>last night a dear friend stayed over … in our chat many things floated in and out, relationships, man-woman, culture differences, kind of work we like to do, passion, being a maverick, death, life, love, parents ….. in one such chat, among many other things, my friend told me that she experiences me as someone who does not want to really listen when others tell her something positive about herself.  she also experiences me as someone who wants to hold on to a picture which is sepia coloured,  old, dog eared and tearing at the corner – worse, does not even look like her any more, but she insists that that is the only person that she recognises as herself, irrespective of what others are saying to her. all of these rang true to my ear and i thought none of these are new and yet they are not causing any  distress as they do when i hear them from

read more >do we really listen to others?

>I have been living in a new building complex for a while now, about five months. This place has about 400 apartments and only about 40 families have moved in so far. Being a new place, naturally there is a scarcity of helping hands and all of us have been having a bit of trouble. the domestic help is hard to come by and even if one comes in, ends up asking for R.s 5000 for a part time job of 2 to 3 hours. People are settling down to Rs. 3000 to Rs. 4000 a month in front of such demands. while this may sound like a crib club but i am not cribbing about the money — my point here is that i do believe that the domestic help ought to be paid fairly and justly for their time, effort and for the emotional investments and that both for us and for them it is a up close

read more >of women and for women-domestic help – are we at war?