Shashank Kalucha

Delhi is first love, Die Hard Gooner, Consultant, Conspiracy Theorist, History buff, Jealous of travel bloggers

[Sushant Singh @SushantSin]

What a piece. The end is a killer.

[Shashank Kalucha @s_kalucha]

This hit hard.

[Chirag Barjatya @chiragbarjatya]

You have no idea how privileged you are if your parents didn't force you to visit random religious places of worship and asked you to chant recite random verses during your childhood and blamed everything on unseen powers or thanked random religious leader for every good thing. It is a sort of abuse that people can't talk in open. Go say thanks to your parents if they didn't waste your time, energy and childhood in these activities.

[Shashank Kalucha @s_kalucha]

Oh man…this was my first experience of ‘multimedia.’

[Ramp Capital @RampCapitalLLC]

Me: Mom can I have $20 to buy a Claude membership?

Mom: We have Claude at home.

The Claude at home:

[Anubhav Singh @lucifer_damned]

Gujaratification of India at astonishing speed. Udyog Bhawan, Krishi Bhawan, Shastri Bhawan - these landmark buildings were reminiscent of hopes of a newly independent India & witnesses of history. Much thought was put into their architecture.

[shoaib daniyal @ShoaibDaniyal]

RBI clarification is an incredible example of just how well this dispensation understands the media game.

RBI has clarified nothing. It does not even address Bloomberg's point. But by having it out so quickly, it allows BJP + supporters to say Bloomberg data is wrong.

If RBI had delayed, the Bloomberg report would have caused so much damage. But by putting out a random "rebuttal" it has undercut it.

Well played.

[Shashank Kalucha @s_kalucha]

@AllAbout90sLife Olonga did quite the pivot and is a successful vocalist now https://t.co/JuTOP3P1NE

[old toons @oldtoons_]

Story time?

Back in the winter of 1955, an Uzbek politician and writer named Sharaf Rashidov went on a diplomatic trip to Jammu and Kashmir.

While he was there, he saw a live performance of "Bombur ta Yambarzal" (The Bumblebee and the Narcissus), a famous 1953 opera by the local poet Dina Nath Nadim.

On stage, characters played literal forces of nature: the spring narcissus, (Yambarzal) and the king of bees (Bombur) represented life and freedom, while winter blizzards symbolised oppression.

Rashidov was so moved by the performance that he went home and turned the story into a 1956 book called "The Kashmir Song", translating the flower's name to its more common regional equivalent, "Nargis".

By 1965, this local Kashmiri tale traveled all the way to Moscow's Soyuzmultfilm studio, that turned it into a gorgeous animated short film called *Nargis*. The animation team crafted the film in the ornate, miniature-painting style characteristic of traditional Russian Palekh lacquer art known for its folkloric elegance. At the same time, the characters’ flowing draped garments, vibrant attire, and decorative jewelry clearly draw inspiration from Indian cultural aesthetics, giving the film an exotic, fairy-tale quality that blends Soviet artistic traditions with the story’s Indian roots.

The film arrived at the perfect time. During the 1950s and 1960s, India and the Soviet Union shared a massive cultural exchange. Hindi cinema was wildly popular across the USSR with films starring actors such as Raj Kapoor drawing large audiences and becoming cultural touchstones. Amid this mutual fascination, Nargis served as a vivid example of how a great story can easily cross borders and connect completely different worlds.

[Shashank Kalucha @s_kalucha]

No! Mandir wahi banayenge! ⛳️⛳️⛳️

[sushant sareen @sushantsareen]

By all means run a bulldozer over Delhi Gymkhana. But don’t give the bullshit of exclusivity or privilege or tax payer money. If thats the standard we are living by then shut down Constitution Club; demolish the CSOI where govt land was given at throw away price to babus; shut down DSOI; take back all newspaper properties on BSZ Marg; Take back all lands given to NGOs which are profit centres; demolish IIC and Habitat Centre; stop subsidised food in parliament. MPs get paid so why should their food be subsidised? if they cant afford it, step down from parliament and do something that pays you enough. Shut down the Air Force and Army Golf Clubs, Santushti Centre, Race Club, and the Delhi Flying Club where no one flies anything. The DGC is being targeted because someone has an axe to grind and didnt get membership. Now its being made an elite vs non-elite fight which it isn't. But since we all want to play Bolshevik commies or are inspired by CCP and Khmer Rouge to demolish everything nice, decent, genteel, lets do a comprehensive job of it. Make it all a animal shelter which would warm the cockles of Pol Pot's heart. But please don’t give the BS of security because that is total hogwash. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

[Botswana Government @BWGovernment]

𝗡𝗢, 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘 𝗜𝗦 𝗡𝗢 𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗜𝗗𝗔𝗬 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗔𝗥𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗔𝗟 𝗙𝗔𝗡𝗦.

