Nishi Malhotra

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Travel & Leisure

Sheroes

A Dark Amsterdam Tour of Female-on-Sale Windows in The Netherlands

A former prostitute took me for a walk around the red-light area. Prostitution in The Netherlands has been legal for almost 200 years and is both taxed and unionised.

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International Living

The Raj on the Ridge

Situated at a height of about 6,700 feet, Kasauli is a mere 31 miles uphill from Chandigarh. I start early in the morning so I can stop for breakfast at Giani’s dhaba, a flourishing roadside eatery…

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Silver Talkies

These Road-Tripper Seniors Are Giving Today’s Millennials Some Serious Travel Goals

While today’s millennials are rewriting what it means to be young in the 21st century, the silver-haired generation is not taking a backseat either.

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Femina

The General and the Ladies

Near the LoC at Turtuk in Ladakh, in the rocky wilderness of a narrow, boulder-strewn valley flanked by lofty blue-black tors, lives a populace of some 2,600-odd Balti-speaking Muslims.

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Chandigarh Times, Times of India

A Holiday With the Lady of the Lake at Renuka

Renuka Lake is named after a goddess who is said to have come down from the heavens and ‘entered’ the earth here. Lotuses bloom in Renuka’s hair, ageing turtles crawl out of the water near her feet, and two-feet long mahaseer fish populate her belly. She is truly divine.

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Hardnews

Barbed Wire, Not Silk: Journey to Nathu La Pass

The historic Nathu La Pass in Sikkim is a frontier with a violent past that speaks only of an uneasy truce in the present. Out here, Hindi-Cheeni is not so bhai bhai.

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The Better India

A Mysterious Himalayan Village Called Andretta

Andretta sits on a gentle gradient below the august snow covered peaks of the Dhauladhar. Home to actors, artists and potters, it is now experiencing a cultural renaissance…

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Silver Talkies

The World’s Oldest Achievers of Some Amazing Feats Teach Us How to Live Life

An 85-year-old ramp model, centenarian street artist, YouTube star, doctor - these world’s oldest achievers were supposedly past the age to do anything extraordinary…

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Silver Talkies

10 Senior Celebs Who Rock Their Grey Hair!

You can call their locks salt and pepper, silver or steely. Whatever the name, meet these 10 senior celebs who rock their grey hair!

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News & Features

Sheroes

This Mom Set Her Children Free From the Burden Of A Family Surname

From conforming to rebelling to outright breaking a carved-in-stone marriage tradition, this architect mom made an inner journey that will have a far reaching impact on the lives of her children.

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Silver Talkies

You Can Borrow People, Not Books, at the Human Library

At the Human Library, readers “meet” their books, listen to their stories and ask them questions, leading to interactive sessions that provide much food for thought.

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Silver Talkies

Rooms to Spare? Here’s Your Step by Step Guide to Running a Homestay

Children moved away leaving you lonely in a big empty house? Find time hanging on your hands post-retirement? Run a homestay from the comfort of your own residence.

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Hardnews

A Community of Punjabi-Mexicans in California

These descendants of pioneering Sikh (mostly) Indian immigrants from the early 20th century, who married cotton-picking Mexican women, are a vanishing breed today.

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Hardnews

Invasion of the Body Snatchers – Selling Kidneys

Bangalore may have been selling software, but in Chennai they were outsourcing kidneys to the West. However, the ultimate nation to have profited from the demand for body spare parts was the communist 'enterprise' of China.

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The Better India

A Fallen Soldier’s Coursemates Make it Possible for His Mother to Pray At His Grave, 24 Years Later

This is a story about a martyred soldier, a mother’s grief and the brothers-in-arms who banded together to do something remarkable for their fallen mate’s family.

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Hardnews

Sex, Lies and Children

It was in the early 1980s that actress Parveen Babi created a storm by saying most Indian girls are not virgins. She was speaking of sexual abuse, not consensual sex. Have things really changed today?

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Hardnews

What Ails Higher Education in India?

In its quest to meet the goal of universal education at the primary level, India has neglected its institutions of higher learning. And we might have to pay a heavy price for that.

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Hardnews

Why Are American Jails Full of Black Prisoners?

I went to see Roland at a correctional facility in Maryland where he was serving a 20-year sentence. No other society in history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens as the US has.

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Hardnews

From the Closet to the Altar: Gay Marriage in the US

In the US, until less than half a century ago, homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder. Families sent their ‘deviant' offspring to asylums to be treated with electric shocks so they would no longer experience sexual desire.

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Hardnews

How Secular is America?

Did Barack Obama's presidency usher in a new age of tolerance in a country that had seen religious discrimination rise after September 11, 2001?

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Silver Talkies

India’s Ageing Population Is Struggling With Loneliness But Help is Available

In an era of hyper-connectedness, India’s ageing population is struggling with loneliness and becoming increasingly disconnected from its environment. But, there are ways of coping and help is available.

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The Indian Express

Almost Surreal, It Was Like a War Video Game

The second inferno quivered for a brief moment in the blinding sunshine of the late summer day, before collapsing in a mushroom cloud… In an instant, the famous skyline was gone, erased, along with a thousand lives, from the map of the Big Apple forever.

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Silver Talkies

These Senior Singles Plan to Support Each Other by Living in The JOY Community

The JOY (Just Older Youth) Community group is for singles aged 50-65 who want to live and grow old together in a community so that they can be of support to each other as they age.

