In the years since I first began this blog in 2008, I have written many tributes to many film personalities. A few, a mere handful, saddened me enough to make me feel I had lost someone especially dear to me personally.
Never had I thought a day would come when I would need to (yes, I do need to, for my own self) write a tribute to a fellow blogger. Bollyviewer, who meant much more to me than just a fellow blogger.
(In somewhat belated tribute to the inimitable Christopher Plummer, who passed away on February 5, 2021).
(This is a sequel to Part 1, where I introduced this challenge I set myself. It’s about five months, May-September 2018, during which I watched sixty-odd films and cooked 30-odd dishes or meals to go with those films. In Part … Continue reading
Do you like watching food movies?
I do. And, back in May this year, having been approached by a food magazine to contribute an article on food movies (in particular movies about chefs and professional cookery), I went on a food movie binge. I’d watched loads of food movies before—everything from relatively ‘arty’ movies like Eat Drink Man Woman to popular hits like Chocolat, Julie & Julia and even the animated Ratatouille. But since this time round I wanted to look at the details of every film, at the nuances, I had to sit and watch them more closely, more at leisure.
To commemorate the establishment of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945, World Food Day is celebrated on October 16. No, not a wasteful celebration of a food ingredient like Spain’s famous La Tomatina festival, and … Continue reading
I’ve received a couple of e-mails over the past ten days: am I well? Is everything all right? (These from fellow bloggers whose blogs I frequent). I had to tell them: I was travelling and the net connection was somewhat dodgy. Besides, I was very busy. I often got only about half an hour to check my e-mail and catch up with what was going on at my blog.
To explain: I was at a writer’s conclave. The JSW Group, in partnership with The Hindu, played host to nine writers, including yours truly, for ten days, for a conclave named The Spaces Between Words.
We stayed at JSW’s very own guest house, Hampi House, at Vidyanagar, one of the townships that JSW has built around its steel plant in Karnataka’s Bellary district. Most of our writing was done at the nearby Kaladham, a lovely space just five minutes’ leisurely stroll from Hampi House.
Kaladham.
Every once in a while, someone (invariably a newbie blogger) sends me a mail, asking me what they should do to be a successful blogger. I have usually responded to such queries with whatever tips came to mind. But then, … Continue reading
I’ve been writing an off and on series on writing, and decided it was high time I got around to what most people (myself included) would regard as my core competence: the writing of fiction. Fiction, whatever its length—novel, novella, … Continue reading
A couple of weeks back, I wrote a post on how to write better: some basic tips on grammar, on punctuation, on dos and don’ts that help create a more polished manuscript. It drew a lot of attention, and several … Continue reading
By which I mean writing that doesn’t make an editor wince. Let me provide the context to this. Every now and then, I am approached by a wannabe writer who wants me to have a look at their manuscript and … Continue reading
