My Porcelanosa house would be

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Most of the time the word Dream is followed by Dream Home, Dream Girl/Boy and Dream Job. Among these three also Dream Home is something which every one dreams about. People of all ages from Children to Old ones, people of all countries, Rich or Poor, Educated or Illiterate everybody dreams of his or her dream home at least once in his or her lifetime.

When we moved from a small town like Shivamogga to a big city like Mysore in 1985, how excited I was about our new own house. I was so thrilled. I was only a small girl then. But I was little disappointed when I saw the house. At that age I could not understand that owning a house in a city like Mysore itself is a great achievement. I had dreamt of very big house in my imagination. As there were no Digital Cameras or smart phones at that time, my father had not shown the image of house to us! I was too naive to understand its area by listening to the measurements. So my imagination and the real house did not match. But after a while I was happy. We had enough space to grow flower plants and vegetables. So much wind and light. We could climb on the terrace with a ladder which we could not in Shivamogga as it had a roof made of Mangalore tiles. Then even that house became bigger when I was in High School. I had my own room in First floor. I loved to spend most of the time there.

So that is Past now and we are building our own house now, and understand what it means to own a house, plan every inch of the house, get finance, make adjustments in our life style to complete our dream home. To avoid any disappointment to my daughter I ensure she is present in almost all moments of our Dream home in making. So she knows how big it is, where it is, which is her room, How big is her room and so on.

But somewhere I was not really satisfied with the size of the house again!! With Real Estate booming like anything the prices have shot up like Rockets. And I wonder whether my house will be even as big as the house in which I lived from high school days till marriage! But I found a solution. I felt that it is not the big rooms or number of rooms that matter, it is how you design them. The interior design, the walls, the paint the wardrobes, the windows and the curtain and the furniture and our love towards our house and people living in it. That is what makes a dream home. Love is in abundance so no need to worry about it. All I need to worry is planning the walls, the roof, the floor and Kitchen, shelves, bath room tiles and so on. Here I found some virtual solution to my real dream home. 🙂

Here is a topic from Indiblogger and 24living which says  Pick as many items as you can from Porcelanosa to build your dream home. Tell us why you chose them and why”.

Let me start choosing and see how my dream home turns out to be. Good thing Porcelanosa did is that it has mentioned price in its catalog. So no constraints, let me choose the best one for my dream home!

Ours is an independent villa which is under construction. I would like to have some Sit out arrangement in front of the house as we have more space left in the East Side, which is the Entrance. This is how it I want it to be

Porcelanosa
Porcelanosa Tiles

So I am choosing Dublo Beige Structure for the outdoor flooring. I selected it as it looks rough and it can stand the attack of water from rain and sun shine from Sun. 🙂 Also it is not slippery. Children run around and make lot of fun in out doors and its just suited for that.

I would choose Par-Ker Oxford Antarcita for the Terrace flooring. As we would be spending most mornings and evenings on Terrace. I spent most of my study hours on our Terrace when I was a student.

terrace tileFor Living room I would choose Madagascar Marron. I chose this color because I am very nostalgic about the house where I was born and brought up. Till 1990 we had the Cement flooring which had Red Oxide painted on it. The floor would shine more and more as we would mop it day after day!! The tiled floor never looked so clean and appealing to me. This Maroon colored tiles in the Porcelanosa catalog really matches with my imagination.

living room marronHere is something unique for my Kitchen. I always dreamed of something like this. Most things get lost in big shelves, hence I want to have as many small units as possible so that everything is at my reach. Just look at this.

kitchen porcelanosa

Now let us see what I buy for my bathroom. Here it is

bathroom porcelanosaThere is much more to choose from Porcelanosa. This is enough for the time being.

Friends I am writing this post for Indiblogger’s Happy Hours. But I hope my dream home comes somewhere near to the dream home described here. Thanks for reading.

Silver Oaks, Miyapur, Hyderabad

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Just reblogging the old post as the admissions season has started. Silver oaks giving applications from November 17th 2014.

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My daughter did her Nursery, PP1 and PP2 from Bachpan a Play school, Nizampet.  But I was constantly in search for the best school for her. Every year I used to visit all the schools around us, inquire about academics, fee structure, student teacher ratio etc. But I was not satisfied with the replies I got.  Most of the schools would tell about fee structure first and want to continue only after we accept that. They didn’t even understand there are parents for whom fee structure is not the concern.

