The National Abu Dhabi
Comment Essays for The National Abu Dhabi
Valentine’s Day
What are you doing this Valentine's Day? In which the author tackles this question for The National here They've given me a column and apparently, the paper has an illustration of me to accompany my pieces. Sad that I cannot [...]
Profile in Khabar
Longing to Belong By Deepa Padmanaban February 2013 Shoba Narayan is living in India and loving it. Why did Narayan, a successful author who spent some of her “best years” in the United States, go back to her homeland—and [...]
Chateau Haut-Brion: for Mint Lounge
How to sell old wine in new bottles Indians like irreverent mavericks. We don’t know what to do with the too-polished ones Shoba Narayan Prince Robert was in Bangalore to showcase Château Haut-Brion. Photo: Aniruddha Chowdhury/Mint. Prince Robert of Luxembourg was [...]
r2iclubforums
I have been following r2iclubforums for years and years. I have written about this forum in my book, Return to India. When I posted in the forum recently to publicize my book, the organizers came back to me with a [...]
Board Games
The board game theory of life India is the birthplace of many modern board games Shoba Narayan First Published: Fri, Jan 25 2013. 06 51 PM IST A watercolour painting of Shiv and Parvati playing chaupar. It is a simple [...]
The great bubbly paradox: how to choose Champagne: for Mint Lounge
A piece about my favorite beverage. I have been trying to write columns without using the letter "I" in it, as a kind of New Year resolution. This was very hard with this piece because my instinct was to begin [...]
Selling on Gumroad
A friend told me about this website that allows writers to sell directly without middlemen. What this means is that if you buy my book for $10, I will get about $9 instead of the $5 or so that other [...]
Gifting
A long time ago, my mother brought me some rasam. The scenario described below was acted out, except that I was the one talking about knee pain, and why make rasam. And my mother was the one saying those words. [...]
RIP dear Light of our current lives
Very busy Sunday-- writing and rewriting this piece in between hospital visits-- don't ask. At first, I included her name in the article. As my editor said, what's the point of asking them to name a law after her if we [...]
New Year Resolutions
January 3, 2013 New Year Resolutions: 1. To write a bit everyday on this page. 2. To develop self-control, particularly when it comes to the uncontrollable urge to scarf down potato chips at midnight. 3. To attempt humor-- carry over [...]
Wearing a burqa
Stereotypes interests me. Perception too. What image do you have when you hear a person's voice? Or read their work? How does this match up to reality? It was a real delight to meet this young Radio Jockey and hear [...]
Blogadda
Blogadda is a wonderful site. I dip into it to get a pulse on who's reading what. I have discovered some new writers through it. So when Shail commented here about this post, I had to link to it. Indians [...]