Pooja Pillai
@Poojaspillai
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Cat Mom| Fox That Knows Many Small Things| Feeder of the Good Wolf| Edit/Op-Ed @IndianExpress | Tweets are personal| DM/email pitches to poojapillai @gmail .com
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All 33 of the residents who sent the complaint against allotment of the flat to a Muslim woman should in fact be booked for hate crime. This is simply unconscionable
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People in Mumbai, Bangalore & elsewhere posting photos of their clear blue skies with captions about how low the AQI is: don't do this please. It's not funny or witty; it's just plain smug, nasty & mean-spirited. Also, it's Delhi now, but realistically, it could be you tomorrow
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We can't afford to release food to the starving because ECONOMY
We can't let migrant workers go home because ECONOMY
Who is the economy FOR? What is the point of the economy if people are starving & their freedom is curtailed?
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Bought an unseasoned cast iron dosa pan and I'm here to tell you that you can season it to near perfection in about half an hour and without all the salt-roasting, starch-soaking, onion-frying, incense-burning, Chthulu-praying that (Indian) food blogs say you need
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Presenting 🥁🥁
The Thrissur Blush
Made with fresh tender coconut water, guava juice, lime juice & Bacardí Limón
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As someone who is so devoted to chutney that I allow the crispest dosas to disintegrate in a pool of coconut chutney, I thought it's my patriotic duty to write a story about...well, chutneys. Please do read. In
#SundayEye
today
@IndianExpress
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Can we settle this once and for all? Veg biryani is a THING. Spring roll dosa is a THING. Prawns in ketchup, also a THING.
If someone somewhere is making, eating and ENJOYING it, it's a THING.
Give it a rest and move the f*** on.
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Judging from its expression, I don't think this bird likes being described as "cute" 😐
Goldcrest, along with the Firecrest, Europe's smallest bird!
So cute.. although if you're a bug or spider seeing this come at you, not so cute.... a deadly predator in fact!😲😁
#TwitterNatureCommunity
🐦
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Professional update: I've joined the Indian Express's wonderful Op-Ed section, starting today. I will, of course, continue writing longform pieces on food for our wonderful Sunday magazine, Eye.
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Karthik Aryan is the paneer of Indian male actors: flavour-less, yet inexplicably beloved by millions
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DILLI PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT PANEER IS NOT ALWAYS AN ACCEPTABLE MEAT SUBSTITUTE. IN FACT IT RARELY EVER IS
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Lovely song, lovely setting and all, yes, but why no masks on ANYONE? This video is really pissing me off. Some of us haven’t met loved ones in months because there’s a pandemic on and we’re too scared of what might happen if we are even the tiniest bit careless.
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Twitter people who read books on food (cookbooks, history etc), which is the best book on Indian food that you've read? This is partly for work-related research & partly to add to my personal library, so please recommend generously. Everything will be considered
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A father opens his heart and finally accepts his daughter's truth. A beautiful, utterly moving piece by Vivek Katju. If there's one article you read today, let this be it
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What exactly is
@ArvindKejriwal
's govt thinking with this ad? It's stupid & dangerous to ask people to report each other in this way. Going to have people using this in thoughtless, malicious ways
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It's taken me a long, forkin' time to learn to read & write my mother tongue
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So tired of this. Everyone listen up. Malayali is a person from Kerala & the language they speak is MALAYALAM
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I'm curious: what is the word for rice in your language? And do you have different words for uncooked & cooked rice?
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Post the quietest picture you have
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The most important, heartbreaking thing on Twitter right now is the stream of stories coming with
#whyididntreportit
Do read as many of these accounts by women (and many men) as you can, so that you never ever again ask "Oh, but why didn't she speak up sooner?"
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Your annual reminder that this brilliant joke exists 😂😂
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Dear North Indians, it's pronounced 'saam-BAAR', not 'saam-BHR'
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As a staunch Panta Bhat-ist, I had to ask: Why shouldn't this so-called humble dish be made on Masterchef? Its moment in the spotlight represents a wholesome rejection of the hierarchy of tastes
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Did other mallus also have a "wait...what?" split second?
