Professor Sid

Every city has its own smell, or so I like to believe. Something of its culture that's spread out in the air. Something that you breath in and make a part of you. Istanbul's air is full of warmth. Even when the temperatures are low the air is warm with the smells of the welcoming city.  The most distinct smell I encountered walking on the streets was the smell of Roasted Chestnuts. Chestnuts are a popular street food in Istanbul and you'll be able to find several of these carts roasting and selling them. Some of them also sell you roasted corn. The smell of that wood burning is a smell that dominates the streets, you can just smell the air and tell there's a chestnut cart close by.  Coffee is the most distinguishable smell in the air of Istanbul. It is the first fragrance you are likely to recognize the moment you land at the airport. The streets are crowded with coffeehouses and the fragrance of coffee is a constant invitation to have some.  Throughout my trip in Istan...

To be content and joyous in life one should spend more on experiences than on materials and quantifiable items. That’s what most travel experiences begin thinking about - mine too. I heard somewhere that you are likely going to experience a different culture 100km away from yourself and I have noticed this time and again, the farther I go the more different people start sounding and behaving.  I am a keen observer of people, and getting a chance to observe them in different places is a treat for me. Everywhere I go, especially if it's beyond 100kms away from my surroundings I look for how people are different from where I come from and the differences fascinate me.  Turkey is the first country I travelled to by choice, it was an amazing experience. In Turkey I stayed in Istanbul for 7 days and during these days I experienced some of Istanbul. I’m going to talk about this experience with the help of the 5 senses and tell you what Istanbul looks like, smells like, tastes like, s...

 "All happiness depends on is a leisurely breakfast" They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but we all function pretty well without it. i can't really afford a leisurely breakfast every morning on weekdays like most of the others, there's too much to do and too little time early mornings, and in all the rush the poor breakfast goes down in the priority. Most of the time, I skip it all together! Yeah I know bad habit sorry! Anyway skipping to the interesting part, this weekend  I went over to my uncle's place, besides other things breakfast was on the agenda; ad he took me to a place that turned out to be serving really yummy breakfast. We had kachori that morning. Now what is kachori you may ask? A kachori is a little poori or flat bread deep fried, the difference between a poori and kachori is that the latter is filled with daal. These kachori that I had for breakfast were served with Aaloo ki sabzi (potato curry) and dahi (yoghurt). The dahi e...

At the beginning of 2020 I had 2 main things on my list to do, one was to finish reading at least 40 books in the whole year; at the end of 2018 with my university and office and life I was able to read 36 books in the whole year which was the highest number of books I've ever read in a whole year, and thought of upping my game by reading at least 40. Although, I've always wanted to read 50 books a year, but really pushing myself wasn’t on the agenda so from 36 to 40 wasn’t such a big deal I could do it. But then guess what happened? Covid-19 happened and we were locked down in our houses for months, all my other entertainment outlets were closed and all I had left was a TBR list.  So I kept on reading and reading and here towards the end of the year I'm at 60 books which is now the highest number of books I've read in a year, almost 1 book a week! And that is my biggest accomplishment for the year.  Oh wait, the second thing I had planned for 2020 was taking two trips ...