Science fairs for high schoolers were an annual affair. A large area with a perimeter of school stalls showing off hand-made experiments with charts on the walls, manned by eager young scientists, also contained a refreshment area. It was great place to meet students from other schools. I stood there chatting with a…
Ashok found Meena fascinating. She, Meena, liked Jethro Tull. Ashok’s tastes were more Donna Summer’s gasping, moaning, sex-drenched disco. But Meena was friendly, liked Ashok’s company and a movie or two together ensued. One day, I was asked if I wanted to accompany them, in my usual role of chaperone for the Other…
So this is it then. The end of civilization as we know it. The thin edge of the wedge. The most unkindest cut of all. Remember that song we used to play, Sam? It's almost over. The end of the world is nigh. There was a time when I lived in Calcutta (Kolkata,…
Schools, good ones, were hard to come by in Calcutta. Boys had a choice of St. Xavier's, La Martiniere for Boys, the recently rejuvenated and rising fast in the ranking St. James and my own school, Don Boso Park Circus, DBPC for short. Admissions were competitive and parents stressed over the best ways…
Things went back to normal after An Inauspicious Start. Of course, normal was the new normal which wasn't quite the same normal as the previous normal. Progressing pregnancy dulled the pain of financial doom. Sometime in the 3rd month we had signed up for a 5-day package at Woodlands Nursing Home in Alipore.…
Shortly after the "Hello World" episode, the startup shutdown. Cast into the wilderness, not yet 27 years of age, boasting a pregnant wife and mounting debt caused by 3 months of no pay, I drifted out of the corporate world. Disillusioned by the posturing, the politics, burned out from nearly 5 years of…
In the spring of 1987, I was lured away from my employer, a fast-growing, much respected Indian IT company by a startup. They offered double the salary, nice. A department to run, nice. A chance to put my reputation as a crazy, wacky and arrogant solver of weird problems on the line and…
About a year after the wedding, my wife and I moved to a small flat, (apartment, if American). The area of Calcutta known as Lake Gardens sounds delightful. In reality the lake was man made, access to the area was via a congested level crossing of a busy commuter line or a massive…
<This memory was jogged by reading this post> My last school, (I had 3), took inter-school competitions seriously. If it decided to compete in something, team selection was serious business. When I first started there midway through Grade 4, football (soccer, if American), was the game the school took seriously. The "A" team was…
It was a dark and stormy night... no wait, it wasn't. It was a typical Calcutta night, the searing heat of the day dissipating into a warmth with just a touch of cool about it. And it was late at night when we got home. It must have been the late '70s, the…