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About

Anita means grace. Hey, don’t look at me, I didn’t choose my name.

I work as a com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sional. I grad­u­ated in Physics and then spe­cial­ized in Jour­nal­ism and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Don’t ask me why :-)

My great­est regrets are not being able to sing, dance and play a musi­cal instru­ment. None, for the lack of try­ing though.

I’ve always wanted to learn lan­guages. I know Assamese, Hindi, Eng­lish. I can under­stand a bit of Marathi, Ben­gali and a few words of Kan­nada. I learnt French at the Alliance Fran­caise for well over two years. I made some gen­uine efforts but I’m not too good with lan­guages is what I’ve sur­mised. After tying the knot with a Ban­ga­lore boy, the pres­sure to learn Kan­nada is now very high. Swalpa adjust maadi — it’s hap­pen­ing (albeit at snail’s place)!

It took me a while to get where I am in life. After a few stormy, tur­bu­lent years, I’d say I’ve reached a stage where I’m rea­son­ably content.

My cat Kit Kit came into my life in 2001. It was a stormy, rainy night and her mother left her on my doorstep. She was a few weeks old. I took her in and she’s been with me ever since. I knew noth­ing about cats at that time. But with Kit Kit, I’ve real­ized they’re one of the most grace­ful, beau­ti­ful and inde­pen­dent ani­mals and make lovely pets. You can never own them, and that’s why I love them! I think it was just meant to be.

My first crush was in school. The guy was from another school’s debat­ing team. I thought he was awe­some. He wore glasses, looked really intel­lec­tual. In hind­sight, he was quite a dork. I never got to talk to him. Which was prob­a­bly a good thing! :)

I have no roots. I have lived all over the place includ­ing:
– Jorhat (early child­hood)
– Shil­long (childhood/school)
– Guwa­hati (col­lege)
– Pune (post-grad)
– Wollongong/Sydney (over­seas adven­ture)
– Mum­bai (mostly spent in local trains)
– Ban­ga­lore (work and play)

I have a wan­der­ing and rest­less spirit, which annoys my mom no end. She’d like to see me “set­tled” (as she never fails to men­tion in any con­ver­sa­tion she has with me) while I con­tinue to feign igno­rance of that term in the con­ven­tional sense. She seems to be doing less of it now that I’ve crossed over to the “other side”.

I like the con­cept of being a global cit­i­zen. I don’t yet sub­scribe to the the­ory of grow­ing roots and get­ting old in one place, liv­ing there for the rest of my life. Maybe, I’ll change my views once I get older. Maybe, I won’t.

I am pas­sion­ate about travel. Stuff I’d like to be doing ide­ally (given the money and time):
– Scuba div­ing in Mau­ri­tius (or even Laksh­wadeep)
– Rid­ing camels in Egypt
– Trekking in the Himalayas
– Doing a long drive on Australia’s South­ern Coast
– Tast­ing wine in the vine­yards of France
– Cross­ing the Eng­lish Chan­nel
– Raft­ing in the rivers up North
– Chill­ing out in the Bora Bora islands

I’d also like to see much more of India — what a beau­ti­ful country!

I’m an enthu­si­as­tic ama­teur pho­tog­ra­pher. I love going out with my cam­era in hand and tak­ing pic­tures. I can do it for hours on end. I also do assign­ments — mostly por­traits, wed­dings, inte­ri­ors, exte­ri­ors etc. when­ever the oppor­tu­nity comes up.

I dab­ble in art occa­sion­ally. It’s some­thing that gives me a lot of plea­sure. Mostly, I do it for myself, my friends and occa­sion­ally for peo­ple who specif­i­cally want some­thing for their walls. I can do this for hours on end too. I must admit that I no longer paint and am hop­ing to take a sab­bat­i­cal some­time to get back to it.

I like play­ing bad­minton but I don’t do enough of it. I also like swim­ming and would ide­ally love to live beside water (being a Pis­cean I could prob­a­bly live in water!). But I also love the moun­tains, brought up in the lovely hill sta­tion of Shil­long. I had a most blessed and charmed child­hood — it was truly one of the most beau­ti­ful places to grow up in.

