People ask how I do it—children, freelance work, dance, volunteering, home and meals, writing, but the fact of the matter is, the secret is, very often I just don’t. And when I don’t, it’s the writing that is the first to go. (Well, except for when Next Doors is providing the meal, in which case [...]
Archive for the ‘Being the people’ Category
Where is my magic writing cloud at the top of the tree?
Posted in Being the people, Dance/Arts, Writing, tagged artists colony, Enid Blyton, MacDowell Colony, Magic Faraway Tree, research, Sheila Dhar, writing colony, writing with children on March 28, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Someone hand me a battering ram
Posted in Being the people, Writing, tagged being a writer, goals, publishing, starting a novel, writing on January 8, 2012 | 7 Comments »
I find myself confronted with an entirely new situation. I have a story in mind, and some partially-formed characters who are gradually emerging out of the haze, like a colorful and over-loaded truck whose contours and contents take shape in the smog as one approaches them headlong on a January morning in Delhi. (Horn OK [...]
On building one’s village
Posted in Being the people, Food, Observations, Parenting, tagged childcare, communal living, community, help, networks, shared chores, sharing, village on December 3, 2011 | 4 Comments »
In follow-up to my last post, I’d like to introduce you to the concept of our “commune.” I put this in quotes, because it is not REALLY the nature of the arrangement I’m about to describe, but the term that our friends use in jest, and also I suspect, for some, in mild jealousy. You [...]
Creative life, you say?
Posted in Being the people, Dance/Arts, Writing, tagged creative life, dance, kathak, time to write, Writer Unboxed, writing, writing life on November 15, 2011 | 1 Comment »
A couple of months ago, a friend—an artistic filmmaker—asked me: how do you sustain a creative life or even a creative project in the midst of children, work, home, health and volunteering? She asked this not as a rhetorical question, but as someone who seemed truly to expect that I would have an answer for [...]
Divergent thinking
Posted in Being the people, Dance/Arts, Parenting, Writing, tagged arts, creativity, divergent thinking, education, Ken Robinson on November 6, 2010 | 3 Comments »
A friend of mine posted on her Facebook page a link to a fascinating talk by Sir Ken Robinson about education and creativity. Fascinating, but, especially for a parent, worrisome, for it makes me feel that, with my daughters in regular, public schools, there is little hope of them retaining the creativity with which they [...]
Disappointment
Posted in Being the people, Dance/Arts, Parenting, Writing, tagged auditions, disappointment, kathak, revisions on October 26, 2010 | 1 Comment »
K doesn’t like tags in clothing. (Who does?) They scratch her, and she always wants them taken out. (Why haven’t more clothing makers adopted the tagless system of printing the relevant information on the inside of the neckline?) A few days ago, we went clothing shopping, and she picked out a few items, including a [...]
Can one be the people at age five?
Posted in Being the people, Parenting on September 16, 2009 | 1 Comment »
There’s no one quite like a five year old to showcase the potential of escalation. Take the following case: Five year old K has started kindergarten. She likes her class; the head teacher is a “boy teacher” who is “cool and rides a motorcycle” and K has already made friends. With three years of preschool [...]
The perils of being the people
Posted in Being the people on August 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve come to the conclusion that if I have not settled down to the day’s major activity by 9:30 am, I’m doomed. The day is destined to fritter away and disappear through my fingers. Nine thirty may seem to many like still early in the day, but no, really, it isn’t. You see, it’s half [...]
Reflections on the death of a guru
Posted in Being the people, Dance/Arts on July 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday was Guru Purnima. Traditionally, it is a day for devotees to honor their guru. Today, for anyone studying an art form, it translates into a day for honoring one’s teachers. I am grateful for my own kathak dance teacher, Gretchen Hayden, who would balk at the term “guru” applied to her (and who has [...]
