Getting back to the groove…slowly

It has been a while since I posted (close to two weeks now to be precise) except for those two odd photo posts this week 🙂 Life has been as chaotic and peaceful as it can be. Peaceful at home, Chaotic outside. Perfect balance 😉 Since I am getting back to the blogging groove slowly (work starts only next week! yay!!!) here are some interesting news and events that happened.

The city I live in, Bangalore, had some interesting turn of events of late, mostly related to water sharing and violence, spoiling a lot of my plans for the two week, but eventually we figured our way around those events, as we all usually do, even though they weren’t very ideal. But at least we and all the people we know were safe. That counts a lot. Also got to show my non-Indian close friend how curfew over here looks like at least in this part of the town where we live. 🙂  He takes away with him some very interesting experiences. I hate that this happens every year and people aren’t ready to sit and find an ideal solution. Everyone want their piece of 15 min of fame and a lot of political gain through these situations when common men and women suffer (farmer or not).

Did a small trek in Munnar (was on a day trip there) which was interesting. Will share some photographs later. Witnessed a nasty monkey fight for the first time.  Now, I am very much convinced that we evolved from them. (See above paragraph for more references 🙂 )

Imagine my surprise with all that star signs and Zodiac changing news that came up in between all these. My friend (who knows astrology, mostly Indian, but he does know the difference between western and indian too) always insisted that I am more of an Aries than a Taurean because according to my birth chart (Indian astrological) my Sun is in Aries (or otherwise called as Mesha) and my moon in Virgo (or otherwise called as Kanni) and I would always disagree with him because I feel more like a Taurus than a Aries. And guess what, the new news tells me that my Sun sign is Aries. Now I would have to agree with him. Good Lord! I ain’t changing my tattoo. I feel like a Taurus than an Aries. And I stick by it. And I don’t like the name Ophiuchus. Can’t they have used a nicer one ?

Losing a baggage because of delayed flight, missed interconnected flights etc is not a good experience. Even though I haven’t been there, I got the first class view of the issues around it when my friend traveled to India a couple of weekends before through Etihad. Flight started late due to some or other issues from the source, arrived 2 hours later than scheduled in Abu Dhabi. Missed the connecting flight to Bangalore. Those in economy class were given tickets via Oman Air. So they traveled from Abu Dhabi to Muscat and from Muscat to Bangalore. But their baggage didn’t and they came to know about it only when they landed in Bangalore. Imagine their surprise. It was  very bad customer service. But hey, at least my friend only had one baggage (even though it had some important documents and gifts and we were scheduled for travel in a day or two). One of the other 65 year old passenger not only did not receive her baggage, she did not have a clue about her 75 year old wheel chair bound husband too. Since he was travelling in Business class, he was put in the next flight from Abu Dhabi to Bangalore. And the authorities weren’t sure which one (the one that arrives that night or the one that arrives the next day morning). That was much worse. We hope that her husband was back home the same evening. The baggage did come a day later for us (and hopefully for everyone else)

Sully was a very good movie to watch. We enjoyed it. As soon as I heard those folks in the movie talk about computer simulations and how they conveyed the news that the flight could have landed successfully, the first thought was…it’s just a machine, you idiot. It can’t think like a human being, at least not yet. Well… someone else also thought the same 🙂

Finished with ‘Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries – third season’ on Netflix, finally. Also finished ‘Top of the Lake’ series, which was different and interesting. I liked it. Thanks to my friend, I started on a new series of thriller , mystery, detective books by Michael Dibdin called the Aurelio Zen Mystery series. Finished the 2nd book (Vendetta) because my friend was still on the first book (Ratking). Now I have to find out the other ones and start reading them. They were quite interesting. Sadly the TV Series were made only for the first three of them. Have to watch them once I am done with the books.

Well, that’s it from me for now. I hope there is a little less violence in the world. We have enough of the natural disasters to keep us on our toes already. Be safe! Cheers.

K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge: Friday

The Cosmic Photography Challenge is a little tricky this week around. You might want to check out their posts to know about the challenge. I picked Indonesia, because that is where I have been last year. Very specifically to Bali.

What do the people over there equate to Friday? Since Hinduism is widely followed in Bali, they, like us Indians who follow Hinduism, like to do religious events and auspicious events on a Friday.  
This is the temple at Ayodhya Resort where a marriage had taken place just before we had checked in.

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Wanna join in? Here is how:

Create a post with ‘K’lee and Dale’s Cosmic Photo Challenge’ in the title. This week, the prompt is : five ways Friday is said around the world.. Post a photo to your blog, pingback to either Dale’s or K’lee’s post and don’t forget to add the tag #CosPhoChal to your post’s tags and you’re done!

Always a mistake

This was a truly open ended prompt because it let me think of so many things to write. But then finally I settled on something I wanted to post ever since I came back from Brighton.

When we went to Brigton on 28th May 2016, it was in the middle of the Brighton Festival that was going on in full swing. So there were events going on everywhere. In the Royal Pavilion there were doing some installations and some hindi song was playing on in the background. We were wondering what it was all about. We know that the Royal Pavilion was turned into a military hospital for Indians during the First World War. But was it some kind of commemoration that is going on because of the completion of 100 years since the place was used as an hospital?

We saw a small section where people could write something for all those people who were treated there, who were part of the war, or who just wanted to leave a simple message to everyone else. Later I figured out that it was part of an event and I quote “An ambitious new project inspired by a remarkable story of the First World War, Nutkhut’s Dr Blighty remembers an unexpected episode in Brighton’s history when the Royal Pavilion Estate became a military hospital for wounded Indian soldiers” Here are some photographs I wanted to share from there.

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Post for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “mb.” Find a word that has those two letters in it, in that order, and base your post on it. Have fun!

 

SoCS Badge by HopeFloats@ My Leaky Boat

A-Z Book List: S for Silent (ssshhh)

Y’all know by now that my favorite genre is Mystery, Thrillers etc. I am not sure about you, but when the story gets going at a very face pace so does my adrenaline. I don’t have to do anything to increase my pressure or to increase my heart beat. Just read some of those fast paced well-written thrillers and I am sweating just by reading them. This book is one such.

Name: Silent Predator by Tony Park

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Fiction

It takes place on an African safari. Surrounded by jungles, all kind of predators lurking around the corners, people backstabbing, animals hindering the rescue process…what is not there in this story. I read this before a very important IPL T20 match. I was already all hyped up with this story and that match too increased my pressure. I was almost hyperventilating that day and it did feel like I had climbed a mountain. It was a very very good thriller and I just couldn’t keep it down. I was not ready to endure a night without knowing what happened. Not many books do that to me. This is the only book of this author that I had read. I got this book on a sale and as part of a deal. So didn’t bother looking for other books of his. Maybe I should and see if his other works are as fast paced as this one.

PS: Check out the rest of the A-Z Book list here

 

Michelle & Meg – Paul’s Blogathon

Writing this post, because I didn’t find a reblog button on the original post.

Do you like Meg Ryan or Michelle Pfeiffer? Are you crazy about them or their films? Do you want to see what other’s say about them, their characters and their movies? Paul at ‘Pfeiffer Pfilms and Meg Movies‘ is running a Blogathon this month which features reviews of their movies from a lot of other bloggers. Sadly, Paul’s domain is expiring this April (as I gather from his post) so he is planning to get this Blogathon done by this month. If you have any post which you want to feature there, do let Paul know. I have enjoyed reading the posts and while you are there, do make sure to check out Paul’s other posts on these two main ladies.

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