Twenty- five Seven

Personally speaking

Recent Posts

  • The first grumble of the year – AVOID PRESSTO

    I’ve been made a sucker

    Since New Year Resolutions are invariably broken, I had decided to follow certain guidelines to have a happier year. Well, it seems that guidelines like resolutions are inevitably broken too. I just broke my first guideline  for the year which was THIS YEAR I SHALL NOT  GRUMBLE.

    Alas, I have to grumble on this blog post not merely to voice my discontent but mainly to warn other clients/customers of PRESSTO. Now I had undertaken a serious reconnaissance of all the laundries in our area a few months ago and had come to the conclusion that PRESSTO situated in the side lane off Peddar Road in Poornima Apartments was by far the most expensive but most reliable in terms of delivery and performance. Sadly they  have proved me wrong.

    I had attended a wedding on Sunday and found to my dismay that I had dropped some food on  my beautiful yellow ochre Kanjeevaram. Traditional Kanjeevarams are hard to come by and this sari was a particular favourite of mineso I came home and quickly washed off the stain with some water, since I was unsure of how soon I’d be able to get it to the cleaners. Well I managed to do so first thing Monday morning and told the manager that I wanted her to wash off the stain, wash off any other oil stains and more importantly remove all the starch.

    She of course  reassured me  that she couldn’t  guarantee anything and I very foolishly assumed  this was just a caveat. But she was right. PRESSTO did NOTHING to my sari because the stains were all there, there was no smell of dry cleaning liquid (perc) and the sari was as stiffly starched as before. All that PRESSTO did was to charge me Rs.265 for ironing my sari!!!

    So I’ve come to the conclusion that PRESSTO has made a complete sucker out of me and would like to warn all those who want to get their saris laundered – AVOID PRESSTO AT ANY COST.

    If you have the time and the space to single dry a sari, wash it at home in cold water, the way your granny did – in a solution of soap seeds (Aritha) or Genteel.

     

  • Hello 2014

    Quite frankly I completely forgot I had this blog. Over the years I’ve had so many blogs that I started and stopped that I honestly thought that this was one of the blogs I had closed down or had automatically closed down because I hadn’t bothered to write and keep it alive.

    Yesterday I got an Annual Report from WordPress about this blog and I was amazed to find that it was a good report. Somehow it inspired me to get back to this blog and write at least once a week if not more often. I am not too sure if this blog links back to my main blog Mumbai Daily at http://chowmiaow.blogspot.com and am still trying to get all my blogs under one umbrella.

    2013 was a life changing year as was 2011 and 2012 which brings me to my pet theory that life is all about lessons and learning. There can never be a day when one doesn’t learn something new about oneself, your family or your world. This I find is a universal truth.

    So what were my lessons in 2013 ?

    1. Motherhood is different from grandmotherhood.
    2. It is harder to lose weight as you get older not because your metabolism slows down but because your motivation is less.
    3. You can still find a new pastry shop behind all the tomatoes – I discovered the most amazing pastry shop Quality which has been around for 12 years or more. It’s just that I never saw it.
    4. Travelling solo is one of the best ways of seeing the world.
    5. Yoga at 4.30 am  is the best way to get a  sticky back on track.
    6. Weddings can unite and disunite a family.
    7. All that glitters is truly not gold – many myths of happy families were busted this year and I realised that you really don’t know what happens behind closed doors.
    8. Parents who send their children abroad to study should never expect them to return back to the fold especially if they don’t have property, a family business or an industry to come back to.
    9. While you can never forget your sorrows you can never forget to smile.

    So here’s hoping that 2014 will bring smiles to everyone!

     

  • Last Post- Relationships in transition

    Image for the Last Post
    skeeze / Pixabay

    The Last Post is sounded at sunset at every military camp when the flag is brought down signifying day’s end. This is my last post of the year albeit without  bugle call and  lowering of flag . However, I think the end of this year needs to be acknowledged as is the end of all years.

    [bctt tweet=”Every year I feel that the year has gone by faster than the previous one and every year I feel happy that it’s over and look forward to the beginning of the new one.” username=”via unishta”]

    The highlight of this year was transitioning to grandparenthood and even now after 9 months I do a double take when someone addresses me as “granny”. In my heart I don’t feel like one but of course reality says otherwise. This year has been one of great learning not only as a grandmother but also as a mother. I realised that life lessons are never really lessons for life – all that I’d learnt as a mother I soon forgot and had to re-learn as a grandmother.

    Travelling solo was another experience that differentiated this year from the others gone past. It reassured me that I had a brain that could think for itself and that if I wouldn’t get lost in unknown territory.

    Relationships that are always hard to figure out continued to remain difficult terrain with old relationships falling by the wayside for reasons still unknown to me and new ones being forged in the most unlikely circumstances.

    Looking back I find that I’m no closer to achieving my targets than what I was when I set them out 365 days ago – issues that needed sorting out, still remain to be sorted.

    Image for Baby
    one_life / Pixabay

    New Years have come and gone unnoticed these past few years as I slept through them like an everyday night, but tonight I shall awake  to welcome the New Year not to the sound of hooters from the ships anchored  in the Backbay but to the cries for a mid-night feed of the newest man in my life.

    Happy New Year All!

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