The Teacher Makes - or Breaks - the Student

I started learning to play the violin when I was ten years old. My first teacher was Mr D. I don’t remember how old he was - or how old I thought he was - but I remember him having a kind face, a hooked nose, and eyes that stared intently into mine as though [...]

The Lucky Ones Land in the Dungeon

So my former company (and those of you in the industry - but not in the know - might be able to identify it from what follows) has shut down the small (?) team that I belonged to during my tenure there, and put all the 80-odd people in redeployment.
And we all know what that [...]

Infertility: Over It At Last

S&S brought their baby to Bangalore last week. S (male) had of course been showing us videos of the little girl practically from the day she was born (and before, truth be told), but it took six weeks for S (female) and the baby to make the journey from her home town to Bangalore. Yesterday, [...]

The Kite Runner

Christina gifted me this book and I have to say, Thanks a Lot, Chris!
(If you haven’t read the book, none of what follows is going to make much sense. Also, if you intend to read it, you probably don’t want to know all of this; there are spoilers.)
I wouldn’t go so far as to say [...]

I’ve Got to Stop the Food Wars

I know I shouldn’t but I still keep doing it: I keep fighting with the twins about food.
The parenting books - by western authors, by the way - all say how you should let the child decide how much of what food they to eat. They won’t starve themselves, and they won’t binge on one [...]

Caged Tiger Growling

Before we got the twins, Amit traveled about once a quarter. Now that we have twins, he travels once a month. I wish it had been the other way round.
Because of our insistence - joint and individual - to raise the kids ourselves, at least in these early days, we tend to lead a “relay-race” [...]

Good Girl, Bad Girl

These are the standard phrases we use to praise or admonish the twins. In doing so, I’m sure we’re no different from millions of parents around the world.
I’ve read in parenting books that rather than saying “bad girl,” one should say “that’s a bad thing to do” to more accurately convey that it is the [...]

Good Girl, Bad Girl

These are the standard phrases we use to praise or admonish the twins. In doing so, I’m sure we’re no different from millions of parents around the world.
I’ve read in parenting books that rather than saying “bad girl,” one should say “that’s a bad thing to do” to more accurately convey that it is the [...]

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

I’m not sure if my account of our trip to Pondicherry to file papers gave the impression of quite how rushed and hectic it was, but it really was. Amit was extremely tense about the whole process going off smoothly and without any further delays. I was only worried about managing the kids and keeping [...]

Strangely Estranged

When we took the twins back to Pondicherry last week, we had every intention of making a short visit to the adoption agency (that is, the orphanage). We had some romantic notion that those people would like to see the twins, see how they’re getting on. We thought it might be nice for the twins [...]