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Why Our Attitude Towards Heritage Needs A Big Change? Heritage in Danger! Heritage is the range of our inherited traditions , monuments, objects, and culture.  Most important, it is the range of contemporary activities , meanings, and behaviours that we draw from them.Heritage includes, preserving, excavating, displaying, or restoring a collection of old things .It is both tangible and intangible, in the sense that ideas and memories of songs, recipes, language, dances, and many other elements of who we are and how we identify ourselves are as important as historical buildings and archaeological sites . Over the span of last few years, due to urbanisation many old buildings are neglected and almost 90-95% of our built heritage is in urgent need of attention and repair.I’m sure this holds true for different old/ancient cities and sites across India.The attitude towards our heritage requires a huge change .This is why I feel preservation of heritage is importan
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PURANA QILA ~ The Oldest Fort in Delhi

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"It is better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times." - Asian proverb Main entrance-Bara Darwaza  I recently got a chance to visit Purana Qila (Old Fort) which is one of the oldest forts in Delhi. It was started by emperor Humayun and expanded by Sher Shah Suri in 16th century CE and is now a popular destination both for domestic and foreign tourists.The fort originally lay on the bank of river Yamuna before the river changed it's course.The founder of Suri dynasty Sher Shah Suri defeated Humayun in 1540 naming the fort Shergarh.He added several more structures in the complex during his five year reign.Purana Qila and its environs flourished as the sixth city of Delhi. Talking about the structure,Purana Qila is a testimony to the magnificence of Mughal architecture.It has three majestic gates -Bara Darwaza(in the above picture)which is also used as entrance to the fort, another one is South Gate also known as Humayun gate(because
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Curious Syndrome Of Vanishing Careers!

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"The three C's of life  Choices,Chances,Changes. You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change" In love with a military man? Congratulationsssssss!!!!! . . . In love with your career too? Good for you. . . Until. Until the time comes for you to bid one of the two a tearful goodbye.Hopefully temporarily. Few of my friends asked me what to do of their lucrative careers when they marry their fauji fiance'/boyfriends.A very valid concern for a modern woman who has been brought up to excel professionally and suddenly faced with such dilemma.  What do you focus on,being with the guy you love? or doing the job which you love? All the milspouse have to make such decisions because a military man's career is a cycle of field posting (border/sensitive areas) and peace postings.About 2-3 years separates a field from peace to field posting.Courses are the add ons where one has to move in every 2-3 months. Marry
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Ladies Meet!

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Ladies meet is the military equivalent of a kitty party .This is the only way in which I can explain what a ladies meat  meet is, in the simplest possible way! In earlier days, with no telephones and no other means of frequent interactions,the ladies often felt left out ,especially with their husband away guarding the frontiers.Such meets thus became a means of solace and comfort and also to meet ladies from other units and arms. Ladies meet is mostly held in peace stations where officers live with their families.It is an unsaid rule that every lady must attend this fun filled evening (conditions apply) if she is in the station.With my experience I found few,with awesome stubbornness and not attending the meet at any cost. Thug life! Talking about the dress code-Its mostly saree or it depends upon the senior lady(whatever she decides).Typical ladies meet consists of group games,paper games ,songs,fashion shows,demos of recipes,etc. and some delicious snacks to munch la
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Don't Worry Be Hampi...!

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"Travelling-It leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller."-Ibn Battuta Vittala temple,Hampi I recently visited Hampi.A mythical landscape littered with huge granite boulders balanced precariously on top of each other bound by mythology and history .It is situated on the banks of tungabhadra river in the eastern part of central karnataka.Hampi was the capital of vijaynagar empire.The city though is in the ruins today but still it exudes an aura of pomp and luxury 😊 I landed up in karnataka few days back(perks of being a military wife),you get an unexpected travel anytime and anywhere within the country😉.So,we started our journey from Bellary to Hampi which is about 60 kms.Being an architect I love exploring such places even in the angry sun,but the people whom I was traveling with, were least interested in the heritage site and more interested in their Fauji talks (my husband and other two were his friends.) As soon as we entered Hampi,t
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Sahayak ~ A Superhero?

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Sahayak came out to be a hero of my last post.Everyone seemed to like him a lot. Who is Sahayak? Many of the readers might not know about him.A sahayak is an assistant or helper,and they are fondly called as "buddy"👲 Buddy is someone who acts as a runner to convey orders from the officers to subordinates. Buddy also maintains the officers uniform and personal equipment such as valet. Buddy acts as officers bodyguard in combat. Buddy sometimes also drives the officer's vehicle in combat conditions. The list of job that he does is endless.In short he is an all rounder!! Pati ,Patni & Sahayak Like I discussed in the earlier post that there are times when a woman feels secondary in her husband's life.But the military wife gets demoted one more place down the rung as she mostly comes third in the order, Sports/Gym                                                The Sahayak Military wife The buddy knows more about my husband than
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It's Just The Beginning...

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I didn’t choose this life, I chose him The life was just part of the deal. -Unknown You all must have got an idea that this post will be about my brand new life as a military wife .I am a military wife and I relish every second of it-the good,the bad,and occasionally ugly.Being a civilian I found this life very interesting as well as challenging.It’s like my life has been sculpted into an entirely new existence.  💕 For some reason I feel proud to be a military spouse even though I wasn’t the one who had to get through an extremely tough entrance and train to be a soldier.But my association with my husband gives me a lot of pride and pleasure . 😊 My civilian friends have lot of things to say – you are so strong ! how do you do it ? I also get but what about your career ? A lot from concerned friends and random acquaintances who worry about me having a B.Arch (bachelors in architecture) degree and not slogging my ass off to some architecture office.But,all my m
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