Z-Blogs

All the chaos and disturbance of urban living quietly gets washed away when you stand in front of a lake and allow its spirit to engulf you. For some time now, Bhaskar and I have been feeling the call of lakes. It is a call which could not be ignored anymore. Introduced to lakes by Ramesh Sivaram (Visit to Kaikondanahalli lake), our journey began very recently, with baby steps taking us from one lake to another, trying to understand what ails our lakes and what can be done about it. This writeup is an attempt to document our learning and…

(www.esthete.in) Esthete, Tavarekere Main Road. A complete introductory course on working with wood. This course is designed for the novice. Learn about different types of wood and boards, tools, joinery etc., in an interesting and interactive atmosphere. Please hit the "GOING" button if you would like to register for this course. Allso please hit the "like" button on this page. (Optional!)This course will be personally conducted by Mr Hamsavardhan, Founder and Principal Designer at Eshtete Customized Interiors and Furniture.

In my previous post I wrote about sleep. So I think it makes sense that this blog is about the things a dog does during her waking hours. Like last week, I am reaching out to some good ol’ wisdom “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Well, frankly all play and no work does not, in most cases, do Jack too much good either. When it comes to our Fido, it’s pretty much the same. So is there a concept of “work” for dogs. Well…I am not talking about finding an income source using our dogs.…

In my foray into the world of kitchen gardening, I have undergone many eye-opening changes along the way. In the early days I would buy seeds wherever I got them, and I would still recommend this to beginners as it can get a bit overwhelming at that stage to try to search for a particular type or origin of seed. With a bit more experience under my belt, I began to realize why it is important for farmers (even small time ones like us) to opt for native or heirloom varieties. The No. 1 reason for this of course being…

One week. One well-planned week is all it will take to make an entire locality having around 1000 households to start segregation. So if we had just about 10 interested people in each ward, we could get the whole of Bangalore to segregate at source in just one week. I mean it. This begs the question – Why on earth is it not happening? It is after all not so difficult to get 10 people in each ward to get this going, right? Ah, that’s where we are completely missing the point; the garbage crisis here has nothing to do…

Last night, I lay in bed, unable to fall asleep. Nishi and Tigger, my dogs, were curled up with me. I had been away for a month, getting my dog training education in Norway, from one of the leading experts in canine communication – Turid Rugaas. Ever since I got back from Norway, they are sticking close to me. As Nishi’s head pushed against my neck, I could feel her twitching and making tiny whimpering noises. She sounded afraid. I wondered what she was dreaming of. I went through all the things she had done during the day and wondered…

How can I ever talk about it? These are the opening lines that play on most women’s mind when it comes to even thinking about menstruation and all the embarrassing moments that surround it. All women, and I mean absolutely all women in India, have had one or the other moments during her period, especially as an adolescent, that she feels she can never talk about openly. And this is true for rural, tribal, urban, educated and uneducated women. Pretending it never happened During trainings for women leaders in IT companies or for ASHA workers in a village to undertake menstrual…

You can make out by the name that this one is going to have to be a series You would be surprised by the number of pests and insects you might encounter even in a terrace garden. In my case I have towering trees all around my terrace, so that might be an added reason, but pests are in any case one of the biggest challenges when growing in containers. The variety of beautiful insects (not all friendly to my plants) you can find in a terrace garden in the middle of the concrete jungle really amaze me! One of…

Kids are fussy eaters and there’s hardly a parent who isn’t stressed out about what their child ‘will and won’t’ eat. Most of the times the ‘won’t ‘list exceeds the one’s that they do eat. Sometimes these are not of utmost concern for most pediatricians or dietitians, but if key nutrients are getting missed out on a daily basis, then an alternate solution needs to be looked into. Minimise the consumption of junk foods with no mnerals and vitamins among kids. File pic. One of the key nutrients in a child’s diet is calcium. If your child is allergic (lactose…

We invite volunteers to join us in making 100% segregation happen at source by empowering the garbage collectors in Konanakunte, ward no. 195. What you have to do You will begin by shadowing an existing team who is making segregation happen. After that, we will connect you to a garbage collector with whom you will work closely on making segregation happen in the locality alloted to him. As the garbage collector goes from door to door, you will be accompanying him in informing residents on how to segregate and making sure that only segregated waste is collected. In general, wet…