You must have read my other posts where in I compiled reviews on various schools and posted here.  Finally I thought Silver Oaks would be the best school for my kid and I took the application form in Dec, 2012. She had a test in December and by January the results were out and she was selected. I think we…

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I love Travelling but hate Travelling !!!

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I love to travel, I love to visit new places, I love the long journeys in Train rather than flight. It’s good to sit on the window side of a bus and watch the trees, lakes, houses, people, kids, vehicles all go behind you. Any time of the year, the wind blowing through the windows when you are on the move is so refreshing. But still off late I have avoided traveling to as much as possible. I travel to long distances only if it is absolutely necessary.  Do you know why? It’s because of the stinking toilets. Whether we travel in ultra luxury bus, private owned bus, own car or 1 AC coach in Train the toilets you come across does stink.

Forget all these I even left my job at UCO Bank because of no separate toilet for ladies, and the toilet did not have a proper door and wasn’t kept clean. Sounds weird does it? No its the truth. Being an officer I was expected to be in bank by 10 am and stay till 8pm. Sometimes beyond that as the Branch had a currency chest and I had to wait until all the currency came. In my one week at UCO Bank I never stayed till 10pm but I did stay till 7pm almost everyday and had to use the toilet at least once in a day. Other ladies did not use it at all. Because they were in the designation of clerk, hence they came at 10.30 left at sharp 5.30 and somehow controlled during day time. But for me long hours, coming from long distance made it impossible not to use toilet. But using it was a torture. I told the manager, he said you take the initiative you get it cleaned. But the person who was appointed for cleaning the same hardly obeyed me, as I was a new employee, and I did not have any power to punish him!!

So I knew that even if I apply for transfer or if I take this matter up to higher levels I do have to use this toilet until the problem is resolved and that was not possible. So I just quit the job!!!

Ok coming back to the story of traveling, so if the situation is so worse at a nationalized bank, imagine situations at road side hotels!! Rarely we come across clean toilets. During my travel I have observed three types of people,

  1. Those who practice cleanliness, they want clean toilets and also they do pour enough water even when they use public toilets
  2. Those who want to use clean toilets but are not bothered to keep it clean for the next person
  3. those who are ok with stinking toilets, that is how it is at their home also anyway.

Thus even if a Hotel is keeping Toilets clean for travellers, by the time 10 people use it, among them there will be few people belonging to second and third category who will not bother about keeping it clean. That is why I hate travelling. The path is more important than the destination. So even before I could dream of the destination, I am lost in the worries of Toilet!!!!

Situation in villages is much more worse. Here I am only bothered about stinking toilet and because of stinking toilets no wonder few people would prefer attending nature’s call in the lap of nature itself. But that is so unsafe specially for the female folk. So many incidents happened in India which make us feel ashamed of our self and our people. Reminds of my childhood when I often visited my grandpa’s place in Somavarasanthe village of Shimoga. we had to walk some 200 feet backside the house to reach the toilet which was in the open, two wooden slabs placed on a gutter which was dug from bathroom till the farms. It was comparatively cleaner than the paternal  grandfather’s village where we had to just walk a lot of distance and fart in open lands. At my maternal grandfather’s place this arrangement was done in the boundary of the house, it had a fence around it, and thus others would not walk there. But still I was always uncomfortable as I could hear the voices of people visiting the house and talking with others. Somewhere I used to feel, then can see me!! And I never went there after the dark. I would wait till morning!!

Thanks to my uncle who build one proper toilet by the time we came to High School and he had a wife and kids. Hope every villager thinks like him and build a toilet in their house. And because of this reason we mostly spent our childhood holidays in maternal grandfather’s place than paternal because of toilet issues. The love for them was no less.

But here is a good news. Looks like I do not have to bother about Toilets anymore. Domex is taking the initiative of building toilets. Hope Things are changing for the good you can help by clicking the contribute link in Domex webpage.

You can bring about the change in the lives of millions of kids, thereby showing your support for the Domex Initiative. All you need to do is “click” on the “Contribute Tab” on www.domex.in and Domex will contribute Rs.5 on your behalf to eradicate open defecation, thereby helping kids like Babli live a dignified life.

