Family & Friends

Licensed to Drive

“CAUTION: STUDENT DRIVER…and screaming parent” said the bumper sticker on the car in front of me as I drove to work.  I chuckled to myself. Very apt, given that my daughter passed her road test over the weekend and is a proud young lady.  She has passed a rite of passage and she now feels that she has all the…

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Books, Memories

The Phantom

As a young boy, I would have to accompany my mother to relatives’ or friends’ houses.  Usually, I would go willingly but sometimes a bribe such as a roll of Poppins would help sway my mind.  It’s not that I did not want to accompany her, its just that if the house that we were visiting had no children of…

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Food, Memories

Sausages

In an earlier blog on Brer Rabbit, I had referred to the fact that I read Enid Blyton’s Brer Rabbit books as a young boy.  One of the stories featured Brer Rabbit eating sausages.  Two things about that puzzled me: I knew that rabbits were herbivores and I wondered why he was eating meat (never mind why he was wearing trousers…

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Memories

Enter the Dragon

Once in a while, a movie comes along that captures the collective imagination of the masses.  It runs to packed houses, dominates conversations and leaves a lasting impression on its viewers.  There have been many such movies over the years and the Star Wars series is an example.  In my memory though, as a young boy, the two movies that fit these criteria…

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Nature, New England

Of Birds and Birdfeeders

When it came to cooking, my mother, like many others of her generation, relied on first principles.  That meant that the idli-rawa (cream of rice) used for making idlis was made at home.  This involved soaking the rice in water, drying it and then grinding it at home using a stone mill.  The soaked rice was spread out on an old…

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