Tag: tea

The Anaemic Pomegranate!

February 25, 2026 / / 2 Comments

One fine afternoon, GBee had yet to return home from school. KBee was busy watching his favourite Blippi in YouTube and I was surfing through the phone, doing my daily dose of mobile-cart shopping!

Gone are the days of window shopping, of hanging out with a bunch of friends in the shops and malls. The latest fad is to do the same in Virtual reality, dropping the goods in the cart, online, when in doubt, just wishlisting them, then forgetting all about it!

While I was stalking the online shelves of Myntra, KBee informed me that he was, indeed, very hungry.

I decided to feed him a Pomegranate.

The hungry baby

That day, three fourth of the fruit was red and a quarter of the pomegranate seeds were white and tiny. ( I think the pomegranate was a little Anemic!)

I didn’t want the kiddo to find fault with the fruit, so I told him that the pomegranate was still a baby and the white seeds were baby seeds! The fruit was in no way spoiled, it just had some colourless seeds.

Extra gyaan to the baby

After telling the kid the pomegranate as good to eat, I went into the kitchen to make myself a hot cuppa tea of apple cranberry flavour.

A little over 10 minutes of time had elapsed. I walked into the hall, with tea in my hand.

I saw KBee standing over the doormat and busy watering it!

KBee told me that he didn’t like the taste of the white pomegranate seeds. Since I told him they were still babies, he decided to plant them and water them.

What better place to plant them, than the turf – look – alike doormat, which resembles freshly mowed grass?

That is what he was doing.

He put all the white seeds on the doormat and began watering them with such enthusiasm.

I was left wondering about how he got the idea, that plants can grow on doormats!

P.S :

1. I have not come across many white pomegranate seeds. It is an acquired taste, astringent!

2. I am not an expert in nutrition but pomegranate  without red pigment looks like it is anaemic.

Munnar : Of Terror Attacks and No show safaris

December 3, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Day 6 (23rd April 2025):

We woke up, freshened up, had breakfast and sat in the hotel room. I was under the weather and Mr.Bee was sweet enough to take the boys out to play, by himself.

They played in the playground at the White House Hotel, while I had a rejuvenating nap. I woke feeling a little refreshed and active.

We had our lunch in the room, watched some random movie.

Incidentally, this was also the day after the Pahalgam terror attack, about which we came to know a little late. Since we had been on the road all day (Day 5), we couldn’t be in touch with anyone (no signals at most viewpoints) and that must have been terrible for both Mr.Bee’s and my parents. We didn’t know there was a terror attack and we didn’t know people were trying to get in touch with us!

Anyway, after our evening snacks, we got out of the room at last, to go for shopping. Mr.Bee bought me a Kasavu saree at the Kasavu Aalayam. (Yet to wear it)

Our next stop was the Munnar Chocolate Factory. GBee and KBee were excited about visiting MCF and even without eating a single chocolate, they seemed to be in a sweet-induced-high!

We reached room in time for our dinner and slept peacefully.

 

Day 7 :

As if Munnar was silently crying for the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack, the day had started out bleak, with a downpour!

Although we were on a holiday, we still felt sad for the effect the terrorists had on tourists. (Incidentally, Munnar is a safe place. Most of the population here follow Christianity.)

I kept thinking about …what goes inside the brain of a terrorist ? Are they even human ? Are they crazy ?  And more such thoughts continued…

We had originally planned for a safari tour, to watch the animals in the majestic Munnar. Sadly, the rain was a deterrent.

After our lunch, we decided to go out anyway. Coming to Munnar and sitting inside the hotel room for most part of the day, seemed useless.

Once the heavy rain turned into a drizzle, we booked our safari, through a phone call. (Safari tours are just a phone call away)

Our rental Ertiga driver, who was still with us in Munnar had no major work for two straight days. He was happy chatting up with other drivers and sleeping lazily throughout the day.

Our safari tour guide brought a jeep, loaded us inside and we started out.

I packed a bag with some 45th Avenue cookies, water bottles, ear muffs and fully charged phones and we were ready for the elephants!

As soon as we reached Anachal, we took beautiful photos at various viewpoints.

@ Anachal

We entered the forest area and thanks to the heavy rain since the morning, the forest was replete with waterfalls and rain water run-offs.

You really need to be there to see the beauty of Munnar. I can’t explain it any better.

At one viewpoint (pic above), we saw a car driver, park his car on the rocky trail, fill up a bucket with the water from the foot of the waterfalls, to wash his car! Even that simple task seemed new to us. (Who even washes a car near waterfalls in the city? No one.) It was a novel experience, although using a soap is not exactly environment friendly in places like Anachal and Mankulam.