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About The Domex Toilet Academy
Domex, HUL’s flagship sanitation brand, currently runs the Domex Toilet Academy (DTA) programme. Domex Toilet Academy was launched on 19th November 2013. It aims to become a sustainable and long-term solution to provide sanitation that benefits the local community and helps stimulate the local economy. The Toilet Academy makes toilets accessible and affordable, while promoting the benefits of clean toilets & good hygiene. Our effort has resulted in bringing the change in the villages of Maharashtra and Orissa and we aim to build 24000 toilets by 2015 in rural areas faced with the problem of open defecation.

Subhiksha Orphanage

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Charity has become a way to earn money for various people. Thus its difficult for the common man to identify genuine helping hands from those which act like genuine but on the other hand just fool people. Thus it is good to share news about actual existing Orphanages, old age homes and other Social Service oriented establishments so that people who would like to donate or be a part of it can be made aware of such entities. So I thought of sharing news about Subhikhsa Orphanage. Came across it in TheHindu newspaper and after that collected more information from net.

The news I read about was Subhiksha orphanage, but what I found on net is this. Hope both are same. Visit their website on www.Subhiksha.org

Subhiksha voluntary organisation
Plot No. 154, Arunoday Nivas
Doyens Township, Near HCU
Gachibowli, Serilingampally Mandal,
Hyderabad – 5000019
Andhra Pradesh
email: director@subhiksha.org
Tel: 040 60501664
Mobile: +91 9959027192,8885550212

Here is the link to news article

SD card – flipkart shopping

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Hi as I lost my SD card of my camera had to buy one SD card urgently for my camera. I got best price at Flipkart after comparing with Snapdeal and Amazon. Even though Snapdeal quoted less price its delivery charges were high. At flipkart I bought two Sandisk 4 GB memory card for a total of 496. To avail free shipping I had to make the total exceed 500. I really had hard time in searching for a relevant product as most of the products I selected had a different seller and to get free shipping the total should be higher than 500 from same seller ie WS Retail. There was no way I could search for items from WS Retail and sort them. Finally bought Half Girl friend by chetan bhagat for INR 134 and got free shipping. If I compare the total of Snapdeal and Flipkart I got Half girl friend for just 20 Rupees.

I ordered on 2nd november and got it today ie 5th November. Both cards and book neatly packed and in good condition.

The SD card product description should be more detailed as I was not sure whether it will support my cannon camera. But it does support. I was confused as there were many SD cards with 4 GB and classified as Class 1, 2 and so on. I bought class 4 SD card and it does support my camera.

Thank You Flipkart!!

Update – 5th November – I just realized that my Laptop does not recognize the SD card, I had to transfer photos by connecting my camera with laptop !!

Fenugreek leaves stirfry

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If you are anaemic and requiring folic acid then you should eat as much green leaves as possible. Using green leaves in Curries and other dishes is good, but it will not give you much of the required nutirients as you will be eating less quantity of green leaves that way. Hence best method is to just fry them and eat. Here is the most simple recipe which tastes wonderful. My mother asked me to just fry the green leaves in a drop of oil and sprinkle little salt and eat daily to improve haemoglobin level in the blood. But I just made little modification and prepared it like this.

What you need

4 bowls of Fenugreek leaves cleaned and washed. Take the tender part of the plant and discard the roots and hard stem. You can use all leaves and tender stem also.

One onion finely chopped.

Salt 1/4th table spoon

Red chilly Powder 1/4th table spoon

Oil – 1 table spoon.

Turmeric powder – a pinch

Heat oil in a pan, add pinch of turmeric powder followed by Red chilly powder. Then add the onions and fry till they are golden brown, now add finely chopped fenugreek leaves and fry till all the fresh green leaves change their color. Now sprinkle salt and reduce the heat to sim. Close the pan with a lid or plate. Let it cook for 2-3 minutes. Do not let it over burn.

Remove from heat. Now the leaves would have reduced to a quantity of one bowl or 1/2 bowl. Just eat it without any accessories!!! Or you can eat with roti or rice.Tell me how it tasted..

