In October 1875, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert embarked on an extensive 8-month tour of the Indian subcontinent. In Mumbai, the royal party was entertained at the Elephanta Caves. The Illustrated London News faithfully reported the entire trip to eager readers back home. They commissioned William Simpson, an artist and lithographer, to cover the entire visit. Simpson would send draft sketches, which would then be engraved in London and the pictures would appear with a four-week lag. For the sake of speed, Simpson would typically only d ..read more

A fun morning among masalas and pickles at Lalbaug Spice Market and Chivda Gully. Came home with a nice loot. Lunch at Shivaji Park's Gypsy Corner Maharashtrian eatery and the first mangoes of the season at Naturals icecream. Pramod's cousin Jaggi is a food fiend and naturally we had a blast ..read more

- by Deepa Krishnan In 2015 October I took charge of Abhyudaya, an education NGO, and suddenly found myself also becoming part of the teaching faculty at SPJIMR, which is the chief sponsor of the NGO. It was, I confess, a challenging assignment. Never having taught formally, I found myself attending training sessions and trying to develop a teaching style and curriculum of my own. I learnt the basics of academic research, wrote papers, became a columnist for strategy+business, and got empanelled on the editorial board of an academic journal (Emerald Emerging Markets case studies). Eventually ..read more

Yesterday Amma got her first smart phone. What a fun morning calling everyone!  The best call was to me, from one room to another! "Hello, who is speaking?" "Amma, it's me, Deepa." "Oh is that you?" And a long fake conversation after that in the Queen's English on useless topics! Just like kids playing "telephone-telephone".   My sister Roopa clicked this pic  But more seriously, it made me painfully aware that one day, I too will be tech-challenged. I too will be slow to push the right buttons or read a scrolling screen quickly enough. Already I am on the edge of ..read more

Visiting major pilgrimage sites is always an ordeal due to crowds and endless queues. But Pandharpur is an easy experience.  Our family in front of the temple, three generations If you book online slots for darshan it is a shorter queue and you are out in half an hour. The temple has long experience of managing lakhs of warkari pilgrims. The physical space is small so they have created a warren inside where the queues meander across multiple floors.  For those on wheelchairs there are special arrangements for quick darshan. No photography allowed inside, so this is the exter ..read more

The Magic Room is a textiles and crafts store in Sion, which I opened this month.  This pic is from our Navratri Exhbition, when my mother and daughter were both present and we got a 3-generation photo. Of course, I had to put it here!  The Magic Room is social enterprise that supports handmade products from India, with a focus on sourcing fairly from craftspersons, and supporting women entrepreneurs wherever possible. We also have a tailoring livelihood program for women (and men!) from low-income areas of Mumbai.   Do drop in at 331, Champaklal Estate, if you would like ..read more

- by Deepa Krishnan The government's handling of the pandemic has become a heated political debate. Today in three of my WhatsApp groups, I watched people leaving the group on account of differences in view points. A couple of them left without any explanation. A couple of them wrote a few lines and left without reading responses. I am sure all of you are familiar with such abrupt exits. I used to be one of those abrupt exiters. Some years ago, you remember that time when all of us were having Modi-Wars and Trump-Wars and so on? In one such debate, I stormed out of a WhatsApp group, where ther ..read more

I'll tell you an interesting story. It's a little long, but bear with me. If you want to know how epidemics actually play out in India, and how people react to it, you should listen to this story of the bubonic plague that hit Mumbai in 1896. It has lots of similarities with how things are playing out with Covid. Lots of learnings, particularly in how people and governments behave in times of stress. And how epidemics behave in general. In 1896, a strain of bubonic plague of Chinese origin, came to Mumbai. First it reached Hong Kong, and then came via ship from Hong Kong to Mumbai, carried ..read more

The sight of fresh green peppercorn in the market brings out the pickling fiend in me. This is the simplest of pickles, but packs such a punch! Green pepper, marinated in salt and lemon juice, with a little bit of turmeric powder. Over time it acquires that crinkly salt-and-lemon soaked perfection. The photo on the left is from my last year's batch. The brine is even tastier than the peppercorn! And in my south Indian household, this is the perfect accompaniment to thayir-saadam. #indianpickles #picklespreservesandchutneys ..read more

If you visit a flower market in India, you will not see the coral jasmine. It flowers at night, and when day breaks, all the flowers fall, leaving a beautiful carpet of flowers on the ground. It is a fragile flower, that fades quickly, and doesn't do well when transported to markets. In my mother's apartment there is a coral jasmine plant; and every morning, the night watchman gathers up the flowers and gives them to my mother. Some of them go into the kitchen temple, but the others are used like this, as a beautiful carpet for her plants. Coral jasmine, offered to the Tulsi, and to other pla ..read more