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!😎

Lockdown Diaries - Lockdown#1

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

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..

Life Hack Series : 21 Days Challenge - A Magic Wand

I always felt the 21 Days Challenge is overrated till I tried it myself. In 2020, I ventured into a number of 21 Days challenges and to my surprise, it worked like a Magic

As I started with WFH, very soon the days lost their structure. The rhythm it had all these years just vanished into thin air! Phew! Waking up was anytime before 8. Breakfast was almost 11am. Lunch at 3pm, dinner by 10 pm, and sleep by 12 pm.

• My rendezvous with Akshar Yoga triggered my first ever 21 Day Challenge. I was ready by 8am to practice Yoga along with Grand Master Akshar through FB Live. I never realized when the 21 Days got over since Yoga is part of my morning routine.
• I had a long-standing desire of taking up driving. Again it was the 21 Days Challenge that pulled this wish to reality. 
• I am very lazy by nature. Of late I had to rise early for catching the office cab at 6:30am. With the lockdown and WFH, this practice drifted. As I had felt the morning bliss, I wanted to get back to this practice. Hence resorted to the 21 Days Challenge again and now I am up before sunrise daily.

Today I complete yet another 21 Days Challenge - that's Blogging. I have written blog posts for straight 21 days. Isn't it amazing!

Hole in the wall shop - Shetty Angadi - ಶೆಟ್ಟರ ಅಂಗಡಿ

This year during the lockdown and later also saw a rise general stores or pretty shops. Largely due to the fact that it allowed social distancing naturally. MM calls them as hole in wall shops.

I am very happy about it as one I never liked the impersonal Malls and two I loved the relationships that are built at such shops.

One of such ordinary yet very unique shop was the general stores at Hassan. While growing up in 80's , I visited this shop almost daily for varied reasons. We used to call it as shettara angadi (ಶೆಟ್ಟರ ಅಂಗಡಿ).

It was run by father son duo. May be I never knew the name of the shop or the shop keepers. Though it was a 8×6 ft shop but had commodities more than a BDA complex. This shop was frequented by children and grown ups alike. It was a Miniature Super Store.

1. They sold chocolates of those days - Shama cholcolate, peppermints, neembu chocolates, haalkova(ಹಾಲ್ಕೋವ), kadle mitayi(ಕಡ್ಲೆ ಮಿಠಾಯಿ) etc.

2. Bun gulkan was another best seller.

3. Condiments of all kinds.

4. It was a small library. May be the first library I visited as a child. They had many kannada novels of Anupama Niranjana, Usha Navarathnaram and many others. Magazines like Sudha, Taranga, Prajamata etc. Mostly ladies would rent them. I had rented few Anupama Niranjana novels from here.

5. Then it was a Savings Bank too. They had a card  something like a post card with small circular prints of coin denominations for 10, 25, 50 paise. May be even for 1Rs.

All of our siblings had a card each and wherever we get any coin, we will run and give it to the shop and get it marked on the card. When the card is full which is  probably ₹ 25 or ₹50, we collected the money with a lot of pride and happiness.

Now I realise that it was a smart way of collecting coins needed for the day to day trade at the shop. But as a by product this taught me joy of savings at an early age. 

My mom's Facebook world

During the lockdown and later this year as there was not much happening socially, I decided to introduce my Mom to Facebook.

I thought this could be a good way to be in touch with her many friends and family. My idea was that she would be able to scroll through and see some pictures and that way be in touch with the world.

She had started using smart phone only a couple of months ago. I had shown her how to use whatsapp - type messages, pictures, download the images, videos etc..

Since she is not fluent with English she was not very comfortable. 

Well, I learnt how to use kannada keyboard on mobile and I taught her to use the same..

This opened up her spree in the digital world. My Mom became totally comfortable and at ease with whatsapp. She sent messages, wishes to the family and friends. Clicked photos whenever she went and sent it on whatsapp.. her interest was amazing.. Someone who did not even remember her mobile number.. Now became a Pro!

