Plating at Ziya is a work of art
THE menu is unexpected, and features such surprises as apricot chutney, naan scented with truffle oil, khichdi with coriander and kishmish. The portions, when they arrive, are designed per person. The presentation is exquisite, with a swirl of sauce on the side to rival the snootiest of French restaurants. And you are seduced before spoon meets mouth.
BETWEEN 1997 and 2005, one Indian farmer committed suicide every thirty-two minutes in India. Since then, it’s dropped to one suicide every thirty minutes. Last year, India fell two spots to rank 128th in the UN Development Program’s Human Development Index—behind El Salvador, Guatemala, Botswana, Sri Lanka and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Yet, even in the face of massive rural and substantial urban distress, pundits continue to praise India for being a “powerhouse economy” and a “stirring giant.”
ON Thursday, November 29, Pervez Musharraf was sworn in for a new five-year term as the President of Pakistan. The day before, the general tearfully handed over command of the army to his handpicked successor, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Musharraf now claims he will also end the state of emergency on December 16.
Rasika Mathur
NILAM Auntie breaks into any conversation with desi comic Rasika Mathur. Sometimes it’s in the form of a mischievous cackle; sometimes it’s in the ‘dearie’ tacked onto the end of a sentence; and sometimes it’s a facial expression that so transforms Mathur’s face that the watcher doesn’t even see the 30-year-old petite Indian-American in a T-shirt and khaki capris on the edge of her seat.
Pervez Musharraf at Columbia University's World Leaders Forum. Courtesy Columbia University
TAKING the “History of Human Rights” course at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University has forced me to think about the freedoms we take for granted today. Being a member of the privileged elite in society, I didn’t stop to question the origins of these rights, what was sacrificed in order to obtain them, and how people lived before their rights were recognized.
Belize is a land smooth and green, like a bedsheet tugged flat, with an embroidery of palm trees that only wrinkle and bump the landscape.
When confronted by great white sharks a few feet away from our boat, jaws dropped open and a collective “wow” swept the onlookers. We forgot everything we had seen in scary movies and on Discovery Channel’s Shark Week and just stared.
One of the seven wonders of the modern world, the limestone structure that is the Kukulcán pyramid looms at the centre of the vast public ground in Chichén Itzá, the ancient Mayan city in the heartland of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.
Most rapids seemed to be named after people who had died or were rescued at the last minute from a terrible fate. Maybe someone long ago had thought that it would add to the thrill of rafting down the river, but to me it seemed rather depressing. I shivered in the sunlight.
“Cookies for the survivors!” yelled Nelson cheerfully as we climbed up a muddy slope made slippery by the driving tropical rain. It was not the right sentiment to warm the hearts of the dozen or so tourists about to voluntarily zip from treetop to treetop 400ft above the ground.
EST / IST 