Anuradha Sridharan

Although I have been living in Bangalore for six years, I haven't explored much of Karnataka except for the nearby Mysore. I feel it's quite strange given the fact that I love to travel. Early this year, I visited Madikeri with a bunch of friends and it was a fresh experience. Last weekend, it was the turn of Mangalore. With a big group of friends interested in this trip, our travel planner took the efforts to book the tickets and a place to stay. A big surprise came to me when I noticed the cranky side middle berths in our train. The railways would be making great profits but it's so very inconvenient for common people. A person of short stature like me found it hard to fit in my head. I wonder how the tall guys or girls would manage. The morning breeze and the scenery reminded me of my numerous Kerala trips. After a quick shower at the hotel, we got dressed and were ready to satiate our hunger pangs over complementary breakfast at the hotel restaurant. The hotel manager ...

After reading Skely 's post, I felt I should note down this day in my dear blog. I'm glad that we won against Aussies with all the might and strength. A convincing victory it was! But I want to write this post for a different reason. One of the three veterans has signed off today from test cricket; yes, I'm referring to Dada a.k.a Sourav Ganguly. I have been following his cricket career completely ever since the England tour in 1996 where he made his test debut. His back-to-back test centuries, many successful opening partnerships with my idol Sachin in ODIs, the way he smashed the Pakistani bowlers in Sahara Cup at Toronto, his aggressive captaincy inspiring many youngsters like Yuvraj and Kaif and most importantly, his classy off drives and cover drives making him "next-to-God in offside batting" - He used to be my second most favorite Indian cricketer (Do I need to say who the first one is!). The time will come when the other two will also face the same day. I ...

I have never felt this way while reading a novel - eyes welling up and emotions stirred. "The kite runner" provided this new experience and am glad I read this book. With 5 hours to spare in a train journey and with a couple of magazines in my handbag, I wondered how I would be able to while away my time. I don't know if I'm fortunate or otherwise - my reading speed is pretty fast and I was confident that I could browse through the magazines in an hour. I suppose God has heard my thoughts. An old man was selling a bunch of books and I chose "the kite runner". The initial part of the story was a beautiful narration of the childhood friendship between Amir and Hassan set in the backdrop of Afghanistan. There were funny and playful moments until a disaster happened which changed their lives forever. I stopped at this juncture during my train journey. After more than a month, the Diwali break provided a good relaxing time to continue this superb novel. Followin...

While browsing over the newspaper this morning, two contradictory news items struck hard on me that has been disturbing my thoughts ever since I glanced at them. One was the unbelievable rent rates (around 10 lakh rupees a month....you read it right! it's for one month and not for one year) that high flying corporate executives are ready to shell out on exclusive villas in Bangalore. Although newspapers tend to exaggerate the figures, even if I reduce this amount by 50% and consider it as 5 lakhs a month, it's still a huge figure for rent which I'm not able to digest. I turned a few pages, wondering how people are ready to shell out such monstrous money on rents. Another article caught my fleeting glance. Because of lack of growth hormones, a 22 year old woman in Gulbarga district still has the physical and mental traits of a child. Since her family couldn't even afford a single meal in a day, they couldn't spend on the hospital expenses to get this defect on her pi...

Email that I had sent to my Consumer behavior (CB) Professor and my projectmates at PGSEM on Sept 02 2008 below: While coming to work today, I came across this restaurant "Bon South" in Koramangala which specializes in South Indian veg and non-veg cuisines. This initiated some CB related questions on brand associations and culture in my mind. 1) The exterior ambience of this place somewhat looked like a continental/Italian restaurant. Will someone looking for a South Indian cuisine identify with this exterior? 2) The brand name (Bon South) itself sounds non South Indian. How can consumers relate to it? I feel this is where the restaurant "Malgudi" has touched a chord. The external appearance, the doors resembling traditional Chettinad homes and ofcourse, the brand name has clear associations to South India. 3) Most importantly, the menu offered by Bon South (got this info after some Internet search) has a range of options from all four South Indian states at an exor...

My first tryst with watching a cricket match live from a stadium occurred long time back in Chennai . It's been more than six years since I shifted to Bangalore but never got a chance to experience live cricket from Chinnaswamy stadium. This indeed came true last Sunday on the fourth day of India v/s Australia test match. With tickets being booked online, all we had to do was reach the stadium on time. I was expecting a huge crowd on a Sunday morning but people started thronging the stadium only after 11 AM. As I entered the stadium, I realized that this is the last series for Ganguly. Although I am not a big fan of him, I felt a little sad because Sachin's last series may not be that far. My childhood hero (he still is!!) has started to play lesser number of matches due to injury concerns. When the players were busy with their net practice, we settled for good seats in our stand. After a while, the stadium started to erupt in loud cheer. While I was wondering what the fuss is ...

My contribution to Cafe Writing - Sept & Oct Project dark clouds beckoning to pour down mist traveling from distant mountains Cool breeze adding to the glory I stood there contemplating A tiny drop let caressing my palm announcing the arrival of monsoon injecting a fresh stream of energy I stood there motionless glad to have caught the first splash, the murmur s of threatening thunder passing cryptic message from the heavens I stood there in awe hot cup of tea awakening my pallid senses rivulet s flowing swiftly by my side, swoon ed by this magical evening I stood there feeling blessed