Serendipity, Saunter and Faux paz

 The recent announcement about the Reader's Digest UK coming to an end has been gut wrenching. Ever since I remember Reader's Digest was the one constant each month. Every new month, for some afternoons, I would eagerly await the arrival of the postman, as he would bring the month's Reader's Digest. And the day it arrived, for the next few hours I would be devouring as much as I could so I was up to speed with the contents for any discussion that might happen.  The  articles, the adventure stories, the book section, the interesting columns - All in a day's work, humour in uniform, quotable quotes - all collectively opened new worlds to be explored. Not to mention amassing Word Power through the vocabulary quiz. Having read the magazine, the next task would be re-read some things that were interesting- sometimes it was an article about exercise, sometimes about an acting legend, sometimes about a sports personality or an artist, sometimes the wonderful anecdotes and ...

 The huge jamun tree bordered our back yard and was on the boundary of the plot with the family that stayed behind our place. It's branches came up to the terrace and in summer were laden with fruit. We would wait impatiently for the green jamuns to turn purple so we could feast on them. Climbing the tree was a bit challenging as it grew a straight thick trunk till about 6 feet and then forked. So we would use the wooden ladder to climb up to the fork in the trunk and then climb our favourite branches. As the fruit ripened we sat on the branches and ate them. There are always the tell-tale signs of having plucked and eaten jamuns. Purple tongues and finger tips!  But that never deterred us and we knew how to collaborate to bend the branches to pluck the best ones.  Our jamun tree had plump juicy jamuns with their astringent taste that our house help Kunda* did not like much. She would bring us much smaller but sweeter jamuns from her part of the town wrapped in leaves. Th...

There is nothing like bonding over a walk in the botanical gardens in Singapore. Waking up early and pleased with the Universe for giving us an overcast sky but no rain, we started out at a brisk pace. A little into the walk my relatively unfit self and the sultry tropical weather together slowed us down but did nothing to curb our enthusiasm. Soon we were taking in the bird song and the fresh air from the garden as we trudged along. Trying to identify the plants and the bird calls, laughing when they turned out to be something else, it was a morning that was refreshing and rejuvenating. The bamboo and the ferns and the canna and the ficus all vying for attention in the morning light!  Swapping names softly in different languages we couldn't contain our excitement at finding the cannon ball tree.  We came across what looked like a pine cone from the distance but turned out to be something else. Still not sure what it is but not a pine cone surely! We walked to the POW steps an...