We're back at sea level. It's not too bad -- it's raining, and the sky is soft and grey. About 30 years ago, I took 2 years out...

I’m having a jaladosham ( jala = water; dosham = disease, in Sanskrit-Tamil) – i.e., a cold. My nose is producing almost as much jala a...

I never feel so purely childlike as when we take the toy train (it has a grander official name and status: The Nilgiri Mountain Railway , a...

Coonoor is about 1770 metres higher, and 30 degrees cooler, than steamy, tropical Chennai by the sea. Here are some things about it: it ha...

I brought on vacation with me a stack of old New Yorkers. Today I was reading an article from April 2005 (!), Global Warning: Mrs. Mortime...

Tamil politicians liked to be shown embracing the elderly poor -- it started, I think, with the late M.G.R., back in the seventies. This pi...

Looking out the window at Cafe Coffee Day in Indira Nagar. It made an attractive picture, although it was too humid to sit outside. Coconu...

I had earlier written about Vinod Joseph's first novel, Hitchhiker . Now Epic India , an online arts magazine is publishing ten of his...

(Thanks, Peter!) The New York Times has an article about a new show at Washington's Sackler Gallery: Encompassing the Globe: Portugal ...

It's the best kind of weather: rain, not heavy and therefore destructive, but fairly steady and saturating, so that the garden looks im...

A recent search referral: plaster crumbling away salt infection I read this and immediately thought, Yes, that's me all right... Some go...

In India, when you are talking about bed linen you don't say 'sheets' but 'bedsheets.' I suppose it's to save you f...

I don't look at my search engine referrers very often - they tend to be pretty repetitive (e.g., from a few minutes ago: 'late in ni...

Six large mangoes were stripped from our tree overnight!! And I have a prime suspect, too... but I only used that post-title because it so...

This week's Poetry Thursday prompt is rivers. This is the last in a series of poems I wrote after my mother-in-law died. Ba on the Gan...

I've been making books lately, using a good new book-making book . These two have covers made of cut-down photographs by R . The photo...

India Without the Slogans - the back page essay in the latest Time magazine's Asia edition. A well-stated reaction to some of the hype...

Chennai is in the grip of a real estate frenzy. Last week I accompanied a friend who is looking for an apartment, to try to get an idea wha...

Kathakali dancer getting into costume, Madras, 1978

The Poetry Thursday prompt this week is for a humorous poem, or a poem which tells a joke. NOTE 1: The poem starts off with one of my favo...