My 4 top favorite Instagram accounts | Friday’s List

January 31, 2015January 31, 2015 / Srishty / 6 Comments

After excitedly clicking photos for several future posts this past Sunday, I finally managed to do none of those posts till now and here I am, presenting the Friday’s List today on something totally out of the blue. I am not sure how many of you use Instagram but it wouldn’t hurt to know my favorite Instagram-ers because no matter what the medius, all hail content! 😀 So, here you go:

1. indiapictures

It was so hard to narrow down on one picture from their account to share here. I LOVE their page – I don’t have enough words to describe how I feel about every image they post, marvelous is probably too understated a word for them.

2. SoDelhi

Now I don’t follow any other Delhi guide kind of account on Instagram, so I have nothing to compare them to but I love their work, love how artfully they bring to table even the simplest of things and love how their love for Delhi shines through their account!

3. krsnamehta

The designer and owner at India Circus, his personal account is a diary of everything Indian and everything else that he loves. I like the way he perceives things while clicking, I don’t know if he puts a lot of effort while clicking for Instagram or not but I like his vision from what it appears to be from the pictures.

4. melangeofmusings

This is Sara’s account who blogs at ‘Melange of Musings’. A lifestyle blog by a girl, nothing that you haven’t heard of before, in fact you are reading one right now. However, Sara’s blog and her pictures on Instagram are unique in their own way. Her attention to detail is breathtaking and it is quite evident how painstakingly she works on making her blog posts thorough and, of course, the pictures speak for themselves.

That’s all, but before I end this post, I would like to mention that there are many Instagram accounts, probably better than the ones that I mentioned as far as artful photos are concerned but these 4 are the ones that fill me with excitement as soon as I come across a new picture by them. If you are big time into artful photos, you should definitely follow Instagram’s own official account where they keep sharing about fabulous Instagram accounts ranging from accounts dedicated to vintage cars to food architecture to sketching and doodles and what not. Then, of course, there are amazing street style photographers, not to mention the king of street style photography – the Sartorialist.

I’ll leave the rest to be explored by you. 🙂

Disclaimer: All pictures have been taken from the respective Instagram accounts. I claim no ownership.

Life Instagram-ed #13

January 8, 2015 / Srishty / 11 Comments

First things first, I got honored with the ‘Very Inspiring Blogger Award’ by Jen @ The Haute Mommy Handbook. So very happy that she thought of me for awarding this. 🙂

Now I don’t think anyone missed having Life Instagram-ed posts around, but I missed writing these. 😀 The reason you are seeing less of these and Street Style posts is that my phone has broken down and I used to use my phone camera. Today, I really wanted to do this, so I used my mom’s phone, used Insta through laptop, basically went at great lengths to get my Instagram feed here. Finally, here you go from what you last saw in Life Instagram-ed #12:

1. What do you think this is? No guessing game, I can’t wait to tell you. It’s a fabric piece from Shanker Market, Connaught Place when I was roaming there with one of my best friends while she selected some fabric for her sister’s marriage and I drowned in the gorgeousness. If you are even a tiny bit into getting your clothes stitched, this market is a must visit place. Though let me warn you it’s not exactly cheap. Still, must visit!

2. This is from the Gurpurab celebrations in the area where I live. It’s a Sikh festival for the birth of the first Guru. Notice how coordinated everyone looks cleaning the road ahead for their Holy Book to arrive. It’s funny how faith can bind or break us. 🙂

3. From the same procession, you see the ‘Panj Pyare’. Honestly, I never knew about what they signify even though I have seen them/heard about them since childhood. Having used Google, here’s what they are: While I did know the literal translation ‘The 5 beloved ones’ (I know this much Punjabi), they represent the first five men who were initiated into the Khalsa (the emodiment of the Guru) in the Sikh ceremony of initiation by their 10th Guru.

3. The Holy Book of the Sikhs – Shri Guru Granth Sahib ji.

4. Aah, this. :’) This is that side head-gear that you usually see Muslim women wearing commonly known as ‘Passa’ or ‘Jhoomar’. I really wanted to have own since a long time. I think this one is so very pretty and is as not pricey either. I got this for INR 800. The only problem is that it is very heavy, so doesn’t stay put in my thin hair. I imagined myself looking beautiful when I wore this to a friend’s wedding recently, but it was coming off every 5 seconds due to my thin hair!!

If you live in Delhi and want to buy this, let me know and I’ll be happy to share the shop details.

