"I AM not satisfied with my lifestyle, and my living," groans Rahul, who is pursuing his post graduation in psychology. "Why?" "Well, I am already 23 and I don’t have a luxury car, a hi-fi music system and, worse, I don’t even possess the latest sunglasses!" A reality check: there are many Rahuls around us who feel miserable as all that is on the store shelf is not on their selves! They are not ‘with it’.

Accursed acronyms
R.K. Murthi
ACRONYMS have never been my favourite. I suspect this dislike goes back to the time when I was at school. About a kilometre away from our sprawling house lay the railway station. Here, I would go every Sunday to watch the train whistle its way into the platform. The bogies would crawl in like a wriggling caterpillar before grinding to a stop.

ECO-WATCH
An avian gathering near a Chandigarh stream
Baljit Singh
ON a misty, cold January morning in the Chandigarh Rose Garden, there was no mistaking the rasping, clipped bird call "kree" and it was repeated twice more at brief intervals. I froze in the hope that the bird might show up. Instead, the bird embarked upon its song again. I was reasonably sure by then of the presence of the Himalayan whistling thrush (lately classified as blue whistling thrush).

ZEROING IN ON...
The little sister in a big act
Aditi Tandon
BEING Padmini Kolhapure’s sister was one factor that brought Tejaswini to Bollywood. Surprised that she has actually taken after her actress sister, Tejaswini admits that she was never really inclined to follow Padmini.