I was at a weekend retreat recently at one of those gatherings where “saying your truth,” “asking for a hundred percent of what you want,” and “letting go of social taboo” is encouraged. I was shocked therefore to encounter on … Continue reading
In his famous epic novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez talks about a mythical town abutting the marshland of Colombia, where people had never seen ice and where the only source of knowledge of the outside world … Continue reading
I was dining with some friends last week when somehow the conversation turned to the subject of goddesses. “We have goddesses in India,” I casually quipped. “So what have your goddesses done for the women of your country in the … Continue reading
If I were to write a memoir, it would be choreo-graphed with the sounds of radio providing the background theme. When I was a baby, I would tug at my parents’ sleeves whenever we passed by a shop playing a … Continue reading
When I was a little girl, I was fascinated by velvet. The fabric seemed to me to symbolize opulence. This was before the advent of nylon clothes in India; before polyester shirts and colorful synthetic saris became fashion statements. At … Continue reading
Coming home from work late one evening re-cently, I found myself teary-eyed and ex-hausted. It was the day after the election and I was bemoaning the fact that we now had a killer-robot for a governor. I was sad, too, … Continue reading
Ayodhya is big enough for both a mosque and a temple The latest bomb blasts in Mumbai have prompted Indian politicians to hurl a new set of accusations at Pakistani leaders. But to many observers, this recent spate of violence … Continue reading
… if I am mainstream, who will be on the margins? In the late 1970s, when I was sharing a house off of Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley with a bunch of fellow students, I once put some Bollywood music on … Continue reading
The only female voice heard worldwide has been that of Arundhati Roy, who labeled the war the “coalition of the bullied and the bought.” The Iraqi war has been running on testosterone. George W. and his coterie of blue-suited white … Continue reading
For my children, the Iraqi war has blurred the boundaries between fantasy and reality. My kids are hypnotized by newspaper pictures of Pentagon war simulators, just as they are fascinated by video games like Mortal Kombat on their computers. They … Continue reading