You can sprinkle little salt if you feel the leaves gave bitter taste.

Offering eggs at temple?

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http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/praying-for-grace/article6539911.ece

Women offering milk and eggs to snakes on the occasion of ‘Nagula Chavithi’ at a temple near Clock Tower in Secunderabad on Monday. –PHOTO: SATYANARAYANA GOLA

This is what mentioned in the national daily The Hindu newspaper in Hyderabad edition. But I was really shocked to read offering milk & eggs at a temple!! From when did people start offering eggs in Temple? Or is it the case? Because I really hate the smell when I visit temples which have this Naaga Idols in temples. I was under the impression the bad smell is because of the spoilt milk which is poured on these idols on special occasions like Naaga panchami or others performing pooja to Naaga ( Snake ) gods. But todays caption in Hindu photo really surprised me.

Temples are the most auspicious places for a Hindu and we do not enter it without taking bath or carrying anything which is considered not auspicious. We do not even wear foot wear in the premises of temple. Even non-vegetarians do not eat non veg on festivals and few week days when they perform pooja.

In that case how can one allow people to offer eggs in Temple? is that the ignorance of the journalist who wrote the caption? Or is such practice really exists in Hyderabad and I am ignorant of it?

Healthy Children make happy families.

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I am writing this post as a part of Indiblogger’s campaign “Happy Hours”

Dance to the music
Dance to the music

I had never ever thought how much of panic parents will have when their child becomes ill, until I became a parent and felt so helpless to see my daughter suffer from fever or cold once or twice in a year. Children are like the power generators of the house. If they fall ill, the whole energy of the house will be lost. Because with children around every day is like a celebration, and if your son or daughter is ill and cannot eat sweets or dance to the music, what will you celebrate or how will you celebrate or why will you celebrate.

This Diwali just because my daughter got some cold and cough, I have not made any festive food as it requires some ghee, sugar or deep frying which will make her condition worse. Instead if me or my husband were to get cold or cough or even fever, we wont mind preparing the festive dishes just for the sake of daughter. Don’t we? Thus there is no doubt that Healthy children make happy families.

But of late I have been realizing that its just not enough to concentrate on child’s health, even parents should always take care of their health because if they fall ill, they will not be able to keep the children in their full spirits.

Weather it is a family of three people or five or ten people, the children’s health does affect the mood of whole family. Grandparents would enjoy all celebrations irrespective of their health, as the radiance from child’s eyes give them divine energy. I have seen how my mother is full of energy when we visit her during holidays. From where does she get all the energy to prepare different type of dishes as per every one’s choice, how she manages to do all rituals to the grand children which are due on festivals and birthdays. But if the child falls ill, the whole celebration mood is lost.

We would always be arguing with children to change the TV channel as per our choices, and keep telling them you have seen enough. But when the child falls ill, even the TV is available for us 24 hours a day, we hardly feel like putting it on. Nothing would matter more than the child’s recovery.

Thus definitely children are the center of our aspirations, dreams, and ambition. To boost that energy of family, children need to be healthy and giggling around. Its children who keep us get going and aim higher.

To keep them healthy, let us avoid all junk food, unhealthy food habits and make them also realize the benefit of health and let us all adopt a healthy lifestyle for the sake of our children, for the sake of our families.

Thanks to Indiblogger for giving nice topic in Happy Hours.

Fantasy park
Healthy Chidlren

Wishing you all a very happy and safe Deepavali.

https://www.liveveda.com/daburchyawanprash

Hanako Muraoka

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I have talked about Hanako and Anne, the Japanese serial and Anne of Green Gables in my earlier post. Here is a biography of Hanako the Japanese to English Translator on whom the Japanese Drama Hanako and Anne was pictured and transmitted in NHK

https://www.lib.city.minato.tokyo.jp/yukari/e/man-detail.cgi?id=95

Hanako Muraoka

  • Biography
1893-1968. Translator and scholar of children’s literature. While studying waka poems as a student of Nobutsuna Sasaki and Japanese classics at Toyo EIwa Girl’s School, she began writing children’s stories with the encouragement of the poet and translator of Irish literature, Hiroko Katayama. After graduating from school and working as an English teacher and in a publishing house, she introduced much literature for all ages, such as The Christmas Carol, Anne of Green Gables, and A Dog of Flanders, after translating Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper in 1927.

