Tinda, tori, ghiya, parwal, bhindi, France beans — the Green Mafia of our childhood dining tables. We hid them under rotis, gulped them down with water and endured long lectures on health. Decades later, nutritionists, algorithms, Bengali chefs and good masala have forced an uncomfortable rethink. Some of them, annoyingly, are actually quite good.
You entered the dabba and immediately knew this was not going to be a gentle journey. Calling it a coach would have been giving it airs. It was a metal box bolted on wheels, with seats bolted inside, a couple of toilets squeezed in at the ends and, hanging there temptingly, the emergency chain. Every…
Who eats those violently orange motichoor ladoos, where hundreds of tiny balls somehow coalesce into one larger ball? Apparently, a lot of people, judging by the mountains of them one still sees at the neighbourhood Aggarwal Sweets or Om Sweets. Behind the counter, the guy in the sweaty banyan keeps churning them out, tray after…
There was a time when lunch came to school in a rectangular aluminium box with a metal clip on the side. It was not insulated, leak-proof, microwave-safe or divided into cheerful little compartments. It was simply a tiffin box, usually a little battered after a few years of service, and often with your name scratched…
Chapter 3: When the Ketchup Bottle Finally Spluttered The Great Indian Drive began with the Ambassador and Premier Padmini, before the Maruti changed the way India drove. If you missed the journey so far, catch up with The Great Indian Drive Chapter 1. & The Great Indian Drive Chapter 2 A Thar pulled up beside…
Chapter 2: Karol Bagh, Dashboard Gods & Bittu Di Gaddi Missed the beginning? The Great Indian Drive started with Ambassador, Premier Padmini and the wonderful theatre of getting somewhere. Read Chapter 1 here. The Maruti 800 did something no Indian car had managed before. It simply worked. It started every morning without persuasion, steered where…
Chapter 1: बुरी नज़र वाले, तेरा मुँह काला. What was India’s first anti-theft device? “Buri Nazarwale Tera Muh Kala.” Long before motivational quotes colonised LinkedIn and Instagram, this was probably the most widely read sentence on Indian roads. It stared back at us from the rear of lumbering trucks, usually accompanied by dangling lemons and…
How an Entire Generation Graduated Without a Syllabus Every generation has its coming-of-age story. Ours didn’t come from therapists, influencers, dating apps or relationship podcasts. It came from movie posters, dog-eared paperbacks, cassette tapes and a VCR with a permanently overworked pause button. Long before the internet decided what we should watch, there were only…
