Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Short Story- Berry by Langston Hughes

'Berry' is a short story written by Langston Hughes. 

It's a story of a black boy who gets to work as a helper at the disabled children's home. This short story is well written and has a colloquial style of writing. The subtle portrayal of human behavior in the story is hard-hitting. Enjoyed reading it. Thanks, Rima for suggesting the story. 


Thoughts- Clock and time

It's interesting how we developed a relationship with the gadgets in our life. The cellphones have become an extended hand in our lives. 

In the past, we had clocks. Before the advent of clocks, time was slabs of sessions. The sundial, water clock, and many more devices helped us to go on with our lives according to agrarian rhythms. With the accuracy of time into seconds and minutes, we strived for productivity. Over time, the clock has changed the way we see time in our life. Gadget changes us!

Movie- Gangs of Wasseypur


Dark. Violent. Realistic. Gripping. 

Shankar, Bijju and many others suggested me to watch this movie. I always procrastinated. I read out Anurag's tweet that he was inspired by Tamil movie, Subramaniapuram to go back to his roots and find stories. Thus, he went to his roots and found the story and made a movie, "Gangs of Wasseypur."

Enjoyed the movie. Loved listening to the Dhanbad, Bihari Hindi. The background score and soundtrack of this movie is quite evocative. Sneha did commendable work. 

I also enjoyed the cast. I could only see the characters and the story. No hero, no heroines. Good work whole team.  

Monday, July 27, 2020

Music Memories

Khulke Jeena Ka. Listening to this song, I caught my self smiling wide. Loads of happiness.Ecstasy. Love. Every note hits me as I listen to it and can't stop smiling.




It's the same with Piya Tose Naina laage re.  



Beautiful memories. Sasha's voice heals. 

I heard Elsa humming the song, "Piya tose." "What song is it ?" I asked. She thought for a second, hummed a bit, "Piya Tose," she answered. I remember the evening walk for the song I heard from her. 

Saturday, July 25, 2020

Questions- What else is possible?

I looked at the window watching the water drops plop on the floor. It's raining. It's raining heavily. Every building got its color changed by the water. Every building dipped in water. Every building got its part of rainfall. The dark clouds took over the sky. No hills are at sight. I looked up at all the terraces and noticed two kids enjoying the rain. They were dancing in the rain. They were running, playing in the rain. 

I smiled and I remembered all the times I spent in the rain. Remembered, recalled best memories. The smile was set on my face. 

"Did I decide that getting drenched in the rain is bad? What else did I decide in my life unknowingly?"

I did not look for an answer because, for the next thirty minutes, I was busy enjoying my walks in rain. 





Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Do's and don'ts at sirohi

Few do's and don'ts at Sirohi.

Before sunset check, if you have salt at home because after sunset, no one gives you salt.

They don't even sell the salt!


Do not get freaked out if you find oil can empty on Friday because people do not sell oil on Saturday. 


In general, we do not cook at night but, after lockdown, we went regular in cooking at home. We cook all sorts of food and we stock the groceries irregularly. At one such night, we didn't have our salt at our home. I  went out to buy it.

"Salt."

"People do not give salt at night!" exclaimed the shopkeeper. He also mentioned, "Neighbours don't even offer the salt at night!" 

"What do we do now?!" 
"Come at morning!" the shopkeeper mentioned. I was already imagining myself eating saltless food while I was listening to him sharing the reason. "Here, in Sirohi, people feel superstitious about giving salt to others after sunset. No one gives you salt!"

God bless the world!

Sharing such stories to other friends in Sirohi. They scoffed at me. "Don't you know this? People don't even buy oil at Saturdays."

Ohkay. Tiime to restock the oil now!
 


Monday, July 20, 2020

Book- Swami and Friends by R.K.Narayan

I spent my childhood hearing of Malgudi Days. I fell on deaf ears being occupied with cartoons such as Talespin, Swat Cats, Power Rangers.  I remember watching an episode or two of 'Malgudi Days.'  I never knew the  Malgudi Days is based on a book, "Swami and Friends."

I got introduced to this book written by R.K.Narayan, thanks to Thara for the suggestion. 

It's a story of a 10-year-old Swami and adventures with his friends. 

This book takes us to Swami's world, the town of Malgudi set in the pre-independence period. Easy Reading is the hardest writing. R.K.Narayan has written it in a simple narrative. Simple narrative, it may seem but, it's interesting and charming. 

