Anuradha Sridharan

A beautiful place, a relaxing atmosphere, cool breeze, a slow paced lifestyle, misty mountains, amazing fresh tea, cute pet animals - the list doesn't end here. I'm back after a nice vacation in Kodaikkanal. There is something special about hill stations that I adore and never feel bored to visit them again and again. This was my third visit to Kodaikkanal by the way. Having been there before when I was in my 11th std, I was really looking forward to this trip. Although the train to Kodai Road was late by a couple of hours, our holiday moods were on the high. A small railway station greeted us the next morning, along with a bunch of taxi drivers ready to take us to the top of the hills. It costed around 1000 rupees for a couple of hours drive up the Western Ghats. Kodai is a small, quiet town with greenery everywhere, especially the tall eucalyptus and pine trees. We checked into Hotel Kodai International, freshened up and had a nice, sumptuous breakfast. The rest of the day we...

Ideas and thoughts pour in from different directions, at unexpected times and at unexpected places. When you keep an idea aside, thinking you will remember it for later, it's gone. When you are deeply immersed in a particular phase of your life, a thought totally irrelevant to this phase you are in pops up. Do you pay attention to this thought and dive deeper? Or you just ignore it for a while and concentrate on the task at hand? This has been the case with me for a while now. My way of living life is to keep my hands full with as many activities as I could possibly take part in. I just cannot spend time sitting and working on one thing for hours together. Variety is one essential spice that I need to add to make my day delicious. It gives me a chance to try out different things but at the same time, I cannot track ideas/thoughts linked to these different phases/activities while I'm working on something else. I tried maintaining a notepad, writing down these random thoughts and...

I have never experienced a quiet day like today in Bangalore. The streets usually noisy with honking cars and bikes were absolutely empty. I wish the roads would be as peaceful as today. This quiet scenario motivated me to try a few new recipes. I'm pretty confident of preparing meals, both North and South Indian. But making an evening snack is one area that I need to work on. I haven't tried out anything new apart from the usual Bajjis, popcorn and onion vadas. Being an avid reader of food blogs, I decided to try out cabbage vada from this site. Strictly following the recipe instructions line by line, I chopped the cabbage and onions, ground the masala paste, made round balls and dipped in rawa. Only then I realized that the vegetable quantity used was more than that of the masala paste, which resulted in veggies getting strewn all over rawa. I couldn't grip it into one nice round ball. "Oh my God! Am I gonna waste so much of veggies? Oh no! The rawa also has some pi...

My contribution to Sunday Scribblings #45 - Goodbyes How many times have we used this word - Good bye? We have said this to people, to memories, to incidents, to places and to different phases of our lives. Some of them might return while many will not. I especially wonder about the concept of saying good bye to life's various phases. Why can't I just stay in a phase which I like, which I feel happy about? Why do I have to move to another phase? Out of compulsion, out of necessity, out of experiencing change - People give different reasons. I prefer the reason to be growth. As one grows and starts to experience new paradigms, naturally one has to leave behind old thoughts and memories. They are not gone completely but archived somewhere deep within. They provide the much needed experience to face the new world and new people. Good bye is indeed a necessity and not an option if you want to go through the phases of growth.

My contribution to Sunday Scribblings - #44 Chronicles The door opened. A neat grass path was stretching to a distance well beyond the horizon, luring one to take the plunge. She took a step forward and then turned back to admire the beauty of her home. She repeated this sequence until her lovely wood house became a tiny, little dot. Her steps were smooth and slow while her feet felt the fresh dew drops on the grass. Amazed by the distance she has walked, she stopped for a while, letting her mind to take in all the minute details of the surroundings. The tall trees and the tiny squirrels running around, thick green bushes and the white rabbits peeping to see the new entrant in the woods, the narrow stream of clear water running steadily and the dotted dears quenching their thirst with their tongues dipped in the stream, the colourful flowers and the bees around them to taste the pure honey drops and last, but not the least, a small, beautiful hut at a reachable distance towards her le...

Dried up, not just the rivers but also the tears. I see a clear sky, a bright sunshine, a perfect morning, a new beginning. Withered leaves, beneath blooming buds, organic manure, they say. Bad memories, behind little smiles, enriching experiences, they claim. I see the sprout, I hear the cuckoo, I smell the fresh flowers, I feel the tender palms, I taste the ambrosia, I realize sooner, nature is the best healer.