Heartcrossings

If life expectancy is hereditary, mine could go either way. One side of my family lives into their 90s, the other has folks dropping off like flies in their 60s and 70s. Lately, I find myself thinking about the half-life mark - specially since DB and I got married. Somehow, having the path to the future defined, has brought in its wake, the need to stop, take stock and yes - self-flagellate. An urge to reconnect with long lost friends apparently comes with this particular territory. I wonder where S (my best friend) with is, how she is doing, if we could talk all night like we did in our college days, if we would have even one thing in common anymore - and I chide myself for letting my communication with S ebb away. Not knowing the answers to those questions bothered me enough to begin a search. So easy in the time of Google and Facebook and yet so perilous. Now S is nothing if not notoriously private and so are many of our common friends. Finding S, I discover is no walk in the park.

Several months ago, I received an email from The IOU Project inviting me to check out their website and get to know them and their concept. I was more than impressed with what I saw and absolutely fell in love with this short video (the 3 Minute Video link at the bottom left of their homepage will take you there too) that tells the story of IOU.  IOU brings tradition and technology together in many unique ways - the concept of a Trunk Show is one of them. It is described thusly : Back in the day, when a fashion designer wanted to showcase a collection, he or she would take to the road with a heavy suitcase or trunk stuffed with goods and show off them off to friends. We let you do the same - but on the web. No heavy lifting required. Instead of running a garden variety plug for them on this blog, I offered to interview Kavita Parmar, the Founder and Creative Director of IOU, and she most graciously accepted. You can tell she is passionate about her idea and has the energy it ta

Devajyoti Roy is an artist with an unique take on contemporary India. As one reviewer describes it " Though realistic in terms of theme and proportion, the paintings assume metaphorical dimension if seen from the perspective of colour-scheme and use of symbols."   What I found most interesting about his paintings is how he is able to convey expression and communication between subjects of his painting when the faces are color filled blanks without any features. What the viewer make of that expression or the message being conveyed could well be a Rorschach test. Case in point might be this painting titled Rendezvous It turns out that Mr Roy is a reader of this blog and that is an honor for me.  For any readers who live or will happen by Mumbai between Nov 14 -  Nov 20 2011, they can check out an exhibition of his paintings at the Jehangir Art Gallery.   HC : What is uniquely Indian about your art ? DR:  India is having cultural exchanges with far flung countr

The Child Some days, I just have to keep my ears open for inspiration. Having the day off today, I was able to take J and her friend A to the museum to check out a couple of art installations I had read about in the local newspaper. A is a very polite child but it is impossible to get a reaction other than "I don't know" when asked for an opinion. So, I had know idea if she enjoyed the outing, if the galleries we went to were the ones she was interested in or if the lunch we ate at the cafe was what she really wanted.  So imagine my astonishment when we sat down in the lobby on some Neinkamper chairs and A said "In my dream house, I must have these chairs - I simply love them". The passion  in her voice touched something deep inside me - for a ten year old to have a dream home and imagine what it might look like is not entirely unexpected but coming from someone who almost always says " I don't know", it was very special. Beneath the gentle and un

I have been in the workforce for what seems like a very long time though my "dream" retirement age will likely not be met . In all this time, the one accomplishment that I am truly proud of is my ability to manage difficult people and situations without letting it impact my quality of life. I did not come to this state naturally or over-night - years of hard-work and perseverance got me there - or so I thought. A week ago, that accomplishment took a real drubbing at the hands of a co-worker. He is our on-site technical lead from one of India's largest outsourcing companies. They have over thousand resources working for this client and have the muscle that goes with an engagement that size. This man found it impossible to accept that he had to report to me - a woman, a desi and a local consultant (as opposed to a full time employee of the client). It was a combination that was too much for him to stomach - he simply did not feel that I had any authority to ask him anythin

In the past year, several readers of this blog have asked me to share my experience of being married for the second time. I have blogged off and on about it over time, but this attempts to bring some of the key themes together. Being Owed Happiness This is my experience with second marriage and it may not be true for everyone else. Ever so often, I find myself falling into the trap of "being owed happiness". I waited long enough for this man, ergo he must be the answer to all that ails me. Why must I still be expected to work on finding my own happiness or put forth the effort to make the relationship a happy one. I already did my time in my previous marriage - so it is not fair to be given anything but a perfect marriage this time.  It is as if the long, frustrating and often hopeless waiting to get to this state entitles me to happiness without any further ado. When that does not readily happen - I decide I am the injured party and DB has a responsibility to make it r

Recently, I have suffered some figurative losses. You would think that not being material or tangible they may hurt less but in fact, it can be felt just as strongly if not more. Being in that frame of mind, I found these lines from an article by Olivia Harrison particularly poignant : "Tragedy is much more of an adventure than joy. I am not saying joy is over-rated. But happiness is fleeting; it exists in the present. Tragedy casts a long and persistent shadow with the power to dim even the most perfect moment. It also has the potential to follow us to the end. We don't stop to analyze happiness but when grief and strife occur we recount the events leading up to it over and over. It wakes us from our sleep as we try to figure out how and where it all went wrong." She writes this in the context of her husband's George Harrison's imminent death but the idea of raking through the content of tragedy over and over again to make sense of it transfers to the kind