The summer after my dad, an Air Force pilot, received the Vir Chakra (bravery award), my grandfather insisted we visit him so he could show his  son’s medals off to his cohorts in the village where he had retired. My grandpa was very proud of his progeny and, to our great embarrassment, was not modest [...]

I am a big sucker for gourmet produce stores. The sensory thrill of shopping at a store which is bursting the seams with a large variety of vegetables, fruit, prepared foods, cheese and wine, is a high that cannot be matched. Entering a store like Nino Salvaggio’s,  Papa Joe’s or Whole Foods is an assault [...]

As a young child, I have heard many folklore about the British reign in India. The Brits, we were told, had a fascination for this country of stark contradictions. This was a land where elephants roamed the unpaved roads; snake charmers with huge snakes wrapped around their necks knocked on your door; where extreme poverty [...]

As a young child growing up in a South Indian Brahmin household, it was not surprising that I was reared to be a vegetarian, save for an odd serving of eggs, once in a while. We were considered a “progressive” brahmin family because my father ate eggs and my mother cooked them. But eggs aside, [...]

Are you at wit’s end, wondering how to wean your kids off video games for a couple of hours on the weekend? And all you can think of as a hobby, is to bake sugar and butter-laden cookies with them? Are you worried that the very act of baking cookies with them, while creating those [...]