TJ on February 28th, 2013

Last weekend, my grandson DJ, came over to spend the afternoon. After a while he asked if I had any funny DVD of TV programs to watch. I told him I had the whole series of “All in the Family” on DVD but I did not think he would find it interesting since although it […]

Continue reading about Political correctness run amok?

TJ on February 24th, 2013

The title of this posting was the headline of an article in an Indian publication. Indians have a reputation for being frugal or thrifty …. though some would describe them as being cheap. Perhaps some of the explanation is because of the absence of any social safety net in India which causes people to feel […]

Continue reading about “Frugality is in the Indian DNA”

TJ on January 29th, 2013

My family knows that I have a proclivity for pranks. In fact, there is a sense of puzzlement among some within the family as to why a man in his mid-sixties is amused by such frivolity. I don’t have an explanation for this. I have loved shows like “Candid Camera” and more modern equivalents that […]

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TJ on April 22nd, 2012

I don’t know if Malayalees are unique in their choice of names for adults and children. When I lived in Kenya in the fifties and early sixties, there were relatively few families from Kerala and everyone knew each other within the community. But even within the relatively small community, there were some interesting variations on […]

Continue reading about What’s in a name ……..well, a Mallu name?

TJ on March 6th, 2012

I was shocked to hear about the death of Steve Bridges whose uncanny impressions of George W Bush were hilarious and always done without any malice. He was only 49 years old. As I watched one of his more memorable imitations of Bush at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner – an annual fixture of […]

Continue reading about Steve Bridges: RIP

Spelling bees are fascinating and puzzling. The former because it is a pleasure to see young children being successfully tutored to a point that they are able to spell the most esoteric words which most people have never heard before and certainly few would use in either oral or written communication. It is the limited […]

Continue reading about Funny – and not so funny moments – during spelling bees

TJ on November 10th, 2011

I am a political junkie and have been one since I was a teenager in Kenya during the height of the independence movement in that country. To give you a sense of how much of a political junkie I was even then, I attended a political gathering with my parents being addressed by Tom Mboya […]

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TJ on August 1st, 2010

It has been a while since I updated this blog – attributable to laziness more than anything else after we returned from Cochin back to the US. There have been events which I wanted to write about but for some reason never got around to doing so. So it may seem a little odd that […]

Continue reading about My Colonoscopy: Dave Barry Redux

TJ on April 2nd, 2010

Living in India for any length of time has its challenges. I came to the realization several years ago that if one does not go with the flow, it can be frustrating to a point that one becomes exasperated. At a basic level one must accept that one is not living in the West where […]

Continue reading about The Queen’s English? Bah Humbug!

I love a good massage. It is in some ways the ultimate pampering experience. The first time I had one was in California in the early nineties. I was so hooked on it that I would have one with some regularity even though it was expensive. Spending $80 for a forty minute massage every couple […]

Continue reading about Ayurvedic massages and my George Costanza moment

TJ on October 31st, 2009

Barack Obama has probably appointed more Indian-Americans to positions in his administration than any former president. They range from Kal Penn whose role is as a liason to the Asian-American community to Vivek Kundra who is Federal Chief Information Officer. But there are several others and they are listed in this article in the Hindustan […]

Continue reading about Barack Obama & Vinay Thummalapally

TJ on October 19th, 2009

One of the most effective ways to deal with an adversary or to make a point, is with a quick-witted response or come-back. Some people are exceptionally talented when it comes to such rejoinders or retorts. The best of these involve brevity and pointedness and it is this combination that makes for their effectiveness. Here […]

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TJ on October 16th, 2009

I was talking to a couple of people this week and the subject came up about aging and how the topics of our conversation changes as we get older. We seem to emphasize certain areas that were never a subject for discussion in years gone by. One conversation was with my sister, Fifi, who lives […]

Continue reading about Myriad thoughts on health and aging

TJ on October 9th, 2009

Anyone who has been unhappy in a job and then resigned has probably wondered just how candid one should be in that final parting communication. Usually one decides to hold back on being too honest about the frustrations encountered while working at a company if for no other reason than not burning one’s bridges. After […]

Continue reading about How not to resign from a job in the internet age

There is a controversy in the US about where Barack Obama was born ie was he born in the US or in Kenya. If it were the latter, under the constitution, Obama would be precluded from the presidency. Obama has provided a birth certificate establishing his birth place as being Hawaii but it has not […]

Continue reading about “Birthers”, racism and the “dumbing down” of America

TJ on September 16th, 2009

I received several emails about my last post on China so I thought I’d post again about our trip on a more light-hearted note. The two most challenging aspects of our stay in China were language issues and food. Communication in English is severely limited though we did find that the younger generation were a […]

Continue reading about Calling a spade a spade

It has been a while since I updated this blog – attributable to laziness and procrastination. The catalyst for starting again was a thought-provoking email I received from my older brother, George, who is 70 years and was recently diagnosed with “vocal nodules” – also called “singer’s nodules” or “screamer’s nodules”. George is not much […]

Continue reading about “Singer’s Nodules”, Deafness, Silence & Bliss

TJ on March 18th, 2009

We will be spending the next four weeks, commencing the 22nd, visiting Singapore/Hong Kong/Macau/China and I have been working on an itinerary for mainland China by researching travel sites. I came across an informative – albeit, lengthy – trip report by an Australian woman who visited China with her husband relatively recently. The excerpt below […]

Continue reading about China, here I come!