My Experiments with Time

"What exactly does a curator do?" My 11-year old kid asked me.  "He/ she plans an exhibition, decides the theme and what to exhibit, where to place things and how to go about conducting the exhibition, whom to invite etc." I replied. And then I went into the usual self-doubt mode. Whenever my kid asks me a question, I wonder if I know enough to do justice to the answer. What if I end up missing the important facts, and what if she makes an important life decision based on this piece of info! Ask me about the parenting challenges of a tween's mother.    So we quickly cross-checked with Google and learnt that a curator finds, buys and manages valuable or rare items, learns about its history, chooses the items and decides how to display them. Now, we found the perfect answer, but I'm left with a larger question-  "Aren't we the curator of our own lives?" Our life is definitely the most valuable and rarest thing on earth, and we should be the one d...

What is the right thing to say to someone who has lost a loved one? This is a very difficult question to answer. A question that emerges everytime I speak to a bereaved family member. In the past I have either chosen words like "Stay Strong", or silence or gestures like hug, holding one's hand tight or patting one's back depending on my intimacy with the concerned person. This time I was on the receiving end, observing and listening to different people who were offering their condolences in varied ways. I am not any wiser on what is the right or wrong way to convey condolences; but I now have a sense of what can sound comforting to someone who lost a loved one. In every culture there is a certain mourning period characterized by rituals and practices meant to express and overcome one's grief and to provide peace. There could be no normal way to grieve, it all depends on each person and on how they cope and overcome grief or choose to live with the grief. In my opi...