We had a lovely time playing Holi in a friend’s apartment building…but the friend’s brother kept repeating, “Why don’t we organize a Tamizh New Year’s Day? Why must we only have North Indian festivals?”…It made me think. I hadn’t thought of Holi as a North Indian festival, having grown up with it. ….And do we have any equivalent colourful festival? When we do, we celebrate it, like Navaratri. So what’s the beef about? Tamizh New Year is not a group festival, so why make a big hoo haa about celebrating it in public?

Came to Hyderabad on Friday to cool, rainy weather…instantly decided to visit the Ramoji Film City, and it was a lot of fun. The Wild West Show was quite well done! On Saturday, went pearl shopping (at one stroke I solved my “what-to-give-as-gifts?” problem for this Christmas just before the wedding we will attend at Connecticut..there are going to be about 18 people, 9 of them women…well, my gift to each of them is going to be a pearl necklace! Yesterday evening, went out for dinner, and a drive to Husain Sagar…there are lovely open areas where we felt safe sitting and chatting until midnight…so rare in an Indian city to find this kind of public space, clean and safe too. Had a great time. Wish we had this kind of public space in Blr…Lal Bagh and Cubbon Park are OK for the daytime but there is nowhere to drive to at night and just sit and chat. I love Hyderabad…er…except that the normal weather would not be like this!

…a South African playwright who has, over the years, become one of my favourites. We went to see a production of “Valley Song” by Arundhati Raja’s Rep Theatre. It was very good. The singing was excellent too and it was an evening well-spent.

Go asap to and just look at those amazing snaps. I am looking for non-banal words to describe them...but my finger just automatically types a W, then an O, then another W....

Through I went to , and got this lovely sequel to Sidin's post on South Indian young men's angst... (MABSS...Mutual Admiration and Back Scratching Society)