Sorry, Not Sorry
A group of restaurants in New York caters to Indian palates ♦ If a visitor from the USA came to India looking for kudal varuval (spiced goat intestines), one might point them to a locally famous pitstop, possibly besides a tire repair shop on the side of the highway. Or possibly to the home of …
Parsi: From Persia to Bombay – Recipes & Tales from the Ancient Culture
Farokh Talati oversees rustic, British-inspired food at St John Bread & Wine, but his first cookbook explores his family’s Parsi recipes ♦ London’s St John Bread & Wine, founded by chef Fergus Henderson of Nose to Tail Eating fame, is not known for a menu bursting with masalas. But while head chef Farokh Talati capably …
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Tipu Sultan: Image & Distance
A new book and exhibition on the controversial ruler separate the monarch from the myth ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. A few years ago, Delhi Art Gallery acquired a seminal work, “The Last Effort and Fall of Tippoo Sultan”, painted in England after the death in 1799 of the Tiger of …
Book Review: In the Language of Remembering
Aanchal Malhotra examines how the subcontinent remembers Partition ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. In this monumental archive of Partition, Aanchal Malhotra turns from recounting the history of that rupture through objects and material memory, as she did in her previous book Remnants of a Separation, to reflecting on “the inheritance of …
One Man, Many Lives: Bhagwan Singh and the Early South Asians in America
Anuradha Kumar’s book about early South Asian immigration to America is as compelling as her subjects ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. Identity and immigration history, race, revolution and Hollywood come together in this fascinating book, which grew out of a series author Anuradha Kumar wrote on early South Asians in America …
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For Street Food Fiends in Delhi, Bhawan Is the New Pitstop
Rahul Dua and Kainaz Contractor’s Bhawan finally makes its brick-and-mortar debut in Gurgaon ♦ This story was originally published in Conde Nast Traveller India. In March 2020, Bhawan was “one paint job away” from its much-anticipated opening. Kainaz Contractor and Rahul Dua, the restaurateur couple behind the street food-themed spot, had cracked the capital’s casual dining …
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Book Review: Qabar by K.R. Meera
K.R. Meera plays with different kinds of vision in Qabar, recently translated by Nisha Susan ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. A perfect book cover is rare enough that sometimes it’s worth taking into account when judging a book. This is true of the new English translation of KR Meena’s 2020 novella …
People of Tomorrow takes a “shameless” approach to vegan food in Delhi
The new restaurant in Chhatarpur wants to win you over with the food, not philosophy ♦ This story was originally published in Conde Nast Traveller India. The Dhan Mill compound in Chhatarpur on a Sunday is a hive of cars (lots of Bimmers, Mercs and Audis), and people in a post-pandemic frenzy of consumerism. Gourmet …
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Home and the World
In 2020, Durga Puja became an opportunity for many Bengalis outside the state to connect with each other through food ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. “Durga Puja is an emotion for Bengalis,” says Arpita Roy, who runs The Lunchbox Co. in Mumbai. As Bijoya, the Bengali festive season, comes to a …
Vikram Seth: A Life in Verse
An interview with Vikram Seth ♦ A version of this interview was originally published in India Today. After the buzz around BBC’s adaptation of A Suitable Boy, a new collector’s series of Vikram Seth’s poetry puts the spotlight on the author’s poetic accomplishments. The seven volumes showcase the breadth of Seth’s genius and the recurrent …
French Pâtisserie Ladurée’s First India Outpost
Sacrebleu, it’s pink! ♦ This story was originally published in Conde Nast Traveller India. Last summer, many of Khan Market’s restaurants closed during the first lockdown. So I was somewhat surprised by the surround sound of hammers and drills filling the lanes of this seventy-year-old market on a recent visit. Things seem to be in …
Book Review: Against White Feminism
In her new book, Rafia Zakaria argues that white feminists must revise their notions of equality ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. Among the statement clothing on display at this year’s Met Gala was a gown worn by US Representative Carolyn Maloney, in suffragette colours, festooned with sashes proclaiming ‘Equal Rights for …
