Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Feature: When Does Indulgence Run out of a Relationship?

It’s a thin line between tolerance and indulgence. Sheila Kumar parses the issue at hand. A successful relationship often has less to do with the number of things we have in common than with the number of quirks we can tolerate — Okay, the quote is from Cathy Thorne’s cartoon, but, it’s no less pertinent!…

Travel: Ladakh, the roof of India

Moonscape Pilgrimage It’s been called the moon desert, Desolation Station, the last outpost. The truth…

Feature : A Gym in Your Garden

A gym in your garden! Take it from one who has learnt the benefits of gardening in the best way possible: me. Some years ago, I moved into a house up in the Nilgiris that was 102 years old and came with more than a half-acre of garden. There were lawns, flower beds, a…

Feature: Making Love Work for You

Making love work A liberal dose of give and take is what will help a relationship last. Okay, you saw each other across a crowded room, you met, dated, fell in love, not necessarily in that order. And now, the two of you get along superbly. You share ideas, emotions, insights. Except colour-coordinating your clothes,…

Travel: Chez Jane Austen

Actually, right now we are having a break from the Austen machine. The past couple of years were basically one long Austen carnival, as devised deftly and wonderfully, by Hollywood, and ably assisted by the doughty BBC. There were a couple of interpretations of Austen’s all-time classic, Pride and Prejudice (and no, I’m not including…

Book review: Jesus by Deepak Chopra

The itinerant’s tale An easy reader on Christ’s early years. Deepak Chopra follows up his book on Buddha with this account of Jesus Christ’s unknown years. Not quite fiction not quite fact, Chopra’s Jesus wanders about known lands… Nazareth to Jerusalem to Galilee to Damascus. No, he doesn 217;t come to India, at least not…

Feature: Lift That Chin Up! Shore up Your Self-esteem!

Chin up and stay happy! The key to maintaining healthy self-esteem is the ability to distinguish between a basic sense of one’s worth and one’s reactions to external forces. YOU ARE SPECIAL. Be aware that you have many good things going for you. It doesn’t take much to bring an already fragile sense of self…

Feature: A Temple for Troubled Minds

Faith Fatale The Chottanikkara temple, near Kochi in Kerala, is a place that attracts the mentally disturbed, who seek solace here when all else fails. I’m standing with scores of people facing the closed doors of the Shiva shrine, awaiting darshan. Suddenly, without warning, it starts. A handful of women begin moaning. It is an…

Feature: Indian Men and the Fifty:Fifty Syndrome

Fifty-fifty Indian men are an odd mix of the deeply conservative and the half-hearted liberal. The saas-bahu serials, with their painted women who deliver painfully long sermons on emancipation, continue to draw eyeballs. Metroplex films dealing with prickly issues such as wife swapping, living together and love in the times of intolerance, draw their own…

Feature: Quit That nagging!

Quit that nagging! It’s time people realised that nagging gets them nowhere. I have a friend, male, of course, who insists nagging is in women’s genes. It seems that haranguing comes naturally to women only because it is hardwired into their psyche. While I definitely do not agree with the friend’s theory, there is no…