Home is where the heart is

And for me, it will always be India... 

Whenever people ask me which is my favourite city in the world, I don’t even have to pause and think. No, the answer is always on the tip of my tongue. It’s London all the way. I love the city for its magnificent monuments, its beautiful parks, its fun pubs and the glorious countryside a short car ride away. And yet if anyone were to ask me to move to London and live there full-time, I wouldn’t take a second to say, “No, thank you.”

 

And no, that’s no reflection on London. I am happy to spend weeks there on holiday and have done so for many years. But the very idea of moving to a foreign country – whether it is England, or Thailand, or even my eternal love, Italy – to live there forever leaves me cold. 

 

I know what you’re thinking. I am one of those spoilt upper middle-class ladies who is so used to other people cooking and cleaning for her that the very idea of looking after myself in a city where domestic help is hard to come by makes a shiver go up my spine. And yes, I agree that when it comes to domestic help, people of my age and class have it extremely easy in India. But it’s not the cooking and loading the dishwasher that gives me pause – in fact, I quite enjoy fending for myself when I am abroad – but the feeling that I would never flourish far away from my natural habitat, in a country that I cannot really call my own, no matter how long I live there or how hard I try to assimilate.  

 

Nor do I think that this is a function of age, and that I am now too middle-aged and set in my ways to countenance such a change. Even when I was in my early twenties and had several opportunities to move abroad and start a new life, I always declined the opportunity. The thought of being a legal alien in another country just didn’t appeal no matter how good the pay packet that came with it. To me, it was far more important to live in a place where everyone else looked like me, where I could speak, read and write the local language, and where my family and friends were just a phone call away.

 

The comfort of familiarity is what always anchored me in place. And that feeling has only got stronger with time. The very idea of living in a place where nobody else speaks my language leaves me cold. And even though globalization has created a world in which you can get Indian food anywhere in the universe, you simply can’t replicate the taste of home anywhere abroad no matter how hard you try. 

 

Which is why, while I love to travel the world, sampling the delights that it has to offer, I am never as happy as when I am coming back home to my own country, my own home, and my own kitchen. The first meal I eat when I arrive back is always a khichdi with copious quantities of ghee, with some alu choka and mango pickle. 

 

That’s the taste of home to me; and home can never be anywhere else but India.

 

On holiday, will cook

 There is no better way of immersing yourself in local culture than cooking on vacation

Last night, over dinner with some friends, I happened to mention how much I enjoyed cooking dinner during my recent vacation in London because of the freshness and quality of the produce. My announcement was met with astonishment, with the general consensus being that I was a glutton for punishment if I spent my evenings cooking while I was on holiday.

 

Well, what can I say? There is nothing I enjoy more than cooking when I am abroad, trying out new varieties of mushrooms, buying cuts of meat that I never find in India, and using condiments I haven’t even heard of before. I enjoy eating out at lunch – and occasionally at dinner as well – but there is nothing I find more satisfying than rustling up a tasty meal for my husband and myself on our nights in (when we are staying in a service apartment rather than a hotel room).

 

It all started many decades ago, when as a young journalist I spent a few weeks working in a media house in London. Not having enough money to eat out every day meant that I had to learn to feed myself using the tiny kitchen in the apartment I was staying in. I began by buying ready-meals and popping them into the microwave, graduated to boiling some pasta and eating it with bottled sauces, and when I got bored with my tiny repertoire of dishes, I began experimenting with fresh produce. 

 

I would fry up some mushrooms with onions and garlic and pile them on buttered toast. I would boil some potatoes and make a nice German-style salad to go with sausages. I would buy vine-fresh tomatoes, slice them open, pour some olive oil over them, season with fresh herbs and Maldon salt and enjoy them with a nice piece of fish. I didn’t make too much effort because I was often tired after a day’s work, but even with minimal work, my meals became more memorable the more thought I put into them.

 

Ever since then, whenever I go abroad, my first stop is always the grocery store. If I don’t have a kitchen then I stock up on cold cuts and some Kettle chips and make a picnic of it in my hotel room. If I do have a kitchen, well then, I let my inner Domestic Goddess run wild. 

