deviousways

The lovingly restored dining room as it looks now   This is what it looked like before Experience history in harmony with nature Picture a dilapidated Portuguese bungalow, decaying into a morass of falling timbers and peeling plaster. The surrounding lush landscape makes the house appear all the more forlorn and surreal. Yet there is serenity too. As if the sprawling structure is waiting for someone to wake it up from deep slumber. That haunting quality is what drew Bennita and Ganesh Subramaniam to the crumbling house, deep within the heart of Curtorim, a quiet village in South Goa. And it led them to embark on a labour of love, to create a home so filled with light and colour, all the shades of the rainbow seem reflected in it. A home so replete in history and heritage, that they decided to share it with absolute strangers. A home by the river The 200-plus-year-old home they have so beautifully restored is now known as Arco Iris, meaning 'rainbow' in Portugese ...

Living in courage is such a beautiful phrase, full of meaning. I know women who live like that. Every day. M, a dear friend, is one of them. She is a firecracker of a girl, pint-sized. Always dressed to kill. Wears the highest heels, favours huge, retro sunnies and rocks animal prints. And yes, she colour coordinates everything--from her eyeliner to her bracelet, her lipstick to her nail polish. M has been working since she finished college. Because one fateful holiday, her father and sister drowned in front of her eyes. They were vacationing in Goa then. M and her sister got caught in a rip tide. Their father jumped in to save them. She ended up breaking the news to her mother. Her mother, like many women who were married off pretty young, is a housewife. Her life revolved around her home, husband and children. She never ventured out on her own. Then everything she was familiar with, collapsed around her. That was nearly 13 years ago. M was a young girl then, on the cusp of w...