A captivating account of innovations, disruptions and challenges that define the Indian hotel industry.
How did the Taj, the Oberoi and the ITC hotels come to dominate the Indian hotel landscape? What are the challenges thrown by the disrupters-the foreign chains, OYO, the online travel agents and the young start-ups? What does the future hold?
This book answers these and many more such questions.
Based on the author’s years of observation of the industry and interactions with key stakeholders, this book takes you through the tumultuous history and evolution of the Indian hotel industry. It also captures the enormous shifts and changes including guest preferences, consumer profiles and disruptions brought in by technology. Packed with some exciting profiles and analysis of strategies, it also attempts to provide a glimpse of what lies in store for the future.
Portrait of India (1970) is a vivid account of 60s’ India and some of its most interesting figures – Indira Gandhi, Jaya Prakash Narayan and Satyajit Ray, among others. Travelling across the country from the Himalayas to Kerala, through its villages and cities, Ved Mehta’s observations of and insights into India remain relevant and thought provoking even today.
The Essential Ved Mehta is the definitive collection of the author’s work, containing excerpts from nearly all his writings, many of which first appeared in William Shawn’s New Yorker. It begins with his first book, the classic autobiography highlighting his blindness, Face to Face and goes on to feature, among others, his iconic books about India and his great family saga Continents of Exile. Each entry comes with a reflection by Mehta. Authoritative and illuminating, The Essential Ved Mehta is not just an introduction to this seminal writer but also a passionate record of a writer looking back upon his own work.
Today, India is likely to become one of the major economies of the twenty-first century. But many unresolved questions remain about the sustainability of such growth and its effect on the stability of the nation. Veteran journalist Mark Tully draws on thirty years of reporting India and travels the length and breadth of the country to find the answers. Have the changes had any impact on the poor and marginalised? How can the development of the country’s creaking infrastructure be speeded up to match its huge advances in technology and industry? With a gift for finding the human stories behind the headlines, he looks at the pressing concerns in different areas of life such as governance, business, spirituality and ecology.
In revealing interviews with captains of industry and subsistence farmers, politicians and Dalits, spiritual leaders and bandits, Mark Tully captures the voices of the nation.
From the survival of India’s languages and the protection of wildlife, to the nation’s thriving industries and colourful public affairs, Non-Stop India is a testament to India’s vibrant history and incredible potential, offering an unforgettable portrait of this emerging superpower at a pivotal moment of its history.
Indian Accent opened in 2009 with an inventive Indian menu at The Manor, New Delhi. The restaurant serves a unique interpretation of Indian food, featuring historic revivals, playful nostalgia, with an openness to global techniques and influence. The restaurant was featured in the 2015 San Pellegrino list of 100 Best Restaurants in the World, the only one from India on the list, and awarded the Best Restaurant in India by the 2015 list of San Pellegrino Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants. The Indian Accent Restaurant Cookbook is based on the restaurant s path-breaking contemporary Indian menu by award-winning chef Manish Mehrotra. With photographs by Rohit Chawla, among India’s foremost food photographers, the cookbook has a selection of Indian Accent recipes to excite the adventurous while satisfying traditional palates.
At the age of fifty, when most people have settled for the safety of routine, R. K. Narayan left India for the first time to travel through America. In this account of his journey, the writer’s pen unerringly captures the clamour and energy of New York city, the friendliness of the West Coast, the wealth and insularity of the Mid-West, the magnificence of the Grand Canyon…Threading their way through the narrative are a host of delightful characters-from celebrities like Greta Garbo, Aldous Huxley, Martha Graham, Cartier Bresson, Milton Singer, Edward G. Robinson and Ravi Shankar to the anonymous business tycoon on the train who dismissed the writer when he discovered Narayan had nothing to do with India’s steel industry. As a bonus, there are wry snapshots of those small but essential aspects of American life-muggers, fast food restaurants, instant gurus, subway commuters, TV advertisements, and American football. An entrancing and compelling travelogue about an endlessly fascinating land.
