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Showing posts from January, 2010

The Years They Will Remember

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Akhil and Sahana with thatha. Akhil is in sixth grade. Sahana is in fourth grade. My own fourth grade feels like a blur, but I remember sixth grade quite well. Mrs. Vijayalakshmi was our class teacher. She was outstanding at teaching English. At BP Indian, grammar, punctuation, and the structure of a composition mattered. Some of my classmates had a natural flair for writing, and I loved reading how they put their thoughts on paper. I came third in class that year and received a merit prize. I still remember the books: Five Have a Wonderful Time by Enid Blyton and Grandmother’s Tale by R. K. Narayan. I still have my copy of Grandmother’s Tale . Inside is the school’s prize label: third rank, Class VI D, 1992–93, awarded to Subbarathinam—the name I went by then. My sixth-grade merit prize. I still have the book. ...

Florida

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So, where are you guys headed after marriage? seemed to be the oft asked question.  In a typical Tendulkaresque way, my response would eke out an as-though-well-thought out " Haaan (a hefty five or ten seconds later, well hoping that the topic would have changed), actually, we are heading out to all possible temples in South India, and yeah, we have to catch up with a few relatives as well ".  The smirk on the questioner's face was of course conspicuous, and he would heave out a nonchalant sigh as though he had known it all along.  There was no way in the world that we would be let off lightly had we tried to skip the temples.  We had to appease the Gods (how many ever they are), and this is the time you have all those questions whizzing past your head " Why can't we just propitiate the deity in front of our house? If all Gods are the same, what is the logic in trying to visit every one of them? " These are questions for which you are bound to get only star...