we are like this only

Sadly, in life, you tend to appreciate things more when they are gone. Like all the gardens in the various Lutyens bungalows we lived in while Dad was in the government. Now I have a handkerchief-sized patch of lawn on which you have to really struggle to make even grass grow, and most of my 'trees' grow in pots. But luckily I live in Delhi which in this season is spectacular. All manner of spring flowers are out in a riot of colour – phlox, pansies, poppies, dahlias, mums, Sweet Williams, impatiens and more. The colony I live in has many avid gardeners so it's a joy to walk around and see how different people plan their garden. One lady has a gorgeous Petrea which blooms for barely 15 days but in that time the entire creeper is covered in starry lavender coloured flowers. My gardener unfortunately killed off my petrea but today I'm planning to go shop for it at the Khan Market nursery. Another neighbor plants the flowers in great masses in front of her house so it look...

Yesterday we enjoyed one among the free pleasures of living in Delhi. The weather was perfect - sunny but with a cool breeze that made it delightful to spend time outdoors. So we set off on an expedition to Mughal Gardens, my grandma in tow. We sped through the traffic on the expressway and reached the heart of Delhi in barely 20 minutes. Of course, it then took us another 20 minutes to finally figure out how to get to the entrance of the garden, which is attached to Rashtrapati Bhavan, the President's Estate. The parking was pretty haphazard and the queue seemed endless so we had nightmare visions of standing in line for hours. But luckily the line moved fairly quickly, the only hitch being no mobile phones ( or cameras) were allowed, so once they separated the men and women, you could end up lost inside. In fact, as we queued up for the many security checks, we kept hearing announcements of lots of children separated from their parents, husbands missing wives and so forth. ...

When A and I moved into our first marital home, it was a teeny, tiny flat in Fontainebleau. We had a lot of fun and started off our marriage just right, but it wasn't quite what I envisioned as a home. I guess I watch too many Hindi movies. I've always wanted a home which had a big expanse of garden - big enough for a shade-giving tree like Gulmohur, to be planted in one corner. Lots of lawn area. A bedroom that opened out onto a green expanse. We should have moved back to Jhumritalaiya instead of Gurgaon! The flat we rent here is inside a rather nice, very un-Gurgaon-highrise colony. It has row-houses with adobe colours, rather Hispanic in style, and each little house comes with a backyard and a pocket-sized front lawn. We rented space on the first and second floors of a house, as the ground floor was already occupied. The second floor came with a marble floored terrace and two large rooms, and the first floor had 3 bedrooms and one drawing room, no space for a dining table. W...

Gardens I never realised I enjoy gardens and green spaces until I had a home of my own. Quite a pity when you consider the kind of un-used opportunities that my past is littered with. Years ago, we lived in a tiny government house in Pandara road - A-39. The front looked out onto a green strip between two rows of houses, but the back of the house was really cool. Each house had a small garden - maybe 8 feet by 20 feet - okay, not so small if you look at an average Indian city now. And two rows of backgardens were adjacent, with a narrow ditch for drainage in between the two gardens. The gardens weren't very sophisticated, since most people who lived there were strictly middle class, with little money to spare for a gardener. There was a grass patch in the center, maybe some canna lily bushes on one side and jasmines/ mogra on another. The gardens made a long alley, through the row of 20 houses on each street. What made this green alley exciting was the trees which grew thickly ove...

I notice that my food or travel blogs are going much better than this one - maybe I have fewer opinions than I thought? Anyway, today I thought I'd write about books and reading. I truly believe that reading is a gift and I feel sorry for people who never discover the joys of reading - there's just so much they are missing out on. My favourite activity is to curl up with a good book and a mug of tea. Mind you, the definition of a good book is pretty elastic, and I have been known to curl up with a cup of tea and the back of a cereal box for lack of anything else to read. I love shopping for books too - bookshops are magical because they carry so many hidden worlds inside them, and then you look at the back blurb and flick through the pages of each one that you consider, wondering which one you're most likely to feel at home in... I love going into second hand bookstores – almost more than first hand ones, because there’s such a feeling of discovery over the process of shopp...