Category: Writing

An autumnal long weekend in Cotswolds: Lower Slaughter

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I was looking for tiny quaint villages in the the north of Cotswolds, villages that are really small and not big market towns and definitely ones we had never visited until then. That is how I stumbled on Lower and Upper Slaughter, the twin villages about a couple of miles away from the more popular Bourton on the Water. And ofcourse, the fact that registered with me is how the word Slaughter came up – definitely nothing to do with slaughtering, it is derived from the old English word “slothre” that means “muddy place” which I can assure you along with every other article on the internet, it most certainly is not.

What it is though, is ethereal.

My research had told me of how scanty parking space is and all of my searches only threw up one road near the Manor House and said there are only a few spots available. And so we found ourselves there at 8 in the morning, with just one or two joggers who were residents, in sight. Bliss.

We parked by a stream that I later realised is the river Eye that runs through the village and was potentially the source of “muddy” banks. It really looks like a stream though it is a river. Walking along the river is one of the most memorable highlights of our entire trip.

I was in love with those beautiful stone foot bridges! You will find a couple as you walk along.

To watch the reflection in that pristine glass like water as we (read: I) tried to be as quiet as possible because I wanted to break into a song and announce to the world of how much beauty there is to be discovered all around us! I am sure the residents would not take too kindly to it, so I was on my best behaviour.

As you start walking further up along Copse Hill road which according to some of the sources has been voted the prettiest road in Britain, you cannot help falling in love with this beautiful village but also wonder how the residents must feel when it gets all busy with tourists. It is not easy being a resident in picturesque towns, is it?

I was really mesmerised by this style of stone houses – hundreds of homes across Cotswolds built in this distinctive style with Cotswold stone. This must have been so time consuming to build and yet stands tall and strong to this day!
I was trying to read more about how these stones are formed (makes for a fascinating read, especially so when you are procrastinating on something) and I stumbled on these words by J. B. Priestley who wrote of Cotswold stone that – “the truth is that it has no colour that can be described. Even when the sun is obscured and the light is cold, these walls are still faintly warm and luminous, as if they knew the trick of keeping the lost sunlight of centuries glimmering about them.” 

As you walk along, you will reach the unmissable Old Mill with its trade mark red brick tower and the water wheel.

If you just turn around, you will walk into this charming little horse trailer that doubles as the delightful mobile coffee van and sells some delicious coffee and pastries. What warmed my heart was they have doggie treat and smoothies for the infants/toddlers all served with a smile by the thoughtful owner.

We kept walking further up and had the most peaceful town to savour that morning.

We were peckish and decided to turn back and try the beautiful Manorhouse for breakfast but unfortunately it was only open to residents so we just had a quick look around and decided to head to Bourton on the Water for some breakfast and explore the market centre. All of that in my next one!

I have been reading (5)

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The Happiest Man on Earth

I finished reading this and did this come at an incredibly needed hour. Books do find you because I have had this in my collection for so long now and yet chose this moment to pick this up hoping it would be a balm to my senses that seem to be pulled in very many directions each day, from the joy of the simple and the routine to the sadness of the loss of the simple and routine for many to an absolute disdain for the inhumanly acts only humans are capable of and the anger at having to watch it all. But if you were to watch from the big tree far away, everything seems to move on, as if untouched. 
Eddie’s story is of not just survival but he champions the power that hope brings in the darkest and most dreadful of times. It is a story of how you do everything to squeeze out that last ounce of innate strength and keep going for the light at the end of the darkest tunnel. Eddie highlights the most simple and profound truths and remind us of what truly matters in life. His stories are vivid, uncomplicated and there is a quiet dignity to the book that made me hold onto it. He starts with “my dear friend”, and that is how I left feeling.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

By now, you know my love for Japanese writing and well done translations. I love how familiar, simple, relatable conversations are dealt in simple yet profound ways. The ones I have read are not exactly fast paced, infact, the lives move with slow deliberation and it is exactly that kind of pace that gets me every time.

The Days at the Morisaki Bookshop follows Takako, who quits her day job and her relationship. It is at this point, she receives an invitation from her uncle whom she considers quirky/unrelatable, to move into the apartment on top of his bookshop, which changes the trajectory of her life. Her uncle whose wife leaves him without any explicit reason, lives and manages the bookshop alone. The book has two parts – the first one around Takako finding her next steps and the second one is about the uncle’s wife coming back and reasons behind her departure and return. 

