On this armchair travel adventure I wanted to venture back to India. It’s the one country on earth that provided the most inspiration for little Nina and also grown-up Nina. My parents talked of a magical place that mixed chaos and exceptional beauty and when I finally went there with my mom, in my early twenties, I was mesmerized.

I love Indian food, grew up on Hindi cinema and dressed in kurtas and salwar kameez for most of my teenage years and twenties — even dated an Indian man I met on the NYC subway thinking he was the one. He wasn’t.

So let’s start from the cinema portion, which you’ll find easily and trouble free on Netflix. It’s Sooni Taraporevala’s ‘Yeh Ballet’ a beautiful narrative film taken from her earlier 2017 documentary by the same name. It is about two boys in India who want to be ballet dancers and their ill tempered yet brilliant dance teacher is played by Julian Sands. Don’t even get me started on this man. No really, don’t. Back to ‘Yeh Ballet’ it is based on a true story and one of the actual real-life boys plays himself in the film. You can access it here to stream. Nobody does human stories like Sooni!

Today’s chai is courtesy of the Minimalist Baker and their website is simply fantastic. I love their easy, beautifully photographed recipes and you can find their awesome website here.

My dress is by Matta NY, a shop I adore owned and designed by a fellow Italian woman who travels the world to fill women’s wardrobes with a mixture of bohemian, vintage ethnic and hippie chic. If I needed to pick just one dress to wear for the rest of my life it would probably come from Matta.

My necklace is by Amrapali, a Jaipur based company that now has pop ups and shops all over the world. Alas, when I used to buy from them, their main focus was on antique, old Indian gypsy jewelry. Now they make mostly real jewelry pieces using expensive gems and metals. I would spend around $25 in their shop and walk out with something beautiful. Now I can’t imagine doing the same, but they’re still worth ogling over and they do have a silver site.

Alright, remember to be still. If you want to feel better about doing next to nothing, you can try Mountain Pose (Tadasana) in Yoga and call it exercise. Here is the link with some cool poses.