The Expat Life, or the art of taking life-altering decisions in the blink of an eye

If your partner works for an international organization, the kind that seems to not give a hoot about the families trailing behind, the process goes something like this. You’ve been at your duty station long enough to know that you must start studying rotation lists. In some cases, you wait for those vacancy bulletins with [...]

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Hartal in Dhaka

Hartal has become a part of my everyday vocabulary since moving to Bangladesh. Every once in a while, a general strike is declared and the whole city basically shuts down. As we live in what is called the diplomatic enclave, an area where most embassies sit, I cannot say that hartal has bothered me that much [...]

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My Global Bookshelf : The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, by Uma Krishnaswami

I have been sooooo looking forward to the release of that book, of which I had the pleasure and privilege of reading excerpts when it was still in the revision stage. The novel was not totally finished, but it already had the qualities that now shine through the printed story. A happy, boisterous feeling that [...]

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Rant : Do NOT make a mockery of piano playing and music, please.

Growing up in our family, music was THE most important thing right after school work. We didn’t do sports. We did music. My sister, brother and I all played at least one instrument. (I tried the cello, on top of the piano at some stage.) Our week was divided between school, and running to the [...]

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