Goa, India

Best Lifestyle Blog of Goa

New Way to a Sweet Life with Sviten! A product review powered by FBCI

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

In todays time, when health is becoming a big concern, replacement of sugar is need of the hour. Unknowingly just in our regular tea and coffee drinking habits we end up consuming a lot of sugar, and then we have to compromise on enjoying sweets and desserts, but thankfully with products like Sviten, which are natural sweeteners but without having any side effects, any calories and gluten are a blessing.

Somehow I have been off sugar for quite sometime as far as milk and coffee is concerned, but I never really tried making a cake or dessert without sugar. But recently I thought of giving it a try and did my experiment with a simple recipe of making a custard. Having custard after dinner is almost customary in my house, and hence I chose to use Sviten instead of sugar in my custard this time. Also because I was making jelly, which is too sweet, I thought of balancing the custard by making it free of sugar. Trust me it urned out to be as sweet, natural tasting with Sviten as it does with regular sugar.

Must say that I am very impressed with this product and also relived that I can now enjoy desserts guilt free. Now add Sviten not only in regular tea and coffee but also its use in desserts, or making cakes or sweets is as simple, easy and tasty as using the normal sugar. Sviten is a natural sweetener made of Stevia, the best tasting part of the stevia leaf. Its been in use since 200 years and 300 times more sweeter than sugar, but only without calories and completely natural.

So what are you waiting for, make your life sweet but guilt free with Sviten, order from Amazon today!

World’s Best Classic Movies Festival by Navrasa Duende

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

Navrasa Duende, decoded means Navrasa, the nine rasas of art and Duende the quality of passion and inspiration.

Holds true for their Founder Dinesh B.Singh who is a veteran in the business arena and a true patron of art in ant form. His undying love for arts led him to the concept of Navrasa Duende and his never ending urge not only to follow art but also to bring it for the Global audience to partake and experience the various forms of art from across the Globe. It is his endeavor to promote commercial and niche arts from around the world. Navrasa Duende being the first step in this direction.

Recently Navrasa Duende organised a classic movies festival where in classics by two famous directors of that time were shown. The chosen directors were Alfred Hitchcock and Frank Capra.

It was a two day festival and each day, one movie of each directors was shown. I chose the first day of the festival and also the first film, The Man Who Knew Too Much by Alfred Hitchcock. It truly was a trip down the memory lane. Such a pleasant experience witnessing old time classics. The beauty about the movie was its surprising repeat value much appreciated by the audiences present.

A really commendable effort by Navrasa Duende, who have lots more to offer in the near future.  One of the most promising upcoming venture by Navrasa Duende is the Global Carnival, an amalgamation of Dance, Theatre, Visual Arts, Music, Fashion and much more. I am really looking forward to this one. Stat tuned on their Facebook page to get regular updates of events organised by them.

All the best wishes to team Navrasa Duende may they succeed in this most wonderful endeavor and bring the best of Global talent for the art lovers.

Changing Scenarios of the Publishing Industry-Thank God for Half Baked Beans!

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

Started with a mindset to be different right from the very beginning, Half Baked Beans is not just a regular publishing house. Yes they surely publish books, but they have their own uniqueness in every thing that they do, just the way their name is. Their philosophy lies in the fact that their company is not a mere publishing house, but a company that dwells on developing talent, giving them a platform to showcase their work and also bring like minded people together through different workshops and forums.

They very regularly organise creative writing workshops, book launches, book reading sessions, open discussions related to the subject and even run a very successful group on Facebook which again encourages writing, like minded discussions etc on the online platform.

I am a regular participant in the group activities and love exploring my writing skills and who knows one day I am actually able to write a full fledged novel. Seeing so much talent around definitely gives a sense of encouragement.

Recently Half Baked Beans organised a bloggers meet, where in we met not just as bloggers but as book lovers in general and shared our views on the latest trends of the industry, writing skills, marketing needs of the hour and a detailed brief of services offered by HBB. Chetan Soni the man behind Half Baked Beans and Richa Saxena, his subordinate, both shared their passion for books and we got engulfed in a long conversation over some lip smacking snacks at the Pot Belly, Shahpur Jat.

