Archives: Press Reviews

The title is from a line in Ramachandra Guha’s A Corner of a Foreign Field; both writers have acknowledged a debt to that excellent history of the game in the subcontinent. The authors have taken off their diplomatic hats in an attempt to say it like it is, and that is the strength of the book. Their respective backgrounds as UN under-secretary general (Tharoor) and

For the book’s research, Radhakrishna went into libraries looking for archival papers, found out the why and whereof a dish, why people use a certain spice or ingredient—even though she knew most of this research wouldn’t make it to the cookbook. “Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I don’t trust the Internet for authenticity,” she says. “Recipes online are often diluted with modern innovations. Instead, I

Paachakam’s unusual cultural tales are told through its array of recipes, both known and uncommon, interspersed with Nupur Panemanglor’s evocative illustrations. Both transport us into a landscape studded with coconut and bulging with jackfruit, waters teeming with fish and trees garlanded with emerald pepper strands. These ingredients provide commonality to the recipes as much as they provide distinction: the use of fresh coconut here or

There’s more to Kerala cuisine than just the cult favourites, and Sabita Radhakrishna, food writer and author of the popular cookbook Annapurni, proves it in her new cookbook Paachakam. The forest green cover opens up into a gold mine of easy recipes that are backed by authentic insights and stunning illustrations. Radhakrishna also shines a light on the communities behind some of the most popular

Meanwhile, Sabita Radhakrishna, in her book Paachakam: Heritage Cuisine of Kerala has built a narrative around Kerala food through stories and recipes by researching the history of the various local communities and speaking to them for the recipes of some of their traditional dishes. However, Radhakrishna’s book is also testament to the diversity of the region and therefore the broad dimension of Kerala’s cuisine.

Dries Van Noten’s luxurious 2022 spring-summer collection drew on his impression of visiting Kolkata just after Holi and seeing splashes of colour in unexpected places.These are just a handful of the instances of India’s impact on global style. Anthropologist and fashion scholar Phyllida Jay’s Inspired By India: How India Transformed Global Design (Roli Books) is a compendium of clothes, textiles, jewellery, material objects, photography, paintings

In Napoleonic France and through the novels of Jane Austen in Regency England, we see how wearing fine Indian muslin denoted the consumer’s status, taste and connoisseurship. Such was the popularity of textiles like the brightly-painted chintz, that France and England placed decades-long bans on their import in the 18th century in order to protect their own silk and wool mills. However, the desire for

“Can you define cultural appropriation and explain how it differs from cultural appreciation? One of the things the book sets out to explore is, how do we navigate within this complex moment in post-colonial image production, material manufacture and the crafting of identity? What are the parameters for deciding whether something is homage, pastiche, or ignorant and even racist cultural appropriation?”

In Louis XIV’s France, Indian calicos and chintz were so widely coveted that the government was forced to ban their import and sale. Yet French aesthetes continued to wear them indoors, privately flouting the law. Fashion history is replete with similar anecdotes of Europeans’ fascination with Indian fabrics and design. In Inspired by India, fashion researcher and journalist Phyllida Jay charts a compelling narrative of

Inspired India chronicles the rich and complex history between the fashion industry in the West and Indian culture, revealing which western fashion icons drew from it in their looks. This list includes people like Audrey Hepburn, who wore a sari-inspired dress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Mick Jagger, whose beaded and patterned styles in the sixties can be linked back to traditional Indian design. High