Explorer of Experiences

Watching a Coldplay concert...I mean this is the stuff bucket lists are made of. And I could finally tick it off after watching them perform live in Barcelona on 27th May 2016. My friends and I literally booked our concert tickets last year (I think it was October) one afternoon on a regular day at work (so random right?). We decided to go for their concert in Barcelona because a) tickets in their other tour cities were sold out b) Spain appealed as a destination to explore pre and post concert. How we were to apply for leave, how much it would cost, etc. were all worries to follow. All we knew on that October afternoon was that we were booked to watch Coldplay live . Goosebumps...  The very first Coldplay song I heard was ' In My Place ' back in school and the band hit a chord with me. But it was only in college when the (incredible) company I kept were Coldplay fans and introduced me to a host of brilliant songs from their albums - Green Eyes and Don...

Size Matters It is news when in a real estate-crunched city like Pune you have a restaurant that’s bagged a space that spans 15,000 sq ft. It is rare still to walk into a restaurant that is that big; a restaurant with an indoor section, a huge outdoor dining area and even an amphitheatre. Without an intention to compare, when you walk in, Classic Rock feels like High Spirits v 2.0, mature and mammoth-sized. Its sprawling premises promises to easily harbor about 1500 revelers. And where they score over lots of restaurants is their parking lot that can accommodate almost 200 vehicles. Obviously, their manning is huge with 80 people on the payroll. Cocktails & Coffee At Classic Rock, they take both their coffee and cocktails very seriously. Let’s talk Arabica first. They source their coffee beans from Kerala and even have a glistening silver roasting machine on site. Beans are roasted and grinded, so you’re guaranteed a freshly brewed Cappuccino (Rs 140). If you’re int...

Today I'm feeling very positive and inspired. So, I thought it's the right time (and about time) that I blog about my experience being at the Yanni Live in Concert at the VadFest in Vadodara. It was a surreal feeling walking into the concert grounds on 23rd January. This was really a dream come true for me. Watching the maestro perform in person, his skillful fingers gliding past the keys of his shiny black Yamaha piano, was for most part a distant dream for me. It was at boarding school in 1997 when I first discovered the musical legend. His tracks were fittingly used for most of our school events. As the curtains of our auditorium drew open every Friday, ' Santorini ' played as the opening track to the news reading event during the morning assembly. 'Swept Away'  was a befitting track to the most anticipated annual fashion show where girls draped in lovely saris walked across the stage with their beautiful flowing  pallus . I was hooked onto the instru...

Mussoorie International School “Hanisha, you’re going to boarding school! Are you excited?” To my eleven year old mind, this one sentence coming to me from my mum was just too much to process; I probably did not completely comprehend the entirety of the situation and the journey I was going to embark on. One minute, it is life as usual with my sisters and I returning from day school in Nigeria lugging a 3kg bag with books – and the next minute, there was going to be a disruption in this cyclical routine of eight years in the form of being sent to a boarding school in Mussoorie. I did not even know where Mussoorie was! Was I prepared to leave behind my oyster and be swung atop mountains unknown? I was fresh out of fifth standard and watched as my mum and dad gathered the contents of my cupboard and neatly placed them into a suitcase. We were departing for Delhi the next day from where we would hail a cab and head towards my mum’s maternal home in Jaipur. I remember it all so w...

I wrote the following article for  The Punekar recently. The kind of response it got did not stun me, it was heart-warming. Right from the minute it was uploaded on the website, the article got an overwhelming traction. It received 75k+ views, was shared by 214 people and got over 2000 Facebook likes. I hope you enjoy the read! Link to published article here .  1. Not (Too Cool for School) Some of the wisest teachers live in Pune! Be it medicine, management or military, this metropolitan is ‘la maison officiel’ of education. 2. Love Thy Neighbour Pune is a mere three hour journey away from India’s financial and film capital, Mumbai. People living in one city actually commute daily to the other for work. 3. All The World’s A Stage  Home to the Film and Television Institue of India, National Film Archives of India and an advocate of Marathi theatre, Pune has been and continues to champion its love for performing arts. 4. The Weatherman Nestled...

I wrote this post on 6th May 2010...it was my first year in Mumbai on my return from Melbourne, a time when everyone was still learning to live in a post-MJ world. On the sunny Australian morning of June 25th, 2009, this is what I remember waking up to - "Oh no no oh nooo...Michael Jackson's dead!" The hyper, high-pitched voice of my housemate travelled through the air, journeyed past my thick wooden bedroom door and sailed its way into my ears. Slightly peeved that my slumber was untimely disturbed, my tired brain cells tried to process what her squealing was all about but I soon gave up the trouble. So, while the other dwellers of the house on Mincha Street began their morning rituals of fixing up a diet breakfast or drafting the day's to-do-list, I went about mine by logging into Facebook. I was stunned. Mourning Facebook-ers bombarded my entire news feed with "R.I.P. Michael Jackson :'(" status updates. Suddenly the Man that created history ...