Year: 2016

I went to a lecture about spiders the other night and I learnt a fair amount about them. The speaker could only describe them as super heroes. He spoke about how clever they were spinning their silk,  how perceptive about camouflage, how caring for their young, though females sometimes eat their male partners after mating…

I read the Big Issue and I find interesting articles in this magazine which is sold all over the world by people who are finding it hard to make ends meet. My supplier is my lovely NZ man and when we spoke in the New Year he was very excited because he is down for…

In our neighbourhood is a corner plot with history. It dates back to the 1920s. There is some historic reference to a theatre in the area.  A taxi driver told us that when he was a child he went to the cinema there. Later a skating rink opened up and this was a popular spot…

Leaving India again felt different this time, perhaps because I had enjoyed the festival so much, perhaps because I had a great appetite for the incredible food, if not the traffic jams, seen friends whom I had missed and did not have to deal with any red tape. Others could do that. There were signs…

The Jaipur Literature Festival has featured prominently in my calendar from the very first year I started living in Delhi – I fell upon it a little by accident as someone has pulled out of going and there was a place in the car which was traveling down to Jaipur that year. From that initial…

I am feeling sad leaving Jaipur this year. It has been an overwhelmingly positive and nurturing time and I feel energised by the creativity, the wit and the participation in the Festival.  We head out of Jaipur and we see the usual traffic chaos but also the way pedestrians manage to weave their way in…

Ruskin Bond was born in India in 1934 and has lived in India for most of his life. His first novel the “Room on the Roof” was written when he was seventeen and he was awarded the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957 – the year I was born. The novel is nearly 60…

Today is the last day of the Festival- already the crowds are beginning to wane and even this lovely four legged friend did not entice more people though the gates. For us of course it means an ease of movement as we wander from venue to venue and a better than ever chance of sitting…

Who doesnt know the Afghan Girl ? Steve McCurry took that picture all those years ago and it was probably what made him world famous. He shared his early experiences of becoming a photo journalist with William Dalrymple. He wanted to explore the word and his first stop was India. In those days he shot…

For some reason the crowds kept away today, perhaps because no Bollywood stars were making an appearance or because it was Sunday and everyone was going to have a lie in. We walked to our first session and sat to hear Helen MacDonlad talk about her book “ H is for Hawk”, moderated superbly I…