| Kishore Singh: Art's no mirage here | 21-NOV-09 |
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| My son has a list of people he wants me to meet in Dubai, friends of his, or family of friends, or friends of friends — clearly, his social skills are better honed than mine. I don’t know anyone in Dubai I can go cold-calling on, besides it’s not Dubai I’m going to over the weekend, I remind him, it’s Abu Dhabi. “Oh, that’s so boring,” he says, “why don’t you cancel your trip and I’ll take you to the movies instead?” It’s not an option, I tell him. “Where’s Abu Dhabi?” my daughter asks, showing an ignorance of geography that has always shocked my wife. Now my wife explains to her, “It’s where the money is. |
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| Daddy's day out | 14-NOV-09 |
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| Two winters ago, the shriek of drills cutting through rock turned many of our neighbours into raving insomniacs. Coffee in hand, feet padded up in woollen socks, they contemplated a future that unfolded yesterday as the Metro came whooshing up to the gate, to collect or deposit passengers with a toot of its whistle which, if it continues, will ensure that the sleep of the just is denied to them for all time to come. |
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| Kishore Singh: Thank god for me | 07-NOV-09 |
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| This is what my daughter said she’d do for her birthday: Invite the guests. This is what my son said he’d do for his sister’s birthday: Bring friends. This is what my wife said she’d do for our daughter’s birthday: Nothing. This is what I had to do for my daughter’s birthday: Organise the DJ, speak to a bartender, think up a menu and then order the food. |
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| Kishore Singh: SMS me a persona please | 31-OCT-09 |
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| Ours is a close-knit family, even though my daughter now more often than not shuts her bedroom door in our face, even though my wife’s peripatetic ways mean I don’t know whether we’ll have the next meal, or even the next cup of tea, together, and my son, when he’s in Delhi, seems to treat his own home like a B&B. They may have grown up and a bit away, so you’d think they’d know their minds by now, but it seems when they’re up against life-affirming decisions, or at least the next exam, there’s always home and mom-dad to crawl back to. |
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| Kishore Singh: Tipsy-turvey | 24-OCT-09 |
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| There was a time when the raddiwallah was particularly friendly with us for the weekly collection of empties that we earned him. For some reason, my wife’s housekeeping consisted of placing the empty bottles outside the front door and in full view of our neighbours, leading to not a little speculation (and despair) about the binges in our home. |
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| Kishore Singh: A bad case of Delhi belly | 17-OCT-09 |
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| When we were planning our Diwali cards party for three score or so people, give or take a couple more or less, my son suggested we build in some entertainment. “I hear belly-dancers are hot this year,” he said, reading from the newspaper supplements. “I’m not dancing for your guests,” my daughter protested immediately, maybe because she and her sorority group had been taking expensive lessons in belly-dancing “for the sake of exercise”. In the event, neither our daughter nor professional dancers made the cut: If there was any more space, my wife would have picked card players over dancers any day, there was simply no contest. |
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| Kishore Singh Can we outlaw in-laws? | 10-OCT-09 |
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| Whenever my wife goes to Jaipur, which is often, I know evil lurks afoot. So when she hotfooted it to the Pink City bang in the middle of the week, ignoring an Important Dinner where Celebrities would be present, I could feel the cold hand of dread reach out and squeeze my heart, leaving me not a little breathless, and mindful of the future. |
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| Kishore Singh: Experiments with Bapu | 03-OCT-09 |
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| Last week, I had every reason to believe that Gandhi would have been proud of my daughter. Out of the blue, one day, she began to practice the kind of austerities that Bapu embodied in his lifestyle. “Be the change you want to see,” she echoed him, and though she didn’t go so far as to start spinning khadi, or even eschew violence if shouting at the presswali who had ironed the pleats on a dress all wrong was any indication, she did turn frugal in her diet. |
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| Kishore Singh: Inviting trouble | 26-SEP-09 |
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| We’ve been wanting to have a party, a formal affair — not the kind where friends come and dump on you with their problems and drink up all your whisky and puke over the carpet — for some time now, but with little luck. |
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| Kishore Singh: Another 'princess' remembers | 19-SEP-09 |
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| The gravelly tone was familiar, risen one might think from the grave, should one believe in all that supernatural hokum-pokum, that smoky, seductive voice that claimed it came from the same DNA pool as an erstwhile maharani just dead, her ashes still warm before the break out of an inheritance battle over her sprawling estates, her fabulous jewels and Lalique and Rosenthal baubles. “I am her daughter,” said this voice — surely a prankster? — “I found out last year. |
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| Kishore Singh: What's the matter, dawling? | 12-SEP-09 |
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| Dawling!” the large woman said into the most smothering embrace of my entire life, “Where have you been?” Before I could extract myself and come up with a suitable reply — being not quite sure who she was to begin with — she had already sailed adrift to the gentleman standing next to me, quietly quaffing his drink. |
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| Kishore Singh: Where the PM runs into the AM | 05-SEP-09 |
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| If the prime minister has been having difficulty sleeping at night, he might just want to see if increased noise decibels have anything to do with it. For while he has been busy sorting through crises that are social, political or economic in nature, there’s been increased traffic in his neighbourhood including not a few of the galaxy of Bollywood’s movie stars as well as the capital’s rich and wannabe famous, thanks to a nightclub that has opened a short trot away from his bedroom. |
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| Kishore Singh: To the bana born | 29-AUG-09 |
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| Last week, a friend of my son in the market for a job caught the Volvo to Jaipur not to appear for an interview but to buy from a cousin twice-removed, a weather-beaten and climatically challenged vehicle, an open jeep, the likes of which have no possible use in a city like Delhi, but which are plentifully seen in Rajasthan. These, what we in the family refer to as bana jeeps, are a 21st century anomaly, largely constituted of junked army jeeps that have had a makeover by specialists who know the tastes of the public of this formerly royal state. |
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| Kishore Singh: Mask and the man | 22-AUG-09 |
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| My son has been searching for face masks in the city for some time now, but with little luck. It seems the panicking crowds in Delhi have ended up hoarding them, which is hardly unusual, though as yet there is little evidence of their wearing them in public places, so it’s pointless as well — but then that’s the way the city is: Someone we know buys a new car to tank up every time there is a rumour of an increase in petrol prices, as a result of which he now has more cars than he can boast of common sense. |
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| Kishore Singh: The time of our lives | 15-AUG-09 |
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| With the Janamashtami-Independence Day extended weekend offering the option of fleeing from the city, we scheduled an upcoming clan celebration cleverly to coincide with it, even if it meant long-distance co-ordination. Invitations were extended (and accepted — doesn’t anyone stay home any more?), caterers and cooks booked, accommodation arranged: In short, everything taken care of, short of our getting there, that is. |
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Content Guide
