I have to leave and get up to go but I want to help her. I tell her I will be traveling abroad for 2 weeks and ask her if she will let me help her when I return. She turns and looks at me strangely again, the weariness returns on her face. What help? […]

That is a nice name, Haseena, I say. She stops her prodding and regards me, suspicious and wary once more. Hey, hey, I say, alarmed by her ready and vivid assumptions. I mean no harm. I am old enough to be your father; I have a daughter your age. She resumes her attack on the […]

It is a mere 10 minute walk from my home behind Yari Road to Bank of India and I cherish the cool morning walk to it every time I have to go there. The dogs have tired from scavenging heaps of dumped garbage last night and their bellies are full; they now nap. The walk […]

Burma, or Myanmar for those that like being politically correct, evokes conflicting and exotic paradigms, shaped by what we hear in the news or Internet; well, it is both. It was a nighttime landing, so save for the simmering lights of airport terminal building and a scattering of city lights, I had no clue what […]

It is almost end of 2008; what a year! It is 7 months since our move from Houston to Mumbai; a move many in my family and friends feel is a mistake. Favoring their rational is the recent senseless and brutal attack of November 26 that killed and maimed so many. However, we are beginning […]

It is 21:30 and I want to return home to Andheri after burying my friend Aliakber’s dad at the Masgaun graveyard yesterday. My friends suggest I go by train, since it after “rush” hour and it would be fastest. There is some sort of a Sufi Urus festival going on in Mahim, they say, and […]

Humans became animals on November 26 when a few of them got together to gun down innocent people traveling in shabby trains or dining in upscale restaurants in Mumbai. Supposedly from Pakistan, these murderers sneaked past horribly inept Mumbai port security to launch an audacious attack at the heart of Mumbai’s hospitality, to its elite […]

I once lived in a country called Lalaland, a finger sized oil rich kingdom clusters on Middle East map. Then, it was a good place to live, though there were teething issues common with all new states. It was relatively cheap, the money I earned was good and went a long way, there was decency […]

I am going to Houston; it is very far away. Just the thought of flying 19 hours it will take me to get there from Mumbai via Dubai gives me the shudders so I block the thought out of my mind; for now at least. Emirates Airlines is getting ready to depart when the seat […]