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Everything starts somewhere. I grew up in the oral storytelling tradition and my paternal grandfather told me many stories about his Kuchi Kathiawar village in Gujarat, India when I was growing up in East Africa. My paternal grandfather also told me stories of his travels as a young man to Rangoon, Burma. Note: In the next chronicle in this series, Toasting my Grandmother, …

The following is a toast – a tribute – a salute – a homage – to honor my Indian (maternal) grandmother, Shirin Hassanali Gwaderi, a pioneering Nairobi schoolteacher and school principal. – Karim Forward by Paola Gianturco It is possible that the stereotypical “grandmother” never existed? For many people in the Global North, the word calls up the image of a …

Creativity make us feel alive and the more creativity we practice the more alive we feel. — Jeremy Geidt, Emeritus Chairman of the Bored, The British Toast Rack Society Forwarding Note by Professor Robert Calder, Member of the Bored Dear Karim: The beauty of an almost perfect morning at the lake was muted by your news about the death of …

Toast racks — the perfect symbol of the waning days of the British Empire? We had them. I suppose we had adopted a certain amount of British culture. I was probably the most eager Anglophile in the family, being utterly addicted to Beezer, Topper, Cor!, Whizzer & Chips, Beano, Dandy, and those smaller World War II comics (and very reluctantly …