Tag Archives: Dancing

Raksha Bandhan Confusion

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This year, Raksha Bandhan was very special for me. This is the first time in my life that a rakhi was tied on my wrist.

Yep, you read that right. The snubnose has gotten into full festival spirit and has made rakhis for me and Kalyan.

Here is a snapshot of the rakhi on my hand:

My Rakhi

My Rakhi

Although, it is quite obvious that the snubnose has her concepts a teeny-weeny bit mixed up (Raksha Bandhan is a festival that celebrates the brother-sister relationship, and she should have ideally have tied the rakhi to any boy she regards as a brother), I am still very proud of the rakhi that she has made for me.

It is quite a simple and novel idea. She has used vadams (a kind of south-indian fryums), strung them up on a rubber band and made a knot.

Quite simple and creative, no? That’s why I feel she has a real turn for art :) . I also really love that her school Neev encourages her interest in art (painting, music, and dancing).

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The Month That Was

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Last month was my birthday month and turned out to be a super-party month. There were so many occasions to celebrate that towards the end, my mind and body were left whirling.

Summary of activities:

  • July 17 – Shopping the sales at Sanctuary in search for nice birthday dress and shoes. Successfully scored these beautiful tops…shoes were not happening
    • Green patterned top
    Striped top with a Purple Border
  • July 20 – Lunch with friends at Indijoe, stuffed face at buffet and then went on a long stroll to walk away the fullness.
  • July 21 – Lunch with friends at Ginseng – the Chinese restaurant at Royal Orchid. Mmm…heavenly food, huge smile on face for the rest of the day
  • July 22 – Second unsuccessful attempt to score some good shoes at the Lifestyle sale. Ended up buying some much-needed basics for the snubnose (shoes and socks). No shoes for me :( I did spot some heavenly white flats, but what I am looking for are sensible black pumps for work. So, resisted the temptation quite nicely (pat on the back for me)
  • July 25 – Drinks and dancing at the Ice bar in Taj Residency. Super page-3 featured party and we had a whale of a time dancing and people-watching. A highlight was the Michael Jackson tribute break-dance feature
  • July 29 – Drinks and snacks at a friend’s place followed by Bollywood ishtyle dancing at ZeroG. The DJ played some awesome tracks from Love aaj kal and Kaminey. Super- music, just did not want the evening to end.
  • July 31 – Birthday lunch treat at South Indies – massive buffet spread consisting of rice, sambar, appams, accompanied with appalam and sundal. Totally yummy; sambar just like my Grandma prepares it. Will definitely take my folks here for lunch/dinner next time they come.
  • August 1 – Night-show of Love aaj kal with friends.
  • August 8 – Lunch and shopping with friends at Serengeti in Total Mall

Whew, what a hard-core party girl lifestyle I have been leading this past month :) thanks to all who made these past couple of weeks so memorable!

Enjoyed myself thoroughly but now it is back to some serious work!

Summer Bazaar Organized by Sattva

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Summer Bazaar

Summer Bazaar

After a heavy lunch at Brookfield Cafe, Kalyan, myself and the snubnose went with friends to the Summer Bazaar organized by Sattva. This is a flea market that was happening in Whitefiield, and I was very interested to go and see what was on offer.

We walked in to some melodious music and singing. At first, we thought that it was a taped recording, but turned out to be a band belting out amazing tracks.

The Girl Group

The Girl Group

One of these ladies actually turned out to be a school teacher at Bangalore International School. Boy! they could be professionals, so well did they sing. Additionally, they sang some of my favorite numbers – So Young by the Corrs, and Killing me Softly by the Fugees (the original song is by Aretha Franklin, I think)…

Anyway, we spent some time watching them sing, and then moved on to the displays. Since pictures speak louder than words, I will just go ahead and let them speak here :)

Browsing through the goodies at the ANTS Cafe Stall

Browsing through the goodies at the ANTS Cafe Stall

Close-up of the jewellery display

Close-up of the jewellery display

Kiddos enjoying Chocolate Lollies from Jus Truf's

Kiddos enjoying Chocolate Lollies from Jus Truf's

The children then got into the act with a very well-choreographed Odissi dance performance. The dancing was simply superb and left us all spell-bound.

