Artist Quentin Blake (who himself is an alumnus of Cambridge University) created a series of cartoons to commemorate the 800th year of Cambridge University. This one is my favourite. It conveys so many things, really ...... :)  Its just how you look at it !!

10 REASONS WHY I FELL IN LOVE WITH KERALA AND WOULD LOVE TO GO BACK AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN………

As a kid I imagined Kerala to be a snake shaped ,really green state and as far as the traveller in me can remember, I have always wanted to go there. I read “The God of Small Things” earlier this year  and the desire to go just intensified and I decided I just have to go to Kerala this summer( monsoon,actually )

And so I went and was completely bowled over ……….. Here are 10 reasons why I loved Kerala……. Excerpts from my diary that I wrote during my trip…….

1)    The Countryside is so green and absolutely gorgeous. Even the Avomine -headed –Me refused to doze off during the drives because I simply couldn’t keep my eyes off!!! The vegetation is unique. I haven’t seen Coconut and Jackfruit trees at altitudes of 3000 feet above the sea level ever!!!

2)    The Terracotta tiled sloping roofs of houses – All houses have   roofs like these and they look so charming in that landscape . It is basically a necessity in those climes because of the rain. Imagine a green landscape dotted with blue, yellow houses with brown tiled sloping roofs…….

3)    The palaces in Kochi- The Cochin Palace and the Dutch Palace are beautiful . The modest exteriors belie the gorgeous interiors with intricate carvings on rosewood panels and a colourful mosaic flooring with geometrical patterns. The rulers were all called either Raja Verma or Rama Verma or Kerala Verma and no, they didn’t have initials next to their names indicating the order !!!!

4)    The Men’s clothes- I felt like going up to them and giving them a high-five for sticking to their traditional mundu and veshti.It is the equivalent of a shirt and a white or coloured lungi/wrap-around. One could see people from all walks of life wearing that and it just reflects their easy and laidback attitude towards life . Everywhere else in India, Men have happily abandoned their traditional garments for the more (apparently) comfortable western  wear, but this was one place where I saw Everyone wear it Everywhere. Commonsense tells me it’ll be more comfortable than a trouser!!!

5)    The Sarees, the Saree shops and the hoardings for the same would put any saree shop in the metros to shame !!! What enormous collections of sarees of every imaginable type and every big celebrity endorsing the shops. Me and my mother were blown away by the collection at a famous shop called ‘Jayalakshmi’ and ended up blowing away all our money !!!! Same can be said for the jewellery showrooms. I particularly loved the traditional Kerala sarees with golden borders.

6)    The Food- They use coconut and coconut oil in cooking and it adds a lot of flavour to the food . A nice twist to the tale were Shawarmas with coconut in the filling. Me and my brother particularly loved those .

7)    The sheer delight of watching wispy, white clouds waft through lush green tea gardens in Munnar. I like my mountains Green and it couldn’t get any greener than this. Add to it the monsoon and with it clouds and you get some of the most beautiful scenery you’ll ever come across. One of the perks of travelling in what they call the “off-season”.(It rained and so far I’ve had my nicest travel experiences in the tourist off-season).I stashed away the memory safely in my mental hard-drive. Even as I’m typing this, I close my eyes to imagine the scene.

8)    The Churches and the Jewish Synagogue-  I love quaint, little churches tucked away in tiny little corners of the world. And we saw a church almost every five minutes , on our way through the countryside. The beautiful Jewish Synagogue in Kochi was like the icing on the cake during the walk through the Jew street. I fell in love with the place and its (teacup-design)blue tile lined floor,its Belgian glass chandeliers and its old- world charm.

9)    The Kathakali performance was spectacular. With dramatic hand and eye movements and their colourful costumes ,the artists performed a story from the Mahabharata and did a fabulous job of it .

10)          Finally, the Houseboat stay, the highlight of our trip . It was a wonderful experience cruising through the beautiful backwaters in Alleppey. What really amazed me was that, the advent of tourists from all over the world throughout the year hasn’t really affected the way of life of the people living in these tiny fishing villages. By villages, I mean tiny strips of land in the Backwaters. They continue to go about their daily chores, washing ,fishing ,going to school in a boat ( how exciting!!! ),completely unperturbed and it was charming to observe their way of life from the houseboat. We bought Tiger prawns from a small shop in a village and our cook cooked it for dinner ( the Prawn lover in me knew I was not going to get prawns as large as those in a long time to come and so I enjoyed to my heart’s content )J

And so I am back home now, dreaming of the backwaters ,the tea gardens and the prawns (!!!) and getting over my holiday hangover by writing this.

