Don't get me wrong - I am not one of those people who finds shopping a chore. For me, shopping is a hobby, a passion and therapy. Some people let off steam by running or boxing or tending to bonsai plants; I feel inspired in a clothing store.

It's not just the act of buying that is enjoyable -- living on a journalist's salary often means you can only admire, not own -- but also the world of aesthetic possibilities that opens up when you're surrounded by bales of beautiful fabric. When I touch coarse khadi or feel wispy chanderi silk against my skin, I am in sensual heaven.

So, given my love for clothing, I assumed that buying a sari for a dear friend's wedding would be an agreeable, if slightly time-consuming, process. But over the last couple of weeks, I have been dismayed by the lack of choice and blinded by the lack of taste in Mumbai's stores.

Everywhere I've been (with the honourable exception of Benzer and Sabyasachi's lovely studio in Kala Ghoda), I have only encountered brassy synthetic saris strewn with sequins and crowded with tacky gold cut-work.

Call me old-fashioned, but my heart simply won't accept these 'modern' saris. I don't see the merit in see-through net saris -- what's left to the imagination? -- and I can't palate what passes off as embellishment these days. Why would I pay precious money to buy something that can damage your eyesight with its bling quotient?

I'd sooner succumb to the magic that a warp and a weft create when able hands bring them together. For me, there's nothing more special than beautiful, painstakingly crafted silk, that dazzles you with its interplay of light and shadow.

I remember visiting the nondescript little Tamil town of Kanchipuram as part of a J-school assignment many years ago. For all practical purposes, Kanchipuram is like any other small town in Tamil Nadu - you'll find small cottages with sloping roofs and big cutouts of politicians along its narrow streets.

But what makes it special is that almost every home in Kanchipuram has a history of weaving. My dear friend S and I went in search of homes where the ancient art of weaving saris on hand-cranked looms was still being practised.

Power looms are rapidly replacing hand looms in Kanchipuram. But we did find one old-timer who showed us how sari weaving, like magic, is in fact a carefully calibrated art. The weaver is an architect who imagines the layout of a sari -- here, there will be a gold lotus design, there a magnificent gold pallu rimmed with the slightest hint of black.

He then spends months constructing the six-yards of silk until it is ready to be starched and dispatched with a handsome price tag.

There is an earthiness to traditional forms of weaving, which connects the final products to the culture and folklore of the land they come from. Maybe that's what is so lacking in modern saris -- they are urban mongrels, with no deeper significance than simply inspiring astonishment or disgust. They are not heirlooms, they don't tell any stories.

Finally, after a long search, I found a sari that inspired me. It is a beautiful Kanjeevaram in midnight blue and green, speckled with golden triangles on the body. I can't put my finger on what it was, but the moment I draped it on myself, I knew I had found a sari true to my taste and personality.

I can't wait to actually wear the sari. I'm sure it'll feel like poetry in motion. Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone

Home has always been an elusive address for me. Or at least ever since I left the safety net of love, laughter and happy memories that my grandparents wove for me when I was a child.

Their family home in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh, was perfect when I was growing up: it gave me the space to grow up unfettered, surrounded by Gulmohar blossoms and a tamarind tree in the verandah that tirelessly bore sweet fruit.

At the same time, it offered a cocoon of warmth that shielded me from some of the cruelty of childhood. I could snuggle in the space between my grandparents at night and wake up feeling utterly safe and utterly loved.

Although I left when I was still very young and embraced life in metros so naturally that I can scarcely imagine living anywhere else, I have always yearned for that magical tapestry of relationships that forms my first memory of home.

Every summer, I waited with anticipation to go back to Ratlam from Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai or wherever else we were. A blissful month later, I would leave in tears, acutely aware that my grandparents were ageing and terrified of that fact.

Now, so many years later, I went to Indore to meet my grandma, who relocated when my grandpa passed away a few years ago.

There is a new home now, a two-story bungalow full of light, named after Thatha. Pati, tiny, shrivelled Pati, fills the yawning void left behind by her life partner with memories and stories of his incredible life. Sometimes she is sharp, quick-witted and fiesty, with her distinctive lilting laughter, sometimes she is a shadow of herself, lost in a half-imagined past.

