Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
Mumbai Scene | Condenast Traveler US |
I am going to Bombay to become a movie star. Why not? Every country in the world, if it is lucky, has a city that allows people to create such gauzy fantasies unfettered by the grim shackles of reality. They thrive and inspire, catalyze personal transformations and fuel creativity, not through wide-open spaces but through vibrant congestion.
For British Airways Magazine on Chennai
Why it is best to land in Chennai at dawn.
Affordable Housing for Knowledge at Wharton
Affordable Housing: An Idea Whose Time Has Come Published: August 27, 2009 in India Knowledge@Wharton Affordable housing is the Indian government's new mantra. President Pratibha Patil mentioned it in her speech on Bharat Nirman, a project that plans to double the construction of low-cost houses to 12 million units. This move, it is hoped, will cascade into more demand for steel, cement and construction material. For this to happen, the government is banking on public-private partnerships. In the past, even if developers were willing to build housing structures for the poor, they found it difficult to come up with suitable [...]
For The National Abu Dhabi on the Indian Monsoon
Why the monsoon makes Indians mad with joy.
Uncertainty: Comment for The National
So you don't like uncertainty: are you sure about that? Shoba Narayan Last Updated: August 12. 2009 5:37PM UAE / August 12. 2009 1:37PM GMT There are two kinds of people in this world: those who are comfortable with uncertainty and those who aren’t. The poor are forced to live with uncertainty in the most basic sense – not knowing if they will have enough money for their next meal. Poor boys run away from home. Seven Pakistani immigrants starved to death on a ship transporting them to Dubai. What drove these men to choose an uncertain future in a [...]
Amit Heri: Personal Finance for The National
Personal Struggle in a Global CrisisBangaloreAmit Heri‘Entertainment is the first thing to be cut’Ask Amit Heri how the recession has affected him and he’ll answer without missing a beat: “fewer corporate gigs.”Mr Heri, a professional musician who grew up and lives in Bangalore, studied jazz and composition at Boston’s Berklee College of Music on a scholarship. He now composes music for film and theatre and dance productions, but says that before the downturn crashed into India 60 per cent of his income came from performances at corporate events for the likes of Toyota, Google, Dell and other global giants. “The [...]
Whitewater Rafting Story for The National Abu Dhabi
Take Me to the River I am standing at the edge of the Nantahala River within the Great Smokey Mountains of North Carolina. Beside me, clutching my hand tightly, is my eight-year-old daughter, Malu. It is her first time river rafting and she is excited and a little scared. I, on the other hand, am terrified. I have a fear of water, you see, and have foolishly decided the only way to get over it is to take my children rafting. When I am with them, maternal protectiveness always triumphs over fear. That was my logic when I planned five [...]
For Destinasian on India
Mountain Magic: Chimagalur: Destinasian: August 2009 I am hiking up the lush Baba Budan Hills of Karnataka, carrying little more than a flask of freshly brewed coffee. It’s a bright February morning and the temperature is hovering around 20°C, perfect conditions for a scenic ramble in the mountains. But for caffeineloving me, this is as much a pilgrimage as a nature walk, for it was on these slopes that South India’s favorite beverage first burst forth. As the late, great Tamil novelist R. K. Narayan once noted, “The origin of Indian coffee is saintly. It was not an empire builder [...]
For Destinasian Magazine on Coonoor India
A Higher Calling The cool Blue Mountains of Tamil Nadu may not be as sedate as they were a generation ago, but they’re still a very special place, as one returning devotee discovers By Shoba Narayan Photographs by Martin Westlake Residents of the Nilgiris will tell you that the highlands they call home have good vastu—a harmonious alignment of energies that sets them apart from anywhere else in India. I for one have long been mesmerized by the mountains’ ethereal beauty. As a child, I used to sit on the porch of my grandparents’ house in the plains of Coimbatore [...]
For The National in Abu Dhabi on sport fishing
The lure of sport fishing A man struggles under the weight of a mahseer caught in Karnataka. Courtesy Jungle Lodges & Resorts Ltd by Shoba Narayan Last Updated: June 18. 2009 5:35PM UAE / June 18. 2009 1:35PM GMT For a vegetarian to hold a live fish is, to say the least, unsettling. For a lifelong Hindu vegetarian such as myself to hold a throbbing 18kg humpback mahseer was quite frankly terrifying. Yet there it was, this scaly silvery fish, cool to touch, heavy with life, twitching with tiredness from the race it had put us through for the last [...]