It indeed was a very insightful session, and these open discussions have enlightened me more than before on the publishing industry. We discussed how scandals, political dramas and mythology sells and creates more buzz than other genres. We also discussed the role of book reviews and book bloggers and other marketing needs that are imperative to the success of a book in todays time.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself learning the nuances of the industry.

 

Half Baked Beans also offers many other services like:

  • Editorial Services
  • Beta Reading
  • Book Cover Services
  • Book Design Services
  • Book Marketing Services
  • E-Book Services

You can check out more details at the Half Baked Beans website. You can also follow their page on Facebook for regular updates. They have already published more than 40 books and are growing steadily giving chance to quality authors. Their criteria for publishing books are also fool proof and they don’t publish each and every book that comes their way. They choose quality over quantity.

As a take back I got this wonderful book to read, which I am looking forward to.

Unique Ways To Drop Those Extra Pounds

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

Pic Via Flickr

If you’re struggling to lose weight, perhaps while you’re trying to get beach body ready, you’re probably just not making the workout interesting enough. It’s hard to encourage yourself to get fit when it simply involves doing sit ups and press ups. Or, perhaps heading to the gym to run for an hour on a treadmill, going nowhere. It takes a special kind of person to get invested in these types of monotonous activities. Although, the payoff might ultimately make it worth it.

One possibility you could try is simply wild running. Rather than heading to the gym, you can drive to a forest or country track and go for a run there. You’ll be amazed by the effect the fresh air has on your performance, and the scenery will ensure it is a more fulfilling experience. Here are a few other ways to get fit that are a tad more unique than the typical gym workout session.

Wild Swimming

Pic Source

Since we mentioned wild running, we might as well talk about wild swimming. Wild swimming is all about going for a dip in outdoor areas like rivers, streams, or even lakes. If you’re going to do this, you need to be aware of the dangers. First, you must make sure that the water is warm enough or that you wear a wetsuit. If the outdoor temperature is anything less than around nineteen degrees, it’s probably not.

Also, you have to watch out for fast underwater currents. These can drag you down, particularly if you are not a strong swimmer and make this activity very dangerous indeed.

That said, wild swimming can still be great fun and a fantastic workout. You can find tips online about where to swim in your local area.

Coaching A Team

Pixabay Source

Perhaps you might want to volunteer coaching a sports team. Particularly, if your kid is a member. You might think that coaching is mainly an inactive sport but that’s not true. You’ll have to show them how to hit the ball, tackle, or complete plays. All this can be very active. Of course, you will need to take on other responsibilities such as arranging rewards if the team wins. Luckily, you can find football, rugby, basketball, and cricket trophies by Premier Trophies online. And if in doubt, you can always just take the players for ice cream after the match. Though, this does somewhat defeat the original intention behind the activity.

Shocking, Isn’t It

Pic Link

Finally, if you are just can’t muster the energy to work out, you might want to try shock muscle therapy. Doing this, you send low electric pulses through your muscles, and this stimulates them in the same way as exercise. After a few months or even just weeks, you might find you’ve dropped the pounds while your body can even look more toned. It’s definitely a unique idea, and it does depend on the tech you use as to whether or not you see results.

You see, there’s lots of unique ways to workout before you rush off to the gym.

Picture Via Flickr

Chronux- Book Review

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

A word about the author first.
Sagar Kamath teaches History and International Affairs at Symbiosis International University.
He is a Masters in History and Philosophy and has almost a decade of teaching experience. He has lectured extensively on a wide range of subjects and specializes in issues of religion and politics.
In his free time he loves to explore ‘off the beaten track’ locales which hold a sense of mystique about them.

Chronux is the story of Time or let’s put it this way that Chronux is a story which time tells us about of times past to times in the far future and the times spent inbetween.

The story which starts from a a small village of Aruhu, in the Himalayas takes you on a roller coaster ride through a span of more than 3000 years BC to more than 3000 years in the future,not to forget the time in the present.

It’s a wonderful Juxtaposition of the long past events mingling with the present and the future.

Although a work of fiction a tremendous amount of research has gone into the making of this absolutely rivetting story of Time.

The events described whether in the past, present or future are so realistically portrayed that at times you pause and find that yes all this could be very plausible and true. Really a remarkable piece of storytelling wherein you feel you are a part of this journey. The events described from the past,present and future are beautifully intertwined and does leave one dazed at the aouthor’s imagination and the finesse to put things up so brilliantly.