It gives us space to empathize with Swami and his friends. Swami's stint at M.C.C (Malgudi Cricket Club) reminded me of my childhood cricket memories.  Reading Swami's stories, I reminisced all my childhood memories. 

I never escaped from home but, got lost in an Exhibition. Like every child in India, I was ambitious to play cricket in the evenings. We had our own gangs. We made friendships without any agenda. We were jealous. We were selfish. We were ambitious. We were empathetic.  While writing this, I recollect all the friends I made in different schools, at different neighborhoods. 

This book will bring out all the childhood memories. 

It's highly recommended. Would love to read other writings of R.K.Narayan as well. 







Saturday, July 18, 2020

Movie- Barakah Meets Barakah

Amidst Saudi social conventions, a blogger and a civil servant would be trying to romance. It's funny, modern, and satire on society. The music got middle eastern roots with a modern touch. Enjoyed watching it. 




Event- Kerala and Guercino by Raja Ravi Varma Foundation

Hosted by Raja Ravi Varma Foundation, a webinar by Parth Mitter. "Kerala and Guercino," I assumed about mysterious art connections between Kerala and the artist Guercino. "Do not take things literally," started prof Mitter and shared his observations and perceptions on Raja Ravi Varma paintings. 

Through various paintings, Raja's work is explained. How mannerist art got evolved during Raja's times and how the brothers managed to get a lot of patronages by higher royal people. Few interesting stories and a few critical observations. The color complexion of faces. The attire and the influences of western art.

Mitter also shared few stories on how Raja took upon historic paintings during the Late 19th Century. 



Thursday, July 16, 2020

Book- Tagore- A Life of Learning

This graphic novel, "Tagore- A life of Learning," is an Azim Premji University publication. Collaborated with Shristri School of Design for the illustrations, they got an interesting and captivating book. 

This book highlights the Tagore's journey in the field of education. Describing Shantiniketan, Tagore's philosophy of education is narrated.  Mostly, in Tagore's own words, the book is compiled and artistically illustrated. 



Surprised to see the alumni of Shantiniketan. Satyajit Ray, Amartya Sen and a lot more. 


There are a few lines worth quoting. 
"My father never stood in the way of my independence. He believed that truth could be found only by believing and loving it from the heart. He allowed me to wander about the mountains at my will leaving me free to select my own path in the guest for truth. Neither did the danger of my making mistakes deter him, nor was he was farmed at the prospect of my encountering sorrow. He held up a standard, not a disciplinary rod."


"To express the fullness of life, in its beauty as perfection, if only the veil were withdrawn"




There are two poems mentioned in the book. Mind Without Fear is one poem I read in Class 8th's English Textbook while I was doing a school practice at Azim Premji School. 



To My Country

Where The Mind is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth, with

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfe

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. 




This dawn, rays of the sun 
Somehow landed on life within
Somehow songs of morning birds 
entered the darkness of the caves 
Do not know why after so many days,
Life within awakens.

Life within awakens, 
Oh Here swells up the water, 
Oh! Can't check the heart's desire, the heart's fervor

The earth trembles and shivers, 
Loosened stones descend in numbers, 
The frothy ocean swells 
Roars out in great ire.

Thoughts- Conversation and Collaboration

In the book, 'Reclaiming Conversation,' Sherry Turkle talked about how conversation and collaboration brings out intellectual serendipity. I got reminded of the conversations I had that led to intellectual serendipity. 

I share such conversations with a lot of my friends. Meghana, Vedavrath, Shreya, Harry,  Samhita and Sruthi are few, with whom my conversations led to an effective collobaration coming up with creative ideas. During the beginning days of creating the TEDx community, Meghana and I used to hang out spending time talking to each other, indulging in rich conversations and  call it a day. It was from those conversations we built a lot of interesting activites, got creative ideas and made the community TEDxVNRVJIET.



"Through conversations comes the clarity," says Navnit. In the case of Shreya and I, I believe it to be right. We share a lot of ideas through conversations.  Most of the time, I listen, Shreya shares and I see the ideas being formed and imagination being churned. I love the ideation process Shreya takes up. Shreya is also the person who does things.  I procrastinated a lot of things as I was vulnerable to take up things I loved. Shreya inspires me in the way she handles herself and the ideas. It's again through conversations, a lot of ideas were shared and built on.

Harimohan Paruvu a.k.a Harry is one person I look up to for his words and  the way he leads his life. Conversations with Harry always trigger a lot of ideas. Through conversations, we bounce off our ideas. In fact, it was through conversations, we got a few ideas like, "Writing on what we learnt from others." 

