Friday 28 December 2012

To the man who continues to inspire millions around the world


It is Ratan Tata's 75th birthday today and also the day when he will be retiring as the Chairman from the Tata   Group. 

I don't remember since when but it was during my late teens that I got a chance to read about him and everything that I came to know about him only inspired me more and it still continues :)

To the man who has inspired me to pursue my passion, Wish you wonderful 75th birthday and many more to come !!


Monday 10 September 2012

Nostalgia

I missed writing in this space so much and didn't want to hold myself back any longer.

Each day is turning out to become busier and I don't really want to miss out on the small things that I enjoy doing and the little things that add so much fun to each day :)

So, here I am back after a relaxing , lovely weekend.

For the last few months, I literally didn't know whether it was a weekday or a weekend. All that I knew was that we had work to do.. After a long long time had a relaxed happy weekend :)

It was a fun weekend  - outing with college friends and catching up with college bus juniors over lunch.

I sooo miss the good times from College.


Thursday 14 June 2012

Meet the Bakers !

I love to write as much as I love good food, so when I get an opportunity to write about food there is no better reason that gets me back to blogsville :)

If somebody asked me what's news in the Chennai front , the first thing I usually come up with is there is this new place that has opened so we might go there for may be lunch or dinner over the weekend. But, to anybody whom I spoke to over the last few months there haven't been any conversation that ended without discussing about the amazing stuff the home bakers in Chennai create.

I honestly don't remember the last time I ordered cake from a cake shop, I'm sure it's been more than a year.  

When the best of Home Bakers from Chennai get together for a mega event to show case all their lovely creations under one roof, this can't get any sweeter or better !

The Home Baker's Guild(founded by KP Balakumar and Nanditha Sashidharan) in association with Crimson Chakra (Thanks to Nikhil Moturi) along with the 14 lovely bakers who will be baking for the event .... presents ... "Meet The Bakers, a mega baker showcase in Chennai".  From cookies totarts to pies to cakes to cup cakes to muffins to puddings to what not, they are all going to be available for sale made by our very own home bakers. A great way to get to meet and chat with them as we munch on their freshly baked goodies :)




To get to know more details on the Home Bakers Guild or the bakers who will be showcasing their products on the big day, you can also follow Deepa's blog who is doing interviews with the Bakers :)

There will also be a lot more details about the event and the bakers in the coming days :) watch this space for more !

P.S. : I have also started baking in the last month or so .. if your wondering, no I'm not baking for this event :D


Sunday 27 May 2012

Galgalapu - Movie experience

Happened to watch this movie on Friday evening and it turned out to be a full time laughing session, what more can we expect when we have RJ Shiva and Santhanam. 

Its not a bit serious movie with a decent story line and loads of comedy, happened to be a super time pass film worth a watch :) 

Sunday 22 April 2012

Happy Earth Day !

Nature is beautiful and most the time I get to realize this when we are out on a hill holiday or a beach destination, but I am sure every place has a beauty and charm of its own..

It's always good to use resources wisely and to the need, I just got this into me because of the frequent power shortages in the city and the almost day long power cuts across various towns in Tamil Nadu which I came to realise when I visited Trichy and Mayiladuthurai last month.

My little bit to our beautiful Earth ..


  1. I am going to take my own shopping bag, else carry stuff I buy in hand. Its no to plastic covers!!
  2. I am getting a non-plastic water bottle to carry water every day and stop buying Aquafina and Bisleri bottles as much as I can 
  3. Car pool, I have been very successfully doing this as much as I can and would continue doing it :)
  4. Switch off unused lights and fans 
Small contribution by each of us, would surely make a big difference :) 

Happy Earth day ! 

Saturday 7 April 2012

Honda Brio - Test Drive

When my friends decided on buying new cars few months ago, one of the better ways we spent our weekends were by test driving every car we came across right from a Maruthi Alto to a BMW :) :)

Among the series of Test drives over the month, the latest that got ticked off in our been there, drove that list is the Honda Brio.

