An insight into the wrestling tradition of Kolhapur, a place that put India on the international wrestling map and gave us our first individual Olympic medal.
It gave us a form, a way to express ourselves,” says Godavari Devi, remembering a time gone by. I am sitting in the modest living room of her home in the small, quiet hamlet of Ranti, near Madhubani town, while she regales us with tales from her travels as a National Award-winning Madhubani artist. Behind…
There was a palpable, tense undercurrent in the car. We’d spent the previous day on a 10 hour drive from the cool and green Bomdila to the horrible dusty town of North Lakhimpur. We’d been pelted with bananas en route by gregarious, drunk revellers and the only hotel we found in North Lakhimpur was shabby…
I was stuffed. I had just eaten a massive plate of the yummiest fried duck with rice, bamboo shoots, and yellow lentils, made local Lotha style. There was boiled squash along with the meal, but after 10 days of boiled squash, I was ready for a different vegetable. The duck was soft and mildly spiced,…