Sheila Kumar - Comfortably Numb

Comfortably Numb

Sheila Kumar's Storehouse

Feature: On Gastropubs

Pub it in style A tour of the metros for the gastropub experience. Time was when people would head out to a restaurant, order masala dosas, wash it down with mosambi juice and call it an evening well spent. Then food acquired some frills and furbelows. Basic fare became stylish, the side dishes acquired a personality, and…

Feature: India Breaks Into A Dance!

So we think we can dance She’s doing the bachata gracefully, torso twisting with every nimble move. Suddenly, she segues into a merengue, her mauve-coloured frilly skirt twirling in counter-rhythm. The audience can’t take its eyes off her, the judges are trying their best to look impassive but their eyes give them away. When the…

Feature: The Amy Chua Interview

‘Insecurity is a prime motivator’ What is The Triple Package that leads to success? Amy Chua has the answer in her latest book. In The Triple Package, Chua and her husband Jed Rubenfeld, both Yale law professors, lay out the premise that three specific traits — a superiority complex, insecurity and impulse control — lie behind…

Feature: On Heroes

Heroes & villains Have we become a jaded nation, suspicious of placing role models on pedestals? Or, are we making heroes out of nonentities? I’m conducting an experiment. I start with my neighbourhood, then move in concentric circles to the world at large. This experiment consists of one question I ask the people I…

Travel: Nubra Valley, Ladakh

Nightfall in Nubra Nestled between tall mountains with pristine blue rivers flowing in its lap, Nubra Valley is home to nature in its purest form. Sheila Kumar heads north of Leh to marvel at the delights the valley has to offer It is the twilight hour and the gloaming lights up the Nubra Valley…

Book review: Colour of Gold by Gita Aravamudan

Sepia shot with gold Nostalgia weaves a soft and gauzy curtain through Gita Aravamudan’s second work of fiction, Colour of Gold. The story moves between the KGF that was: bustling, thriving, happy even if fraught with all the dangers attendant on mines and mining, and the KGF that now stands a pale shadow of its…

Book review: The Hundred Names of Darkness by Nilanjana Roy

Survival strategies The Hundred Names of Darkness, writer Nilanjana Roy’s second book in the cat series, makes a pitch for animals and humans to live peacefully together. Any sequel to a critically acclaimed novel comes with its own baggage, but Nilanjana Roy manages to manoeuvre her way through the inevitable obstacle path of expectations, to…

Feature: One shade of grey

One Shade of Gray The grey in my hair is attracting as much attention as good `ole Christian Grey. Okay, I’ll confess all. I made it happen. I orchestrated its debut. I’m talking about one switch of silver- grey that springs back from my left temple and cuts a narrow swath back a distance…

Travel: : Heybeliada Island, Turkey

Islet in the sun The writer visits a lovely Turkish island with no cars but plenty of shaggy dogs. It’s a gorgeous morning, a brisk wind rifling the surface of the Sea of Marmara, the sun still in a mild mood though we have crested the mid-day point. I’m on the deck of the Baris…

Travel: Ladakh

Stop here, or gently pass Preserve the land’s beauty with responsible change, says the writer, who returns to Ladakh after 29 years I stared around at Changspa, mouth agape. The long and winding street was full of tourists, mostly foreigners. They were everywhere, peering at the coral and turquoise knick-knacks on display in the…