Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
How women speak: Which Verbal Personality type are you? for Mint Lounge
Society lays the onus on women. Lean In, says Sheryl Sandberg. Break the glass ceiling. Speak up. Dance like a man. That is one way. If you are the boss, sure, you can tell your quiet colleagues to speak up. Or you can simply hire more women. As has been reported in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Inc. and The Atlantic, teams with more women outperformed teams with more men on a consistent basis. “The secret to smart groups: it’s women,” as a headline in The Atlantic said.
While cricket happens down under I talk to Radio New Zealand about everything but.
Bryan Crump and I chat about the Delhi elections and surya namaskar here. Sadly, we ran out of time and didn't get to Perusal Murugan-- who I really wanted to talk about. http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/remote-player?id=20166885
Are you a spouse whisperer?
Are you a spouse whisperer? 5 min read . Updated: 14 Feb 2015, 12:56 AM IST Shoba Narayan You need to be one if he or she has stopped listening to you, says Shoba Narayan What you need this Valentine’s Day is not flowers or candles, but a spouse whisperer. What, you ask, is a spouse whisperer? Remember The Horse Whisperer, the movie in which Robert Redford made a horse do things it didn’t want to do? Spouse whisperers do the same thing to spouses. There comes a time in every relationship [...]
Monsoon Diary on social media
"HOW had I been cooking/eating/reading this long and not devoured Monsoon Diary, by Shoba Narayan? It seems unthinkable now that I have read it cover to cover in about a day (the 20 inches of snow outside helped me a little).
For Silverkris on Skydiving US
Skydiving and why you should consider jumping off a plane.
For Mint Lounge on Indian tigers
Tiger Truths Indian forests are wonderful ecosystems. Teak and sal trees shed dew tears in the misty mornings. Babblers bable; Serpentine eagles soar; Rufus treepies shriek; and humans shiver in the morning cold. Jackals come out of the grasslands. Herds of deer graze under trees. Langurs swing from trees, which themselves whisper and sway towards each other. There is Indian gum, gooseberry, Arjuna, pipal, banyan, frankincense and countless other species. Picturesque as they are, these species are no match for that apex predator in terms of viewing pleasure: Panthera tigris Tiger numbers are up. That is the good news. The [...]
Katha: the power of storytelling
So I have a book coming out sometime in the near future. Read about it here
For The National Abu Dhabi on Sri Lanka
If there is a takeaway from the below piece, consider this. Watch Mani Ratnam's movie, Kannathil Muthamittal (She kissed my cheek). Read Romesh Gunasekhara's (spelling?) books. Sri Lanka: fantasy island Shoba Narayan January 22, 2015 Updated: January 22, 2015 01:37 P There are some places that seem familiar even though you haven’t actually visited them. Paris is like that for Europeans and Sri Lanka is like that for me. Thanks to myth, movies, politics, geographical proximity, and a shared language, Sri Lanka was part of my mindset while growing up in Chennai in the 80s. Lanka-puri was the golden land [...]
Relevance of Sanskrit poetry in today’s world
I loved recording this episode of The Sanskrit Podcast. One thing I didn't know was how important poetry was in ancient India. We have an unbroken tradition of poetry starting from the second century and coming down all the way to Kalidasa. In this episode, we discuss why anyone should pay attention to this rich tradition and repository of points that we have in Indian culture. Poetry is like exercise--you know that it is good to do it, but somehow you can never bring yourself to do it. I confess that I don't read much poetry. I've tried, but usually [...]
For Cathay Pacific magazine on Sri Lanka
Wilpattu National Park, Colombo, and other wildlife treasures in Sri Lanka