Yet, entering the new home filled me with positive energy. That's probably because some treasured relics have made the shift. There is the gramophone player, on which Thatha played classical music records. There is the book case, on which my cousin Yogesh and I pasted carrom strikers. There is even the grandpa clock, which now chimes the time at Yogesh's home next door.

Like the pieces of a kaleidoscope, these are scattered fragments of a bygone past, but put together, they are almost as beautiful as what was. There were unexpected treats on this visit, as well.

I met Param, Yogesh's two-year-old son -- and let's just say it was love at first sight. He took to me instantly, curling his little finger around my hand and insisting that Bua dropped him to school. He is a happy child with big, brown, curious eyes, full of questions and elaborate dialogue. In sharing his world, however fleetingly, I was transported to a more innocent time, when our preoccupations were so momentary.

When we were little, we took just as much joy from blowing big bubbles out of soap water. We would run home to Pati with just as much anticipation, and we would be just as content with colourful toffees and ice cream. We would also conjure imaginary tongues, bathe our dolls and grieve when they lost an arm or a leg. And we would curl our fingers with just as much trust when doting aunts walked us home.

 

 

Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone

Wedding planning makes for such great -- and hilarious -- posts. Ever since V and I decided to legalise our living in sin, the days have flown past in a flurry of excitement and idle speculation. My father has hardly been able to contain his edge-of-the-seat excitement. He's been sending V text messages that go something like this: trst all wll. Wht is ur fnl opinion abt the venue? In his largely vowel-less world, that means: What is your final opinion about the venue?

His partner in boundless enthusiasm is the man who will officiate the ceremony: the priest. My mother says he is a "lovable" man who has made peace with the fact that we will only be making cursory nods to tradition, not doing a shashtang namaskar. A few days ago, this said priest came home to coin the verbose text that will go into the Tamil invite. In my mother's words, "The invite said we invite you to come with your friends and family for the wedding. Wonder what we will do if they all actually show up." Apart from this, the priest also told my father that he had to buy me a ridiculous number of saris for the functions. Some four sari changes for the morning ceremony apart, he also wanted him to buy me a sari for the shantikalyanam - a thinly veiled euphemism to refer to the first night. Not only did he assume I would wear a six-yard sari to this event, but also that I would change saris mid-way. To which my mother chuckled mischievously, "Your shantikalyanam must have happened years ago. But why should we shatter his illusion?"

Touche!

Yesterday, it took me two hours and two bus changes to get to a meeting in Lower Parel. The upside: I walked through the saturated streets of Dadar and noted, with relief, that relatively little has changed there. It is as still as much of a sensory challenge: the crunch of leaves underfoot in the Dadar market, the sweet stink of rotting flowers, the superdensecrushload, the quaint shops selling largely useless things - they are all still there.

But the downside was that I was sweaty and exhausted by the time I got to my meeting, an hour late. The return journey was even more arduous - it took three bus changes and three hours to get to a hot shower and dry clothes.

This city can try your patience on a good day, but I've never been as exasperated with it as I was yesterday. I have clung to it despite the prohibitive financial and physical costs. But am I only denying myself a slightly less stressful lifestyle in another city by being so bull-headed about living here?

That's a question I have been asking myself a lot recently. V and I have been jostling about uprooting for better opportunities, and I have never been convinced enough of any other city. For all the years he's spent here, Mumbai is just another pit stop for him. He loves the city, but in a distant way. He could just as easily find something to love about Chennai or Kolkata, for that matter.

But I, I love Mumbai emotionally, foolishly. For me, Mumbai is the fertile soil watered by memories and people, in which I have managed to sink roots. It is the city where I found my closest friends, it is where I met my future husband. It is the city I first got drunk, where I bought my first pair of jeans. It is where I landed my first job, and where I first learned that I was so much more than the sum of my parts. For me, as for so many others, this city is a difficult lover. A tempestuous one, but one that springs the sweetest surprises and makes you feel utterly alive.

