Upper middle- class Delhi socialites (just “middle” class without the “upper” is distinctly pejorative in our immensely status conscious city) can afford luxuries like facials and deep-pore cleansing at suburban beauty parlours.  But what a struggle to present the glowing complexion of  admens’ dreams when you have to make do with Delhi air and its […] Read more

Alfonso de Albuquerque (the King of Mangoes is named after him) arrived  in Goa in 1542 followed by  his Portugese  compatriots a few years later.  They colonized this end of the Malabar coast, becoming  busily engaged in commerce and conversion and hugely brutal with it. In 1961 our idolised first Prime Minister, Mr Nehru,  sent […] Read more

We Indians are all familiar with  time-honoured and, frankly, yawn-making  clichés about our distinctive regional  pecadilloes; after all, what sets a Punjabi apart from a Bengali and a Bengali from a Southerner or a Gujerati from a U.P bhaiya?  We fondly cherish stereotypes of  the brainy Bong who eats a lot of fish and thus […] Read more

Mrs Suares is a sprightly 92 year-old  Goan lady of education and culture. She was a schoolteacher, like her late husband. He won many awards for his teaching of Portugese and I wish I had asked her to recite me some verses from the Portugese Shakespeare, Camoes,  who came to Goa in 1553. RED  rose […] Read more

It’s not just in Britain that young people full of energy and vision are launching cafes and restaurants to excite the palate and provide social hubs buzzing with interest. I found one in Goa. Chris Agha Bee, half Iranian and half Goan, has created an oasis in the middle of a culinary desert in North […] Read more

Agonda Beach The sound of surf is ever present and soon becomes part of my heartbeat.  I don’t hear the roar as separate from my circulation  until I move away from the shore- and then it’s absent like a friend who’s gone somewhere else. I listen to the  waves boom, braking the limit of their […] Read more

A small metalled road leads from Morjim village to the beach, which under a decade ago was the one of the most tranquil stretch of sand and coconut palms in Goa. Today the area is known as “Little Moscow.” I entered a huge bamboo and palm shack full of  nut-brown lounging Russians and found the […] Read more

A big mistake, among many others, was to walk away from my allotment when I went to France. But as soon as I knew I’d be coming back I applied for another plot. It took the best part of 18 months to find one and now it’s drowning in flood water. My first allotment was […] Read more

    Perhaps the single most off-putting “like”, in the lists provided by Men Seeking Women in Guardian Soulmates is “NT”, or National Trust, seconded only by “log fires” and “country walks”. Can you imagine a more boring past time than  trundling around historic houses looking at topiary and tapestries, leaving the Rangerover to babysit […] Read more