Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
About Christmas and Inspiration
Christmas inspiration takes a note from many cultures Shoba Narayan Dec 25, 2011 Our largely Hindu community in Bangalore, India, is practising Christmas carols and I am trawling the world for inspiration. I like the majestic rendition of Joy to the World, by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir but I don't like their slower songs. For soulful songs such as Silent Night, I prefer the African American choirs that truly own gospel. I like the Boys Choir of Harlem's jazzy, if untraditional renditions. As for Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, it has to be heard in a church with the majestic [...]
Chateau Margaux and Alain Passard: for Mint Lounge
When your food sings to you So I have a message for Paul Pontallier: Come again to India with your subtle, amazing wines; but next time, dignify our palates by choosing a local chef for the meal The Good Life | Shoba Narayan As we are introduced, Paul Pontallier, the legendary winemaker of Château Margaux, takes my hand, bends down…and kisses it—exactly like Elaine Sciolino describes in her book, La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life. I walk in prickly (more about that later) but by the time Pontallier releases my hand, I am charmed. We are at The Leela [...]
Read this and Weep
Read this piece and weep. Pearls Before Breakfast I loved this piece so much on so many levels. It combines art, philosophy, music, behavioral economics, social psychology, pretty much every field that I care about. It gave me names of pieces that I had never hear about: Chaconne by Bach. The greatest violin piece ever written. Gotta listen to that. It gives in one paragraph the various philosophical interpretations of beauty, something which I also care about: Liebniz, Hume, Hume. It gives multiple points of view like that movie, Vantage Point. The musician, the commuter's, the expert's. The choice of [...]
For The National Abu Dhabi on Singapore
From durian to Kampong Glam Shoba Narayan (Writer) Sep 19, 2009 It is 4pm and the Ramadan bazaar in Geylang Serai, the Malay enclave of Singapore, is bustling. Tomorrow is Hari Raya Puasa, the local name for Eid al Fitr and everyone, it seems, is out shopping. Multi-coloured lights twinkle above stalls. Lilting Arab music plays from within. The scent of kaffir lime, lemongrass, galangal, and garlic perfumes the air. Skinny Malay women in colorful sarongs and form-fitting tunics called baju kebaya flit between the stalls. One sells just Middle Eastern dates: sekki, sukkari, medjool, sufri, ajwah and others. Another [...]
Hotel Business
In the hotel business, bigger isn't always better Shoba Narayan (Writer) Jan 27, 2010 Mohammed is afraid of losing his job. I met the middle-aged man from Kerala in Bahrain's transit lounge. Emboldened by my few words of Malayalam, and since we would never see each other again, he told me his story. A housekeeping supervisor at a hotel on Yas Island, he can see the writing on the wall: "Too many empty rooms, even during high season, too many new hotels. It's going to bite all of us." Thanks to the many hotels built ahead of the Formula One Grand Prix, room [...]
Losing weight without exercise
Want to lose weight without the pain? Try a little instability Shoba Narayan (Writer) Mar 3, 2010 It is a truth universally acknowledged that every single human in possession of good fortune still must be in want of a better body. They want to be toned, curvy, thin, voluptuous, have six-pack abs, the list goes on and on. Few are content with their shape and those who are tend to be geriatrics. Mostly, people want to be thin. Even Michelle Obama has got on the bandwagon by calling obesity an American national epidemic. I want to lose weight too. Except that [...]
Reinventing last year’s fashion: upcycling, recycling: for The National Abu Dhabi
Altered notions: recycling last year's fashions Shoba Narayan (Writer) Mar 22, 2010 next previous It is a problem that afflicts every fashion designer: what to do with last season's clothes that didn't sell? In India, unlike the US or Europe, there are no luxury consignment stores or outlet malls where designer "seconds" can be sold at discount. Instead, says the designer Joe Ikareth, the "dead stock" would just lie in boxes in warehouses because "the label was too precious to just give clothes away". So he began thinking about ways around this - ways of reinventing and recycling last season's [...]
MF Hussain: India shamed as its greatest painter is driven abroad: The National Abu Dhabi
India shamed as its greatest painter is driven abroad Shoba Narayan (Writer) Mar 10, 2010 India's treasured painter Maqbool Fida Hussain officially handed over his Indian passport and became a Qatari citizen yesterday. He is never returning home and Indians should not have let him go. Forced into exile five years ago due to death threats from Hindu hardliners, Hussain told interviewers that Qatar is his home now. While he loves India, the 94-year-old artist said, the country didn't need him or want him. All overBharatmata, the Mother India painting. I wonder if the Hindu fundamentalists who made death threats and [...]
For The National Abu Dhabi on the Kumbh Mela
The spectacle of Hindu pilgrims converging near the Ganga.
Secular India
A tolerant and secular India is a myth to make real Shoba Narayan (Writer) Mar 29, 2010 While the roots of Hindu-Muslim enmity in India run deep, every now and then - and dishearteningly, with increasing frequency - certain events serve as touchstones. These events become both symbols and a shorthand; a single word or phrase that encapsulates a community's anger. For my parents' generation, it was partition; for mine, it was Babri Masjid, the demolition of a mosque in 1992 by a large group of Hindu fundamentalists. For today's thirty-somethings, the event was Godhra, where 59 Hindus aboard a [...]