to feed my daughter watery rasam and squishy rice with my hand, which prompted my usually taciturn father-in-law to offer me a spoon and at the same time […]
Read on
The Indian Express - November 11, 2012
Where would one go shopping for strength of the human spirit? The late Ramesh Balsekar was a sought-after spiritual guru who I met by accident (though he would aver that nothing is by accident – it was all meant to happen). My former boss gave me a pile of Balsekar’s books to read and suggested that I put aside my scepticism and meet him at least once. Since the boss usually did a good job of broadening my education, be it exploring the seamier side of Paris or learning not to agonise after sounding idiotic in a television sound bite, I went. Balsekar was past 80, an ex-banker with elfin humour. He was not fussed about people calling him “Ramesh”, told jokes and stories, and exhorted me to come for his morning satsang sessions which were filled with foreigners seeking spiritual bliss. “Come, it’s the best entertainment in town,” he […]
Read on
The Indian Express - October 14, 2012
Power shifts in new-age parenting One day, the same person who sent me off to Balsekar, took my daughter and me to meet Gregory David Roberts, the author of the spellbinding book Shantaram. While there was a debate on how autobiographical the novel was, we knew that Roberts was once a drug addict, sentenced to 19 years imprisonment in Australia for robberies. Two years later, he escaped from a maximum-security prison in broad daylight, and was on the run for the next 10 years. He was eventually captured in Germany, extradited to Australia and served out the rest of his rigorous prison sentence. He said that he almost escaped prison again but decided to finish his sentence. Thinking about his “then” and “now” amazing life journey — now a best-selling author, comfortably living in a swish south Mumbai apartment, about to make a movie with Johnny Depp, being paid an […]
Read on
The Indian Express - September 23, 2012
There are many twosomes that have made me nervous over the years. There are many twosomes that have made me nervous over the years – my mother and my husband discussing their world views, my invaluable household help and my bossy aunt cooking together in the kitchen, my mother and my secretary having a conversation about how I misplace things. But the most terrifying of all is my mother and my daughter discussing me. “Why don’t we wait? Your mama said she would be home for lunch early,” my mother would say. “Oh, she just says it, but she never comes on time,” is what my then seven-year-old would say dismissively. Grandma would agree and spice it up with a few telling tales from my past. The performance appraisal would then continue, moving on to other topics. There is no hiding from a little girl and her grandma discussing the […]
Read on
The Indian Express - September 09, 2012
Tuition teachers are here to stay, as long as the cut-offs for college admissions escalate. And if it isn’t bad enough acceding to the non-negotiable rate per hour of the teachers, it’s worse to carry the guilt of not allowing children to have any free time at all, as you shunt, drag, coerce, cajole, and bribe them to go for tuition after tuition. I carried the guilt for a long time, well after the school years were over. Recently, after reading reactions to Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother about how such children had no social life and hence have underdeveloped personalities, I asked my daughter with trepidation whether tuitions damaged her social life in her adolescent years. “Are you kidding,” she laughed, “tuitions were social life”. And when I look back on group tuitions – different groups for different subjects – and the coke-sandwich comfort food consumed […]
Read on
