Celebrated on 18 April, it started off as “International Day for Monuments and Sites” and after approval from UNESCO in 1983, it was made popular as World Heritage Day. 2021 World Heritage Day theme is “Complex Pasts: Diverse Futures” This would be the apt title for our Indian heritage – it’s complex! The history text…
Tag: India
Harvest festivals🌾 and happy holidays🪁
January has a whole bunch of festival days. Living in Bangalore gives a glimpse into these festivals spread across the different states. Not to forget the long weekend ahead !! 13 Jan is Lohri, a festival traditionally celebrated in the state of Punjab marking the end of winter. We didn’t have Lohri celebrations this year….
Rose Bazaar: For the Gods need fresh flowers everyday🌹
The vegetable vendor brings a special request from the wholesale market in addition to the normal quota of fruits and veg – stemless fresh cut flowers for puja at homes. The selection of red roses, yellow and orange marigolds are brought tied in transparent polythene bags and given to the ladies for the daily puja….
Punjabi style Shahi Dum Aloo: Baby potatoes served in a luscious gravy 🥘
If you are cooking for compliments, then this is an apt dish. It is baby potatoes served in a silky smooth gravy that’s mildly spiced, tangy and yet subtly sweet. This recipe was shared by chef Kunal Kapoor and it works beautifully well. You can catch it on YouTube. As the chef elaborates, “dum” is…
21 days ‼️
…lockdown for the whole country, starting Tuesday mid-night, the PM announced yesterday. People took sometime to digest the news. Though drastic, everyone knows it is necessary to prevent a contagion. After accepting this, next thought is do we have enough supplies to get us going for the next 21 days? And this is where the…
Maybe it’s someone you know: The Creative 🎭
“My son’s latest work.” read the WhatsApp message from Lizzy and a YouTube video of an advertisement followed. Her son works in Mumbai as a television commercial director and of late he has been getting work from well-known brands. She is thrilled with her son Jay’s success. But his line of work is viewed with…
Hyd after dusk 🌃
Hyderabad is probably the only city so far where we have ventured out in the evening for sight-seeing. The city felt safe even after dusk; Ola and Uber were available to ferry us to and fro. On the evening of the first day, we were at the famous Golconda fort, just in time to see it’s…
Love antique homes? You must visit Dakshina Chitra in Tamil Nadu🏠
Everyday, we step outside dressed to fit in; but we strive to ensure that our homes reflect our uniqueness. In a country like India, the houses are treasure troves showcasing the diversity of its people. The old houses were built – both in and out – to reflect the family’s caste, social status and means…
Surprise Me🧞♂️ : Must see treasures at the Salar Jung museum in Hyderabad
“Did you know that the Nizam was one of the richest man in India!? asks hubs. “He bankrolled the British during the WWII.” “Yes, I have heard it from you, many many times.” says me🙄 “Do you know the man behind the very rich Nizam?” asks me😀 “There is a man?” asks hubs🤔 “The Nizam’s diwan…
Namaste Hyderabad 🙏✨
10 years ago was my first visit to the city. I was in Hyderabad to conduct a training session being held at the Basheer Bagh branch of my then employer. In the evening, the office arranged a shopping-cum-sightseeing trip for all the participants to the old city – Charminar and Laad Bazaar. Charminar was closed…
Good reads for the holidays🎄📚
Winter or more aptly the cooler months in south India, free from the heat and rain are ideal for travel. Following the school calendar🗓, opportunity presents itself starting from October with the Puja holidays, followed by the Diwali hols and finally the Christmas holidays. And going by the travel trends reported in the papers, the millennials…
Good places to eat @Indiranagar, Bangalore🍡 (Photoblog)
Planning a meal out in Bangalore? Try these two popular restaurants on 100ft road at Indiranagar; valet parking in available. Bon appetit…🍹 [1] Toit – a microbrewery in Indiranagar; spread over 3 floors, the casual setting is perfect for an afternoon brunch; more the merrier🎉 We tried the Irish Red Ale, tasted good and for…
Chandigarh: A gridded legacy🛣 (guest post)
The vivid colours of a rainbow appear mystical to most beholders and so does the Rock Garden of Chandigarh. The garden was envisioned as a dream kingdom and made entirely of nature’s bounty by its author-architect Nek Chand Saini, a PWD road inspector of early 1900s. Nek Chand was witness to the trauma and pain following…
What is your Titan story ?⌚️💎
“When you buy the jewellery, can I have the Tanishq box?”😊 I remember one of my ex-colleague’s remarks about Tanishq jewellery. The burgundy jewellery box is pretty and the jewellery – absolutely gorgeous. The jewellery designs Tanishq produces are beautiful and each piece is assured to earn its wearer a compliment. You can’t escape the attention…
Investing in smallcase 🤑₹
Smallcase is an investment idea in the Indian equity market – to put it simply, a combination of the mutual fund concept and a stock systematic investment plan (sip). I have been doing both separately for sometime and now will try the smallcase way. As I mentioned in the prior post on smallcase, the investors buy…
The Little Book on Pondicherry 📚🌺
Last October we were on road from Bekal in Kasargode district of Kerala to Kochi. Hubs announces that we will be passing through Pondicherry on our drive. I was skeptical, Pondicherry is nowhere enroute to Kochi, it’s on the other side of the Indian peninsula, facing the Bay of Bengal and we were on the…
TapChief – A Freelancer platform👥
Unicorns, Soonicorns and Unicorpses – the first is familiar but the other two have me stumped. Unicorn in business parlance is the term for a new business with a billion dollar valuation. Soonicorns are unicorns in waiting😀 and Unicorpses were unicorns once, but now they are way below the billion dollar mark. Good to know😊…
Try a Thali 🥥🍚
Google defines a Thali as “a set meal at an Indian restaurant.” I remember having a Chinese set meal once on a cruise ship from Singapore, but never gave much thought to its equivalent back home. The Thali has rice served with a variety of side dishes; the number of sides will vary with the…
Lost in a glorious City… (guest post)
The first time travellers narrate all that they have seen, heard and encountered at a new place; sometimes comparing to their home state or to what they have read and heard about the place. A second journey to the same place after a significant gap results in a totally new script, comprising mostly of the…
Forest Essentials – Premium Ayurvedic skin care
The Indian middle class, to which I belong, are renowned for our value for money mentality when it comes to spending cash – may it be on clothes, groceries, trips, cars, electronics, anything. Hence the multi-national companies when they customise products for the Indian consumer – more bang for the buck is what they know we look…
Miles and smiles 
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