Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi Beach

When the annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibit was held again at Bondi beach this year, we decided to go have a dekko.

Mountain Man at the Ballet!

RedHotNew
Originally uploaded by pahari.

Now that you've recovered, let me say that we went because we got free tickets to the Dress Rehearsal of a ballet performance at the Opera House.

This was a relatively painless opportunity to go see what all the fuss was about. So we trekked across suburbia to the glittering Opera House; reaching late, of course. They did let us in but in seats in the wings near the entrance doors.

The evening comprised of 3 performances by modern composers and choregraphers.

Bottom line: I really enjoyed it! I like the pieces, especially "Almost a Tango" and the music on a couple of them was very Philip Glass-like so that went down well too.

It was nice to go out in the intermission to the open air area with a glass of good Australian riesling and the view of the harbour. Enchanting!

It might be the first step in the civilising of a philistine...

World's Smelliest Flower- And Largest too!

World's stinkiest flower....


What you are looking at, folks, is a picture of the Titan arum plant- originally from Sumatra- and said to be the largest flower in the world. The Tropical Garden in the Sydney Botanical Garden has had this flower for a some years and has been waiting for it to flower- it does so only once every 10 years or so. They were expecting it to flower last year, but that was a false alarm. This year it did- on 3 October.

The plant starts out as an underground tuber then a large leaf comes out reaching a height of up to 2m and then finally the flower. It has been described by Botanic Gardens Trust executive director Tim Entwisle as "a deformed phallic shape" that looks like a "big banana-shaped thing with this frilly skirt that opens up upside down." The scientific name of the plant is actually Amorphphallus titanum which is sort of the same thing said more tastefully and cryptically in Latin). When we saw it the flower was about a metre tall.

The thing is, when it flowers it also lets out the most horrible smell said to be like rotting flesh (how would they know?). This happens mainly at night and we were told that at peak stinkiness, they had to change the guard at the exhibit every 3 hours as they would get overwhelmed by the 'burning' smell.

When we went (Medha, Saira and I) there were quite long queues to see the flower and we could be in front of it only for a minute or so. Nonetheless it made for an educational and interesting outing to see something quite unique.

More information on this grotesque plant is available here

Update- 10 August 2006:
A flowering is imminent of a Titan arum plant at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York and there is much anticipation and excitement in the air! Read more.

Or for up to the minute information you can visit the Garden's blog about the blooming plant; webcam feed available.

Darling Harbour Jazz Festival

We wuz there!

Remembering George

When Sushoban and Joie returned from an extended holiday in Thailand and Delhi we had them over for dinner along with other friends Joe and Phedra and kids. Sushobhan had become a fan of Carabao's music which he heard this time in Bangkok where they were celebrating 20 years of the band. We played the video of their mega-hit, Made in Thailand which I remember enjoying in the 80's when I was there.

Also, out of Sushoban's car came out the tribute DVD and CD's made of the concert when George Harrison passed away. Pretty soon we came to My Sweet Lord and suddenly M was up dancing to it with the volume turned up high. The kids soon joined in...

Mrs K from Chandigarh

Well, Mrs K, was leaving to go back home to Chandigarh and I went to say 'bye and have a snap taken. Auntie and Dr. K are old family friends from the fauj. Uncle stitched up an ugly cut I gave myself with a razor blade when I was 5 years old! Uncle wasn't here this time, but when he was last year, I showed him the scar of the wound he had so competently stitched up

A weekend in May...

A friend of mine had his birthday on 28 May and mine is also coming up. We decided to go and listen to some good jazz, have dinner and drinks outside and generally celebrate.

So we ended up listening to some great music by Sheryl Bailey at the Side-On Cafe. She played some really good 'toons' and we polished off a couple of bottles of red wine between the four of us. Finishing up close to midnight we landed up in Leichhardt for a coffee. The quite self-consciously Mediterranean 'Forum' tries hard to give a piazza effect but at that hour was closed down. The coffee was OK but the service quite indifferent.

Saira spent the night at her friend Medha's house.

Barrackpore- Jan 2004

Enid masi in her lair



This is when I caught up with another branch of the far-flung clan on Madhuri's side.

More Barrackpore photos here

Even more dated!

Delhi c.1980

A bit dated but...

From our trip in October 2002- for Meera M who does not seem to get any pictures we send to her Hotmail address 

Saira & Anshul- Delhi October 2004

I hope you get to see them now, Meera!

Year 3B

School Class Photo

This was taken in March but was given out today to all the kiddos. S had longer hair then. The uniform is the sports uniform for the school.

The Cake

The birthday cake. Professional advice for the marzipan flowers (from Ma) could not be put into practice because of lack of time. Marshmallow decorations by Saira.

Girls' Club

Medha and Saloni came for a sleepover. 

At the Y

At the Y during the birthday party. 


More birthday party photos

Hello world...

After more than a year of lurking around and reading other people's blogs, I've finally overcome my resistance to them as just another form of personal preening. In short, I am now ready do my own personal preening! But it's for a good cause.

I have been looking for ways to share news and photos about us with friends and family in a more efficient way than via email with attached photos. Some of you have been dragged to photo sites such as Ofoto or Shutterfly to have a look at the photos I post there. But no text is possible there.

Now that Picasa - a handy image/photo management tool- has teamed with Blogspot to provide an easy way to post photos and captions on to blogs, I think it's time to test the waters.

So here I am in an attempt to keep you all updated about the things we are up to here and to post photos, mainly of Saira so you can also see her grow up.

This may also serve as a project for Saira to start learning about the Web and perhaps start adding her own posts every now and then....

Please do leave your comments for us to mull over.