Why all that aggression, women?

First things first, the title has not got anything to do with the hit song Kolaveri di!!! After I had conjured it up, only then did I realise that it does resemble the English translation of Kolaveri Di. But here I maintain, neither the title, nor the post has got anything to do with the song!!!

Coming to the point, WHY do educated, urban, accomplished women constantly feel the need to prove a point to the world, WHY do they think they need to match up to the men in society ??? By doing that one is acknowledging the superiority of the opposite sex .

Men don't try to be like women, so why are women trying to be like men.....Trying too hard , to top it all!!!

Along with their Independence, they seem to also have acquired Aggression. Meaningless aggression serves no purpose. Speak out when you should, not when it is unnecessary !!! It is one thing to be Assertive and a completely different thing to be Aggresive. But the modern, Indian woman seems to have mixed it all up!!!

And what's all this talk of women "wearing the pants" in their relationships, in the boardroom, everywhere??It all boils down to men being the yardsticks for confidence, success and the like!!!

I'm more that happy being feminine, loving the way I am ......And I'm very sure,a lot of young girls and women out there would agree with me on that....

My dream house

I figured, I love Solitude. I love these quiet winter evenings, with books and a steaming cup of hot chocolate to give me company :)
I also love the silence in these evenings.
As much as I love the hustle and bustle of the city, my favourite place still remains Talcher, a small little town in Orissa, where I spent some very beautiful years of my life.
My love for open spaces can be attributed to the big lawn that we had in front of the house, with colourful flowerbeds which were my mother's pride.My earliest Botany lessons come from there. Many a hot summer evening was spent in the lawn playing with the garden hosepipe and getting thoroughly drenched. We also had encounters with strange snakes in the lawn, who would occasionally come out of their holes for their summer evening walk!!!!
Then there were the cycling expeditions I had with my friends on the tree lined roads of the township. Me and my friends would discover new places in the township on our cycles. The thrill and excitement of discovering a new , little used road or a place was unmatched and used to be the secret topic of our discussions for very many days after that...
My sixteen kilometer ride to school was through lush green fields  and picturesque little villages.

These were some very impressionable years of my life and probably, that's why my dream house still is a little white house, with blue doors ,and a large garden , nestled in one, little corner of the world, far-far away from the lights of the city :)

Long train journeys......Quizzing ......Daddy the quizmaster.......

Making a quiz for my college fest ,today, I realized, how much i enjoyed quizzing .....and long train journeys,coming back from spending a vacation with cousins at the Grandparents', when I would invariably be teary eyed and missing my cousins and Grandparents sorely!!!

Haven't been on a train since ages now.....
Daddy hasn't played quizmaster in a while.....
That time seems light years away!!!!

I wish life was slower and journeys were longer and vacations never got over !!!!

Some bright lady called Michelle Menard invented Nail Polish . Here's sending a thank you note to her for brightening up so many dull days , just like bright pink nail polish brightened mine today :)

Anatomy of a weekend in a city

My weekends end up being more hectic than my weekdays.

It all begins with Friday evening, when all seems hunky dory and the world sure feels like a good place to live in. One feels as if they can complete all their pending work, pay the bills and conquer the whole world , over the weekend!!! Going through the calendar of cultural events  and movie listings in the city , 101 plans are drawn up with friends and family and sincere promises made to friends, whom one hasn’t met in ages, about catching up over coffee and desserts......

Reality dawns on Saturday morning and more practical , doable  “ to- do lists “  are drawn up. There is a sudden urge to drift through the weekend ,sleeping, but the flurry and the activity in the house forces one to abandon that plan. However,  I try to put off thoughts of work and studying  by immersing myself in music, by listening as well as singing. So,  Saturday mornings could range from anything from Bhairav to Baul or Bhajans and that sets  the tone for the day. What ensues is music classes, piles of practical files ( for unfortunate students like me ) and grocery shopping ( for poor mum and dad ). Also, the mere mention of public transport, gets people like me hysterical, those who spend the better halves of their lives travelling!!!

Sunday seems to scream “  I’m tired, let me go “  right from the morning. All work is done at a feverish pace, as if its the world, not the weekend, that is going to come to an end . So, while Brother is sent off for  that much needed haircut , I am reprimanded for the mess that my wardrobe and my book shelves are in and set to the task of cleaning them . Kishore  Kumar and his songs are a common feature in our Sundays , as Father seems to be in a rather  melodious mood and keeps singing or listening to his songs.

Whatever remains of the weekend is spent in planning for the week ahead and lamenting about what a wasted weekend it was !!!

And then its back to the grind again .......