If it isn’t quite what the guest ordered, so what’s the value addition? What started as an exception 10 years ago is now the norm. Almost every large hotel in the metros and in popular holiday destinations today has at least one expatriate chef in the kitchen. Some exist in executive capacities: they do minimal…
Exploring Srinagar is largely a matter of personal choice: the delight of a shikara is its stately, unhurried pace; a cycle ride around is the perfect answer for seeing what you want. Stop every ten feet to take the perfect shot without disturbing anybody, travel by yourself if you are a loner, or with a…
Vishalla, evolved out of a passionate desire to live away from urban centres, is a little haven outside Ahmedabad. The rustic surroundings of this complex house an ethnic restaurant, a utensils museum and a few handicrafts shops. An evening here is a memorable experience. The ethnic boom of the 1980s spawned a crop of furniture,…
What does a meeting of political bigwigs, an office picnic and an Eid celebration have in common? If all three are held in Kashmir, the answer is wazwan, the traditional banquet. In conservative societies such as Kashmir’s, all occupations are hereditary. Carpenters’ sons pick up the hammer and saw, barbers’ sons will wield the scissors…
No photograph, however powerful, can capture the essence of Palitana. Because antiquity, myth and a sense of spirituality are what imbue this lonely hilltop with an intangible dimension, quite apart from the visual. Of the 24 tirthankars (apostles) of Jainism, 22 are said to have attained spiritual awakening on the hill of Shatrunjay, a 2.3…
There is a wedding in the family, and all day long the courtyard is the scene of activity. A party of professional male cooks spread themselves out under a colourful canopy. The head cook cuts up a whole sheep with a set of wicked looking knives. Nearby, a log fire is being lighted, and an…
While shopping around for apparel or household accessories in India, the last thing on your mind is promoting the craft traditions of the country. But, incredibly enough, that’s exactly what you’re doing ! Just as Indian culture has the supreme ability to adapt itself to a succession of alien Influences over the millennia, so also…
For the sixteen or so years that I have known Chef Ranveer Brar, I have always exhorted him to go in for plastic surgery. As soon as his contours are re-moulded to incorporate a pot-belly and his eyes have acquired bags underneath them, he will be taken seriously as a chef. Until then, he will…
With 360 miles of coastline and over a thousand miles of backwaters, Kerala is something of a paradise for seafood aficionados. There are reminders everywhere: Rows of giant Chinese fishing nets are poised at the edge of the water near the port of Kochi and fishing boats with foamy piles of drying nets idle at…
“So you’re from India? That’s from where the film stars come here to shoot,” was the common refrain of just about everyone we met in Switzerland. Our film industry and its quirks are the subject of radio talk shows and newspaper reports in The Land of the Cuckoo Clock. But we hadn’t gone there to…