Foreword “Ooh helloooo!” Kurush called out to the bird singing on the tree outside the patio of the Olde Bangalore resort where we were filming Bombay Bygones. “Brahmani kite.” “Oh sorry, not…

It Begins to Ferment… In 2018, I witnessed a peculiar sight one morning. My flatmate in Germany was sun-drying circular discs of leather-like material called kombucha scobies. As they…

My first formal dinner was at the Ooty club when I was about 7 years old. I, of course, rebelled against the black, spit-polished shoes, tie and jacket. Sitting on a spotless white-cloth table…

Foreword When we first heard Dr. Tarana speak about her research work connecting the historical dots of Rampur, her persistence to reinforce the culinary contours of the nineteenth century…

I was born to a catholic Mangalorean mother and a Tamilian catholic father. Since my father was working in the Gulf (sounds cliché, but can’t hide the truth!), I was raised as a ‘pucca’…

From when I have memory, she has been a lightning force in my life. She took over the role of a mother when our parents travelled abroad, leaving us in her care. She was our ticket to the…

Answers to this question got me a taste of the most real everyday food. “What have you got for lunch?”, I asked my colleague who had recently shifted to Mumbai. She had joined the…

It had been about 15 minutes since we were talking. I was doing my best to absorb what he was saying but an undisputedly impossible thought kept nagging me. Have I met this person before?…

“Food is fuel.” These are the words every Guru, mentor, instructor or coach I’ve ever had, constantly drilled into me and the many others I grew up dancing with. They…

A conversation over good food is always remembered.People forget everything but food. Sadaf believes so. He considers it one of the two most significant life lessons that cooking has taught…

After an agonizing three-day journey from Nagaon, Assam, we reached Sukro didi’s house. Didi and her family belong to the Oram or Kurukh tribal community from Sundargarh, Orissa – a state that…

I feel some kind of second-hand sadness in the summers,for those who have never tasted mangoes.I’m not speaking of the ones you bought today, or yesterday, or last week, or last year,or…

So, how would you define Aamti?“Please don’t call it a curry”, Malavika said, on one of our video chats. On one phone call days later, Richa advised…

I was woozily sitting on the perimeter of the general store amid the peak of Bhagoria Fest, with a DSLR in my hand, waiting to come across an appealing face that I could capture among the…

If you are in the company of someone who has an affinity towards seafood and notice them deboning a fish without a hitch, no matter how thorny it is; or if you are hosted by someone who pairs…

On a mid-January Monday in the early 70s, a barely 10 year old Kailash, with her friends walked into a neighbour’s house. Prancing about the gullies of Tilak Nagar (Delhi), right after school,…

I first saw Fouzia perform ‘dastangoi’ (an Urdu artform of immersive storytelling) many moons ago in Delhi. In a lot of her work, she often draws upon sensory memories from her childhood spent…

Even at 6:30 am on a December morning, there isn’t one specific smell, sound, voice or vibe that I can ascribe to Shahjahanabad (known as Old Delhi or Purani Dilli today). On a decrepit…

The path was less than two feet wide. Jagged, shifty, discouraging. On one side were the forbidding hills; densely covered in trees, giant cobwebs and thorny bushes. On the other, was a green…