Munnar is a beauty and thanks to the rain, we got to see it, in its true glory.

By the time we reached Perumbankuthu Waterfalls, the rain was not a drizzle anymore. It was more of a downpour. Our safari driver stopped the jeep, gave us two umbrellas and pointed towards the bridge and the steel deck we needed to go to, to take in the view.

Angle 1

Angle 2

Angle 3

Steps leading to deck – on normal days, with no rains…

The bridge and the viewpoint were completely deserted. (Who even goes around for tours when there is a downpour? No one, except some rare specimens like QB and family!) Here too, inspite of the umbrella in my hands, drenched feet and cool breeze causing shivers, I still enjoyed the view. It will stay in my memories, for a long time to come.

@Tiger Cave – QueenBee and a bridge!

We later made a brief stop at the Tiger Cave, near Mankulam village. It was closed because of the rains and we returned to our jeep. Every village had small shops with noodles, tea, coffee and the forever unhealthy option of packets of half filled potato chips of Lays and others.

GBee loves potato and it’s byproducts, so he demanded me for a Lays packet. I complied his request, by giving him the millet cookie! He looked at me in silence, he has the whole life ahead of him,  to complain, he will get there soon!

We continued our tour, the final destination being Anakulam. It was already half past five.

The jeep came to a halt at the junction which was prominently marked by Holy Mary with Baby Jesus in Her arms. Many vehicles were parked there, filled with tourists in all sizes and shapes. We even saw a white family, who waited for a glimpse of the elephants, patiently.

We met a desi family, who are NRIs from the U.K and we discussed the tour plans and feedbacks. They were past the age of 60 and the kiddos too didn’t shy away from telling them what they really thought about the safari tour!

We waited and waited till 6:30 and decided to return to Munnar from Anakulam, since it was already getting dark and the kids were hungry.

The safari tour guide had already warned us about a ‘no-show’ from the elephants, because, heavy rains meant cold climate and foggy pathways in the forests and the elephants preferred to stay together with their herds, than roam about towards the village or play in the water, like they usually did!

@ Anakulam – on a normal day

GBee was mighty disappointed and even after a month or so after the trip came to an end, the only thing he remembered was that we couldn’t spot a single elephant in our safari tour!

@ Anakulam – a “no – show” , when it rains.

After more than one hour, we finally reached the hotel. Mr.Bee, GBee and KBee had dozed off in the jeep but I stayed awake, looking at the deserted roads and sleepy forest, on our way back.

After a quick wash up and change of clothes, we were ready to call it a day. I wish I had seen some of the pukka local elephants, spray eachother with water, but one can’t have everything!

We slept like logs, thanks to the safari trip in the jeep.

P.S :

1. I admire the army personnel who were responsible for the  Operation Sindoor. Thank you guys. I don’t know know how you do it, but thanks anyways!

2. I am also thankful that we have a pro active PM and not a meritorious silent puppet, who served the Desh Drohis in silence.

3. Since it is already December and I am yet to complete my April vacation posts, I decided to finish it off first, before writing about anything else. Timing sucks!

4. The photos which were taken by me or Mr.Bee have my  blog name in them, but the others I have freely taken from online. Thanks to the kind sources, who let others use their photos, without plastering them with watermarks!

5. I seem to be attracting lots of spam messages. Thanks, but no thanks!

Till the next post, bubye!

The Air Blower!

October 29, 2025 / / 1 Comment

This little incident happened while we were in Munnar and well, I found the incident hilarious and that’s why, here it goes, into my blog….

One morning, as usual, Mr.Bee was happily watching reels on his phone. He sat by the windows, with his feet up the Teepai, all the while looking up reels and laughing out loud.

KBee was curious. He didn’t understand why the windows had to stay open!

Mr.Bee reasoned that, since we are in Munnar and near what looked like a valley, he told KBee that forest air is good. We need fresh air and also the greenery is pleasing.

But, surprise,  surprise! KBee understood only part of it.

He closed the windows shut!

He thought his father needed air, so he began blowing air onto his face!

If you or anyone, ever need fresh air, you know what you have to do? Blow some air, windows are over-rated!

Thanks KBee for the valuable lesson!

P.S:

1. I love it when my kids give me  valuable material to blog about!

2. I have more cartoons coming up, but right now I am enjoying a piping hot cup of masala chai on this rainy dull cold day.

Tea, anyone?