It is as much a book about finding your ground as it is about connecting with and re-learning about people whom you’d already formed an opinion of. 
This book is magical in its own way, different from the kind of magical feeling that “Before the coffee gets cold” evoked in me. This magic is in its comfort, in the characters who feel so endearing and real, in the books, bookshops and coffee that wraps you in a warm embrace letting you cozily engage with a very well written and translated story. I recommend

Siddhartha Street

Here is the thing about rain. It evokes something poignant and nostalgic and wishful all at once if I only sat by the window and watched it hit the ground. Slowly surely and in an oddly comforting way that does not seem extraordinary at first but then I sort of begin to realise how this is exactly the kind of quiet that I have been busy for. 
I am talking of a drizzle that gains and loses momentum as you get lost in a world thousands of miles and sometimes, years away. The extraordinariness of the ordinary and the familiar is something that energises you and reminds you of a self you may sometimes forget in the humdrum of life. 
Like this book and its stories.
Simple, everyday movements that seem slow and set in environments that seem so familiar that I started imagining my street, my neighbours we knew but not necessarily the stories that came with them. The book touches on an event in the lives of different neighbours along Siddhartha Street through slow, everyday actions that are visible to a naked eye and through conversations and emotions that reveal the story behind them all. A lovely read that I finished long back but the rain today reminded me of my street and then this book.
Rain does that to you, takes you to places and people and books in the deepest corners 

Nobody will tell you this but me

I cannot remember a single day when I haven’t played back something a loved one has told me in the past or imagined what they’d tell me in a situation am in. For no reason at all, sometimes when I sit down with my coffee (okay this one is not exactly as calm every time), I rewind to a conversation with someone who is far away. This experience itself can be sweet, bittersweet, funny, poignant – anything. Imagine writing this all down – all these conversations real and hypothetical (because you can do that when you know someone really well) into a memoir – that is what Bess has done, giving us a glimpse into the life – love, laughter, legacy and all with her grandmother. I absolutely loved the grandmother’s character as Bess outlines it – such a strong personality, opinionated, humorous, knowing exactly what needs knowing. I loved the message she reinforces throughout, “If the earth is cracking behind you, you put one foot in front of the other.”
I love memoirs, stories, the simple stuff. They teach us things that matter, in a manner that stays and a relatedness that makes you pause. This one made me laugh and teary and in an odd way comforted me about how people never pass. They live on within you, in those memories you made with them and through the words and moments you shared with them. And they live on in others too, through the memories you share of them.

I have been reading (4)

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Love and Saffron

I have been really touched by some beautiful books recently. While I have been reading some academic material and re-reading children’s literature, I have missed reading. You know what I mean? 🙂 Somehow the brain compartmentalises reading so it is not enough if you have been reading anything. I have stopped fighting it but I have missed it.

So when I laid my hands on this beautiful epistolary novel, I dived right in. I love letters, reading them, writing them and waiting for them. And every night for the past few nights, I have sparingly read a few letters that transpire between two beautiful women who write to each other of their culinary experiments, of their little escapades, of the people they met and of life itself. I have waited to appreciate the friendship that blossoms through their letters, a bond that had me in tears from being overwhelmed at how beautiful life is and how little is needed to feel that sense of absolute delight. Ironical, isn’t it? 
And I wept at the end at how intertwined lives can get when you devote your everything as you write a letter. Not a phone call, not a message but a letter that requires you to sit still and let your ink flow to your mind and nothing else, as you reflect and confide. 
I remembered my own letters to a friend who was a nurse in the same hospital as my aunt. All our letters were in Kannada and after sending a letter of mine, I’d wait and wait with utter impatience for the postman and I was never disappointed. We wrote until she confided in me of how things were changing for her and that her address and letters are no longer certain. But I am so happy for that phase of my life and wonder why I didn’t do it more. 

Kim Fay @kimkfay has written such a beautiful piece and inspired by real people. As much as I wanted to devour it all in one go, I didn’t. I waited every night for bedtime and read only a few letters and I’d wait for the next. And the whole wait was so tearfully worth it.
And I am sharing this with you as I enjoy some saffron which K very thoughtfully brought back from Dubai. My very own Love and Saffron 🙂

Sweet Bean Paste

I read this book a while ago when A posted about how she couldn’t stop thinking about it. I am so grateful for this recommendation because it is one beautiful book, another evocative Japanese writing that truly touches on a multitude of intense issues with a clarity so simple and eye opening.

