Those of you who know me and who have followed my blog long enough would know that spirituality is a big part of my life. I believe in taking regular me time, in meditating, and in being creative – be it through art or photography, writing or cooking.
In the busyness of daily life, though, it is easy to let me time slide. But life, it can be simple again. Honest!
Just give yourself permission to take a break and play.
And what better way to do it than by using art and journaling as a means to relax and comfort yourself and to get grounded while dealing with the craziness of every-day living?Continue reading→
On a day like any other, young William Bellman boasts that he can hit a rook sitting on a branch a great distance away. His friends aren’t so sure that he can. Determined to prove them wrong, William loosens a stone from his catapult. It finds it mark. The young rook resting on the branch is killed instantly. Though William feels sad at the time, the event is soon forgotten.
The rook is comfortable pretty much anywhere. He goes where he pleases and, when he pleases, he comes back. Laughing…There are numerous collective nouns for rooks. In some parts people say a parliament of rooks.
Life goes on. William grows up into a fine young man. He leads a charmed life – he has a job he loves at his uncle’s mill, a wife and children he adores, his business is thriving and everything he touches turns to gold. But slowly, people around him start to die. And at each funeral he is startled to see a strange man in black, smiling nonchalantly at him. Soon, death comes closer to home, claiming his wife and most of his children. Driven to despair, unhinged by grief, William is determined to end his own misery.
Now some great hand had peeled back the kind surface of that fairy-tale world and shown him the chasm beneath his feet.
The best way to learn English used to be to read books. We got some beautiful turns of phrases and excellent English from the classics.
“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
A woman after my own heart, there!
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” – Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Words that hold true even to this day, don’t you agree?
“If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.” ― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca
Violence against women is a common theme in mythology. Statue “The Rape of Persephone” in Vechelde, Lower Saxony, Germany (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I am an ostrich when it comes to news on rape. I prefer to bury my head in the sand and not read or hear about it. But even for this ostrich, it’s become next to impossible to do so. After the shocking gang rape in broad daylight in Mumbai – because Mumbai is supposed to have been one of the safe cities for women, dammit – I heard about the brutal rape and murder of a nine-year old child in Gurgaon.
This makes me sick. Disgusted. Afraid. And I’m forced to take a closer look at the issue to try to make sense of the moral depravity that seems to have gripped this country.
But surely, India isn’t the only place where rape is a common occurrence. It happens across the world – in both developed and developing economies.
If love is all about freedom and honest expression then how can one associate it with loyalty?
The story starts with 19-year old Moon sitting at an abortion clinic, wondering why she was there and who was responsible. The answer to both questions: LOVE.
And so we join Moon as she ruminates on her 19 long years and all the boys she has loved.
First is Ash, her first love. Five years older than her, he knew exactly what he wanted from life – to own a chain of flower stores across India and to marry Moon. But please, how can the daughter of a leading TV news anchor love a flower seller with a pathetic small time business background? The minute she finds a better option, she forgets all about Ash, but conveniently forgets to tell him he’s been dumped. After all, he’s her first love, he’s been her mentor and someone she really looked up to. And she can’t see him hurt. So the best strategy – ignore him and move on.
Enter Aditya, a cool copywriter at an ad agency where Moon is working as an intern. He’s the only one who doesn’t drool over her or send her a friend request on Facebook the minute he sets eyes on her. So of course she’s intrigued. Continue reading→
You know what they say about not judging a book by it’s cover? Add another one to it – don’t judge an author by the author blurb. Aditya Mukherjee may be yet another IIM graduate to have penned a novel, but unlike most of them who write about college life in particularly bad English, Boomtown is a breath of fresh air.
JJ, son of a rich businessman, meets Jaaved, the grandson of legendary Old Delhi chef Khan Mian. Jaaved is passionate about cooking, but unlike his grandfather, who refuses to change his family recipes in any way, he enjoys experimenting with new ingredients. Like using a dash of vanilla essence in a traditional meat curry “to give it a bit more balance.” When JJ tastes his food, he has a brainwave – setting up a chain of fusion restaurants spinning new twists on traditional recipes.
