Hey Big Louie, what’s your favourite animal?

Skanda (in reception) has a friend in year 5. His name is Big Louie, “because there is a little Louie in my class mama”. I heard her say “HEY BIG LOUIE!” once after school to a beautiful 10 (11?) year old half Asian boy and he was nice enough to nod at her. “That’s Big...

School Run

I remember my first day of school. Well, to be fair, what I actually remember is coming back home, running a little ahead of my mother, ringing our doorbell, completely forgetting that there was a small beehive on it and getting stung all over. I remember the tweezers at the doctor’s after. And the ceaseless...

Breaking a spell

What will it take? Psylocibin and a shaman? Some rest? A little meditation? Maybe a swim in the local pool everyday? How about a militant routine of things to do? Therapy and breath exercises? Meeting new people? Distraction could be an option. A new hobby or instrument. A foreign language could do the trick. Right?...

Home

I spent the afternoon lying next to my sleeping daughter in my mother's house. The fan was drowning out most of the traffic noise from 6 floors below and the gentle breath of my daughter was amplified because of how close I was to her. I've not felt this safe or relaxed in quite a...

Dinner for one

I have a favourite knife. It's been with me since 2014. It's a multipurpose chef's knife and it replaced my cleaver that I had had since 1999. I should add that I've been cooking since I was 18. The first 3 years were because it was part of my hotel management course and food production...

Marching to the beat of a drum

I've always run away from routine. The idea of knowing where I'm going to be the same time tomorrow sucked the fun out of daily adventure. I didn't care if the next day or week was going to be worse than this day or week, as long as it was different. After college and the...

Cat & Mutton, falling in love, and a timeless market.

I fell in love at The Cat & Mutton, the almost 300-year-old pub at the north end of Broadway market. I didn't know at the time that I was falling in love but it was happening. On a sunny day in July (August?) a few years ago my friend Meghna and I met another friend,...

Cosmic Girl

I always knew I wanted kids. But I always wanted kids later. Definitely not in my twenties. I was too busy setting the world on fire and not even thinking of tomorrow. Not in my early thirties because I had just met the man I was going to spend my life with. Mid thirties? I...

Always On The Run

It's been a while since I wrote on here. I tried a few times and got fairly far but then decided to delete everything because every word I wrote reeked of effort. I spent the last 6 months toying with the idea of writing about Tuppy, my closest friend who I lost very unexpectedly last...

My Favorite Friend

My entire childhood feels like a long, summer afternoon. From the time I was 7 or 8, the common theme in my life was bicycles, balmy afternoons, my younger brother Dhruv, and the anticipation of remarkable adventures on the horizon all the time. It’s strange how school didn’t dominate my life. I went to school,...