Spice Garden and Rose Garden : c/o Munnar

October 23, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Day 5 – Part 1:

Mr.Bee and I woke up early in the morning, sat across each other in the balcony, looking at the huge trees of various kinds. The only one I could recognise was that of Eucalyptus.  I saw a beautiful red nosed green parrot on the trees and that made my day. (I remember seeing a green parrot in Rajamundry, during my stay at my dodda’s place.)

I woke the kids up and after our baths, we went to have our breakfast downstairs. We met fellow Telugu tourists, chatted with them and parted ways. (Wherever you go, Kerala, Kashmir, Kashi or Kanyakumari, anywhere in India, you will find at least one Telugu tourist! That’s my personal experience talking.)

The kids and I didn’t like eating anything, except for plain old bread and jam. Mr.Bee is surprisingly a non-picky eatery, during travels.

After our breakfast,  we decided to pass our time in the playground.  I love the swings, it brings back memories of my school days and all. GBee loves playing on the swing, just like me, whereas KBee hates it, like Mr.Bee (Mr.Bee doesn’t mind Bungee jumping, but he can’t sit even for a minute on a swing!) Since it was our anniversary, we asked GBee to take a couple of pics of us. Even though a 7 yr old does not have much experience with taking pics, GBee not only took good pics, he also suggested various poses for us to mimic!

We returned to our room and started planning for the morning and afternoon hours. Our evening plan was already in place.

N, our tour driver suggested the Greenland Spices and Ayurvedic Garden tour. I was like, why not!

We booked ourselves a garden guide, who would show each tree and plant and explain the finer points. She knew Telugu too and it was fun, listening to Telugu in a Malayalam accent and I didn’t mind it a bit.

Red Ginger Lily

 

Princess Flower Plant

 

Red Banana plant

 

Cardamom plant with Inch Plant at its feet

If you wonder how a cardamom looks before being Sun dried, then, this is how it looks….

Queen Bee holding a cardamom, with KBee in the background playing with seeds and what not!

We had a blast, looking at all the plants of Aswagandha,  Brahmi, Bringaraj, cocoa, Punarnava plant, red ivy (used to heal wounds) etc. She even showed us plants and the combination of which is used as medication for different health issues. It was an informative tour. (Since I was worried about presence of snakes in the Spice Garden, she assured me that one particular plant repels snakes, the Sarpagandha)

With that, we returned to the car, ready to go to our next destination, Munnar Rose Garden. Once again, we saw many colourful flowering plants and other garden plants, which were cut in interesting shapes and looked ornamental. (GBee and KBee wondered why we were looking at so many plants in a single day!)

My overly enthusiastic (pun intended) chocolate muffins, enjoying their time @ Munnar Rose Garden

We took atleast two dozen pics, spent close to 45 minutes in the garden and got into the car.

Our next stop was the Echo Point, Munnar.

Echo Point – Munnar

We paid the entry fee, stood there at the end of the tiny mound of a hill and shouted out, to hear the echo which boomeranged at us from among the trees, on the opposite side. There was boating option available too, for those interested. If you want to attract the full force of the Sun, boating is the way to go!!

Incidentally,  we were yet to eat our lunch and extremely tired from all the walking. We returned to the car, after buying beautiful soveneirs,  a.k.a, the fridge magnets and some wooden figurines.

We had originally planned on paying a visit to the Idukki dam, but later shelved the idea. We stuffed ourselves with all the snacks available at various locations.

While N drove us back to the Munnar town, all the 4 of us had a power nap. We woke up refreshed and happy, as we reached the White House hotel.

Since it was well past our lunch time, we ordered snacks and juice and patiently waited for our room service to make their appearance!

To follow our schedule, we had to be out of the room by 4:30 p.m., so we got busy, by getting ready for our interesting evening. The Raga, here we come!

P.S:

1. Long ago, I saw snow white cockatoos in Sydney, not in a zoo, but in the balcony of an apartment and more of them on the streets, where they fly freely!

2. After visiting the spices garden I understood why the spices are costly. The process of picking them and making them usable is a time taking process which takes lots of patience.  Even plucking them from the tree needs to be done carefully and requires expertise.

3. We also stopped at a random point on the road, near the tea and coffee estates, saw a couple of deers running about.

4. Dodda amma is a Telugu term used to refer to one’s maternal aunt, older sibling of mom. Pinni is an aunt, who is younger sibling of mom.

5. During our visit to the nursery in Sangareddy district,  the admin told us there are snakes and to be cautious when coming with kids. Luckily, Munnar Spice Garden administration knows what they are doing, since they have Sarpagandha too!

6. All the photos except the one showing the Echo Point were taken by Mr.Bee. This post is of the travel series, previous one being Munnar, at last!