Over the last few years, I’ve taken to run­ning and cycling as my ways to keep fit — they’re prob­a­bly the best things I did after mov­ing to Ban­ga­lore. As an aside, I also get to inter­act with some very inter­est­ing peo­ple across all walks of life. The great thing about being a part of dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties is find­ing oth­ers with com­mon inter­ests, like minded peo­ple and explor­ing what dri­ves them — it never ceases to fas­ci­nate and amaze me. I am a part of Run­ners for Life and the Ban­ga­lore Bik­ers Club.

At 10, I wanted to be fed (mostly); at 15, I wanted to be a heart sur­geon; at 20, a pilot; at 25 I wanted to be a career woman (what­ever that means). Later, I realised I didn’t much care for that either. I’m tak­ing things as they come right now and liv­ing life to the fullest.

When I first dis­cov­ered blogs in 2001, I jumped onto the band­wagon almost imme­di­ately. I started my blog at this place. Later I moved to my own domain. I used MT for a few years and then moved to WordPress.

My blog jour­ney has been inter­est­ing. I’ve met some won­der­ful peo­ple, made friends in many cities, had some great expe­ri­ences. But when peo­ple ask me what it’s all about in a nut­shell, it’s rather dif­fi­cult to explain. I think it’s some­thing that needs to be expe­ri­enced. Over a period of time. If you don’t have one yet, get one!

I love writ­ing. I used to keep jour­nals while grow­ing up, which I burnt, sym­bol­i­cally as I thought I was going to begin a new life. Now, I’ve switched to the online mode. When I’m in my 50s, I think it will be inter­est­ing to turn back to 2001 and read about the stuff I’ve writ­ten since.

I cur­rently reside in Ban­ga­lore, India. It’s a lovely city. The weather is beau­ti­ful, espe­cially when it rains. I dig the oppor­tu­ni­ties it offer for travel. The fact that I can get onto an overnight bus and reach another state. And all the great peo­ple I’ve met. But I hate the traf­fic (and I also realise the fact that we’re respon­si­ble for it). I hate the honk­ing. And the badly designed speed break­ers. And the fact that every­day I see those lovely old trees dis­ap­pear. And I’m only too glad that there are organ­i­sa­tions like treesforfree.org. And I think that it’s even more impor­tant that we all do our lit­tle bit before we say adieu! It’s a short life we have on earth — enjoy it, do some­thing worth­while and leave the rest upto… chance, lucky and destiny.

QUICK LIST

Love: Kit Kit (my adorable cat who came into my life in 2001), DS (who came into my life in 2006), corn (in any form), books, movies, music (long live rock & roll), pho­tog­ra­phy, trav­el­ling, trekking, run­ning, cycling, laz­ing around, cock­tails, wine, almonds, cashews, let­ters, sta­tionery, cats, tigers, wildlife, blue eyes, avo­cado, tea, trees, rain and the list goes on

Hate: Pes­simism, peo­ple who have bad atti­tudes and are nasty, fanat­ics (of any kind), cow­ards (any kind), rash dri­vers (who honk too much), tempo trucks, spit­ting, smok­ing, shov­ing, star­ing, trav­el­ling in crowded Mum­bai locals (ah, what a relief to be out of that!)

CONTACT
If you have some­thing nice to say: anitabora5 at red­iff­mail dot com or use the con­tact form.

Discussion

234 Responses to “About”

  1. As I was look­ing for Indian blog­gers I camo to know about it.To be pre­cise I was look­ing for Assamese bloggers.The way you’ve writ­ten your intro­duc­tion I think you’ve done the right thing to choose jour­nal­ism as your career,you’ve cre­ativ­ity and the power to express your­self which I think most of us don’t pos­sess to let the world know what is there in our brain & heart.Keep it up !!

    Posted by Pranjal Baruah | August 26, 2010, 11:24 am

  2. Swalpa adjust madi!

    Posted by Rajesh | September 14, 2010, 5:56 pm

  3. nice lines qute intro

    Posted by Rajesh | September 14, 2010, 5:57 pm

  4. hmm, aapka com­ment box failed to read the dev­na­gri script which is bit of shame. Govinda said NAAM SE KYA LENA MERA KAAM DEKHO YAARON.

    And I said that aapka blog kabile tarif hai.

