In 1979, Basu Chatterjee made Baaton Baaton Mein and unobtrusively brought to us the dating and courtship rituals of a community that was till then either caricatured or just overlooked in Hindi cinema. Nancy Perreira and Tony Braganza…
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Matriarchal manipulation in a patriarchal world is depicted unsparingly in Usha Priyamwada’s Pachpan Khambe Laal Deewarein (Now playing on Prasar Bharti). The mother resentful of her lecturer daughter’s comfortable life in her college residence because the younger daughters…
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“Start with hope..always start with hope. We went from being a shitty team to become one of the biggest dynasties in the sport and all it needed was one match to light this fire,” says Michael Jordan at…
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In 1947, my grandparents brought three children and the remains of an uprooted life from Pakistan to India in a train. One of those children was my mother. I grew up hearing a lot of stories about the…
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Three documentaries streaming right now show the ultimate culmination of the Bois Locker Room culture. And what happens when one gender is taught to mistrust its instincts of self-preservation and the other does not even learn something as…
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In Sudip Sharma’s Paatal Lok (Now streaming on Amazon. Co written by Sharma, Sagar Haveli, Hardik Mehta and Gunjit Chopra. Directed by Avinash Arun and Prosit Roy), India’s disowned inhabit the headlines we turn away from. A young…
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Sometime last year I went for a late night show with my 18-year-old and forgot one cardinal rule I have always followed while going out after dusk though it is a rare occurrence. Dress down. Wear a big shawl that hides the fact that though 47, I am a woman still. No flashy neck or […]
“Katrina and her cousin went on a short trek nearby, and by the end there were 60 or 70 leeches on her. Poor thing, she is a city girl, didn’t know what to do! When she came back we removed all the leeches, then I had to sweep the blood off the floor with a […]
I was in Goa last weekend and I’m infused with susegado tinted peace. Yes, that much abused word when it comes to all things Goan. A number of people have messaged me asking for a list of recommendations for great eating joints. And being a vegetarian, I believe that if a place in Goa has […]
I am more apprehensive about being a vegetarian in South-East Asia than I am in Europe. Vegetarianism is not something the South-East Asians understand that well. Dried shrimp, a favourite topping, seems to fall under this rather flexible veggie umbrella. And then there is the ubiquitous fish sauce (and meat sauce) that forms part of […]
Years ago, during a long trip to Europe, I was making my way to Cornwall from London. I had booked my train tickets online from India a month in advance. I was to catch my train from Paddington and was very excited about this little adventure though I had just reached London by train from […]
Over the years, I have chronicled a bunch of places and experiences that I will remember for the rest of my life. This doesn’t mean that this is an all-encompassing list, but each place is unique. They are all in India as that was the intention, except for one in Bhutan. And it isn’t in […]
We’ve just come back from a 10 days trip where we drove around 1800 kms from Mumbai to North Karnataka and back. Over the last seven years we have enjoyed quite a few road trips and while we aren’t adventure junkies, there is always something to be learnt from each trip and some advice to […]
“It’s just here. Step out of our gate, walk for around five minutes and you’ll see a chhota road, take that and keep walking. It’s easy. In just one hour, you’ll reach.” This was the goodbye message from our manager at Three Chimneys at Gethia, our halt for two nights near Nainital. The road suggested […]
I had gone to Nasik last year with a few friends. It was more to enjoy the drive just after the monsoons, and we stayed at Sula’s resort Beyond. While Beyond is not bad, it is definitely not worth the premium. This year when the monsoons came to a close, a road-trip to Nasik hovered again […]
Kochi sits in the middle of the state of Kerala, in south-west of India. Kerala is ‘God’s Own Country’ as the marketing campaign has been shouting for years. That’s true. You go to Kerala to learn that there are more greens than just bottle green and olive-green. But no, Kochi doesn’t succumb to the rest-of-Kerala’s diktat. And […]
We landed in Nagpur on our way to Kanha. Early morning flight on a low-cost airline equals ravenous travellers. We needed some food and quickly. but in Nagpur? Yes, we could have done the down-the-road Udupi thing but didn’t really feel like a dosa. so via Google, I chanced upon an article about THE BREAKFAST STORY… and […]
If you live in Maharashtra and are searching for that ‘lovely’ hill station to escape the heat, think again. There is no brilliant hill station close by. Lonavala is hardly a hill station anymore. Matheran – you’ve been there, love it but it’s too dusty to go in the summers; you need to wait for the rains… You […]