People often lose some invaluable things in life as they move ahead in life, and so did India. In its quest for fast urbanization and modernity, it lost something which was very implicitly an intangible part of the Indian lifestyle- the Bageecha. Or the Garden. In earlier times, houses in towns and cities were larger, … Continue reading Garden Tales #1: Garden And The Sun
Dear Children, I like being with children and talking to them and, even more, playing with them. For the moment I forget that I am terribly old and it is very long ago since I was a child. But when I sit down to write, I cannot forget my age and the distance that separates … Continue reading Children’s Day Special: Chacha Nehru’s Letter
'Yeh sheher nahi, ek mehfil hai' Chaiwallahs (teasellers) are very famous in Delhi these days. Be it the one who fought all odds to become the Prime Minister and or the one whose chance photograph led him to become a model. But my favourite chaiwallah is the little boy I saw in Delhi's Connaught Place … Continue reading Delhi: The Indomitable Spirit
Someone once said that we eat to live, not live to eat. That person, well, must have been really upset that time. Or perhaps his stomach was. Because, come on, food is love! Food is life! The plate of food in front of you, is not mere food, but an encyclopedia about its maker and … Continue reading Food Math Of India (Part 1)
All around us, I see posts about how when Trump won, so did sexism, racism and hate. But the issue runs much deeper. First think about this question— would you mind so much about caste-based reservation if there were enough seats in colleges? If people were hardly even applying to AIIMS or IIT because there … Continue reading Trump et al.— The Global Storm
Our trip to Ooty was everything that Ae Dil Hai Mushkil should have been, but it was not— fun, entertaining... and really, really short. (Hey, I made an impromptu poem!) Anyway, so the name Ooty, or rather Udagamandalam, is derived from Ootaca and Mandu. Both are related to the Toda tribals who were the initial … Continue reading Ooty
We have a joke in our state of Uttar Pradesh: Noida mein bohot light aati hai. Poori UP ki light Noida mein hi toh aati hai. (Noida has a lot of electricity— the whole of UP's electricity is given to Noida only.) This joke, delivered with typical UPiyya dry sarcasm, points at the reality of … Continue reading Lights Out— Batti Gul!
I remember reading somewhere that one reason for celebrating festivals in past times was to bring about excitement and joy in the otherwise humdrum lives of people, especially women, since the husbands would still get time to socialise at work. It gave them a chance to dress up, cook special dishes in groups and go … Continue reading Chhoti Diwali
Some of the fondest memories we all have of childhood are summer vacations at our grandparents’ house. My summer holidays mostly started with the dusty roads of Bareilly, a small town in Uttar Pradesh. The first sight of nana-nani’s house was nani standing outside the house waiting to meet us. Nothing in nani’s body language … Continue reading The Storeroom
“Focus on the journey, not the destination” The Nilgiri Mountain Railway (NMR) is an embodiment of this quote by Greg Anderson. This ‘toy train’, is astounding in every respect, be it its technological feats, or the sheer beauty of the route it traverses. But to truly understand the glory of this relic from our colonial … Continue reading Nilgiri Mountain Railway
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