Just as each ruler left his architectural mark on Delhi, so each bequeathed to it a culinary legacy. Flavors of Delhi: A Food Lover’s Guide tells the story of Delhi through its food. It explores the city’s culinary history beginning with Indraprastha, taking us through the Sultanate period, Mughal rule and the British raj, and bringing us right up to the present. Professional chef and food writer Charmaine O’Brien’s love for Delhi and its culinary delights is evident. She tells us not only what to eat, but also where to eat it. From paranthas in the galis of Chandni Chowk to kakori kababs at the fancy Dum Pukht, from chaat at a roadside stall to appams at Keraleeyam, from fresh fruit and vegetables at INA Market to fish at Chittaranjan Park, O’Brien takes us on a guided tour through the capital, encouraging us to sample and savour as we see. History comes alive as the recipes in this book allow us to recreate the varied flavors of the city in our kitchens. The result of extensive travel and research, and lavishly illustrated with photographs taken by Kirsten Grant, Flavors of Delhi is a fascinating read that whets the reader’s interest and appetite.
This first-ever comprehensive guide to regional food across India takes
you on a mouth-watering journey through the homes, streets and
restaurants of each state, exploring exotic and everyday fare in equal
measure. Be it the lime-laced Moplah biryani, the Goan Galinha cafreal,
the bhang ka raita of Uttarakhand, or the Singpho people’s Wu san tikye,
India’s rich palette of flavours is sure to drum up an insatiable appetite in
you. Laden with historical information, cultural insights and personalized
recommendations, The Penguin Food Guide to India is your ideal
companion to the delightful world of Indian cuisine.
An anecdotal travelogue about Lahore – which begins in the present and travels through time to the mythological origins of the city attributed to Ram’s son, Lav. Through the city’s present – its people, communities, monuments, parks and institutions – the author paints a vivid picture of the city’s past. From its emergence under Mahmud Ghaznavi to the Mughal centuries where several succession intrigues unfolded on its soil, its recasting as the capital of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Khalsa Empire, the role it played in preserving the British Raj, to acting as an incubator of revolutionaries and people’s movements, Lahore influenced the subcontinent’s political trajectory time and again.
Today, too, Lahore often determines which way the wind will blow on Pakistan’s political landscape. The Lahore Resolution of 1940, which laid the blueprint for the creation of the country, was signed here. The city saw the birth of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s PPP, as well as his downfall. It was to Lahore that Benazir Bhutto returned to combat a military dictator, and where Imran Khan heralded his arrival as a main contender on the political battlefield. As the capital of Punjab, Lahore continues to cast a long shadow over the federal state.
An Indian woman with a China craze retraces the footsteps of a Chinese monk with an Indian obsession
In the seventh century AD, the Chinese monk Xuanzang (earlier spelt as Hiuen Tsang or Hsuan Tsang) set off on an epic journey to India to study Buddhist philosophy from the Indian masters. Travelling along the Silk Road, through the desolate wastes of the Gobi desert and the icy passes of Central Asia, braving brigands and blizzards, Xuanzang finally reached India, where his spiritual quest took him to Buddhist holy places and monasteries throughout the subcontinent. By the time he returned to China eighteen years later, carrying with him nearly 600 scriptures which he translated from Sanskrit into Chinese, Xuanzang had covered an astonishing 10,000 miles. He also left a detailed record of his journey, which remains a valuable source of historical information on the regions he traversed. Fourteen hundred years later, Mishi Saran follows in Xuanzang’s footsteps to the fabled oasis cities of China and Central Asia, and the Buddhist sites and now-vanished kingdoms in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan that Xuanzang wrote about. Travelling seamlessly back and forth in time between the seventh century and the twenty-first, Saran uncovers the past with consummate skill even as she brings alive the present through her vivid and engaging descriptions of people and places. Her gripping chronicle includes an extraordinary eyewitness account of Kabul under the Taliban regime, just one month before 9/11. Running parallel to the account of her travels is the moving story of the author’s inner journey towards a new understanding of her roots and her identity. With its riveting mix of lively reportage, high adventure, historical inquiry and personal memoir, this delightfully written book is a path-breaking travelogue.
