2010
01.09
Location: Coast of Tamil Nadu, > 150 Kms south of Chennai
Route: Chennai - ECR - Mahabalipuram - Pondicherry
We were: Nisa, Sanjeev and me
We had been planning to visit Pondicherry for quite a long time. I had gone there once for a short stay in the Pondicherry University, but in a hurry to return. So this New Year, we finally made it. Sanjeev, Nisa and me took a “break from time”, as the Tourism logo goes. And we did really! Feel so happy that I am back to my travel blogging, after so many travels.
Everyone knows about Pondicherry, the sea town in Tamil Nadu, the sun and the beaches, the French/Dutch/Roman influences, Aurobindo spiritualism, economical liquor. But to experience Pondicherry is always a personal one. For myself – I felt like saying in one of the tourism T-shirts – “Don’t ask me time, I’m just back from Pondicherry”. Yes! Truly!
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Tags: auroville, ginger_review, heritagewalk, pondi, pondicherry, promenade, puducherry, suruguru Category Cityscapes, Travel Writing |
2009
04.11
Location: Chamarajnagar, Karnataka, India. Highest peak in Bandipur. 220 km from Bangalore
Route: Bangalore - Mysore - Gundulpet - Himavat Gopalswamy betta
We were: 4 families, 3 generations
More pictures: My Gallery
We went to this clouded (Himavat) hill on our way to Wayanad. There was a sudden change in the plan when a friend suggested, we need to visit this place. We got the same recommendations from many. So we decided to check this out.
Many things went wrong:
We should have reached the hills with the sun, to see the himavat clouds!
We should have made it one single trip by itself to spend the day on the hills!
We should not have gone in the peak of summer, for a cooler experience!
Yet, the hills impressed me. I would definitely come back here.
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Category Travel Writing |
2008
10.24
I was quite impressed by Vir Shagvi’s political columns long back and was curious to know that he was a foodie. When I picked the book from recipe section of a bookstore, I didn’t know that he was a celebrity foodie.
The book, a collection of his columns on food, is a light read. I needed it after a few heavy, emotion/theory packed books, to relax. It is different from the historical food books I have discussed here before. It is all about the present. It is more about restaurants and fine living that comes with food.
Book Cover
Category Book Review, Food, Travel Writing |
2008
10.13
In Those Days There was No Coffee: Writings in Cultural History by A.R. Venkatachalapathy
I had been searching for this book for quite a long time and got hold of this last week.
Book Cover
Reasons for searching for it – my interest in food writing, coffee, history and south India. And yes, I had heard about the author in my university days. Well, the book did not disappoint me. I had read about the history of tea in the book I reviewed earlier: Curry. Coffee had something different to offer.
We read enough about how coffee houses became cultural institutions in Western history, how coffee was taken as a drink that stinks to how it became a drink of prestige. This book tells you about South Indian history. The book comes in the larger context of cultural practices of consumption. Coffee, Tobacco, Cartoons, Modernity.
Coffee, the stereotype of Tamil Nadu and South India, is not an innocent icon – the book tells us. Again, it was also one of the material for the elite to process and negotiate modernity, in some sense. From a drink that corrupted the women and the youth, it became a symbol of hospitality and cultural attainment. Coffee clubs turn modern spaces.
There were a few essays on literature, which I skipped. But I was also surprised to see that a book on coffee could completely avoid the most common person who brings the coffee to the drinker, the housewife. Yes, there are a couple of references to how other men deplored the coffee-addiction of women and hints at the Partha Chatterjee bifurcation of the cultural and the political. But wont there be more in history – like how did the women start making coffee, did they welcome the new product or resisted it, did coffee come to houses from hotels or the other way round? Which women started making coffee for men, community, caste?
The parallel between histories of coffee and tobacco is also interesting. Both came to India and became part of India. But when coffee was appropriated by the elite, though with lots of resistance from the conservatives, tobacco after an era of eulogies and celebration, became completely a corruption.
You need not be a historian to read this book. If you happen to be one, this is a must-read.
Tags: Coffee, Food, History, Venkatachalapathy Category Book Review, Food, Research |
2008
09.18
A book which you want to read again and again. At the same time, you don’t want to read again for a false fear of losing your first impression. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi is that book.
A camp during civil war - The writer gathered it during her research for the book.
Very sensitive characterization, deliberate mix up of calendar in plot, Biafrian history that has to be told again and again, politics that invariably interlaces with the personal, old world superstitions, post colonial anger, intense moments of pain and helplessness, stoic resistance, love, betrayal, lust,
Luckily I was unaware of the huge hype the book had got. The book caught me unawares. I often stopped reading to take a break and to let it settle, but always wanted to come back fast to see what happened next. The book kept of taunting me for a long time. I searched the Net and went through some of the horrifying disturbing pictures of Biafran war that caused billions of deaths in war or hunger. Thanks, Chimamanda Ngozi.
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Category Book Review, Research |