StarDust

My paternal grandmom was very creative with words. I used to be mesmerized with her stories and so were her other grandchildren. She had this particular story which remains with me till date. I don’t know where she picked it up from but she told it as if it was her own So the story went Once upon a time there was a small town ( aat – paat-nagar hote ) called Sundarpur. Girish was Malhar rao’s son. There’s was a business family. Girish decided that he wanted to do something on his own. So he set up a tools business. For some years everything went well but as time passed his books showed losses. And Girish got into debt. His mother gave Girish all her jewels to sell off but that wasn’t enough. The lenders started pestering him for their money. His father did not bale him out either. Malhar rao had the money but he didn't even ask Girish if he needed help. Instead he let him face it full on.   So to escape and hopefully make money in another venture, he decided to go...

June and July every year take me back to my school days. New books, Bags, various accessories, Rains and Gum boots. Now with Tara going to school the nostalgia has heightened. However, I never quiet understood the Indian logic of covering school books with brown paper. In my days, it was the brown paper and then a plastic sheet for tropical places like Mumbai. These evolved to plastic coated sheets to lessen the efforts of covering the books. Mid-term the covers went haywire and one needed to redo the exercise of covering once more. Towards the end of the school year, we just left the books uncovered exposing the art work on the front and back. CBSE textbooks oftentimes had artistic covers and they made me wonder why the teachers make us hide them under layers of revolting sheets. These days the plastic coated covers come in so many varieties – rolled papers, large sheets, pre – labelled . And the whole exercise of covering the books before the school starts. The books have...