Family Matters by Rohington Mistry

Read this book a while ago. It is quite an engaging family drama, engaging because the happenings are so pedestrian. The voluminous book captures quite well the varied hues of family emotion, that ever so ethereal family bonding, and the constant cribbing over money. It gets a little too boring somewhere halfway due to the unending misery, and how life revolves around just one character in the plot. But then isn’t real life by itself a glorification of how man overcomes misery. I don’t think I will pick up the book again for a second read, however I liked the ease with which the author has moved from 1 chapter to another, and kept 2 sets of stories interwined, with all the human drama intact. It also introduced me to another set of interesting characters besides the Bengalis..the Parsis. Henceforth, I shall watch out for them.

What is it with ladies and their clutches?

In school and the growing up years, the little girls had “neatly folded into a square” handkerchieves always in their hands.

College goers had a file of papers or notebooks in their arms all the time..irrespective of how much of it they actually read.

Not so long ago, it was the saree pallu or the front V of the thupatta that they used to clutch or pull continuously while walking/talking/eating/..

Of late, the cell phone is the constant companion. They have to carry it with them everywhere, to the cafeteria, to the loo, to the meeting, to the bus stop and keep it clutched in their hands all the while!

I personally like a pair of free hands. (i.e ones that don’t toss the hair from left to right, and right to left ever so often)

Grand Old Losers

Have you ever played a game with an elder? They are the worst losers. They come up with the most inventive of reasons when they lose over a game – and it is not restricted to outdoor games, where one may still leave it to the charms of old age..but even over carom, or cards, or chess; these reasons may range from “you cheated”or “I was occupied with something else” (as though he/she was atlas shrugged), “I let you win a game lest u whine” to the bizarre “nobody wins in life by winning a game of chess”!!
(Inspired by the cell phone ad on tv where the grandson and granddad are holed up in the 64 squares )