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The Lockdown Era: Part 1-9
By the time this post is published, India is well into what is dubbed Lockdown 4.0 – with a new set of rules, dos-and-don’ts, all of us are struggling through a new range of emotions. There’s the delight that life is slowly limping back to normal, stores and services are now available (in non-containment areas at least) and businesses will reopen. But there’s also the added stress of ‘what if the number of coronavirus positive cases shoots up again!’ Amid this saga of actions and emotions, my parents remain relatively unmoved. Baba’s murmurs of “need to go to the bank” were shot down by the rest of us. “Stay home”…
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A note from a frequent traveller
It’s going to be nearly six months since the world started its battle against the unknown. It’s been a long few month, each day a fight. And as we slowly limp towards the easing of lockdowns, uncertainty continues to loom. The travel industry has been hit hard. Even as rules are being relaxed to allow people to cross borders, what is the future of a leisure traveller? Me and the BFF had been all pumped up to start planning our trip for June 2020 and were about to being work on the bookings – when the pandemic struck. Our travel plans have been put on hold till at least 2021.…
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15 of the best virtual tours #Part2
Picking up from the previous post where I’d gushed over some of the museums, heritage sites and art collections that can be viewed thanks to virtual tours, here’s the second part of the list. As mentioned before (in the last post that you can read HERE), the second part of the virtual tours list includes a trip to NASA, a park, a few zoos (because who doesn’t want to watch pandas and penguins!) and an additional list of cool things on Google Arts & Culture. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Or what we know as NASA offers virtual tours through Virginia’s Langley Research Center and Ohio’s Glenn Research Center. These…
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15 of the best virtual tours #Part1
With self-quarantine and isolation being the way of life now, home entertainment has become the only way to take a break from the backbreaking (or not) uneasy routine that all of us have settled into. In Ahmedabad, my hometown, we’ve entered what is now dubbed Lockdown 3.0 and the parents are already looking for modes of entertainment beyond movie streaming sites. There’s only so much of Netflix/Hotstar/Prime one can watch, right? The parents do manage to find things to watch on these streaming sites – the joys of knowing 4 languages! But I seem to have slipped into a space where watching television is boring. Leave me with a remote…
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Of blogging, influencing & growing
In conversation with Juhi Bansal of Closet Buddies fame, a first-gen fashion influencer from Gujarat Think first generation bloggers in Gujarat and the one name (and perhaps the only one!) that comes to mind is that of Juhi Bansal a.k.a fashion blogger of the Closet Buddies fame. One of the few among the first set of bloggers to have survived the ebb and flow of this world, Juhi is a force to be reckoned with in the influencer world. I first heard about Juhi around 5 years ago while working on an article for the newspaper I was working with. I’d been hunting – I needed to talk fashion with…
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Korola aloo chorchori | Bengali-style bitter gourd & potato
We are a family of bitter gourd lovers. Give us bitter gourd in any form and we will love it, especially if it has retained that light bitter taste – boiled, mashed and seasoned with mustard oil and salt; crispy fried; stuffed with spices; stir-fried – we heart this green. So much so that each time I am about to travel to Bristol to visit the elder sister and brother-in-law, the parents get nearly a kilogram or two of bitter gourd and then spend hours cooking it to crispy perfection. This dish is then securely packed in airtight containers which are opened only in the Bristol kitchen. I surmise that…
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Dalgona & a Cocoa Coffee Recipe
Yes. I did it too. I jumped on board the Dalgona boat, pulling my parents along for a ride – Maa lured by the visuals I kept showing her, Baba convinced with the promise of ‘interesting hot’ coffee. Following the instructions, I measured out the requisite coffee-milk-sugar in a bowl and spent 15 minutes whisking the life out of the holy troika while the mind wandered down nostalgia lane. I found myself thinking about those two years of post-graduation, the days of sharing a tiny apartment with three other girls, the growing up we did together and the ritualistic coffee + Maggi sessions that marked the exam nights. Back then,…
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Kola boda | Banana fritters
Banana are a must in our kitchen. They make for an easy snack any time of the day, are tasty and easy to eat. All you have to do is peel and chomp. And my father feels incomplete without them. Sometimes I feel they are the food version of a security blanket for Baba – I’ve seen him get agitated when we are down to that last banana and rush out at 8 pm to hunt for the fruit. “There’s only one left!” he’d say before pulling on his walking shoes and making a rush for the vegetable store. While that’s not happening in the current scenario –coronavirus lockdown continues…
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Methi omelette | Fenugreek leaves omelette
On a lighter note, have you noticed the process of essential shopping is like undertaking a short trip? Think about it. The essential shopping excursion is planned over some – if not several – days. A shopping list is made, often remade. Because the idea is to get all that you need at one go, a route is mapped. And then the shopping list is readjusted to ensure minimal movement and contact. On D-day, bags are counted and laid out. Clothing accessories are checked then the mask, the gloves and sunglasses are put on, almost like an armour. Bags are checked for that extra set of wipes and bottle of…
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In Naoli, a global e-magazine
The more the readers, the happier I am.Isn’t that the same for everyone who writes?Would you say no to being published (for free) in an e-magazine that could be read by a group of people in a different (and exotic for me!) country? And that’s the very reason why I was delighted when the editor of Naoli, a souvenir e-magazine released by the Kampala (Uganda) Durga Puja Committee, told me to send in two articles for their very first edition! I was travelling then, unable to write an exclusive article so I gave them a free rein: “Take your pick from the blog and let me know.” They picked up…
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