We never looked for efficiency in conversations. We were there trying to share our thoughts to each other and be there giving each other undivided attention. 


Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Stories with Navnit- Work!


On a long discussion with Navnit, he shared the history of  Trilochan,  emphasizing how our work should speak for itself.

There’s a Hindi dictionary developed by a group of individuals.  Trilochan is one of them. 

"He can be called as ‘father of the dictionary.’ as well," raised eyebrows Navnit, sharing how people respected him for his work. 

"Now, think of him. He is an ordinary clerk. A normal clerk who knew the words and value of words. 

Maanlijiye, his boss may have got a car, money, a good job but, do we know them?

Iska Keerhi ke saamne woh kuch bhi nahi aatha hai.

It's important to create something that will speak for itself. That's the reason. Focus on work and the work will speak for itself. Do not worry about the other noises." shared Navnit a piece of wisdom. 

Glad I got to know about Trilochan, the man behind the Hindi Dictionary. True, that our work speaks more than our lives. This reminds me of the quote by Benjamin Franklin,


               “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”


Quote of the day

This quote is from the book, "Reclaiming Conversation" by Sherry Turkle. 



This is our paradox.
When we are apart: hypervigilance.
When we are together: inattention.

Book- Reclaiming Conversation

I was asked to give a presentation on a social issue at our foundation’s interview. I was confused on what issue should I talk about. ‘Talk about poverty, gender equality, sanitation and a lot,’ suggested my friends.

I was aware of the issues but never had a proper understanding on those issues. I chose, ‘the need of conversations in technological space.’

‘Is it a social issue?’ asked my friends.

“Any issue that troubles a lot of people can be a social issue,” I maintained.

I gave a presentation on the same. I shared on how conversations are important, how the technology is hindering the process.

Reading this book, “Reclaiming Conversation,” I acknowledge the power of talk in a digital age and reinstate how there is a need of conversation amidst technological space.

An excerpt that hooked me on to the book:

Ava Reade, the dean of the school, says that she rarely intervenes in student social arrangements, but recently she had to. A seventh grader tried to exclude a classmate from a school social event. Reade called the remiss seventh grader into her office and asked why it happened. The girl did not have much to say:

The seventh grader was almost robotic in her response. She said, "I don't have feelings about this." She could not read the signals that the other student was hurt. These kids are not cruel. But they are not emotionally developed.

Twelve-year-olds play on the playground like eight-year-olds. The way they exclude one another is the way eight-year-olds would play. They don’t seem able to put themselves in the place of other children. They say to other students: "You can't play with us."

They are not developing that way of relating where they listen and learn how to look each other and hear each 
other.

********

Children are making acquaintances, but their connections seem superficial.

We are being uncomfortable being alone.  Our conversations are substituted with a lot of connections.
The technological space we are into is hindering us to make friendships. These days, we do not make friends but add friends in social media.

We talk a lot. Through mail, twitter, Facebook, Instagram, memes, stickers, and whatnot.  

Aren’t we talking? Aren’t we connected?

“Don’t all these little tweets, these little sips of online connection, add up to one big gulp of real conversation?”  asked Stephen Colbert, actor, and comedian.

The author says, “No.”


NOTES:

This book is an examination of interpersonal and intrapersonal communications. Sherry Turkle cites Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”

This book is also divided into three parts:

Single chair for intrapersonal communication,

Two chairs concerning the importance of conversations in friendships, families, and romances,

Three chairs for interpersonal communication such as in school, work, and politics.

Turkle gathered data from schools, companies, families, and articulated her research and expertise in how we are sacrificing our conversation for a mere connection.

What has replaced our conversations?

Digital communication.

“In the past twenty years we have seen a 40 percent decline in the markers for 
empathy among college students, most of it within the past ten years. It is a trend that researchers link to the new presence of digital communications.”

“Online communication makes us feel more in charge of our time and self-presentation. If we text rather than talk, we can have each other in amounts we can control. And texting and email and posting let us present the self we want to be. We can edit and retouch.”

With this editing and retouching our communications, we are into this Goldilocks effect: 

We cannot get enough of each other if we can have each other at a digital distance- not too close, not too far, just right.

With this constant connection, we celebrate technology. “Technology enchants. It makes us forget what we know about life.”

“We slip into thinking that always being connected is going to makes us less lonely. But we are at risk because it is actually the reverse. If we are unable to be alone, we will be more lonely. And if we don’t teach our children to be alone, they will only know how to be lonely.”