In writing about the unlikely bond that develops between a formerly incarcerated confectionary shop worker who makes dorayakis, a 78 year old woman he hires and a troubled teen girl who visits, he brings out the stigmas that prevailed in Japan around health and the kind of impact they had.

The story drives home a beautiful message on acceptance and understanding and therefore inclusion. ‘That’s why I made confectionery. I made sweet things for all those who lived with the sadness of loss. And that’s how I was able to live out my life.’

One of the things I have admired in people who do the same thing for years AND take pride in it, is the devotion. Cooking for example. It takes a lot to be so observant, skillful and driven to keep at it consistently. To know it all, like the back of your hand, to hear the ingredients speak and to watch them change. Meaningful work is not necessarily monetarily profitable work, not always. And to make something with joy and for joy just humbles me. And that belief was rekindled in me.

Why do we live? What purpose does a cruelly short life have? Or one with sickness? Or one that is ostracised? When Tokue answers this in the most profound and simple way, it left me thinking for days on. Each of our existence gives the universe its purpose. Everything else exists because you exist. And you exist to give it meaning.

To celebrate, I finished the last pages of the book with a dorayaki with sweet bean paste that I spent a few hours searching for. I will never forget the way this book made me feel.

Before the Coffee gets Cold

One Wednesday not long ago, I took an hour off early morning and went for coffee at a restaurant a few hops away. My favourite coop was empty and as I sat down, the staff who was fixing a coffee smiled widely at me, “I’ll be with you in a mo”. I peeled my layers off, took my book out and sat. As promised, she was with me, “would you like some coffee or tea?”
The eeriness of the striking similarity between what I was reading and my context hit me so hard and I must have smiled so amusingly at her as I told her how lovely coffee would be, because she went away without asking me what kind of coffee I wanted. 
The book is set in a cafe that lets you travel back in time with a few conditions, one of the most important ones being the inability to change the present. The rules get clearer as one advances further in the book through different stories. It traces the stories of four different characters as they travel back in time for various reasons despite this knowledge and it struck me that while a lot of us think wistfully of a time bygone, we often want to go back and change our decisions and actions in the hope of bettering the present. But there is much more to it, in these stories. It is about changing or saying something despite the knowledge that the present will remain the same if only because it lends a different meaning to the lives involved. Even if there is nothing that one can do to change the circumstance, there is so much one can do to make people feel better about it, about themselves. And that alone makes the journey worthwhile. 
While the concept seems out of the ordinary, the author approaches some of the most sensitive topics with a clarity so simple that is so characteristic of some of the Japanese fiction I have read.

As I write this, I cannot help longing for this very morning when the restaurant staff served me the most amazing filter coffee with some milk on the side as if she knew that it was what I wanted. I’d go back to this very morning and change nothing at all ❤️

Glamping in Dorset in Lytchett Manor

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I have been long wanting to document our travels and yet I have never gotten to doing them, despite making a beginning. This time I am determined to not let the trip to Dorset and Cornwall slip away in the endless gallery on my phone. So if you are reading this, I know that I have at least persisted with my beginning.

A while ago, K applied for his paternity leave and we had decided we would do a holiday together, our first long one since Ishaan’s arrival. Not having explored the English coastline at all, we decided to spend a few days in Cornwall. Now a trip to Cornwall is about 4 hours from where we live and we didn’t want to have Ishaan in the car seat for so long even if we were taking breaks. And so it was decided a day before the trip that we would look for a place enroute for a day trip and stay the night there before moving onward.

We picked Dorset with its beautiful Jurassic Coast.

Here is where we stayed:
Lytchett Manor https://www.southlytchettmanor.co.uk/accommodation-types/glamping-pods/

On our way, the staff from the glamping site gave us a call to confirm when we were likely to reach. The office closes at 5 PM so it definitely helps to plan your arrival before then or let the office know so your check in is arranged even when the office is closed.

That is just as we entered the glamping site. The directions are very straightforward and right at the entrance is the office (cum shop) to check in and pick up the keys.

As we drove in, we were met by this beautiful sight. I have never glamped before so these adorable eco friendly pods that dotted the green had me all excited!

One can park right next to their pod or across it – there is plenty of space. We were living off the car so as to keep our pod free from too many things and so parked right by the pod.

This is what you walk into – it is cozy and perfect for two. Now with four of us, two adults and two babies this was definitely a sort of adventure because the pods do not have a bath/restroom inside them. One needs to walk out to shared baths/toilets which by the way are very very well maintained. We have never stayed in a set up like this before so the novelty of it all was really exciting.

