9-yr old Ankush has always spent his summer holidays with his grandparents in Bhopal. But this year, they have gone abroad to meet his uncles. So, while Ankush — very reluctantly — had to stay back in Kolkata for summers, his parents are looking for ways to make the holidays fun and exciting for him. […]

Despite being the world’s 6th greatest coffee producer, India preferred being a tea-drinking nation. Coffee existed in the Indian subcontinent since 1400 AD, but during the British era, only the rich and privileged consumed the drink, not the masses. In independent India, the West’s most-loved drink turned into a household name, its aroma spreading to […]

It was a Friday evening. Aruna was invited with her son Ritwik to a kid’s party. Kid’s parties were becoming quite a regular feature in her life. This was her fifth in this season. Although her son, Ritwik, loves those parties, she felt guilty that she could not organise one at home. Ritwik always wanted […]

Year, 1956. Place, Park Street Kolkata. Frenzied fans jostle to get an entry into a smoke-filled pub, as ‘the diva of Park Street’ Pam Crain takes the centre stage with Anton Menezes’ six-piece band in what can be called “independent India’s first nightclub” — Mocambo. Band? Diva? Nightlife? Nightclub? In the 1950s, these were all […]

Hyderabad acquired the moniker ‘City of Pearls in India’ due to its booming pearl processing and trading industry that has been supplying the finest of pearl jewellery to India and the rest of the world for more than 400 years. Most of us know this. But have you ever wondered how Hyderabad became known as […]

Hyderabadi cuisine, also known as Deccani cuisine, is the native culinary art of the Hyderabadi Muslims, which started to develop after the founding of the Bahmani Sultanate, and more radically with the foundation of the Qutb Shahi dynasty around the city of Hyderabad. As Hyderabadi cuisine began to develop further with the amalgamation of Mughlai, […]