Tea & Dark Chocolate

I once read somewhere that if you want to sound intelligent , just quote David Foster Wallace. :-) I haven’t read Infinite Jest, and so I do not know his real literary prowess. And I think its slightly pretentious to quote him, but then we all know that I have a bad judgmental side to me. More on that later in this post. Its well known that the guy is a literary genius, and people have lamented at his sudden self-inflicted death. As a side note, what's it with very brilliant people being totally sanki , aka screwed up? Before I completely digress, let me get back to David Foster Wallace, one of those authors I’ve been quoting a lot lately. So yeah, people have said that he is literary genius. And by people, I mean Maria Popova of BrainPickings.Org whom I totally admire. Not only is the lady awesome, her writing and her recommendations are awesome too! Image Courtesy – Transparent Cities

Did you read the book by Jack Kerouac? Supposed to be a classic, so read it! :-) Though it is not supposed to remind me of happy things, this book, especially the title makes me fondly think of long drives, on dusty roads with no other human in sight. The book, in spite of all the grimness it has makes me think of intimacy, adventure and a lifetime of experience! This picture sums it all up greatly for me. Picture Courtesy – Pinterest

Yes! :-D And no, modesty has never been my most strongest trait. Yes, I know it could certainly be better. Behave better. Learn more. Love a lot more. Hate a lot less. Feel things. Be transient to emotions. Be more self-aware. Oh, there are tons of things I know my brain could’ve been, but then, this is all I got, right? And I gotta live with it, and work on what’s there to make it better. And that’s where I bring in passion. I can't remember how it all began, but a couple of years ago, I noticed myself using the word ‘passion’ a lot more, and not just in work meetings to pump up my team, but also at home. [I blame the Maslow's Hierarchy of needs , including the Wi-Fi for this ;-)] The husband and I decided a couple of years ago that we would work for passion and only passion going forward. [Don’t ask me how that is going!] We decided that we’d follow/do all those things that our brain takes fancy in, and thankfully, have been able to follow through with it, largel...

A couple of days ago, a friend told me that she was flying to Bangkok for just the weekend. I knew that this was her first trip out of the country, so I was confused on why would she do that for just a weekend? There was so much to Bangkok, that even after having spent 3 days just in that place, I left with a feeling that I should go back there again, which am going to do for sure, in future. Her reasons were justified, she couldn’t plan one by herself and wanted to follow her friends when they were going. This didn’t reduce the confusion I had - How ON EARTH can you experience a place in just a weekend, especially if you keep yourself busy throughout the time there? Bangkok was my first non-Indian-city to visit too. I was excited at my first international trip. I was 26, and chided myself at having gone anywhere out before - everyone I knew had traveled to a different country before. I was nervous as I boarded the flight by myself at the Hyd airport, was glad to find someo...

For years I've walked past this building, always telling myself that I am going to come back here someday and take up one of their courses. I didn’t know then that this was some kind of a learning institute. The building only evoked a strong feeling of I-HAVE-go-inside-and-sit-here. It is from this building, and from those years that a seed to learn Urdu was planted in my head, I guess. I even acted on it for a while, honestly. It helped that the husband had a similar thought, the linguistic couple that we are , and so we both set about learning it.

<<This review is first posted on my Goodreads profile here >> Nigeria has fascinated me for the past few years, thanks to Adichie, The other two books of hers have interested me greatly, and I was glad to discover a different side to Nigeria, the one that is intelligent, rich and prosperous, not the one we are otherwise used to knowing, full of princes wanting to give us money over the internet or the one that we generally put in the same category that we reserve to African countries … that place in our heads that’s reserved for some pity, some shudder and a sigh at a lost continent.

This is one of those happy, peaceful, contented Sundays. For all the impatience I have in wanting to get out of the kitchen and hence having to finish up early, there is something very nice about a bustling kitchen, even if the food being cooked is just for the two of us. Bread pudding is being tried, some of which will be treated to office friends, there is sabudana khichdi for breakfast and some karela fry stuffed with yummy nutty paste is being attempted to by the cook, and am sitting on the table in my place, reading some obscure stuff. I hid the the wine bottles that were on the table to not scandalise anyone. These was supposed to be made into sangria  by the husband, who being the busybody  that he is on some weekends is taking an interview in the study, and was supposed to be taken to a friend's place where we are brunching !