Brio has always been the cute little car that has been zipping across the city for couple of months now. To me, its one of the best option if you are looking to buy a small hatch back petrol variant along with I10 and the new Maruthi swift.



However, I would rate Brio higher when it comes to maneuverability, the look and feel of the car and the interior space for a car of its size.

The only draw back that I found of the car during the time we spent driving it was the rough gear shifting, else the car was a dream on wheels :) totally enjoyed the drive !!


Thursday 5 April 2012

Summer Time !

End of March .. early April .. I always get excited when summer approaches. It is not approaching anymore, its already there !

Couple of years back, summer meant holidays, friends, family, outing and all the nice things in life. It was a big break from books and doing the routine of going to school / college. It was the time of the year that was most awaited :)

I still cannot contain the excitement when I come to hear of summer vacation, though it significantly doesn't change much to my routine. Today was one such day, when one of my colleague was discussing about summer camp activities for his 5 year old son. I with all my excitement suggested skating, swimming etc.. making me realize how much I miss summer as a kid.

Over the years, I have always made a list of things of what summer meant to me !! So, here it is for Summer of 2012 !

  • MANGO, I wish I get to savor some Pathuri mangoes this year as well
  • Birthdays ... including mine ;)
  • IPL
  • Garnished curd rice with pickle .. nothing can taste better in summer, this is turning out to be my staple morning meal
  • series of 3 day weekends for almost a month
  • Lots of new ice cream parlors  in the city that I am waiting to visit 
  • PANI PURI, I get pani puri craving during summer. And thankfully the most famous pani puri walla of Chennai is very close to my work place :) . Its already 3 continuous days that I have been visiting the pani puri shop *slurrrp*
  • Loads of chocolate making !!
  • Learn something new
  • And the never ending power cuts and this is only getting worse every year
Now, did that list just contain things that I am planning to eat for the next couple of months :D 

What are you doing this SUMMER ??

Wednesday 4 April 2012

Kaustav weds Ritu

For almost couple of months a huge bunch of us were waiting for February to arrive, as couple of our friends from college were getting married to each other and it was in Kolkata :) what better reason to visit Kolkata ? And it was also my first visit to the land of Golgappa.

Kolkatta happened to be a 19th century city with 21st century cars. I strongly believe it is the people who make the place, in that sense we had a nightmare getting to reach out hotel from the airport. With recommendations from people to take a cab from airport, we booked one and were told we would reach our hotel in about 45 mins and it took us close to 3 ours to reach the place (the cab driver was very unfriendly, he decided to drop us off midway telling us the hotel was at walking distance and the road to the hotel has been made one way ) . With amma's broken Hindi we kinda managed to find the route and reached the hotel room with a layer of dust and pollution covered face :) :)

Sigh! but, that was about the bad part of our Kolkata trip.

This trip to me meant relaxing in the hotel with mom, attending the wedding and visit my cousin if her place is not too far away from where we were ! I was too tired with work that I just wanted to relax and even shopping didnt seem to interest me.

Day 1: 

After the horrible ride from airport to the hotel, Amma and I settled for lunch with Roti, aloo subzi, vegetable coins (this tasted yummy) and lassi *Slurrp*.

Did I say "even shopping didn't interest me" ?? Well, ya that was only until I reached the hotel, after lunch we headed to a nearby mall, just to see how malls looked like in Kolkatta ;) ;) and I came across an interesting shop - Chocolates by Manju sethiya which made us get couple of boxes of gourmet chocolates. They were really good, but not great. I loved the clothes stores in Kolkatta !!

By evening, we were at our room and were getting ready for the late night wedding. This was the first time I was attending a north Indian wedding. Friends from Hyderabad, banagalore, Kolkatta, Chennai meeting after almost a year .. need we say more, we missed a lot of others who couldn't make it to the wedding. But, I am glad I was able to make it. Thanks to amma who accompanied me, else I wouldn't have been able to be part of the wedding pics of 2 of my good friends :) :)

The wedding rituals extended into the early hours of the following day, I could control my sleep until about 2 am post which we decided to get back to the hotel.