A must must read for everyone. Go grab your copy now and enjoy a never before experience of fiction/reality. Find out for yourself.

Its available on Amazon for Rs 475 for paperback and 283 for the Kindle version.

My Rating 4.5/5 stars

A Well-Traveled Life Is A Life Lived Well

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

https://www.pexels.com/photo/road-landscape-nature-woman-126313/

Everyone will have their own pleasures in life. Whether you love a hearty plate of food or a fine piece of art, it’s these small luxuries in life that help to keep us alive and kicking. For some, it will always be travel. Travel is one of the few things in life that we spend money on, yet it makes us richer. From experiencing different cultures and meeting new people, to seeing some of the world’s most breathtaking sights and enjoying different climates, travel can really broaden your horizon.

So, it’s not all that surprising that more and more are enjoying a well-traveled life with their children. When you travel as a family, not only are you benefitting from a wealth of experiences, your children are too. You can help to shape their minds, perspectives and even their futures by filling their lives with travel. And, of course, you’re making lots of memories at the same time. If you’re interested in adding a lot more travel into your family life, whether you’re on a tight budget or not, here’s how you can do it and make a life full of travel work for your family.

Pack Well

Firstly, when you’re planning your travels, you’re going to want to be very selective as you pack. Whether you’re going on a summer-long adventure, or on a weekend trip, you want to make every item count. When traveling, it’s always best to pack as little as possible, so that you can get from A to B easily, but you also want to make sure you have all your bases covered. With everything from clothing for the right climate and any survival equipment you may need, you need to pack smart.

Do Your Homework

Alongside packing, you’re also going to want to make sure that you get all of your paperwork and research in order before you leave for your travels. Whether you need to sign up for the Visa Waiver Program before coming to the US, or getting something similar sorted for international travels, or find yourself some insurance, these are the things you should cover off as you plan your journeys.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/guy-city-looking-person-34051/

Shop Around

When it comes to booking your travels themselves, make sure that you shop around. If you’re on a budget, you want to make sure that you get flights or hotels for the best price possible – especially if you want to travel often. Traveling can cost you as little or as much as you’d like it too. You just have to shop around and be flexible with the places you’d like to stay or see at different times throughout the year. If you can grab a good deal on one place, snap it up now and see somewhere else later.

Make The Most Of Breaks

Another key trick to ensuring that your family can travel as much as possible is to utilize the school breaks well. Not only do you have a whole summer to fill with travels if your schedule permits it, but you can also get a lot done in short week breaks or even in a weekend. By being flexible and even working with plans last minute, you could see a lot more of the world.

https://www.pexels.com/photo/action-adventure-alps-conifers-238622/

 

Plan Cultural Experiences

When you start to travel more, you’re opening yourself and your family up to so many incredible cultural experiences. Even if our beautiful United States, there is a lot of heritage to take in – so make sure you see it. It’s a great way for you to boost your kid’s education and ensure that they learn about their history, as well as the history of other cultures around the world. It’s these kinds of experiences that can nourish their little minds as they grow.

Try New Things

It’s always great to open yourself up to new experiences, but the idea can really come alive when you travel. With a wealth of different activities, foods, cultures, experiences and more, available to you, start to say yes to things when you’re traveling. You may find yourself on so many different adventures by just being open to trying new things.

Encourage Exploration

And finally, while you’re traveling with your family, encourage your children as much as you can to embrace every experience. Encourage exploration and curiosity and adventure in them. Not only will this allow them to open up their minds and see things differently, but you’ll also be installing a hunger for travel in them, which they can go on to use in their futures or enjoy with their own families as they grow up.

 

 

Designer Ridhima Bhasin opens her flagship store in South Extension!

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

Ridhima Bhasin recently hosted the launch of her maiden flagship store at South Extension part one. Bustling with fashion enthusiasts, her spring summer collection was received with a lot of awe. Inspired by iconic shapes of Moroccan architecture, the majestic inverted domes, slender minarets, intricate and spell binding jali windows and moorish lamps. the word Lucidus invokes a feeling of light, brightness and clarity that reflects in the ensemble. The collection encapsulates this feeling and mood well with beautiful circular skirts, slender pants, sheer blouses in ivory, apricot, sage green and vanilla hues.

