Bike Rentals, a fashion in Paris

In my schooldays in Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, bicycles were the prime mode of transport for the middle-class. The affluent among my class-mates came to school in own bikes. My parents didn’t get me one till I joined college in New Delhi. By which time (this, in late 50s) bicycling went out of fashion.
With aggressive marketing of [...]

The idea of Obama

As someone visiting the US, it appears to me that the question that haunts the political-minded here is not who the next President would be; but what if, Barack Obama gets elected. Pundit Dick Morris, who was for long a Clinton consultant, but now their strident critic, has written a full-fledged book to illustrate the point. An [...]

Brenda.77, blogs in verses

Brenda, a blogger from Australia, would like to make contact with folks from other cultures; left a blog comment, saying as much. The 77-year-old who took to blogging recently posts in her Rinkly Rimes daily comments, all of them in verses. We have linked her blog to Mysore Blog Park.
Born in Britain and trained as [...]

Making sense of a semicolon

Ancient Greeks used semicolon for a question mark. In London, it first appeared in a 1568 chess guide. Shakespeare, it is said, grew up in an era that scarcely recognized its worth. Two law professors in 1837 dueled, with swords, over its usage. The wounded advocated a semicolon to conclude a given passage; the winner favoured [...]

Oprah at Stanford

Wonder if it is customary for those invited to deliver Commencement Speech at Stanford to leave gifts for the students who give them a hearing. Oprah Winfrey who addressed the Stanford Class of ‘08 gifted each graduate a copy of Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth’, and also A Whole New Mind - Why the Right-Brainers’ [...]

Volunteering at a Bangalore orphanage

Lisa from New Hampshire plans to spend the summer in Bangalore on volunteer work at an orphanage. “This is my first trip to India and my first time volunteering in an orphanage,” she e-mailed. Googling for ideas on how she could make her work meaningful Lisa happened by an earlier post in this blog.
Lisa is [...]

Doing (IT) Without Diapers: a grandpa’s perspective

I don’t think my mother lost a wink of sleep over my getting it right, nearly seven decades ago. In a joint family set-up, where we had cousins and nephews growing up together, it was a peer group thing, done at the backyard of our farm house. We took it as extension of playtime activity, [...]

Of the gun factor and Seshan Effect

I have known Dr. Javeed Nayeem as a social activist, student of Mysore’s folk-history, book-lover, coffee-planter, Star of Mysore columnist, a Haji and, of course, as a reputed cardiologist. His latest column however shows him up as a gun-lobbist. I wouldn’t associate him, though, with die-hard crusaders of US gun lobby. Would suggest he read - [...]

Green-card holder in the poll fray

A Karnataka assembly poll candidate is reported to have declared his assets in US dollars. Presumably, because he runs a business in the US, owns a flat there and holds US government bonds. It is not clear if his dollar declaration of assets would be acceptable to the electoral officer. Every candidate is required to [...]

The new Bangalore airport

Got these pictures by mail from Monica Mascarenhas Prabhu, who wrote, “I visited the new Bengaluru International Airport last week and took some pictures. … thought you would find this update useful”.
 Parking lot that can hold 2000 vehicles; and (right) the signboard points to check-in right ahead. 

Check-in counters. They have 53 of them.

snacks & coffee area; (below) bar [...]