humour - Comfortably Numb

Humour: Pillar to post

Sometimes, even awkward situations can take a funny turn, if turned the right way. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing them at the O’Hare airport in Chicago. They were her former husband, his new wife and their newly-born son. Not that she was in Chicago on pleasure; she was there to hand over her daughter…

Humour: Mona in Khajuraho

Note: Mona was a flaky character I created in the pre-digital age and she used to appear in a lot of my DH Middles. Discovery of India Sometimes you can travel to places and return, without really having seen anything. My friend Mona had just returned from a trip to the fabled temples of Khajuraho….

Humour: Skirting the issue

Chasing fashion trends can be a fruitless activity sometimes, finds Sheila Kumar. If it hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t have believed it possible. As every woman in the country knows, ankle-length, gathered skirts have become the flavour of the season. Well, I’m not one to succumb to the trends of the moment usually but now…

Humour: It`s all in the name

It`s all in the name What’s in a name, asks someone who just cannot remember monikers. In anyone else it would have been advance notification of the onset of senility. In my family, in the greater clan, it just reaffirms the passage of a tradition we aren’t too thrilled about. The thing is, we aren’t…

Humour: No more idlis!

No More Idlis Sometimes, when dreams come true, it can be more than you bargained for. When I am in the northern regions of the country, I dream of idlis. I dream of tucking into a heaped plate of…

Feature: The Woman On The Train

It was the long, slow train from Karnataka to Bihar. When we got on, dawn was still breaking, so the moment the attendant got our bedding, all of us made our beds and fell asleep. We were awoken by sibilant hissing. For a moment I wondered if a snake had crept into the A/C compartment. But no, it…

Humour: The Great Indian ET

The Indian ET The Indian traveler is no longer an arriviste… he has arrived! Sheila Kumar delves into the psyche of this peripatetic tribal. Who is he? He is The Great Indian Traveller, more popularly known by his other name, ET. ET stands for Enthusiastic Tourist. The ET should not be confused with the OIA,…

Humour: The Red Dragon

The Red Dragon It was getting to be dark, we were tired but there were no B & Bs to be had in all of Bath. So we drove on towards Bristol, till we came to this farm…

Humour: Confusion confounded

Confusion confounded SHEILA KUMAR lets you take a glimpse into her convoluted mental process. Like Martin Luther King, I, too, have a dream. My dream is not a lofty one; it is to walk into a soiree crowded with the finest minds around. And then, to partake of discourse on matters both profound and…

Humour: Chip off the old block

Chip off the old block She was all of four, pint-sized with a mind of her own, firm opinions and a definite world view. Academics were not to her liking; she saw no need, relevance or utility in study. And so, every day after her school session, she would return all perky, and announce, ‘’I…