Home - Shoba Narayan

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

Queen the movie, Lean In

Shoba Narayan2021-07-05T20:07:05+05:30April 12th, 2014|

I hope Queen the movie triumphs in the box office, because it is a rare Bollywood film with the heroine as the lead. Also [...]

About Indian Wine for Mint Lounge

Shoba Narayan2020-07-10T19:57:47+05:30April 6th, 2014|

Wine clubs are proliferating all over India. The time is ripe for local producers to capture and grow this interest. An informal club I belong to served some nice white wines recently: an aromatic white from Château de Fontenille and a 2008 Aussières Blanc Chardonnay from Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite). The members of this club travel frequently and bring back wines. They do give Indian wines a try but prefer to pay two-three times more for wines of guaranteed quality. They are the market.

Maternal Mortality Rates

Shoba Narayan2014-04-04T05:44:18+05:30April 4th, 2014|

Maternal mortality interests me because it seems preventable and is a problem that is at a confluence of medicine, society and culture. I recommend (highly) [...]

Reinventing Carnatic Music

Shoba Narayan2023-07-19T19:32:21+05:30March 29th, 2014|

How do you make classical music relevant to a global audience? Should you even try? Today’s audience for Carnatic music ranges from Cleveland in the US to Chennai, and these are the hard-core ones. How can you expand its reach? Is it by removing the bhakti-rasa or devotional tone that some believe to be its core? Is it by changing the concert format, as some are doing? Or is it by developing a smartphone app?

VSCO

Shoba Narayan2014-03-26T04:04:26+05:30March 26th, 2014|

My latest app download. I love it Check out the photos here.

Lessons from Malaysia Airlines crash. For Quartz

Shoba Narayan2020-06-17T22:09:04+05:30March 26th, 2014|

LESSON FROM MALAYSIAN AIRLINES My rant about how large Planet Earth is; and about the hubris of our species. Sometimes, humans have no clue. Wrote [...]

Tackling Indian maternal deaths by smartphone: for Christian Science Monitor

Shoba Narayan2020-06-26T14:01:19+05:30March 24th, 2014|

This appeared in Christian Science Monitor. India's MMR statistics are shameful, something which I didn't know. But there is a nice report called "State of [...]

Evolution of Music 3

Shoba Narayan2023-07-19T19:40:44+05:30March 22nd, 2014|

Western classical music traces its roots to Egyptian and Greek music. The medieval period lasted the longest, from about 500-1400. This was also the time when Indian music was being formalized. The Sangita Ratnakara, a musical text that influenced both Hindustani and Carnatic music, was written by Sarangadeva in the 13th century. The Islamic influence that caused Hindustani music to diverge from Carnatic music was just about to happen.