Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
Mogra & Merlot: the Indian style of entertaining
On a recent night, under the lingering fragrance of a champaka tree, two taste-makers sat down to converse about tradition, aesthetics, saris, and, interestingly, entertaining. From Kerala ‘kasavu’ saris as tablecloths to ‘mogras’ in banana- leaf cones as centrepieces—is there an Indian way of entertaining? Entertaining is an act of love, a way to break the monotony of life. In today’s efficient, time-constrained world, we all have taken to “sourcing” the best products. But going that extra mile to root your parties in the Indian “context”, makes them memorable and feeds your soul and spirit.
Diwali gifts that do good and feel good
Diwali Special: Thoughtful gift options for the evolved consumer—help a cause, spread the wealth. A recent happy trend, though, is choosing gifts from organizations that work with and help less-privileged sections of society. Call it conscious consumption. Or being an evolved consumer. It is a way of spreading festive cheer that goes beyond individual needs or greed. To help you with this process, here is a list of such organizations. These products are handmade so if you want the consistency of a factory-produced object, look elsewhere.
What’s cooking, Gaggan Anand?
The 39-year-old chef’s Bangkok restaurant Gaggan, which claimed the top spot in the list of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants for the third time in a row, is all set to close in 2020. Shoba Narayan brings to you a taste of his new avatar
Haveli Dharampura: Hotel Review: Mint Lounge
Haveli Dharampura and the future of India’s past Home » Mint on Sunday » Big story Last Modified: Sun, Dec 25 2016. 12 20 AM IST The restoration of Haveli Dharampura offers a template for breathing life into dilapidated heritage homes in a bid to woo foreign tourists Photo: Haveli Dharampura Shoba Narayan In January 2015, the urban development ministry launched the Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) project. The focus was to develop heritage cities in a holistic manner. Europe does this best, by preserving even the smallest city’s unique character and appeal, and converting it into [...]
Connecting to readers is a columnist’s particular pleasure: last Mint Lounge column
This will be my last column. My first coincided with the first issue of Mint Lounge and so it continued for nine years, weekly for the most part. I have grown and changed with this paper, participating in and bearing witness to its multifaceted issues. To be one of its voices has been a privilege I have never taken for granted. I was going to write a philosophical piece about time. About how this wasn’t really an ending but a new beginning. About how the ancients viewed time as cyclical. I researched the Pirahã tribes of Brazil who know no past or future but live, like Buddhist monks, in the present always.
You don’t go to Rajnikanth movies for the plot, you go for the comfort
To understand the hold that Rajinikanth has on his fans, you have to meet my ex-driver, Robert. An archetypal Rajini fan, Robert dresses, walks and talks like Rajini. Conversations with him are a triumphant reminder that while English is the language of logic and analysis for us Indians, our mother tongue is the language of the heart. It is Tamil that I turn to when I want to plead or persuade. And like many of our great vernacular tongues, Tamil lends itself to exquisite hyberbole. What passes of as conversation in Tamil would sound like a film dialogue when restated in English.
Negotiating with a spouse about marrying a cellphone
“I am thinking of marrying my cellphone,” I tell my husband. We are sitting beside each other, tapping on our colour-coded iPads—his, black, and mine Hermes orange—the colour, not the brand. “Oh really,” he says in that overly enthusiastic voice he affects when he hasn’t heard a word I have said. Our gadgets punctuate our lives and burrow deep into our souls. There is an app for every emotion. Getting hitched to your phone is the next logical step.
Ode to an old-fashioned radio: how our parents listened to the news
How did you lose your Malayalam accent, I asked my father, especially since it has smeared itself like coconut oil on every other relative from Kerala. Radio, replied my father. My paternal grandfather was a lawyer in Kottayam, the kind of man who made fallen dominoes out of hardened criminals. At 9pm sharp, he would order his vast clan of sons, daughters and nephews to collect at his feet. Together they would turn on the radio and listen to the familiar voice that said, “This is London calling.”
The fantastic range of jewellery in India: inventive and imaginative
The range of jewellery available in India in terms of materials used, designs and techniques of craftsmanship is unparalleled,” says author and jewellery expert Usha Balakrishnan. She gives examples. The Nagas make jewellery using beetle wings, feathers and bones; Bengalis use conch shells for their bangles; Keralites include tiger claws and elephant hair in their jewellery; Maharashtrians use black beads; many states, including Tamil Nadu, use terracotta. The language of Indian ornamentation is vast. There is no such thing as pan-Indian jewellery.
Traditional jewelry brands going modern for Mint Lounge
Star trek How a traditional jewellery house can morph into a modern avatar without losing its cross-generational clientele Shoba Narayan Heritage jewellery from C. Krishniah Chetty & Sons In 1877, a young Greek jeweller named Sotirios Boulgaris left his village in the Epirus region and travelled to Corfu, Naples and, finally, Rome, where—in 1884—he opened a store on Via Sistina under the name Bulgari. A century later, Claudio Mariani, a young Italian, joined the company, first as a jewellery designer, then as manager of their Geneva outlet, and later as head of their Asian operations. At the [...]