Where the Mind is Not without Fear

Where poets, activists, scholars, lawyers are threatened, the mind is not without fear and the head hangs in shame
Where knowledge is not free
Where the world has been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the surface of falsehood
Where tireless striving gets girdled with oppression
Where the clear stream of reason has lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led into the gloomy days of the past
Into ever-widening gulf between thought and action
Will my country wake up?

- Eisha

New Mom Tales #11: Feeding Draws

After feeding a couple of spoonfuls of a mashed potato to my infant, he figured the silver bowl was more interesting than the contents inside so he grabbed it from my hand, emptied the contents on his table and started licking the outside of the bowl. Not to be outdone by the intelligence of a seven-month-old, I took the bowl from his hand and layered the mashed potato outside the bowl. He grabbed it back and licked it off.

Score: Mom: 1 Infant: 1

#NewMomTales #FeedingDraws

Travel Surprise: Not all forests are green

#Travel Surprise, May 2016, #Gujarat: We had a couple of cousins who suddenly showed up at our door from Pune (you know who you are) and so we decided to take them sightseeing in the Sardar Sarovar Dam area in south Gujarat. A former student of mine had posted a picture of a waterfall in the Shoolpaneshwar Nature Reserve just a week ago. We arrived to find not even a trickle and huge sand-mining equipment. The forest was dry. We were the only tourists. It did seem quite disappointing at first but then I thought, "How many times in my life have I seen a forest without a single leaf? Hills and hills of dry deciduous trees! Never." That shook off the image of forests I had in my head. Not all forests have to be painted green all the time.

#TravelTales #BrownForests #DeciduousForests #SouthGujarat

Travel Surprise: No Alps in Switzerland

My favourite travel surprise was in Switzerland in 2010. Now, like most people in India, I too had grown up watching Hindi film heroes and heroines dancing in the Alps. So we were going to visit our friend there and attend his wedding (Swiss guy, German girl), I thought we'd be dancing in the Alps as well. Only, when we landed in Zurich, it rained. In Lucerne for the next four days we were there, there was dense fog. So I did not see the Alps. Not even an outline. But then how many people go to Switzerland and don't see the Alps? 😊😊

Travel Memories: A Table for Three in Zurich

Flashback 2010, Zurich, Switzerland: On a Sunday evening we trooped down to a restaurant our Swiss friend recommended for the best Swiss food in Zurich. After all, I didn't want to leave Switzerland before tasting the national delicacy: the veal sausage. Our friend asked the restaurant manager for a table for three in German. The man said we'd have to wait an hour and half. We were famished, we told him. We had to wait in the cold and rain outside, he said. A couple of elderly ladies walked in and got a table. After half an hour, we requested again. He said it was a busy day. I asked the man if there was a good restaurant for Swiss food nearby. "This is the best." "But you aren't giving me a taste of the best and so I'll have to find the second-best." He shook his head and in the next five minutes found ourselves seated at a table next to the elderly ladies. The veal sausage and fondue were delicious.