5. When you have Nachos but no dip and no inclination to make any, you gather whichever vegetables are there in the kitchen and preferably chopped already. 🙂

6. This one is special. One of my good friends from the blogging world, Krupa from Ishtyle Awhile, sent these earrings as a gift when I won a fun quiz on her blog. This is the first time I have ever won in a contest like this, you know, and the personal note was a cherry on the cake!

7. This one is really, really important. If you are into baking at all, you should definitely try this recipe of Garlic Pull-Apart Rolls. Trust me, if I can do this, anyone can because I always face issues while baking in our microwave. I cannot stress on how badly I want you to try this recipe for it’s easy, tasty and satiates the craving for baking breads to some extent. Please do make this! I have made this thrice, the first time following the exact recipe, the second time replacing all-purpose flour (maida) with wheat flour and the third time adding paneer bhurji (cottage cheese dish) as a filling. So if you have anything to ask when you try the original recipe, feel free to ask. 🙂 Only thing to keep in mind is that you must have a convection mode in your microwave for any baking and if you use gas cook-top for baking, then I won’t be able to suggest the tweaks for this recipe as I don’t know about that. [Bhakti, this is the recipe we talked about].

Pheww! I typed this post twice as I lost the draft. 😀 That’s pretty much it. 🙂

Take care & keep smiling 🙂

Life Instagram-ed #12

November 1, 2014November 2, 2014 / Srishty / 20 Comments

Hi everyone 🙂

I have nothing to say right now, so I’ll just directly move to life snippets that I managed to capture since the past two months:

1. I tried this recipe from The PinkTrends here and I have one thing to say to you all: try it. 🙂

2. This is from a restaurant, Abbey Road in Cyber Hub, Gurgaon. I liked the fun vibe at this place, extremely good ambiance. However, I reached late here for someone’s farewell so I did not eat anything. Oh, by the way, they give you cupcakes when you leave. 🙂

3. Eating maggi with a sprinkling of Amul Mozarella cheese and Ching’s Secret Schezwan chutney. My dreamy and unhealthy life. :’) Just kidding, you should totally avoid maggi! I am trying too.

4. The Navratri festivities in our society. This is the ‘prasad’ after the kirtan. For non-Indians, Navratri is a Hindu festival of nine days where we worship Goddesses. Some people hold events in which they sing hymns called Kirtan and prasad is like sweet little things given as gifts/favours after the event. Like, candies on Halloween? (Oh my God! this was difficult 😛 )

5. The Goddess idol from the same Kirtan in my society.

6. I spotted these beautiful earthen wares at a roadside seller’s stall.

7. Then, I tried this recipe from Suraksha di’s blog.

8. I went to Monkey Bar in Vasant Kunj, Delhi. Frankly, from the newspaper coverage when it inaugrated, I expected it to be a huge place. I was a little disappointed. I liked the food and I’ll definitely go again because there are many things on the menu that I want to try. It’s not exactly a value for money place but let’s just say it is not as pricey either as Delhi’s food scene overall is. Overall, I had a great time (because I got to play foosball for the first time).

I don’t know if I have mentioned, but I am not good at any sports (except running?) so I am embarrassed to try games anywhere because I feel like a loser. As I was with people in front of whom I am never embarrassed, I finally went ahead. 😀 Now I’ll probably start using the foosball table in my office finally. By the way, this not being good at sports is one of the very few things that make me different from Monica of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. 😛 Why I am writing so much random stuff is beyond me as well. 😛

9. The book that I was reading. I know that you know which one it is. 🙂 (If you don’t and are curious, feel free to ask in comments).

10. Sam’ cafe in Paharganj.

Now, most people find this place overrated. I quite enjoyed my meal. I am definitely going here again. I tried the Lasagna (not in picture) which was very good, these fries and chocolate milkshake. These fries were a little bland for my taste but nothing a little salt on top can’t fix. The milkshake was super yummy. Plus, they have a rooftop seating as well. Paharganj is anyway one of the places I love going to, I am definitely heading here again. Did I mention this place is quite easy on the pocket? MUST TRY.

11. Rangoli colors on Diwali.

12. Rangoli part-1

13. Rangoli part-2

14. Ching’s Secret new soups that we tried. I liked it but maybe most people won’t. There was nothing exceptional to it but I enjoy all kinds of soups. I try to consume less of these instant ones though. However, they are easy to have and tasty too.