A Bird’s-Eye View of the Raj
Science and whimsy mix in Delhi Art Gallery’s exhibition of Company paintings. ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. For Major-General Thomas Hardwicke, it wasn’t enough to employ an artist to paint the birds he came across in India. The naturalist and British East India Company officer also ‘employed a shikari to shoot …
Writing in Past Continuous
An interview with Sunjeev Sahota ♦ A version of this interview was originally published in India Today. By his own admission, British writer Sunjeev Sahota’s novels “tend to come down to a few brown people living in north England or India”. But within this framework, Sahota wove richly detailed lives and unique voices in his …
Darkness in Delhi
As Delhi’s lives are looted again, the architecture of the city too shifts beneath our feet ♦ A version of this op-ed was originally published on The Quint, during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India. It is possible to miss a city while still living in it. Delhi in particular is subject …
Links in the Food Chain
In Indranee Ghosh’s memoir, food becomes a metaphor for inclusion ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. In the introduction to her food memoir “placed in the east of India”, Indranee Ghosh astutely notes that when everything else has changed “what we as a family have not lost is the food we ateperhaps the only …
Killing Snobbery Softly
Anuja Chauhan takes a stab at the murder mystery genre and skewers elitism in the process ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. It’s hard to say whether the characters in Anuja Chauhan’s five previous novels were as loathsome as the ones in her newest, Club You to Death, or whether elite Indian …
Mixing it up
How Indian bartenders are taking a shot at entrepreneurship ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. Last April, Ajesh Joseph, head mixologist at Jetlag, Bengaluru, posted a video of himself zooming, literally, up and down a hallway, draped over a wheelie bin. It was captioned ‘Quarantine day 10’. He subsequently shared a slapstick …
The Nature of Things
A rare exhibition from ‘somewhere in Northeast India’ forces you to see both the woods and the trees ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. Composing a landscape is inherently an act of taming nature. There isn’t necessarily a direct relation between the rules of artistic composition (perspective, thirds, movement within the frame) …
Review: The Biscuit
Lizzie Collingham traces the journey of the biscuit from sustenance to sweet treats ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. This summer, when migrant workers streamed out of India’s locked down cities, one of the recurrent images of their long walks to their home villages was of packets of biscuits: sometimes all they …
The Great Defender
Appupen’s Rashtraman comics use ribald humour to reflect political reality ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. On November 28, Appupen put up an installment from his new comic book Rashtrayana II: Divide and Fool, which is being serialized on Brainded, the website and collective he co-founded five years ago. The chapter featured …
Bold and Brassy
Review: The Brass Notebook by Devaki Jain ♦ This story was originally published in India Today. In her landmark 1962 novel, The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing explored what it meant to be a ‘free woman’, while acknowledging the irony built in to the phrase. ‘Free women’, says the protagonist ‘wryly’ and with anger, ‘They still …
Bringing Home the Bacon
India is seeing the emergence of an enthusiastic culture around pork ♦ A version of this story was originally published in India Today. Being in a close relationship with a pork lover isn’t something you take lightly. Once, at a party, a large ham made a brief appearance before the guests prior to being whisked …
Eating Clean
Theatrically sanitised restaurant meals, untouched by human hands and wrapped in meters of plastic are our new food fetish. ♦ This story was originally published in The Indian Quarterly. For as long as humans have recorded images of the world around them, they’ve recorded images of their food and diet. The earliest figurative cave paintings …
When YouTube Gets Your Goat: E-Commerce, Eid and the Bakrebaaz Life
India’s goat farmers aren’t kidding around when they say they’re having a bad year. The months leading up to Bakr-Eid are typically the most hectic season for the business, and the bulk of sales happen at bakra mandis – special markets that come up weeks in advance of the date – in cities across the country.
