The following are excerpts from three of my creative non-fiction pieces that are as yet unpublished and are currently in search of paying markets. But the excerpts should give you a taste of my writing. If you want to read the complete essays, do send me an email and I can send you a copy.

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A Version of my Life When the powers that be changed the name of my hometown in India from Madras to Chennai, nothing really changed. Yes the Tamil Nationalist brigade was appeased. No longer would the city have a name entrenched in British Colonialism. Instead the city would be Chennai – the vernacular Tamil word, which referred to the South Indian metropolitan city, which lay on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. Founded in the early 17th century, by the British East India Company as an artificial port and trading outpost, Madras as it was known officially till 1996, was the nerve center of the British Colonial Empire in India. Today, this sprawling port city is a cultural hub of sorts and ranks 34 th amongst the 50 most populous urban agglomerates the world over. I remember it well. I was but a school girl then. Attending an English-medium, all-girls, Catholic School run by disenchanted nuns. It was the school to attend in those days. Daughters of prominent businessmen, famous movie stars, and corporate honchos arrived in their Mercedes Benz’s as casually into school, as I cycled furiously in - on the second hand bike my father had managed to obtain at an unbelievably low price. He had spent two whole days polishing, painting, oiling and replacing the brakes of the old relic, before teaching me how to ride it.... ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: * Back to the top

In Quest of the Perfect Coffee   When I first came to the United States from India in August 2003 to study interactive storytelling at Bloomington, Indiana, I was invited for breakfast on the Sunday after my arrival. I went to a nearby café with a couple of my newly made “American” friends and ordered some waffles with blueberry and strawberry toppings, and coffee to go along with it. Chatting amiably with them, I was baffled when a mug of black coffee was placed in front of me. Unlike the West where most people drink their coffee black, in India it’s mostly mixed with hot milk before consumption. It’s the rare Indian who will prefer to drink his or her coffee black. New to the United States, and unaware that all coffee is served black I looked at the waitress and said, “Excuse me ma’am, but I would like some milk in my coffee!” Everyone around me smothered amused smiles, while the waitress impatiently pointed to the tray filled with creamers and sugar sachets on my table. Cheeks burning, I reached for the creamer, feeling a little embarrassed at my social naïveté. It was at that point in time that I began to appreciate how difficult life was going to be in this country, made up primarily of black coffee drinkers who assumed that if you wanted milk in your coffee, you just had to stir in some cold cream. * * * Researchers say that memory is frequently linked with smells. Often, all it takes is a whiff of a certain aroma or an odor to send specific signals to the brain, resulting in the triggering of a certain memory or emotional reaction associated with that smell. While the social behavior of most animals is primarily controlled by smells, Humans differ in this aspect as they largely use their eyes and ears to respond to the world. Yet smells have a powerful sensory influence on us, for they retain an uncanny ability to move us and take us back in time. * * * As far back as I can remember the complex, spicy aroma of freshly made South Indian filter coffee woke me up everyday of my life. My mother used to repeatedly say to me, “Nothing can come close to the pleasure of a home cooked meal and a cup of steaming hot, filter coffee”. I was 12 years old at that time and unable to comprehend or appreciate the wisdom behind her words. It took several years of growing up, getting out into the world and living on my own in a different city and later in a new country - for me to finally recall her statement with a longing so intense, it made me ache for another one of her delicious meals and a cup of flavorful coffee made by her own hands. Smooth, sweet and rich bodied, it seems to me that no coffee can ever reach the perfection of the one she used to make for me; for its very creation became an expression of artistic savoir-faire for her. With no electronic coffee brewing gadgets to help her, she used the traditional stainless steel coffee filter employed by a majority of South Indians in the preparation of coffee. It essentially consisted of two long cylindrical compartments of equal size. The upper compartment had a lid and a perforated bottom, just small enough to allow water to seep through to the lower compartment... :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: * Back to the top

My Father's Genes “I want to be a professional scuba diver” my sister declared to my father, one hot summer’s morning in Chennai, India. It had been an awfully hot summer, made worse by the spiraling water problem the city was currently facing. Chennai had not received even a centimeter of rain in the past year and perhaps just two centimeters of rain the previous year. The city was really struggling to cope with the water scarcity crisis. People were thirsty and sick of turning their taps to find nothing but air gushing out or in some cases muddy, sludgy water trickling from their taps and showers. The frequent power cuts only added to the common man’s woes and made everyone irritable and surly with each other. “Oh when will the skies be overcast? When will the city receive some rain?” was the common refrain one could hear in tea-stalls, supermarkets, posh restaurants and even night clubs. People were fast reaching the end of their tether. Downstairs there was a line of people - queuing up beside a leaky government water tanker, which had just arrived - with their colorful plastic pots and black drums which would eventually store water. My mother had sent our cook and driver to fill their pots from the tanker, so that they would have extra water to take home to their families. We were lucky in a way. For we could afford to hire private water tankers and fill our overhead and underground tanks with water – so that when we turned the tap, water would flow out, making a shower bath a distinct possibility – albeit a guilt ridden one perhaps, for we were all trying hard to be efficient with our water usage. We knew how lucky we were not to be compelled to cart pots of water up the stairs, like a lot of people were being forced to do. It was on such a day as this that my sister had decided to proclaim her real ambitions to my father. She was 24 years old and had thought long and hard before revealing her latest plan of action, which she fervently hoped was the right decision - the latest in a series of career moves filled with precisely these kinds of dramatic twists and turns. She repeated again like an automaton, “I want to be a professional scuba diver” My father pretended he hadn’t heard. He continued scrutinizing the editorial page of “The Hindu”, the staple newspaper for all South Indians, who believed the serious, eloquent use of the English language - which resulted in a peculiar literary quality to the paper - made it soul food for the brain. For years it had been his morning ritual to sit at the dining table, with the newspaper spread out in front of him, drinking a steaming hot cup of Narasus coffee - from a highly polished stainless steel tumbler, placed inside a stainless steel rounded bowl... ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: * Back to the top