That’s all! Tell me what all you liked or hated. 🙂

Life Instagram-ed #11 | Philippines Edition

October 7, 2014October 7, 2014 / Srishty / 16 Comments

Despite the long weekend, I was away from posting. That’s because a colleague took my laptop charger mistakenly and he is on leave till tomorrow. Yes, plans to kill him are in the making. Anyway, here is the last post of my Philippines trip, you can check out the first post (which was in parts) here and here. The second post can be checked out here.

The last post is basically the Instagram diary of my trip, hope you enjoy it. 🙂

1. This is on Suwarnbhumi Airport, Bangkok from where I had my connecting flight. Ok, judge me all you want but I clicked this because I realized I haven’t taken a photograph since the beginning of my journey. But I was super tired at the airport (as I had watched back to back movies in the previous flight and did not sleep at all). Therefore, I clicked this because I did not have to move an inch from where I was sitting for this! 😛 I can’t believe how kick-ass this picture has come! 😀

2. Hotel’s mini bar. These caramel pop corns were delicious but one could easily tell that the salt and sugar content was so high.

3. Tomato soup. This was my dinner the day I did not go out. I told the room service to give me extra bread crumbs. I don’t know what they would have given me if I hadn’t said that.

4. Easy guys, the waffles were not as good as they look. 🙂 But this drink that you see, the papaya smoothie, was beyond wonderful. I loved it so much that on most days, I had this instead of trying out different drinks. So much so that the guy on the papaya smoothie counter of the cafe started recognising me and made small talk with me a day asking me things like when am I going back to India. It was sweet. I wanted to be served by him on my last day but it did not happen somehow.

5. This was the vegetarian pasta at Seattle’s Best Coffee in Greenbelt 3. It was fine but the best thing about it was that this was entirely vegetarian. Even the bread did not have eggs. That’s hard to find in my opinion in a country where the staple is not vegetarian. By the way, this picture reminds me of that incident of being followed by three guys, I was having this when the whole incident started.

6. This is in Charles & Keith in Greenbelt 5. 😀 They were having a contest where if you share a picture of their store on Instagram, you get 10% off. I was here to buy my mom a wallet. I think this was the only thing formerly decided about my trip. 😛

7. Oh, I liked this quite a lot. This was tofu in Soya garlic sauce and I ordered rice on the side. Although it’s weird as both the things are dry (I did not know that this dish would have negligible gravy), I quite enjoyed having this meal. This was in the restaurant ‘Recipes’ in Greenbelt 3.

8. This was from Burger King in Glorietta Mall. I asked them if they have anything vegetarian and they told me that they would remove the chicken patty from the chicken burger but what I understood was that they would remove the chicken patty and put in a veggie patty. 😛 It was only when I opened my take-away back in the hotel room that I realized what has happened. 😛

9. Spring rolls in Lorenzo’s Way in Greenbelt 5. This is from the goodbye dinner that I had with my client people. These spring rolls were not very good by the way.

10. This is from the same dinner. This mango-guya (a local fruit) drink was super yummy. By the way, my client people were so thoughtful that they asked the waiter to bring the shrimps separately from the rice so that I could also taste the rice. This rice was yummy by the way.

11. Again, from the goodbye dinner. 🙂

12. The awesome shoes that I bought from SM Market. They were for PHP 300 (INR 390). Yay!! 😀

This was all from my side from the Philippines trip. I can do a haul post too but so far, I haven’t planned to do it (simply because it’s a hassle to click everything now :P), let me know if you really want me to do it. 🙂

Life Instagram-ed #10 and hello from Philippines! :D

September 11, 2014September 11, 2014 / Srishty / 39 Comments

Hi everyone! 🙂

Ok, it is a little creepy on my part that I am saying hello from Philippines after spending 4 days here and when it’s almost time to come back. 😛 (Honestly, I imagined myself writing a post the day I reached 😛 ) Anyway, that did not happen. I don’t know why. I am here on a business trip and this is my first international trip. 🙂 The moment I realized that this is my first international trip, something popped in my head. On one of my earlier posts, Tatsat had commented that ‘you will go places with your attitude’ for some reason. Somehow, when I read that comment, it felt very, very heart-felt. I am not sure if he wrote it like that or it’s just me but I felt like he actually is sending a wish for my success. Whatever be the case, I was reminded of this comment. 🙂

Coming back, this is NOT my Instagram feed from my stay in Philippines (because Hi! I am Srishty and I cannot break the sequence). I haven’t done the Instagram post here since mid-June and therefore, I couldn’t skip that and start with Philippines. So, here you go from around two-three months back:

1. The renovated Fab India in Block-A, Connaught Place. I LOVE Fab India by the way and their new store is not only about the stuff they sell! Just look at it.

