Charitra Parthasarathy
…Like my Usha Chitti*. On a recent trip with my family to her home in Pune, my mother’s younger sister brought out the red carpet and how. She did a fantastic job over-feeding us, traded oft-repeated family gossip and ladled customized hot beverages for patrons of the balcony. But where she shone wa...
It was a few days before New Years and there was a party around the corner. At my home. The invitees were good friends. They all came bearing liquid gifts, and the evening turned out to be a sort of Bring.Your.Own.Booze party or B.Y.O.B.2016 dawns. And I told myself it would the year of B.Y.O.B for ...
I was at the Chennai International Airport
recently, picking up my parents, who in true-desi style were returning from a
6-month trip to the US. (Apparently, I have to share them with my sister and
brother!).
At half-past midnight, the jet-lag gave us the
perfect chance to open up the 5 pack...
Cooking
doesn’t like me too much. I’ve tried really hard to cajole her with my
full-baked attempts, but she just doesn’t care for any of my stirring and
sprinkling. I remember starting out in the kitchen, struggling to get the stove
to light up. And I wanted my ambitious first dish to be a pasta...
This is a matter-of-fact recital about 2 strangers. Doing very
strange things. Like protecting the earth.Stranger number 1 is a pani-puri wala in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa. He
rolls his golgappa trolley in every evening for a few hours and stays put
outside Mehers, a famous sari shop in the city of te...
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I have a cousin 7 years younger to me. That’s
usually the magic number for a generation-gap-wedge. But I find that SHE
and I get along great in every which way. Conversations are free-flowing,
character flaws are similar, laziness-meters and drinking-thresholds are in
sync and above all, we are ...
One
of the words I hear fairly often on Masterchef Australia is “Deconstruct”. Cooks on the show reinterpret the
basic elements of a dish after singling them out- and apply some imagination to
the process of deconstruction as such. I
am trying to experiment with this technique- not in the kitche...
There’s a lot of talk these days about living mindfully. Being
fully engaged in whatever it is one is doing at that very moment. A lot of it
can be applied to eating, walking, driving (mindfully)…I
have been trying some minor experiments in mindful living too. Focussing mostly
though, on reducin...
There
is an exception to every rule. And I voluntarily and enthusiastically break my
NO-PLASTIC rule with and for just one person in the whole world- My
(maternal) Grandmother. My
Jaana Paati* is truly unique. At 87, she keeps her mind busy with prayer and
her hands - with domestic chores.She
...