Melange

Lalbagh Flower Show at Bangalore

Posted on January 20, 2009 by Archana K B / 7 Comments

The flower show in Bangalore Lalbagh gardens started last week. Over the weekend, having nothing else to do, we went over to click them. I mean the flowers. Yes, photography has been getting on my nerves every time I see my photographs and the experiments. 😉

To those residing in Bangalore from a quite long time, this flower show may not be a new thing. I have been to other flower shows too, like in Thiruvananthapuram at Kerala, but flowers are always refreshing.

The entry fee is maximum Rs.40/- for adults. I saw huge numbers like Rs.150 and Rs.200 in the price listing for the car parking, though I am not sure, whether its true! Thankfully, we went on bike which can be easily parked for just Rs.5! There was no special fees for camera, which provided great opportunity for many photographers. There were tripods, and huge big, wide, or whatever lenses stuck near the huge varieties of flowers.Continue reading →

blog-related/Links

List of WordPress Plugins I use now.

Posted on January 16, 2009 by Archana K B / 6 Comments

Are you one of those who are lazy to upgrade to WordPress 2.7? You are missing a lot many features then.

After I upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.7, blogging has been much easier. If one of the useful features I use is the comment reply from within the admin panell, then the other is the installation of plugins. You can search and install within the admin panel, without any ftp client. I have now been frantically trying out various plugins, activating and de-activating them. Earlier the number of plugins I used were very few, say 6 to 7. But now, the number has gone upto 16. I wonder is there any limit to using the number of plugins. There maybe few plugins which may increase the load on the server or takes huge time to load the blog page, but I am not sure which one. Everytime, I try to beautify or add new feature to the blog, there is an associated plugin available online. But I think, rather than messing up the code, its better to play with plugins and widgets as it is very easy to maintain.

Do you want to know the plugins currently being used on this blog? Here they are :Continue reading →

Personal/Photography

Photography at Goa

Posted on January 15, 2009 by Archana K B / 9 Comments

During Christmas holidays, we had been to Goa. It looked its best with all the Xmas colors of red, green, white and yellow.

The beaches were extremely beautiful. We were in Goa for around 4 days. So we could cover most of the beaches in North Goa. The Goa tourism and its beaches have been written by many and I suppose descriptions are not that required. Initially I thought of writing the travelogue, but then so much is written about the beaches of Goa n all. So thought of just sharing the pictures.

The happy news for me is that the random photos I took, came surprisingly well than I expected. 😀 Below are some of the few : Continue reading →

Bangalore life/Internet/Links/Personal

Vegan Pancakes in 5 minutes!

Posted on January 14, 2009 by Archana K B / 5 Comments

Few weeks ago, I had been loving foreign food. Maybe it was the Christmas seasonal effect. The Italian pasta’s, lasagne, macaroni, steaks, cheese, toasts with butter, fine apple or orange juice, cakes, waffles, pancakes,..the list goes on.

The one dish I couldn’t had enough of was the pancake. It was too expensive at the restaurant where I had it. To shake off my cravings, I searched Google for vegetarian pancakes.

The original pancake with eggs is good, but what if you want to be a strict vegetarian sometimes. Its just that I don’t mind having blended eggs as in cakes, waffles, etc though I don’t have it in direct form. Confused? Never mind.Continue reading →

Stories

The Diary of an American Housewife

Posted on January 13, 2009 by Archana K B / 12 Comments

The streaks of the sun said good morning to me through the window. The kitchen was now brightly lit. It looked like one of those photos taken by the professionals. Everything was perfectly arranged in the cupboards. Except for the few dishes in the sink.

I went to the dressing wardrobe and picked up my diary from beneath. The environment was perfect for unloading the words.

“This is my daily job. To get up early in the morning, prepare the tea and breakfast, and then this dish cleaning after he left to office. Sometimes, I start on the laptop before i wash the dishes. They can wait, but not my parents. It would be late night for them. Just delaying their early sleep and sitting by on the machine, waiting for their daughter to call up. Then around 11, I take my bath and have to prepare for lunch. The timings of both were never consistent. The latter would be skipped sometimes, if at all he never knocks the door at noon. And then, the whole of the afternoon dedicated to myself, my thoughts and just me. It had become my routine.

The afternoon thoughts have now blended into my mind and body. It was the same everyday. As in the famous film Zanjeer, what is it that I don’t have? I live in an average rented house. I have a loving husband who takes extreme care of me, and who earns dollars and takes me out on most nights and weekends in our car. I have a bunch of friends who keeps asking about me and the luxuries I enjoy at this abroad home. The missing of parents and relatives is natural for a newly married woman as the pains during the childbirth. What then is missing? Continue reading →