Smitha Vishwanath's Blog, page 25

Book Review 06/50 : Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The book has been lying on my bookshelf since 24.07.2010! That’s what the date on the book followed by my husband’s signature says. Each time I heard him quote from the book, “You need to put in 10,000 hours of work to become an expert at what you do,” I thought, ‘I need to read […]

Sunday Stills: Sunrises and Sunsets

Picture: Mumbai Sunset Terri’s Sunday still challenge this week was to post pictures of sunrises and sunsets. I had to participate. I’m not a great photographer but I love taking pictures. And, since I am a morning person who enjoys watching the sunrise, I have loads of pictures. Fortunately, for me, our living room faces […]

Friday Fictioneers : There’s always a first time

Reema stared at the waves nervously. Amit hadn’t objected when she had told him. And a month later, here she was, in the South of France on a plein air painting course. ‘That’s a good spot you’ve chosen. You can paint there,’ Ray said. Reema put her easel down and placed her canvas on it. […]

It’s Thursday! Doors, Gratitude, Inspiration

Another week has gone by and I’ve been busy. It’s safe to say I’ve found my tribe in Dhaka and we went exploring the older part of the city (which I’ve written about in another post) on Women’s Day. The doors I have in this post are from that day. This is for the Thursday […]

Art and Poetry: Sunflowers & Tanka Tuesday 120324

This time I tried painting sunflowers despite the fact that I find flowers the most challenging to paint. I think it’s being able to show the soft texture of the petals, the fluidity and the many shades of colors that makes it a tough subject for me. As I struggled with the painting and it […]

Dhaka Diaries: Women’s Day- A trip to Old town

What better way to celebrate Women’s day than with women friends. On March 8th, five of us decided to explore Old Dhaka- that part of town steeped in History. One friend proposed the trip and oiled the engine to get it going and her friend (who I did not know prior to the trip), agreed […]

Thursday 070324- Doors, flowers, reviews, gratitude and more

I couldn’t share a post last Thursday for the ‘Thursday Doors’ challenge, hosted by Dan Antion, as I was at an exhibition of Benarasi silks held at the Le Meridien hotel in Dhaka. This was my first experience at such an exhibition and I needed a lot of coaxing to go for it. I’m glad […]

Of parks, flowers, poetry and news: Tanka Tuesday 060324, Jo’s Monday Walk

Tired of walking in the park in front of home which has a bookstore, a coffee shop and green trees but barely any flowers, I coaxed my husband to walk up to the Gulshan Lake Park which is a kilometre away from home. The roads were strewn with leaves as if it were Autumn. The […]

Book Review 05/50- The Parcel by Anosh Irani

This book took me longer than normal. No, it’s not long, and no, it’s not dull. It’s difficult to stomach.  It talks of the hard reality that transgenders faced in India prior to the law being passed in 2014, sex trade, and child trafficking. The book is a detailed account of the Red Light district […]

Art diaries: Mugs of joy

Like I said in my earlier post, I’ve run out of cotton canvas sheets for painting. I have asked someone who’s traveling from India to get them for me. However, as I didn’t want the lack of sheets to put a spoke in my painting wheel that’s just got moving, I decided to use paper. In […]