Life in Mar 29 - June 20, 2021

 

This episode is dedicated to Second wave, Deja vu of being locked in at home again. Some things change and somethings remain as is. The good news has been that none of us were personally impacted in this wave. The situation in the outside world was very grim. Things have improved since then. But we continue to live in a lock down world. 

The grim news period of mid-Apr to May3rd week was very sad. Lots of deaths and struggle for survival. The period may be still bad in 2nd/3rd tier cities but its coverage has died down. In the era of sad times, it was just a matter of living from one day to another and hoping that life would be normal one day. Twitter was so bleak that many stopped reading so. The government response to the pandemic has been expected - denial, blame someone else and no accountability.  

But life continued in these pandemic times as well. For us, the privileged ones, reading this edition may feel like that we were living in a different world. That may be true. It did feel to us as well. Gated communities, robot vacuum cleaners, internet, books, movies, zoom calls with families, work, salary, everything continued. This is true fortune in these times and for this I am grateful. 

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First things first - We got a new cat - Taco. Kanishka has been searching for ages and finally we got it. The previous owner send via an auto to us 

Last month or so has been about making sure that the new one - Taco and the old one - Puchka are able to co-live. This has been a learning experience for us. Cats being territorial etc do not like their space being shared. It took us two weeks for us to introduce them without any carrier. Things have shaped well. There are still occasional fights but overall, things are positive. Our world has revolved around these two cats (& work) but it has been a good thing. To be able to live in a world where the struggles are tiny and love/joy without any conditions. 

In the above pic, both of them are starting at birds who come to eat food at a bird feeder that I had installed close to six months ago. It took time for birds to discover it but this is precisely the reason it was installed there. 

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Birthdays & birthday cakes

My birthday cake was truly special this year. Thanks to Kanishka for choosing the design

We also decided to create Samosa+Sweet boxes to distrubute to all the guards in society. Mummy papa took this as a mission and some 50 boxes +20 bags were prepared, each containing Samosa+Kachori+Laddu+biscuits. Marathon effort done in a day. 

My birthday was extra special since the lockdown during the day was lifted and everyone visited us. Breakfast consisted of Bread pakoras, Grilled sandwhiches, Cold pasta salad, dhokla and coffee with cake :) 

For Kanishka's birthday, I decided to get a cat shaped cake from Crave in Koramangala . The inside contained Chocolate custard filling and this was a vegan cake. Pretty delicious, i would say

Aarti's birthday had ice-cream cake from Baskin Robbins and delicious brownie from a home-bake It has been a season of cakes

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Books

Finished Arkady Martine's A desolation called Peace.  3.5/5

Fredrik Backman's A Man called Ove - 3/5 . The middle part becomes slow but the end is definitely brings tears

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Movies/TV

Mare of Easttown - 4/5

Binge-watched it over a day. Fun to binge watch it

Brooklyn 99 - Season 6 - 3/5

Becomes little repetitive but still a good one to watch with food.

Kim's convenience - Season 4 - 2.5/5

Very okay-ish; nothing goes nowhere in this season.

Nomadland - 4.5/5

Loved it very very much. The concept, the movie, the acting. Highly recommended

Rewatched - A time to Kill (3.5/5), Lincoln lawyer (3.5/5), Fugitive (3.5/5)

The Client - 3/5

Again, a good one to watch to forget the world outside. 

Snyder Cut Justice league - 2.5/5

I could not tell the difference that much. Still that same level of lame

Army of Dead - 2.5/5

Again, a mindless film, good for the days that went. 

The Mitchells vs the machines - 2.5/5

The ending is pretty bad. Start/mid is decent.

Kitty Love - Homage to cats - 2.5/5

Only if you love cats. 

Queen's gambit - 4/5

Very well made. Makes one to play/learn chess

Searching for Bobby Fischer - 3.5/5

Good kids movie with lot of heart and chess

Enola Holmes - 3/5

Good time pass flick. 

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Agumbe + River Tern Lodge 2021

 Window of opportunities needs to be squeezed as much as possible. This Agumbe & River Tern Lodge trip was just that. We had plans to visit Kodai with friends but KA required mandatory Covid test from other states. Covid cases were rising, second wave was at the door and there was an itch to travel.

We took the chance, with full precautions,  and it has all ended well. 

Plan - Bangalore - Kolavara Heritage homestay (Agumbe) - Beach - Homestay - River tern Lodge - Bangalore

Why Agumbe?

Because we wanted to have that breakfast at SriSatyanaraya hotel, the one where we had it ~4 yrs ago. 

Day 1

Bangalore to Kolavara road trip route was chosen to go via Hiriyur. It was a slightly longer but same time option which was not taken by many. Breakfast was at Hiriyur at Swamy hotel. They serve good food on banana leaves, decent taste. Place could be more cleaner but food was good.

We stopped at the Bhadra dam but there was no view point was not a good one. From there, we drove straight to Kolavara. Kolavara is an amazing homestay. Difficult to believe that it is an homestay, it is practically a resort. Had its own swimming pool and lot of nature around.

I made sure that I went into the pool everyday. Day 1 was spent just relaxing at the homestay. We played board games, went for evening walks and had good dinner. 

We also did homemade wine-tasting in the evening. Wines included Grape wine, Litchi, Ginger, Paan and a Chilli wine. Chilli one was very interesting, we ended up purchasing both grape and Chilli one. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/AFNWG3APjh6e3Zhw8

Day 2

We woke up early to visit a beach near Udupi. One of the interesting ones online was this Kodi Bengare beach. There is a narrow piece of land with Beach/Sea on the left side and river backwater on its right. It is a 3 km drive with a beach at the end of it. We went to this one but it was very poorly maintained. People were shitting right in front of us, garbage being dumped in front of us

We skipped it and went to Malpe instead. It was much cleaner with better crowds. The ocean water relaxed and for a moment it felt like that nature is healing us. It was back to sea after a very long time for us. We took a dip for an hr or so and then drove back to SriSatyaNarayana hotel.  Our breakfast was heavy and delightful. After this place, even our driver remarked that the choice of food places of ours was very good.  We packed a whole bunch of foods from there.

Once back to homestay, it was again pool time and chilling out. 

Day 3

Our car had a flat tyre and we started slightly delayed due to this. On the way to river tern lodge, we decided to stop at the Elephant camp and a nursery. Elephant camp was very sad, all elephants were chained. We decided to leave after 2 mins. At nursery, we shopped for Orchids, red chillis,  and a guava plant :)

River Tern lodge is awesome. It is a must visit place. At 5.5 hrs from BLR, it should not be missed at all. As part of the package, you get two Safaris - Jeep and boat one. We skipped the Jeep one and decided to spent the day in our room/balcony just looking at the river water.  We read some books as well. It is here I finished the Arkady Martine's second one  - A desolation called peace in the Texicalaan series. 

You have to walk 500mts to get to food. In the evening, we asked the valet if they can send the snacks to our room. They said yes and it was even better. Dinner time we walked to the common dining hall . Food was buffer with lot many options with okay-ish taste

Day 4

We had opted for the morning Boat Safari. When we left our room, it was twilight. Morning boat safari was awesome. River Tern lodge is named after a bird called River tern who come in that area during this time. We had sights of hundreds of birds and it was very relaxing. During the boat safari, we also saw a baby tiger from a distance. There were deers nearby and there was a lot of excitement in our boat that the tiger will attack those deers. At some point deers crossed next to the tiger but it did not lead to any action. 

After the boat safari, we came back to our room. Relaxed at the balcony for some more time before heading home. We took the same Hiriyur route back. Stopped at some Rajasthani Dhaba but food was not that great.