Rice < a swamp grass that is widely cultivated as a source of food, especially in Asia. > Early last year, I was watching everything that made its way from inside my kitchen cabinets, to my stovetop, to my plate, and to my mouth. At the age of 54, I’d forced...
Peepal < fig tree of India noted for great size and longevity; lacks the prop roots of the banyan; regarded as sacred by Buddhists > I knew that the word peepal originated in Hindi and that it referred to the species of sacred fig native to the Indian...
When I consulted a dictionary on the Internet, I found out that the langur monkey lived on “grain, fruit, pods of leguminous trees and young buds and leaves” available in the forest. Based on my observations, however, I held another theory despite what I read. In the...
“I see we don’t have life-jackets,” my friend Bernie said, grimacing. We were high school classmates from Tanzania on a summer holiday and we had been planning our reunion, with husbands in tow, for about eight months—Bernie from Canada, Meenakshi from...
tamasha noun. a grand show, performance, or celebration, especially one involving dance; a fuss or confusion. I had been reading Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi, a riveting account of India in the years following Independence and the word “tamasha” leapt out at...
Thug noun. a violent person, especially a criminal. a member of a religious organization of robbers and assassins in India. Thugs waylaid and strangled their victims, usually travelers, in a ritually prescribed manner. They were suppressed by the British in the 1830s....
