Serendipity, Saunter and Faux paz

  I have a very special amaltas/kanni konna story! Over our main gate was an arch that was covered with the very charming Madhumalati creeper. It was a wrought iron gate, big enough for a car and a half and had two pillars on either side. On the left was a neem tree and on the right side a bougainvillea in a fabulous orange shade, that I have rarely come across later. Over the years the arch slowly became irreparable. The madhumalati shifted to a pergola inside the garden. Then Papa wanted a flowering tree in the front yard, near the gate, such that he could see it from the verandah! Our verandah provided a tiny sitting area with a swing and two garden chairs and was a favourite with everyone! The gul mohur was a bit further in and seen much better when one was outdoors. What a dilemma! I suggested the amaltas! I was always fond of the golden yellow flowers that looked like jhumkas, chandelier earrings that looked so pretty! So, we went to the local nursery and got a sapling! ...

  One of my favourite things to do as a child was listen to my Grandmother's stories about her childjhood and everyone she knew. And of course she had so many stories of my Papa when he was a kid! This is her narration of the first story in wrote - #rememberingPapa This is the first story Dad wrote when he was about 8 - as told by my Grandmother There was once a Fox. He lived in a cottage near the woods. One day he decided to explore the woods. He took some bhakri(flat bread) and chutney and tied them in a bundle. — Shefali Kulkarni (@Shefali__K)  June 17, 2019   He tied the  bundle to the  stick, swung it over his shoulder and set off. He walked a little bit, sat down, opened his bundle and ate some bhakri and chutney. Then he got up and walked a little. He felt hungry. He sat down and ate. — Shefali Kulkarni (@Shefali__K)  June 17, 2019 Then he came to the river. He sat down, opened his bundle and ate some bhakri and chutney. Then he wal...

It is my father's birthday today.  He was born in 1947. Among his many quirks, one that comes to mind is the preference for Bengali sweets to puran polis which were made at home. We had a repertoire of four desserts - shira, shevaya chi kheer, shrikhand and puranpoli, of which the puranpolis were made on most festival days and other desserts when there were people for lunch or dinner or shira for breakfast as well. The Bengali sweets on very, very rare occasions were store-bought. On occasion when no one else was around to, he would cook - he had his specialties. Tomato and green chutney sandwiches, egg fried rice, fluffy omelettes, kel phul and peanuts jeera rice and cabbage fried rice.  And was an impulsive traveller. Out of the blue he would say he was going someplace and would like company. And if you rose up to the occasion then generally you had rigorous rides in uncomfortable conditions. My most memorable are walking alongside the car, on the old Mumbai- Pun...

  This is one of the other blogs from when the blog bug bit years ago.   As you can see it was in 2007. That was interestingly the last year when work related travel was restricted to local train and cab travel within Kerala and I never got around to doing the local photo walks I had in mind for this blog!    Like other 'Ripples and Shuffles' blogventures this didn't go any place but is  a fond memory. Interestingly both the books I have mentioned, Under the Tuscan sun and An year in Provence have remained favourites and my own copies have the look of a well read and well loved book.   Interestingly, CC got me the 20th year special edition of 'Under the Tuscan sun' because I accidentally left my copy on a flight.   The kannikonna or amaltas or laburnum flowers bloom just before Vishu which is generally on the 14th of April each year.    No comments:    Monday, April 16, 2007 Happy New Year! Wish you all a very ...

  Moving to the South, first to Chennai and then on to Trivandrum opened up new vistas in linguistic diversity. Not only were the local languages so different to my kitty of Hindi, Marathi, Gujrati, the lingua franca, English was very fluid! Words and phrases, I thought I understood really well, were used so differently that I was both fascinated and intrigued.   This is one of my favourite stories - < New to TVM, trying to integrate I'd ask neighbors if they needed help answer: No need Me: (to myself) how rude Only to realize that it is a translation from polite aavashyam iliya Desham is similar - region/place — Shefali Kulkarni (@Shefali__K)  May 24, 2019     The first I heard of ‘ No Need’   was when my neighbours moved out. They had an infant and the lady  was trying to direct the packers holding the baby in her arms. I politely asked if I could help and she said, ‘ No need ’ and smiled; it was a bit baffling. Then I hea...

  I first presented on ‘Gender Equality’ at the IATEFL conference in Brighton, UK in 2011. It was an interesting group of people I presented to, from Canadian and Scottish education ministry and some who worked in refuge centres. My first tête-à-tête with policy makers whether at a country level or institute level. Post that in an informal chat, one of the participants wondered what kind of experiences of gender inequality I must have had while growing up to make me look at education and learning from this perspective. I was completely thrown by the question and had to take a moment to think back to how it was growing up. Not that I understood about equality or inequality then. But games were unisex whether it was climbing trees or making mud-forts for Diwali; team games like seven tiles and kabbadi and later ring tennis and badminton.  So were books – books and magazines were for everyone whether it was Tolstoy or Enid Blyton or Arthur Clarke or Jules Verne or PG Wodehouse or...

 In an attempt to be organized about our blogs, CC and I ended up with multiple blogs,; none of which really took off.  Trivandrum tidbits  was to be about Trivandrum but  Nooks and Crannies  was about other places we visited. I spent all of early 2008 visiting Kollam district where we had a project going on. So I would spend two days every week there and travel within the district. Towards the end of the project I had learnt a lot about the place. CC and I decided to explore some of the places we were informed about in Kollam. One was the elephant camp at Paravur where we spent an afternoon and then had a parotta and egg roast meal at a road-side hotel on the way back. This is the blog resulting from that trip - Tuesday, August 4, 2009 Paravur - Elephant camp One morning we set out to visit the elephant camp at Paravur. A little disappointing! Six elephants and all chained...Dashed hopes of gentle elephants roaming around in grassland! We noticed that they were...