 

I still remember one memorable trip to Tuscany, when I had just started learning Italian. My husband and I would spend days trawling through the vineyards sampling the wares on offer, but in the evenings, we would settle in the cosy kitchen of the villa we were staying in and cook our evening meal together. I still believe I learnt more Italian talking to the local stall-owners about artichokes, peppers, prawns, mozzarella and other ingredients and discussing how best to use them than I did in my regular evening Italian classes back home.

 

I still apply some of those lessons when I cook while on holiday. Last fortnight, in London, for example, I oven-roasted some colourful peppers with garlic, herbs and lots of olive oil, par-boiled some potatoes and quickly stir-fried them till they were golden and glorious. We ate them with Spanish-style sausages, washed down with red wine. 

 

And that, to me, was the true taste of what a vacation should be like.

Italian Indian, Bhai Bhai

 The similarities between the two countries are hard to miss

It was while standing in line to board an aircraft at an Italian airport that the thought first occurred to me. As the crowd built up behind me I could hear many raised voices having animated conversations on their cellphones without a care as to who was listening in. And in about 15 minutes what had been an orderly queue when we started out had turned into an amorphous mass of people. 

Honestly, I thought to myself, I could be back in India! There was the same lack of awareness that we were in a public space and that it wouldn’t do to disturb the peace of other people. And there was the same cheerful flouting of boring old rules like standing in a line while waiting. 

The more I thought I about it the more I became convinced that Indians and Italians are really the same people. And not just in terms of their common disregard for any kind of civic discipline (anyone who has driven in Delhi will feel right at home on the streets of Rome!) but in more positive ways as well. 

Take our attitudes to family. Both in Italy and India, the family is regarded as near sacred. There is respect for elders (and not just those who belong to your family), there is affection for young adults, and adoration of all children. You only have to dine in small Italian restaurants to see that multigenerational families are as common here as they are in India. And just like Indians, no Italian can resist the charms of a chubby baby. There will be much cooing and cuddling and cosseting — and that is just the wait staff. Nobody will give you dirty looks if your baby cries either; instead they will lining up to help quieten him or her down. 

The Italian attitude to food is much the same as the Indian one. There is the same love of carbs (pizza and paratha), the same affinity for deep-frying (arancini and pakoras), the same dependence on milk products (cheese and dahi), the same taste for intense sweetness when it comes to dessert (affogato and kheer). Indians have yet to develop the same devotion for a nice glass of Prosecco but I think we will get there eventually. 

When it comes to hospitality, there are the same parallels. The welcome you get in an Italian home is very similar to the one you can expect in an Indian one. The table will be laden with more dishes than you could possibly do justice do; the hosts will entreat you to have second or even third helpings; and the drinks will keep coming even when you are ready to give up. 

But the greatest similarity between Indians and Italians is this: never do they feel more Indian and Italian than when they are out of their respective countries. While in Italy, they may define themselves as being from Napoli or Venezia, they may differentiate between the north and the south. But the moment they leave their country, they became ‘Italians’. The same is true of Indians. All those differences between Gujaratis and Punjabis and north and south India collapse the moment we leave our borders. Then we are all Indians together. 

So, if you needed another reason to visit Italy, here it is: we really are the same people!

It's a New Year!

My best-of-2023 list... 

This is my first column of 2024. But this week I am looking back – and giving you a taste of all that made 2023 (despite its many miseries) bearable for me. Here, in no particular order, is my best-of-2023 list.

 

Best trip: My love affair with Italy will endure forever, but this year it was another destination that left me stunned by its beauty and captivated by its charm. Morocco had everything that I could have asked for: a beautiful seaside town in Tangiers, a bustling modern city in Casablanca, a spectacular historical centre in Fez. And that’s before you even start on the beauty of the Atlas mountains. An unexpected bonus was the friendliness and warmth of the Moroccan people, and the truly breathtaking Oberoi hotel in Marrakech that made me feel proud to be Indian every time I walked through its doors.

 

Best book: I know the book was published in 2022 but it wasn’t until 2023 that I picked up Bonnie Garmus’s Lessons In Chemistry – and was completely blown away. It wasn’t the conceit of cooking being seen through the lens of chemistry that enticed me so. It was the character of the heroine herself. I don’t think there has ever been a character like Elizabeth Zott in fiction – and I doubt there will ever be again. If you have read it, you will know what I mean. And if you haven’t as yet, you have a treat in store for you.

