SINTERKLAAS, not Santa Claus
‘It’s Sinterklaas not Santa Claus! Now repeat after me – Sin (as in sin, yes) ter (rhymes with err) klaas – the aa is a just like when you say ‘aam’ in Hindi. Now try to remember he’s not the same as Santa Claus, although I agree he looks like him’. That’s me speaking to…
What you do when you ‘exoticise’ India?’
The theatre is full. Not an empty chair. It’s not the first time in the Netherlands that I have sat at the edge of my seat drinking in the beauty of images made and woven together through a film by ‘Western eyes’ looking at the land of my birth. Then slowly I have watched with…
Louise – now and then
One day about four years later, I got a call on my mobile phone while I was giving a presentation at work. Something made me answer it anyway. It was someone I knew from the ROC – the Dutch school I had studied in after I had stopped the evening classes in the buurthuis. He…
A Barking Place
If dogs could think like some of us do, they’d figure out that the posts in the grass on either side of me are there to let them know where dog territory ends. The small painted posts are the markers that form the boundary to separate two areas; behind me is the place where people…
‘Kapper Who?’ goes live
To all who voted for me, a big thanks. Along with bloggers of ‘Amsterdam mamma’ and ‘MissNeriss’, I was invited to read a blogspot at the ‘I am not a tourist fair’ at the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam. I chose ‘Kapper Who?’ The winner was Neriss of the blog MissNeriss with the loudest cheers…