Dear New York Times Contributor, The next time you plan to renovate the only bathroom you have in your apartment, consider these options: 1. Please stay in a hotel; 2. Stay with friends/ neighbors/relatives; 3. Take a vacation and travel somewhere; 4. Did I mention – stay in a hotel? Whatever you decide to do,…
Something strange happened a few weeks ago – I wished for winter. Well, not winter exactly, not for cold – raw winds – winter, but for snowfall. Not three feet high- piled in the driveway- snowfall, but the kind that dusts your driveway and lawn and makes it seem like someone sprinkled cake frosting in…
All ye who are sweating in the sweltering summer heat of India, I have good news for you. Spring has arrived in my backyard, bringing with it temperatures in the 60s. Aren’t you feeling cooler already? Judging by the various projectiles you are hurling at me, I realize it may not be such a good…
I should have known this was what would happen. In fact, I should have thought this was a 100% probability event, with my luck. When I set off on vacation, my mind was still on the house, at least until I reached the airport. I didn’t worry about whether I had locked the front door,…
The innards of the paper shredder were lying in front of me.? They seemed fine.? All right, all right, I really would have no way of knowing if anything was malfunctioning.? I couldn’t recognize a single part.? But I was looking for broken wires, debris, black smoke or, as a wild guess, insects.? There was…
The sudden sharp cry of a bird shatters the silence and makes her look up.? She cannot see the bird, it is hidden behind the six foot tall rushes that border the pond.? So she goes back to deweeding the perennial bed.? The bird too, falls silent and soon, the drone of the bees and…
My recycling bin doesn’t like its job. It is also not afraid to say so. Every week, I put out the recycle bin on the street. Plastics, cans, card board, paper, all go into this bright blue bin and get picked up by the garbage disposal truck. But my recycling bin keeps running away. Sometimes…
Popcorn smells of movie theaters. It smells of excitement and joy and simple pleasure. These days I seem to prefer watching movies at home. Especially the desi movies. For all the desi movies I have watched seem to follow a few unwritten rules: (i) The movie should only be aired on the one weekend…
I eat a good breakfast every morning. I always select multi-grain, whole wheat bread. You would think I was on a healthy diet, right? No, apparently not. The New York Times tells me that I am doing it all wrong. A better strategy, it tells me, is to throw out my toaster. Not just my…
How do you decorate your living room? Do you use potted plants, or beautiful sculptures? Do you have artwork on the walls and Tiffany lamps in the corners? We use remotes. TV remotes, DVD remotes, satellite dish remotes, old VCR remotes. The ceiling fan’s remote control, the fireplace’s remote. We place our remotes on every…
I look out of the window in the morning and see the pond waters are rippling, glistening in the sunlight. It looks like a warm summer day, but I am not deceived. I know that if I step out in the garden, I will be greeted by a blast of cold wind from the empty…
The Imagined Universe 