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Aramness Gir: for Destinasian

Featured, Travel

For Indians, the jungle is the original storybook where our epics unfolded: a space both sacred and transformative. But Gir is the only place where you can see the Asiatic Lion.

Soneva Maldives: for Mint Lounge

Featured, Luxury, Travel

Just outside my cottage at the Soneva Fushi resort was a coral reef. Several times a day, I walked out into the sea and start swimming with my flippers.

Birding in Costa Rica: for Condenast Traveler US

Featured, Travel

We were in Monteverde, the second leg of my family's eight-day-trip through Costa Rica. Our itinerary was tight. We would fly into San José, the capital, rent a car, and drive the La Fortuna region where the dormant Arenal volcano loomed over the landscape like a benevolent pyramid. From there it would be onward to Monteverde,...

Luxury Bhutan: for The National, Abu Dhabi

Featured, The National, Travel

I am crawling on all fours on a bund between the emerald paddy fields in Punakha Valley, Bhutan. Ahead is the fabled Mo Chu river. All around, perched on hillsides are Buddhist nunneries and monasteries, their prayer flags bringing to mind a Matisse print. This is Bhutan: carbon-negative, Buddhist and a pioneer in sustainable tourism....

The welcome "lemon" at the Park Hyatt hotel, Sydney

Australian Restaurants: for Khaleej Times Dubai

Featured, Food, Travel

Some time ago, I took a trip to New South Wales, Australia. Here are six Sydney restaurants that I tried and loved.

The Dalai Lama: for HT Brunch

Featured, Profiles, Spirituality

Where I sit with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama for an hour and ask him about life, love, meditation, wisdom and ageing. His Holiness is a person like no other in today’s world. Statesman, Nobel Laureate, spiritual leader of the Tibetans who view him as God, or at least the manifestation of Avalokiteshvara, the...

Jasmine Perfume: for Travel & Leisure US

Featured, Travel

Can India be the source of the best jasmine extract in the world?

Travel Stories

Latest Articles

Indian vegetarians travelling the world: for a podcast

Shoba Narayan2020-06-22T19:22:49+05:30December 30th, 2016|

Audiomatic is a great platform for some great Indian podcasts. Vikram Doctor does a great show called 'Real Food Podcast.' Here is an episode in [...]

Use your commute

Shoba Narayan2020-06-14T14:46:02+05:30September 24th, 2016|

24 September 2016 | Home » Leisure » The Better Life Last Modified: Thu, Sep 22 2016. 04 40 PM IST Work out during your [...]

We live in thee age of betterment

Shoba Narayan2020-06-14T14:46:45+05:30September 16th, 2016|

People do many things to better themselves. They take up a sport, learn languages, do yoga, meditate and practise gratitude

The Better Life

Shoba Narayan2020-06-16T20:20:21+05:30September 16th, 2016|

Home » Opinion » The Better Life Last Published: Fri, Sep 09 2016. 12 35 PM IST How to get fit without exercising and other such shortcuts Simple things like [...]

Connecting to readers is a columnist’s particular pleasure: last Mint Lounge column

Shoba Narayan2020-06-17T13:35:11+05:30August 4th, 2016|

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

Shoba Narayan2020-06-17T13:45:00+05:30July 23rd, 2016|

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

Shoba Narayan2020-06-17T13:44:05+05:30July 7th, 2016|

“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.