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Yearly Archives: 2013
Balvenie Triple Cask, Wasmund’s, The Speyside
This is part of a series sharing tasting notes from a monthly private whisky club in Mumbai, India. This month, we welcomed back an old friend from Singapore who brought something ‘different’ for our sampling pleasure. We also donned traditional garb in honour of the festival season!
Tasting Notes from 17 October 2013
We continued our standard format and blind tasted three samples before revealing the whisky. October featured: Belvenie’s Triple Cask 12 year, Wasmund’s and The Speyside 12 year. (more…)
Saying goodbye
One of the things that any immigrant or global citizen experiences is missing being ‘there’ for all life events that happen with family and friends. And even if still living in one’s country of birth, the reality today is that many families are scattered around a country too. So being able to say ‘goodbye’ to a loved one in person before they pass on is not always possible. I missed the funerals of both grandmothers – very different yet equally remarkable women.
One also learns to let go of things… after all how much can one really cart around the world? The alternative is to litter storage boxes in various locations and, as the years pass, the likelihood of retrieving them grows less and less. I’ve managed to restrict myself to storage at primarily two locations – my parents and sister’s homes. I harbour a dream to own a house large enough to have a library and ship all my books to where ever that ‘dream home’ will be! (more…)
Music Musings – INDIVA
What do you get when you put together four amazing women – each unique, strong, vibrant performers – individually “divas” in their own right? INDIVA!
Described as four divas on a musical journey that blends Hindustani, Jazz, Classical and World Music, their harmonies and way of re-inventing familiar tunes and creating new that is uniquely theirs. We had the distinct pleasure of seeing them perform an amazing acoustic set this morning at Prithvi Theatre in Juhu, Mumbai and I’m so delighted to see such talent come together.
Indva’s unplugged
The divas have identified themselves with four elements: (more…)
Blame technology, not me!
If you’ve wondered about the week-long “radio silence,” a busy social life and “The project” work are not the real reasons… Nope, if you want to blame anything? Blame technology!
I’ve had one of the wretched weeks where one thing is compounded by another until you can only throw you hands up in the air and cry “Mercy!”
Desktop disk disaster
Happier times in Feb 2013 with my new desktop learning to wrestle with Windows 8 (which I still hate!)
It started off innocuously enough… Mosying along minding my business until the “insufficient disk space.” How had I managed to gobble all the space on the system drive? Four hours and 6 phone calls later was told to do several steps which proved the next day to be merely a temporary work-around. There really is a disk error and next is to take the machine in for hardware not software trouble shooting.
However I have learned: Place of purchase will pass one on to IBM who will pass on to one Lenovo number to pass on to another Lenovo number to pass on to Microsoft to pass on to the place you purchased with an extended warranty. Full circle!
Now I know you techie savvy folks want details and would love your help but wait… There’s more! (more…)
A Diwali Wish
I have a small Diwali wish – Please welcome Lakshmi into your home this year with the gentle glow of diyas, the explosion of flowers and the joy of being with family and friends.
Invite Lakshmi with light…
Take a moment to consider the conditions under which patakars (firecrackers) are made, the noise and pollution that comes with using them… Chose how to celebrate the festival of lights. Happy Diwali!!!
Related posts:
House Cooling/Warming Part 2 – Special Paan
Wednesday’s “house-warming” was combined with the launch of The Bartender’s new video… The entire place was bursting with talent and instruments. Fabulous!
Sooooo…. NOT a cop!
It was a riot seeing the video together with the folks involved in making it – lots of familiar faces! The video was shot walking distance from home… And features some of my favourite Bandra graffiti, brought to life digitally with funky eye googling! It is based on an old hindi film hit “Khaike Paan Banaraswala” re-interpreted “Bartender” style.
We all cracked up at the sadhu and cop parts especially. Vinay a sadhu?? Ramon a cop?? Impossible!! Far too zany to even be the caricature ‘cool dudes’ that burst forth after eating the special paan spiked with a secret transformative formula. (more…)
House Cooling/Warming Part 1 – Mumbai masquerades
Given a choice between socializing at public establishments or private homes – my vote is ‘house party’! And while average flat sizes in Mumbai are modest, there are some that are designed with ‘entertaining’ in mind!
We recently attended a ‘house cooling’ party in Mumbai. It wasn’t at all like the one I had in Winnipeg before moving back to India. Mine was a simple affair where the focus was valiant efforts by one and all to empty the house of assorted bric-à-brac and demolish the booze cabinet! No one was permitted to stay with empty glass or leave empty-handed.
In the recent Bandra variant, there was certainly food and booze aplenty however it also featured a burlesque masque theme! Tonight is the same friend’s ‘house warming’ party and am looking forward to kicking off the “B-b-b-b-birthday celebrations – quintuple style” courtesy of his hosting skills! (more…)
B-B-B-B-Birthday Celebrations – Quintuple style!
My mother went into labour as ‘trick or treaters’ knocked on their door the Hallowe’en of 1969. She would say how, as her contractions came, she wished I might hold off just a wee bit til after midnight… By 5am the next day she was cursing but got her way as I welcomed the world on 1st November.
Over the years, I’ve met others born on 1st November and occasionally we even celebrate our birthdays together.
For my 40th birthday, enjoyed a ‘triple treat’ birthday with:
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Triple hit – 1st November babies (2009)
A “young” friend (left in pic) who has such a zest for life, we bonded instantly when we met a couple of years ago. We share a love of good music, laughter and more!
- Yup – that’s me in the middle!
- An “old” friend (right in pic) – we met in France in 1988. I’ll never forget one party in Mumbai where a guy I just met ever so kindly took it upon himself to ‘introduce’ me to others (thinking I’m a newbie firangi to India)… to discover practically everyone else there and I knew each other from weeks… to months… to years… By the time he came to my “old” friend: “We’ve known each other for over twenty years – I think maybe 23?” He went “I give up! Who the hell are you???” (more…)
2nd Quarter Summary
Can you believe it? “Every Day Adventures in Asia (Mostly)” is half a year old!?!
“Eve Teasing”
It would have been impossible without all the comments and encouragement from fellow WordPress bloggers, folks following through various social media and real life friends who keep surprising me by actually reading and chatting about topics in posts of interest to them.
This quarter, I’ve been thinking about living and working in more than one country. (more…)
Braving malls, masks and gifts… Jakarta’s Block M Square and Pasaraya Malls
I’ve already confessed to paultry posts about experiences in Jakarta. I’ve also admitted I’m not a big fan of shopping or malls… This post braves both!
Before I left Bombay for Jakarta earlier this month, my partner requested I buy us a mask or two and replenish our empty ‘gift cupboard.’
Why masks? Well… it has become one of our ‘things’… we’ve separately collected masks here and there. So when we came together, our masks did too.
Glimpse of our masks…
Everyday Asia 