Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
Podcasts you should listen to
My latest Mint column It started with children’s audiobooks—abundantly available on the Web. Storynory.com offers free pod casts, in which a chirpy woman named Natasha tells stories suitable for children aged 6-16. Try it when your children come home from school. Along with their tiffin, you can serve them up a story. I have become hooked to podcasts. As someone who spends a lot of time staring at the computer, listening to stuff gives my eyes a rest and gets me moving. I wear my earphones as I walk my dog, or do chores. Here then are some of my [...]
Why don’t Indians say Mea Culpa?
My first article in Mint's Main paper. Why don't Indians say "Mea Culpa?"
The minibar menace
The minibar menace Raise the bar: Paying for every can of cola can be more than a mini nuisance The minibar: I know this sounds like a Seinfeld episode but it is in fact a rant. The one thing that really irritates me at hotels is the minibar. I think it is an outdated relic that ought to be abolished. Hoteliers should simply price those cookie bars and cans of Coke into the room. Perhaps they do already. Five-star hotels in India are hardly cheap. I was at The Leela Goa recently and was informed that their room rate [...]
Rating hotels for review: Mint Lounge
The filch factor: : Mint Lounge 4 min read . Updated: 01 Feb 2008, 12:06 AM ISTThe Good Life | Shoba Narayan I have a somewhat unusual method of rating hotels. I call it the filch factor. If I feel like filching something from the hotel, I consider it worthy of my esteem. I hasten to add that I haven’t actually filched anything from hotels (okay, maybe some toiletries) but the filch factor is what makes a hotel memorable in my mind. I still remember the crisp asparagus-green linen napkins at the Ritz-Carlton in Santiago de Chile; the spa robe at [...]
About service in hotels: Mint Lounge
Leave me alone, I'd like to be invisible please: for Mint Lounge 3 min read . Updated: 04 Jan 2008, 12:21 AM ISTThe Good Life | Shoba Narayan Ok, folks. I might as well get ready to take it on the chin. I am going to come across as a real snob here. But please, before you dismiss me altogether, let me explain that this piece was written with the “lofty goal" of making the hotel industry re-examine its notion of service. Like every Indian idealist, I wrote the following in an attempt to change the world, albeit a world inhabited [...]