IT LOOKS like my Lord of the Rains is reluctant to depart and quite determined to shower Mother Earth with a few more caressing rain hugs! The result is such cool, balmy weather to live or die for (whatever you prefer). I feel like running away to a wild flower attired hill top or a green, woodsy, fragrant forest or a long uncluttered beach …some place which human beings haven’t encroached upon to exploit, humiliate and torture Mother Earth yet! I don’t mind the rain for I’m permanently in love with rain and if it rains all year around it’s fine with me…

IT’S BEEN a week of discovering Ayurveda with a capital A! This ancient traditional system of medicine which is coming back to centre stage is worth studying for it is every bit a science as Allopathy and every bit as educative though it works on different parameters…

MY SEPTEMBERS are a soap saga! All week long I’ve been scratching myself crazy! I don’t think I’ve ever been so scratchy before in my life… it’s a deadly scratch, I scratch and scratch arms, legs, belly, boobs and draw blood with my nails. What have I done or rather what have I eaten? I’ve asked myself a thousand times. Serves me right! I’ve made this idiotic rule that from Monday to Friday I’ll be a good girl and eat no junk food and fryums, but during the weekend if I feel like biting into a Lays onion and cream potato wafer or a bread and butter sandwich or a fried pappadam or a chocolate biscuit…I will, I will. Who can stop me! Not the hubby. He is far more disciplined than me.

SIGH. SEPTEMBER is my heartbreak month. I always feels as if all the common heartbreaks of my life come alive anew in September which is so beautiful with its sparkling sunshine-filled rain and fabulous sunrises and sunsets to watch out for.

CALL IT a kitty party with a difference! A group of women from perhaps the most enlightened village of them all down south Goa, Benaulim, and one heard them eloquently, as if they’ve all had enough and enough is enough. They’re all gearing up to take on the battle and the war of their discontentment!

IF YOU’RE asking me, there’s far too much religion in our lives. And life in Goa is one long round of religious celebrations with Christian Goa competing with Hindu Goa and vice versa! If only we cared more about far more important things like how we’re poisoning and killing Mother Earth with our lifestyles of plenty (and the consequent gross litter we create), our farmers are committing suicide…

SOME GOOD things are happening in Goa! I’m so glad I decided to catch up with the festivities of the Assumption of Our Blessed Virgin Mary (which coincides with Independence Day celebration organised by the Serula Art & Culture Academy at the St. Sebastian Chapel’s open space at Salvador Do Mundo, last weekend. It’s a very tranquil drive up alongside the River Mandovi.

EVERY NOW and again I find myself with a book I can’t put down and this week I’ve been unable to put down Joel Fuhrman’s Eat To Live, The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (lose 30 lbs or more in six weeks i.e. if you follow his diet plan of course). The book’s been described as a medical breakthrough and basically just provides enough researched information to say by way of a bottom line that most often we’re a nation of urban, sedentary fatsos (and diabetic, heart, high pressure patients) because quite simply we don’t know how to drink and eat right any more.

SIGH… AND that’s a big sigh! Of course I’m an avid sucker for all things local and so when I heard the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry - Women’s Wing was organising an exhibition-cum-sale of sweets and savouries prepared by women who need to be financially independent (all women rich or poor need to be financially independent!), I dropped in for a dekho and to see if my favourite nachni ladoo and a softer variety of chakli were there for me to buy at the Surendrababu Thimblo Hall of the GCCI in Panaji.

A VISIT to the market in the month of Shravan is truly a heady experience. Of course, prices have hit the sky with potatoes at Rs. 20 and French beans at Rs. 24 and the apples from New Zealand Rs. 180 (all other apples are not worth eating)…and I paid Rs. 10 for eight medium-size “gaunti” bindi or lady’s finger during my last trip to the market in Panaji. Goa’s “gaunti” veggies rule the roost during the rain-filled month of July and veggie vendors have learned how to extract exorbitant rates with one eloquent word “gaunti”!