Palani to Kodaikanal

May 11, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Day 2:

Mr.Bee and I woke up at 4:30 a.m on the advice of the hotel admin. He informed us that we selected a particularly important day to visit the temple and warned us that the temple crowd would be akin to mini-size Kumbh Mela. He was not wrong! It was Shashti thithi, which is auspicious as Vel Murugan a.k.a Karthikeya was said to be born on that thithi.

I looked out of the windows, (our room 2** had a balcony facing the hill) and saw the most beautiful view.

Mr.Bee and I, discussed among ourselves and decided to wake GBee up first.

GBee was confused about why there was no sunlight outside and thanks to his EVS lesson in grade 2, he knows what an eclipse is! I told him, we just woke up early to visit the Murugan temple.

During bath, I heard peacocks making wailing calls! If you hear a peacock wailing or crowing near by, it is generally assumed as a sign of presence of snakes. That too if you hear them in the premises of a very popular Murugan temple, whose deity Himself is a snake, then what more to add to that? My heart was filled with devotion and fervour.

After both Mr.Bee and KBee were ready, we rushed to the winch queue. We can either climb the 700 odd steps to the temple or go in a winch to the temple which is situated on top of a hill.

The winch and the scenic beauty!

We spent 2 hours in the winch queue and hardly moved 20m from our initial spot. If you are going to popular temples, you should mentally prepare yourself that you will be pushed, shoved, verbally abused, on top of it, physically tired too!

By the time it was 6:30 a.m. , an announcement had been made that devotees need to take a break and return after 6 hours! (That’s was how heavy the flow of devotees had been to Palani)

I felt upset and low, as it seemed we may not return to the temple. We didn’t want to harass our kids by waiting in the hot weather and climbing 700 steps with 2 kids below the age of 8, seemed preposterous! We resigned to our fate and accepted defeat.

We shopped for Velaayudham and I got myself a photo frame of Dhandayudhapani (Murugan). I remembered we had not visited the Vinayagar and Meenakshi Amman temples in the premises. We visited both and returned to the hotel. KBee only ate a couple of biscuits and GBee didn’t even have those.

At the Hotel, the admin saw our disappointment and advised us to visit the other Murugan temple 5 minutes away from our hotel. He informed us that this one was the original Dhandayudhapani Murugan temple, which was later relocated to the top of the hill. We visited the temple by walk and I remember a middle aged gentleman who entered the temple with us, stayed with us, asked me to go to the front and let me pray to Murugan in peace. He was no where to be seen after talking to me.  (It felt like divine intervention, an emotionally charged moment for me)

After our breakfast, which was below average, we packed the soveneirs, checked out from the hotel and started for our next stop, Kodaikanal. Woohoo!

In barely 2 hours, we reached Kodaikanal. The driver, N made a brief stop at the outskirts, for his breakfast. He had an omelette.  Mr.Bee and I ordered tea, which was ‘one-sorry- excuse-of-a-tea’ and I poured it down the drain! (When travelling,  one should adjust to eating mediocre food and drinks or not buy them at all!)

We checked into Pine Borough, Room ££, which was built such that it was half way into the hill and that made it extremely cold to live in! We had to rent a room heater from the hotel, to stay warm!

We ordered food by WhatsApping the reception desk, sat in the afternoon Sun, under the patio umbrellas. KBee and GBee were famished and so was I, it was 2 p.m.

Mr.Bee and GBee engaged in the cell, while KBee and I chatted away.

Even though KBee was hungry and it was well past his lunch time, he suggested that the bugs were hungry and not him!

We had our lunch in the room, rested a little while and then spent a good hour in the garden outside.

As the weather became colder and since we started hearing strange sounds ( like that of a rattle), we returned to our room. The kids played with their dozen Hot Wheel cars, whereas Mr.Bee and I watched Baahubali, dubbed in Hindi!

After having Dadu’s snacks and a late dinner, we called it a day!

P.S:

1. At the entrance to Kodaikanal, one lady officer, bent down inside our car and nabbed our plastic bottles. Plastic is banned in Kodaikanal,  just like in Ooty and Tirumala!

2. I had a wild guess that the rattling sound must mean a rattle snake, since we were staying on a hill resort. God knows if I am correct or not.

3. GBee,  still in the mood to count the windmills, began counting bikes (since there are no windmills in Kodai) and his total reached to 172!

4. Interestingly,  one of the admins at the Kodai resort was named Palani!

5. The recent war atmosphere in India had an effect on me, so I could hardly write. That is the reason for my late post. #IndianArmy, #OperationSindoor.

Till the next post, cheerio!

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