Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
About cool ideas and backflips
Lounge Posted: Fri, Jun 1 2012. 9:30 PM IST The real lasting power of two True Einsteinian, Jobs-like innovation comes from your solar plexus; from your gut; from your soul The Good Life | Shoba Narayan Where do cool ideas come from? Every year, the online salon Edge.org poses one question and gets a bunch of smart people to answer it. The 2011 question was: What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? The answers, compiled as a book with the laughably ambitious title,This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking, has 165 contributions from eminent thinkers on [...]
For Cathay Pacific magazine on Health Resorts
A piece that appeared in Silkroad Airline magazine here Bangalore Health Resorts
Indian fusion music
I am enjoying some fusion music. Began with Dagar Brothers (raag Malkauns)-- which is definitely not fusion. But since people keep asking me for music recommendations, particularly Matt from Memphis, and Chris from Melbourne, here you go. Can't find your emails so I hope you see this. Rajesh Vaidhya plays the veena. This is a beautiful, ancient instrument. Raavan was a master at playing the veena. Nowadays, few Carnatic musicians play the veena and few Hindustani musicians play the rudra veena. I like Rajesh Vaidhya's fusion of Tamil songs which is on Youtube here I think Bala Bhaskar is [...]
Bangalore Art Scene
A piece in FT here
Profile of Vinita Bali for Silkroad, Dragonair/Cathay Pacific
A Profile of Vinita Bali-- we eat her Brittania Ragi biscuits at home these days.
Jeweller Hanut Singh: The National Abu Dhabi
About Jeweller Hanut Singh whose grandmother Sita Devi was a style icon
India– Cultural Immersion
Professor Ravi Bapna's class from the Carlson School of Management's Executive MBA program visited India. I spent one morning-- three hours from 9-12-- doing a 'cultural immersion' class. We discussed history, customs, culture, music, dance (with a performance at the end), and had a great interactive session. They asked tough questions about all the things that stare us in the face: the filth, the beggars, the slums, the traffic. But what surprised me was that they seemed to intuitively 'get' the contradictions that make up this crazy country of ours. Why do people seem so content amidst such poverty-- that [...]
Right to Education
For Mint here
Cultural Immersion
I am doing a class/presentation/module on cultural immersion for a visiting Executive MBA class from the U.S. Basically, I am trying to un-package India for them and it is a fascinating exercise. What do you focus on? Values, food, music, bargaining? There are many good books on Indian culture including A.L. Basham and India Unveiled. Been reading a lot. Have about ten slide presentations and will probably show them about five in the three hours that I have. Also doing interactive stuff.
New Book: Return to India
I am working on Book Number 2, which will hopefully be out later this summer. It is a memoir called, "Return to India." It will be published by Rain Tree (how I love that name), which Rupa calls "its new premium hardcover imprint" here You can view my title in the Raintree catalogue here The reason I put up this post was a note from a friend-- okay, my husband-- this morning that said, "Good timing of the book." He was responding to an article in the New York Times about immigrants. I can say it here because hardly anyone [...]