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I have two daughters; both of them love nature and wildlife. The younger one is, however, more passionate. She is constantly researching and reading about different animals. We often sit together and watch documentaries. Our holidays are always packed with safaris and birdwatching. They both don’t mind waking up early in the morning if it…

While Cold Chains Carry Traditional Sadhyas To Malayali Communities Abroad, Growing Commercialization Is Changing How Families Celebrate Onam In Kerala The journey of an Onam sadhya to Frankfurt begins not in Germany, but in a catering kitchen in Kochi. Here, avial, olan, thoran, pachadi and payasam are prepared months before the festival, frozen, packed and…

The revival of ‘Ravanankam’ offers a glimpse into the possibilities and precarious future of Koodiyattam Amid the festive fervour of Onam, with colourful pageantry and streets reverberating with chenda melam across the state, a small hamlet around the Moozhikulam Sree Lakshmana temple is quietly adding new chapters to the ancient art of Koodiyattam. The performers,…

A new documentary traces Paul Zacharia’s journey from a quiet village in Kottayam and the many worlds that shaped his singular literary imagination How do you translate a writer’s inner world to the screen in just an hour? A new documentary, ‘Zacharia’, on Malayalam writer Paul Zacharia attempts to answer that question by tracing the…

  The American dream has always come with a price tag. The visa route that brought generations of Indian professionals to America is becoming harder to navigate, even as courts push back against some of the admin’s toughest measures. A former eBay executive has turned the school run into a $1.7 billion business. And New…

This week, we are tracking: Nitin Nabin gets his team. Is Cabinet reshuffle loading? ‘We Are Gen Z’: Can an identity become a privilege? Why India is not the flavour of the season The ‘human printer’ who has Trump’s ear Gen Z claims another scalp: Amit Malviya out, Cabinet reshuffle buzz grows No surprises here….

Harela, greening land, is an important festival that Uttarakhand celebrates, but the spirit of respecting trees, forests and Nature is not limited to this state alone. Almost every state in India and the world over celebrates festivals and traditions associated with trees, plants and forests in one form or another—whether it is Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Jharkhand,…

Hello and welcome to the 103rd edition of the Weekly Vine. August is an interesting month and not just because it is the only consecutive month to have 31 days to satiate the ego of Roman emperor Augustus who wanted to be considered on par with old Julius Caesar. It’s also the month that my…

There are phrases one encounters in therapy which ought, for reasons of public safety, to remain inside the consulting room. “Stay with the feeling” is one of them. My therapist says this occasionally when I have done what I consider the perfectly sensible thing, which is to experience an unpleasant emotion, identify its likely cause,…

Nodal testing agency is fast losing legitimacy. UGC-NET’s exam issues were sheer incompetence NTA is becoming a burlesque act. The latest fiasco – three papers of UGC-NET, the qualifying test to teach in colleges, and apply for PhDs, have been cancelled – beggars belief, for the reason they were cancelled. Several questions were repeated from…