The not-so-secret diary

I recently went to the renown Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai which is run by one of India’s oldest film-family, the Kapoors. The theatre is maintained in the memory of Prithviraj Kapoor, a pioneer of Indian theatre and films. Five generations of his family have been associated with the Indian film industry including the latest Bollywood Hearthrobs- Kareena Kapoor and Ranbir Kapoor. The play was part-narration, part-enactment of a controversial 1970s play on censorship in theatre. The acting was powerful and there was an unusual mix of several mediums- cinema via film clips that came up at appropriate points on a screen overhead, ‘lavani’- a traditional, seductive Marathi Folk Dance, and the theatre act itself. The play was mostly in Hindi with a small sprinkling of English and Marathi. Based on my very amateur, personal experiences of watching theatre, there are a few things that spring to my mind when I’m watching a play in India. Firstly, it is the props and lighting. When I...

I don’t know if this is specific to India or my childhood. At the start of every new school year, one of the ritual involves parents visiting the ‘authorised book shop’ which may be in the school or in another neighbourhood, ticking off text books form the list provided by the class teacher, selecting an appropriate number of empty notebooks of some specified size and then buying a roll of brown paper. Now I’m guessing the more modern, international schools may not follow this ritual. But I'm certain that across the country, thousands of little children are cutting brown paper into rectangular shapes and putting a ‘jilat’ or a cover on the notebooks to prevent wear and tear over a new term. I have memories of sitting down with my parents on the weekend before the start of a new term with paper, glue, tape and those all-important ‘name stickers’. They came in lots of bright colours with animals, flowers and cartoons as the background. You had to write your ‘FULL NAME’, ‘STAN...

Not many people who meet me would imagine that I have more than a passing interest in food. And indeed it has been a long journey for the little girl who threw roti pieces under the table to the adult who can now appreciate the fine and varied taste of dishes such as cream-topped artichokes, Camembert-filled pasta and even the quintessential North Indian lentil dish- Dal Makhani. I can’t quite remember the when, how and where but at some point in the last decade I started noticing the difference between ‘good cooking’ and ‘bad cooking’. Family meals were always healthy at home, but now I find myself (and most of my social circle) getting fanatical about the greens, five-fruits a day, wholegrain cereals, salted celery sticks and what-not. And all this usually after a weekend binge of fried food and fizzy-drinks ;-) However the one thing that has spoiled me for ever is the ‘food globalisation’ . It is such an integral part of my London-life that I started taking it for granted over ...