Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
Mint Lounge: Soneva Maldives
Just outside my cottage at the Soneva Fushi resort was a coral reef. Several times a day, I walked out into the sea and start swimming with my flippers. Those who still call space “the final frontier” have clearly not experienced the sea—vast, deep, mysterious. For humans, the sea is the ultimate other, requiring adaptations that seem intuitive but actually are not. There are three kinds of people in the world—those who feel “at home” in the water, those who don’t, and a large group in the middle (including me) who view open water with a mixture of awe, fear and pleasure.
Mint Lounge: Indigenous food
In the effort to serve up history while infusing it with storytelling, chefs are mining journals and literature, meeting home cooks and local eatery owners, and tracing little known ingredients and recipes.
For Mint Lounge India on Bhutan
Does thinking about death five times a day increase your happiness? The Bhutanese seem to think so. Throughout the mountain kingdom, death mixes with life in ways that are subtle, yet beautiful. Consider tsa tsas for instance. Families fashion these tiny stupa-like pyramids using clay mixed with– get this– ashes of dead relatives and leave them as roadside offerings. The ubiquitous prayer flags also memorialize the dead, as do some thangka paintings and chham dances. Funerals are communal affairs– since Buddhists believe in reincarnation, death itself is seen as a new beginning.
Mint Lounge India on Costa Rica
You have to know me to realize this, but something I did last month was pretty crazy. I mean, looking back, it was wonderful. But when I actually did it-- I mean, talk about insanity.
For Mint Lounge on the Taj Wayanad
Wayanad symbolises all that is romantic about Kerala. The region’s fragrant musk turmeric or kasthuri manjal is supposed to restore skin but finding it isn’t that easy. I go on a trip with my mother to find out if we can snag this wonder root.
For Mint Lounge India on Australia
A piece I wrote based on a visit to the Tweed Coast of Australia. I wonder why I hadn't heard of this place before. It is an hour north of Sydney, in New South Wales.
The Wine Geeks of Silicon Valley
Wine is a combination of history, geography, geology, people, chemistry, all resulting in a product that the ancient Greeks and Romans attributed to the God who was a giver of ecstasy: Bacchus and Dionysius.
Make Mozart and Beethoven rock for you
To become a connoisseur—of the arts, ideas, food, wine, languages, movies, sports, economics or history—is ultimately a selfish exercise. You begin because you cannot help yourself; because of an abiding interest, one that will not let you go. Digging deeper becomes self-perpetuating after a while: The more you know, the more you want to know. At some point, you reach a crest and flip over. Once you pass that stage, beautiful things happen. You will hear a snatch of a Bollywood song and be reminded of a symphony. You will make uncommon connections that are ultimately the gift and pleasure of learning something new. A butterfly’s flight will look like an adagio, which refers to slow tempo in music.
The dark and mysterious side of the moon
As the weather warms up, I have been sitting on the balcony and watching the moon at night. This one is about the moon, about Japan, and watching the sky.
Does your wardrobe make others pity you?
Does your wardrobe make others pity you? When I took my teenage daughter for her first trip to Mumbai, I was pretty expansive. Wherever you want to go; whatever you want to do, I offered. She had one word for me: Zara. Which was how I found myself at the Palladium Mall on two consecutive days, shopping and people-watching. Ever since I saw the movie, ‘Pretty Woman,’ luxury stores intimidate me. Remember that scene where Julia Roberts walks into a posh store on Rodeo Drive and the snooty saleswoman basically shooes her [...]