 

Best movie: I had to wait till the fag end of the year for this one and, frankly, I went into it with zero expectations. But Kho Gaye Hum Kahan surprised me with its sensitive yet entertaining exploration of the world of today’s 20-somethings and their obsession with social media. The tone was far from preachy, the direction had a light touch, and the star cast stepped up with some of their best work. The star of the show was undoubtedly Ananya Pandey, whose emotional journey was the core of the movie.

 

Best TV show: There was simply no contest in this category. Slow Horses on Apple TV (based on the book by Mick Herron) was the best thing on television in 2023. It wasn’t just that Gary Oldman gave the performance of his life as the shambolic Jackson Lamb, whose slovenly exterior hides a razor-sharp brain and reflexes you wouldn’t expect from an overweight, out of shape, washed-up old spy. The rest of the cast is excellent as well, but it is Oldman who carries the show, helped along by the best writing in the business.

 

Best meal: You will probably expect me to name some fancy restaurant or an iconic chef. But the truth is that the meal that stood out for me was one that was grabbed on impulse, cost very little, but which packed a pretty punch when it came to flavour. It helped that I consumed it in surroundings of outstanding natural beauty, the splendour of the Sakura trees in full bloom providing an elegant complement to the egg katsu (sandwich) I had picked up at a grocery store in Tokyo. The creaminess of the boiled egg, the unctuousness of the mayonnaise set off the sweetness of the white bread perfectly. Heaven in every bite. 

Missing in action

As our world shrinks to travel destinations within a few hours drive, here are some of the places I can’t wait to revisit

 

I guess it was bound to happen. After a few months of driving out to nearby resorts for mini-breaks – because flights are still a no-no in my Covid-paranoid household – we are rapidly running out of holiday destinations. We have done Jaipur, staying in not one but two of my favourite hotels. We have ventured out to Alwar, a place we had never explored before, and loved it. And of course, we have done the tried and tested Agra vacation, right under the shadow of the Taj Mahal. 

 

But now that we have exhausted the possibilities within a few hours drive from Delhi, my thoughts are inexorably turning to destinations that I can’t travel to for the foreseeable future. And the more I think about them, the more I miss them with an almost visceral twist of the gut.

 

First up on the list is London. I first discovered it in my 20s, and since then have been going there at least twice a year. As a consequence, such is my familiarity with the city that it almost seems like a second home. And yet, no matter how often I visit, London never gets old. Whether I am tramping through St James Park or trudging through Hampstead Heath; whether I am traipsing the aisles of Waitrose or Marks and Spencer; whether I am marveling at the paintings on display at the National Gallery or the Tate Modern; London never ceases to amaze and astonish with its cornucopia of delights.

 

If London is like a second home, then Bangkok is like the alternate universe in which I would like to live forever. Over the last couple of decades I have seen the city transform from a somewhat sleepy, sometimes seedy, destination into a sleek, skyscraper-strewn, shimmering capital, which attracts people from all over the world, with its world-class shopping, its amazing food (whether you eat on the streets or in Michelin-star restaurants), and its friendly people who never seem to stop smiling. Small wonder then that I can’t wait to go back.

 

As the winter fog descends on Delhi and the sun goes AWOL, my mind’s eye conjures up the white sands of Maldivian beaches, the azure-blue waters, and the clear turquoise skies of that island paradise, as I fantasize about sitting by the sea and sipping on a cocktail as I enjoy the tropical weather. I am even happy to let the humidity and sea breeze do its worst with my hair, so long as I can soak up the heat and let the warm water of the lagoon wash over me. 

 

Speaking of lagoons, how could I possibly forget the most stunning of them all? Venice! I was fortunate enough to first discover it in the depths of winter, when the tourist hordes were missing in action. I spent days wandering the near-empty calles (streets), bundled up in my overcoat and woolen cap, marveling at the architectural marvels that lay around every corner. Since then, I have been back several times, and each time La Serenissima has shown me a different facet of her undeniable beauty. I guess the streets are empty again – now because of Covid – but this time I can walk them only in my imagination.

 

Thinking of Venice leads me inexorably to other destinations in Italy, in all of which I have left behind pieces of my heart. Rome, whose magnificent monuments are a testament to the talent and ingenuity of mankind. Siena, with its cobbled streets and medieval structures that take you right back in time. San Gimignano and its dreaming spires. The shimmering waves that lap the beaches of Liguria. The stunning vistas you can feast your eyes on from the Amalfi coast. I could go on, if it wasn’t for the small matter of the lump in my throat. 

