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Home visits.. chapter 7 Daudyal As the school is meant for those children whose families cannot afford to educate them, and as the quality of the school rivals the best private schools in the area, there is a huge demand for entrance. Therefore the teachers go for home visits to ascertain the real status of the applicants. Moreover, in the families who most need the education, there is  a great…

SundayShares tinytales Where is it Where is it? I was perplexed at first, then nervous. It has been by my side since birth, attached to me like a siamese twin, changing position and size but never abandoning me. But where was it today. I have never missed it whenever there was light enough to see. Was I dead, for I hear that spirits don’t have it, in fact it is the main indicator that one is…

#sundayshares #mytake Film review Fera and Main wapis aunga Recently I saw two films I really liked in the theatre, both meaning Return The Bengali Fera, starring my favorite actor Ritwik Chakraborty, was about father son relationships, roots, family ties vrs personal ambition, and was a slow paced, nuanced, understated, subtle film that holds you throughout, and leaves you in a reflective state…

#mothersday Ma Ma was not the traditional domesticated mom whose culinary skills you boast about to torment your wife, whose slaps you fondly remember, whose battle to control the kitchen, the budget, and the home with your wife gives rise to comedy, and whose worst threat was that I will tell your dad. She wasn’t a career woman, nor a helicopter mom, and never fought teachers over my answer…

Mother Mary comes to me I thought that like many great writers, Arundhuti Roy had just one book in her. And later, like many other great writers, her politics trumped her art. I actually didn’t finish her second attempt at fiction. But her autobiography changes all that. It is a heartfelt, compelling, powerful and gripping narrative of her traumatic disfuntional childhood, and her adulation and…

Family legends The year was 1742. Alibardi Khan was the Nawab of Bengal. The bBritish had established their factory in Kolkata. The dreaded Bargi, or Maratha raiders, led by Bhasker Pandit, was ravaging Bengal. He attacked the Maharaja of Kashipur and massacred the entire royal family and his court. But his Brahmin minister escaped, along with the youngest son, and kept him hidden in a nearby…

Bharti…the phoenix chapter 6 daudyal This is Bharti, the sports teacher in the school. She’s a gold medallist judoka in the national school games of khelo India.  Her story of surviving odds and thriving is a tribute to human spirit and the extraordinary work of the daudyal trust. She’s a cheerful, pretty,energetic and tough young lady. Her story has a Harry Potter touch. A family feud from a…

This is SheilaShe uses her body to advertise her own handcrafted costume jewelry on the beaches of Goa during winter, while her husband helps out at a shack.She also braids hair in interesting patterns with colored beadsIn summer they both work as agricultural labor on daily wage in Karnataka.Her father sold their tiny parcel of land to pay for her dowry, as this practice is now prevalent in…

Trauma This is a true story that completely  shook me up. I had visited a model free  school in UP, which is doing extraordinary work in transforming the life of girls living on the edge of society, proposing to write a book or make a documentary on them. This is the story of one of these kids. She was a noncommunicative, disruptive girl who had been admitted by her mother, as her father had been…

Baby Daudyal chapter 5 This is Baby, Science teacher in the school. A farmers daughter, she studied in a government school where students and teachers routinely carried guns, and threatened to settle scores outside the school. She somehow managed to keep her head down and finish school, but akso developed a love for science. But she did not neglect her farm work. Her day begins at 4 am, sweeping…

Cricket Recently we were visiting Srilanka for a vacation. The people are friendly, and ask  where we were from. Learning that we were from India, next question was where in India? On hearing Kolkata, the inevitable response was KKR! In the cricket crazy island, my hometown was known by its IPL franchise. People knew the KKR players, something I didn’t, and that Sarukh Khan was the owner.…

Srilanka looks a lot like kerala, with hills beaches, lush greenery, passion for non veg food invluding beef which everyone eats,  a communist government, high oroportion of workers living overseas, narrow roads, voluble and politically involved peaple, and in deep financial crisis. But despite being so close, the foid is entirely different but dekecious. And hardly any indian tourists. The tiny…

Tiny tale 2 Hypochondria Fit,  strong, never sick in my life, until one check up at my wife’s insistence changed everything. My wonderful life, enjoying my pension and an active, full, meaningful, carefree, enjoyable existence, came to an end. Now I am convinced that I have every illness listed in the wikipedia, from IBS to HIV, covering all the alphabets in English Greek and Latin. There’s one…

#bookreview This is a translation of young writer Sandhya Marys debu Malayalam novel. This is a touching sensitive and hilarious look at rural kerala and the Syrian Christian community in changing times through the eyes of a gifted child in a unconventional upbringing, as told by a mental patient. This explores mental illness with great empathy, sensitivity, and humor. It touches upon…

#MyTake 2 film reviews, Kohrra 2 and IkkisLast week I saw one series and 1 film on OTT that really impressed.The series was Kohrra 2, an intense whodunit in misty rural Punjab, and small town police officials battling difficult situations amidst their own personal problems. Best seen in the original Punjabi for authenticity, it has outstanding acting, a very intelligent script, pithy idiomatic…

#MyTake Book reviewHeart Lamp.. Banu MushtaqIn the last month or so I read four exceptional books, all by Indian women authors, two in translation.I have already written about Mary, just Mary, an intimate look into insanity in the backdrop of the Syrian Christian community.Another was the brilliant autobiography of the maverick writer Arundhuti Roy, about which I will write later.Now I wish to…

Prose poem Letter by a young man to woo back his ex without emojis I don’t actively miss you.I lie I don’t constantly miss you, but you do pop up in my head once or twice a day, actually very often , especially when I am alone, having conversations with myself that I used to have with you. I have tried to substitute your presence with an entire list – people that take me to my happy places…