Em's Twisting Kaleidoscope

Bombay. Where to start and where to end on the city of dreams.. Wait, for me, it was the city of chaos. And I think in that chaos, it is easier for people to lose themselves and their worries.; not leave them behind but lose them. People are so busy getting through the minute that they barely get a second to spare for what the bigger picture is. And then somewhere, gradually, in that chaos, one step at a time, clarity strikes of its own accord. Just one step at a time. And in that chaos, every moment of peace becomes all the more prized, all the more personal, all the more yours.     When I think of Bombay, three things strike me, the crowd, be it the traffic or the locals where everyone is the same, just stuck; then there is marine drive, where there is peace and quiet and a walk which I never want should end; then there is the third high end of life, eating out, shopping, all of that: distant somehow. The one that I prize most is probably Marine drive. I have been to mari...

So I just moved to Bangalore for a typical month of law firm internship. But as I was spending the first two days with a friend, walking long roads on pleasant nights trying local delights like ripened jackfruits which I had only ever considered a vegetable, I was taken back to all those times in different countries when I had the yummiest moments of my life. While Australia is the most vivid as of now, I do not cherish the others any less though they have become fainter with time. Let me once again start with being annoyingly preachy about travelling. Lesson #152 Eat the Local Food. This especially goes the local produce. The most delicious and natural flavours that you can possibly imagine come from a place's natural produce. Take for instance, the jackfruit I just mentioned. In North India, jackfruit is a vegetable cooked as a savoury dish eaten with chapatis as part of a meal. I had never before even imagined that jackfruit could be that, a fruit. It's like the old deba...

It's been a while since I came back from Australia, the only country I've travelled alone. It'll take a few posts for me to cover everything that I did there and that there is to know, from whatever I could learn in four and a half months but let me start with some general philosophy. The best thing that can probably happen to you when in a different country is get lost. You can have the worst experience of your life at that point or the best one; either way, you'll learn much more than you could walking around with your organized plan trying to fulfill your to do list. For once, you'll see the place with your eyes wide open, you'll see people for who they are and in all the adrenaline rush and your guards down, you'll see a whole new side of yourself. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't mean to mislead you into a trap where you get yourself harmed. ,I mean to tell you to be okay with letting go of that carefully mapped out plan of yours for once, to...