Art Blend Cafe - An artist's wonderland

One fine weekend Piyush took me to this wonderful place for coffee. I love him for such pleasant, cute surprises as this cafe has the uniqueness of being a one stop point of great coffee, snacks, art gallery and art workshops. Did I like it? Oh, I simply loved it and visited it again today :)

 

Art Blend Cafe - Coffee with a Hobby, is a venture by two lovely ladies - Archana and Prateeti. The former is an artist from Lucknow while the latter is a ex-IT professional and the brain behind the cafe business. Being in HSR layout gives it a leverage to be constantly buzzed by IT and other professional crowd during day time and couples, families in the evening. Opened on 14th Feb this year, the cafe has already made its mark by being on the list of  "11 cafe with Character in Bangalore" in polkacafe.com.

Every month ABC exhibit paintings from different artists, most of them non-professionals. As per Prateeti, it brings the whiff of art into the life of people who otherwise have no time or inclination to visit a mature art gallery or exhibitions. They also do various other activities like silent reading sessions, live paintings, art and craft classes apart from celebrating events and festivals in full vigor. The first time I went there, the Cafe was showcasing the paintings of professional artist Babun Ghosh who also conducted some live painting sessions.

  As an amateur artist myself, I was immediately mesmerized by the beautiful paintings in all the rooms. "Rooms", ah, I forgot to mention another beauty of the cafe. HSR boasts of many eating joints set up in rented mansions. This gives them with enough prospects of having different kinds of seating arrangement. In case of ABC, each area is decorated with different artistic flavors, one with book shelves, one on a terrace, one being the art workshop. 

But there is no good cafe without good coffee? We ordered both hot as well as cold coffee and were more than satisfied by both. Unlike the heavy caffeine laden coffee of CCD, here you get the perfect mix. I guess everybody knows how to prepare good coffee except CCD ;) Along with coffee the snacks surprised us. We were confused for what to order as they have wide variety in their menu. We couldn't resist ordering Italian which turned out to be delicious. These guys have done their homework pretty well. Recipes are really good. One thing they can improve is background music. Last time there was no music, this time they were playing some but not very memorable tunes. 

All in all, it is one place where great minds can discuss ideas. I am looking forward to spend some quiet, quality time while Pihu can be busy doing some art experiments in the workshop area. Of course, she needs to grow little older and less destructive (I mean playful :P). Till then, I am better holding my naughty girl from breaking stuffs while managing to sip my coffee in between. ABC reminds me that I too am a person with arts as a hobby till the time I paint my next. Keep yourself posted about the updates from ABC by liking their FB page!!

My two kids

I am lying in the middle

My two kids on my sides..

I feel blessed

My life complete n suffice.

Irony of life n death

I wrote this piece recently on a transit during a sad journey which made me reflect on the importance of everyone connected to us  in life. Do we realize and celebrate that importance during our each and every dealing with everyone. How many of us realize this while speaking to a person that he may or may not be alive tomorrow or I might not live to see a tomorrow?