I love the fact that my mental markers of the city are the sensory experiences it offers. For instance, I remember Vile Parle for the great chaat near the station; Matunga for ripe jamuns in the market. I remember how rewarded I felt when I first visited the Kaka Baptista Garden. It was like I had stumbled upon treasure, although scores of others were partaking of it too. And I remember how the lights shone in drawing rooms as I went round and round in a giant wheel at the Mahalaxmi Fair two years ago.

V always says I 'feel' more than I think. How true. I believe inordinately in the power of feeling, and that's what has kept me going here for so long. I can't tell you why I want to stay, I can only tell you why I can't leave.
Sent on my BlackBerry® from Vodafone

Sometimes, you need to come up for air. You need to not wake up to the sound of traffic on Sundays. You need to take a walk through unlit streets at night. The city forces you to keep afloat, even when all you want is to drop anchor. Sometimes, you need to come ashore.

In all my years of grudgingly loving Mumbai, the last few months have been especially intense. I have been exhilarated and exhausted by the process of setting up a home. Often, while performing the most mundane yet oddly soothing domestic chores, I have wondered how my mother has made multi-tasking seem so effortless. As for me, I am a well-intentioned but utterly ham-handed juggler.

After months of fighting with this frenetic city for some breathing space, I finally had the pleasure of briefly stepping out of its limits this weekend. Lonavla is hardly anyone's idea of an untouched Eden anymore, but I was simply relieved to see the last of the city recede before my eyes. Two days of long walks and lazy lunches later, V and I returned to non-functioning bathrooms and a decapitated sofa hobbling on three legs. I foresee a very harrowing week ahead. Sigh.

Like every year, I was stirred by this year's edition of Jan Fest, the annual music festival of St Xavier's College. Jan Fest is special in so many ways: the music is always rousing, the weather just right and the setting, steeped in nostalgia. The St Xavier's quadrangle, surrounded by stone walls on all sides and facing a beautiful chapel, is charged with a mysterious energy. Hearing the great maestros -- like Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia playing Pahadi or a frail Pandit Bhimsen Joshi singing soulfully while dangling his sneaker-clad feet from the stage -- here creates indelible memories.

This year too, I was lucky to witness some electrifying performances. Ustad Shujaat Khan brought the audience to its feet with his passionate performance and Ustad Rashid Khan was a vocal powerhouse, as ever. But what held my attention the most was a grainy, black-and-white documentary on Ustad Allah Rakha that played between performances on the first day. The documentary was poorly shot and badly edited, but it got to the heart of the madness that spurred the man. In one shaky sequence repeated twice, he speaks about his dedication to the tabla: "Tabla samjho meri zindagi hai. Mein use pyaar karta hoon, aur usne mujhe pyaar kiya hai. (The tabla is my whole life. I love it dearly, and it has loved me back.)

It struck me yet again that true genius requires so much sacrifice that mediocrity is much easier to live with. For some, like Andre Agassi, genius is a burden you spend your whole life trying to jostle with. As for the rest of us, we spend our lives in a kind of purgatory, yearning for the creative satisfaction of doing what we love but too scared to take the risks that might take us there. Or at least I'm speaking for myself. Before I became a journalist, I thought my salvation lay in the written word. But now that I share such a love-hate relationship with those very words, I am comfortably unsure again.

Today, I had my head very nearly over my heels and I am thrilled for it. After a long hiatus during which my life has hijacked by several competing agendas, I finally buckled down and restarted my yoga lessons this morning. There are so many things I had forgotten in the interim: that early mornings are really my scene and that they fill my day with positivity, that you could actually use a light jacket at 7 am, and that I love yoga.
 
I got a taste of yoga for the first time last year, when I started power yoga lessons. I was desperately unfit at the time, and finally alarmed about it. I didn't quite know what to expect but that first lesson had me hooked. I loved the fact that yoga demanded so much dexterity that I had no option but to live in the moment. For that one hour of the class, I was forced to focus on the present, because the moment I started worrying about the future, I would lose balance and risk falling splat on my face.

