I first had this Nettle Tea in England. Sadly, we often tend to follow our ancient customs only when introduced by our colonial masters!   Hello Readers, it has been a week since I wrote my last blog!  Good Heavens! How time flies sitting in the lap of the Himalayas, watching the mist blow past, obliterating the view of the hill in front or the vast lake below! A tug of war between the sun and the clouds, and our grandchildren mesmerised by the sudden change of the weather, something they don’t get to see in Delhi. This forced vacation …

(Editor’s Note: This weekly column,”Slow Diet with Dr. Swati Bathwal” is a part of our Slow Foods initiative. To become part of it, contact us at slowfoods@turnslow.com or @slowfoodsindia on Twitter and instagram) I read about it on my social media feeds, I see it in my alumni and friends’ WhatsApp groups, I have heard it numerous times during dinner table conversations. Why does cancer seem to be rising so exponentially? All of us seem to know someone around us who is facing the illness. How much of it has to do with our food? Can eating better help us prevent the occurrence of …

  It was a pitch-dark winter night in November 2002. Sitting in the back seat of theTata Sumo I had hired from Allahabad (now Prayagraj), I bit my finger nails, as Ritesh drove the jeep through the thick Sal forest bordering Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, without lifting his foot from the accelerator for a second. The bright headlights of our jeep could be spotted from a long distance away in the dark forest. There was absolutely no other traffic movement on the road. And that made both of us uneasy. Just an hour earlier, the tribal community of Rohaniya Damar …

    It is time for true hero-worship of our country. To bring in the changes that matter – not just in words but in deeds.   A decade or so ago we were living in England. Once while travelling from one town to another, I caught sight of a signpost saying ‘Shakespeare’s home: 10 miles”. As we travelled the signposts became bigger and the distance shorter to the aforesaid destination. When we were a couple of miles away from the famous home we had become so curious that in spite of our port of call being different, we took …

    Two films made two decades apart around one theme – love. From forbidden to mildly-accepting, how Indian films have changed over the years, Or have they?   June for me generally stands for scorching heat, the first batch of ripe mangoes and sporadic rainfall. Over the last couple of years though, it has acquired a new meaning. It’s also marked as the Pride month. Though Delhi (where I live) organises a Pride March in the later half of the year, like most other cities in the country, I guess we observe June as Pride month in the memory …

जंगल में आज मंगल है, चारों ओर सुकून फैला है। हिरनों के झुंड हरी हरी घास खा रहे हैं। नीलगाय ने घास ज़्यादा खा ली, इसलिए अब वो बरगद के पेड़ के नीचे पड़ी जुगाली कर रही है। दो शैतान बंदर ऊपर बरगद की डाल पर उल्टे लटके उसकी नक़ल उतार रहे हैं। एक बंदर नीलगाय की तरह मुँह चला रहा है और दूसरा, दाँत निकाल हँसे जा रहा है – खी खी खी खी! एक मोटा-ताज़ा अजगर आधा पानी में और आधा ज़मीन पर पसरा पड़ा है। पता है ना अजगर से ज़्यादा आलसी कोई और होता ही नहीं है? इसलिए वो भाग- दौड़ …

 I had never seen a flatlined electrocardiogram in my entire life until the morning of August 22, 2017. The long beep, a flatline and a strong woman lying lifeless in bed number 10 of an ICU. It was my twin sister of 37 years – Monika. Someone I had shared the same genetic code with for three decades. Someone I had never imagined would leave me behind so early in life. Someone I had shared an unfathomable bond with. Someone I could not live without. Only a few hours before that she had talked about celebrating our 60th birthday in …

  He who knows no foreign languages, knows nothing of his own! Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I have always considered myself a communications person. I like meeting people, listening to their stories, learning about new cultures, and enjoying different cuisines. Language of course, is one of the key ways to connect. So, in order to connect with people linguistically, I try to learn at least a few basic phrases and have found this extremely enriching. It could probably be because of my love for Sanskrit. I have loved Sanskrit since my childhood. I can see many raised eyebrows! While the …

Translated from the Hindi original by Khila Bisht   What a beautiful feeling it is when a story stays, generation after generation, with the same warmth, the same softness … just a little different in the way it is woven. We don’t always pay attention but sometimes an object, a fragrance, a place become the backbone of these stories, their plot. And these become tradition. It wouldn’t even have been five o’clock in the morning. Amma’s voice rang in our ears like a prayer and we, brothers and sisters, would walk, eyes covered with our hands, slowly feeling our way …

ज़िंदगी बचपन सी होनी चाहिए। तुम आते वक़्त वो छूटी हुई बेफ़िक्री ले आना।  सुना है जो छूट जाता है, वो साबुत वापस नहीं आता। तुम टुकड़े ही ले आना, मैं भर लूंगी उसकी दरारें। आटे की लेई बनाकर चिपका दूंगी उन टुकड़ों को। जी लूंगी एक टूटा-फूटा सा ही सही, लेकिन बेलौस बचपन। प्यारे सावन! ये पाती ख़ास तुम्हारे लिए लिख रही हूं। तुम सोच रहे होगे कि मैं कौन हूं? तुम मुझे नहीं जानते लेकिन मैं तुम्हें जानती हूं, बचपन से। बरसों पहले गली में खड़ी एक बच्ची तुम्हारी राह ताकती थी, वो मैं थी। बारिश में छत पर …