Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
Furniture
In which I try to explain why I haven't bought new furniture for a while now. Opinion Comment A family’s history is written in couches, tables and chairs Shoba Narayan October 15, 2013 Updated: October 15, 2013 18:28:00 My husband and I talk about changing our sofa, in the desultory half-hearted fashion of long-married couples. We need to spruce up the house, we tell ourselves, marginally worried about middle age and inertia setting in. But we do nothing because, you see, our furniture is no longer merely couches and tables, sofas and chairs. Each of these items has become a [...]
Self Control
I have been using this great app called "Self Control." It lets you put sites that distract on a "black list." So every morning, after I check my Facebook for ten minutes, I turn on Self Control for 24 hours. My blacklist includes my blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. No matter what I do, I cannot access these sites. It is a free version of the "Freedom" app that writers use.
Women– conformists and rebels: for Mint Lounge
It gave me a lot of pleasure to write this piece. I think my mother in law is fascinating. She stayed with me for six months recently and it was a learning experience. She, like many of her generation, inhabits her identity so firmly and easily, without much angst or internal conflict. She does Varalakshmi puja, cuts fruit every morning, observes all kinds of Hindu rituals and calls herself a "housewife." But she is so much more. Either she compartmentalizes really well, or she sees no contradiction between doing 'womanly chores' as she calls it and being a feminist. Maybe [...]
Confident Women: don’t listen to dissenting voices, carry on: for The National Abu Dhabi
A piece that really *really* bothered me and a response. Opinion Comment Don’t listen to the dissenting voices, just carry on regardless Shoba Narayan October 8, 2013 Updated: October 8, 2013 18:08:00 Recently, the New York Times magazine carried an article titled, Why are there still so few women in science? Related ■ South Korea a highly connected nation The piece, which attracted plenty of attention and more than 1,000 comments to its online version, posited that the reason women don’t excel in the sciences is because they aren’t encouraged enough and they lack the self-confidence to forge ahead on [...]
Characters
Children remember the oddest things. If you have kids around you; kids that visit you from time to time, you might want to consider the kind of person you are and personify. This one is written with Prabha-mami and Nagarajan-mama in mind. Two special people who were the 'characters' of my childhood. Cherish the weird and the wonderful Memory remembers the weird and the wonderful; the people who touch our senses, not just our brains: the ones who are different Shoba Narayan First Published: Sat, Oct 05 2013. 12 08 AM IST Kharbanda (left) in a small but memorable role [...]
Overlearning
Came upon this concept in an interesting way. Thank you, Ms. Anjana (kathak teacher) for the idea. Practice makes perfect in classical Indian dance classes Shoba Narayan October 1, 2013 Updated: October 1, 2013 17:27:00 Save this article Alaa Ahmed is an assistant professor in the department of integrative physiology in the University of Colorado in Boulder. I heard about him in a very unusual way. My daughter, Ranjini, learns kathak – a classical Indian dance form that has it roots in the nomadic bards of north India – at an advanced level. She is part of a dance company [...]
Regional aesthetics
I am wrestling with the whole notion of culture, identity, tradition, aesthetics, and how to infuse them into my life. How to embody these things? By wearing a sari? After years of being an atheist and then becoming a agnostic, I am taking baby steps to the other side. Someone-- Pratap Bhanu Mehta, I think-- wrote a nice piece a while ago, stating that you can be religious and secular at the same time. I come from a religious family. I have rebelled against it all my life. Now, slowly I am trying to see the merit in it. I [...]
Bangalore Literature Festival
Is this weekend. Please attend if you are in Bangalore. I am in a panel on Sunday afternoon (the 29th) from 1 to 2 pm. It is about rewriting the rules of romance and reminiscence. In bold below. But the entire day's schedule also below. SUNDAY | SEPTEMBER 29, 2013 TIME MYSORE PARK LAWN BAGH MAKKALA KOOTA Literature for Children 10:00 – 11.00 Thoughts that Breathe, Words that Burn: A morning of poetry Ashok Vajpeyi, K. Satchidanandan and Nabanita Dev Sen Moderator: Mamta Sagar Launch of Tilman Rammstedt's ‘The Emperor of China – Der Kaiser von China’ International Ink: Getting [...]