Magic Moments

It is human nature to dwell in the past, worry about the future and forget all about the present. I still miss the days spent in Hyderabad. I miss the study schedules, eating out, street shopping, and the city tours. I miss the roads, the townships and the metros. But I clearly remember that I just wanted the days to pass quickly so that I could return home, while I was there. And today I miss the view from the terrace of the ladies hostel we stayed in, the floral decorations with chalk, colors and flowers, the flower market, the abundance of curd during lunch hours, the constant ‘amma’ recitals by our wardens and so much more. One of the highlights of the hostel life in Hyderabad at Sri Kamali was queuing up for tea, puri and dosa during breakfast time, and then hurrying to secure a chair the very next moment. And conversations and complaints flowed unhindered during these hours in many languages at once- the most prominent ones being Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi and...

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be some kind of library.” — Jorge Luis Borges I came across this book tag on Twitter at  Zezee With Books , Life Of a Female Bibliophile , and PaperFury . I wanted to write on it, but somehow couldn't and my sister was searching for prompts to write on and happily took this one up. So over to my sister- Samikshya Mishra, as she shares her bookish savory delicious indulgences.                                 ************************************************ I love doing recommendations. When I chanced upon a few posts talking about books and relating them to delicious desserts, I wanted to write one too. So here’s a list in which I’ll tag books and movies with a flavor of cake. All the tags I read before writing this made me imagine delicious cakes in a small café in a countryside, a sweet old lady baking bread and cookies, the warm a...

Discovering a new author whose words speak to your sensibilities is always exciting. And you wonder what you did all these years without reading any of this author’s works. For me such an author is Victoria Hislop- and I cannot imagine myself in a life before reading The Island anymore. It’s like there is an entire world out there you know nothing about. I had such strong sentiments for a book when I first read Jane Austen, JK Rowling and Haruki Murakami. Read the first part of the review here.  Spinalonga This is the island that the title refers to, separated by a narrow waterway from the mainland of Plaka, Crete where those afflicted by leprosy built a habitation right from the scratch. In crude words, lepers were banished there to die. They built houses, church, school, bakeries, printing press, hospitals, and graveyards; they created their own legal and political system; they grew their own food and herbs but also had to depend on the weekly supplies from the...

Book Blurb: “Satyajit Ray was a master of science fiction writing. Through his Professor Shonku stories and other fiction and non-fiction pieces, he explored the genre from various angles. In the 1960s, Ray wrote a screenplay for what would have been the first-of-its-kind sci-fi film to be made in India. It was called The Alien and was based on his own short story “Bonkubabur Bandhu”. On being prompted by Arthur C. Clarke, who found the screenplay promising, Ray sent the script to Columbia Pictures in Hollywood, who agreed to back it, and Peter Sellers was approached to play a prominent role. Then started the “Ordeals of the Alien” as Ray calls it, as even after a series of trips to the US, UK and France, the film was never made, and more shockingly, some fifteen years later, Ray watched Steven Spielberg’s film Close Encounters of the Third Kind and later E.T.:The Extra- Terrestrial , and realized these bore uncanny resemblances to his script The Alien, including the way ...

GoodReads Book Blurb: "Fifteen-year-old Kambili’s world is circumscribed by the high walls and frangipani trees of her family compound. Her wealthy Catholic father, under whose shadow Kambili lives, while generous and politically active in the community, is repressive and fanatically religious at home. When Nigeria begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili’s father sends her and her brother away to stay with their aunt, a University professor, whose house is noisy and full of laughter. There, Kambili and her brother discover a life and love beyond the confines of their father’s authority. The visit will lift the silence from their world and, in time, give rise to devotion and defiance that reveal themselves in profound and unexpected ways. This is a book about the promise of freedom; about the blurred lines between childhood and adulthood; between love and hatred, between the old gods and the new—the grey spaces in which truths are revealed and true livin...

I can't believe it's already May. 2018 is going faster than I thought. And as months pass by I feel the need to write about all that has been, all that is going to be and all that won't ever be. It's a way to document and curate my journey through life. So today I chose to write down about all that I am grateful for in the month of April, joining in the blog hop and hashtag party organized by Vidya in her blog here. Firstly, I successfully completed the A To Z blogging challenge this time. Last year I had given up midway through the craziness and fun. This was the second time I survived the marathon of continuous writing, reading, sharing and interacting. It was hectic, yes, but so much fun. The high I would get every morning seeing so many comments in my blog posts, and reading and commenting on so many other amazing blogs is beyond comparison. Sisters!! :D I interacted a lot on Twitter this time, and I declare it's my favorite social media channel. ...