GENERAL
When I got married my culinary skills were limited to brewing tea and coffee, and not very well at that. It helped that I went into a plantation house with an army of household help or R and I would have surely starved. My mother worried endlessly. Not as much for R’s welfare – I […]
Read MoreI hate diverging from my focus on travel on this blog. But the events of the past few weeks have forced me to make an exception. A reputed gallery threatened for showing a nude art retrospective by renowned Indian artists. (Kudos to Ashish Anand for not buckling under pressure.) A ‘Fatwa‘ issued against a teen girl band. Salman […]
Read MoreI wouldn’t be here if not for the travel editor of our local daily, who edited butchered my article to accommodate his own piece in a weekend supplement. That decapitated article led to the birth of ‘The Urge To Wander’, exactly a year ago today. The start of an uncharacteristically unplanned journey, that I half […]
Read More
“I regard myself as a soldier, though a soldier of peace” For a generation far removed from the struggles of the freedom movement, Mahatma Gandhi seems to have been reduced to just a face in their history books and on their currency bills. Neither the high flying, tech savvy, middle class Indian on his race […]
Read MoreIndia has a thriving contemporary art scene and some of the big names such as M F Hussein and Tyeb Mehta have fetched huge sums in auctions worldwide. Since I cannot afford even the serigraphs of these master painters, I shall introduce you to some comparatively lesser known artists, whose works hang on my walls. […]
Read More
Showcasing my dining table below, a personal favourite from a series of solid granite furniture that I designed and R got made for me based on my drawings. He was most sceptical about anyone wanting to own heavy stone furniture so my sell-out exhibition was a huge surprise. The top is toughened glass. The pattern […]
Read MoreThere is a stretch of land between the airport and Mangalore town that is so verdant and beautiful that it never fails to bring a lump to my throat. I get off at the bridge to inhale the fresh, earthy fragrance that I have missed so much. “Wouldn’t it be lovely to buy some land […]
Read More
Some rather far fetched myths are ascribed to the reason why South Kanara – the province that Mangalore is a part of – adopted the matriarchal system of inheritance as early as 10 AD. (You can read a rather sketchy and badly written version here.) This was a very progressive law for the time and continues to this day, […]
Read More
If you have read my ‘about’ page, you will be familiar with the excerpt “The Importance of Elsewhere” by Paul Theroux. That about describes how I felt growing up in the small port town of Mangalore. It felt…small and restrictive. I rued the lack of opportunity. My ruling obsession was to get out, to experience a ‘better’ more […]
Read More