INDIRA LAISRAM

You have been a happy home. I didn't want to say goodbye yet but as with all good things in life, you are transitory. You will become just another memory in my constant journey of life, in our dream for more and big. But you will always hold a special place in my heart because you adopted me right from the time I arrived and gave me such a full life filled with love and people. Like some people I am emotional about everything in life including moving houses.  I am in the thick of packing now, it is like slipping into a memory, of the time I was saying goodbye to India to travel the miles. As I clear up and look at the empty spaces, I think I think I was filling up my life with as much as I could hold. In exactly three days, we change our address. I think I prefer a sweet goodbye hug to a goodbye forever to a past lived in love. It is maddening – getting things organised from the removalists to carpet cleaners to chucking away old stuff which has been sitting in nooks and

And here is where I go a little evil, especially on the weekends. I love a drinking session. Last Saturday was great fun, the wine kept flowing and we ended with tequila shots at 1 am. After that, I got everybody to do yoga. The Mo was doing a headstand in the middle of the room with a full stomach and probably a full bladder. The others followed, fell, stumbled. And there was Violet taking pictures of drunks in headstands. Not a great idea in hindsight! Why do we love playing idiots sometimes? It was a great party, the kind where everyone is talking and picking on the other, there is no taking things personally, no egos involved and there is no intelligence in the conversations. It’s truly nonsense waking up the brain cells. When we got back home that night, the man said it was a fun night. I think I know why. We were almost serving out the years of childhood before our eyes. I don’t see why every party has to be discussion on Gonski’s new education reform plans or North Kore

I like writing stuff here, things that do not make for polite conversation. I am just back from a fat Indian wedding reception and I am still hung over by the obscene splash of wealth. Pretty envious and wishing I had that much money to celebrate every occasion of my life with style. On second thoughts, I would use that money to travel but no, if I had that much money I would do both! In anticipation, my fifth year wedding anniversary will probably be a modest dinner at home with a few friends where I will probably dole out my chicken curry, some dal, salads, rice. I love my friends; they never tire of being fed the same thing over and over again. Not that I don’t have a choice to cook something different but it is too much of an effort and this is something I can cook with closed eyes. They qualify as exotic Indian food too. It cannot get more intimate than this, can it? A warm winter evening under soft lights, nice music, home cooked food, friends and conversations. The receptio

I have a best friend (actually I have too many best friends) who also happened to be my roommate for five years. A perfect combination of beauty and brains, it was no surprise when she stood 54th in the 2003 Indian Administrative Services (IAS) exams under the general category. I remember the two of us driving to the UPSC centre that afternoon when results were declared and we couldn’t believe her name was right there. We were euphoric. My friend is not a bookworm, you know the types who oil their hair and shut themselves from the world in preparation to writing this mother of all exams, the IAS.  On the contrary, she watched every serial on the idiot box and led a perfectly normal life – even with the exams looming large. Days before the interview I was conducting her mock interviews and we had a good session of laughter and seriousness. My friend got the Bihar cadre and served the services for a few years where she made heads turn by her dare devil attitude – making politicians wait