Anuradha Sridharan

It has been a while since I read fiction. I love fiction novels which have a light-hearted but gripping story plot with funny and witty one-liners. And it makes it even better when there is a female protagonist with a regular girl-next-door image. Yashodhara Lal's new book "There's something about you" scores on all these parameters. I haven't read her earlier books, so I'm not sure about her writing style. Though the book is marketed as "the romance novel of the year", I would categorize it as a novel based on relationships - relationships with parents, with friends, with colleagues, with others in the society and most importantly, with oneself. The story plot deals with every such relationships, the complexities, the told and the un-told feelings. At a few places, it makes you want to pause and think about your own relationships in contrast with the protagonist Trish's relationships. Trish is a bundle of different characters etched together -...

It's really heartening to see technology companies taking the steps to support working mothers by extending the maternity leave upto 6 months. Kudos to Flipkart for thinking beyond these 6 months by supporting flexible working hours and supporting a year off without salary. But there's also much more that can be done to enable mothers to return to workplace with a confident, happy and motivated mindset. Especially for mothers who do not have a family support system in place. What happens to the mothers(and their infants) after 6 months? They would need to look for safe and secure day care options. Multiple factors have to be considered in order to narrow down this decision - the location, the care-takers, security, hygiene, food, number of children, child:care-taker ratio, timings etc. It's extremely challenging to find a daycare that matches all the criteria that works best for the parents. Given the traffic situation, mothers have to spend an extra hour or two in managi...

steel plates and glass bottles cloth bags cottony crisp tender greens and herbs plucked from the window sill fresh hot breakfast from the kitchen prepared with care and love a walk to the vegetable shop fresh veggies in a jute bag conversations with real people face-to-face in no hurry the clock takes its own sweet time to cross the hours and days lifestyle simple unhurried moments to pause and reflect neighborhood well known and in perfect harmony sharing and interacting caring and giving every living being our closely knit family respect and love natural state of mind Ruminating on the simple and beautiful lifestyle of 80s. Wishing this makes a comeback in general while I take conscious steps towards such a lifestyle for myself and my family.

  It was a cloudy afternoon, with swishing winds and a brief drizzle. I was hoping my 3.5 year old daughter would take her afternoon nap but as always, she had other plans - asking "I want to eat something" for atleast 10 times (though she had a late lunch), telling me "don't be so tired, amma" when I tried to act sleepy and finally declaring "I don't want to sleep" in a strict tone. Around the same time when the negotiations were happening between us, our two visiting cats (they adopted us) were peacefully napping in opposite corners of the house.   It felt so peaceful, to just take a few seconds to observe and admire them. Unperturbed by the noises of a toddler, without any worries or concerns, they were at peace - stretching and cuddling with their paws and taking a perfect siesta. I'm grateful to have experienced more such peaceful afternoons with them in the last 4 years - bright sunshine gently peeking into my living room, qu...

With the food habits of urban, young Indians having turned into a sad state like this - "readymade cereal for breakfast, subway sandwich for lunch and burger/pizza for dinner", this book comes as a wake-up call to all of us to appreciate the vast number of cuisines of India. I have watched many of his TV shows in FoodFood channel and I have found Chef Saransh to be a simple, down-to-earth person - be it his recipes or his friendly demeanor. His book "India on a platter" takes the reader on a journey to the depths and breadths of India, exploring different states, cultures, traditions and most importantly, the cuisines. The book takes you on a journey to Ladakh, Jaipur, Kutch, Goa, Munnar, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Guwahati and many more. More than just a breezy travelogue, the book also dwells into the intricacies and differences in food habits, preparation methods, spices and cooking practices of these cuisines. The thought of such a dream journey to travel a...

“We have so much, too much, that we can buy, yet the basic labor of doing, the making with our own hands, is what enlivens us and makes us feel human." - Dan Lepard I came across this quote in one of the food blogs and it inspired me to write this post. Ever since I started to consciously incorporate healthy eating as a habit, I have been focusing on eliminating various processed/packaged foods from my shopping trips and ensuring I address most of my cooking requirements from scratch. Over the years, this do-it-yourself (DIY) practice has become a habit now and it doesn't take too much of my time as I had initially thought.  Little bit of planning is all that is needed. (1) Pasta sauce I just counted the number of readymade pasta sauce bottles I had purchased over a period of 2 years. There are 14 of them, each used to cost around Rs.350 and a bottle would last for 2 weeknight pasta dinners. Apart from the cost factor, the taste feels artificial. You can't expect m...

It's strange that I haven't written much about one of my core guiding values of my life - "minimalistic living" . Though I have been practicing many of the principles throughout my life, I never consciously thought about a minimalistic lifestyle or tried to improve upon it until a few years back. Now that I see the need and importance of such a lifestyle in today's world that promotes consumerism, let me share my thoughts around how I go about adopting minimalism across various aspects of life. Yesterday evening, my daughter wanted us to take her to a mall nearby. I hate visiting malls, especially on weekends and tried to divert her attention through many ways, even by tempting her with some ice-cream. Nope, that didn't work. She was persistent that we go to the mall. As we entered the mall, I noticed shopping carts with loads of bags (more plastic….sigh!). As we reached the first floor, I noticed there was a flea market happening. There were stalls with peop...