    Posted by gaurav | September 30, 2010, 2:36 am

  5. Hello Anita,

    Well its a great info about you and had a grt time to see ur blog such a interesting.….…..and i am try­ing to make a web­site from my past 3 yrs when i am 17 yrs old but till now i did­not but had a small web­site wish u will check and leave me a com­ment for my web­site to my mail wait­ing for your response because had a gr8 time to visit your website.….….…hurree.…..

    Posted by Khetmal Jain | November 2, 2010, 1:02 pm

  6. hey anita :) u r sim­ply superb :) heard a lot abt u.. is thr any other way that we can have a chat ??

    Posted by sameeksha | November 16, 2010, 1:04 pm

  7. anita, i really enjoyed your writ­ing and pho­tos, i look for­ward to more!

    Posted by jdbasketball india | November 19, 2010, 1:02 pm

  8. Excel­lent intro ever seen.…bravo Anita ji.….keep post­ing more…I’m really amazed by your thoughts. They are very pure & trans­par­ent indeed…:)

    Posted by Himanshu | December 1, 2010, 5:45 pm

  9. Please con­tact me. I need your email id other than red­iff­mail. neenu.babu@yaatrika.com

    Posted by Neenu Babu | December 16, 2010, 1:25 pm

  10. First time on your blog and this is by far the best intro I have seen.Keep up the good work!

    Posted by sara | December 27, 2010, 10:32 pm

  11. Very nice effort , add one my blog as an spir­i­tual adventure.

    Posted by kd gupta | January 24, 2011, 10:16 pm

  12. Hi Anita,
    Your blog is so very much full of life.Very well writ­ten and i liked the way you have made those sum­maries, esp the categories.

    Posted by subrat | March 4, 2011, 5:29 pm

  13. Hi Mamon

    I have come to know about many of your activ­i­ties through my wife’s face­book account. Congratulation !

    We have been pub­lish­ing a mag­a­zine Friends

    http://magazine.assamfoundation.net/

    I hope you will like it . I also have a request if we can get some of your arti­cles for Friends.

    Thanks

    Ankur

    you can reply to my hot­mail address

    Posted by Ankur | March 20, 2011, 4:11 am

  14. Hi Anita,
    U r an inter­est­ing per­son, I must say. I love ppl who love life and those who knw how to cel­e­brate every day as an occa­sion. Great blog… Great pic­tures… Great web­site.
    Keep the good work going.
    Want to check out my blog?.. it may not as impres­sive as urs.. bt in the process.….
    http://creativwins.wordpress.com/

    Posted by Priya I. Mandal | April 1, 2011, 4:23 pm

  15. Wow!! You are fan­tas­tic… I like the way you nar­rate things. I like the pas­sion you with which you talk about life. I like the mind that assist you… Sim­ply i like it all. You are awe­some. Keep it up. I wil keep com­ing here.

    Posted by Neseeef | June 13, 2011, 11:25 pm

  16. Hii Anita.…great work…quite impres­sive blog with rich con­tent..
    and sorry for stalking…but i’m quite impressed with your per­sonal life too…I think its quite obvi­ous why you chose “India” as your theme..
    well I;ve gotta request for you…
    Could you please include me in the list of Indian blog­gers.
    I’ve got enter­tain­ment blog.
    url– “http://bollywoodsense.blogspot.com/

    Posted by Irfan haque | June 23, 2011, 10:22 am

  17. Anita,
    Your blog re: Golden Char­iot train is a few years old. Is that train jour­ney still as lav­ish as your com­ments from 2008?

    Posted by Jo | July 24, 2011, 8:40 pm

  18. @Jo: i don’t really have too much updated infor­ma­tion on the Char­iot except that it’s still run­ning and they have been try­ing to improve the expe­ri­ences over the years!

    Posted by Anita | July 26, 2011, 9:21 pm

  19. Hi,
    Got here through Stum­ble­Upon.
    Nice blog and loved your ABOUT section.

    Just wanted to stop by to say ‘Hi’ …

    Cheers!
    Madhu

    Posted by Madhu Nair | July 29, 2011, 8:54 am

  20. Nice Blog, Nice Design, Nice Posts

    Posted by vishal bandre | August 2, 2011, 4:46 pm

  21. don’t mind, if you want, like my sug­ges­tion, fol­low it, else just ignore it, that i found that when i clicks on post com­ment but­ton whole page reloads, but i would like to sug­gest you if you add AJAX tech ( xml­HttpRe­quest, etc stuff ), your blog user can sub­mit their com­ments with­out page load.