Delicate thread embroideries with hand crafted tassels and hints of silver and moonlit embellishments amalgamate to create this spring summer collection.

The designs strike the right balance between contemporary and conservative with focus on magical cuts and flattering silhouettes.

Ridhima Bhasin is a young and talented fashion designer best known for her contemporary styling of Indian dresses. Ridhima Bhasin was born and bought up in Delhi, absorbing the diverse art culture, architecture and heritage only to find her falling for fashion designing every single day. She further got inspired by her sister Ritika Bhasin, who owns her very own fashion label. Being a part of her sister’s workshop, understanding fabrics and embellishments finally made her decide she had to pursue fashion as a career. Ridhima attended the London College of Fashion and got specialized with all the technical skills while studying Design and Merchandising there. After her graduation in the summer of 2010 she got back to India and started assisting her sister, Ritika Bhasin’s label. She got a chance to enhance her skills, work ethics and designing skills for 3 years. Finally In 2014, with her passion to bring her contemporary chic designs to the Indian market, she introduced her label ‘Ridhima Bhasin’.

Many bollywood celebrities adorn her designer wear and her collection is also available in international markets like Dubai, Indonesia, London and New York, making her one of the youngest Indian Fashion Designer to be successfully retailing her designer wear worldwide.

For me it was a pleasure meeting her personally and checking her collection out.

 

 

Turn from a Couch Potato into a Spring Chicken

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

You only have to look on your social media pages or pop your head into a gym to find people who are hugely enthusiastic about keeping fit. Just about everyone has a friend who talks about it all the time. Not everyone is so upbeat about exercise, though, and many haven’t done any real exercise for a long time. Or maybe even ever. Pretty much everyone has to move every day, from walking to the store to climbing the stairs. But many people don’t really make an effort to do much more than that. If you’re more of a couch potato, you might be thinking that it’s time to start getting fitter.

ThoroughlyReviewed on Flickr

Find Something You Enjoy

Before you get into your new fitness kick, it’s worth deciding how you want to get fit. While it’s tough to push yourself physically, that doesn’t mean it has to feel like complete torture or be really boring. If you’ve never enjoyed running, don’t decide to force yourself out on a run three times a week. You don’t have to enjoy every moment, but your workout should leave you feeling better mentally, even if you ache all over physically. There are so many ways to get active, from team sports to solo pursuits. Find something that works for you.

Choose Your Goals

Staying motivated when you’re trying to get fit is tough. Setting some goals to aim for helps to make it easier to motivate yourself and have a direction to head in. Everyone has different goals when they want to get fit, and they could be both big and small. It’s best to have concrete goals to aim for, instead of a vague “get fit.” For example, maybe you want to be able to run a marathon in a year’s time. Perhaps you want to lose a certain amount of weight, or you just want to climb the stairs at work without huffing and puffing.

Marybettiniblank on Pixabay

Create a Plan

Once you’ve decided on your goals, you should work out a plan to reach them. You should look for advice on the best ways to achieve what you want to do. Take a look at a building muscle for dummies guide if you’re hoping to get strong and buff. Read about how to alter your diet if you want to lose weight. Think about your plan in both the short-term and long-term. Remember that your plan doesn’t have to be set in stone. You can make changes to it.

Start Slowly

If you haven’t exercised in a while, don’t rush into it. You should start off slowly and try to only make one change at a time. If you attempt to turn your whole lifestyle upside down from one day to the next, you’ll have very little chance of sticking to your new routine. Start with just one thing, like going to a new fitness class, and build up to doing more.

Getting fit if you’re not much for exercise can feel like a huge challenge. Create a solid plan, and you’ll have a better chance of success.

Inspire Yourself to Give a Gift With These Fun Ideas

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

For those of us that have a special occasion coming up, have you thought about what you’re getting as a gift yet? Be it a birthday, an anniversary, a seasonal holiday or something more light-hearted such as a friendly reunion, there are plenty of situations in life where we might think about buying a gift. Sadly, it usually turns into a few days of frustration and a lack of ideas, then we’ll cave in and get something generic like flowers, chocolates, a gift card or, even worse, nothing at all!

