Week 37 and 38/2025: 8th Sept to 21st Sept

 

I didn’t write last week. Why? Sujay was travelling to Delhi on work; Dhruva and I went to Kabbe. And I didn’t even realise how last Monday passed with my parents. I missed writing and I didn’t even realise that too. It’s always like this. Whenever I go to my parents, I pause all the work. Just eat, sleep, repeat. It feels like a holiday.

Trial room pics from the holidays. I went window shopping, ‘Man Behlane’

But it was the 15th too, and I couldn’t postpone writing for my column, so that’s the only work I did. But believe me, thinking over what to write is the biggest job a columnist takes on. It’s very hard to find a new thing to write about every time. A lot of mind goes into it. Writing takes just 2 or 3 days, but the thinking is a much longer process. Sometimes it takes me 15 days just to figure out what to write. This time I wrote on wonder farms across the world — like Italy’s under-the-sea Nemo’s Garden, Spain’s volcanic ash farming, Singapore’s sky green vertical farming, etc (They are a bunch of very interesting experiments, do read them on wiki). I will be continuing the same topic for the next issue, so God saved me from thinking about what to write next time.

Sahana akka had posted a pic of all the eatables she had prepared on Ganesh Chaturthi, Beet Vadai caught my eye, I wanted to try the recipe. It tasted good.

Watching ‘Prime’ needs to be added to the eat-sleep-repeat cycle. I watched my favourite series ‘Bandish Bandits’ and ‘The wheel of time’. Season 2 of BB was good (Radhe looks cuter <3). That rock version of ‘Garaj Garaj’ on electric guitar which you all must have seen on insta reels hits different on a music disciple like me. I wish I could play it on my Sitar! Coming to the wheel of time. Ufff! Goosebumps throughout the season 3. I don’t want to bore you telling what the series is about. Its IYKYK.

After finishing with these to I am starting with second season of a crime thriller - Suzhal

All of us went to my Amma’s parents’ native place, a village called Chaare near Heggarani, which receives the highest rainfall in our district. A whopping 3500mm+ every year. Amma’s parents’ house there now stands abandoned. A few relatives still live nearby, all aged 60+. It was heartbreaking to see that in these remote corner villages, with no basic infrastructure, only the elderly remain. Their children have moved to metro cities, leaving parents to live alone at this stage of life, when they most need care and support. This is the situation across many villages here.

This is the Deepa Sthambha in front of Chaare’s Virupaksha Devasthana. Very attractive with Kurma in the base, and Nandi on the top.

The only happy sight in Chaare was the beautiful Dahlias they were growing.

September 15^th was Skanda’s birthday. He likes gifts that are creative. Last year we had gifted him a set of moon stars and constellations that can be sticked on the roof which glow in the dark. He had liked it. Before last year we had gifted him a bicycle, which he was longing from a long time. This year we gifted him a story book, personalized with his pictures. I had ordered it through zingy gifts. He loved it.

Skanda’s gift. This book has story of Skanda becoming an astronaut, a painter, a photographer, a sportsman, a police, a naturalist, and alll

It was also my cousin Anagh’s birthday too. It was a special celebration as she turned eighteen. I attended the party, just to see and taste the ultimate cake prepared Suchi Chikkamma.

White and Pink

We came back home after 10 days of holiday. We would have stayed longer if it wasn’t for this special day. Last Saturday, we hosted a Citrus Picking Event — the first of its kind in our locality. Our farm was bursting with lemons and Coorg mandarins that we had planted 4 years ago, so we thought, why not experiment with a harvest festival? We put out an ad on social media inviting people to book and come. It was thrilling to see so much interest, but we restricted the number to 15.

 Among those, an all-ladies gang came, and they enjoyed it like it was their last day! This concept of agro-tourism is very new here. Paying a fee to book and visit a farm is not common in our place, so we thought the experiment might fail. It turned out to be 50-50. Many urbanites were enthusiastic to book and come, whereas many localites came without booking or informing us. It was difficult to manage the uninvited visitors — but guests are guests, so we showed them around the farm too. At the end of the day we were happy that we hosted so many.

Lady Gang