Needless to say, the pods are pet friendly and it is great given how much field there is to walk around. As always, Mili got her Sherlock cap on the minute we entered and picked her bed. That was a pull-out bed as well so it can in theory it can sleep 4 people.

It was quite the rainy thunderous night and only Ishaan slept well. But that was a much better situation than none of us sleeping at all.

The thing about glamping especially for absolute amateurs like us is how often we tend to forget some really fundamental items to pack because they are almost always available in the accommodation. However since moving to UK and choosing to spend holidays in cottages, we remember to pack the basic stuff well. Still, one of the things we really appreciated on this glamping site was having a shop that was well stocked with everything that one would need – toiletries, snacks, doggie biscuits and treats, baby calpol too! But they went several steps ahead and had a bakery where they sold fresh croissants, bread and swirls in the mornings for breakast. We loved their pain au chocolat. The coffee was very decent too.

I even managed to pick some local goodies from there – Dorset knobs and some honey marshmallows from a lady who made them in her home nearby.

In the evening, as we stood out and looked at the views behind our pod, we saw these caravans, some really well furnished and it felt strangely familiar. I had been reading some stories based on van lifers, in fact I had one right with me here to read on the trip.

I have often wondered what it must feel like, this life on the move quite literally. Are there more opportunities to pause when you are on a move like this? How liberating it must be to live with exactly what you need, to constantly look up for new places to explore! Certainly it is not wrought without challenges but the charm is very tempting.

I leave you with this. Our little Mili, always up for a journey. She loves home, she didn’t have great sleep in the pod but – there is always a wag in her tail, a spring in her step and an infectious spirit every time we say, “Let’s go!”

On gratitude and snow

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I saw my first snow in Seoul in the December of 2013. I was with K on his business trip and we’d snuck in an extra couple of days and made the most of every evening together while I’d wander off in the day. I remember the moment I first felt the snow because I felt it before I saw it, incredibly light flakes almost mistaken for a drizzle as we stepped out of Myeong-dong station. I remember wanting to scream and no voice escaping me. And soon, we were in a flurry and I remember every encounter with snow after that as if it were yesterday. And yet, every new experience with it, fills me with a renewed sense of wonder and lightness. There is something about – it makes the day bright with its pale bluish white blanket on everything and the world seems light even as you prod through it.
Unlike my first experience with snow, I don’t remember when I got into instagram but over time, it has given me such an incredibly lovely community. I feel really pleased that I know so many of you through a little detail in your life and a conversation in my inbox. Today, I woke up to snow and love and caution from the community on my account being compromised and I cannot tell you how special it all has made me feel. None of you needed to do any of what you did, is what I realize. I have reported accounts in the past and never thought much about it, but today as each of you told me that you did, cautioning me what not to do, it filled me with such joy. And I had snow to celebrate it all.

(taken from my instagram)

Day 5 Navratri in white

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I am wearing this lovely easy-breezy saree that my perima gifted me. I do have very generous perimas and chittis who have spoilt me silly and I don’t want that to change ever.
The transition to being given sarees from salwar materials as cloth gifts happened in college when I started having events to wear them to and I really enjoyed that phase a lot – you know how you wait to be an adult to enjoy certain perks ? This saree had my heart the minute I saw those dainty parrots in green, blue and silver. I decided to pair this blouse just so I could wear this lovely glass jewellery set I got from Murano from our X’mas trip to Italy in 2015. 
When we were in Venice, K and I visited some glassmaking centres and watched some beautiful glassware being made. Those colours, the craftsmanship blew us away every time the glass was blown! We could not carry back anything heavy and I spotted some glass jewellery in one of the boutiques attached to the glassmaking centre. It was quite pricey and I was not sure if I wanted it so after dilly dallying, we left without buying it. We had walked about a kilometre from the place when I could take it no more and K who very calmly professed he had seen this coming, told me to hurry along and get it before they closed. I ran. I really did. I will never forget that evening as I ran across a couple of small bridges and my absolutely pathetic sense of direction left me in peace for that one moment. When I went back, the owner was almost getting ready to close and he smiled at me and said, “Ah, there you are! I knew you would come back darling.” I could not say a word or smile. I just picked this up, mumbled a thank you and walked back with the nervous energy and excitement that had not left me and K was sitting on the steps across the bridge waiting. It is in these moments I have felt acute elation and I am aware I can never quite put them in words.
Will you believe it if I tell you I have never worn this jewellery ever as I kept waiting for an ultra special occasion? But today? After a lot of what we have been through, today is the surest and most special occasion to celebrate, after all.

