On family recipes, borders, burgers, and why I find it difficult to keep culture out of politics. If you grew up in a Sindhi family, you know that food is rarely just food. It is an expression of love, a reason to gather, a way of keeping traditions alive, and sometimes an elaborate exercise in ensuring nobody leaves the table hungry. Especially if your family believes that feeding you once means you haven't been fed at all. My story begins in Wadala, in a building (the very

U2 are 50. Which feels slightly rude. Because somewhere in my head, they are still the band I discovered when I was young, bought on cassette, hunted down album by album, and eventually followed all the way to a concert in Singapore. Except that's not quite how it happened. November 18 has always been a significant day for me. Those who know Gakkai, and those who know me closely, will know why. It was also my maasi Meena's birthday. I didn't know then that November 18, 1991 h

Last week, I wondered what would happen if an album could be served as a meal. Not one song paired with one recipe, but an entire listening experience imagined as a tasting menu. An amuse-bouche. A first course. Soup. A vegetable course. A main. A palate cleanser. Dessert. Each course carrying the mood of the music rather than the lyrics. Then I realised my first menu didn't have to begin with an album at all. It had to begin with a playlist. Not the soundtrack of my entire c

Most accidental pairings don't begin in my kitchen. They begin in the supermarket. Let's plug in my favorite supermarket song I usually walk in carrying a shopping list, but somewhere between the produce aisle and the checkout, it quietly becomes a list of suggestions. I wander through seasonal fruits and vegetables, pause at ingredients I've never cooked with, and occasionally pick up something simply because I've never put it in my basket before. It's less about buying groc

A recent bout of decluttering unearthed three relics from a shelf I hadn't visited in years. A cassette. A CD. A DVD. None of them are particularly valuable. In fact, finding a device to play them today might be harder than finding the media itself. Yet I couldn't let them go. The first was a cassette of Kya Hai Yeh Jaadu by Vedic Chant. The second, the soundtrack CD of the film Turning 30. The third, a DVD of Bombay Boys. At first glance, they seem unrelated. But then again,