Brain drain

46. Fourty-six frigging passwords! Office logins, office email, personal email, ftp site, intranet, ATM pins, internet banking, online trading, airline miles.. blahhh..

No wonder my brain threw a core dump that day. A bus ticket to be bought, hardly 50 bucks in the purse, two large bags in each hand, an hour for the bus to go and 30 sweaty minutes in the ATM queue. After ALL that with the card in my hand and the money spewing machine in front of me, I forget my pin. Totally blanked out.

Now, with that password count of 46 I feel a little better. Anyway, almonds are great for the brain I heard. Some almond fudge icecream would be good (for the brain) I guess.

Cotton saree shopping at Chickpet

Chickpet – the saree shopping paradise in Bangalore. Yes, I discovered it finally. After two years of living in this city, it is a little late, but I'm glad I finally did. This long narrow lane called Chickpet is in the heart of the old Bangalore city, with hundreds of small shops on both sides. All the shops claim to be genuine silk dealers and the two words Kanchipuram and silk society occur in almost every other shop's name. For a first timer there like me, it can be a little overwhelming and confusing to decide where to go for saree shopping. If you really need a comparison, picture Chandni Chowk in Delhi or Teen Darwaza in Ahmedabad. Personally, I love shopping in old city markets and I don't really mind the crowd as long as I can breathe and there is enough good stuff to look at.

Coming back to Chickpet, I can safely say that the sarees here are definitely cheaper than the shops on M G Road, but you have to be careful as a lot of sarees sold as silk sarees are not genuine silk. I went there looking for some soft cotton sarees and I bought four of them. I would highly recommend this shop called Ashok Silk House in Chickpet. They have been in this business for more than 40 years and have maintained a low profile shop. The guys there are really patient and gladly show you their entire collection without forcing you to choose. They have a mindblowing collection of both cotton and authentic pure silk sarees. The sarees are modestly priced and it is a fixed priced shop, so you dont have to worry about wasting time in bargaining. Oh and they also accept cards. (Some of the shops in Chickpet, dont). Their address is #200, 1st floor, Chickpet and they are open on Monday-Saturday from 10.30 am to 7.30 pm. Unfortunately, Sunday is a holiday. You can contact Mr. Bharat on 9886408362 or (080) 22873926 for directions.

These cotton sarees were priced at around Rs. 350.

And these have light embroidery on them. Priced at Rs. 550 only!

Happy shopping.

Wanted

A 1BHK house in Bangalore.

• In and around Domlur, Airport road. Not more than 4-5 kms away from say, TGIF.
• In peaceful residential locality and with easy access to grocery shops.
• First floor and a decent verandah preferred.
• Should not fall under the mosquito municipality.

And ofcourse the lesser the rent the better.

Family weekend

My family was visiting last weekend. We were running short of ideas to keep everybody interested and busy. It is tricky, to keep a bunch of people including restless 10-12 year olds and senior citizens, entertained and happy at the same time. Bangalore, unlike aamchi Mumbai does not have too many options for family outings. Thankfully, Sam and the kids had pretty much chalked out the plan. All in all, it turned out better than I thought. Everyone liked …

• The Vishveshwaraya technology museum
• Madiwala fabindia and the garden cafe
• Mini meals at Nandhini
• Nrityagram dance village
• Tipu sultan fort at Nandi hills
• Lion and tiget safari at Bannerghatta national park
• Food at KFC

The flops were trips to Forum and Big Bazaar. The idea was to give a taste of the mall culture, but on a Saturday it is just total madness at Forum. Even worse at Big Bazaar. We ended up spending a lot of both money and time waiting in really long queues to pay for the unnecessary stuff we bought. More than anything else, you end up feeling like a tiny worm when you go at these malls. The ladies wanted to go to Chickpet to buy some good quality cotton sarees, but none of us had been there and we were short of time so saree shopping was ditched.

Oh and apart from a rocking weekend with great company, I got a cute tshirt as a surprise gift!

Hello! real world.

My first post. As me. Lets see how this goes.