Odissi Dance Performance

Odissi Dance Performance

Snubnose in love with herself, I quite liked the Golden Buddha on the left

Snubnose in love with herself, I quite liked the Golden Buddha on the left

All in all, we had a very nice time. The kids were making too much ruckus for us to really get into serious shopping, but a good time all the same :)

Thanks Gugi for forwarding the Facebook invite :)

Body Talk Dance Classes

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In my earlier post, I had mentioned that the snub-nose’s teachers had suggested that she might enjoy going to dance classes as she is totally into music and dancing.

Well, today I took her to her first dance class conducted by Body Talk – a dance program that is specifically aimed at children. The class is based on techniques derived from yoga, martial arts, and dance, and are conducted every Saturday at Neev, Indra Nagar- the snub nose’s school.

Body Talk

Body Talk

Since, this was her first class, and she was feeling a little shy, I stayed back to watch the class with her and make her feel more comfortable.

I came away thoroughly impressed with the way the class is conducted. It is simple enough for children to follow, but provides a platform for children to express themselves and their thoughts through various body movements.

The snub-nose was also pretty intrigued, and although she was too shy to jump in to the fray straightaway, I could make out that this activity was very interesting for her. And in fact, towards the end, she was quite happy jumping around the room, running with the rest of the kids.

She is the smallest child in the program, and that made me a little hesitant. But the teacher promised me that I could just enroll her for 4 classes, and if she enjoys it, then we can go on.

Based on today’s activities, I am quite optimistic that she will go on to enjoy herself here….

The best thing about the program – she came home, had a hearty lunch, and was so tired, she dropped off to sleep like a stone :)

I could have danced all night …

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Today, I came back from my daughter’s PTM with her teachers sporting a huge smile on my face and just bursting with pride !

The snubnose is turning three this month, and we were all a bit concerned that her speech and vocab was not upto the mark for a child her age. In addition, she is a little shy and retiring and takes a lot of time to come out of her shell. Understandably, her participation in school activities was a little limited.

However, this time the teachers couldn’t stop singing her praises – she has started communicating a lot more than she used to, she interacts with everyone, has friends from all ages in the school. She loves all sorts of arts (mainly singing and dancing) and seems to be genuinely gifted in these areas. They suggest putting her in a song / dance class appropriate for her age, as she gets so much joy out of the whole thing.

I think she just needed some more time to grow into herself.

I just sat there listening to a list of her attributes and it was all I could do to not just jump up, run home, and give her a huge hug !

A pic taken from the web that kind of illustrates my state of mind right now !

Hugging Penguins

Hugging Penguins

Nishita Kumar’s New Avatar – Yogini

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I have done the aerobics, and I have done the weights, and I have done dancing, and swimming…I have practically tried every fitness trend there is on the planet. The one similarity amongst all the workouts that I did was the focus on two singular aspects – burning calories, and fitting into jeans I have outgrown.

Well, this time, I decided to do something different… I am on to yoga – hatha yoga to be precise.

What is hatha yoga ? I don’t think I can explain it better than this link below:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-hatha-yoga.htm

Note: This form of yoga is not the famous Bharat Thakur’s form of yoga, which is credited to have helped Kareena get her size 0 figure.

I have been practising hatha yoga for the past three weeks now, and I just cannot believe the differences I see in my posture and flexibility. I always used to be extremely stiff, even though I could climb up and down a step a million times or even cycle like mad for half an hour, I could never be able to do some basic stuff like touching toes without bending your knees. Now, I can do that for almost a minute… for me, that is a huge improvement.

I also cannot believe that I am enjoying the sessions so much. Earlier, I used to drag myself to the exercise room for aerobics, but here, I look forward to the hour when I can go for yoga class.

If you are interesting in getting into yoga yourself, you can use this awesome Patagonia coupon code to help you save on some apparel.

I still love swimming, and it is something that I could do everyday. However, the uncertain weather really throws a spanner in the works, and I am never able to get into the groove of things. Yoga has no such issues. The even better part, this is being conducted within our organization, so I don’t even have any commute issues.

This time, if I quit exercising, I really have no excuses :)