The building blocks I played with were miraculously turned into large scale cement constructions like I had seen in 'Life" magazine, which was our only contact with the west apart from an occasional "Aerogramme" a folded handwritten letter from my grandparents in Germany.

Our tryst with technology emphasized the cultural difference; my mom had taken a trip with me down to Marseilles to buy home appliances; she could bake German black bread in our oven in the kitchen, which became a part of my Tiffin at St.Xavier's, school.

With great innocence I entered a transition period: moving to Germany, going to school and discovering fashion. I entered Fashion as a monk would a monastery. With fascination I watched how attire reflected attitude, culture community and technological evolution. Discovering Rudi Gernreichs printed paper 'throwaway dresses' in the sixties hand in hand with the first plastic molded pieces of furniture, observing the fight between Courreges and Mary Quant on who 'invented' the 'mini skirt'; watching this fall-out turn into a 'maxi' and then a 'midi' -confrontational cohabitation of extremes in a single palette.

So after a 'transition period' of thirty years I came 'back' to India almost like a tourist who knew a smattering of Hindi, I was fluent in half a dozen more languages including Japanese. But Hindi still remained a vital part of my linguistics. It must have been due to listening to all those 78rpm's of 'Sangam' that had kept it alive.

It's said the more music you listen to, the more you connect with languages, to one's understanding of people, their values and functioning in society. This also reflected in understanding of the dreams and aspirations and a deeper connect how a society wanted to'dress up' under those circumstances.