Random House Publications

It's a normal school day and I wake up at 7 am to the sound of my mother coaxing my brother and me to get up.  She has better luck with me as my brother refuses to stir.  I come down to the sound of Bombay jayashree singing 'kanden seethaiyai'.  It's a warm day as usual and my parents are bustling about so as to allow my brother and me the luxury of a few more minutes of sleep.  A tumbler filled with steaming hot Boost awaits me as I reluctantly make my way to the wash basin and the mass of tooth brushes. There are always more tooth brushes than there are people in my house. I methodically scan the bathroom entrance to see if there are any cockroaches visible to the naked eye.  I'm relieved to find none. I make my way to the kitchen and pick up my tumbler. I carry it to the living room, sit myself down on the sofa and try to down the dreadful thing in one gulp.  Somehow I spill it entirely on top of the sofa. The milk starts settling into the cushion. I fr...

                           A typical Saturday for me starts a little after  10 AM , when the slumbersome celebration begins,  marking the arrival of the weekend.  I would quite easily convince myself that this break was well deserved and hard earned. (Despite circumstantial evidence suggesting the contrary.) This Saturday though, I volunteered to wake up early and try to be of some use to people doing important work in our country. The Fellows of Teach for India(TFI) Chennai,  were hosting a  Cultural /Sports day for the Primary School kids they taught and had invited volunteers to come and help manage the 800 kids  they were expecting from schools all over the city .  Chennai Students Kondattam or CSK was what they were calling the event and that's where I was headed.                              It wasn't...