Our favourite place, growing up...

The book store that we siblings used to frequent when we were quite young. This was when I obsessively read every hardy boy I could lay my hands on and fell really hard for Frank Hardy. Those were wonderful days spent kneeling on the floor and poking through a collection of books, trying hard to pick out only a few from the rows and rows of books that little shop held.

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”
― Jane Smiley, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel

A few of my favourite things...

Hot chocolate fudge is what I more often than not tend to order in every ice cream place I visit... this picture was taken bout a year back in Delhi, after visiting a crowded local market where mehendiwalas occupy one side of the road waiting to weave these intricate patterns for a surprisingly nominal fee.

Pay attention to the intricate patterns of your existence. ~Doug Dillon

One Step at a Time...

Saw this at the Oxford book store, a quaint little book store with a neat hangout place, where one can browse through some great looking coffee table books while sipping on cappuccino  or eating a delicious sandwich or just getting lost in an awesome piece of chocolate cake. (click on the picture for a larger view)

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
~ Lao Tzu

Milky Way...

Milky Way is another nice hangout place, the ice creams here are wonderfully light and soft. It's not luxuriously thick or creamy, so if you're on a diet this is a good place to visit.

Ordered a waffle cone with crunchy choco ice cream and raspberry ice cream, both were pretty good. They have sandwiches and other starters too.

A lot can happen over coffee...

So the previous post shows where to hangout in villages, this one shows the coolest hangout place in a city like Madras, India.

Cafe Coffee Day outlets, like this are seen all over Madras... and they are so tastefully and peacefully set up. The seating is rather cosy with quaint wicker furniture and wooden chairs. The food is pretty good too, its the same stuff you usually get at great hangout places like sinfully good chocolate cakes, brownies, a variety of coffee concoctions and sandwiches.

The ultimate way to relax in villages...

Canals like this are quite common in my hometown, they make a great hangout place... and the running water gives a healthy massage to the body. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Water is the driver of Nature. Leonardo da Vinci

Kids and summer...

Here you see a typical temple pond where a few kids are playing and trying to beat the summer heat in Kanyakumari (my hometown).

Looks like they caught something in their cloth net... kids and summer are an exciting combination, and if you happen to grow up in the countryside, you can bet nothing could be more exhilarating.

A new found blogger buddy - Meri, who is into interior designing and the like did a post on Outdoor Spaces and I sent her these pictures of a typical Indian-village-outdoorsy shot, you can check them out at her blog here.

When I was a little kid, of course, I was brown all summer. That's because I was free as a bird- nothing to do but catch bugs all day.

Roy Blount Jr.