Saturday 10 October 2009

A Breath Of Fresh Air

Remember this? I like most people fantasized about other jobs even as I plodded through my own day job. There are however people that do not stop with fantasies. They do not blog about their thoughts and actually manage to get something done.. Who would have thought it ??!!!

My Sunny Balcony is started by a group of 4 people in Bangalore. The garden city is being eaten up ever growing concrete monstrosities and a city that was once known for idyllic weather and lovely gardens is talked about most for its traffic jams. My Sunny Balcony brings a little bit of green into the ever shrinking homes of Bangalore dwellers. A simple idea with a heart. The group works on setting up a garden in whatever space is available in Bangalore apartments. If you have a little sunshine in any corner of your house it seems they can transform it into a green haven.

Lovely work. These are pictures of their latest work that I found on Facebook.


The folks at My Sunny Balcony have this to say

"MSB is a group of garden enthusiasts dedicated to creating customized landscapes for urban environments. Want a little sunshine, a little green and lots of frEE oxygen & frEE therapy?!call us!:)"


While I was trying to plowing and planting seeds on Farmville it is good to know there are some people hard at work making the world green. And nope I cannot be shamed into quitting Farmville.

Friday 9 October 2009

Rewarding Rhetoric


I love the man. Love love love.



He is intelligent, well spoken, seems to care, funny and competent but can we please wait for him to serve a term before we start showering him with accolades....

Nobel Peace Prize????


Edited to add-
Points to Ponder
The last date for Nomination was in Feb, Days after the man had been elected to office. For a link to the selection process click here.

Thursday 8 October 2009

My first Karva Chauth

Winter months approach and what makes the dwindling sunshine, the shorter days, the drooping flowers in my garden bearable is festival season. I don't think it is by accident that most of the celebrations are in the winter months. It is to cheer us up and distract us from our house arrest that all the fun festivals line up in these months. From Navarathri, Diwali, Karva Chauth, Halloween, Christmas and New Year as the flowers go away these festivals give us an excuse to put up our own decorations even as nature takes a break. My only grouse with the festival season however is all the fasting.

Each time any of the fasting festivals roll up I consider it half heartedly. With skill equaling that of insurance companies looking for loopholes in my plan I set out to look for loopholes in the fasting rituals. While they scour page after page of legal paperwork, I have it easier and submit my request to the Google God. And as it turns out the rituals are apparently better structured then our health insurance because I failed miserably in trying to find one that would keep me well fed and fasting. Perhaps the common sense laws are more effective for the common people. Anyways I digress.

So Navarathri flew past and I had done nothing apart from eat all the goodies my mil made. To top it off we went golu hopping on Saraswati Pooja day and ended up having three breakfasts all served with a sweet. I had but resigned myself to accepting defeat when along came Karva Chauth. How did I find out about this not celebrated by Tamils festival?? Husband and I relied on long distance phone calls to India for any festival type information before in laws came to visit. And now that in laws are there they multi task by reminding us, doing all the preparations for the festival and then lowering their standards for our part in it so we can meet their expectations. Well facebook of course.

So, despite having felt queasy every time yet another heroine in Hindi cinema decks up in Swarozki crystal studded lehengas, gazes with adoration at husband/ boyfriend, sips her water and then breaks out into a song I decided I would embrace this festival and fast for hubby dearest. Though in all honesty it was done for all of the family. I am not a pati vrata sthri (I like Daniel Craig too much for that) and I will not be standing between anybody and Yama mainly because if I did see Yama I would be rushing off to the nearest emergency centre to get my BP/ brain checked.

Needless to say there was no sargi since the sun rise was long gone by the time I woke up. My brain also did not awaken until I had swallowed my giant cup of tea. After which I finally awoke to realize that it was Karva Chauth and I should be fasting. So I bathed, wore some red and prayed to be forgiven for ingesting large quantities of ginger tea and set off for the vrath.

After all the drama it was relatively easy. What was hard was to be cheerful and hungry but it seemed very non spiritual to be in foul mood while fasting for your loved ones. Husband was sweet and made poori and channa and when they were made demanded I break my fast regardless of moon cos the poori was ready. I made some halwa and tried my best to perform some prayer that would not result in offending my deities.

As luck would have it, it was a cloudy day and husband and I spent a good 40 minutes after scheduled moon rise looking for the damn thing. Since the moon is not visible from our balcony I took to going out every five minutes to check. When the moon was finally visible, I hurried the husband out, sipped the water, gave the other half a hug and rushed home for a table full of food.

So my take, fasting was not bad, the praying was even better, the food was the best and I still think we have these festivals to add drama into our lives.

A Woman Second

I have tried for a long time not to write this post. Mostly it was because I had very strong feelings on the subject and was not sure I wan...