These days we spend more time on phone rather than with individuals. We spend more time on social media rather than in person.  Even people are interested to know stories through social media than in-person. Our social media presence has become a compulsive performance.

“I spend my time online wanting to be seen as witty, intelligent, involved, and having the right ironic distance from everything. Self-reflection should be more about, well, who I am, warts and all, how I really see myself. I worry that I'm giving up the responsibility for who I am to how other people see me. I'm not being rigorous about knowing my own mind, my own thoughts. You get lost in your performance. On Twitter, on Facebook, I'm geared toward showing my best self, showing me to be invulnerable or with as little vulnerability as possible.”

It’s easy to text, I am sorry but, it takes a lot to apologize in person.

“The text "I'm sorry" means, on the one hand, "I no longer want to have tension with 
you; let's be okay," and at the same time says, "I'm not going to be next to you while you go through your feelings, just let me know when our troubles are over."

What’s the problem with digital communication?

“Face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience. We attend to tone and nuance. When we communicate on our digital devices, we learn different habits. As we ramp up the volume and velocity of our online connections, we want immediate answers. To get them, we ask simpler questions; we dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters. And we become accustomed to a life of constant interruption.”



One Chair: SOLITUDE & SELF REFLECTION

“You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That's what the phones are taking away. The ability to just sit there. That's just being a person.”
-LOUIS C.K., ACTOR AND COMEDIAN

It is important to be in solitude.

“It is only when we are alone with our thoughts-not reacting to external stimuli-that we engage that part of the brain's basic infrastructure devoted to building up a sense of our stable autobiographical past. This is the default mode network." So, without solitude, we cannot construct a stable sense of self. Yet children who grow up digital have always had something external to respond to. When they go online, their minds are not wandering but rather are captured and divided.”

There are so many mediums taking away our solitude. We have our phones, Facebook, gadgets not, letting us to be ‘ourselves.’
We cannot develop the capacity for solitude if we don’t have the experience of being “bored” and then turning with-in rather than to a screen.

The strayed Self-Reflection:

We are relying on the numbers and narratives to reflect on ourselves. Today, we are quantifying our life and becoming an algorithmic self.

“The psycho analytic self looks to history as it leaves traces in language; the algorithmic self to what it can track as data points in a time series.”

We contend in the number of likes and the views. Reflections based on these numbers and narratives is another whole performance we are performing, running away to be ourselves.

TWO CHAIRS: FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, ROMANCE.

The culture of conversations in families have changed to group chats, text messages and emails.  “Whenever there’s an important thing my dad wants to discuss, he discusses through the mail.” shared my friend. I could not realize why the conversation was substituted by mail but, I realized we are comfortable to stay behind the screen rather than speak face-face.

Conversations helps us to listen to each other attentively. Adults are failing to teach how to talk to children.

With various anecdotes, author shared how the family relations are turning shallow and people are unable to be vulnerable and expressive.

“Instead of settling down and figuring out what to say to his daughter, it is easier for the father to show love by taking pictures and posting them to the network.”

It’s easy to share a picture with corny caption than to talk to the person and share how much do they mean to them. It’s easy to tag the person on social media and tell the world about the person rather than sharing with the person herself.

“A good friend should keep you off your phone when you are together.”

Whenever we meet our friends, how often we try to stay away from the phone and give our full attention. How often we check our phones for emails, updates?

The new age of friendship are made over social media and the connections are also been done over the virtual medium.
People appreciate a talk over social media rather than in-person because the social media works on our reward loop and keep us high, whereas in-person conversation demands our attention and empathy.
The reason why we are empathetic over social media but do not care in reality is because the way we have created double selves in life. Social media is a performance and in real, we gotta live.  Because of social media performance, we are forgetting to be empathetic in real.

With such apathy and no interest in others, what kind of friendships are being made?
The empathy gap is being built a lot in children. Shall we shun away from technology? No. Let’s accept that we are vulnerable and start the dialogue to change the way our technological devices are made

Having such troubled situations in making friendships, it’s obvious to imagine how terrible are we in romancing with the help of gadgets.\


Three Chairs: EDUCATION, WORK

Conversation plays an important role in learning. Taking the MOOC as an example, author shared the importance of conversation. We are celebrating online education now.  In the west, with an experience of online education for long time, the educators and teachers are calling out to find a middle line for traditional classrooms and online education.

Even I was celebrating the distance online education from prestigious universities. But, the traditional classrooms and the discussions tab on our desktop can never be the same.

