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Issue #9 || 12 August 2023
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Hello hello hello! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? As it happens with all such things, Happy Stuff fell by the wayside a little bit while we went and did some other things. We were quite sad that we were depriving you of regular updates and we decided to come back – all for you folks only 🙂
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A reminder: To ensure you don't miss any of our newsletters, move this email to your inbox. We always send all our newsletters from happystuff@sigamany.in – add it to your contacts so that you always get it in your inbox.
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The Great Baking Adventure
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Trying something new can be an exciting and exhilarating experience. It can be a great way to challenge yourself and expand your horizons. It’s an opportunity to learn and grow, and this can lead to a sense of accomplishment and pride.
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Vidya took this to heart and signed up for a 🍰 baking class – a bit of a surprise for everyone, especially for her, given her aversion for anything to do with the kitchen and cooking!
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Baking can be a very enjoyable and rewarding experience, a way to express creativity and experiment with different flavours and ingredients 🧁. It can also be a relaxing and therapeutic activity, as it requires focus and attention to detail. Plus, the end result is often a delicious treat that can be shared with friends and family.
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Starting off Vidya’s baking journey was like embarking on a great big adventure. Our home being totally unequipped for baking, we had to start from making a list of all equipment and utensils required, then buying the right ingredients and setting everything up – and the results have been quite scrumptious! In the last few months, she’s baked more than a dozen cakes 🎂.
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Have you been doing something new – let us know!
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Travel Time
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We hadn’t travelled for a while and since Vidya was celebrating a landmark birthday, we went on a short holiday to Dubai. The biggest highlight, surprisingly, were the museums – the UAE is leaning into culture as they lean into anything – hard, and by pouring inordinate sums of money into it.
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The Louvre Abu Dhabi was of course the star attraction. But the others – the Museum of the Future and the Al Shindagha Museum – were no slouches either. The Museum of the Future was a technological marvel steeped in Emirati culture, while the Al Shindagha Museum was a supermuseum – composed of many museums including a Museum of Poetry and a Museum of Perfumes. Interestingly, this was not the only Museum of Poetry – a local poet’s home had been converted into a museum and we visited that too!
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Of course it wasn’t all museums – we also went to the Mall and saw the giant aquarium and the really tall building and braved the crowds to see the fountains. We also lazed in the hotel room and went walking in the neighbourhood. We wandered the old bazaars and ate in the Saravana Bhavan (highly recommended!) and visited a pretty Iranian mosque 🕌. We walked and walked, we took the abra, we took the buses 🚍, we took the Metro 🚇 and we took Careems 🚕.
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Overall, we had a grand time in Dubai!
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Interesting Stuff
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Fun things we'd turn around and share with you if we were in the same room as you
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Navin: There is nothing as ubiquitous as Lego in every child’s home. When we were growing up, Lego was not commonly available and we didn’t have an opportunity to play with it regularly. Visiting the homes of kids who had Lego – usually those with relatives who lived abroad – was a great occasion that was eagerly looked forward to. Thankfully, Nitin (my brother, in case you don’t know) and I received a small Lego set each as gifts from our dad’s childhood best friend who lived in the States, and we had them for a really long time.
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Fast forward to now, and we realised that Vidya had never played with a Lego set. Plus, I was really missing the Lego police car I had when I was a kid! So we bought a Lego set and Vidya got to assemble it. Finally, after all these years, she got to partake in a near-universal childhood experience!
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Navin: The best known example of Japanese art is perhaps Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa. However, even a little effort is greatly rewarded when you tumble into the rabbit hole that is Japanese painting.
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One of my recent favourites is Kobayashi Kiyochika, who lived and painted in Meiji Japan (late 1800s to the early 1900s). He witnessed the rapid westernisation of his country, conflicts with China and the rise of Japanese Imperialism, and these are reflected in his paintings. They range from beautiful traditional landscapes and portraits to comic pieces of satire to military paintings depicting Japan’s military victories to everyday life he saw around him.
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What We're Watching
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Because there’s no such thing as too much TV!
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Currently watching: We are well into the Veronica Mars universe – we’re at the second season ender – and it’s been quite entertaining. It straddles that line between mindlessly watching episodic adventures and caring about larger character arcs, and seems to satisfy our need to be entertained. Kristen Bell (whom we discovered & loved in the philosophical yet thoroughly enjoyable The Good Place) carries the young-adult-detective-soap on her shoulders. Enrico Colantoni (whom we remember with some fondness from Person of Interest though he played a mob boss) plays her adorably goofy dad who is also a sharp PI. Spotted Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones) and Tessa Thompson (MIB: International and Thor) guest-starring in some of their early TV roles.
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We really liked the first season of The Lincoln Lawyer, so when S2 dropped, we dived right in. As expected, it was very well executed, and the break between volume one and two was excruciating. Good payoff, and if you are a seasoned TV-show-watching detective, your gut will ultimately turn out to be right. Good arcs for all the characters you start caring for. Definitely recommended.
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When Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett get together and do anything, you obviously have to watch it. Good Omens S1 was an expectedly riotous ride. S2 though was a bit mixed – one of us enjoyed the minisode format while the other didn’t. The overall verdict is that it doesn’t outshine S1, but is worth watching nevertheless. As expected, stellar performances by the leading cast with many cameos from well-known actors from other shows. (Vidya: Love, love, love David Tennant & Michael Sheen, cannot decide who is cuter 💕)
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We also watched Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan movies. This is a fantasy series that uses names from ancient Thamizh kingdoms for its characters, and one should firmly reject the idea that there is anything historical about it. The star-studded cast is simply mind-blowing till you realise that this is Mani Ratnam’s cachet being brought to bear. Everyone has spectacular high points in their performances and most have really low points as well. Some plot points are abandoned, some others are left unresolved, and there are some continuity issues. By the time the second movie ends, you really don’t care enough about anyone – even those you were completely invested in at the end of the first movie – to enumerate any of the failings. The movie is a visual extravaganza, the battles are depicted on an epic scale, the action is frenetic and the cinematography is stunning – pretty run-of-the-mill for a blockbuster these days. Overall, not a series to fret about missing.
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Manifest finally ended, and what an ending it was! Most long series end on a semi-unsatisfactory note, especially where they have taken you into long torturous rabbit holes. But some manage to pull off utterly brilliant endings that leave you completely satisfied and Manifest has managed to do it especially well. Without going into further details, we urge you to watch it 🙂
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Jack Ryan Season 3 is more of the same – entertaining and engaging when you watch it. Pretty much unmemorable when you try to recall it later.
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Vidya watched The Sex Lives of College Girls created by Mindy Kaling with some apprehension because Mindy’s whacky The Mindy Project took time to get into. But the show proved unexpectedly endearing and giggle-inducing. Highly sexualised, of course. S2 started flagging a bit with a predictable storyline and characterisation, but looks like there is going to be a S3. Surprise side note: One of the four leads is Pauline Chalamet, sister of the other famous Chalamet!
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That's it for this issue, folks! Feel free to write to us at happystuff@sigamany.in or just fill out the form here with your thoughts, ideas and good wishes :)
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See you in the next issue!
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Disclaimer: We have no affiliation, commercial or otherwise, with any products and services we mention in the newsletter.
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