Dystopic Living
Author Samit Basu lays out Delhi’s best-case scenario in his sci-fi novel, and it is horrific. ♦ Originally published in India Today. Dystopia is pornographic,” says one character to another in Chosen Spirits. “You see it and shiver but it’s also kind of fun because it’s happening somewhere else, to someone else, you know? It …
To Educate or Operate: The Big Question of Rural Reproductive Rights
Originally published as part of Khabar Lahariya’s long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G“ ♦ In December 2018, Khabar Lahariya reporter Suneeta Prajapati arrived at the Community Health Centre in Kabrai, Mahoba to cover a sterilization camp, a routine feature of rural healthcare in these parts of Bundelkhand, especially during the winter. She was taken aback to …
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Provisioning During a Pandemic
Gourmet ingredient delivery around India ♦ Originally published in India Today. Not too long ago, “gourmet” was synonymous with imported. Foreign products occupied the shelves of our loftier kirana dukaans, bearing unheard-of brand names and amusing MRPs. Still, with international shipping curtailed through the lockdown, India’s gourmands might have felt their absence. (But maybe not; …
A Mask Crusader, a Virus-Killing Bracelet, and a Medical Motorbike
Originally published as part of Khabar Lahariya’s long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G“ ♦ June 18 was a typically busy day in India. In the morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his latest scheme, the Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan (loosely translated, Poor People’s Welfare Employment Campaign), this time to benefit migrant workers. Before noon, he had …
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A Family Affair: Women and Panchayat Politics
Originally published as part of Khabar Lahariya’s long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G“ ♦ The dominant volume of patriotism these days is loud: nationalism at the chest-thumping, bullet-whizzing, thali-clanging frequency of films, like Uri: The Surgical Strike, that make the anthem cued up in theatres before them sound harsh and hectoring. No less scripted but much …
India’s Unbroken Chains: Labour Migration in the Time of COVID-19
Originally published as part of Khabar Lahariya’s long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G“ ♦ Banda railway station on May 7 appeared to be a model of Covid-19 preparedness. Health workers wearing personal protective gear, some with face shields, roamed the platform. The policemen on duty wore masks – one even had his lathi wrapped in …
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Force and Composure
Krishen Khanna remembers Satish Gujral, who passed away on March 26, 2020 ♦ Note: After Satish Gujral died, I spoke to his friend and my grandfather, Krishen Khanna for India Today. This is what he had to say. My friendship with Satish Gujral feels eternal, did I know him for fifty years, or a thousand? …
Eighteen Years of Khabar Lahariya
Originally published as part of Khabar Lahariya’s long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G“ ♦ A few years ago, a daroga, or excise officer, was investigating a local leader in Mahoba, Uttar Pradesh for bootlegging liquor. The daroga, a Dalit, sanctioned a raid on the upper-caste neta’s home. Khabar Lahariya reporter Suneeta Prajapati, who had her …
Lockdown Life: Inside the Homes and Phones of a Covid-Shuttered Country
Originally published as part of Khabar Lahariya’s long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G“ ♦ On Ram Navami, it rains flowers in Banda, in the hilly Bundelkhand region of southern Uttar Pradesh. A helicopter disburses showers of petals onto the town’s streets, which are packed with a long parade of people floating on a sea of saffron …
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Invisible Man
Aravind Adiga imagines Australia refracted through an immigrant’s eyes ♦ Originally published in India Today. We use the word apocalypse, and these days frequently, to describe the end of the world. But its literal meaning, from ancient Greek, is “uncovering”. No one can say for sure whether Covid-19 is our omega, but there’s no doubt …
The Hunger Pandemic: Ash-filled Stoves and Empty Stomachs in Rural Uttar Pradesh
Originally published as part of Khabar Lahariya’s long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G“ ♦ Around the world, social media feeds have become feasts for the eyes and spurs to the appetite, flooded with photos posted by people working from home and cooking for themselves. While professional and amateur chefs serve up lockdown recipes, writers churn out …
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Volatile Reactions
The Alchemy of Secrets, by Priya Balasubramanian ♦ Originally published in Biblio India. I read The Alchemy of Secrets on the first really scorching day of India’s nationwide Covid-19 lockdown, feeling dehydrated, irritable and headachy. At a time when everything else passing before of my eyes—the news, the Twitter news, the creative ferment on Instagram—seemed …
Tea and Azadi: What We Learned from the Women-led Citizenship Protests
Part of the Khabar Lahariya long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G” ♦ On March 22, 2020, two petrol bombs exploding near Shaheen Bagh and Jamia Millia Islamia caused barely a ripple before sinking into a sea of COVID-19 coverage. A few days later, as Delhi went into lockdown on March 24, the police scrubbed away all …
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A Ringside View of Women’s Wrestling in U.P.
