Shashikiran Mullur

Travel Featured

Plassey: Walking the Field Where India's Fate Was Fixed

A January morning at the battlefield of Plassey—mustard fields, mango trees, and the place where a rigged battle opened all India to the British.

Ljubljana

Precnik’s Ljubljana: A City Built for Its People

A quiet walk through Ljubljana reveals the brilliance of celebrated architect Jože Plečnik—and his love for his city and his people.

Brussels

Waterloo’s Fields to Brussels’ Cafés: Past and Present Intertwined

Wandering in Waterloo, loafing around Brussels, sipping great coffee, savouring time past and time present.

Vienna Featured

A Seat in Vienna: Café Tables and Quiet Thoughts

A week in Vienna through its historic cafés—from Café Central to Café Landtmann—with visits to Salzburg, vegan meals, and quiet moments of reflection.

Vienna

A Sunday in Vienna, with Zweig and Napoleon

A quiet morning in Vienna’s Burggarten, with Zweig in hand, reflecting on war, culture, and the peculiar grace of a city that carries its imperial past like a whisper.

Indian Wildlife

Who’s Afraid Of Whom?

Among babblers, crows, dogs, and tigers—who really fears whom? A meditation on fear, authority, and coexistence in the natural and human worlds.

Coffee Planter's Diary Featured

A Shift in the Season—and in the Ground Below

Droughts in Vietnam and Brazil, rising coffee prices, and shifting café habits are reshaping how Indian coffee growers farm in 2024.

Indian Wildlife

In Tiger Country

We gaped at the tiger's gleaming coat, the elegance in her gait, her ease of being, the sheer majesty of her.

Coffee Planter's Diary Featured

Sound and Silence in Coffee Country

Vagaries of weather might diminish the coffee, but they can't take away the green hills and trees of Malnad and the quiet of the country.

Birding

The Crested Serpent-Eagle

Sometimes, however, it did look down at us, its yellow-ringed eyes boring deep into our conscience.

Birding

The River Terns at the Bhadra

The terns are in the hundreds, thousands, flitting around, absorbed in what they're wired for, paying no attention to you or your boat.

Travel

Chasing Tiger

So many wild creatures appeared, creating a sublime setting—but what's its use when the tiger is missing in the scene?

Indian Wildlife

The Tusker at Kabini

The forest had been rained on for over a week; there was gloss and lustre on the lush greens, the muddy path was wet and shining, and framed in that setting was this huge handsome beast.

Musing

I Know a Cure, Too

"I know folks who use Nexito," I wished to say. "For depression. It's said it does the least harm to the libido—which you know how to manage anyway."

Musing

For the Love of Dogs

We've injected an overdose of spice into our life. It's like chewing the chilly and loving its taste, even as the thing sears the tongue.

Coffee Planter's Diary

The Burden of Being the Owner

"Pay the full amount," Anwar says, "start the deductions from Friday." Dharmendra and Harish laugh. "How shall we explain that to the malik?"

Coffee Planter's Diary

It's That Time When the Coffee Plants Think They're Dying

The plants will lift up, and they will bloom white all at once across the plantation, making these tropical tracts look like they're snowed upon.

Coffee Planter's Diary

Lost in the Woods

"But why must you be close to nature? The wild must live undisturbed in the wild, and the human must stay put in the city."

Coffee Planter's Diary

Coffee Planting: Costa Rican Vs Guatemalan Vs Colombian

Kenyan coffee planters, who took to multi-stem farming and returned to the single system, hold empirical proof that multi-stem doesn't work.

Coffee Planter's Diary

Dealing With Disaster

The crew is doing damage control now, drawing back the Yara from the base of the pepper and pushing it toward the mulch around the cardamom.

Coffee Planter's Diary

With Modi in My Dreams, Getting Real About Coffee

Birds, peafowl, hare, fox, boar. Trees, plants, and vines. Every rich shade of green. Who in his senses will argue you have caused damage here?

Coffee Planter's Diary

Because Coffee and Pepper and Cardamom Must Live

Even as they demand the best coffee, buyers want to be assured that God’s creatures are teeming on your property. We have good news for them.

Coffee Planter's Diary

You Sow What You Reap. Really?

The gods decide if a bean will make it to somebody’s gut or if it will merely rot in the soil that sprouted it.

Bangalore

Bruno, Our Beagle (Now Renamed Luca)

The yard was full of beagles of varying age; the seniormost was nine months old. The youngest had seen but 40 days. We’d gone there for him.

Bangalore

Starbucks On 80-Feet Road

Sitting at Starbucks, looking out, I'm pondering the limits and the durability of power.