Neither comprehension nor learning can take place in an atmosphere of anxiety.

I tell myself that God gave my children many gifts - spirit, beauty, intelligence, the capacity to make friends and to inspire respect. There was only one gift he held back - length of life.

As motherhood is the greatest and most natural God-given gift for women for posterity, it would seem that the birth and rearing of children, in the way which to us seems most ideal, would be the most satisfying and the most rewarding career for a woman.

What greater aspiration and challenge are there for a mother than the hope of raising a great son or daughter?

I eat very well. I cook for my family every night. We eat a variety of things, including chicken, fish, pork, lentils, all veggies, pastas, and salads. You name it, we eat it - except salmon, which I find disgusting. Sorry, salmon.

After my parents' divorce in the early seventies, I grew up with my mother, who wasn't super educated herself. But there were a lot of kids from the subcontinent in the neighbourhood, many of whom were academic achievers. So my sister and I grew up around them, and both of us did well in school.

The fact that most kids aren't eating at home with their families any more really means they are eating elsewhere. They are eating out there in fast food nation.

We are from the very middle class family. We have not come from the English medium school. We came from our regional languages school.