LOL: Life Of Leo

My Work Place, Sometime in 2019 Seeing the mud around a lotus is pessimism, seeing a lotus in the mud is optimism. ~ Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

Outskirts of Bangalore, October 2019 Last year, while on a road-trip with my husband, we stopped by a place for breakfast. As we parked the car and walked out, I spotted this tree. I has just started being a part of #ThursdayTreeLove back then and was fascinated when I found this one. I also took a lot of pictures of trees throughout the journey. Unfortunately I had to change my phone once I came back and the pictures were left in the old phone. I recently shifted back to the old phone and found these pictures. I have quite some material now! The first thing that came to my mind when I saw this tree was a diamond, since its top is shaped like one. So I decided to call her the queen of diamonds. **Queenie: Queen

Image Source Being an avid reader since childhood, I have always been in the company of books. A large part of the successful woman that I am today is because of my habit of reading. Reading has always been an integral part of my life and that would never change. However, the way that I read has gone through a few changes over the years. From buying books off the street with the limited money given to me to walking out of bookstores with books worth thousands, I sure have come a long way. I don't buy pirated books anymore. My bookshelf was overflowing with books and I did not mind it a least bit. When Amazon's Kindle made an appearance, I dismissed it immediately. As someone who finds it really difficult to read stories in the PDF format and on a screen, I thought Kindle would give me the same feel. Plus, what was reading without the smell of the pages, the feel of turning a page or finding a bookmark to use. I did not want to give up on either of it and I was pretty sure

Image Source Title: Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors Author: Sonali Dev Publisher: HarperCollins (31 May 2019) Genre: Contemporary Fiction Price: Rs. 499 on Amazon Pages: 496 A year ago I saw this book doing the rounds on social media and while I normally do not pick up books by Indian authors just based on recommendation, I decided to give this a try as I planned on reading more Indian authors in 2020. This book has a bright, vibrant cover and the story kind of intrigued me. I'll tell you why. It claimed to be a gender swapped, modern day retelling of the classic, Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen. This put me in a tight spot because of a catch. Two actually. One, I hate retelling of stories. They take away the essence of the original and leave behind a lukewarm diluted tale. Second, I hate Jane Austen stories. I've read almost all her books with the hope of liking at least one. The closest I've come to liking one was 'Sense And Sensibility'.

Bangalore - February 2020 Man masters nature not by force, but by understanding. ~ Jacob Bronowski

Image Source Title: The Great Alone Author : Kristin Hannah Publisher: Macmillan Digital Audio Genre: Historical Fiction Price: Rs. 227 on Audible Listening Length : 15 hours and 2 minutes. Narrator: Julia Whelan Kristin Hannah is an author whose work I would trust blindly. She has written about some of the most strongest female protagonists and her stories tend to touch the heart and soul. Her stories have a human connect like no other. They celebrate the human spirit and talk about the depth of the human emotions, with all its faults and foibles. When I read ' Where The Crawdads Sing ' and loved it, most of its reviews said that for those who loved 'The Great Alone', this book is a must read. I had put it on my TBR back then and I picked it up on Audible this month. I must say that I am loving the Audible experience and it has definitely improved my concentration and focus. I'll write a detailed post about my Audible experience soon.

Home, Bangalore - April 2020 This is my daily view as I work from home. As I type this, I see this tree to my left, from my 4th floor window. We never know how long we would be locked up at home, but the fact that this tree is blooming with its lush green by being rooted at a spot for years shows that we can too. Maybe this is the slow down that we all needed. Maybe this is the reboot we all needed. Maybe this would show us the true meaning of life.

Kashi Cafe, Kochi - December 2018 Mental health and mental balance is critical to leading a healthy life. ~ Mariel Hemingway

Image Source For the past two months I've been talking about time passing by really quickly and I now apologize for that. March hit me like a solid slap and it felt longer than three years. The current situation in the world is scary and the worst thing about it is the uncertainty. As someone who lives a planned, systematic life, this troubles me to no end. At times, I just want it to end. Be it in a good way or a bad way. But end, it must. My anxiety has been at its peak as you can deduce from my words I'm sure. I've been working from home from 13th March and by now I have somehow made my peace with it. The eight hours that I focus on office work keeps me sane and sorted. The rest of the day however goes in a blur. I've been maintaining a home without a maid for years now with help from my partner. It is not new to me.