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College Bound

August 4th, 2014|

Thanks to all the advice-givers of this piece. University is a time for discovery, exploration ... and even purple hair Shoba Narayan August 4, 2014 [...]

Arranging everyday objects into art: for Mint Lounge

August 2nd, 2014|

The other day, my husband came to the dining table and said, “Where are the serving spoons?” “In between the frangipani flowers, dearest,” I said. A bunch of children from the building ran in, exclaiming that they were ravenously hungry. Saturday night is Maggi night in my house and as a result, we become the most popular family in my building. Shelfies are all the rage in the virtual universe of photographs. These are artful arrangements of objects that people photograph and upload on photo-sharing sites like Instagram.

Kathak Maya Rao

July 27th, 2014|

Certain art forms are more connected with a country’s culture than others. To understand Russia, you have to know chess and ballet—the Mariinsky and Bolshoi styles, and names such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Svetlana Zakharova and, of course, Rudolf Nureyev. To appreciate England, you really need to know theatre—Shakespeare of course, but also West End. Fashion is a prism through which you can understand the French; rhythm the in-road into Africa. If you know and understand the tea ceremony and raku ceramics, you will understand the Japanese sensibility.

Indian Railways

July 22nd, 2014|

To understand India, you need to have ridden on a train. One more plug for this fab book. Okay, so I have a piece in [...]

Clubs and dress code

July 22nd, 2014|

It is a tough call to balance the gentility of wearing appropriate attire and tradition with moving with the times. I have been thrown out [...]

Living Will

July 19th, 2014|

This is a horrendously complicated topic. To get an idea, just imagine writing a living will yourself: when would you pull the plug on you? [...]

Day 4: July 18 2014

July 18th, 2014|

I am so mad. I woke up at 3 AM and surfed the Internet for two hours, looking at Hermes and Louis Vuitton bags. Fell [...]

Interviews with His Holiness The Dalai Lama

Old favourites that I wrote for Condenast Traveler (US edition)

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