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Every finger has its day
Why do we have five fingers? Not three or four, or six or eight? Evolution decided that this was the optimal number for the various tasks we need to perform. It made each one unique— giving each one a different shape and/or a different length. No two fingers are alike. Every finger has its use,…
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Blow hot blow cold
An Indian summer is here again. As temperatures soar and tempers rise; and the scramble for the AC remote begins, a deeply mystifying question raises its head again. Why are we humans not satisfied at one universal temperature? Why do some like it at a frosty 20 degrees celsius while others like it at a…
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Good morning!
A message doing the rounds of social media is that good morning messages will attract exorbitant taxes. It was circulated widely by many who hoped it was true. Many more were unbelievers, common sense dictating that it was too good to be true. Others rooted for it silently. Some supported it as a patriotic cause,…
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A jar of face cream
All I wanted was a jar of face cream. I went down to the local pharmacy downstairs for what I thought would be a five-minute chore. The store had changed hands and had had a makeover. Rows on rows of glass shelves, filled with an endless supply of bottles and jars. Shampoos and conditioners. Body…
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A mouthful of bitter melon
Among my many wonderful childhood memories of food lurks one bitter foe. A mouthful of bitter melon, to be precise. Aka the bitter gourd or karela or uchche. It turned up regularly on our lunch platter, being considered a superfood, though of course, the term itself had not been invented then! It all came back…
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Gecko on the Wall
Eeks! There’s a gecko on the wall! If that is you shrieking, we are united in our fear of house lizards. A gecko on the wall twenty feet away is one gecko too many for me! So why write about them, you might ask? Alas, inspiration comes in many forms, and not always in the…
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A lost handkerchief
Its spring cleaning time! I quite enjoy the process, for it is a time of joyous discoveries and emotional reunions! Long-lost sock-twins hug each other tightly; while runaway buttons return to the family fold. That’s when I discovered it – a crumpled square of fabric, tucked right at the back of a drawer! It was…
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A Dressmaker in the Making
I’m trying hard to be self-reliant. Being my own cook, baker, dishwasher, gardener, and now a dressmaker-in-the-making! All this atma-nirbharta is partly in response to our dear leader’s call, but mostly because tyrannical tailors have left me with little choice. Years have I spent, and miles have I wandered to find a tailor who would…
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The Disappearing Donkey
This is a tale of the disappearing donkey – those overworked and undervalued creatures that are disappearing from our own backyards. Some may sneer at my choice of subject, still others may see this diminution as a progressive step! But do not be hasty, dear reader. For the dons who study donkeys have detected a…
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A full head of hair
The long journey of evolution from ape to man was marked by conspicuous shedding of body hair. Why then did we retain a full head of hair? Was it just chance/ a mere roll of dice/ an evolutionary trade-off which endowed us with our crowning glory? Not so. It so happens that Africa, where we…