[Rory Talks Football @Rory_Talks_Ball]

Pour one out to those we lost along the way, legends 🍻

[Mukul Kesavan @mukulkesavan]

Pure corn but, my god, such beautiful corn!

[Daisy Christodoulou @daisychristo]

The city of Dundee has had more teams reach the European Cup / Champions league semi-finals than Liverpool, Munich, Barcelona and Paris.

(And as many as Madrid & Manchester. But not as many as London.)

[Shashank Kalucha @s_kalucha]

Same to same. Sunday mornings meant Vir Sanghavi’s Brunch piece and it did really transport you!

And on the rare occasion he’d write about music. There was this lovely piece on Simon & Garfunkle that’s always stayed with me.

[shraddha @shraddhahahaha]

I grew up reading @virsanghvi's column in HT Brunch magazine. That was my Sunday ritual as a teenager.

Back then, my understanding of eating out was very simple. Once a month, the family would go to the local restaurant and order in the exact same sequence every Indian family somehow did in the 2000s - chinese starters, punjabi main course, triple schezwan rice, and if life was really going well, a sizzling brownie or falooda at the end.

That was the extent of my food universe.

I hadn’t travelled far and wide across India. Forget internationally. So when Vir wrote about tiny restaurants in Europe, old cafés in Bombay, chefs obsessing over ingredients, regional cuisines I had never even heard of, I was completely transported.

It wasn’t just food writing. It felt like a window into a more curious, cultured world. Through those columns, I discovered cuisines I couldn’t pronounce, restaurants I could never visit, chefs I had never heard of, and entire worlds that felt impossibly far away from my middle-class reality. I used to wonder what it must feel like to experience all of this firsthand.

And what made those columns special was that he never wrote about food like a checklist. He wrote about people, history, ambition, cities, culture. You came away feeling like restaurants had personalities.

Then somewhere around 2015-16, the food blogger/influencer era exploded. Suddenly everybody was reviewing food, but most reviews rarely went beyond “must try”. Which always felt unfair to the craft.

Because if making food is art and science, then reviewing food is right up there too.

Somewhere along the way, food content became less about storytelling and more about consumption. Faster edits. Louder reactions. The same words recycled endlessly:

“Hidden gem.”
“Must try.”
“Best in town.”
“You can’t miss this.”

Every week there’s a new café popping up in Bandra serving gochujang noodles, tiramisu latte and ceremonial grade matcha (whatever the f it means) with cinematic pouring shots like the chef has just discovered fire.

Recently, I came across Vir’s podcast with Gaggan Anand, Asma Khan and the team at The Bombay Canteen (@yashwecan, @canteensam).

He isn’t only asking chefs or owners what inspired the menu. He’s asking them about failure, reputation, criticism, arrogance, identity, evolution. He references chefs across restaurants, remembers restaurants from decades ago, understands cuisines in context.

You can feel the difference between someone who visits restaurants for content and someone who has spent a lifetime genuinely interested in food.

Watching those interviews felt oddly nostalgic.

I don't exactly remember when the magazine stopped it's offline circulation but it felt like a full circle moment with the podcast. :')

[Shashank Kalucha @s_kalucha]

@ShoaibDaniyal If the GDP has been hyper-inflated in the recent past, the net GST as a % would be much higher, no? Possibly much more than the 6.1% historical avg.

[Shashank Kalucha @s_kalucha]

And you can check out the residence of Sobha Singh in Sujan Singh park in this lovely series of Delhi Residences:

https://t.co/FAYPFGQxa3

[Himanish Ganjoo @himganj153]

Sobha Singh, father of the writer Khushwant Singh, built most of New Delhi, including the North and South Blocks and Connaught Place. In fact, Block A of Connaught Place was named "Sujan Singh Block" after his father.

[Shashank Kalucha @s_kalucha]

Pandara Road in New Delhi was intended to be Pandava Road. A clerical error turned the v to an r but the incorrect name stuck.

[Zucker Doctor @DoctorLFC]

Tell me a piece of trivia about your city that you think most people will not know.

Here's mine: The official name of Marine Drive in Mumbai is Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Road.

[Vinay Kumar @bahudari]

My favourites. Thank you for the art, Raghu Rai.

Mallikarjun Manjur on his death bed with his son (L). Bismillah Khan (R)

[Shashank Kalucha @s_kalucha]

@bainjal Guilt is alleged (requires proof). Innocence is default (no proof needed).

[Shashank Kalucha @s_kalucha]

TIL

[Ramin Nasibov @RaminNasibov]

I used Nero to burn CDs as a kid and only later got the joke: Nero burned Rome, and "Burning ROM" is such a perfect reference.

[Abdurahman Warsame @abdu]

2 Grammys, 5 nominations, and centuries of tradition: The collaboration between the late Toumani Diabate (Mali) and Kayhan Kalhor (Iran) is a rare bridge across the Muslim world.

​From the Kora to the Kamancheh, this is what true cultural continuity looks like. Amazing to see these two traditions converge.