This season is for Cool Hair styles!

Up until now, YoungMM always preferred short hair.  From the time lockdown started last March, she changed her mind and wanted to grow her hair. It gave me an opportunity to try my hairstyle skills. I always loved French plait and I use it in multiple combinations. 

Every day I put her different hairstyles and YoungMM enjoyed it. It was also a good time to bond. Though she hates the way I comb the hair, she loves the finishing.  I also found innovative ways to decorate it. I used Tumbe Hoovu (ತುಂಬೆ ಹೂವು) from my garden! 

Last week I had been to a friend's house. Her little daughter also has grown long and amazing hair these days. I could not resist my urge to put her some hairstyle. When I asked her if she wants any hairstyle, she came with her box of hair bands and ribbons. 

I used her craft stickers for decoration and this is how it came out. It was a delight to see her joy! I bonded with her through this Hair Style! Isn't it Cool!😎

Random Records - Story of Face Mask - Discomfort to Comfort and vice versa!

It happened about ten years back! I had a colleague who was also commuting a long distance with me on the office shuttle. He was super allergic to the pollution in Bangalore and was in persistent cold throughout the year. As per his doctor’s advice, he started to wear a Face mask during the commute. Firstly, in those days the face masks that were available for general use were not aesthetically good. Secondly, people were not used to seeing people wearing face masks outside of hospitals. Bus mates thought it was usual. Some were very amused by his face mask also sort of made fun of him and thought it is like using a sword in place of a needle. Some got awkward to sit next to him. The discomfort was mutual for my colleague as well as for others.

2020 surely reversed this situation! Now it awkward, offensive, and of course unsafe if someone does not wear a face mask.

I had two such experiences this week. In a Doctor's clinic, A lady was sitting with her helmet on. This looked strange but the fact was that she had forgotten her face mask at home, and this was her only alternative. Else she was not allowed to walk in!

I went for a 'just in time' shopping to a nearby shop in my two-wheeler. Since it was close-by I did not use a Helmet, but I had forgotten my face mask as well! I did not want to go back home, so I used the cloth bag as a handheld face mask while walking to the shop with much discomfort avoiding stares from other people and security.  Alas! the security caught me and asked me to wear the face mask. He let me in only when I convinced him that I will buy one at the shop and wear it there.

I bought one immediately in the store and wore it in a jiffy. That is when all around me felt comfortable!  what a change in perception!

Lockdown Diaries - Lockdown#1

This is a write-up from the lockdown dairies that I wrote during Lockdown #1 back in 2020. 

Side effects of Covid - The Changing Landscape

While taking a stroll on the nearby roads yesterday I could not miss noticing the change in the landscape. My neighborhood is packed with PGs and people who stay single. This basically means that they do not have functioning kitchens or no kitchens. These people depend on the number of small and medium-sized restaurants for the food all three times a day. 

There are the restaurants that normally serve Idlis, dosas, vadas for breakfast and chapati and rice varieties for lunch and dinner. Also, there are many North Karnataka-style hotels that served Jovar roti. There is nothing fancy about the place as such. But they just do what they need to do. Serve good food at a reasonable price. There were also Chinese fast food places that had tasty noodles, soups, and Manchurian options.

One of my favorite places was a healthy and tasty place called 'Just Food' where every dish was made from millets. The guy who ran the place was very passionate about the millets and traditional varieties they were making at the shop. He had transformed a very small 10ftX12ft shop into a beautiful kitchen with decorations and paintings. The millet Dosa, idli, and Rotti were just like home-made. They also made different millet rice varieties which were all fresh and tasty. Whenever I went for a walk there or went to buy from their shop, the welcome smile of the hotelier and the chitchat with their family was truly pleasant. The glaring thing that I noticed was that the place where this shop was there is now replaced by a mewa store which seems to be the trend.

Not just this but the Chinese restaurant also has got closed down. This I say is a side effect of covid since the crowd moved out of Bangalore after lockdown and the small businesses could not sustain during those blank lockdown months. Now when the situation is coming back to normalcy, there are new and bigger shops, restaurants that have mushroomed. The void this small yet fine place has created on this road is huge.

Random Records - Lockdown and Hole in the Wall shops

The lockdown of 2020 brought an unknown fear in me. I imagined that walking on the road, shopping and eating out is going to go away.. Not only that, but because people will not go out for work, it may create scarcity... Like the olden days of 80s.. Where people had to stand in lines for ration and all that.. 

This was an irrational fear since I had discounted the power of technology. The fact that internet and offshoots of it like Amazon, big basket, Facebook, Paytm were the new norms. Like everyone else, I too shopped online than never before in 2020.

Meanwhile, there was another thing that was finding the light of the day-the hole is the wall( small shops) which had almost died with the advent of Malls.  Near my home many such shops reopened and sprang to business. These small shops which were now using digital payment boosted their business..I always liked the personal touch of the small shops. In last few years I missed it so much since all the shops nearby closed down.. the Big Mall fishes were eating the small fishes..

It may be a way nature balances everything and tells us that there is a place for everything and everyone here.. it's so amazing..

Trekking Trails - Namada Chilume ( ನಾಮದ ಚಿಲುಮೆ) - The fountain of faith

Trekking to Devarayana Durga was this year's first and the only outing that too in the last week of the year. This was the first trek that we did as a family!

The drive from Bangalore is quite nice and after an hour of drive , we get into country side. But the scenery changes drastically about half an hour before the place when we will be rightin the middle of thick tress.

The trekking trail starts from a place called ನಾಮದ ಚಿಲುಮೆ, Namada Chilume.

This is a place where Rama and Lakshmana had walked down in search of Seeta. 

I wonder how much complex it would have been for them to walk in such dense and steep hills! I am amused by the fact that is there a place that Rama & Lakshmana have touched while searching for Seetha. May be it was a way to map South India!

The story is that Rama with his arrow brought water for applying tilak and this water is flowing here like a fountain ever since. This is the mythological significance of the place . 

Historically, Dr Salim Ali stayed here for many years for his research. The house has been retained as a memorial.

The trekking trail is steep but manageable for normally fit people. trekking time is approximately 3 hours. Trekking gears and forest guard is advised.

This is Namada chilume

Dr.Salim Ali stayed here

Picture at the peak

Reaching a peaceful place after a hard trek is so wonderful. After 2020's hard trek, 2021 will be just that..

Peaceful and Wonderful!

2020 - A year of PAUSE

This year has been rather heavy, yet so very essential.. Everything came to a standstill without any clue.. It's as though world took a "Pause".

When I reflect back, I feel if it was not for this pause, then I would have been deprived myself of so many things..

My routine in the past 20 years was hectic and packed .. get up at 4:45am, get ready, making lunch boxes for work, catching the office cab at 6:30a.m and reaching office by 7:30 am. Then like a clock - work and more work, attend meetings, lunch, tea and sit back in the cab to reach home by 6pm. 

Finish tea, go for a walk, come back by 7 pm and then attend work meetings + dinner. Sleep by 11pm..

In between catch up with young MM with her studies and school stuff. In short it was always Run..Run and Run..

Well! Even writing this is making me breathless… And think of following this routine for about 20 years..

In midst of this with not much pomp comes a change - Work from Home , social distancing because of the pandemic..

I got about 4 hours of extra time which I was spending on commute in the office TT.

This opened a lot of possibilities for work, health and hobbies..

My leap into Yogic life is only because of this pause.. As my Guru Grand Master Aksharji says it's because of the "ठहराव". He says to feel the effect of every Asana give pause..

Pause is powerful!