Newerways

         DECEMBER 1988                                               I became what I am today. I thought of the precise moment when my father was just about to leave for his official visit to Germany. A telegram informed me of my admission to King George’s Medical College in the Dental Department. I was excited that I had succeeded in the heavily contested premedical entrance test. When all the dust settled, I thought it to be just dentistry. Some of my friends had been admitted to MBBS while I had trailed despite hard work came to me as a second thought. Dentists reminded me of Dr. Jhatka in Lotpot, a Hindi cartoon magazine, which caricatured him struggling with extractions by raising his tools and forgetting the patient needed a local anaesthetic shot. This comparison was deemed an insult to Dr.Jaidka, our family dentist, a soft-spoken person. My disdain for his profession and that which was soon to be mine lost all grounds.   The Lucknow-bound Nauchandi express train c

  Do you know what nice food is? Nice food is one which is prepared by a Hindu lady with lots of love and affection. All the emotions her thoughts are transferred via that food to you. Now this prepared food should be served to you by a Muslim waiter who serves you with such vanity and delicacy. Then this should be eaten by an Englishman in all style. See how he drapes the napkin on his lap then he picks up the knife and fork and eats in style and relishes every bite in no haste. This is what nice food is. That's a story that my grandfather repeated often about NICE FOOD in our family. Kitchen has always been my domain and seldom have the men of household (my husband and two sons) ever tried to cross that threshold and displace me from my highlands. Despite my fuming and fretting of the domestic and professional overload I have not conceded my grounds. Ever since my children went to Kota after their tenth standard my attempts to make them self-reliant or more

                                                                                        The dynamics of change indeed is difficult to apprehend one has to consider the attitudes of the people who will be accepting it and how persistent the change would be and how the people leading the change will behave. As I sat down to document this a few things happened in the real world. Thomas Cook went down the annals of history as bankrupt. Media was abuzz with lessons to be learnt from its failures and its non-conformity to be relevant to present day requirements to serve its clients. True, it is well said by Darwin “it is not the strongest of the species that survives, or the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change”. An extension of this change was imposed upon us by the spread of novel Corona virus 19 taking a toll of thousands and infecting lakhs all over the world. The deadly pandemic virus is throttling many economies, pushing many into unimaginable situations a

I came across this lady as our sons were together and friends in kindergarten. Just the passing of smiles had made us acquaintances on the school premises. I was surprised when she came to our clinic carrying a bag that medical representatives did. She was equally startled to find us. The rest is all history. We became good friends even though her son shifted to another school after one year. I pursued her for not doing that. Her nephew was studying in a different school. The family wanted them to be together. What I said never mattered. Nevertheless, we continued meeting more often in the clinic, events of our children, and our homes. . We were similar in abruptness and straightforwardness to a certain extent and had the same issues with the old school of thought. We even laughed at what people, more reasonably, what our relatives had to say for us. That was a joke between us. We never had to explain each other many things.  It was her birthday. I could not imagine what I should surp

 Disclaimer Whatever plagiarism may be only in the name of the title, this journey has little to do with the sad details of the migrant population. It is my perspective of the world today and its problems.   I had been a regular traveler between Delhi and Ajmer after my father passed away, not realizing eight hours would fly away so soon, leaving me wishing Ajmer never came. A regular on the Garibrath Express from Delhi to Ajmer, I preferred to carry my shawl and pull it over me in the AC compartment of the train right at the beginning of the journey only to get up at Jaipur, just a few hours away from Ajmer. It helped me spend an arduous journey in relative tranquility and time to recover to resume my office in the evening. While I made myself comfortable in the side berth of the train, a family of four, husband, wife, son, and daughter, settled in the adjacent berths; the other two belonged to an elderly couple. Their conversation made me realize this elderly couple was their neighb