DilliMeriJaan

You have to fall in love with something, to want to take care of it. Eco-consciousness came naturally to me, when I saw the Arabian Sea in Goa, as a child. You had to protect something so beautiful. Over the years, I have seen the way Goa has turned over a new and clean, green leaf. More importantly, I have seen how tourists have changed their behaviour to preserve it. Sign-boards urging people not to litter the beaches, are not necessary. When you see miles of gorgeous white sand, with nothing but crabs, sand plovers and an occasional gull, you know you have to keep that candy wrapper in your pocket, till you find a dust-bin. The inconvenience of carrying a plastic water bottle, along with the obvious damaging effects of using plastic at all, had turned me into a ‘local juice’ drinker, long time back. In Goa, drink tender coconut water. It’s good for you, it’s good for the beach and it’s good for the local economy. In central and northern parts of India, you will find sugarcane ...

The Bombax  (silk cotton) trees have large, fleshy red/orange flowers. If you park your car under one, it will be smeared with gooey flower pulp – which I think makes my car look like a wedding carriage. My neighbor finds it very annoying and grumbles about Spring and it’s sticky flower menace. I love Spring. Delhi has more than 100 varieties of indigenous trees and a lot of them flower during Spring. The pink version of Bombax – the Silk Floss trees, remind one of Cherry Blossom. Unlike Cherry Blossom,  one doesn’t have to wait for many years for Silk Floss to blossom – they do so, every year, in March, in Delhi. Jacaranda is an indigenous tree which has glossy green leaves, which remain during the flowering season. So do the leaves of the Yellow Trumpetbush. One of my nature lover friends, pointed out that we are getting “tree blind”. So we don’t notice trees and don’t miss them when they are cut. This #EarthHour2016, let’s start a new habit. Let’s see trees. ...

In Delhi, there are people who start businesses regularly. As stereotyped, and rightly so, they are hot-headed. They fight with bosses. Then they suddenly just start their own business. A shocking number of them succeed. Here are my thoughts, on why. Delhi-ites are garrulous people. They talk to the person swinging next to them in the metro. They talk to the aunty walking in the park. They talk. This is a good thing for entrepreneurships. Imagine, a diffident,  tamilian, standing in a corner in a metro and avoiding everyone’s eyes, in contrast. The Delhi-ite wins because she can simply start a conversation and dexterously steer it to her business. She is shameless, like that. Delhi-ites are affectionate. They genuinely feel “happy to meet you” and believe in the hug that they just smothered you with. They really want you to have the enormous mounds of rajma-chawal that they served and feel hurt if you don’t. This is a good thing because all this rajma-chawal laden love make...