Bombay Finds: Kombava Café at The Art Loft

First of all, Happy Holi, folks! My husband and I have stayed cooped inside the house all day. I have no issues with people playing holi but I definitely don’t like the idea of being splashed, colourified or having a water balloon thrown at me by random strangers on the street! Plus, we are both actually working today so that’s (in a way) nice and convenient.

On Saturday morning, I went out for brunch to this café called Kombava off Hill Road.I didn’t have anything fancy to eat – just scrambled eggs and toast – so I can’t really say much about the food but I did enjoy the ambience and once in a while, peeking into the studio space where there was an art therapy class being conducted!

The Art Loft was founded by Leila and Kevin Tayebaly as a space dedicated to art awareness and education. Leila is a certified art therapist and conducts classes every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday (according to their website).

Sounds pretty awesome, right? I cannot draw/paint to save my life but apparently that’s not a problem so I might just try this out one of these days.

Kaishiki

Every time I have the honour of shooting one of Kaishiki’s rehearsals or performances, I am awed by how much classical dance has to offer. It takes perseverance, stamina, patience, and down-right hard-work and goodness knows those are all great life-lessons that we can all use some practise in.

Here are a few of my favourite images from another session with some of favourite subjects who are keeping the beautiful dance form of Odissi alive.

This Week.

It’s been a volatile week. Or rather I’ve been volatile this week. Last weekend was good and productive. I was responsible to organise and conduct a few games at a friends’ baby shower on Sunday and it went pretty smoothly. Well, my first game was a bit of a fail but it was still fun. Ever tried pinning a nappy on a balloon without bursting it? Blindfolded? Yeah. We had some good times.

So we were rested, and had balanced amounts of social time and alone time and started off the week strong. But on Tuesday, I was discouraged. I have a health problem that I am currently dealing with and my visit with my doctor proved that I hadn’t made any major progress. And I know I shouldn’t, but I am hard on myself for that. Why haven’t I gotten better? Why haven’t I figured this out? What am I being anxious and stressed out about? Why can’t I just take control of this thing? Is God being mean to me? And other unreasonablenesses.

And it went kind of downhill from there. And then yesterday, after dinner, Rob and I sat on the couch and I had my second melt-down of the day, not being able to make an ounce of sense of the million-and-one thoughts flying rapidly through my head at any given time.

There used to be a time that I wrote very honestly and raw-ly on my blog. It was in fact, the way my husband first got to know me, even before he had met me. I write way more lucidly than I speak sometimes. And I am able to catch hold of the thoughts that generally bounce around in my brain and put them together in actual sentences.

Then I started a business and became very conscious about my social media presence. And so I bottled up a lot more. Every time I thought of something to write I would think, but that’s been said before. Or that’s too controversial or embarrassing. Or that’s not going to get me any “likes”.

But I need to write.

Honestly. Embarrassingly so if need be.

And share my food pictures with you, no matter how clichéd and “done before” that may well be.

So here goes.

Let’s start with Chana Masala that I made for lunch today that was so surprisingly delicious. You can find the recipe here.