Quick close your eyes my Mother admonished the eleven year old me, proceeding to cover my eyes with her fingers, as I valiantly peered through the fri...

I caught myself checking the time on my BlackBerry for the first fifth time in an hour. Yes he should have landed, I thought. Maybe not, yet. Should I wait another ten minutes and call, perhaps he is still stuck in the long queues at immigration... Uh! Give it another few minutes then I'll call... Why has he not called yet? Damn! I reached for the phone; then stopped myself again.

Even after all these years my NRI (or OCI as they call it now) status seems to elicit the wierdest of reactions. Some of my mother's friends insist on speaking to me in English, while I try to respond back in my rather Bombay-ite version of Tamil.