Paloma about town: Kombucha brewing, nostalgia tripping and a shot of JOMO

Despite jokes about the anniversary of Lockdown 1, the city is enveloped in a strange restless feeling. On one side, there are pictures of smiling faces with their sleeves rolled up, getting the vaccine, and on the other; long conversations about whether we’ll be seeing a repeat of last year’s events, around about the same time. Either way, people seem to be making good use of the opportunity, or what might be the last few days of freedom, painting the town red this week.

At the relaunched BFF, it was a night of live music with Shilpa Natarajan and Alok Merwin, giving us a mix of English and Hindi hits, in a refreshing departure from the usual. Yup the same Shilpa from ‘Jam with Jilpaa’ whose voice we all know so well on the radio. The crowd was at their interactive best, enjoying the Hindi-English mash-ups along with requests from across the decades. For those of us that missed it, most of it was documented in great detail for Instagram. We also got to see some yummy looking plates of food and signature cocktails.

And speaking of drinks, this week saw an afternoon of Kombucha by East Coast Brewery. Divya Kumar of Div’s Kombucha took the girl gang through the nuances of the beverage that has taken the world by storm. Along with some interesting pointers and myth-busting, she got the ladies to play a little guessing game with the flavours. While the group didn’t fare as well as we thought on the guessing front, it certainly made for a fun experience. It was also great to clear up all the doubts swirling about concerning this mysterious beverage. Like does it expire, what it’s actually made of, and its many probiotic benefits.
 

And arriving perhaps at just the right time was an invite from Vivek Karunakaran to a discussion on ‘JOMO’ (Joy of Missing Out), just the opposite of the super-popular FOMO we’re all so familiar with. It was a mindful evening presented by Deepa Palaniappan having us look at things from a different perspective. The audience enjoyed the interactive session and the chance to look inward and connect with themselves, at a time where we’re so busy rushing from one thing to the next.