Getting recognized and applauded for your work is usually a great encourager to do even better, but sometimes it can have the opposite effect. Like right now, I’m wrestling with a comment that my host in Bologne, Silvia Raddicioni made to me. We were having pasta for lunch at that little restaurant called Eataly, with […]

I started watching “Lost in Translation” with Bill Murray only because it had oscar buzz a few years ago. I think I remember hearing someone say that he’d really pushed the envelope, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah is right. I mean this is what’s getting up for oscars? Am I disconnected or something? I […]

Why do people drink? I go to all kinds of social functions and I swear that no one who drinks has a better time than me, and yet I don’t touch the stuff. I know I can’t tell for sure because I’m not them, but it sure seems that way. Yesterday it was a business […]

A while back I wrote a post about the scene in Sixth Sense where Haley Joel Osment was such a good actor because he could allow his nose to run without wiping it. Well, apparently that didn’t happen in the scene. I watched and watched and finally got to that scene and looked for the […]

There was a famous commercial of a woman all made up, dancing to this music and a woman’s voice singing: I can bring home the bacon Fry it up in a pan And never ever let you forget you’re a ma-a-a-n… And at first glance it seems very empowering, to see this woman who can […]

Not sure why for the last couple of nights I haven’t been able to sleep well. That usually happens when I’ve got to get up early in the morning. Not the case now! I can get up when I want and yet still I find my eyes opening around 7 am. after a rough and […]

This is a line in one of my favourite chapters of The Quran, surah Inshirah. SURAH 94: AL SHARH or AL INSHIRAH (The Expansion of the Breast).  In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful  1 Have we not expanded your breast? 2 And removed from you your burden 3 Which galled your back? […]

The director of a day camp said this to me as I was leaving. It’s one of the best compliments to storytelling skill there is. It’s absolutely thrilling ot hear them moan, “Oh my butt fell asleep” or “My legs hurt” (from sitting still too long). It means they were so captivated they forgot to […]

I keep thinking back to a conversation I had with my friend Uma Krishnaswami, while we were at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content. It was such an amazing experience. I guess coming from a place where I’m writing as a minority to a place where Asian children’s content is the majority, seeing how seriously […]

My father always asked me when I was going to grow up and write an ‘adult’ book. Well apparently I’ve done it. At least that’s what one of my editors said when she rejected that novel I’ve been fretting about and working on since March 2009. I started it when I got back from the […]