Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar's Blog, page 21

No Abusing Arabs in Sight

Two days before our second son was born, April 12th, the New York Times published a piece about “Indentured Servitude in the Persian Gulf.” The piece was categorized as news analysis. For those of us living in the Arabian Gulf (since Persia, or Iran, is a known competitor with the GCC), Richard Morin’s piece might [...]

Wordless Wednesday: What’s in a Name?

We had our second son last week. You would think 9 months of pregnancy would prepare you to name someone. And yet, my husband and I could not agree. We are both Asian Americans, me from India, he from Laos by way of his parents. Some names were too mainstream and others too niche. I [...]

Hierarchy of Sorrow: Boston, Delhi, Damascus

  Last week from a sofa in a hospital room, after having delivered our second baby boy, I woke up at 1 a.m. Adrenaline or jetlag like false sense of sleep saturation had me reaching for my phone in the pitch black of the room. Across the coffee table, a good friend who had volunteered [...]

Wordless Wednesday: In Case of Emergency, Do NOT Go Outside

Shocking to most of the residents in Qatar yesterday was the sensation, yet again in less than a week, of earthquake tremors from a second Iranian quake, this one measuring nearly 8 point on the Richter scale. While most people missed the first one, the second was noted by people in almost all neighborhoods across [...]

Wordless Wednesday: Where You When the Building Started Moving?

Yesterday there were several earthquakes in Iran. Across the Arabian Gulf in Qatar at 3pm Doha time people felt the some of the aftershocks. Nothing like what they had in Iran, with over 80 deaths, 800 plus injuries, and many, many more after affects. But our buildings in the business district were evacuated all the [...]

Wordless Wednesday: My April Fool’s Joke Fooled

          I found this image on Google at about 4pm on Monday when I decided being 9 months pregnant meant I needed to take advantage of April Fool’s Day to get a joke over on my husband who is a notorious prankster. The only reason I-had-the-baby-come-to-the-hospital message worked is because it [...]

Wordless Wednesday: Nanny Diaries, Doha Edition with Imelda

My fourth installment in the series of interviews that let’s domestic workers in Qatar tell their stories. I imagined the emotions, aspirations, and motivations of these women in my novel The Dohmestics. But in this case, real life beats fiction. The more I hear about these women and their willingness to sacrifice years of their [...]

Everything Comes Back to Nationality

Recently my husband became a certified diver. This meant Friday morning trips with his friends to the waters off the north coast of Qatar. This past weekend he wanted me and our two year old to come along and enjoy the beach while the gang was under the water. I managed to convince a friend [...]

Time: Day 10, #blogflash2013

  The most frequent question people ask me is “How do you do it all?” They look at me sideways, from the corner of their eyes shooting me death rays while their lips smile and say “Super woman!”.   The fact is, they are asking the wrong question. It’s not how I write my novels, [...]

Spring: Day 9 #blogflash2013

Every October the creeping fingers of melancholy reached for my optimism. The kind of deep, bone aching blues that weigh on your legs when you try to swing them out of the bed in the morning, and pull you back under the covers saying “Don’t go out there.” Thank goodness for the promise of spring. [...]