 

I don’t know when the world will have healed enough for us to venture out and explore it anew. But I do know that when that day dawns, I, for one, am going to be spoilt for choice. And I hope that you are just as lucky.

Slow down...you're moving too fast

Sometimes the best way of doing something is to do nothing at all!

Admitting to a love of anything Italian these days tends to lead to accusations of being 'Congi' 'sickular' 'paid media' but I am going to stick my neck out anyway and fess up to just that. I love Italy. The small villages, dotted like shining gems all around the gleaming countryside. The tiny towns, with their amazing piazzas and dazzling duomos. The big cities, heaving with life, and drowning you in unexpected beauty around every corner. The seaside with its deep azure waters, the mountains with their verdant landscape, every corner of the country has something stunning to offer.

And then, of course, there are the Italians themselves. Okay, I am prepared to concede that they may not be the most organised or even the most industrious people on the planet. But what they lack in terms of a work ethic they more than make up with their sense of style, their natural elegance, and their love of 'bellazza' (beauty) be it in their clothing, their houses, or even their food and drink.

There is something magical about sitting at a roadside cafe in Italy and watching the world go by. Both the men and the women - no matter what their age, shape, size or social status -- have a certain individual flair to their dressing, a je ne sais quoi (sorry, can't think of a suitable Italian equivalent) that makes them look both stylish and elegant. (If you do find the odd graceless creature trotting by, you can rest assured that he or she is -- like me! -- a tourist.) I could spend entire days just feasting my eyes on the pictures of everyday life they conjure up as they rush to work, take their dog for a walk, play with their kids in the park, or simply enjoy an al fresco meal with their friends.

And what is even more magical is that the Italians have a special phrase to describe all this sitting around and watching the world go by. They call it dolce far niente. Or, loosely translated into the far more mundane English, the sweetness of doing nothing.

Over the years that I have spent studying Italian and travelling through Italy, this has become my favourite phrase. It perfectly sums up my state of mind when I am on holiday. I want to experience the sweetness of doing nothing. Of just wandering around and soaking in the atmosphere. No taking pictures. No obsessive checking of phone messages or emails. No dipping into social media to check what's happening in the world (or to tell the world what is happening with me). No peeking into guide books to check what are the must-dos and must-sees for every city.

No, I simply revel in the sweetness of doing nothing. Dolce far niente. What an absolutely marvellous way of flushing your mind of all the toxins that the stresses of day-to-day life produce and recharging your batteries for the time when you must inevitably return to the day job.

Last week, as I sat around in an Italian coastal town thinking about ideas for this column after days of doing absolutely nothing at all, I couldn't help but wonder why we have lost the ability of switching off and losing ourselves in the moment. One reason of course is the hyper-connectedness of the world we live in. The office is always an email away; social media means you can never really get away from it all. And thanks to the way our brains have been rewired by the Internet, our attention spans have been shot to hell. So, not only can we not concentrate on anything for too long, we cannot focus on nothing for any length of time at all!

But that's only part of the story, I suspect. There's also the fear of missing out that impels us to never stand still, to keep moving, to look out for more, to snatch the most out of any experience. We want it all, we want it now, and we fear that we will miss out if we don't keep striving for more every moment of our lives.

So deep is our fear of missing out that we have even infected our children with it. No longer are they allowed to just relax and enjoy themselves during their vacations (or even during term time for that matter). Instead we schedule swimming lessons, tennis camp, science tuition, guitar classes, and God alone knows what else, to make sure that they never experience a single moment of delicious idleness (the kind we revelled in when we were kids).

But you know what? It's okay to stand still some time. It's okay to slow down and watch the world go by. It's okay to lose yourself in the moment. And it's okay to indulge in a bit of dolce far niente. The sweetness of doing nothing: you really should try it some time.

Taking a break?

Travel the world if you want to; but don’t knock the humble ‘family holiday’

Chances are that you are reading this either while planning a holiday, enjoying a break, or recovering from the rigours of a family vacation. Yes, this is the holiday season, when everyone who can afford it gets away from the heat as fast as they possibly can.

