Rennu Dhillon runs the award-winning Genius Kids, an intensive preschool program focusing on academics for kids under 5. Her new venture is Toto Station – an indoor entertainment play center and after school hub for children from ages 12 months to 10 years. Toto Station was created to encourage development in children in critical areas including personal confidence, creativity and imagination, all within a safe, clean and fun environment.

Here Rennu talks about the importance of play – More »

By Vidya Pradhan

Sonali Sahni Herrera had a problem common to Indians brought up in the United States. Husband Carlos was able to share his culture and Spanish language with their children with the help of many bilingual books and DVDs but she was at a loss when it came to Hindi, having grown up in the US since the age of 4. Not being very fluent in the Hindi script, she looked around for books, CDs, nursery rhymes that could bridge the gap between her knowledge and her culture but the offerings were limited and few met her quality standards. She turned to sister Sheetal Sahni Singhal, for help. After scouting around in India and here for material, the two decided that the only way to get quality books was to publish it themselves. They started MeeraMasi, a publishing company that focuses on Indian bilingual books for kids under the age of 6. More »

By Salil Chaturvedi

Monika, my richer half, had received a hefty bonus and after some debate on how to blow up the money, we decided to put it to pay back part of the housing loan and bring the EMIs down to a more comfortable level.

I called up the Customer Care Service of a bank (referred to in our household as Icky Icky bank, owing to the strong emotions it stirs in us). I needed to find out how paying back Rupees two lakh would affect the EMI plan. A simple thing, really. Here’s how it went: More »

By Rohini Mohan

Last weekend I had the pleasure of watching Manoj Bajpai in two movies; Pinjar and 1971. The two were quite different from each other, the characters being portrayed by Bajpai also diametrically opposite. If he is a good guy but somewhat lacking a backbone in one, he is a fearless leader of men, daunted by nothing, in the other. The only striking commonality is the flawlessness of his performance in both. I was watching Pinjar for the second time, so I had high expectations of 1971. I was not disappointed. A low key but powerfully told story of the Indian prisoners of war left behind in Pakistan post the 1971 India-supported struggle for Bangladeshi independence, it is well researched, tightly edited and gripping. More »

By Malathi Mohan

Sometime in the nineties, I visited an ordinary house in Secunderabad. I was received with a lovely smile and made to feel welcome by a little boy who said “Hello aunty, Namaste. Please sit down, Manjula madam will come soon.”
I sat at the entrance lounge and noticed that the reception desk was managed by a young girl who was also answering the phone in a businesslike manner but was very friendly and polite. Both the ‘lobby managers’ answered all my queries pleasantly and offered me a glass of water, properly served. There were a few other youngsters of different ages around who went about their jobs with a cheery greeting to me. Helping the cook with vegetables; the invariable cleaning of rice and dhal; sweeping and mopping; dusting and bed making were some of the duties they handled by rotation.

This was no ordinary house. It was Swayamkrushi, a community based project for the mentally challenged, started by Manjula Kalyan, a dynamic, motherly woman who had always been interested in helping the developmentally disabled. Her goal is to give them an equal seat at the table and a chance to face life’s challenges from a position of strength.

More »

By Rohini Mohan

When asked how they first met, my friends, a couple happily married for 15 years now, usually say “At a café”. They did meet at a café, that much is true, however, the meeting was set up by their parents. They just showed up, had a conversation and decided to go it together for the rest of their lives from thereon. Sounds scary on the face of it- how do you say “I do” to someone you met just once? Live with them, embrace their family, have kids with them, put up with their idiosyncrasies? With no understanding of their nature, their habits, their likes and dislikes, their sense of humor, their temper, their values. How do you know that the gamble will pay off? Anachronistically, my grandparents fell in love and got married, but each of their four children had ‘arranged marriages’. Amusing to many, terrifying to some, but a way of life to millions in India (and some other societies), arranged marriages have been around for generations and have stood the test of time.

More »

By Salil Chaturvedi

“You never take into account my disability,” I was complaining to a friend who had booked movie tickets for us. The cinema hall was not very accessible which was to be expected, but what had got my goat was that our seats were way up towards the back. I was annoyed that my friend had not thought of choosing seats that were easier to access. The anger didn’t last long, as it never does with good friends. He carried me up to the seats and we enjoyed the show.

On the way back, he apologised for not thinking about the seats and said something that’s still fresh in my mind after fifteen years, “You know, one doesn’t think of you as a disabled person even though you are on a wheelchair. I just feel you’re the same as me.” At that time I retorted, “Sure, the fault is all mine!”

More »

By Vidya Pradhan

First Joost, now Jaman. What’s with J names and internet entertainment anyway? What piqued my interest in Jaman was a news item that the company had signed a deal with NFDC for exclusive rights to their movies. So, about a month ago, I headed over to Jaman.com to check it out.

More »

By Madhav Mohan

It’s that time of the year again. I am en route to India on one of my regular trips and I make yet another weary pit stop at good old Frankfurt airport. As arriving flights spit out people crisscrossing the globe, I am reminded of the Spaceports in the Science Fiction novels of yesteryear. Frankfurt airport could well be an intergalactic transit planet (or was it a white dwarf?) with hyper ships bringing in creatures from worlds light years away, on their way to some other exotic universe. I’ve traveled this route some years now and have long since ceased to be amazed at the sight of the throngs of Indians lounging in the transit area or sleepwalking past the Duty Free Stores in Terminal 1. But I never fail to get a kick out of the fact that I will typically meet 2 or 3 people I know.

More »