Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
Epic marriage proposal
It's never too late for an insincere declaration of love Shoba Narayan Aug 26, 2012 Two weeks ago, David Pogue, the technology columnist for The New York Times, created an "epic marriage proposal" for his girlfriend, which he later uploaded to Vimeo. As I watched the seven-minute video, a bitter taste rose in my throat. Here is how Pogue describes his proposal: "On August 15, 2012, I proposed to the love of my life. I made a fake movie trailer - a thinly veiled version of our love story. I persuaded the movie theatre at a summer resort to play [...]
Meeting Mr. Murthy
Some things you remember because they are dramatic. Some things you remember because of circumstance. I remember Mr. N.R. Narayana Murthy phoning me up to tell me how much he liked my first book, Monsoon Diary. I had interviewed Mr. Murthy a couple of times and had exchanged emails and phone calls with him in that context. One day, a year after our last encounter, I was in Chitradurga with my niece, Nithya, as part of her Indicorps fellowship. We were having breakfast in a dhaba on the highway when my mobile rings. It is Pandu, Mr. Murthy's assistant, telling [...]
Memories and cupcakes for Mint Lounge
Customized cupcakes and south Indian tiffins The old and the new coexist in Chennai today in a way that warms the cockles of its erstwhile inhabitants. Madrasis have turned cosmopolitan but still retain their mordant wit The Good Life | Shoba Narayan In the early 1980s, if you said “cupcake” in Chennai, guys would have assumed you were talking about a pretty girl, possibly a voluptuous one—like Helen, Jayamalini or Silk Smitha. As for cups, in my household, they were kept aside for servants who sipped their coffee rather than poured it down their throat without touching the lips using [...]
Marketing a book
Rupa told me today that my book has reached the Bangalore office and was being shipped to bookstores. We are planning a launch and I confront the whole marketing question. Here's the thing though: I truly and deeply believe that a work of art (or a book for that matter) has to fly on its own merit. It takes a life of its own with its own destiny. This I believe. On the flip side, if a book doesn't sell, does that mean it just wasn't good enough? This is the question I have to confront as I prepare for [...]
Transgenders
Enjoyed writing this piece. Thanks to the Mad Men of Chennai who helped me with this: Venkat, Sunil, Ranvir. Mucho Gracias! A space for gender-bending realities Most sexual minorities yearn for normalcy. Talk to them and they all wish for a family The Good Life | Shoba Narayan Posted: Thu, Aug 23 2012. 9:50 PM IST A beautiful young woman in a pink sari is admiring herself in the mirror. Her name is Deepika and she has been a woman for four years. Before that she was a man. Now, she is part of Chennai’s growing community of transgender women [...]
On Wisdom
This one is for you, Ma. And thanks, Sujata, for sending out the study. Intelligence versus wisdom, and humility comes out on top Shoba Narayan Aug 21, 2012 Does intelligence have anything to do with happiness? Or is it that more elusive quality - wisdom - that is more beneficial? A recent research paper, A Route to Well-being: Intelligence vs Wise-Reasoning, suggests that wisdom offers a better route to happiness - the authors call it "well-being" - than standard IQ does. In the paper, published in the Journal for Experimental Psychology, a team of researchers measure wisdom - "pragmatic reasoning", [...]
Cow Chronicles Final Post
Cow chronicles: a civil ceremony Mercenary dairy farmers have an inherent aversion to ill-treating these animals because they have been raised to think of the cow as the ultimate mother: “Go-matha” The Good Life | Shoba Narayan Posted: Fri, Jul 13 2012. 10:59 PM IST Milking a cow isn’t easy. I have tried. Cows kick novices. First you squat, then you massage its teats for a while, till it lets down the milk. Murrah buffaloes from Haryana, prize for their high-fat milk, are harder to milk because they are moodier animals. Amateurs can massage the teats of a Murrah [...]
On turning Forty: for Vogue
On turning forty Vogue Page 1 Vogue Page 2
Radio New Zealand
Two months ago, I did the second show of Radio New Zealand. But forgot to put it here on the website. Tomorrow, we are taping the third show. You can listen to it here Shoba Narayan on Radio New Zealand
Olympics and Art
London's soaring Orbit is impressive - but is it really art? Shoba Narayan Aug 9, 2012 Save this article Depending on who you ask, the ArcelorMittal Orbit, the 115-metre-tall public art project standing in the middle of London's Olympic Village, is either a vertical icon or a massive eyesore. Since it was unveiled in May, the combined sculpture and observation tower has been received with a number of mixed, but mostly negative, reviews. Bloomberg columnist James Russell called it a "£22.7 million image of industrial apocalypse" with "menacing tentacles … It will wow you even as you wonder how they [...]