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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My mother was a great cook and indulged in cooking as a fetish. Ma was a magician too, adding that special sparkle to anything she touched. She could even snip a handful of wildly growing, wayward Amaranth leaves, tease them with fiery red chillies, team them with un-skinned potatoes, turn them over in an iron […]
Pic: Saw this beautiful deserted spot on one of our drives around the island! Earlier this year I visited the gorgeous island nation of the Seychelles, located in the Indian Ocean, off the eastern coast of Africa. This being my first time to any part of the African continent, I was understandably excited to see […]
Pic: Sunset in Dalat Dalat is a small hilly town in southern Vietnam. As a relatively serene and calm Vietnamese city, it has a lot to offer visitors who are looking for a more relaxed pace of travel. With the centre of town being focused on a large lake, Dalat is an outdoor lover’s dream […]
Creativity has been an intimate part of the way I interact with the world. It isn’t forced. It either “clicks” or it doesn’t and when it does, beautiful things can happen. My earliest memories are of abstract ideas that just appeared out of the smallest parts of my surroundings, allowing me to view things in many […]
Chillies and Porridge (Edited by Mita Kapur) has an interesting if rather crowded jacket picture. A line-up of accomplished writers. A winner of a topic for an anthology: food. Chillies and Porridge should have made for truly delicious reading. And some of it does, but only some. Janice Pariat`s reflective eulogy to a breakfast staple of her […]
1.00 – 3.30 pm | 17th of May | Alliance Française cafétaria The Charlotte au chocolat holds many secrets that our chef Cyril is eager to unveil : whip egg whites, stir chocolate, make a syrup and demystify a chocolate mousse as well the famous ‘Lady Finger’ biscuits. Enjoy this wonderfully delicious cookout on 17th May. Organised […]
Round white tables with wooden chairs, transparent glass tumblers with steaming chai, steel glasses for water, memorabilia from the 70s and 80s on the wall, signs in Hindi all over the place, chequered black and white floor and even a ‘nimbu-mirchi’ strung together to ward off the evil eye! There is a word for the faculty […]
Nisha Madhulika looks like the aunt whose kitchen was your favourite haunt during your holidays. Yes, the one who had a warm, kind manner and knew how to satiate your soul’s cravings with meals that you will not find in any restaurant just because no chef can cook the way she can. She is in […]
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 […]
There is a scene in Bimal Roy’s Bandini where Nutan’s Kalyani is described as Annapurna…the goddess of an abundant kitchen. She is half in love with a rebel (Ashok Kumar) who comes every evening to discuss lyrical poetry with her father and enjoys her cooking but it is when he describes her as a woman […]
No this is not yet another ode to Maggi noodles, so you can stop groaning. Maggi was on my black list for a while now after I heard about the wax coating on the noodles and that it is difficult to digest. Anyhow over the past several years I have been slowly weaning my family off […]