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Can you smell and taste through cyberspace?
The killer app, at least in the fields of wine, perfume, cheese, or anything that relies on olfactory and gustatory sensations, will have nothing to do with curing male baldness. The killer app for wine and perfume will be the ability to transport scent and taste through cyberspace. If you could click on a wine bottle that is displayed on your computer and smell the aroma of the wine it contains, all the wine descriptions that we struggle to come up with will be rendered useless in an instant.
Can wine be described well? for Mint Lounge
KRSMA Estates has invited me to a tasting of their wines next week, and frankly, I am a little nonplussed. Robert M. Parker, the influential American wine critic, once described a Haut-Brion as having “a sweet nose of creosote, asphalt…” and an array of berries. Having never tasted asphalt, and having no idea what a creosote is, this description is absolutely useless to me.
My book talk at the Indian Institute of Science
This Friday, September 4th at 4 PM. Copies of my book will be available for sale. Please come if you can. Click below for the formal [...]
Are you listening to the Kodaikanal rap?
The old woman in Palani—down the hill from Kodaikanal-- was trying to recruit me to be a movie extra. Muniamma looked like a rock star. She was about 80, with weathered skin about the colour of a coffee bean. She was clad in a soft white cotton sari sans blouse in the fashion of village women in Tamilnadu. Muniamma’s recruitment strategy was fool proof.
Videos to accompany Palani Hill & Kartikeya: Sacred Food: Mint on Sunday
My piece on Kartikeya, also called Skanda, was the cover story at Mint on Sunday. Best to read it here. Warning: it is long. I also [...]
Nine features I wrote for Condenast Traveler (US edition) a while back
Interviews with His Holiness The Dalai Lama
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Shoba Narayan is an award-winning Indian author, journalist, and freelance travel writer based in India. She specialises in luxury travel, immersive journeys, and Indian culture with a focus on food, wine, culture, cities, and identity. With over two decades of experience, she has contributed travel features to Condé Nast Traveler (US edition), Travel & Leisure, DestinAsian, Mint Lounge, The National (Abu Dhabi), Taj Magazine, and Hindustan Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph UK, The Guardian UK, and Robb Report among others. Her awards include the James Beard food-writing award and a Pulitzer Travel Fellowship. Her travel writing spans India, Southeast Asia, Japan, China, the Maldives, Bhutan, Costa Rica, and beyond — always with a focus on the sensory, the cultural, and the deeply human. Based in Bangalore, India, Shoba is a leading voice on South Asian travel, reviewing luxury hotels in India and abroad, and writing immersive features on traditional Indian crafts, and contemporary Indian culture. As a freelance travel writer and memoirist, she writes evocative, deeply researched features on everything from birding in Costa Rica to spiritual tourism in Bhutan.
For editors: Shoba Narayan is an Indian travel writer and food writer, who contributes to assignments on travel, food, culture, and Indian cities. She has reported from across the world and writes narrative-driven features with a strong sense of place.
Key Expertise: India travel writer, freelance travel writer India, South Asia travel journalist, luxury travel India writer, food and travel writer India, Indian food writer, Bangalore travel writer, South India travel writing, cultural travel writer, narrative travel journalist, travel features India, heritage travel India, slow travel India, sustainability travel writer, hotel and destination features India, travel essays South Asia.