Yoga taught me to value my body: the first time I could touch my forehead to my knees, I nearly whooped with joy. It also made me prize my flexibility enough to fear losing it. The surya namaskar is now a companion for life: I turn to it when the body is creaking or when the chips are down.

I like yoga precisely because it is such an individual pursuit. In a gym, it's hard not to gawp at all the pert glutes and perfect pectorals while thudding down the treadmill. In a yoga class, you are only competing with yourself. I love a good workout, but hate the angst that comes along with it. If I run a little harder, I could burn 200 calories in an hour. That means 1200 a week, which in turn means that I can lose two inches in four months and be the perfect weight for my height in just under a year and so on. Give me deep breathing any day.

So here is a big shout out for limber bodies and open minds.  The rest, as they say, will fall into place.

What does home mean to you? Let me rephrase that: what would you put -- or not -- in an empty space to bind it closer to you? What is the unique signature you'd bring to a home?

Would you leave it bare and let the space breathe?
Would you paint the walls in vibrant colours or would you favour an austere, all-white look?
Would you grow plants?
Would you have a pet?
How much space is too much space?
Are you easily smitten by the illusion of space?
How little space is too little space?
Wooden warmth or steely polish?
Do you consider your home a canvas for your creativity or is it a safe refuge? Or is it a pit stop in the relentless race of life?
Is home a fixed address or is it a fluid feeling?

Over the past few weeks, I've had mixed feelings about the mint-fresh apartment V and I recently moved into. It is spacious, airy, well-equipped and pleasing to the eye. But I miss the intimacy of our earlier apartment: the out-of-shape bean bag slumped in front of the TV with just enough space for the two of us, the smell of prawns wafting from the kitchen and the sliver of sea visible from the bedroom window on a clear day. You see, I am a bundle of contradictions. I was ecstatic about the moving experience until we moved. After a lifetime of picking up-and-moving on, I find it hard to strike roots. But ultimately, I do and often without acknowledging it.

So I've been thinking about what flavours and textures to infuse our new apartment with to make it our own. In the process, I've discovered things about myself:

I am scared of hoarding and it takes me little thought to throw away what I don't need.
I might love people but I enjoy nothing more than spending a sunny morning with myself.
I love the idea of having plants. Sometimes, you need other living things in a home beside yourself.
For the first time in a long time, I miss music.
And finally, I've taken to cooking with gusto. When everything else is unfamiliar, familiar food can save the day.

  

I wrote what I thought was a very angsty piece on the mockery that television channels made of the November 26 attacks, exactly one year ago. I never completed it. Surprisingly, much of this still rings true.

Long before a real education in journalism and the wisdom of the years had caught up with me, I watched with unwavering fascination as a female journalist reported from the battle lines of the Kargil War in Kashmir. The histrionics of war didn’t seem – at least to my naïve eyes – as interesting as this brave woman, who didn’t flinch even as sniper fire nearly grazed her ears.

The Kargil War in 1999 was different from every other war India had fought, not only because the specter of nuclear annihilation hovered precariously over both countries, but also because the battle barged right into our living rooms. Thanks to live television, every average Joe could follow a blow-by-blow account of the battle, right as it unfolded. Watching the tanks roll and hearing the sickening staccato of artillery fire only further stoked the fierce, almost unthinking patriotism that hung in the air. India had witnessed wars before but I’m fairly certain that my parents had only visualised combat scenes in their heads, or read about them in history books. This was different: it was immediate and in your face.

I, for one, was hooked to the raw power of live television. I had wanted to be a journalist for years, but it was easier to make up my mind now. I wanted to be a part of the young, microphone-wielding brigade that was changing the way television news was presented in India.

I questioned that decision several times over the next few years, none the least when I found myself working for a business news channel based in Mumbai. In the vast, all-glass newsroom that was my workplace, there were few places wherein to hide. And it seemed like we, trainee producers, were constantly in the line of fire.

When news broke, our backs did too. In the spiraling frenzy that followed, we typed faster than our fingers permitted to put “tickers” out. Even before we made sense of what had happened, a reporter would have reached the spot and we would have “cut” live. OB van numbers would swim before our eyes. A thousand voices would bark orders simultaneously, and there was no time to be intimidated or confused.

