Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
Should I stay or should I go? How an Indian family decided to return home
Excerpt in Quartz, the digital arm of The Atlantic Monthly, one of my favorite magazines. EX PATRIA Should I stay or should I go? How an Indian family decided to return home Shoba Narayan November 17, 2012 Dressing up for an Indian party in New York was, for me, a complicated exercise fraught with rules and miscues. Dressing up for a party at Zahid’s house made it doubly so. On the one hand, I didn’t want to seem too Indian, dressed like my mother in a traditional sari and dime-sized bindi. On the other, I didn’t want to show up [...]
Carnatic and Western Classical Part 2
Dear Bijoy: Thanks for your missive on Bach, the fugue and the music of the Renaissance period. I found them to be very interesting. What is mordent? What are grace notes and trills? Is the below one piece or a compilation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tro_gaczCxw&feature=related Why do you think western music was able to diverge into the harmonic path, while Indian music continued on the gayaki path that you talk about? Is it because Indians didn't think "instrumentally?" Ok, my turn. I am not an expert in Carnatic music so I will tell you what I know. Also, my tutorial will meander [...]
Conversation between Carnatic and Classical Part 2
Dear Bijoy: Thanks for your missive on Bach, the fugue and the music of the Renaissance period. I found them to be very interesting. What is mordent? What are grace notes and trills? Is the below one piece or a compilation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tro_gaczCxw&feature=related Why do you think western music was able to diverge into the harmonic path, while Indian music continued on the gayaki path that you talk about? Is it because Indians didn't think "instrumentally?" Ok, my turn. I am not an expert in Carnatic music so I will tell you what I know. Also, my tutorial will meander unlike [...]
When the Lotus blooms
Just read "When the Lotus Blooms" by Kanchana Krishnan Ayyar. Loved it. If you want a glimpse of the TamBrahm ethos of yesteryear, read this book.
Navrasa in an ikebana arrangement for Mint Lounge
Thank you, Malathi-aunty. Navras’ in an ikebana arrangement The ladies behind this ancient art Shoba Narayan First Published: Thu, Nov 15 2012. 08 07 PM IST Veena Dass, one of the foremost exponents of the art in India, will be a speaker at the ikebana conference in Delhi. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint RELATED Muhammad said that if you have bread in one hand, you should have a flower in the other because one feeds the body and the other feeds the soul,” says Veena Dass, one of the early Indian exponents of ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement. We [...]
How to write
I get so much mail asking for tips on how to write that I decided to make a post of it. Usually, each email sits in my inbox for days. I can't bear to delete them because I've been where the writer of the email was. I can't bear to reply to them because they are too vague, too general. Hereafter, I plan to send a one-line email reply pointing to this post. If you want to be a travel writer, realize that it is getting very hard because editors have their network of trusted writers and usually give assignments [...]
Deepavali feasting (or fasting)
Pulchritudinous? Seriously? Is that a compliment-worthy word? Read on In The National Before a feast goes to your hips, reach for the thesaurus Shoba Narayan Nov 12, 2012 Nowadays, over lunch and dinner, I make my husband repeat a litany of compliments. “You look beautiful, my darling,” he tells me as I fork in some rice and vegetables. “The broccoli in particular makes your skin glow like the surface of the moon.” And then he loses interest and says, more in character, “Yada yada yada … you know what I mean.” This isn’t some new form of torture that I [...]
Carnatic and Western classical Part 1
One of the pleasures of writing is to hear back from readers who have views that are opposite your own; and who are able to educate you about their area of expertise. A while ago, I wrote a piece in Mint about western classical music conductors here. I heard back from a reader who told me about a conductor I had never heard about. Thus began an email exchange about Carnatic music and Classical music. I have-- with his permission-- pasted it below. He lives in New Delhi and his name (fake but authentic to his region) is Bijoy Banerjee. [...]
Speaking English
I don't like my column in this week's Mint. To do it right, I should have delved deeper into the "personality" of languages; and delved deeper into the notion of mother tongue. But being neck deep in badam halwa and other Deepavali sweets, this is the best I could do. So I was pleasantly surprised to see this Reuter's response to the piece, which, by the way, I like better than the piece itself. One comment has already come and calls my attitude "intensely offensive." It says that I was-- to use psychology parlance-- projecting. Maybe I was, although I [...]
Mothers and Daughters
I love writing for The National. It is hard for my family to access-- certainly for my kids-- so it is easy to be open. This one is a piece on a topic that is so close to my heart (and heartbreak). It goes out to all mothers with teenage daughters. As for the Dads with daughters, all I have to say is: You lucky dogs!!! My kids, by the way, don't read The National, and I am not about to correct this situation. Between mothers and daughters, it's always complicated Shoba Narayan Nov 6, 2012 Save this article She [...]