Lalita Iyer

   THE SEASON OF GIVING This is the season of giving. There is a sense of happiness and probably because it is close to being the start of a new year, there is a certain sense of generosity. Forgive and carry on, so to speak. It is also very colourful, with bedecked Christmas trees, shining and reflecting a lot of sparkly light. I can only speak for Hyderabad, but everyone is participating. And lending light and joy and a moment of happiness is exactly what Cherish Orphanage for Boys and Girls along with Sujai A Persa Adla Trust did on Friday afternoon. The room near the peadiatric ward was teeming with people. the volunteers from Cherish were putting up balloons and setting up their equipment for they were to sing later. There were a lot of wires. And many volunteers, both girls and boys walked around, helping where ever they could, including fetching chairs for the visitors, who were children from the paediatric ward at the MNJ Institute of Oncology and Regional Cancer Centr...

WEDDING BLUES (ARGENTINA WON) As I have repeatedly said I do not like to attend weddings or anything related. It is too pretty, too much of dressing up and way too flashy with all jewellery, glittery smiles and disco strobes. During daytime it is too much of visible makeup. Sometimes the food is fantastic, sometimes worse than ordinary. But food is one of the major reasons for attending any such mammoth effort to get strangers together and then feed them. After having attended two specific functions of two weddings in Hyderabad I was congratulating myself on my ability to smile through both the occasions. I travelled with M to Bangalore to attend his friend's daughter's wedding. Shruti wed Felix in an Arya Samaj wedding, with a few Tamilian functions like 'unjal' and such. This is a function where the groom is brought back to the mandap from his sulk to move to Kashi, after promising him his bride. The two are then made to sit on a bedecked swing, while lovely rhythmic...

  THEY TOOK AWAY MY PAIR OF TINY SCISSORS Oh, but I must write about it. As you would know I am obsessed about arriving on time, for any occasion. If I am early for an interview, I while away my time drinking tea or simply look at the world. Murali is a tad too cool about these matters. He leaves for a meeting, and for a 4 pm appointment he will leave office at 3.35 pm or worse at 3.45 pm. He'll get in and tell the driver that he has about 15 mnts to reach the other end of town. Ironically Murali has high BP! Though I would like to reach the airport very early, if I am travelling with M, it gets a bt difficult to convince him. The airport has grown, has a lot more to ogle at and I think window shopping to banta hai. Plus he has the lounge pass. Apart from the number of eating joints which have opened, now at the airport they have extended the gates and that part of the terminal has been further stretched to go beyond the Idli joint which was the last stop earlier. Know this because...