A year on, I realised that the adrenaline rush of 24/7 television had only drained me out. I had no passion for the information I put out – I was only a “keyboard monkey”, as a former colleague put it, capable of cutting-and-pasting with alarming speed.

Convinced that its immediacy was also its undoing, I ran a mile from television and into the warm embrace of the written word. I lived without TV for three years, and never missed its cackle. Until, of course, ten armed men walked in to my city and put a gun to its head.

In the early hours of the siege, when every new text message brought more bad news – I hoped they were rumours but they weren’t – I was holed up in a bar in Bandra. I could only watch the horror unfold on a small television set at the bar.

Even by the standards of a city that has jostled with so much tragedy in recent years as to be considered jaded and soulless, the tragic events of November 26 and the days to follow cut deep. It was hard to comprehend how this city could be outraged so easily, and so completely. Every disbelieving eye in the fast emptying bar was preened to the television set, which was spewing out violent visuals that wouldn’t have been out of place in a war zone. On the night of November 26, as indeed for the 60 hours to follow, the television set was our only way to reach out to the rest of our suffering city.

In retrospect, I wonder how I willed myself to watch television during that terrible time. It is now common knowledge that faced with an unprecedented, developing crisis, Indian media channels engaged in something like a free-for-all. Everyone had an opinion, and everyone expressed it. Anchors dropped their already flimsy pretence of even-headedness and let it rip. One gentleman didn’t leave the studio to eat, shave or collect his thoughts for two days running. How coherent his running commentary was at the end of two days is anyone’s guess.

There is now proof that far from reporting events on the ground with restraint and accuracy, the cavalier media circus in fact may have endangered lives. Has anything really changed one year on? Television news is just as personality-driven, and television personalities are just as shrill and opinionated.
As for me, I have never regretted my decision. I may be in awe of the unparalleled power of television, but I’m happier wielding the pen for now.

This weekend, I revisited a language I love via a band I've come to love. I listened to the Raghu Dixit Project at the Bandra Fort Amphitheatre, as part of the ongoing Celebrate Bandra festival, and fell in love with Kannada all over again. Years ago, while living in Bangalore, I was forced to learn to read and write Kannada as part of my school curriculum. Strangely, I took to the round, jalebi-like script of the language and the way it rolled off the tongue immediately. Strange, because I belong across the border - in Tamil Nadu - but have never learnt to read or write Tamil.

On Sunday evening, Raghu Dixit brought the already evocative Bandra Fort amphitheatre to life with his deep, powerful voice and inspired singing. I was especially delighted when he launched into Kannada folk rock -- it felt like revisiting an old friend. One song in particular lingered in my mind: it's called Gudugudiya and you can listen to it here (not the most intelligent video, but whatever).

The song was written by a 19th Century Sufi saint called Shishunala Sharif, who Wikipedia informs me is "recognised as the first ever Muslim poet of Kannada literature." I'm in no position to contest that, but I can tell you that I like his brand of philosophy. The lyrics of that song, roughly translated, propose that life is a hookah. I'm sure many agree and see it that way too, but I digress. So, consider that life is a hookah. Open the bag called your mind, take out the hash called greed and crush it, put it in a chillum called faith, set it alight with your intelligence and inhale the illumination. Don't you like it already?

My first tryst with Sufi poetry was when I read the unabashedly sensual, even erotic, poetry of Rumi, the 13th Century Persian poet and mystic. As a teenager, I remember being taken with the raw passion of Rumi's poems. As an adult, I marvel at how deeply and viscerally he felt his faith. Here is an excerpt from one of my favourites, In the Arc of your Mallet, which you can read here:

"I want to feel myself in you when you taste food,
in the arc of your mallet when you work,
when you visit friends, when you go
up on the roof by yourself at night.

There's nothing worse than to walk out along the street
without you. I don't know where I'm going.
You're the road, and the knower of roads,
more than maps, more than love."

Now if only all the purveyors of faith could phrase it in quite such a tantalising way, I would have never felt lost all this while!