A note from New Delhi Taj Mahal Foxtrot, namesake of the book by the same name by naresh.fernandes Another new year, another bad habit: I’m late, again. Just a few days ago, I was sitting at the back of a Toyota Innova, stuffing my face with mithai and chips — not at the same time [...]
White cabbage is death. If there is a Creator, it is one of his less glorious moments. The only thing worse than white cabbage is white cabbage soup. I am a soup maniac, but white cabbage soup I do not touch with a ten foot pole. I cannot even sit at the same table when [...]
Here I start a series of my best answers on Quora, starting with this one. It still has the highest numbers of upvotes! For those of you who don’t know, Quora is an amazing community full of smart people asking and answering interesting questions. I spend a lot of time on it. Follow Adrianna Tan [...]
My father was having a conversation with one of the students at the university where he works. Apparently one of them was a frequent visitor to this site. He told my dad as much and said I don’t write anymore, that this site is pretty much defunct. When your father brings you these news, I [...]
Surprising thoughts on Singapore’s 46th birthday. I spent many years doubting my future as part of this nation, for good reason. I always wanted to leave. I left, but as I returned I found the city’s transformation to my liking.
In the tumultuous year that was 2009, I moved all my life’s possessions around the world several times, and then came home to find my grandfather was going to die. Michael Jackson died. Everybody seemed to, that year.
A friend says, “you just need an excuse to get another blog”. Well, he’s right. I thus present adriannatan.com, which will be my new home for all writing about business, tech, entrepreneurship, the tech business, the startups I’m trying to run, and other things like that. I aim to try to write an essay there [...]
A crash. A breakdown. 200 kilometres in the opposite direction. Andrew and I were left without our native son, and we screwed it up in as many ways as it was possible to. Yercaud more than made up for it, though.
There comes a point in every traveller’s life when the experience of going to a foreign place no longer feels the same, nor as exciting as it used to be when she first began. Cities blur into similar skylines, restaurants and bars. Non-cities remain precisely that—good in small doses but rarely more. The magic of travel fades into a succession of airports, suited executives and boring business hotels, or a kaleidoscope of lobster-red package tourists and concrete bungalows on dirty beaches. Even I could not avoid that fate.
If you looked on a map, the holy southern Indian city is merely 185 kilometres from Madras. If you took a bus, it would take just under five hours. If you travelled by car, perhaps three and a little bit. Since we took an autorickshaw, our estimated travel time was something like eight hours. Or before nightfall; whichever came first.
There are slower ways of seeing India. On a buffalo. On a “two wheeler”, a motorcycle, stacked to great heights with assorted luggage until you can’t see what’s in front of you. Or on foot, “by walk”, like a sadhu with no clothes on.
We travelled by autorickshaw.
There I was, sipping my welcome drink in a posh Ubud resort, when I almost choked on it.
I was accompanying friends as they sought the best wedding venue in Bali. Concerned about the monsoon, they asked the hotel manager why it hadn’t rained at all in the week we were there. Without batting an eyelid, she informed us there would be no rain for the entire month. “You see, Julia Roberts is in town.