2. That is the Kailash Colony metro station. They have these paintings all over the platforms and I love them!

3. I just clicked this randomly and it did not look like refined oil at all. I asked people on Instagram to guess what this is and somebody said beer too. 😀

4. Visited one of my favorite places, Sukhdev Dhaba in Murthal (Delhi-Haryana higway) after a long time.

5. Randomly reading a magazine.

6. That is my cupboard and the day I received these sunglasses, I was clicking them with everything. Doesn’t it look super cool though? Like someone awesome’s stuff? 😛

7. Please read point 6. 😛 This was clicked on our way to Agra when some of us friends planned a one-day trip there (yes, post will be up once I am back, so many posts lined up in my head!!) That’s my scarf by the way, the one that I wear to protect my hair/face from Delhi ki garmi 😛 (heat).

8. This is from the restaurant ‘Not Just Paranthas’. Post coming up soon. 😛

9. That is the famous(?) ‘Pizzeria Rossa’ in Hauz Khas village. I don’t know, I found it pretty average. I have this feeling though that their starters might be good. I tried two dishes and found them average. The pasta was average and the dessert tasted regular too (I am not anyway a well-informed person when it comes to dessert).

10. Random click in Rapid Metro because I was wearing my favourite pants from Van Heusen (but they are not quite visible :P).

11. The new client’s office in their India location, the only thing to cheer me up there is this area.

That’s it. 🙂 Regarding my stay, I am feeling kind of lonely, I always thought that I’ll love being alone as a tourist but that’s actually not the case. Although I am enjoying myself but like someone who travels a lot, not like a tourist. I don’t feel like covering a lot of places, I just want to chill and explore things around me. However, I know I’ll regret this later when people ask me things like where did you go in the Manila city. I don’t know why people’s opinion matters so much to me.

Pheww. Thanks for reading, guys. 🙂 😛

Life Instagram-ed! #9

July 15, 2014July 16, 2014 / Srishty / 21 Comments

This is going as a really, really hectic work week (past week too) and not in a good way. I mean I am only correcting mistakes over and over again, either my own or of someone else’s. I have so many posts lined up, some in drafts and some only penned down in my notebook waiting to see light of the day! Soon, very soon.

Since I was dying to write here, I chose an easy thing to post right away. Here are snippets from my life captured on instargam since, I don’t know, past 100 weeks? 😛

1. Nail color that I was wearing long ago. I usually buy local nail paint, which, mind you, is a bad habit. You should be sure of the quality. Well, you can say this is something bad that I do?

2. My first PR sample. I was so happy when I received this. The happiness was multiplied because of two things: Tips & Toes being an Indian brand and Tips & Toes being a cruelty-free brand.

3. New slippers that I bought from the local market. They are very comfortable and as you can see, they look nice and fun to lounge around in.

4. I tried peanut butter a long time ago, liked it, had it in my mind but never got around to buying a jar for myself. Recently, a friend got those ‘imported’ Reese’s peanut butter chocolates to India and that rang a bell. It is one of my drugs now. 😛

5. Some of us friends met some time back and coincidentally, all of us were wearing these beige sort-of shoes. I am the one who is wearing sandals, by the way. 🙂

6. Last to last Sunday’s edition of Hindustan Times’ Brunch magazine was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. It had a cover story on must read Indian novels. As I enjoy reading Indian novels the most, I thoroughly loved this story. (For those who don’t know, Hindustan Times is a newspaper in India).

7. When you live with parents, many a times you get a refrigerator stocked up with fruits. Lovely, ain’t it?

8. This is the very famous, very old Wenger’s Bakery in Connaught Place, Delhi. Personally, I always feel that this place is a little over-hyped. But I also feel the need to explore it more to be sure of my opinion. Give it a go sometime?

9. My favorite photo. Wearing a hot pink salwar and reading a vintage book. This is what we call Vintage chic. 😉 By the way, if you have a store in your city, do check out stuff at ‘Sabhyata’. They have a very nice collection of Indian wear.

10. Because the previous picture had all beautiful things except my watch. 😉

Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed putting it up. Now my eyes are not even able to open up properly. Good night guys! I’ll be back soon. 🙂

Life of Srish

Because every tiny thing is worth a snapshot

Life Instagram-ed