Unlike life that announces its arrival 9 months before, death never tells its due date. It just knocks at our doorstep unannounced like a shameless guest. Yet, we behave as if life will go forever for each of us. What else then explains our egoistic fights with our near ones or friends or even strangers. We fight among ourselves for our materialistic desires, for our fake identity ignoring or to be precise forgetting, the probability of demise. Everyone feel that they are right and it is the other who should accept fault. The irony of life is we never stop looking at the shortcomings of a person when he /she is alive but when the person cease to exist we just want to remember his/her goodness.
What if, we could see the countdown of death. Maybe we would be more sensible with everyone in our day to day life. Think about it, a son is pissed off from his father's nagging and about to loose his temper when he see the countdown at his head to be 5 days and so he decides to face him in a calm state. Or a daughter-in-law is about to pick a fight with her mother-in-law who constantly irks her how to be a good wife when she see the counter telling 2 days, and she decides not to hurt the dying one.
 It sounds scary but it is still better than the scarier after thoughts that haunts the mind when you come to know about someone's untimely demise with whom you didn't reconcile after having a bad fight. You tell anyone or not but deep in your mind a thought is planted that why the hell you didn't make peace with that person when he or she was alive and around. For nobody wants to be in the bad books or unfulfilled wishes of a departing soul.
A very close, reverend, elderly member of my family is no more. I don't want to name the relationship I had with her as that doesn't matter since I have loved her as my real grandma. When she embraced me for the first time I felt very happy and it made up for all the times when my real grandma wasn't there to love me or play with me. Still, I didn't see her for last one year even when she would ask us to visit her along with my daughter. I was too busy building my materialistic life. Now I can't do anything about it. Had there been the counter or in short, had death been lesser evil and would announce its visit, I would have got her to stay with me and enjoyed her presence, her blessings, her scolding's. Its difficult to comprehend that she is no more. For she was so full of spirit that we assumed nothing can ever happen to her and we can meet her anytime as per our convenience. We no more have that luxury.
I know she is still around but that doesn't fill the void created forever in her place and the guilt I shall carry always in my heart. I know there are always unfulfilled regrets left behind when a person departs but that doesn't forgive the fact that we underestimated death and undermined the life. Thus, I have decided and also request you all to keep aside all the fights, egos and move forward and patch up with  broken friendship, relations, parents, siblings, children. Don't hurt anyone. You don't wanna change then don't. They don't wanna change then let them be happy for what they are.  But don't stop talking and seeing each other. For who knows may be that call of theirs which you let miss and didn't talk is their last for nothing can beat death in its unpredictability.

Guardians To Angels

Some small incidents in my life made me realize the importance of good parenting not only for children but for society. Here is the snippet for the article I wrote for Parentous.

For complete article follow the link: http://bit.ly/1mpx7G0

For you, my Birthday!

On 1st Aug, I celebrated another year in the fourth decade of my life. Being a Leo woman I prefer not to count the years once I completed my silver jubilee but getting old have its own charms. Especially during the years when you can still manage to win compliments like "Really, you don't look that old" or "Are you really a Mom!"

#WhattheBlack unveiled!!

For all of my posts on #WhattheBlack is going on go to this page.

Finally, the curtains are up. The veil is unveiled. And the #WhatheBlack mystery is solved. What a wacky innovative marketing campaign it was #WhatTheBlack.

I had fun blogging, guessing, tweeting and waiting for the clues. Alas, #BangaloreBandh on 31st and delay from the courier on 1st delayed my clues - but so what there was enough flutter going on in twitterati & fb to keep me hooked. I had even gone to the extent of doing an whois lookup on the domain, but given that it was privacy protected did not reveal much. But many a fellow bloggers who received items on time did figure it out! Here was my final clue:

Yes, a black paper cup and a tissue paper turned charcoal black. All the items, Black egg, black newspaper and black tea cup hinted at one common thing- Morning. and what is the one activity that refreshes us - Yup, brushing the teeth :)

The product is a new toothbrush from Colgate, of course Black in color, with Micro Slim-Tip bristles with charcoal infused leading to better, deeper cleaning and removal of plaque bacteria. I am yet to try it, but I guess it will be worth the hoopla for its marketing!

The whole idea of #WhatTheBlack has been intriguing. Both marketing & internet shopping has come of its age and has finally arrived in Indian scene. Never before people have waited for the courier guy so eagerly every day, day after the day. And the fact that this promotion happened first on internet tells a lot about the power of bits and bytes flowing through the huge mish-mash of web, world wide.

Here is the first look of the Charcoal toothbrush (it has a modest white variant without Charcoal too).

See #WhatTheBlack for more details.

This contest led to many things, including making me go on a blog marathon, tweet flood and making me wait for the last clue nervously on my birthday apart from gifts I was expecting. And now, I am just hoping I will be among the top 10 bloggers to spread the word for an innovative product.