The Incredible Shrinking Breakfast...

...or another story about the recession. We were in Washington D.C. this past weekend and stayed at the Doubletree Guest Suites near the Mall. Pleasant place, nothing fancy but great when you're traveling with kids. We arrived on Friday and the next morning, as is the norm, went downstairs in search of the continental breakfast that hotels of this genre usually provide. It was a small spread of muffins, danishes, some cereal, tea and coffee. Not disappointed, we helped ourselves before heading out on the museum rounds. The meal just seemed to be a smaller version of the continental breakfast we have had before on numerous other road trips - perhaps an urban-sized version? But the hotel foyer was small here and we had to dance around other breakfasting guests as we filled our cups and plates. One of the other guests sighed and told me that he stayed at the hotel very often. Upto last year, they had had a much bigger spread laid out in a bigger room, with more items such as boiled eggs and toast. "And there was breakfast everyday," he sighed. "Now it's just this and it's only on weekend mornings."

Need for More "Pub Bharo" Campaigns

What is it with these damn fool people? Just weeks after women in Mangalore were assaulted for not wearing Indian clothes, a woman in Delhi is turned away from a disco for wearing Indian clothes, and not western clothes. Honestly, what is going on? Women in India need to do another "pub bharo" campaign to protest against this dishonoring of the sari, the dress that women of our grandmothers' generation wore when they fought for freedom, the dress in which Indira Gandhi ruled for 17 years a huge country of every religion imaginable, the dress in which police officers and constables maintain law and order, the dress in which farming women plant their crops. I have seen my mother and her friends dance the foxtrot in their elegant chiffon and silk saris. Thousands of Indian women dance in saris at weddings. Now, suddenly, it's not good enough for a tuppeny-ha'penny discotheque? Bah!

The Geography of Recession

The one-mile stretch between Bed, Bath and Beyond on the Post Road in Norwalk, and Route 33 had 11 signs advertising commercial rental space availability. And that was just on the driver's side of the road.

Government Slogans I like - "Pub Bharo"

Recently, young women in Mangalore and decent people everywhere were aghast at an incident of moral policing, Taliban style, in Mangalore, Karnataka. Young women enjoying an afternoon with friends were roughed up and assaulted by self-appointed goons claiming to protect public morality. The response has been uneven on the part of the state government, but I like the call to action launched by the Union Minister of State for Women and Child Development, Renuka Chowdhury. This is in no way a call for a slide into mass alcoholism, rather an assertion that everyone - man and woman - has a right to socialize fearlessly. And this free socializing of men and women is really what angers the goons of the Sri Ram Sena, not the alcohol. Down with the moral police!