Last week a man from Pune stood on the veranda at seven in the morning, coffee going cold in his hand, and said, "I haven't heard this since I was a boy."...

You notice it before the boat even slows down. No horns. No engines idling outside a gate. Just water slapping the hull and a kingfisher somewhere in the...

You notice it before you notice anything else. No scooters. No horns. No temple loudspeaker. Just a koel somewhere in the coconut palms and the knock of a...

Someone asked me last week, over the second cup of tea, whether the rooms were "actually comfortable or just nice for photos." Fair question. You've seen...

First thing in the morning, before I've even opened the door properly, the smell gets you. Mustard seeds crackling in coconut oil, drifting out of the...

A guest asked me last week, quite seriously, whether the lake looks different in June and December. She'd been comparing dates for months, stuck between...

Rain on a tin roof has its own grammar. It starts as a scatter, like someone dropping rice on a drum, then settles into a steady hum that makes you forget...

The power goes at least twice a week during the monsoon. Sometimes it's off for an hour, sometimes four. You learn to keep candles where you can find them...

The boat ride takes six minutes. That's the first thing. If you've just gotten off a train at Alappuzha station, sweaty and half-deaf from the horn, six...

The 6:40 boat is the one that gets me. Every morning I stand at the jetty with a crate of eggs and a bag of onions, waiting for the vallam to come...