Villa Maya - A special dining experience - Heritage Style

Maya means illusion. Illusion is the heart of a magic performance. But if a man made thing is christened illusion, will it live up to its name?

 

The answer is yes. I found it out after my first visit to "Villa Maya". A new hotel in Thiruvananthapuram. Yes its a hotel. But the dining experience and ambience is worth enough for a detailed review.

 

Rather than a review I will narrate the events as it unfolded. See for yourself, whether the nametag-illusion is justified. Located in the vicinity of the erstwhile palaces, Padmanabhaswamy temple and signature ancient buildings of Thiruvananthapuram, this one also is a masterpiece of the bygone era of Kings.

 

Ten years ago, this building was bearing a haunted house look. Ignored, isolated, unoccupied, bruised and battered. Right in its proximity there was a workshop. Horror stories were doing the rounds. It had a majestic charm though. As I entered the property, for a dinner, I never expected

KTM Duke 200 - Adrenalin rush guaranteed !!

Switch on the ignition. Watch the display console. Gear number display and tachometer display comes and goes, speed display starts to count 0,1,2,3,... all the way upto 199 and their it goes down to 0. Some more lights comes and goes off. Here it comes "READY TO RACE" .

But this ain't a race track, we are on Indian two lane roads. Sane speeds is utmost important for us to reach the intended destination else we will be history. The display changes to another mode. Look at that.

A low cost solution for Cabinets and Wardrobes

The requirement for wardrobes, cabinets and any closed enclosure will laterally grow up with time.

 

Thanks to our (Indians) habit of keeping everything we bought, even after their prime usage. Some of the materials which we store are the hardboard cover of our shoes, Television sets, grinder, mixers, damaged toys, damaged fans, old steel rims of cars, those big containers which we never take out for cooking etc thinking that we may find it useful at a later stage.

 

In our home we also grew shortage of closed cabinets and I began hunting around for material options to make one. The options I found, their pros and cons, our choice and its implementation is shared here.

This might be useful for those who are on the look out for the same.

Mind you the cost savings are huge, if you are concerned only with the usefulness. In my case it was around 300 %. Read on to know more.

Home Sweet Home - A House construction story (with a review of the builder - The Habitat Group) - Part 3

This is the story of my house construction with a review of the builder, building materials and the difficulties faced. The story so far Part 1, Part 2 

Part 3 - The Unwelcome guests

As I already mentioned, I had chosen interlocking bricks for my construction. (To know more about interlocking bricks read this post)

The interlocking bricks were being transported in a small truck and hence the vehicle could reach my site. I was relieved at this coz the manual ferrying of things were actually adding up the cost of construction.

As soon as the first load of interlocking bricks came I got a call from the driver. He wanted me to be present at the site as soon as possible since he was unable to unload the stuff. So it was time for another dash through the heavy traffic in the middle of the day which had become a regular affair for me ever since the work started.

At the site I saw the truck being surrounded by a gang of around 8 to 10 people who looked very much like seasoned goons.  Two among them had terrible scars on their face which I presume to be suffered from a sword. One of them was standing on an artificial limb. His face and look completely matched that of a rough guy albeit having a height of around 5 feet.

Another problem in the offing!!

I went near them. The driver tried to speak to me, but one of the gang members came forward and pushed the driver back.

Am I in the midst of a physical assault ?? The whole set up seemed precisely like that of a gangster attack.

Home Sweet Home - A House construction story (with a review of the builder - The Habitat Group) - Part 2

This is the story of my house construction with a review of the builder, building materials and the difficulties faced. To read Part 1 of the story Click here

Land preparation and leveling

Land preparation and leveling work has to be done before work can be started for basement excavation. After running around and with the help of father's friend found out some persons for cutting down the coconut trees in the plot. They did the job in a day.

Got a taste of the things to come on the first day of ground preparation work itself. I went to the site where labourers were already present. They asked for some tools, went with them and bought the tools, came back to office which was 8 kms away.

Once I was about to start my office work I got a call from the labourers that they are in need of more tools without which they cannot start the work. Went back to site, bought the tools and stood there only to find out that they did not use it for the entire day. The ordeal had started.

Each day there was a story, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes worse.

Decided to proceed with the carpentry work. If we start now, we could get the completed doors and window frames by the time basement is ready.

The carpenter came along with me to buy wood. I followed his advice and shortlisted a shop.

Months later when I had to buy some extra wood did I realize that I was taken in for a ride by the carpenter and the shop I chose based on his advice was not the best in terms of price or quality. The carpenter took me there since they gave him good commission.

Earth excavation was over in around 20 days, but for me, it seemed that it took ages.

Home Sweet Home - A House construction story (with a review of the builder - The Habitat Group) - Part 1

This is a review embedded in a story, I started to write it as a review, but the experiences and the events which unfolded automatically came out and it began to look like a story, most of which contains the hardship experienced by a middle class man trying to build his house. this might be a two or three part saga

The land purchase

One of the major milestones in the life of every Indian middle class family is house construction. Now a days the ready to occupy villas, apartments, easy availability of loans and the money available with people has made this less cumbersome. In my belief, if one goes through the experience of building a home he or his family will have a greater connect with it and love it to the core.

Coming from a middle class family, I too grew up seeing my parents toil hard to construct a house. In those days, since my father and mother were working, my grandfather used to oversee the house construction and I used to accompany him during my vacations. The greatest thing which I enjoyed is the food which was brought from a local shop comprising of tea and parippu vada. In those days these were the only outside food which I got to eat.

After all the routine milestones in life viz study engineering, get job, be in love, get married, have kids, the next thing in line was building a home. My childhood experiences made me decide to have one constructed according to our needs rather than buying one. This happened in the first half of the previous decade. Cash at hand was extremely low, but thanks to banks offering loans we could buy a land in the location we indended. There were lots of negatives, viz the plot was rectangular with less width and more length, land was sloping, there was no road frontage, it was the last plot of a steeply inclined road, the approach road was enough to test the powers of an SUV. The advantages were, it was the maximum which we could afford and location was the midpoint of my wife's and my office.