    Posted by vishal bandre | August 2, 2011, 4:54 pm

  22. I don’t know how many times I have vis­ited your blogs..Always liked the pics and the words..Being rooted in the same state, I also do share many com­mon feelings..Specially about Ban­ga­lore, you just snatched my words! All the best, will keep vis­itng your blog

    Posted by Abhijit Borah | August 12, 2011, 4:16 pm

  23. Thanks Abhi­jit — glad you enjoy it!

    Posted by Anita | August 16, 2011, 7:58 pm

  24. Though I have read many blogs, this is the first time I’m leav­ing a comment.It was just a mat­ter of Google search for Ban­ga­lore metro work­ers and their demand for a jour­ney in metro for their fam­i­lies. That con­nected me to your blog. I must say you did a great job. A lot of infor­ma­tion in a unique style of writing.

    Regards,
    vivek

    Posted by vivek nambiar | October 19, 2011, 8:26 pm

  25. Anita,

    Greet­ings from the Chen­nai Trekking Club a 14000 mem­ber non profit vol­un­teer based group of out­oor enthu­si­asts. As part of our 4th birth­day we are organ­is­ing an aware­ness event on nature and out­door activ­i­ties. Would you be inter­ested to give a talk as a guest speaker?

    Peter
    http://Www.chennaitrekkers.org
    Peter.vangeit@gmail.com
    9600004509

    Posted by Peter van Geit | February 16, 2012, 8:57 am

  26. Hi Anita,
    Your intro is fas­ci­nat­ing, loved it. Do you have Twit­ter han­dle, please let me know.
    Thanks

    Posted by Alakh | March 13, 2012, 1:30 pm

  27. Hey Anita,
    I have just read ur blog.
    Hmm really good! first i got into read­ing it to know how oth­ers write.
    I must say, i m impressed.
    U can leave a com­ment on my blog or atleast read it…
    Its very sim­ple. i like to keep things sim­ple to make it more reach­able..
    And all the best for ur future endeav­ors..
    Regards,
    Prathipa

    Posted by Prathipa | March 14, 2012, 2:29 pm

  28. First time here and this is by far the best intro­duc­tion I have read. Had heard about you. :)

    Keep up the good work!

    Posted by Nisha | April 21, 2012, 11:04 am

  29. Hi,

    Great blog. Liked read­ing your Cinthol posts and now I look for­ward to read­ing other stuff. And glad to know that you are from Assam, like me.

    Posted by Vaivhav Todi | October 30, 2012, 6:00 pm

  30. Just landed on your blog and I am very impressed. I love the fact that you men­tion, you have no roots. It takes a lot of courage to say some­thing like that spe­cially if one is India. Well done.

    Posted by Shalu Sharma | November 4, 2012, 4:01 pm

  31. @Shalu: thanks a lot! Glad you liked it. I think it hap­pens to a lot of us who are born some­where, brought up some­where else, and then live some­place else. Not sure if it’s a bad thing or a good thing. But it’s fun!

    Posted by Anita | November 4, 2012, 10:48 pm

  32. Thanks Vaib­hav! Will def­i­nitely check out The Greener Pastures :-)

    Posted by Anita | November 8, 2012, 11:39 am

  33. Hi,

    We’re inter­ested in adver­tis­ing on your blog / web­site. Let me know if you’re inter­ested in dis­cussing fur­ther about it.

    Thanks

    Aman­deep singh
    aman@accu-ratemedia.com

    Posted by Amandeep Singh | November 24, 2012, 3:21 pm

  34. Well, you are very inter­est­ing per­son yar..Its nice to know about you :) You’ve got very impres­sive style of writing.…

    I m kind of weird like you…i am soft­ware pro­fes­sional, doing M.Sc cor­re­spon­dence in maths and author of Kan­nada Novel “Anapekshita”!!!..Hoping for ur friendship.…:)

    Posted by Adarsha BS | May 2, 2013, 7:08 pm
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