For a small country, Sierra Leone is amazing in its sheer physical diversity. Mountains, forests, rivers, scrub land, islands, lagoons and long stretches of pristine sandy beaches – name it and it has it. In my view, the most spectacular feature of the country is…
My daughter Minnie is around eight years old when I set myself to the task of introducing her to some serious music – to be precise, Indian Classical Music, Western Classical Music, Ghazals (the songs in Urdu and Persian of love, mostly unrequited) and of…
My daughter Minnie and I share a rather interesting relationship. For some unexplained reason, my sphere of authority does not seem to extend to her. I am more a friend to her than a father. But then even as a friend, the relationship is not…
Photo credit: Oniket Alam In Vientiane, we have a charming, elderly and friendly Finnish couple as neighbors, living in an almost identical wooden Lao style house next to ours. We share a sprawling compound, with only a low height picket fence separating the two gardens….
In grade II when my daughter Minnie (Madhura) was barely six years old, her class teacher introduced Poetry to the class, starting with the basic appreciation of the concept of Rhyme as an important feature of a poem. Being in the International Baccalaureate system, Minnie…
My daughter Minnie (who is now ten) and I are great friends. We treat each other as equals and she, not I, is the first among the two equals. While being rather subdued with her mother who is an impatient and strict disciplinarian, with me…
1. Delicious gruel: July 6 at 10:04am Vientiane, Lao PDR: I have checked into a beautiful service apartment and this is my first week in the country. After the day’s work, I went shopping for groceries. My driver took me to “Mumbai Masala” an Indian…
After working in Asia for over two decades, I was moving on from the beautiful land-locked country of Laos to Sierra Leone in the west coast of Africa on a new and exciting assignment. I spent a month in between assignments in India and part…
Just got back to Freetown after four grueling days in the southern parts of Sierra Leone, particularly in the Bonthe region – the remote, picturesque southern islands of the country, where supported by the European Union, Marie Stopes International is running a “water ambulance” service,…
