Fall is on its way. There is a slight chill in the air, almost unnoticeable, but when you live in a forever-hot and humid-city, you learn to appreciate even that. So here my friend Fiona and I show you how to  incorporate a summer trend with a fall trend. While she opted to wear her floral dress with a white blazer, I wore mine with an ox-blood blouse. 

"Falling in love is always a pretty crazy thing. It might appear out of the blue and just grab you. Who knows - maybe even tomorrow."

"Sometimes you're just the sweetest thing. Like Christmas, summer holidays and a brand-new puppy all rolled into one."

"But one thing bothers me. Someday you'll get married to some nice girl and forget all about me. And I won't be able to call you in the middle of the night whenever I want to. Right?"

"I think most people live in a fiction. Think of it in terms of a car's transmission. It's like a transmission that stands between you and the harsh realities of life. You take the raw power from outside and use gears to adjust it so everything's all nicely in sync. That's how you keep your fragile body intact."

"Sometimes I feel so-I don't know-lonely. The kind of helpless feeling when everything you're used to has been ripped away. Like there's no gravity, and I'm left to drift in outer space with no idea of where I'm going."

"Why do you have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the Earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?"

"We each have a special something we can get only at a special time of our life. Like a small flame. A careful, fortunate few cherish that flame, nurture it, hold it as a torch to light their way. But once that flame goes out, it's gone forever. What I'd lost was not just Sumire. I'd lost that precarious flame."

"I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do. T dream, to live in the world of dreams - just as Sumire said. But it doesn't last forever. Wakefulness always comes to take me back."

"So that's how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us - that's snatched right out of our hands - even if we are left completely changed people with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way, in silence. We draw ever nearer to our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off behind.  Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness."

It is that time of the year again. Yes, Durga Puja is finally here *does a little dance* For all those who don't get my excitement..Durga Puja is to Bengalis what Christmas is to Christians. It is the one festival every Bengali, atheist or not, has marked on his calendar. And to be in the City of Joy during the festival is the cherry on the cake. New clothes, good food, family, friends, pandal hopping and the sound of 'dhak'! The sound of dhak has got to be the best thing about the puja. Well, after all the shopping though!

Durga Puja is actually a ten-day celebration and it officially started yesterday with Mahalaya.

Mahalaya is an auspicious occasion observed seven days before the Durga Puja. It heralds the advent of Durga, the goddess of supreme power. Goddess Durga visits the earth for only four days but seven days prior to the Pujas, starts the Mahalaya. It's a kind of invocation or invitation to the mother goddess to descend on earth - "Jago Tumi Jago". This is done through the chanting of mantras and singing devotional songs. (Read more here)

I opted for Indo-western on Mahalaya. I love the Indian-ness of the dress. Isn't one of the best things about our country the variety of prints? Also, this dress is designed by my blogger friend Anupriya. You should go check out her designs. No, she hasn't paid me to say this, but she is so damn talented. And affordable too.