Mangoes and blooms

The hot weather continues here broken occasionally with cool breezes when it rains in Kerala or in the Western Ghats. We have our own thunder showers but these are far too few. The best thing though about this city at this time of year are the profusion of flowers. The jacarandas, the queen's wreath, the tabebuia are in full bloom and provide much needed visual relief.

The sky before a recent thunderstorm

A queen's wreath in full bloom

Badamis and avocados

And of course the heat also means the sweetest mangoes. I've been trying quite a few varieties this year. So far I've sampled the bangenapllis, the raspuris and this week , the badamis. The latter my research tells me are the local cousins of the famed Alphonsos. These I have found make the best smoothies with avocados.

I just finished reading an interesting crime thriller called Layover in Dubai by Dan Fesperman. I found it particularly interesting because it was set in Dubai, not a city one associates with crime thrillers. Fesperman has managed to capture some of the essence of the place. He's done a decent job of capturing the conflicts even if in broad strokes. A good read and I definitely recommend it.

Source:here

At the moment I'm also reading a book called Grave Secrets in Goa by Kathleen McCaul. It has started out well. But I find it exceedingly irritating that no one seems to have bothered to edit the book or proof read it. Among the many irritating mistakes are the usual 'Your' becomes 'you're' kinds and vice versa.  In any case, the mystery seems to be well-plotted. But it's still early days.









I'm continuing with the Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot edited Muslims in Indian Cities. This is a much needed collection of empirical studies on the state of the community in India. Each chapter provides a snapshot of a community seemingly under siege. It is clear though that much more research needs to go into figuring out exactly what's going on. But this is definitely a good start.

Source: Here