  • Association with Minato City
Childhood at Toyo Eiwa Girl’s School, which gave birth to Anne of Green Gables

Muraoka studied at the Toyo Eiwa Girl’s School, established by the female preacher of the Canadian Methodist Church (now United Church), Martha Cartmell, in Azabu Toriizaka. In her essay book Ikiru to iu koto, she presents her sensitive childhood, which is reminiscent of Anne of Green Gables in how she describes the atmospheric sight of the gas lamps when they were lit at dusk, and how she shared the large sweet she bought at a confectionery in Azabu Juban with her roommates.

Muraoka is known as a scholar of children’s literature by her translation of Anne of Green Gables, but she was in charge of the radio show Kodomo no Shimbun (Children’s Newspaper) on Tokyo Broadcasting Corporation (now NHK) in Mt. Atago, and she was also affectionately known as “Auntie Muraoka.” The show lasted from 1932 until the beginning of World War II in 1941.

References
Nihon Jinmei Daijiten (Japanese Biographical Dictionary) (Kodansha)
Ikiru to iu koto (To Live) (Hanako Muraoka / Asunaro Shobo)

  • Literary Works
Helen Keller: 20 Seiki no Kiseki (Helen Keller: The 20th Century Miracle) (Kaiseisha)
Anne of Green Gables (Lucy Maud Montgomery / Translated by Hanako Muraoka / Shincho-bunko)

Book Review – Chaos Down Under

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This is the second installment of the Chaos Trilogy by Nishant Kaushik. But I happened to read this one without reading any of the previous novels by Nishant. I might have enjoyed the novel more had I read the first installment of Chaos.

The story is a first person monologue told by Nakul who works at a software firm called Bytesphere. Nakul is given the task of impressing an Australian client and ensuring that the project does not slip out of their hands. But Bytesphere does not give Nakul any resources which he can feel proud of . He himself has not received many reimbursements which are long-standing, hence recruiting talented candidates who would look for high pay scales is ruled out. So read the story to find out how Nakul manages to form a team of six bytes. What challenges he will face? Will he be able to impress the client? What happens to his love life under these chaos?

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For me the story was a mixture of opposites. It is humorous throughout but at times I could not enjoy the humor the way it was presented. Somewhere the main character Nakul who takes us through his story has so many biases towards people around him, that it becomes very difficult for the reader to understand when he is exaggerating and when he is being honest. Throughout the novel we are only getting the views of Nakul on all other characters. We never come to know what the other character is thinking.

These days its a fashion among most people to generously use terms like a****le, L*** his a** and so on. But I really do not like that kind of langauge. Also I don’t enjoy reading or watching movies where in toilet scenes, vomiting scenes are in abundance!! I hated Delhi Belly for the same reason even though the story line was otherwise too good. Same applies with Chaos Down Under. Somewhere I felt why read so many unpleasant things, when all I expect from reading books is some inspiration, good mood, and positive thoughts. I did not find them here.

But as I told, its targeted at a different kind of readers, who would enjoy reading all these slang.

It would be a good time pass for people working in corporates or people looking forward to become software engineers. Those who are not talented and have less grades can still hope to get placed after reading this novel, and those who don’t get placed can always think that, they are too good to work under an inferior boss, hence he did not recruit them. !!

Character Radha Murty has been mocked at by the author throughout the story, somewhere I felt he wants to portray the South Indian girl as not good-looking, dumb, lazy, boring and so on. He also mentions she would call Akshat asakshath !! Did he wanted to tell Akshat/Akshath as Akshad? Not sure whether Nakul called Radha Murty as Moorty/moorthy/murty/murthy 🙂

After the first half, everything becomes very much obvious. At every situation the author goes on giving hints as to what can happen, hence the reader is already aware this is not going to work. So he makes it very predictive. The story might have been more interesting if he had avoided that.

Thus I would say as a budding author it’s really good effort. But to be able to delight readers from all over the world and all age groups, the author has to revisit his chapters again and again and make it more presentable.

Would love to hear views of other readers. Please drop your comments below and Thanks to Blogadda for sending me this book as a part of Book Review Program.

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!