What is essential?
My grandson, a delightful child aged five, is always full of smiles and good cheer. He trotted in from school one day, joyful as usual, and announced “I love everyone, including the people I don’t...
Season of fruitfulness and fortune
I see a flash of yellow, then a glimpse of parrot wings, sometimes even a baby parrot perched on a terrace railing, or crows arguing on a distant ledge. Butterflies flutter past, tiny messengers of...
Diary of a Homemaker
There is little to do these days. The virus has struck fear into the stoutest hearts, and most of us have changed our lifestyles to suit the times.
First Class People
If, in the course of your daily rounds, you see people with serene, smiling faces enjoying a cup of coffee and a doughnut in one of our many coffee shops, in the middle of a weekday morning, or...
Cakes and aches, pains and gains
The other day, I ran across an old friend, a charming elderly gentleman, who is well known for his charm and impeccable manners. I happened to ask him about his aches and pains. "Oh, there are...
Tell me my fortune
We never know what the future holds. To my mind that is one of the charms of life. For instance, when my husband was in the foreign service, while I loved every posting we had, I could not help...
Dhaka Streets
This morning, I looked out of my window and saw a face I had not seen for some time. It was the neighbourhood cobbler, seated cross-legged at his usual place on the pavement across the street,...
Winter is coming
Large, expensive wedding cards have begun to arrive; lettered in silver and gold, with tassels, fringes and ornate scrolling as well as boxes of delicious sweets! Our fourth favourite season is on...
First Class People
If, in the course of your daily rounds, you see people with serene, smiling faces enjoying a cup of coffee and a doughnut in one of our many coffee shops, in the middle of a weekday morning, or...
Cakes and aches, pains and gains
The other day, I ran across an old friend, a charming elderly gentleman, who is well known for his charm and impeccable manners. I happened to ask him about his aches and pains. "Oh, there are...
Tell me my fortune
We never know what the future holds. To my mind that is one of the charms of life. For instance, when my husband was in the foreign service, while I loved every posting we had, I could not help...
Manners manners
I had never met the couple or their parents before, nor did I think I would again, thankfully. This is a new world in many ways, and I find that there are more and more young people like this.
Tapestries
The evening draws in quickly. At one moment the late afternoon sun is there, mellow orange against the sky, and the next minute it is almost twilight, and time for me to leave my rooftop plants and...
Not another new diet
Every week, in some magazine or the other, there are enthusiastic pieces on some new miracle diet promising to transform us into our dream figures in a matter of weeks, or days even! There are...
The Young at Heart
The Young at Heart Someone else, not foreign and also past forty, said the opposite, which was that older people should put aside all
Golden women
The streets of Dhaka being what they are, one has time to just look around and observe things from the car while waiting at traffic lights or while stuck in jams: hugely battered buses driven by...