Pride in being competent
That morning, we were examiners at a postgraduate examination. I hardly knew any of my other co-examiners. It was my first encounter with all three of them. ‘Encounter’ is a word I use deliberately. For what followed…
The fuel called failure
Despite the decades that have disappeared since, I remember every little detail in great clarity. The kasavu saree I wore. The colour combination used in my PowerPoint slides. The strange shape of the podium. The huge timer…
Them versus us
The year was 2002. I was a naive small town girl on her first solo trip to the big bad world of metropolises. Mumbai. The sight of people stuffed like sardines into local trains— pushed in and…
Burning my bridges
Gulp down that poison Close your eyes. Shut your ears. Feel nothing. Ignore this. Don’t react. Be human again. Find your voice. Speak up. Protest. Question. Respond. You are intolerant. The bitterness bursts And falls over the…
Naked in the communal bath
We were going to get married and it was time to rent a house in the vicinity of my work place. We started house hunting in one of the areas of Nagpur which now frequents national headlines.…
The summer soap opera
In the summer of 2000, a new kind of soap opera invaded our television screens. Indian audiences, who were used to intense stories from the partition or funny sitcoms starring Satish Shah, Shafi Inamdar, Rakesh Bedi and…
Thinking like a rat
I walked into the laboratory that morning and was told that the hematology automated cell counter had stopped working. A few frantic calls and a day later, the technical person from the company came over and repaired…
Supine readers
It has been almost a month of reading thick Pathology tomes non-stop. As quizmaster, I had been preparing questions for a State level Postgraduate Pathology Quiz. I enjoy the process of discovery, and reading academic texts for…
The Braveheart
Much of my early childhood was spent in Sainik School Bhubneswar and then in Bangalore Military School, where my father headed the Zoology Departments. I can’t remember much of Sainik School, but memories of Bangalore are very…