And these days we are all spoilt for choice, aren’t we? We can hit the beaches of Goa or Koh Samui, depending on our budget. We can enjoy the mountain air in Manali, Shimla or even Switzerland, if our money stretches that far. We can trek in Nepal; go shopping in Dubai; watch plays in London; golf in Scotland; sample the best of Renaissance art in Italy; indulge in a bit of wine-tasting in France or the Napa Valley; gorge – or gag, it depends entirely on you – on authentic Chinese fare in Shanghai or Beijing.

As far as holidays are concerned, the sky (and of course, our bank balance) is the limit. And even then, there’s nothing we enjoy more than pushing the limits. A week spent river-rafting in the wilds of the South American jungle? Bring it on. A fortnight in the icy wilderness of Greenland getting in touch with our inner Innuit? Why ever not? Walking up the slopes of active volcanoes in New Zealand? Count us in.

These days, everyone wants to push the envelope when it comes to holidays. It’s no longer enough to go tiger-watching in Ranthambore, Pench or Bandhavgarh. You have to go on a safari in Africa or better still, watch from the sidelines when the annual migration of wildebeest takes place in Kenya. Chilling out on the beaches of Kovalam is now passé. These days you must head out to Croatia, the new jewel of the Mediterranean. And Nainital and Darjeeling are now spoilt beyond belief; if you want to enjoy the mountains then Ladakh is where it’s at.

It sounds great doesn’t it? After all, who would pass up the opportunity to see the world in all its glory, sample the delights – both culinary and cultural – it has to offer, and explore every nook and cranny of our beautiful planet. If we live in a global village, then I guess it behoves us to get acquainted with all its secret gardens. And great fun it is too.

And yet, even as I scour the internet looking for the best deals on hotels and airline fares, there is a tiny little part of me that misses the good old days when holidays were more about family time and less about seeing the world. When we spent our vacations bonding with assorted uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews and a veritable army of cousins rather than discovering the delights of gelato or the finer points of bull-fighting. When taking a break didn’t necessarily involve breaking the bank.

Growing up, I spent all my school vacations visiting various members of our extended – and, to be honest, fairly extensive – family. The summers were invariably spent at my aunt’s tea garden in Assam. And the holiday started from the time we boarded the train from Sealdah station, me armed with a stack of Amar Chitra Kathas and my mother with a lot of patience. Snack-time came with every station we stopped at, with deep-fried samosas and pakoras being scoffed down with hot, milky tea drunk from terracotta bhands (yes, I know, it sounds a bit vulgar, but it just means a tea-cup).

The high point of the journey was the ferry transfer across the Brahmaputra, which put all those geography lessons in perspective. And then, there was the rickety jeep-ride to the tea garden itself, with us indefatigable kids singing loudly and I fear quite tunelessly in the back while the adults struggled to stay upright on those long and winding roads.

And then followed a few weeks of absolute bliss, when you never needed to do anything you didn’t want to. There were no mandatory early mornings to catch the sunrise on the beach; no traipsing around museums feigning interest in the Dutch masters and dinosaur models; no endless shopping trips for our moms to drag us on. Instead, my assorted cousins and I ran quite wild: going on long exploratory walks on the tea slopes; examining the wild life in the area (mostly frogs and leeches, if you must know); starting our own Enid Blyton-style Five Find-Outers gang; making friends with the kids in the local village; and generally, having a blast.

In the winters, we headed north to visit more uncles and aunts. It helped, of course, that my uncles were in the army and hence could host us in a different city every three years or so. Thus it was that we sampled the delights of Southern temples, splashed around on the rocky beaches of Visakhapatnam, explored a yet-unspoilt Bhutan, visited endless forts and palaces in Rajasthan and made ourselves at home in army messes all around the country. All of this, leavened with lots of inter-generation bonding, and much re-telling of old family lore.

Even today, when I have traversed every continent in my travels, it is those family holidays that evoke the most heart-felt memories. And it is the family bonds forged on those vacations that provide me with the most emotional sustenance.

So, in case you haven’t booked that mini-break in Bangkok just yet, you might want to examine the possibility of a family vacation. Your kids may balk at it now; but they may well thank you for it in the years to come.

