Laila & Manju #ThursdayTreeLove - 12

Home, Bangalore - February 2020

This is not a single tree. If you look closely you will see two bamboo stumps and their branches leaning forward to embrace each other. The first thing I saw here was love. Since I name my trees after women, I did not want to change it this time too. Love is love, after all.

Book Review: Tin Man - Sarah Winman

Title: Tin Man
Author: Sarah Winman
Publisher: Tinder Press (9 August 2017)
Genre: Classic Fiction
Price: Rs. 267 on Amazon
Pages: 208

You know those books that you solely buy for their covers, well, this was one of them. The book had a gorgeous yellow cover and came highly recommended from my friends. I sat down to read it one fine day and finished it in a couple of sessions.

How To Recognize & Deal With Toxic People

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Over the years, I have constantly worked on being a calmer and better person by improving my mental state of mind. One of the first things that I had to do in order to achieve this was to take a closer look at the people I surround myself with. As someone who immensely believes in the vibes that people give out, this was more than necessary. We might not realize this often, but the kind of people we become is usually influenced by the people around us. Habits, frame of mind, reactions and thoughts usually get rubbed off people. This is a dangerous predicament, but not something that one can't handle. Once you put yourself first, you will start seeing the true colors of people and my oh my, what a color palette that is! I'm no expert on the human mind or even people for that matter, but, with time I have come to recognize the ones who are good for me and the ones who are toxic and need to be cut off at the earliest.

Music | #WordlessWednesday - 14

Rajan's Cafe, Bangalore - January 2020

Where words leave off, music begins.

~ Heinrich Heine

Caught In A Mad Romance

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You are the drama to my queen

Life is never dull with you around

You are one of my greatest treasures

In you, everything I found

You add the music to my lyrics

Every note different and yet so same

When I hear the word love

I replace it with your name

Khloe | #ThursdayTreeLove - 11

Bangalore - February 2020

Nothing like being stuck in traffic to make you notice things that you otherwise wouldn't. This tree stood on a busy road that was chock-a-block with traffic, but she didn't seem to mind. Her branches were gorgeous and her leaves were a ripe shade of green. Oblivious to her surroundings, she just did what she had to do. Bloom.

**Khloe: Blooming.

Book Review: The Catcher In The Rye - J. D. Salinger

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Title: The Catcher In The Rye
Author: J. D. Salinger
Publisher: Penguin (1 November 2018)
Genre: Classic Fiction
Price: Rs. 539 on Amazon
Pages: 240

I had heard about this book since decades, but somehow never got to reading it. I knew it was controversial and even banned in many states of the US. When it was allowed in high schools, it was the most censored book. The novel was included on Time Magazine's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923, and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. When my husband brought home a hard-cover copy of this book, I decided that it was finally time to read it. With less than 300 pages, I finished this one in a single session.