Day 2:

We had our flight back to Chennai at 6 in the evening. And also thinking about the traffic snail in Kolkatta we decided on making it to the airport by 4:30pm. However, I was also looking to meet my cousin who I haven't met for a decade now and thankfully her place was not too far from where we stayed. We were there for a very brief time as Kolkatta traffic was very un predictable, but that little sometime made so much difference to all of us.

I should say it is so good meeting family and friends, because I feel after a point we don't really make as much friends we made while in school or college :) :)

I was a happy girl with loads of beautiful memories that I carried back with me from Kolkatta :)

Sunday 29 January 2012

Nanban - Movie Review

*No spoiler*

When I heard months back about Vijay performing the role of Aamir Khan in 3 idiots, I was a bit doubtful how it would turn out to be and so was is with Srikanth playing Maddy's role especially because I loved 3 Idiots to the level that it would be one of my all time favourite movie.

I am a huge fan of Vijay, but still I kept wondering how well Nanban would materialize and all my doubts were answered when I came out happy and smiling out of the theatre.

The cast in Nanban was brilliant, especially after seeing each of their performance :) The movie happened to be a scene by scene clone from 3 idiots, however after the first ten mins into the movie I totally lost the feel of it being a remake. Each of the actors took the show by a storm..

I still like 3 idiot .5% more than Nanban. But, Nanban is an awesome movie !!

When I was browsing through channels in TV today, just came across a show in which they were showing the making of the movie Nanban .. I was totally in awe thinking about the beautiful locations, where they had shot the "aska laska" song, they looked so pristine and unspoiled.

A kind of movie that I can see many many times and still not get enough of it :)

Don't miss watching the movie, I am sure you will enjoy it !

Saturday 14 January 2012

Some people Some moments # 6

My last weekend (the first weekend of 2012) was so very very good.. thinking about it I am still smiling :)

On Saturday, after a bit of running around the city and getting some work done I had plans to catch up with couple of college friends. It was almost after a year we were meeting though we happen to be living in the same city .. so for dinner my friend 'D' and I caught up with 'N' and 'K'. It was a very special evening for all of us as friend 'K' had come to give his wedding invite :) :) He was getting married to another friend of ours 'R'. What more reason for us to rejoice ??? We spent close to three hours talking , eating, talking, talking .. it was of course more talking than eating we did :)

We spoke about everything under the sun from Why this kolaveri di .. to wedding shopping .. to college gossip .. to work life .. to cooking .. to bunking work .. it just took me few minutes to get into the care free mode.
I just realized that many months later, I actually felt a sense of happiness that only moments like these could create, it added more to the fun when friend 'K' said almost 50 to 60 of our college friends were coming to the wedding .. I immediately wanted to go book tickets to Kolkatta (the wedding destination). I was more thrilled as I will be visiting seeing a Bengali wedding for the first time :) :)



Dhruv, me, Nami and Kaustav

After an evening filled with moments that I will hold close to my heart and with friends "K" and "R"s wedding invitation in hand we got back home .. Did I say friend"K' is the best singer I have ever known .. so, we have asked him to sing to "R" in his wedding ;)  Here's a video of one of his jamming session 

If saturday took me back by a year letting me re-live my college days, on sunday I ahppened to meet my friend 'N', he is my kinder garden friend and the first friend I made :) :) and also is friend "D's" cousin. After high school, we hardly were in touch. It came as a surprise to him when he saw me at his place. Though it was a short meet, it was so good catching up with "N", his mom and grand mom ..

We looked different, we were no more kids or teens, we weren't in touch with each other regularly .. However, nothing had changed between us .. we had only grown fonder and valued our friendship a lot more and the minute we met it was life as usual the way it used to be when in college or school.

Now, I am looking forward to friend "K" and "R"'s wedding and my trip to Kolkatta :) :)