http://www.blackchai.com Life defunked over a cup of tea Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:38:57 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I wrote this post a while ago before my impending trip to Canada. I often rant about the inept service industry back home only to be silently reminded that the customer is not treated any different here either. Below is my phone conversation and my follow-up rant. Let's hope I ... http://www.blackchai.com/2009/03/30/refresh-every-10-minutes-service-in-a-first-world-country/ Up until first grade I spoke and wrote in Punjabi when my parents decided to move back home and put me in an "English speaking" school. Teachers threatened to deny admission if I didn't learn to speak in English in the first year of being there. Ever since then, ... http://www.blackchai.com/2008/07/10/speaking-thinking-in-another-language/ I just got back from India (well it has been almost 2 months but I need an excuse to post my first post of 2008) and while all the talk about burgeoning population, rising middle class and even bigger midriffs are certainly true, I was sadly reminded that India is ... http://www.blackchai.com/2008/03/08/india-2008/ On my way to India I was stranded for over 12 hours on the runway due to bad weather. So what was to be a 4 hour flight turned out to be a 12 hour nightmare with a detour to another airport and 200 passengers just ... http://www.blackchai.com/2007/12/26/radio-lab-getting-you-through-being-stranded-for-12-hours/ Every once in a while I am silently reminded of this thing called life. While I keep my instrospections away from public domain, this time I feel compelled to write, and forget that my life is compartmentalized into personal, public and private. A father, a sister, a brother, a daughter - ... http://www.blackchai.com/2007/09/20/meaning-to-life/