He ropes in Roy, his engineering buddy who has just been laid off, and Sheetal, a single mother and manager at a five-star hotel. Boosted by a glorious review from celebrated chef Romesh Ghosh, “the three friends travel from the crumbling Mughlai kitchens of Chandni Chowk to the trendy upmarket eateries of Gurgaon, from the corporate corridors of venture capitalists to the crummy offices of property brokers.”Continue reading→
One of my favourite places in Delhi is Hauz Khas Village. It’s a very small little area with narrow, dusty lanes. You’ll find a number of curio stores, art galleries, designer shops, independent and alternate bookstores and music shops, recycled and upcycled products. And there are tons of excellent eateries and cafes.
The old walls are filled with graffiti. The signs are artistic and funky. There’s a bohemian and creative air to the tiny village. And the gem is the beautiful old Hauz Khas ruin and this gorgeous lake.Continue reading→
Berlin, 1920. Two babies are born. Two brothers. United and indivisible, sharing everything. Twins in all but blood. As Germany marches towards its Nazi Armageddon, the ties of family, friendship and love are tested to the very limits of endurance. And the brothers are faced with an unimaginable choice…which one of them will survive?
The novel follows the Stengel family – Frieda, a community doctor, and Wolfgang, a Jazz musician, and their sons Otto and Paulus. The young couple works hard to make ends meet. But in 1920s Germany, when the country was reeling under the aftermath of the Great War, things aren’t always easy. Wolfgang gets lucky, though, when he meets Kurt, “Germany’s new kindergarten entrepreneurs, crazy alcohol- and drug-fuelled chancers” who loves jazz music and gives him a well-paying job at a nightclub. But once the crazy inflation is brought under control, Wolfgang finds himself, once again, unemployed. At Frieda’s insistence, he places an ad in the paper offering to teach music. And then enters Dagmar Fischer – the heiress to the Fischer fortune. And both Otto and Paulus fall head-over-heels in love with her – a love that lasts a lifetime and changes the course of their life.Continue reading→
Once upon a time, I hated cooking. I used to start pouting and grumbling around 4:00 pm every day while at work, just because I knew I would have to go home and cook a full Indian meal – roti, vegetable, dal. After about a year of sobbing my way through it, I finally told the husband I’d had enough. We hired a cook.
Then, about two years ago, I found myself in the kitchen again. Not on a daily basis. Just on the occasional weekend. And I never cooked a typical Indian meal. It was always the “exotic” – pasta, Italian main courses, Chinese…And I enjoyed it….and found that I was actually really good at it!
Then, a couple of weeks ago, while grocery shopping, I found a bottle of Discovery Creole Season and Sauce. As I read the ingredients on the label, a recipe started forming itself in my head. I grabbed the bottle, ran to the vegetable counter to pick up some red and green peppers, and then dashed to the meat counter to pick up some chicken. I came home with a fully formed recipe in my head. And when I was done, I took a taste. And I was in heaven!
It’s easy, fairly quick, and it’s sure to go on your meal planner again and again! So, without further ado, I present to you: Creole chicken with boiled rice.Continue reading→
Ever since I read Sophie Kinsella’sI’ve Got Your Number, I’ve developed a new-found love for “chick lit”. I thought it was all sugary sweet teeny-bopper love stories, and I really have outgrown those. But it isn’t! It’s romance all right, but pretty darn believable, told from a woman’s perspective with issues that modern women can totally relate to. But I’m still skeptical about Indian chick-lit, largely because I’m skeptical about most Indian authors. So when I got an opportunity to review Judy Balan’s Sophie Says, I took it – mainly because the story sounded interesting.
Sophia Tilgum has dated all kinds of men in thirty years. Men who’ve stalked and pleaded, men who’ve lied and cheated, men who’ve written songs and wanted to play house after three dates. And equally scary, men who’ve sported hot-pink bow ties and called her Sweet Cheeks.
So after a decade-long attempt at sustaining long-term relationships, Sophie has finally thrown in the towel and has found her calling as The Breakup Coach via her super-popular blog: Sophie Says – in which she makes a case for Single-Singles or people who are wired to remain single (because according to Sophie, commitment phobia is not a real thing) and shares her many theories on breakups.