A study has shown how a combination of online and offline education can be effective.

Regarding conversations at work, we can reflect on questions, “how often do we reach our phone in the meetings? How often do we prefer text when we can talk?

There is a lot ‘conversation’ can help us to be empathetic, understanding and maintain healthy relations.

It’s highly recommended. This book is about what stops us from taking conversations.

Monday, July 13, 2020

Movie- Soorma

This is the story of Arjuna awardee, Sandeep Singh. Inspiring. Brilliant. 

Movie- Wadjda


Arabic movie. A brilliant one. A girl wants to buy a cycle.  She wants money. She prepares to win the Quran recitation competition for the prize money. Will she win the competition? Will she buy the cycle? That's the story. 

I like the way the director has portrayed various social issues in a subtle way. The message is hard-hitting put in a subtle way. 

Max Richter is the music composer of this movie.  It's as realistic as it can be. Highly watchable. 


Movie- Stray Bullet

Lebanese movie. 

Dramatic. Gripping. Enjoyed the cinematography.


Saturday, July 11, 2020

Movie- Teen Kanya(Samapti) by Satyajit Ray

I realized that Rabindranath Tagore stories are recreated at various times with various improvisations. Satyajit Ray's movie, Teen Kanya is classic. The background score is soothing. These stories seemed to stand to the test of the time. 

We empathize with the character, Mrinmoyee. Great acting Aparna Sen. Post movie, loved reading the detailed analysis of the movie comparing the original and the narration of Ray's stories. 







Friday, July 10, 2020

Poem- Nature

 The hills are aflame with lush green

The clouds carried blue dreams. 


Windows veiled the reality

Temperature is set at 22 degrees Celsius

Switch on the system

Reboot. Update. Support system. P1.P2.P3

The hills are lulled by moonlight

The clouds are crawled in darkness

She was drunken in black caffeine

She stared at the screen that showed

her the dream; the hills. 


Stories with Navnit- Colors

"Colours are used a lot of times by Shamsher. People tell that they find it hard to interpret and understand his poems. I do not find them difficult," shared  Navnit walking across the room.  

"He uses yellow and blue extensively.   Yellow is used to express happiness and also sadness. Colour has different interpretations. Black depicts the unknown and the 'depth.'

To talk about depth instead of black, blue is used because the sky and ocean which are in colour 'blue' also can depict depth. Both have a lot of depth that's the reason colour, 'blue' is used. 

And he walked away sharing snippets on colours and the usage of colours. 

Stories with Navnit



Navnit got a new book from the library. He ordered several books for the library. As soon as the new books arrived into the library, Navnit takes immense interest and keeps reading the books he already read thoroughly in the past. 

"Chaand ka Mooh Theda hai," written by Gajanan Mahadev Mukthi Bodh. It's a poetry collection. Navnit Ji shared how "His poetry is modernistic and depicted the change of society through imagery," shared Navnit ji on his writing style. Love the way the poet expressed the change in society using the moon. 

Discussing the poetry, we went on to discuss the life of poet.  

Mahadev married a girl named, Shanta against the wishes of his parents. He only wrote two books. At the end of his life, due to his political antagonism, he became popular and there were so many books written on him. 


Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Movie- Chaman Bahar

 Biju suggested this movie. He was excited about it as he could relate to it well. Realistic and simple movie. I loved the background score and the songs of the movie. The actor Jintendra Kumar seemed to have field day with all hit stuff on OTT platforms. 




Interesting thoughts- Ken Robinson's Finding your element

Ken Robinson's sense of humour and his style of speech is gripping. In the age of being distracted constantly, I didn't want to miss out any part of his 55-minute speech. It's quite educational on 'education. 


Major takeaways from his speech. 

To find one's element, one needs to have a big conception of aptitude. Right now, we live in cultures with a narrow conception of aptitude. 

We should learn about the classifications of our feelings but not imprisoned by them. These days, happiness is interpreted as material well-being. 

We have to think about, 'what makes us fulfilled?'

With Ken's engaging style, he shared about his family. An inspiring story on how his father and the whole family influenced to him be himself. 

Stories on Ellen McArthur is inspiring. Life happens in an organic way but not, in linear way. 


"Open yourself to the world around you and within you."

                           
"Creativity should be given same treatment as literacy. "

Thoughts- Identities

The world is on the brink of a revolution in the wake of another racist attack. It's a world issue. And I do not know how do I react to this. #Blacklivesmatter.

