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Go ‘ah’
Fort Aguada At the O’Coqueiro in Alto Porvorim I sat exactly where the ‘Bikini Killer’ did over 30 years ago enjoying what would be his last meal as a free man for a long time. Hatchand Bhaonani...
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Love in the time of flood
1. Starting out, 7 AM Everyone thanked the sand mafia. They said it was their tireless digging up of the riverbed which enhanced its water-holding capacity which in turn enabled additional water from...
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FRI Day
It’s like John Wick – unless you know the history, you are just looking at a brooding, pretty façade. But under the sempiternal glow of the autumn sun falling unfiltered through a cloudless sky, even...
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Hippie
A sadhu in Kathmandu The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, I have been told, is a sensory whirl: the colours and sights, smells and sounds waft around you, a gripping menagerie. In Paulo Coelho’s new book,...
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The bridge across furore
A protester at the bridge Clashing with the police, as anyone who has clashed with the police knows, is addictive. There must be some endorphin involved in the heightened sense of indignation: ‘hey...
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House of the rising sun
Take it easy, he said Playing Pablo It all started with a valium prescription following a workout accident: I couldn’t straighten up after I put the barbell down but had to crawl on all fours and...
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The lesser-known globetrotting chai wallahs
Je ne sais quoi For all their famous hatred, the French sometimes do come to the rescue of English, the language. The word above might sound like an endearment in Mandarin but it means a wonderful...
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Quiet days in Kochi
Alice Delices is a rare place. Besides freshly baked bread, here you find people actually talking to each other, looking at books and photographs, debating the identity of artists on the wall posters...
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Jesus monkey and Mary chechi
As children, our parents kept me and my sisters away from adultery and blaspheme by shifting to English. So we might all be sitting around and talking about the annual day celebrations of our village...
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Delegate pass
Much has been written about muses and understandably so – they are salacious tales and scandalous to boot. The recorder always faithfully documents the gratitude the artistic and literary worlds owe to...
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The wayback machines of Rajasthan
Photographs taken to bring tourists. And photographs taken by tourists themselves. Some minor details are always missing between these two. In my case it was a long line of big-boned women clad in...
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The problem with Airbnb
‘It was my first outing with Airbnb.’ Any write-up that begins on a note like this you know where it is headed – yes, spiralling down. So before I proceed and make my case (the host had, while I was...
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Dharavi – Into an open netherworld
Aligned in glistening beads of sweat along an open oven the men pause briefly to look up at people like me – those from a halcyon world. They are on the basement floor of a twin-storey ramshackle lit...
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Call time
Jump / AIIMS “On the bright side, the ride to the mortuary will be considerably shorter,” she said as she stood with one hand on her plump hips. She looked at her husband and even though she didn’t...
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Twenty20: The journey so far
When polity develops accountability and corporatedom grows a heart it becomes Twenty20. This is practical Utopia: organisation, skilled manpower, resource and vision meet people. Being first of its...
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Maximum selfie city
Vanity thy name is not woman anymore. It is man. A study published in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction puts the percentages of men and women exhibiting ‘selfitis’ – the...
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Delhi to Agra via NH2
#instatravel #motorcycling #heritage #dhaba #nh2 #royalenfield #incredibleindia #travelogram And finally The city gives up. Hauz Khas, where I stay, conurbates into more highrises and flyovers,...
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The shaap shooters
The GPS assured that we had arrived: in place of the curving, lengthening arrow mark, there was the sprogged onion. The famous toddy shop was supposed to be on our left side. Instead of – as I imagined...
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Thrissur Pooram and jumbo love
Will he? Won’t he? Festivals remain popular and stay relevant when they don’t try too hard to reinvent themselves as something else, say, a youthquake. Nothing much has changed in the over two...
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Earth on heaven
A man goes to a shrink to check if he has gotten over his ex. Shrink: Do you get jealous when you think of her with another man? Man: But I have always wanted to see her with other men. You get the...
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