In finer print...

The in-laws made an appearance in my city for Christmas, and we quickly packed ourselves off to Alibag, along with them of course!

Being Christmas, a super festival season, we somehow managed to book ourselves into a so-called three-star resort Ravi Kiran on Rewas Road in Alibag. Well, I won't say the rooms were disappointing, but the service was pretty shoddy and caused the husband to want to strangle the staff.

Also, I think I should write a post on folks who travel from North India to West or South of India. First of all, we are in the west, i.e. Mumbaikars. Things are way different regarding culture, climate, humidity, cleanliness, crowd and of course, food. No, Rajma is not the most-preferred food on this side of the country, especially if you happen to be in Alibag. Lol. Well, I will leave this for another time and post.

Thankfully, the climate was cold enough to visit beaches. We made an early morning visit to Varsoli beach, and it was lovely. Fortunately, it was spotless,…

“I must have flowers, always, and always.”― Claude Monet
Roses. What about them? I am not a flower person. The husband has instructions to never present me with flowers. They are a complete waste of money and space, especially roses. They wilt, wither and perish. Yes, much like we all do, but they do sooner. Also, I think they look lovelier when not plucked.


I have no fascination for rosebuds or the many different varieties of roses; I couldn’t tell one from the other. I prefer shoe-flowers or hibiscus. I love the yellow buttercups, gerberas, and carnations, vibrant yet delicate. I love Tagore flowers, Jasmine, Mogras for their heady scents, and Periwinkles but most of all I love all kinds of green shrubbery. They make my window come alive with twittering sunbirds and a rare butterfly.


But roses stand out. Blooming among orange, pink and white hibiscus flowers, as the sunny buttercup sways towards the sunlight, the deep pink roses thrive. They grow in abundance, December roses, as I’…

This July we were in London. This installation/structure stood proudly at one of the many stops on Thames River cruise. To me, this image speaks of serenity with a mix of modernity with its symmetrical pillars, standing firmly in the water.

Take a good look and share the first thing that comes to your mind when you look at this picture :)

In August of this year, I was fortunate to meet famous Indian English author Ashwin Sanghi. He is compared to Dan Brown of the Dan Vinci Code fame due to his books The Rozabal Line and The Krishna Key. When I asked him, he had no qualms about it and was happy to have been linked.
For him, reading began as a challenge that his maternal grandfather threw at him since the beginning. By the time he was 10, he was reading books that were much advanced for his young years. His reading material was a combination of comics, children’s books, his mother’s love for racy and popular fiction novels, and the history books, encyclopedias, Upanishads etc. sent to him by Nana.
The author admitted that he was an average student but realised much later that acquiring knowledge doesn’t just come from academic books or faring well in school and college. In his latest book 13 Steps to Bloody Marks, a guide he co-authored with Ashok Rajani, he talks about parents and kids can make their academic life inte…

I was born into a multilingual family. My paternal grandparents are Bengalis, but my grandmother grew up in Shimla and Dehradun. She spoke and read Hindi voraciously as well as Bengali. My grandfather, having run away from his home at 15, made Mumbai his home. Hence, he learnt to speak and read Marathi. After marriage, the duo moved to Khadakvasla in Maharashtra. Here, they perfected their Marathi reading, writing and speaking skills. They passed on the love of languages to their three children.
Years later, when my father, a Bengali, met my mother, a Jain Gujarati, they fell in love. Getting married ensured that their kids, i.e. my sister and I, picked up Gujarati as well. So today we speak English, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Gujarati. Then I went on to marry a Gurgaon boy who has Multani Punjabis ancestry. So Punjabi is added to my list of languages. Also, I can pick up bits and pieces of Konkani and Odiya. I wrote the below post during a chance discussion in my then organisation o…