It's a matter of colour in this oppression.

In reality, what's the reason behind this oppression? Matter of identities?

I am black. I have an accent. I am a Madrasi.

Where are you from?

"Hyderabad," I say.

"Chennai?" People ask. These are not the uncles who studied about the Madras Presidency but, the kids who got google maps and scored well in their social science subject.

"Where are you from?" asks a colleague.
"Hyderabad." I say.

Abhinay x Tamil saves the contact in the phone.

"Whenever I call you, I listen to your language Malayalam," shares few colleagues.
I never bothered to debate or condemn. They do not know. They never bothered to make an effor to learn that there's a place beyond Madras.

Take it easy. Why do I need to learn? shows a few face expressions.

Well, that's the same voice that talks of India and sovereignty. Does one have to know whole India to be an Indian.

Let me confess, I am educated but, I am unaware of 7 northern states. I am ignorant. But I do not do mistake of identifying everyone to Manipur or Shillong. I listen. I ask. I make an effort to know and not to miscommunicate whenever I speak to them.

Where's Chattisgarh? Haryana? Punjab?  Do we know where's Ambala?
We group them as North Indians. They call us South Indians.
In the game of identities, we hurt each other depicting our egos.
We can only connect to each other when we are respectful of others' identities.

LGBT, women, Men, Hindu, Treat them with respect. Be humble.
These are the three things I tell myself, in order to respect other.
Do not assume things.
Ask out of curiosity
Do not confirm.

Not everyone is ambassador of their traditions.
Don't ask every Punjabi about Patiala peg.
Don't ask every Tamilian about Malayalam.

  

Memories- Adventures on a lazy Sunday

On July 7. 2018, I walked out of home deciding to visit Abids for a heritage walk and later return home to get ready and attend Elsa's engagement. 
                                               
There'd be no story if everything would have happened as planned. Walked out of home, I did but, couldn't control the events that happened later during the day. 

By 11 am, I walked to Gunfoundry searching for the dilapidated barracks. I met the group led by Madhavi, an architect who took interest to share the history of various things around. We visited the at-present Mahbubia Girls School. On a lazy Sunday, I enjoyed walking around these old buildings listening to various anecdotes and stories shared by the fellow walkers. 
                                                   



                                                  
Later, we visited a museum nearby listening to the stories shared by the host. 3 years passed, I regret not blogging then. I cherish the experience but do not remember the details of the stories. 
                                                                    

                                               
There are various familiar people whom I only meet during these meetups. 
                                              
We spent most of the time at the museum and ended the heritage walk.  But, three of us, Haripriya, Phani & I were hanging out strolling in the streets of Abids. 
                                         
We walked into Lepakshi discussing the stories of Haripriya's and Phani's  travel stories. We discussed art of Adilabad and various craft stories. 
                                                        




Further, we sneaked into a house looking at the vintage cars. We realized, we were in a private property. We intended to appreciate the beauty of vintage cars. We walked in. We clicked a lot of pictures. We were welcomed by a doggy. On a cloudy day, with an adventurous spirit, we decided to spend some time over lunch. 




On our way to a hubbly bubbly restaurant, we fantasized to sit in the signature open-top red cars showin in films for wedding scenes.
                   

At the restaurant, we had our lunch sharing a lot of stories. I was sharing how I met A.R.Rahman. A story, I never get tired of sharing it. 

Contended by the turn of the events, I thought of my next plans. Looking at the clock, I realized, I have no time to return home and get ready for Elsa's engagement. Surprise, I was already at the venue.St.Joseph's Cathedral. But, I was in a t-shirt and jeans. Couldn't dare to attend  Elsa's engagement in such a shabby attire. 

With the help of Hari and Phani, went on to a quick shopping at Chermas searching for a bright kurta that would make up for the event.

 Suggested and advised by both, I was done with shopping. I got a bright orange Kurta. 


                               
I was ready for Elsa's engagement. Both of my friends bid me farewell. I walked into a church before the bride and groom walked in for the engagement. 

                                                                  

Met Mugdha after a long time. End of the engagement. Nikita, Yojita, Pragjna and I were en route to our places. Pragjna promised Cream stone icecream but failed to keep up her promise. I would never stop cribbing about how Pragjna failed to keep up her promise until she treats us with a Cream Stone icecream!



Friends- Huddle at R K Sweets

 Soon after the basketball practice, we used to head to RK Sweets. I remember going on Meher's bike and having some interesting conversa...