All Magazine Stories
After the news
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How did the Indian langur end up in a prehistoric mural in Greece?
For decades, researchers have been trying to identify the simians on a Minoan mural in Santorini. Are they African or Indian? Opinions are deeply divided.
Kamayani Sharma
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On a propaganda tour in India, the first Black Ivy League professor found complexities and paradoxes
Sent by the State Department to change Indians’ perception of the US, Jay Saunders Redding found that the story he wanted to tell didn’t have many takers.
Anu Kumar
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Remembering the first major Carnatic music concert in the United States
A group of five young classical musicians from Madras spent two months in the US in the autumn of 1962, performing in New York and Washington DC.
Ajay Kamalakaran
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Carrots and sticks: How food was used to oppress Indian sailors on colonial ships
For centuries, European shipowners hired lascars as cheap labour, paying them little and feeding them even less.
Priyadarshini Chatterjee
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Tracing the culinary history of Kochi’s breudher bread
Bequeathed by Dutch colonists, breudher has been slowly disappearing from Kochi’s bakeries but not from its mind.
Ananya Rajoo
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An Indian sanyasi’s myth-busting account of Tibet
Swami Pranavanda, an ascetic-explorer who visited Tibet 25 times between 1928 and 1949, became an authoritative voice on Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar.
Ajay Kamalakaran
Food
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Carrots and sticks: How food was used to oppress Indian sailors on colonial ships
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Dongmo, charoti, saikala: The ingenuity of India’s little-known cookware
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How food came to the rescue of the British in India
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A 152-year-old bazaar in Kolkata holds the history of Bengali mishti’s evolution
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The chequered history of a ‘dangerous dal’ eaten by the poor across India
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Dongmo, charoti, saikala: The ingenuity of India’s little-known cookware
Modern utensils are not always up to the task in an Indian kitchen.
Priyadarshini Chatterjee
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Why is Punjab, a land of sublime classical music, known only for bhangra?
A robust classical music system flourished in Punjab until socio-religious movements and colonists decided to cleanse it.
Malini Nair
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How Mughal badshahs and begums became a source of inspiration for 19th-century French playing cards
Although un-subcontintental in colour tones, the Cartes Indiennes recall the nobles and attendants of South Asian painting, most famously Mughal miniatures.
Kamayani Sharma
Internet Culture
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From Jaipur to Kochi, these Instagram projects are archiving a snapshot of Indian architecture
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Ukraine’s official Twitter handle is processing the nation’s trauma in real time with memes
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Small is beautiful: An artist in Tamil Nadu is carving miniature sculptures on pencil tips
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An artist looks at Grimms’ fairy tales and finds sexist stereotypes that are common in India
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An engineer in Canada is urging South Asians to post their family photos and memories on Instagram