So after my first visit to my mom's place after the first lockdown ( to many firsts!), I installed Facebook and created a login for her and told her to get started.. showed her just few minimal operations  - to Like the post, accepting friend request, sending friend request.. Just this minimal things..

Surprise, surprise! My super enthusiastic and intelligent Mom took her Facebook time to a total different level.

She started with posting pictures of her garden, flowers and trees etc.. She even liked posts with emojis. She made many Facebook friends.It was fantastic to see her liking some of my friends posts even before I had seen them!

I recorded and posted my Mom's song and posted it and it became a super hit! 

My mom also many of our childhood photos and it was very nice to see the way she explored this..

Now, Facebook in a way is the face of social life for my mom! Isn't it amazing!

Reimaging the house

The one person whom I thanked whole of the lockdown and later this year was  Gardener Hanumantha. 

From a couple of years I started with reimaging our old house mostly from outside to make it look different from other houses in the neighborhood. 

One time when my niece LittleM was here and she told me that the entrance gate of all the 3-4 houses looked the same.. Same design and same color and it is confusing.. she surprised me with her observation which was actually true.. Which led me to the project of Reimaging.

My idea here was to keep flowering pots at the entrance and outside the house..

I did not know how to start since before that , I had not touched or watered a single plant!

After much search I found a person Hanumantha who was selling plants and other gardening essentials near my house. On one of the days in December about 4 years back, I got more than 30 big and medium sized flower pots and planters. We could only place non flowering plants at the house entrance as there was no much Sun light there. There were 2-3 big old trees on our road which blocked Sun light completely.

Though these were non-flowering these gave immense joy and much needed look to the house.

Just few days before the lockdown I thought of getting some more places mainly flowering ones for the terrace. Here there was ample of space and Sun. On one weekend I furnished the terrace with the samplings.

And then there was this lockdown!

we were confined to the boundaries of the house and with no social contact. Nevertheless we had the company of these lovely, tender and colourful friends..jasmine, hibiscus, kanakambara, variety of roses..etc..

Everyday I would water and see how much the plants have grown.. Is there a bud anywhere.. is the plant growing or not.. It also gave a wonderful view from my window where I had my work table.

These plants constantly reminded me of Hanumantha and his help with my gardening.. Be it soil, manure or medicines Totally, he helped us and my lovely garden be lively!

Rendezvous with Akshar Yoga on Facebook

I am someone who swings between utter laziness to deeper studies of variety of topics. On one such occasion of my laziness I was scrolling throgh the Facebook and got a notification that said    "Akshar yoga is live".  In an impulse I clicked on it and watched the yoga for a while and then "liked" the page. This was just the beginning of my journey on the yoga mat from the  lockdown days..

Lockdown had just set in and things had come to a strange point and whole world was wfh. So suddenly there was no more running around !

I was getting up when my eyes opened by around 7:30 and after morning chores will get to work.

This was before I followed Facebook page of Akshar Yoga. After rendezvous with Akshar Yoga things changed! Well for good..

Grand Master Akshar Guruji started his live facebook classes at 8am. I was supposed to be on the "Yoga Mat " by this time with about 10 minutes of walking around (टहलना) on the terrace.

I started to do yoga everyday with grandmaster Akshara without miss, though I missed several asanaas 😊

"Namo Adish" became new mantra which I leaned during the classes. After classes Q&A , Katha, Kahani by Grandmaster Akshar became integral part of my day.

I signed up for multiple other sessions which was on Zoom. At one point I was talking, walking, breathing, reading about YOGA all the time. I spoke to my family and friends about yoga, goodness of yoga and grandmaster Aksharji's classes..in some sense as Guruji says I became "Yogini".

As Guruji has said, Yoga and yogic way of life is a "Password" to unleash the universe. I feel fortunate to have received this password during this year and I am eternally grateful to Akshar Yoga! 

I seek Guruji's blessings to carry it forward. 

प्रणाम गुरुजी। "नमो आदेश"।