Bytes from India by Randa Breuer

  Meet Tushar Roy:  Ritz-Carlton  Bengaluru, Karnataka  Meet Tushar Roy. Twenty Seven years old. Manager of the club lounge on the fifteenth floor at the Ritz-Carlton in Bengaluru. Mr. Roy conducts evening art tours showcasing the highlights among the 1250 pieces of artwork at the hotel. He calls it “The Bubbly Art Tour”;  drinks are served and the tour is followed by the Mashal (torch) lighting evening ceremony, out on the hotel portico, adjacent to the entrance’s decorative pool and right next to the Picasso lifelike sculpture, with the artist bored in his rocking chair. The Mashal lighting is a Jaipur tradition, Mr. Roy informed me.   (Photos of the Mashaal ceremony courtesy of Mr. Tushar) Photo below from the hotel Facebook page:  Mr. Roy very kindly agreed to give me my own private viewing of the collection, before my afternoon flight. Our tour took place at 11:30am, after breakfast was served at the lounge and just before lunch started. Tush...

  Nov. 23, Thanksgiving Day - a.m. at ACSA, New Delhi Meet Bar . She is a yoga instructor from Israel who teaches at the American Embassy Club (ACSA) in Delhi. She is all about peace during these unsettling times when our part of the world is burning and reeling with attacks, kidnappings, revenge killing, air strikes, and hate rhetoric - when many of us are united by our common concern for our families living in the Middle East, and by the loss of lives. Bar opens each yoga session with reflections that she reads out loud to her class. They are centering thoughts of mindfulness, peace, and wholeness. They sound like poetry. A balm to the soul.  Today, as it is Thanksgiving Day, the focus is on gratitude.  Bar opens with: “Focus on what you have and not on what you want” (or even need).  Focus on what you have and not on what you want. What a great motto for a class, and what a great value to instill in young people. And not just young people, but adults of all ages....