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Silver Talkies

Life Is a ‘Joggling’ Act for This Engineer

Joggling, a combination of jogging and juggling, can be the smart route to mental health as one ages, says this consultant, teacher, coach and sportsman.

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Books, Films & Music

Sunday Review, Times of India

The 'Fire' Woman

Long before the moral police did its number on 'Fire', Deepa Mehta saw it coming.

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Hardnews

Shilpa Shetty and the Big Brother Brouhaha

Even as celebrity careers crumbled and tabloid stories spilled onto the desks of foreign ministries, the murky underbelly of British society stood uncomfortably exposed.

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The Better India

Chutney Music: A Vibrant Mix of Bhojpuri Beats and Caribbean Calypso

In 1970 in Trinidad, everyone was humming the lyrics of a hugely popular single – ‘Nana drinkin white rum and Nani drinkin wine,’ a chartbuster that gave birth to a new form of music known as ‘Chutney’.

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Hardnews

Book Review: The Afghan, by Frederick Forsyth

Forsyth often incorporates the closed door secrets of intelligence agencies such as MI6, CIA and Mossad into his novels, causing headaches and embarrassment to governments around the world. The Afghan remains faithful to this tradition.

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Hardnews

Eklavya: A Royal Pain

Author Suketu Mehta once said of his former friend, film director Vidhu Vinod Chopra, that the latter has an ego so big he needs a truck to carry it. If self-indulgence is indicative of an inflated ego, Chopra may well have proved Mehta right with his film Eklavya.

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The Tribune

Tackling Motherhood Single-Handed

Single motherhood is a growing phenomenon in middle and upper class India. In Hometruths: Stories of Single Mothers, Deepti Priya Mehrotra examines the ground realities of this phenomenon.

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Hardnews

The Unquiet Pakistani

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid is a book of clever construct -- what starts as a memoir in monologue catapults into a thriller on the last page.

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Silver Talkies

How I Met The Evergreen Hero Dev Anand

His 82 years rested lightly on his frame, for he was agile and fleet-footed and his thoughts flew swifter than the words needed to wing them. It was hard to get a man who constantly looks into the future to pause and talk of his past.

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Hardnews

A Festival of Oscar Riches

Hollywood was in a dark mood that year because of the writers’ strike. But TMC brought some sunshine to our TV sets – it ran a festival of past Academy Award winning and nominated films.

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Silver Talkies

Geet Gaata Chal: Life is a Song for These Singing Seniors

Geet Gaata Chal is a small group of musically inclined South Indian senior citizens who are keeping Bollywood’s old Hindi songs alive in the Tamil heartland of Chennai.

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Silver Talkies

Music is the Food of Love At the Choir of the Loaves and the Fish

Walk past the open windows of this senior citizen’s home in Bengaluru and you may hear the strains of “We Are the World” or “These Are a Few of My Favourite Things” wafting out from the interiors.

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Miscellaneous

The Better India

MY STORY: From English to Basketball, This Extraordinary Teacher Taught Me Everything I Know

The exposure and encouragement she provided paved the way for my participation in sports, debates and drama – it also gave me the confidence to defy conventional wisdom and choose journalism as a career over medicine and engineering.

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Chandigarh Times, Times of India

The Border Between Our Minds and Hearts

In 2001, in Washington DC, a cab driver from Pakistan related to me the amazing story of his friendship with a man from Chandigarh.

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Silver Talkies

My Mother’s Memories: Growing Up Among the Pathans of Peshawar

A childhood spent playing gulli danda with her brothers, wearing a burkha to school, sleepwalking at night, making her own ice cream, and snacking on dry fruits from Kabul…my mother’s memories of her childhood.

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Times of India

How About Handling Children With Kid Gloves?

I haven’t encountered the word ‘discipline’ anywhere else in the world as much as I do in newspaper reports in India. The dictionary lists several meanings - most are variations of “to bring to a state of order and obedience by training and control.”

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Chandigarh Newsline, Times of India

Ode to the Sukhna Lovers

Walk along the lakeside and you’ll find them sitting, evenly spaced, on the lake ledge, the steps, and in the gazebos. Firmly turned backs signal displeasure at intrusion, those holding hands withdraw them gently as a walker passes, and heads lower to muffle conversations from being overheard.

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Chandigarh Times, Times of India

Good Evening, Eavesdropping

Come 7 p.m. and city gardens teem with walkers, talkers, joggers and strollers as everybody -- but everybody -- comes outdoors “to eat fresh air.” And evening brings with it an energy that desires company and conversation.

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Times of India

How We Care…

Most of us have learnt to shirk taking charge in a situation that we feel is “not my responsibility,” afraid that “if something happens,” it will “all fall on my head.”

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Chandigarh Times, Times of India

Whose World? Whose Madness?

My nine-year-old’s view of the war against Afghanistan is simple yet sharp: “Why do they have to kill so many people to look for one bad man?” I can hear the same question being echoed by his contemporaries in America’s classrooms.

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Chandigarh Times, Times of India

What I Admire…

I was asked, “Which men and women do you admire most in the world?” I have met many ‘achievers’ and found their meteoric rise to fame interesting – but not worth emulating. So I decided to delve into my immediate environment to create a list.

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