Deep Ties

"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety,"  These words sit perfectly on the shoulders of Mrs. Nalini Chandran, a lady who is fondly known as 'Nalini Miss' by her students, their parents and by her many admirers.  At the young age of seventy seven, she refuses to sit back and put her feet up! For all her life she has been racing ahead of time, creating magic in the profession of teaching. An exceptional educationist from a very early age, Nalini Chandran has lived a life most extraordinary, and still continues to do so, and she says that she owes all of it to her favourite deity, Hanuman, who has stood by her through thick and thin! Probably because   she would have it no other way! Shirdi Sai Baba is another one to whom she turns whenever she needs a solution to a problem, and He never fails to rush to her aid either.                                 ...

Book Review - Deepti Menon                                                                     How can you not fall in love with a heroine with the romantic name, Sepalika, a name that she shares with the night jasmine, a flower that is fragrant, magical and fascinating? Daniel Byrne cannot keep his eyes away from the exotic beauty, who also happens to be his tour guide, a job she loves because it “involved being in touch with people from all walks of life.” Initially he is “a silent brooding riddle of an Irishman” who stays at the sidelines, but once he realizes the amount of local knowledge Sepalika possesses, he finds himself looking forward to being with her all the time. Sepalika has spent five years in London, thrilled because “her mind and heart belonged to countries where a woman had the right to say no...

                                                                      “Vanity, thy name is Woman”.  Shakespeare could well be misquoted to denote the vanity case that women tote around, filled with stuff that men wouldn’t be caught dead carrying! My Vanity [case] was unique as it carried various stages of my life within its folds! The Blushing Bride: When I got engaged, the first thing I received from Mom was a green VIP suitcase for my brand new saris, along with a smart little matching vanity case, which excited me no end. Never having used any cosmetics earlier, I went ballistic, filling the case up with every cream, powder and foundation under the sun. Hubby-to-be waited for my transformation into a swan, but every day I would appear, either looking like a pale faced wraith or an un...

                                                                               “Oh, blimey!” was what I uttered as I looked into the interiors of my cavernous refrigerator, only to be greeted by a number of tiny plastic containers, filled with a variety of food that we had had over the past couple of days. Why “Oh blimey?” Well, it seemed more exotic that ‘Ayyyo!” hand on head, and harked back to the times when we watched the iconic “Mind Your Language” series so avidly. My husband believes that the refrigerator is the most dangerous invention of all times. “Remember those days when your mother would cook just enough for one meal, which would be delicious because there was just enough of it to nudge the taste buds?” “No, I don’t!” I would shake my head at him, “When I was born,...

  Book review – Deepti Menon                                                                   Andy Karan, the intrepid protagonist of ‘Catching the Departed’, published by Tara India Research Press, would probably be a dream detective in Bollywood! As the description goes, “Andy was always hungry for adventure”, informs the reader of why he becomes an investigative journalist, after a stint in the Indian Army. The action begins when Monica, his beautiful boss at the New Delhi Today magazine, sends him to Tilakpur to look into the murder of Ram Avtar, a drunk who knew too much about a terror plot. There Andy meets Gulabo, Ram Avtar’s wife, who exudes “the pride which comes from living with bare minimum needs and surrounded by nature”. She admits that her husband has been killed. The action speeds up...