Lost in Reverie....

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands  are a group of islands at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea .  More about it here   A trip of our college girl gang was pending for long and 2018 was the year when it seems the universe conspired to make it happen. The discussion started sometime in May/June’18 among the 5 of us - Pooja, Sonali, Hena, Sameet and myself. After numerous messages back and forth, time of the trip got finalised. Travelling alone meant taking care of work schedules, kids’ schools and exams, any family functions and so forth.. The only feasible time for all 5 together was August/Sept. The dates got finalized – 30 th August- 3 rd Sept Next, the place had to be decided. Our travel dates fell in the midst of rainy season and this year most of India was experiencing heavy rainfall… again numerous messages back & forth, we decided that this time it was Andamans. All excited, the next few months seemed to fly by in the an...

Hello everyone!! We’re back to namma bengaluru from New York and everyone’s been asking “how does it feel to be back??” It always feels good to be back home. Yes, Bangalore is what I like to call home now :) When I came here in 2004 (it’s been almost 7 yrs!) it took me some time to start liking this city. I was still in the transition phase from college to work life and Hyderabad seemed anyday better than Bangalore. But it didn’t take me long to fall in love with the city - a metropolitan minus the madness of big cities! My first job, some lovely friends, marriage, first home (though rented but it still is home!) and now first car...there are lots of memories with the city. No wonder no other place comes even close when I think of settling down somewhere. Also sis and bro-in-law staying here was an added incentive to be back! So here we are back after 3 years and it now feels like we had never left the city...it was just a short holiday trip and now we are back to the usual life. ...

It seems like yesterday... I was in my office mustering up the courage to put down my resignation. My husband was getting relocated to US and the obvious choice (then) was to join him. I stepped out of my boss’ cabin and it seemed as if everybody knew about it... Like some ‘breaking news’ on AAJ TAK! ‘Congrats!! You’ll be going to US; which place? New York? Great; it’s the best place you could ever go to; finally you’re out of all this; enjoy your life; it’s like a dream come true; and so on… The next one month at work was flooded with similar comments, feedbacks and advices. Probably the time in between was the best time... Meeting parents, relatives, friends, shopping, packing, planning… Lots of excitement in life... It was a welcome break from the usual routine life I had been leading for the past 4 yrs. Home-office-home. With such a lot of hustle-bustle, I didn’t even realize the days passing by and I was in US. Even the flight was Air India and the time went by listening to India...

“Have you guys been to Niagara yet?” This question haunted me from the time I came to New York. It was as if Niagara is THE place to be, and you have wasted your time in US if you haven’t been there. Another one of the over hyped places. I thought to myself... We have plenty of falls back home but nobody raves about them! Anyway, we were sitting at a friend’s place and were planning to go out on some weekend... The obvious place was Niagara. After a month long preparation of renting of the car, booking a decent hotel near the falls and getting the tickets to various rides there we finally set off for THE NIAGARA. It is a 7 hour drive from New York. With 3 people having Driving License, the drive was quite comfortable. We reached ‘Days Inn’ at around 11:30 pm. The hotel is at a very convenient location and falls are at a distance of just 10 minutes walk. Next morning, all fresh and excited, we left for the falls. I was expecting an ethnic mix of crowd but all I could see were people fro...