Day 3 Navratri in grey

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I am wearing another of ma’s sarees that I flicked the moment my perima gave it to her when I was in university. It is so soft and slides off weightless.
I know we have a lot of mix and match saree blouses now that really look stunning but I have a soft spot for blouse pieces that come as part of the saree. If you swipe, you can see the blouse that came with this and I got this stitched right away. It has been a while since I wore this so I was surprised the blouse still fits me. My perima had gotten some work done on it as well and as I took some pictures in our dining hall by the window, a million lights danced on the wall and it took me a few seconds to recognize that the sequins were dancing in the sunlight. K took some lovely pictures today but I am saving them for another day and sharing these timed selfies for today. 
For a while now, I have been thinking of a grey saree but somehow it never materialized but here is what I have realized – your saree will find you. They come to you in all forms and from all kinds of people, but they will find you when their time comes. And then they find their way to another. 

Day 2 Navratri in green

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I have a few green sarees and it was a bit of a battle between choosing my Nalli Silks saree from my wedding and a beautiful Godavari cotton and this. 
This is the first saree K and I bought together in Singapore for a puja. And it tickles me as I realise it is the last saree we bought together. I have bought sarees for myself after that but never with K. I think this is a good reminder to change that.
So anyway, we picked this up in one of the shops in Little India. I had zero knowledge of sarees and weaves and K was just there because well, I had dragged him along though he did help me pick one. This has patchwork border and pallu and drapes so so easily. I have come to realise that draping takes 2 minutes or maybe 2 mins 50 seconds but getting a picture of yourself by yourself that does not just show your face takes eternity and I really had to squeeze it in my lunch hour as my tummy groaned for attention and it was quite gloomy outside.
I wore my first necklace that my chitti gave me when I was in 3rd grade, it has stayed with me since and perhaps one can tell its age but for me, it will always be evergreen and the pun is not lost on me. 
Hope you are enjoying your Navratri, dearest people 🙂

Fall-ing for fall

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There is something about fall that makes me do these captures almost every year now. As someone with intense olfaction and an undiagnosed synaesthesia, my senses are heightened when I see the leaves that seem to spread a golden carpet in our garden everywhere. The aromatic apparitions are coupled by strong emotions of course but that has not been seasonal. I try to keep track of what triggers what and where the cycle begins (?) but it is a complex web. Some of these are pure associations of a yesterday and I can discern those in a sniff. Like the pumpkin body butter that takes me to the streets of Auckland, the hand cream that takes me on a trip to Shropshire and a particularly green road that housed a teeny Dominos. There was a time I would buy a small perfume for every trip I made but eventually stopped. I realised the place brings with it, its own sensorial mirage and it is more lasting than anything money can buy. But this Kama Ayurveda oil surprised me – it takes me to the wire basket that my grandfather would carry, with several many paraphernalia all neatly arranged. He was an Ayurvedic doctor but the bag smelt of a mix of incense, old papers, freshly laundered garment and perhaps an uncture? But when I think of the bag, this is the smell I smell. And it oddly is also the smell I associate when I think of an afternoon when we made kohl at home with hibiscus. It smelt nothing of bringadi but that is also perhaps why it is a mirage. They bring me an overwhelming sense of comfort, despite what may seem like a sensorial overload. Something I have been going back to and will write about is also this beautiful book by Charlie Mackesy that I first saw on @namrathakumar29 feed. It is filled with the comfort and warmth that I can only describe through some of the above smells. I rarely write about this because it is hard to describe abstraction. So I dig into my Lara bar (stories I will tell you another time!) and watch the fleeting shower of leaves from my window.

Normalcy

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Just a saturday out at Hengistbury Head on a cold, drizzly day.

Normalcy or normality is anything but that. It is truly something that I most strongly enjoy, crave for and pray for. Perfectly normal, routine days made of exceptionally special mundane acts. It is what I miss most when something abrupt strikes. It is what I am most nostalgic about. Sure, that thrilling day trip on that vacation 4 years ago is a grand memory to revisit and maybe even long for once in a while. But most often what my heart truly wants is all those everyday acts I do and did, that I no longer can. In these moments, I have found my way of making life feel grand. It is a tricky circle of realization – being or the fear of being deprived of something or someone tells you exactly what you love most. And a seemingly ordinary today is the grand memory trip of a further tomorrow.

Just need to remember to never forget that 🙂