 

So to give you some excellent sources of inspiration, here are a couple of ways to prepare yourself for the next big event you have. Keep in mind that these are just ideas and you don’t have to resort to them every time, but they’re fantastic ways to gather inspiration so that you have an idea of what to buy in the future whenever you’re stumped for ideas.

Image Credit

Browse online stores

It doesn’t matter what store you look at. If you browse any online store and look at the most popular items that are being sold, you’ll be able to gather a lot of inspiration and get a lot of ideas for gifts. If you look up cool stuff to buy on Amazon, you’ll come across hundreds of different items that are suitable as gifts. Even if you search something like “gift ideas”, you’ll still find plenty of ideas and before you know it, you’ll have more choice than you imagined.

Look at personalised gifts

 Something personal is always good as a gift. Be it a mug that has a special message on it or a customised greeting card to go with something you’ve already bought, customising a gift adds a wonderful touch to any ordinary gift. It can turn something dull and boring like a sweater into a memorable and cherished gift. That’s one of the most important things about gifting; if your recipient remembers a gift and associates it with a positive memory, then it’ll give them a nice boost of happiness that motivates them to work hard and stay positive throughout the day. A personalised gift can be something you make yourself, or it could be something made to order.

Speak to the recipient

If you want some ideas on what to buy your recipient, then look no further than the recipient themselves! Speak to them, ask them about their favourite musical artists, ask which films they like, or even ask what the latest book they read was. As long as you gather up information about your target, you’ll find it gets easier and easier to prepare a fantastic memorable gift for them. Just try not to give it away and let them know you’re planning to buy a gift for them. Speaking to your gift recipient is also a great way to ensure you don’t buy the same gift as someone else. It’s always worth having a chat before you spend money on something your recipient already has!

Are Your Teeth In Tip Top Condition?

Posted on by Aditi Malhotra

https://www.pexels.com/photo/human-lips-65665/

Being human comes with a lot of responsibility. Our bodies are incredibly powerful machines that are super strong and can take us all the way from infancy to old age. To make sure that they can do that, we have a lot of health concerns to take care of. From healthy skin to organs that function properly, our lifestyle choices can make or break the way our bodies handle things. This couldn’t be any truer when it comes to out teeth. Not only are they an important part of our beauty regime, but they also are a huge part of our health. So, you need to be able to ensure that you keep them in tip top condition.

Clean

First things first, we all need to make sure that our teeth are clean. Although you make sure that your brush your teeth for two minutes, twice a day, that might not be enough. You have to get serious about flossing and start to focus on your gums too. If your teeth aren’t properly clean, even if you think they are, your gums will suffer and could even get infected. So, it could be in your interest to book in with a full-scale cleaning service with the hygienist at your dentist’s office. That way, they can be sure to clean off all of the junk and keep your teeth super clean.

White

Perhaps more of a beauty concern than a health one, but it’s always beneficial to your overall oral health to ensure that your teeth are super white. You might want to consider professional whitening options, but they can often be quite costly. If you don’t want to put a lot of money upfront to get whiter teeth, there are alternatives to consider. Along with at-home whitening kits, there’s also the super exciting idea of using charcoal toothpaste to create a longer lasting, shinier whitening effect.

Fresh

Getting back on to the health side of teeth, let’s talk about how to freshen up. Even if you don’t suffer from a strong case of halitosis, nobody likes to think that they have bad breath. So, you might want to take a few precautions to make sure that yours stays extra fresh. If you’re keeping everything clean, then you’re probably doing a good job already, but you’ll also find that mouthwash will help you out with this too. You can even get super strong brands that aim to kick bad breath. And just to be extra sure, it’s always a good idea to keep breath mints to hand.

Straight

And finally, up there with keeping your teeth white for beauty reasons, you might want to think about making them straight. Now, you may have had braces when you were a teen, but that doesn’t always mean that your teeth stay straight. The best part is that you don’t even have to wear the same kind of braces anymore. There are so many different ways to straighten crooked teeth; you can have a teeth straightening treatment and not even notice.

Theme: Overlay by Kaira.  Copyright @ikreatepassions 2024
Goa, India