Z-Blogs

Here I was merrily plucking tomatoes from my garden as and when i needed them in the kitchen, till S – our domestic help - told me that she had just bought it for 40 rupees a kilo in Russell Market?! FORTY?! I resolved to tend to my garden with greater care and gratitude! 'The garden' has always been integral to my growing years and it was only a matter of time before I started my own. So, ever since we moved to our place earlier this year, I experimented with various methods in the endeavour to make my garden…

Right in the middle of the rush and hustle of St Mark's Road, I spotted it...a "gem of purest ray serene"...but not in the "unfathom'd caves of ocean", but right in the centre of this city of ours.Surrounded by its garden, shaded by its trees, it looked an oasis of unexpected peace in the middle of the explosion of glass, chrome, steel ...and traffic...that is St Mark's Road today.It was like suddenly having a little window opening into the gracious past...I stood for a while admiring the beauty of the building, and then walked on, knowing that I could share…

"The only difference is that there is a gate", declared my friend who resides in one such place. "We decided to come here only because of the security; now we know that it's just an eyewash", she added. That set me thinking. How different is the houses in gated communities to the others? Do the residents NRIs or foreigners want a home away from home? Expats in Bangalore take pride in stating that they don't live in Whitefield whereas we Indians still do. I have tried to highlight the similarities or differences under certain common headers. Note: These are just…

In my search to find a method to recycle grey water from the washing machine, I chanced upon an exciting alternative to detergents: Soap Nut (Sapindus Mukorossi, locally called  Ritha or soap kai). Of course, it is not something new – our grandparents and parents have used it frequently to wash silks and expensive garments. However, in today's scenario, I think this little nut has a vital role to play.  Most significantly, washing with soap nut does not pollute the water like the detergents. It also conserves water while using the washing machine since there's no soapy residue to rinse…

In all the times one is under deep emotional and spiritual duress, one feels irrevocably attached to certain people. As if misery were some sort of brotherhood held together by common predicaments. This brotherhood allows you the unlikeliest and most surprising company. And so it is, today, in a moment of spellbinding epiphany, I realize that holding my hand in this universal, timeless, not-so-secret society is... Leon Trotsky.On a bright sunny day in 1940, the late revolutionary hobbled up to the window of his room in an alien land, looked at the skies (that were blue), the grass(which was green)…

Gyan, the strategy consultant, had a question from an old friend, Kaushik Ghosh, who was an alumnus of a prestigious management institute. Kaushik, who was in a senior position at a leading corporate suddenly had taken a fancy to starting his own business. He had a couple of ideas and he was connecting with Gyan to see a) if any of these ideas were worth exploring and b) if funds could be raised for the new venture. Here is what Gyan had to say."Both the ideas look interesting and may be worth exploring. However they would need some gestation time…

The Ragigudda Temple, Jayanagar 9th Block, is celebrating the Hanumath Jayanthi (birthday of Hanuman or Anjaneya) from the 3rd of December. The area around the temple has been cordonned off to traffic and several stalls have sprung up, making the area a colourful, bustling one now.One man was setting up his bookstall as I walked past:at another bookstall, a policeman on duty was having a look at the books:There were plastic toys (probably Chinese-made ones) for sale:So were clothes:An incredible heap of ceramic items:Some people were setting out template rangoli-pattern plates:When the powder was put through these plates, these beautiful…

I was walking down Jayanagar 9th block when I saw this really beautiful work of art. Its function is to keep people from bumping into the glass, but the artist in the person entrusted with the job was not satisfied with just drawing a cross across the glass. Art..and aesthetics...show up in the most unlikely places... who would think of the glass pane of a building under construction as a canvas for someone's imagination? ⊕

It's been a month now and I still can't stop myself from rushing to the terrace in the morning, after a night of heavy rain. After several months of seeking ways (unsuccessfully!) to harvest rainwater for our apartment, we had arrived at an elementary solution. Most local experts whose advice and opinion we sought were unable to help. Even the internet tips were of little use since they dealt with individual houses and/or entire apartment buildings. Though our terrace is fairly large, we realised that the catchment area (the area which directly receives the rainfall and provides water to the…

The Valley School area, just off Kanakapura Road, is a beautiful spot, retained as a wilderness by the Valley School authorities,and it's a great way of escaping into the outdoors, even on a weekday morning!The unexpected trip, with three friends, proved to be a real treat, with the light at its warmest, and all the birds (except of course the evil few...more about that later) actually posing in a calm and composed way for us....Here are my friends, C and R, clicking away to glory, and the glory was, the grasses lit up by the morning sun:We were not able…