Twenty- five Seven

Personally speaking

Recent Posts

  • Planning a holiday

    One of the joys of planning a holiday is actually planning. With so much information readily available on the net, browsing through sites for hotels and planning itineraries is so much fun. I also takes a lot of time and I when I finally visit a place, it’s often a sense of deja vu.

    Choose your hotel wisely

    Image for planning your holidayI always believe life looks better in photographs.  Very often that cute, family- run hotel can turn out to be a crummy little place run by an equally run down mom & pop whose home like themselves had seen better days.

    While planning  our trip to Paris, I was co-ordinating hotel bookings with Betty  in Amsterdam.  We were both on the same site almost ready to confirm a hotel when suddenly her page went off screen! When she came back, we had both lost the name of the hotel.I actually wanted to stay in Hotel la Bourdonnais a three star place close to the Eiffel Tower, highly recommended by my friend who had stayed there earlier in the year. But once we lost our page on Booking .com, we quickly agreed on a hotel that was more or less similar . Eventually, we chose  the Pavillon St. Augustin on Rue de la  Pepiniere  which turned out so wrong! Firstly, it was hard to find and when we did step into the lobby, it was far from the bright happy place I’d seen on the net.The beds were squeaky and the additional bed we’d asked for was far too small to be comfortable. The large bathroom flooded easily, the air conditioning just didn’t work and the buffet breakfast was pathetic!

    And when I walked passed  the Bourdonnais, I gazed at it wistfully. If it wasn’t for a dodgy internet connection, I could have stayed there!

    Hotel Abalu in Madrid turned out to be another instance of not getting what you see. Touted as a boutique hotel for the ultimate experience, I was extremely disappointed to find it one little dingy hole in the wall. The buffet breakfast was managed by the a retired policeman and father of the owner who positively scowled his welcome at every guest. But what was worse was the bathroom which was actually just a shower cubicle on one side of the room!

    So what about a homestay?

    Old European cities have charming houses which turn out not so charming when you actually inhabit them. For instance the steps in Dutch homes are treacherously steep and what would seem like a quick jaunt to the floor above can actually be  a good aerobic workout. So may be a homestay is not always the best option.

    Conclusion

    Always spend time while choosing a hotel. Quite often you don’t get what you expected.

    But then surprise makes life more interesting isn’t it?

    Image for BellyBytes

  • Life Beyond Cancer

    Dr. A and Dr. P were both eminent oncologists of Mumbai. Dr. P is still an oncologist but unfortunately Dr. A is no longer there. In fact I just returned from a brief prayer meeting at the hospital where he breathed his last.

    Dr. A and Dr. P were doctors whose interest went beyond the ward. They were both involved in organisations that improved the lives of their patients beyond the disease. It was in this connection that I knew Dr. P – the charity where we both volunteer our time.

    Their enthusiasm and dedication gave them very little time to spare but they did manage to find time to build and nurture their own little family. This afternoon as Dr. P stoically accepted condolences, her young daughter another generation of doctor stood calmly by. Over the last few months she was away from the family busy as she was in her own training program thousands of miles away. Her father performed his very last surgery on Thursday and breathed his last a few days later.

    Many people will miss this gentle man whose life touched so many millions and for the next few days accolades and praise will come his way. But none can match those words I heard his daughter say

    He treated me like a princess

    Blessed indeed is he who can be acknowledged thus by his child. Dr. A you will surely rest in peace.

  • It really needs a Man to get a House into Shape

    For fear of offending feminists and fellow women, I am afraid today I have come to the conclusion that all it really needs to get a house into shape is a MAN.

    Unbelievable but true.

    Most days I am at home around lunch time and most days the  menu is decided by the men in the house namely the father in law and the husband. This method was devised not because of lack of imagination on the part of the women who actually ran the kitchen but because we wanted to ensure a fool proof method of ensuring that the meals were to the satisfaction of the men who graced our table.

    So this morning I ran out of the house well after my husband’s lunch was packed and told Bayda the Bai to keep it simple not realising that since Father-in-law was out of the house, the meal at lunch time would be so simple as to actually warrant my dipping into the pickle jar. My father firmly believed that a pickle on the table was an insult to a good cook for a good meal didn’t really need a pickle to spice things up. This was the reason my mother never served a pickle on the table and only made it ritualistically to be distributed to all her friends. Thus having never eaten a pickle with my meal, I didn’t even know how to eat a pickle!

    But today I learnt that without a pickle one could literally starve. I also learnt that if there is no man on the table, the food can be simply appalling! All that I had to eat was two cold phulkas, a small bowl of cold, tasteless broad beans and a glass of washed down buttermilk ( i.e buttermilk got after churning the butter). And that was it! I was simply aghast. When I asked Bayda why the meal was so awful she coolly stared me down and said ” But you wanted it simple!”

    I am now convinced that women are down right lazy and motivated to work only if directed by a man. When there is a man about the house there is a different kind of buzz – take him away and it literally falls apart. Housekeeping gets short shrift, cooking even more so and given half a chance the women would literally loll around in bed revelling in the thought that there is nothing to be done……………..

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