He gave me a list of vegetables to be got ready – potatoes, peas, tomatoes, green chillies and ginger. Potatoes and peas were okay with my mother, but she did not allow me to bring the tomatoes into the kitchen, for tomatoes were taboo. I was provided a charcoal portable oven.

Maiji writes about the English vegetables,once pariahs in the orthodox kitchen.

Next experiments were with acrid ‘beedis’ that were much cheaper but tasted horrid. Eventually we got caught and caned, after which we were warned of dire consequences should the act be repeated. Thus we started trying ‘meetha paan’ till we got caught chewing it on the school corridor (subject of another blog).Growing up, our interests moved on to other matters till holiday time when Sreekumar, bro & me would buy a couple of Scissors from Kazhakootam – Chandavila and smoke it. All that was for the fun of it, the mystery & doing what we were not supposed to do.

Maddy narrates his story from the first to the last puff.

Rajiv gets nostalgic and shares the ten things that take him back to the past.

Camlin or Natraj Geometry box – Owning a Camlin or a Natraj geometry box, that too a fully-loaded one with Steadler pencils, a white eraser, a sharpener and all the geometry instruments shining without any rust, was a moment of pride. No one ever knew when a divider would ever be used but the compass and protracter were absolute necessities. It is another thing that Camlin was Aishwarya Rai’s first ad shoot when she was in school!

I can relate a lot to this post.

Even a year ago, such an unceremonious exit in India for a senior manager of a company, who has put in more than 30 years of service, would have been unthinkable, unless of course he had committed some financial impropriety or been charged with sexual harassment or something equally unsavoury. But right now, unfortunately, we are not living in normal times.

Rada reflects on his sudden job loss in these difficult times.

Extempore writes about how the experience of loving a city, transforms over time when she describes her shifting feelings towards the land of the Nawabs.

Most people laugh when I still speak of Hyderabad as home. This is mainly because every time I’m asked if I know the new places in Hyderabad, I shake my head. You see, I never have the time for new places. 

Primal Soup goes to the Chennai Book Fair and comes back with a good book and a ticket to nostalgia lane.

The book in question has a fascinating title called – Where are you going, you monkeys? These are translated stories of a prominent Tamil author referred to as Kira (Ki Rajanarayanan). The stories are folktales from Tamilandu, that have been retold by this author.

Dave and Jenny goes into the pre-Photoshop era to get themselves on Bollywood posters.

Every year, Jenny and I send out a photoshopped holiday card to our friends and family. When we found out that some Bollywood poster painters are still eking out a living near Old Delhi, we knew that this year’s card would be hand-made. We dissected a bunch of old Bollywood posters for composition and style, took pictures of our faces in our desired poses, and set out a neighborhood near the Red Fort armed with vague contact instructions: “Find the Darya Ganj fire station. Make a right. Walk a hundred yards and ask the paan wallah for Vijay.”

Dear Prospective Bride/Groom,

Before you salivate at the easy prospect of thrusting your wedding invitation on your whole universe of friends, ask yourself the first major question:

Arvind Iyer has precious advice for those in the process of flooding their friends with their wedding invites. From my personal experience, I can say keep the list short and to those you really want to see at your wedding. Even if most of the friends you want don’t make it, those you wouldn’t want will definitely make it.

In reality its very difficult to tap people on their back, ask them ‘hey, are you interested in bollywood, F1, spirituality, music….and subscribe to certain views’ and then have sensible discussions, where we can even agree to disagree.

Manuscrypts compares making friends online to offline.

I don’t know what I wanted with him – pet him? pull his feathers? study his military prowl around the room? What I remember is running around in circles, screaming my fool head off, once we’d been introduced so to speak, and one of the maids come flying through the pantry with her broom held aloft to chase him out.

Amrita writes about her encounter with a rooster.