jayantiblogshere

What is your favourite colour ? I skip the question if it I am asked to remember this as the secret question to remember a password .   It is a question for which an answer has always eluded me.   It is green… on second thoughts it could be blue .. sky blue …no i am equally partial to lavender or to be exact mauve. Now Mauve is not even a colour.    Actually, I do not have a liking to any colour in particular… that is an easy answer. I am in awe of all those people who are so sure of what their favourite colour is ... Really .. how do you determine your favourite colour. A colour that is close to your heart. A colour that sets your imagination wild. A colour that soothes your senses.       Here is my attempt to describe my favourite colour. It is not the pink .. the baby pink that is associated with girls and all that is girlish. It is not even the pink on the other extreme .. the one that borders on magenta...

In a world where nature’s bouty in getting reduced to tasteless, odourless packaged products anything that is naturally fragrant and excites ones olfactory senses is always welcome. Sambhangi, Champak, Sampige. Shenbagam …Telugu ,Tamil, Kannada, hindi and Marathi. On a Sunday morning standing under a grand Sampangi tree in the compound of East Parade church near Trinity circle, Bangalore evoked these very nostalgic memories. With a very strong fragrance, sampangi can somtimes cause a mild headache, if it grows too close to your backyard in abundance.  On the other hand a flower or two can create a waft of a refreshing odour that can freshen one up and seduce the passer by.       Fragrant flowers like Malli poo, jaadi poo , mullai poo are a refreshing welcome to the bottled perfumes oozing out synthetic fragrance . My favourite is   JATHI MALLI (PITCHI) Jasminum grandiflorum L. Oleaceae . Court...

Victorian Bangalore Walk   I migrated to Bangalore two years ago.   Immigrants like me particularly from the IT industry have swarmed this city, stretched its limits and changed its identity.   What was it like before it became the IT Hub?   What was it like before the HAL, BEML, HMT and IISc other engineering institutions set   up base here ? A couple of weeks ago I chanced upon Peter Colaco’s book Bangalore – A century of Tales from City and Cantonment.   The small sleepy city that Colaco describes has indeed   grown too fast and too vast over the last one or two decades.   This Sunday I set out for a Victorian Bangalore walk.   It was recommended to me casually by my sister in law about four years ago when I took her around for a walk in London . I had totally forgotten about this until Peter Colaco’s book nudged me.     I had become interested in   history & culture through a series of Londo...

Found this bill ( photocopy) pasted on a pavement on M.G Road near Trinity Metro on Sunday morning. Certainly Does’nt look like an advertisement . Cannot figure what the intent behind this is … but never mind… POINT TAKEN DUDE.

The Pilgrimage to Silicon Valley Long ago in 1938 a Prof. Frederick V….of Stanford university   encouraged two of his young Stanford graduates … a certain William   and David to start something of their own rather than go and seek a career with established companies. What was born out this advice was some work in this garage.   As I type this blog on a HP laptop ( nope no ipad as yet J ) , it gives me a great sense of awe to think that William Hewlett and David Packard went on to establish one of the pioneering corporations in this garage that paved way to the Information technology revolution that has changed the way we now live in this world. If you were not a Computer History nerd, you would never find this place.   Tucked in a unassuming street in one of the residential areas around   Standford university campus is this garage of what is still a private property .   ( HP – the corporation could have easily brought this place off for a sma...

Musings over coffee Musings over coffee SUNDAY, 1 AUGUST 2010 Musings at Cafe Coffee Day Overlooking the Cubbon park, in Bangalore is the Café Coffee day square.( Earlier known as Tiffany’s square). Swanky is an understatement to describe the ambience. The place, the imposing façade overlooking bangalore’s Cubbon park is very befitting location as headquarters for a entrepreneurial venture that started out as India’s answer to starbucks. In Bangalore more than in most other cities in India, a Café Coffee day outlet is just almost there at every nook and corner. If you wanted to meet up an old friend who was around in your locality, you just said , lets meet up at café coffee day and you are sure to find an outlet in your neighbourhood. Complete with a wi-fi enabled infrastructure, it is a nice swanky place to spend a little bit of t...

Introducing Mercedes BC ( Bullock cart ) Class . The most fuel efficient , eco friendly vehicle from the manufacturers of Mercedes Benz.  This vehicle is a familiar sight for commuters on vartur road in whitefield, Bangalore\ Ingenious I did have a chat with the proud owner of Mercedes BC class and he told me in a matter of factly manner that he got this done in chickpete.

PICKLES : Mango in its ripe form is best enjoyed during the season. ( I am no fan of the preserved pulp varieties). But it is the pickles that give Mango the immortality and enable them to be enjoyed throughout the year.  The culinary diveristy in india is best captured in the varieties of pickles made across traditional households across india.  This blog is dedicated to a few varieties of the Mango pickles that I have known.     Avakkai : Usually associated as an Andhra specialtly, it dons different avatars in different regions. The sourest and firmest of mangoes are chosen for the pickles . The mangoes are so firm that it is almost impossible cutting them into pieces at home with ordinary kitchen knife. Avakkai mango seller in mylapore Somewhere in the middle of the mango season ( usually mid-may) , the market is flooded with sour raw mangoes suitable for making the avakkai pickle. The enterprising seller al...

WOOD FIRED INDIAN BREAD It is a Sunday evening I am walking  across this stretch of the road in my neighbourhood, where a few construction workers have pitched their tents.   There was music crooning out of the radio from a nearby tent, naked children running across the tents, screaming and playing.  But that is not what stops me there. It is the subtle smell of the freshly prepared chapatti.   Food hardly smells good these days, and when it does it does whip up your appetite. Outside this tent is this lady cooking the evening meal of  jowar ki roti ( or could it be chapatti ) in an iron Tava mounted on top of three bricks fired by twigs and small pieces of wood. The men and children are watching while the lady and a younger girl possibly her daughter and cooking the evening meal. It is dusk and there is very little natural light. But I do not want the moment to pass. My standing and staring is noticed by the lady. I ask her if I could click ...

Its the Time to Mango... I t has been a bumper season for mangoes, atleast from what I get to see in Salem and Bangalore . They say the best of mangoes harvest when the summer has been scorchingly hot.       Driving across the NH7 from Bangalore to Salem, is a sad experience of seeing trees cut and uprooted for the construction of the six lane highway. Such is the price we pay for development !!!    The NH7 cuts through some mango orchards throughout Thoppur, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri and Salem. Along the highway are numerous wayside sellers with varieties of the local mangoes selling it to the urbanized travellers looking for a good bargain and a slice of local flavor.  Local Mango sellers along the NH7  Mango orchards near krishnagiri Mango orchards near Krishnagiri Mango harvest - summer 2012 The locals entice the buyer by offering a slice of the mango. If you are a conossieur of mangoes or just a wee bit sh...