Part of the Khabar Lahariya long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G” ♦ On a cool day in February, on a ground strewn with rose and marigold petals, two swarthy pehelwans engage in intense combat. One is thick and solid, in a red singlet and undershirt; the other, more toned, wears a red langot. They grapple on the …
Poet Verses Delhi
Akhil Katyal chronicles Delhi’s many moods in his new poetry collection ♦ Originally published in India Today. The last line of Agha Shahid Ali’s poem “Chandni Chowk, Delhi” gives Akhil Katyal’s new book its title, but the entire collection seems impelled by the poem’s opening command—“Swallow this summer street…” In these Delhi poems, Katyal imbibes …
From Benaras to Banda, Women Are Working Out
Part of the Khabar Lahariya long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G” ♦ Kiran Dua wears sparkly red bangles over her workout gloves, and a bindi and earrings over her polyester sports-shirt. Her arms bulge as she easily chest presses two dumbbells. “Give me heavier weights,” she says, “I’ll lift those too.” The 41-year-old housewife is …
A City in a Fog
In Deepa Anappara’s Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, dangers lurk in the long shadows of Nithari and Nirbhaya ♦ Originally published in India Today. Smog meanders through the pages of Deepa Anappara’s moving debut novel; an oppressive presence, like one of the malevolent djinns that nine-year-old Jai worries might be behind a series of …
Protest Code
Suñatā Samantā: Emptiness Equality invites you to look beyond the obvious in art to see discontent and dissent ♦ Originally published in India Today. Scribbled on the back of a landing, positioned so that you see them as you walk down the stairs when leaving Suñatā Samantā, are two scraps of text in Hindi and …
The Book of Love: Interfaith Relationships in Uttar Pradesh
Part of the Khabar Lahariya long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G” ♦ Zarina* saw Abhishek* for the first time in the music room of her school in Kanpur. She remembers the exact date in 2012, because it was Teacher’s Day and she was wearing a yellow suit instead of her uniform. He was thin and …
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A Tale of Two Universities: Student Politics, Caste and Compromises
Part of the Khabar Lahariya long-form series “Sound Fury & 4G” ♦ “This is how it happens during elections,” Priya* tells us during an interview in Banda, Uttar Pradesh. She’s an MSc Physics graduate from Atarra College, Bundelkhand University, but as a Dalit, doesn’t feel she can speak freely without anonymity. “There’s some Panditji, and some …
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A Dream of Flight: Innovators in Rural Aviation
Part of the Khabar Lahariya premium long-form series on , "Sound Fury & 4G". Read online at https://khabarlahariya.org/a-dream-of-flight-innovators-in-rural-aviation/
The Philosopher’s Tome
Accidental Magic, Keshava Guha’s debut novel, ponders Harry Potter fandom but is light on geeky delights. ♦ Originally published in India Today. Since Harry Potter debuted in 1997, books, films and fan material related to J.K. Rowling’s novels have proliferated faster than cursed objects in a vault at Gringotts. There are academic treatises, pop literary …
Mother of Invention
Perumal Murugan remembers Amma in his latest book. ♦ Originally published in India Today. I’d been waiting a couple of days to hear back from the writer Perumal Murugan, via an editor who promised to translate my questions into Tamil and his replies to English. That this kind of exchange is possible at all is …
The Great Trotter Resurrection
Irwin Allan Sealy’s Trotter-Nama comes alive for the third time. ♦ Originally published in India Today. It’s hard to imagine that the author of a book as gargantuan, complex and exuberant as The Trotter-Nama ever suffered such a crisis of faith in his creation — which had been out of print for an extended period — that …
Exile and the Kingdom
An ongoing exhibition of miniatures inspired by the Ramayana, at the Met in New York City ♦ Originally published in India Today. Far from the bustling, big-ticket shows of Dutch Masters or Camp fashion, beyond the high-ceilinged galleries of large American canvases, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a maze of jewel-box galleries. Hosting exhibitions …