The Convenient Charity

When my friend Prashant was working here and I was in Hyderabad, I had visited him once. While on the way to some place else, he had stopped at this orphanage and school for the blind. He was giving away his old jeans and he was grateful that he could dispose them off there. I don't recollect where we went after that but this address stuck in my head. So now I go there regularly too, to give away old clothes, equally grateful. Somehow it had never struck me that they could do with regular donations too and was embarrassed last time when the girl at the counter thrust a pamphlet in my hand. I think most people use that place to dump things only.

I guess Hamilton won't be forgiven by the 'rich' Indians soon. He has no business bringing it up when we are already rolling in guilt about it and on top of that, when he has the chance to make amends, he does not stop at the standard "India has great culture" and goes on to a "but"! Now that's not something to be forgotten easily!

Drowsy

P is like a dream these days. You know, the kind that you see after midnight and spoil your sleep...

That Lonely Feeling

I think behind at least some of those super-womanly feelings, there is a super help-less feeling. Frustrated, angry, tired, worried, misused...

The Wrong(ed) Face

Our water filter stopped working in the evening and I had to rush out to get some water. I went to a nearby shop and did not have the change. The MalayaLi(it was easy to figure that) owner sent his son to get the change from outside and meanwhile struck a conversation with me. I spoke in Kannada and he followed suit in his broken one. He talked about the dishonest dealers and I was sympathetic. Then the boy returned and I took the money, thanked him and was leaving, when the owner asked me if I was from Tamil Nadu. Why the hell did he think that! I regret not asking him.

Bad Stories

I reached this piece of news late and it's like a little nightmare. Just days after I wrote excitedly about Balekempa, its director has been named in a case of sexual misconduct. It's disheartening and ironical that the guy who said all he wanted was dignity for the place and the people he came from, did not consider that the girl in front of him expected nothing less. 

The Boy-girl Thing

Anu: Aayi, I know boys get annoyed if they are called girls but I think girls wouldn't mind being called boys.
Me: I minded it when my grandmother said I was behaving like a boy!
Anu: I wouldn't have minded. I would've loved to have been a boy.
Me: Why?
Anu: I think boys are luckier.
Me: What do you mean?
Anu: For example, I get scolded more in this house.
The girl drives us all up the wall messing up the whole house with her creations, can never keep a thing in its place, makes me anxious every morning wondering what she would bring up to skip school and she says I scold her more than her brother. I gave her a piece of my mind.

I've finally got some work. I'm an external consultant to another team. It may not last long but I'll do for now.

Familiar History

Mary Beard says in SPQR, "Electioneering at Rome could be a costly business. By the first century BCE it required the kind of lavish generosity that is not always easy to distinguish from bribery. The stakes were high. The men who were successful in the elections had the chance to recoup their outlay, legally or illegally, with some of the perks of the office. The failures - and, like military defeats, there were many more of those in Rome than is usually acknowledged - fell ever more deeply into debt."

There is no comfort in knowing that we still carry that legacy.