Anuradha Sridharan

This book couldn't have come into my hands at a better time. Many of the passages felt like the author had visited me, knew my creative dilemmas and wrote those responses exclusively for me. As I was reading "Big Magic" , I could feel nodding my head vigorously at multiple places. The author talks about our creative genius, the process of feeling inspired, the fear and excuses that hold us back and most importantly, falling in love with the process and keeping the outcome aside. Bhagavat Gita has conveyed the same principle but it has to be retold again and again, given the pressure that we (and our society) place on outcome. Elizabeth's personal anecdotes and her easy-to-read flow of writing make this very interesting non-fiction book a page turner. Perhaps, call it the self-help book on creativity. She starts off brilliantly by posing a thought-provoking question.  "Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?" T...

Last night, I had prepared white rice for my 4 year old and broken wheat for myself for dinner. The accompaniments were rasam and carrot curry. D had little rice and was curious to know what's inside the pressure cooker. She has a fascination of pressure cookers just like me :-) I said "that's broken wheat for amma". She said she wanted to taste it and so I offered her a spoonful of it. She loved it and then finished almost the entire cup with rasam and curd. After finishing her dinner, she said, "mumma, this is yummy. Tomorrow, I want buckwheat". Don't be surprised yet. During the weekend, I had prepared ragi idlis and regular rice idlis for breakfast. While I was feeding her ragi idlis, she asked "mumma, are these kambu idlis?". (Kambu means pearl millet / bajra) This is the effect of our reading ritual. Every night before going to bed, we go through pictures in the book " aaraam thinai " and that's how she knows the names of o...

D turned 4 a few days back. From the beginning of 2015, hubby and I decided to keep the birthday party simple. The main influencing factor was how the previous birthday (3rd) turned out. We had decided to host a birthday party. Booked the small party hall in our apartment, invited a few common friends, apartment neighbors and kids that D usually meets in the play area. Ordered birthday cake, snacks (pizza and soft drinks), bought personalized return gifts and other party goodies. Took a lot of our time, energy and effort to get things arranged. On the D-day (it was a Sunday), friends kept dropping out one after another through messages/SMS. During the party, very few invited kids turned up. Many of their parents didn't even bother informing us that they wouldn't be able to come. With the few kids who turned up, we conducted the party. After the party got over, we requested the security guards to take the remaining cake and other food items (which were quite a lot). Hubby a...