Dil Se

  Nothing like reviving a lost cuisine and Anglo-Indian food is distinctly yours to relish  The romance of food revival stories goes much beyond the good old platter. It taps the entire ambience of those bygone times when each dish had a reason behind it, an occasion to serve, a tale to tell and a purpose to follow. It also makes you regret having forgotten the taste and trends of cuisines which were so much a part of our food culture, our spirit, our eating mores and even our journey soirees. The Anglo-Indian cuisine is one such wholesome platter lost in the folds of time, sadly. At one time, it powered an entire series of generations to form an invisible link between the rulers and the ruled. If the British colonised us for more than 200 years with their imperialistic designs, the natives hit back by changing their palate to a huge extent, making them slave to Indian aromas, variety and spice wonders. What developed in the process was the moderately spicy, delicate...

The new brand of feminism is cleverly inclusive, subtle but decisive. It is a way of life with the young Indian woman, away from those knee-jerk bra-burning days, writes   MEENAKSHI RAO A boy and a girl were constantly in competition to stand first in class. To emerge winner for all times to come, the smart Alec thought up a sexist competition in which the girl would have no answers to his limerick. But if she did manage to reply, he would concede, once and for all, that women had more brains than men. The girl accepted the challenge and this is how the contest went: Boy to girl : Two twos are four,Three threes are nine. Mine can go into yours,Yours cannot go into mine.  Unanswerable, a winner, he thought smugly. But the girl, not to be cornered, came back with a reply that had no answer from the boy, once and for all. Girl to boy : Two twos are four,Three threes are nine. I can measure the length of yours,You can’t measure the depth of mine. Of course, boys wi...

Mithali Raj. India Captain. Women’s Cricket. That’s the proud identity the game has given me, the 31-year-old skipper tells  MEENAKSHI RAO  in an informal chat from Hyderabad. Excerpts You have been chosen captain of the World Cup XI. What does it mean to you and why do you think you scored over Heather Knight of England, South Africa’s Dane, Australia’s Meg Lanning? I don’t know why they have chosen me over them. The ICC chose me at a time when people had started questioning my captaincy, so it came as a real surprise to me. Yes, it is a huge honour which came to me maybe because of my team’s achievement or maybe because the jury found my leadership qualities better. As skipper of two stints, can you tell me more about captaining India as a woman cricketer? Aren’t the challenges very different from the men’s team, which is established and has a stable structure? 2005 and 2017 had more differences than similarities. In 2005, we did not have many facilities, we we...

MEENAKSHI RAO   sifts real 24 carat gold from a Kiwi river after an exhilarating drive up the second most dangerous road in the world, off Queenstown. A report Big and small amoeba-shaped stones, you can call them rocks actually, give the yellow glitter to most jewellery shops in the quaint Arrowtown. You would think they are pieces of modern art, meant to adorn a gold shop in golden yellow, resembling the expensive metal that generations have lusted for the world over. It’s only when your tour guide tells you these are real and solid 24 carat gold pieces harvested from the nearby river that your jaw actually drops. A 250 gram of one such rock, you are told, was harvested by an ordinary tourist like you 18 hours ago! Not that New Zealand takes these pieces of gold away from whoever harvests it. You can sell them and take the money home or take them home if you have harvested it from the river! Arrowtown gets its existence from the more than 200-year-old gold mining tale...

Our girls in cricket have the passion, power, and perseverance. All they need now is honing and hand-holding out of the humdrum. Time for sports administrators and popular mindsets to take their guard, says  MEENAKSHI RAO It was 2012. Mithali Raj was captaining India in an away series in England. The England Cricket Board (ECB) was in the process of taking out a pre-tournament guide with player information. Sachin Tendulkar happened to be in his favourite haunt London around that time. Asked by the ECB to comment on Mithali’s contribution to women’s cricket for a note on her in the booklet, the legend simply said: “Mithali is one of those cricketers who have achieved so much but she has not got what she deserves.” Tendulkar may have been talking about Mithali at that time but his opinion encapsulates the state of women’s cricket in India, and to a certain extent worldwide too. It’s been largely unsung, unwatched, unsponsored, ignored by the game’s administrators, deride...