Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
Sacred Food: Kashi Part 2: for Mint on Sunday
MINT ON SUNDAY Home » Mint on Sunday » Big story Last Modified: Sat, Feb 27 2016. 11 35 PM IST How blind faith is choking the Ganga The mission to clean the Ganga will be a pipe dream as long as Indians have no problem in perceiving and accepting the river as both pure and dirty Photo: Shoba Narayan Shoba Narayan The Ganga would be a good place to jump in. The question that looms before me is whether to jump into the Ganga in Kashi: the holiest of rivers in the holiest of cities, according to Hindus. I ask friends and family. My [...]
Sacred Food: Kashi: Mint on Sunday
MINT ON SUNDAY Home » Mint on Sunday » Big story Last Modified: Sun, Feb 21 2016. 06 59 PM IST Of dead cows and the Ganga: The paradox of religion In her quest to embrace faith, the ultimate feel-good pill on the rocky road called life, this writer looks for divine intervention in Kashi Photo: Shoba Narayan Shoba Narayan A dead cow is floating down the river Ganga. She is a black-and-white Holstein Friesian cow, like the one I own in Bangalore. She floats sideways, legs spreadeagled. Half of her face is visible, even though it is dark—7pm on a Friday. I wish I [...]
Sacred Food: Puri Jagannath: Mint on Sunday
Home » Mint on Sunday » Sacred Food Last Modified: Fri, Jan 01 2016. 04 19 PM IST What use is temple cuisine? Dining locally and seasonally is a fad now. Most traditional societies used to do just that. The second of a three-part series from Puri Photo: Shoba Narayan Shoba Narayan In 1810, Robert Southey, a somewhat effeminate-looking British poet laureate who belonged to the Romantic school, wrote a poem called The Curse of Kehama. In it, he talked about an Indian practice that appalled him. “A thousand pilgrims strain,” he began. “To drag that sacred wain... And, calling on the god. Their self-devoted bodies [...]
The beautiful Lord: Mint on Sunday
MINT ON SUNDAY Home » Mint on Sunday » Sacred Food Last Modified: Sat, Sep 12 2015. 11 30 PM IST Azhagar Kovil’s excellent dosai The humble dosai, a staple at breakfast tables in south India, takes a divine turn in the kitchen of Madurai’s Azhagar Kovil Photo: Shoba Narayan Shoba Narayan It is sunset when I walk into the Azhagar Kovil, 20km outside Madurai. Azhagar Kovil means “handsome lord’s temple” in Tamil: a tad immodest, I think, even for Vishnu, the flamboyant Hindu god who is known to enjoy the good life. As it turns out, I may be wrong about the provenance of [...]
Sacred Food Palani: Mint on Sunday
MINT ON SUNDAY Home » Mint on Sunday » Big story Last Modified: Mon, Aug 10 2015. 07 12 PM IST Palani’s heavenly panchamritham The prasadam of the popular hill temple not only tastes out of this world, but is also a healing potion Photo: Shoba Narayan Shoba Narayan Carnegie Hall has nothing on Hindu temples. I think of this as I stand inside the sanctum sanctorum of the Palani temple, waiting for the doors to open. I have visited countless temples in my life and everywhere, the routine is the same: long lines of people—call them fans or devotees—waiting for hours to get a [...]
Sacred Food in the Golden Temple: Mint on Sunday
Rolling rotis in Amritsar’s Golden Temple Shoba Narayan Amritsar: The family standing at the long, snaking line to enter Harmandir Sahib, or the Golden Temple of Amritsar, is fighting. All around are people prayerfully singing kirtans (devotional songs), but this father and son, united by their pink turbans, but divided by their accents, are arguing. “I am a Sikh in my heart,” says the boy who looks to be about 16. “Why do I need to wear a turban to prove it?” “Because wearing a turban is one of the five tenets of our faith. You should be proud [...]
Silence and Sound Part 4
Home » Mint on Sunday » Silence and Sound Last Modified: Sat, Aug 27 2016. 11 37 PM IST Silence is an underrated tool in the arsenal of parenting When I don’t snap to judgement or bark out orders, it gives my kids the space to choose, decide and make mistakes Photo: iStock Shoba Narayan I am trying something that is extraordinarily difficult for every parent. I plan to cease and desist from all parental instructions; or at least reduce their volume and frequency quite significantly. I am what I would call an involved parent. My kids have another pithy word to describe my modus [...]
Silence and Sound Part 3
MINT ON SUNDAY Home » Mint on Sunday » Silence and Sound Last Modified: Sat, Jul 02 2016. 11 35 PM IST My experiments with silence Keeping quiet improves sensitivity. Once you calm down your monkey mind, it is easier to pay attention Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint Shoba Narayan Before he died, my father-in-law gave me sage advice. I was a “pleaser”, he said; someone who enjoyed making other people feel good. Just as I was blooming with pleasure at an unexpected compliment from this reserved man came the sting. Nothing wrong with pleasing everyone, he said, except that I tried to please all parties at [...]
Silence and Sound Part 2
MINT ON SUNDAY Home » Mint on Sunday » Silence and Sound Last Modified: Sat, Jul 16 2016. 11 29 PM IST The problem of embracing silence in an age of noise Most of us don’t know how to experience, process, use or embrace silence—it’s easier to just fiddle with our phones Photo: iStock Shoba Narayan The most exciting developments in brain research—itself an exciting field—today have to do with neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. Think of our brain as a giant plastic ball. Researchers want to pull and push it, mould it into suppleness, make it nimble and bounce it back into youthful health. Neuroplasticity is [...]
Shortcuts to health and happiness
Home » Leisure » The Better Life Last Published: Fri, Sep 16 2016. 11 53 AM IST The age of betterment: Short cuts to health and happiness People do many things to better themselves. They take up a sport, learn languages, do yoga, meditate and practise gratitude Shoba Narayan The writer in Nepal’s Chitwan National Park. Photo: Arpita Dutta What do the Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra, Dale Carnegie and Dan Ariely have in common—besides the letter D? They all teach you how to live better. If freedom was the mantra of India before its inception as a nation, dignity, its drumbeat at incipience, prosperity, [...]