Today, bowling.
Tag: Mysore
Experiencing Mysore
Mysore is a connecting place, social entrepreneurs, community animateurs are forever initiating new ideas to bring us together.
Sriranjini Simha kindly invited me to experience mysore. Well I have been doing that for twenty years, initially on holidays and now as resident with our own business. But joking aside this was an invite to a new initiative that is actually called ‘Experience Mysuru’ and I’m so pleased I checked it out.
I’ve always thought that the Mysore city feels more like a village, by that I mean : it has an intimacy, interactivity, on a human scale. Well ‘Experience Mysuru’ reflects exactly that. Mysore has a well deserved reputation as a cultural capital that was fantastically represented last night..
The ‘showcase’ was curated to reveal through the senses of taste, hearing, smell, touch and sight and included: yoga and meditation, ancient board games, percussion, storytelling, dance, music and singing. To be more precise — Chande: the pulse of Karavali, Bharatanatyam, Carnatic music and Kamsale— come find out for yourselves what it is.
I can’t say performers, yes they shared, their skills, they entertained but it went beyond that. Each person introduced their activity to ‘get beneath the skin’ they fitted all this in to just 120 minutes and it was not crammed. It was exactly right, the timing, the diversity, the interactive-ness, the rich content, their expertise, I’ve got to know Mysore a bit over the years but this brought me to so many new layers and levels.
Well done team, we’re rightly proud of our heritage and this was a great way to share with young and old, local and not so local, and I’ll be back..
Thank you Kim Kanchana Ganga, Tanushri SN, Shrimathi and her team, Pranav Athrey’s-Pranav Athreya, Suraksha Dixit, Tejashri Murphy, Pushpa and her team… plus the managers and organisers behind the scenes that put it all together and made it go so smoothly…..
More info
http://www.experiencemysuru.in
0091 8105318650
Info@experiencemysuru.in
@experiencemysuru.in
The venue was the amazing The Heritage House in Saraswathipuram
…
I’ll write separately about Mysore – Mysuru, about the city’s name and history but this is not the place.
Button Madness
A new summer school holiday activity — Button Masala.
Incredible creativity and innovative design from cloth, button and rubber band!
A great addition to the swimming, summer camp, reading, storytelling, crafts, skating, seaside, badminton, cycling, TV and phone that’s become a staple of Kaveri’s school holiday
A really cool event presented by the creator of Button Masala —Amuj Sharma and supported by Sri Vidya MR of the Anubhuti Trust.
Snow fall, not really.
Ruth is a poet from the U.K.
A guest of Mysore Bed and Breakfast who has become a good friend.
Not only that she’s actually published books of poetry and some of her poems are about India and her early years living here.
Check Ruth’s latest poem, you’ll realise why I show this image.
Lucie
Lucie departed on Sunday 26th January
That afternoon we buried her in a lovely field
Today we returned to do 11th day puja to help her spirit find its new home
Then lunch back at home
It’s very sad to lose such a wonderful friend, I miss her—-
—-being at home when I return, going on walks together and just being in my life.
Billet-Doux also misses Lucie
She’s such a famous dog with everyone asking about her.
Girls are back in town
Radhika was 17 this week so with Kaveri back for a skating race we made Sunday into an extra celebration.
Happy Birthday
Radhika B Radical
Kaveri grows fast.
Birthday happening
Well if ‘last’ years birthday is anything to go by I’ve fully localised.
31st December can seem a weird day for a birthday. Or maybe not.
Endings and beginnings
There’s always multiple celebrations
It was wonderful.
A steady stream of lovely friends making it a day to remember.
Plus my girls were here (kaveri and Radhika) having missed Christmas together, we shifted Christmas to the morning and began my birthday at noon 12.35 sharp 🤭
and Rinkal and Sheetal are seriously becoming an integral part of the team. Welcome to you.
Next morning
Happy New Year.
How people find us
Even in our first year we were no 1 in Mysore on Trip Advisor but there were no contact details. Guests couldn’t quite believe it
As they realised, I’m Yindian, (Indian by marriage, Yorkshire by birth) the Yorkshire bit means I’ll not spend money unnecessarily. (that’s one way of putting it)..
We’d also joke that we only wanted guests that would put the effort in and find us!!
Our Facebook entries also meant we were on Google. All that helped.
AirBnB was our other big thing. We’re still on it but sometimes forget as most guests come as returners, byword of mouth or recommendations.
Just to prove it, here’s some of the reviews from our lovely AirBnB guests.
We can assure you, that we don’t chop people’s heads off
Yours, Alice
Keep tidy
Slivers of paper, pencil sharpenings, crisp packets,
Neighbours blame the inconsiderate young people but let’s look a little closer….
Yes it’s adults with babies dumping their diapers (nappies)
A bag full goes in our bin to be collected by the city corporation (MCC).
Why can’t the people give their rubbish to the MCC who collect most mornings?
The fading Firangi (foreign pensioner) chooses to clear it up. My neighbours blame the students and it’s partially true but on closer inspection — it’s the babies shit now smeared all around by the dogs — who’ve adopted the park that’s made it worse.
So all ages are responsible together with their team mates, the dogs…. It’s not just due to the corporation not clearing up. People need to learn to put things in a bin and not expect other to clear up after them.
We had similar problems in the U.K. in the past.
So there was a countrywide campaign, decades ago to stop people littering.
a man, his dog a girl and a tree
Yesterday evening as I was waiting outside a shop selling dots for one’s forehead —
—Manjula used to give them as gifts as we travelled through England—
A woman asked where she was.
I pointed to, inside the shop and after a perplexed reaction, realised she wasn’t asking about the little girl (Kaveri) or Manjula, for that matter, but the dog (Lucie).
The girl was stocking up for the return to school.
I’m well known in my area and in Mysore generally but usually because of my appendage.
I am nothing, not even a number.
…
I once walked into a hotel (restaurant) right on the other side of the city, for the waiter to ask me where’s the dog. He also lived in Siddarthanagar.
So I’m well known for who I’m with …
As of this morning, as I realise, I stick out like a sore thumb as generally there’s rarely other firangis (foreigners) here. There’s a new appendage.
A tree
As I was tossing and turning in the midst of my AWOL, nightly sleep I realised there was only this morning for me to be able to decorate the tree for Christmas.
Kaveri will be going back to school.
Kaveri is here for less than 24 hours and we’ve decorated it together for the past three years since we met. I’ll not see her again until a few days after Christmas Day when we’ll belatedly celebrate Christmas.
A bit too late to do the tree
Plus our usual totem is now too big and heavy for the hall aka lounge.
What to do?
Easy
Get up before the girls and after walking as man and dog, I go out again, to the nearest ‘nursery’. It’s run by guys from UP on the roadside. I haggle with them from the Firangi-Gora (white) — tax – price, to something resembling the price a local would pay. About half.
Then as I’m trudging home— convincing myself that I’m exercising my muscle diminishing 60+ years arms —- with very regular rests. I realised I’m another spectacle of the foreigner ‘variety’ who is entertaining the locals, especially the men at the chai shop and the women sweeping the streets. They’re interested as no one can possibly work out why the rich foreigner is carrying a tree and not using an auto rickshaw.
A wonderful young man, rescues me from the ordeal of the last stretch, stops for me to balance precariously on the back of his bike and gets me home.
I’ve become the foreigner, not only with dog and girl but now the tree
It suits me
…
Ok it doesn’t look very heavy but the weight is in the pot.
It’s now decorated.
But now the cats eyeing it up, for a potential attack thankfully for the moment she seems satisfied with the empty decoration boxes.
Me and MYCycle 