Playing ‘favourites’

There really is no good answer to any question that contains that word

There’s nothing that stumps me more than a question that begins: “What is your favourite...?” It doesn’t really matter what word or phrase completes the query. It could be something as innocuous as ‘colour’ or ‘restaurant’ or as deep and meaningful as ‘time of life’ or even ‘religious text’. But no matter how it ends, any question that contains the word ‘favourite’ within it strikes terror in my heart. I stumble, I stutter, I flail around searching desperately for an appropriate response – and in nine cases out of ten, I come up empty.

Because, to tell you the truth, I really don’t get this concept of a ‘favourite’ something or the other.

Take colours, for instance. How could anyone possibly choose one over the many that are on offer? And yet, there are people who don’t even have to think about it. “Red”, they reply confidently. “Purple”, say some others. “Black” is another frequent response.

Well, you know what? I love all of the above. And on occasion, I’m fond of a dusky pink, a flaming orange, or a deep indigo. But I couldn’t possibly choose one over the other, no matter how hard I tried. There are times when I love the crisp monochromes of a black and white graphic print. There are times when the deep blue of a monsoon sky overwhelms me. And there are times when a palette of beiges, like an undulating desert landscape, soothes and calms.

Choose one over the other as an absolute ‘favourite’? Sorry, I couldn’t possibly.

It’s much the same story with restaurants. I am sure that many of you have a ‘favourite’ restaurant, but I couldn’t pick one if you held a gun to my head. Sure, I have many favourite haunts, where I return time and again. I love the cafes in Khan Market where I hang out over lazy lunches with my friends. But I love the chaat joints in Bengali Market just as much. I love the earthy flavours and huge portions at Bukhara, the mod-Jap vibe of Wasabi, the buzz at Set’z, the butter and garlic flavours of Swagath.

Well, I could go on, but I guess you get the general point. When you are as promiscuous as this about eating out, how could you possibly pick one restaurant – or even two or three – as a ‘favourite’?

Or pick a ‘favourite’ cuisine, for that matter. I love parathas and pickle as much as the next Punjabi, but there are times when a nice Chinese stir-fry just hits the spot. Sometimes you need a spicy Thai curry to get your gastric juices flowing; at others, it is the wasabi flavour of Japanese food that does the trick. Choosing one over the other is just a matter of convenience and mood. And it changes every day – well, it does for me, at least.

The other ‘favourite’ question that gets asked all too frequently is: “What is your favourite holiday destination?” Huh, what? Just the one? You have got to be kidding!

How could anyone pick just one place in the whole wide world as a ‘favourite’ place to holiday in? Surely, urban breaks in London, New York or Paris are as much fun as adventure holidays in New Zealand or Australia. Beach resorts are just as relaxing as mountain getaways. And holidaying in India has its charms just as taking off abroad is a special pleasure.

After much soul-searching, I have managed to narrow my choice down to one country: Italy. I’d much rather holiday here than anywhere else. After all, where else could I go from a beach resort on the Amalfi coast to verdant vineyards in Tuscany to the mysterious beauty of Venice to a pizza-eating orgy in Naples to a shopping blitz in Milan – all in the space of a single week? But there is no way I could narrow it down any further.

Books is another area in which I am utterly unable – hell, even unwilling – to choose a ‘favourite’. No, I don’t have a favourite book, let alone a favourite author. There are many books that I like enough to re-read from time to time, but they are written by authors as diverse as Jane Austen and Dominick Dunne, as far apart as Agatha Christie and Bill Bryson.

But most annoying of all is the ‘favourite’ person question. I can just about cope with the ‘Who is the best person you have ever interviewed’ question by pulling a random name out of my head. But the “Who is your best friend” question leaves me rather puzzled.

Best friend? Seriously? What, are we in Class I again? Because, this really is the kind of question that only makes sense in primary school. I don’t know anybody who has a single best friend as they grow up to adulthood. Speaking for myself, I have several ‘best friends’ whom I have gathered over several stages of life.

There is the old school buddy, whom you catch up with occasionally, taking up seamlessly from where you left off. There are my work friends, with whom I have shared office space at one time or another, who are always great for a good down-and-dirty gossip session. There are friends with whom I can share my passion for fashion, friends who are part confessors and part therapists, and friends who are always ready for a late-night coffee (and never mind the caffeine rush).

Honestly, how could you possibly choose a ‘best friend’ among them? But then, as you can probably tell, I’m not very good at all this ‘favourite’ stuff.