SIDEBURNS

In the early seventies it was cool to have sideburns. Many movie stars, sports stars and musicians had them. I wanted to have those groovy sideburns so badly, I would look into the mirror everyday hoping to see some hair growth on the sides of my face, only to be disappointed. Unfortunately  I was just into my teens and the hair on the sides was very sparse. It would take some more years for me to have the thick sideburns I was looking forward to. By the time I could really have those cool sideburns, it was not so cool anymore.

DR. ANISH MADHAVAN'S

Dr. Anish Madhavan's, Asramam, Kollam

MAN BEHIND

I was on a flight. A lady was sitting next to me. We were being served our food. I finished mine fast. I noticed she ate slowly and fell asleep before finishing hers. She must have been tired. A man behind us put his hand between our seats and reached for a fruit juice on her tray. He took it. I did not know what to do. Do I wake her up and tell her or do I confront the man. I decided to ignore it. After some time she woke up. I think she noticed that her fruit juice was missing but she did not say anything. Maybe the man behind was her friend and it was just a prank.

Dr. NAIR'S HOSPITAL

Dr.Nair's Hospital, Asramam, Kollam 

ON LEAVE

I was sitting in staff room when my colleague, a Sri Lankan national, walked in. I noticed she was dressed casually. She sat nearby and began looking into some exercise books. She was correcting some students work. A few minutes later the Supervisor approached her and told her to go to class. He thought she had forgotten that she had a class at that time. She looked at him and said ‘I am on leave today’. The Supervisor was surprised and left,probably to check if she was really on leave. I asked her what she was doing in the staff room, if she was on leave. She said she had come to correct some work she had given to the students and that she would be going home after that to take care of some other things. It was the first time I saw someone coming to the work place while on leave and choosing to do some work and at the same time refusing to do some other work.

HOTEL PRATHEEKSHA

Hotel Pratheeksha, Asramam, Kollam

CHEESE AND CRACKERS

I have heard people say ‘It goes like cheese and crackers’ but I never thought about it. I usually had cheese with bread, rarely with crackers. I never compared it. Later on when I started comparing I realized there is a lot of difference. Cheese tastes so much better with crackers than with bread. Crackers are crispy and that could be the reason it tastes better with cheese. Now I usually have cheese with crackers, rarely with bread.