Heart upon my sleeve

“America is a land of immigrants”, they say. About Dubai they say “It’s a land of expats”.  I would think immigrants and expatriates were synonyms. Until now. The Oxford dictionary defines an immigrant as someone who comes to live permanently in a foreign country. An expatriate on the other hand is someone who lives outside his native country. The main difference you would think is the thought of being ‘permanent’. Could be. Yet, I see so many Indians returning back from America, either willfully or just because their visa had expired. On the other hand I know of many Indians living in Dubai for close to 20 years. The H1 and L1 visas are called non-immigrant visas. That itself takes away the ‘permanency’ from the word. If they are not intended for permanent immigration why are they not called ‘expat’ visas? Could there be a racist connotation, I wondered? Looks to me, there is. When white folk/westerns work outside their country they are called expats. When Asians/Africans ...

A year has passed since I wrote this blog -  http://heartuponmysleeve.blogspot.in/2013/01/the-chess-mess.html . (It was a time when chess was a game, not a contest.) After seeing my son's interest in the game, we enrolled him in a chess coaching academy three months back. Before we knew it, he was selected by his coach for a district level tournament. Since this was my first time as a mother of a competing child, I have to admit, I was unprepared. A day at the tournament meant playing back to back matches throughout the day. It meant a tiring day for me and him. Most parents there seemed far more experienced in this. At the end of the day I won’t say I learnt much but I did observe a lot. The hardest part was seeing a child loose; anybody’s. One came out, eyes down, saying he lost. One came out with just a thumb’s down. One came out looking out for her mom or dad with a look that said it all. It caused a pang. A parent consoled a child with an “It’s ok.” When the child ca...

The two words I have for Adlabs iMagica, the theme park near Khopoli, are - ‘Distinctly Indian’; and I mean it in a good way. Rides: Every ride/attraction at iMagica, I have seen before at one theme park or the other. But never before have I seen it with a beautiful Indian touch. Mr. India reminded me of The Simpson’s ride (Universal) but the fact that we were helping Mr. India fight evil Mogambo made it so much more appealing. If Soarin (Epcot) made me proud to be associated with California, ‘I for India’ based on the same lines, gave me a bird’s eye view of My India. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari it covered the beauty of my country, making me so proud I had goose bumps at the end of the show. The ‘Wrath of Gods’ reminded me of ‘Songs of the Sea’ (Sentosa) – the elements of nature working in harmony – this depicted in a mesmerizing show with water jets and pyrotechnics.  Rajasaurus is Jurrasic Park (Universal) in Hindi. Then there were the usual roller coaster rides with Nit...

7 reasons why I can feel my 7 year old is no longer 7 1.  She no longer whines and wins, she argues and wins. 2. She thinks all boys including her brother but excluding her dad, grandads, Hrithik Roshan and Ranbir Kapoor are STUPID. 3.  She thinks Disney princess and Barbie Tees are childish. But she's still not gotten any interest in the Hannah Montanas or Justine Biebers 4.  When she sings Gangnam style she lowers her voice between the words 'Hey' and 'lady', almost muting the S word. she then tells me she thinks this is a 'cheap' song. 5. She has a pair of high heel shoes in which she walks comfortably. 6. She watches the  'Sound of music' with me and enjoys it. And then we sing 'raindrops on roses' together. 7. When I am driving her to school, she turns off the radio and says, "mumma let's do some gappa-tappa (chatting) ".  Happy 8th birthday daughter-turning-dear-friend Tanisha.

I’m angry, I’m upset. I want my ‘adhalpad’ (Like Druv, the Pole Star’s, ‘Permanent and indispensable position’ in the sky). I feel like the unfortunate fool who stood near the door in a busy Mumbai local train, being pushed out onto the platform when it wasn’t his destination yet. “Stop, wait, I don’t want to get down here,” he said, but no one heard. So he took the next train. “This time, I’ll go and stand safe at the other end,” he thought.  Little did he know that at the next station, the platform was on his side. And fate was not. He was at the door again, resisting the force that heartlessly pushed him down. The force was stronger and he had arrived - at the wrong place again.  He was a hopeless optimist though. “This is not such a bad place, you know. You could stay here,” said a stranger on the platform. But he just smiled and walked away. He did not want to be there. He wanted to get back on the train; some train. But there was no train. He ran from one platform to...

I was cleaning up my kids’ wardrobe; segregating their clothes - winter clothes, Goodwill clothes, play clothes - when I started observing. Only about 40% of clothes had been utilized a 100%. No surprises that these were the ones that were easy to iron or needed no ironing at all. And they were all dark in color.  Also ironically, the least utilized ones were the ones that looked really good on them.  These were the save-it-for-special-occasions clothes that had eventually ended up in the uselessly-outgrown stack.  The hand-me-down pile going out of the house was really small. Most of my boy’s old jeans were ripped near the knees. Most of my girl’s jeans, though 3 sizes smaller now, she still wore – as Capris.  Talk about forever size zero! The girl’s side of the wardrobe had encroached onto the boy’s. (Who hasn't gone to get a blue shirt for their son and bought three new dresses for their daughter along with it?)  For the girl, the inter...

Valentine’s Day, Mother’s day, Women’s day - men and women are pouring their hearts out on how great being a woman is. Unfortunately for men, there is no such day. Here on Women’s day I pen six reasons why I feel sorry for men. My women friends would agree and say “I know”. My men friends would say “So?” (They wouldn’t really care). 1. No one talks about how great they are, how wonderful they are. No man ever inspired a poet. Even the lyricist of a sitcom who had two and a half men to write about could come up with nothing more than just “Men men men men, manly men men men” .. repeated 5 times. What’s more to write? 2. Men are always under social pressure. They can’t cry their hearts out, they can’t ride a Scooty Pep, they can’t wear baby pink.  3. They can’t be scared of spiders or roller coasters. 4. They can’t eat a bucket of ice cream or shop till they drop and feel better. 5. They can’t be a ‘mom’.  6. They can’t say “It hasn’t turned out like mom’s” and still get anothe...