Books and Authors

The idea of the old and the new has always had an interesting relationship with the city of Delhi; the name 'Delhi' has been shifting from site to site. I'd say the Qutub Minar and the Meherauli Arche...

9 Nov 202350min

For women of a certain class, there was a tremendous romance attached to Indian swamis and gurus. That's perhaps because gurus of that time presented themselves as an antidote to the very stiff, rigid...

3 Nov 202358min

Ever since my release, I've been thinking of what can be done to improve the situation in prisons. One of the byproducts of people like us going to jail is that we get a glimpse into the world behind ...

27 Okt 202353min

"What we assume is gut instinct when it comes to the cooking of our mothers and grandmothers is actually hours and hours of practice. They didn't have much choice, they had to cook. So, just by dint o...

20 Okt 202355min

"There is so much diversity in one plate of a chaat dish and there is so much diversity from one end of the country to the other. In a plate of chaat, there are differences in texture, temperature, co...

12 Okt 202347min

"Stone carving is really one of the great accomplishments of India's architecture. The jali is part of that larger rock cutting and carving tradition. It has a special place because it wasn't just a d...

5 Okt 202359min

"Incense was the original perfume. There was the belief that if you burnt it, the smoke was able to transcend the barrier between the worlds. Things like sandalwood may have remained in the realm of w...

28 Sep 202357min

"There's an upsurge of interest in natural history at every level and that's a positive sign. The diversity of work by these biologists is a reflection of that interest. There are people working at va...

22 Sep 202355min