RSVPing R.S.V.P. is a short form for “répondez s’il vous plaît” which translates to “respond please” and is actually a French phrase which is considered old fashioned and formal and not used these days. But you would see the use of RSVP in India for many wedding cards. I am no French expert but here is a pronounciation snippet for R.S.V.P But how a French word became a common parlance in India and continue to do so. Lets try…
Sharda Sinha: Doyen of Bhojpuri Music I am not sure but maybe it’s somewhere in 1990s. We used to live in a place called Boleng in Arunachal Pradesh. There were many times when our days began with music of Sharda Sinha. Imagine a morning, sun shining through the lush green hills, bright blue sky and rays coming in through the windows. In the morning sun you could see the dust in the air and it was a Philips Tape Recorder…
Plan We have not been travelling for more than 2 years now and there was a family event and we managed to travel to Lucknow. We didn’t had lot of time at our hand and our three year old daughter didn’t allow us lot of flexibility. Limited time there but the city is very intriguing. City The city has two sides, the Old Lucknow that is on one side of the Gomti River which is stuck in time. Then there…
Tail Event? Talk about a tail event and disruption, Covid has been a tail event that nobody wanted and hair cutting salons in India are hard hit. While doing my own hair cut today myslef I was thinking if someone would have asked me pre Covid “Would you cut you own hair at home ever in your life by yourself?” My answer would have been straight no. Almost everyone has a favorite barber shop and also a chosen barber to…
Why Alchemy? Alchemy is one of the oldest somewhat scientific approach through which people have tried to make gold from different methods. But with all the technological advancements we still have not been able to make fundamental elements artificially. The periodic table have a number of elements that have been discovered over the years. The first 94 elements are from Hydrogen to Plutonium are found in nature, some are found in traces and rest from 95 to 118 are synthesized…
Disclaimer: This is not a parenting advice. I am not qualified enough but this is a reminder to myself and open for feedback. All this is subject to change. My daughter Ira is more than 2 years now and these are thoughts that crosses my mind many times. I do not know what is right or wrong but maybe when Ira is old enough she can give a feedback. Anyways my dear readers feel free to comment and share your…
Bhojpuri and Me Language is close to many people’s heart. Now its somewhat unfortunate that the language that I am talking is something that I can’t speak myself at this point. And I have seen as a kid that my parents never forced to speak the language though they conversed in the language themselves. English is a foreign language but for reasons that is out of the context of this article became a language that many of us Indians picked…
How I got my first bike? I lived in a small town called Boleng tucked away in Arunachal Pradesh where I learnt cycling on a patch of road of less than 500m which was not going up and down like every other road did. My dad taught me riding a bike when I was in 9th standard. When I came to Bangalore after college I was very keen to get a bike and was planning to buy Bajaj Avenger due…
Indian society is somewhat different from societies around the world and a lot goes unspoken in families. Parents normally don’t want to hear anything which is considered “bad” about their children. Mostly young people lead lives of split personality, one which is tuned to what parents want to see and one which is the reality. This story is about me and how my parents caught me red handed with something which is considered not so good by most of the…
I am a reluctant car driver living in Bangalore, India. Never loved driving or going on a long drive, prefer if it being driven by a friend and me enjoying the ride looking out, probably helping with directions (very bad at it though :-)). I have been driving on and off from 2009 and in these years I would not have clocked more than 15K KMs mileage. That makes it an average of under 2K/year which is not a lot….
As a kid I remember both my grandmother were smokers and me going and buying the Indian version of cigarette called “Beedi” from the nearby shop was common. Now I am not sure when and how they had started and unfortunately by the time I was old enough to ask them they were not around anymore. There is no doubt about them being devout enough. My dad’s mother would religiously go to Ganga every morning before the sun rises and…
Recently I was on a short trip to US for work. I was in a town called Longmont, Colorado. At this time of year which August the climate was very pleasant with bright sun. The temperature was hovering around 25-30 Deg C which was very near to what we have in Bangalore. Longmont isn’t that big a city but very beautiful with Rocky Mountains running north to south and can be seen very easily. In United States you wouldn’t see…
Hawa Mahal is 15 min radio program broadcasted by All India Radio’s (run by Indian goverment) channel Vividh Bharti. These days there is a FM channel 102.9 MHz where this program is played at 8PM (Mon – Saturday) Stories, Anecdotes, Snippets, skits, plays or natak, jhalki, vyang in Hindi are what Hawa Mahal deals with. The specialty is the local stories that are close to us, our culture and stories of this land. In this globalized world where a Television Series like “Game…
I am not sure about the year, but it would probably be somewhere in 1992-93, I was playing cricket in an area which wasn’t our normal playing ground.I have blurred memory of that day and it was a nice cloudy day , mostly at the start of winter, perfect for playing. Boleng used to be a small hamlet surrounded by Himalayan Hills with distant constant burble of mighty Siang. I was probably fielding in the mid off area and as this one…
“Boond boond se banta hai sagar” is what we normally say in Hindi in India Here is picture from my personal experience which does convey this message This is a snapshot of my Runkeeper and I had kind of promised myself that I will share my experience once I had done 1000KM recorded on the app. I have been active on this app for more than one and half years and had tracked around 217 activities of which 70% is walks averaging 3-4…