When going somewhere you have never been to, the kind of directions you get are along the lines of "start at the bus stop, go straight, turn left at the mango tree, then turn right at the cross by the side of the road... etc, etc.". They get interesting sometimes when the mango tree falls in a storm, in which case the directions go "turn left at ( Read more... )

One of my sisters is a dentist and handles some of the 'medical tourism' business. She can get really busy since the costs are so much more reasonable (even when she doubles her rates). For example, deep cleaning costs around $1200-2400 in the US. Here, it costs around Rs 10,000-20,000 which is $200-400 ( Read more... )

One day we (my mom, sister, nieces and me) went to my paternal grandparents for lunch. My grandparents died some time ago, and now my aunt, cousin and his family live there. My dad grew up there and we used to spend some of our summers playing in the rice fields ( Read more... )

The last few times I've gone to Goa, I've conducted a few oral history interviews with my parents and anyone else who will sit still long enough to answer my questions ( Read more... )

Continuing from where they got to from last time, this time around there's been a murder, a robbery and an attempted poisoning ( Read more... )

I saw this can of soda after I'd been through security at Mumbai's airport. Apologies for the unfocussed picture - the can was behind a display case, and my tiny point and shoot would focus on the glass on the case, instead of the cans inside.


( Read more... )

Well, Goa received 8 inches of rain yesterday. Today's forecast is more rain. I'm keeping my fingers crossed hoping no flights are cancelled.

Going to church today was fun and enlightening. I'd forgotten about wedding bannsThey read these right after communion, before the final blessing. And this time around, the first few were with both the parties with very Catholic names. Except the last: the man was Catholic from Santa Cruz. The woman had a very obviously Hindu name. When I heard ( Read more... )

Am awake and sane again. I did wake up at 1:00am last night and managed to doze off and sleep lightly and wake up at 8:00am. Which means I was pretty functional today ( Read more... )

wherein I discover that Mumbai is not what it used to be.

( Mumbai )