Cow politics is different from beef politics. And that forced our dear PM to speak up. How? Let me explain. Even though in numbers, beef eaters can be found more amongst dalits and upwardly mobile Indians who love their medium rares in Europe, the BJP campaign was aimed at Muslims. It played on the stereotype that Hindus pray cows and muslims ate them. Only Muslims were murdered and hounded. No matter what we say, after love jihad and few mad dog nationalism campaigns, beef campaign…Continue Reading “How is cow politics is different from beef politics”
I don’t have cable TV. So, I won’t know. But given that the papers and the channels come from same media houses, there should not be much difference in coverage. What happened in Gurgaon lasted a day. It became the talk of the nation. 24 people have died in Assam floods. Petrol is being rationed in Tripura. Manipur suffers from some roadblock every second week. How much we care shows in the square cms that these reports get in papers. Sometimes after days of occurrence….Continue Reading “Monkey business and banana republic”
There was a time and there are places today where restaurants were called hotels. I still feel that childish excitement when I enter a ‘hotel’. It is as assurance that food won’t come wearing fancy pants, will be cheap and may be something that the locals eat. In Delhi, railway station from Paharganj side, has these hotels. Never tried them but we all have tried them some time, on highways, on trips to smaller town etc. Many of these hotels are institutions. They have defied…Continue Reading “The most famous hotels of India”
Shimtur There are many Korean places in Paharaganj. But rest assured abut this one, a little hard to find but it’s all worth it. There is plenty of seating in a half open and an inside area. The food is top notch. Try the kimbaps, bibimbap and curry noodles too. The sushi/kimbabs come with a whole of accompaniments that is brilliant to look at and to eat. Sadly, Shimtur does not serve alcohol. For the food, it is quite reasonable too. Everest Kitchen Not everything…Continue Reading “Five must eat places in Paharganj”
Northern ridge If you have good company and pleasant weather, a day just swooshes you by here. Apart from the greenery and paths inside, there is the infamous khooni jheel to find, a few ruins to spot and photograph, fallen tree trunks to walk on and much more. Never take the same route back and see how hours pass by while you try to find a way out. There are loads of monkeys but they keep to themselves. If you can just tell yourself that…Continue Reading “3 places in Delhi for day tripping during monsoons”
Town Hall. Khan Market. Lovely place, very good service and polite staff. The private room is a nice option if you have any celebrations or a large group. Food was good too. Our visit had only one issue and I won’t call this a minor error. The highly recommended rainbow sushi came with gari and wasabi as usual. The gari was not pink but that’s alright, the color does differ and it not a failing. The wasabi, though, had the texture of a paste and…Continue Reading “Town hall, Khan Market”
It’s a virtual reality gaming zone but also serves great food. We will come to the food part later. First, the games. To be honest, I have never played video games in life, never even watched any sport on TV. Thankfully, it was unlike any other games arena I have been to, and I have not been to many. Easy to impress or not, I loved a few games here. We got a thirty game card and went around trying everything, apart from cricket. There…Continue Reading “Smaaash, Cyberhub, Gurgaon”
Lately, my outings to the well known restaurants have been less than satisfactory. Then, I see a post on a food group about Himachali food fest at a place we had not heard of. 500 buck per head at a place in Gurgaon we had never been to. Seemed worth exploring. Bamboos is located on a broken down road but that’s probably the only thing that was negative about the place. It has bright outdoor seating as well as a covered area to enjoy the…Continue Reading “Bamboos, Himachal Food, Gurgaon”
Tip of the tongue intellectuals. We all have them in our lives. Kashmiris – traitors, Muslims – terrorists, leftists – jhola chaap idealists, liberals – clueless idiots, dalits and tribals — who? So on and so forth. Most of us educated English writing assholes have such compulsion to sound intellectual and such little empathy and patience to read and understand that we have become hollow stereotypes of our own selves. Think. Empathise. What would do in a similar situation ? Can you even imagine yourself…Continue Reading “Main bhi intellectual”
I wondered if given the makeover that Khan Market has got, if everything around the market has changed too. I have previously mentioned the awesome samosa guy on the Khan Market metro station side. His alu ki sabzi is such a benarasi rich with hing type that you instantly fall in love with it. This time, we wanted to try the tikki cart next to it. It seemed like a family run enterprise, father in the distant, mother at the tawa and son sitting on…Continue Reading “Posh Alu tikki, Khan Market”
There is a Korean Cultural Center in Lajpat Nagar 4, on the Ring Road, next to the Max Hospital. What’s interesting is they have a café that serves Korean food. It’s majorly teas and shakes but they also serve bibimbab, kimbap or sushi, black noodle, Dakgaejang and more. The café is neat looking and pretty in a way too. There are tables for dining and sofas by the wall for post-lunch siesta, that’s what I did anyway. Anyway, the café is open from 10a.m. to…Continue Reading “Korean Cultural Center Cafe, Lajpat Nagar”
We all divide cities into safe and unsafe zones in our heads. Meher Chand market has been a safe zone for me, until someone broken the rear window of the car, stole a bag and walked away right in front of many people who saw nothing. What’s more brazen was that the car was parked right across the Café Coffee Day, on the main square in a well lit and crowded area. Anyway, after twenty minutes of going around and clueless asking around by local…Continue Reading “Delhi has its heroes”
Judges of high courts can’t be appointed because the Chief Justice is holidaying abroad since a month. Judges get massive leaves, so do teachers. The govt wants to regulate teacher’s working hours, the judges remain demigods that can’t be touched. Allahabad judges touch a PM’s feet. But don’t feel the judges have started rotting now. Apart from bureaucrats, the only other group that is so rotten are the judges. They have always been that way. In the Mumbai blast case, which killed 257 people has…Continue Reading “The Indian judicial system is criminally unfair”
How many of you knew that Paharganj is out of bounds for couples from Delhi? Rest of Delhi is not, the starred hotels are not. It is Paharganj. If you walk down the lanes late at night, salesmen would emerge from the darkness, walk a few steps in tandem and whisper “room room room’ into your ears. They know that what they are selling is illegal. They also don’t want to offend the woman with you, they just want to settle it man to man….Continue Reading “Paharganj – Out of bounds for Delhi couples”
Reh. As the owner explained means spark or embers. Chingari in Hindi. The place is so small and hidden that without Zomato I would have never been able to find it. So, if you are a Zomato hater, you are just a mean angry person. Anyway, there was just one Kashmiri man at the counter and he had a chicken curry, rajma and yakhni. We ordered a rajma and a yakhni. Both came with half plates of rice that could feed three children. The rajma…Continue Reading “Reh – Kashmiri food in Dwarka”
Chandigarh is a good place to be in when the weather is good. If you are travelling from Delhi, Chandigarh is good for a weekend stay. Hotels usually offer good deals, there are good old and new hip places to eat at and then you can always spend the afternoons in the rock garden and spend the evenings at the Sukhna Lake. The rock garden, by the way, is not what it used to be. They are expanding the garden and now there is a…Continue Reading “Rock garden, Chandigarh”
I work in the mobile/tech industry. And, apps frustrate me. I tried ordering food via Swiggy the other day, but it picks location via a marker on the map. The map takes time to load, the marker drop can only be time taking, painful and approximate. I struggled for twenty minutes on two phones to add my address. Why didn’t I give up? Because I could not give up on my apps, if I did my salary would vanish. Then I tried ordering meat via…Continue Reading “Store goodtogo for meat delivery in Delhi”