Oct27

May your lamps burn brighter

Here’s wishing everyone a very happy Diwali and bright and prosperous New Year ahead. May your lamps burn ever brighter today and evermore. May Laxmi enter your lives without taking up the room that Saraswati must occupy.
This year, with the markets in a nosedive, it may be that you will light a few lamps less, […]

Sep29

Nine nights of rapture

Here’s wishing everyone a very happy Navratri. Just as on St. Patrick’s Day, everyone’s Irish, during Navratri, we are all Gujju. For while it is celebrated in many parts of the country, no one does Navratri with as much panache as the Gujaratis. I recall wheedling out passes to some of the more well-appointed Navratri […]

Sep26

English babu, desi mem

 
One of my favourite novels is Mary Margaret Kaye’s The Far Pavilions. An epic romance set in 19thcentury British India, the novel is, despite its unabashedly orientalistic tone, a heart-warming story of forbidden love against all odds. The aristocratic British army officer, Ashton Pelham-Martyn falls in love with the beautiful princess Anjuli and rescues her from […]