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Ajay Devgan may have done it first, but the squirrel did it better
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COVID positive case in our building. Since I found out a few hours ago, I've been cleaning & organising to manage my anxiety. Luckily, I have help
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Two years ago, I bought a desk because I knew a year later I would get a cat who would need a place to nap
Anyway, this is how I work now 😐
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Disappointed today in many of our loudest, most vehement &, for whatever reason, "popular" feminists supporting an unconstitutional, undemocratic move by the government. Confirms my long-held suspicion that most are feminists of convenience, not of conviction
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Nope. Wrong question, SC. The right questions is: why punish ANYONE for adultery?
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This type of alleged humour is one of the many many reasons why women still struggle to be believed about sexual violence & why we still need
#MeToo
&
#whyididntreportit
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Not going to elaborate, but convinced now that ABBA wrote a song for almost every emotional crisis one is likely to experience as an adult 😳
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Apparently it IS possible to resist govt pressure. What do they call this wondrous ability? And what magical, Faerie place does it spring from?
Netflix rejected a call from Britain's culture minister to add disclaimers at the start of episodes of its hit series ‘The Crown’ to make clear that it is a work of fiction
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From one rice eater to all you other rice eaters, here's the story of our favorite comfort food.
This is my first cover story in many, many months. Do read :)
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Clearly, the economy has come unmoored from the actual needs of human beings and has transformed into a monster that needs constant feeding. It gets greedier & greedier as it gets bigger & bigger.
This is the horror story of our times
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My baby girl Jasmine who had run away a week ago has come back home! I found her scared, starving & injured this morning. The heartbreak of losing her & then the relief of finding her are indescribable. All I can say is that my heart is full right now ❤️
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I'll never forget the kindness Kiran Nagarkar showed me & the time he spent with me, when I went to his house to interview him for college mag, as an awkward 21 yo fan, full of questions & self-doubt & I will also never forget that 3 women accused him of sexual harassment
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"The burkha & the hijab, being markers of Muslim identity, have become symbols of the anti-CAA protests...the state wants to target me for being Muslim? I shall be 'too muslim' for its comfort"
Powerful piece by
@irenaakbar
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Imagine awaiting news of your sister's delivery & then learning about her miscarriage, & imagine living with the knowledge that, but for a communication lockdown, the child's life might have been saved. My colleague
@adilakhzer
in today's edition
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This may just be the best piece I've read so far on the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie essay. It's reflective and not interested in name-calling, but it still successfully articulates some disturbing questions emerging from CNA's essay
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5. Use the tawa regularly. The more you use it, the better it gets. But if you haven't used it in a while & rust develops, just wash & scrub it all away & re-season
Pre-seasoned pans are available, but it's always good to know how to season it yourself, if you need to.
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"Even a Malayalam woman director faces issues...The only department that has had women and for a long time is the hairdressing department."
I interviewed Revathy about AMMA, WCC & sexism in the Malayalam film industry
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I've long held that Indian food has no defining characteristics that unite its infinite variety into a single, discernible tradition. A new "food biography" of India by Shylashri Shankar only cements this conviction. My interview with the writer:
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Take a walk through the paddy fields behind our house just outside Thrissur & you arrive at this small pond, hidden behind foliage.
How I miss Kerala 🙁
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One of the few Indian cookbooks I've encountered that draws a clear link between caste & cuisine. It seems stupid to me that more of them don't touch on this connection
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At the risk of being labeled the Condiment Queen of
@IndianExpress
(not that I MIND the label, should anyone care to bestow it on me), I've written a companion piece to the Chutney story from a couple of months ago 😬😬
(next up, papads and wadis 🤔)
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Onam sadhya for lunch today, made with the able assistance of
@tanushreeghosh
No banana leaves & no eye-poppingly bright beetroot pachadi, but a good time & a good meal was had by all and for the host, that's all that matters 😊
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Which is why handmade & homemade is not always better. I have no patience with people who lament that such & such dish requiring eleventy thousand hours of preparation is no longer made in India because MODERN CULTURE SO CORRUPTING MOAN GROAN
Desis have this notion of laborious and traditional methods being better but it only comes in picture with domestic works and domestic work is mostly done by whom? Women
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Philanthropy as a model for welfare needs to end & the state needs to be forced into taking responsibility
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Quite frankly, the only 20 year old that I care to see (& not just in a photo) right now
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Not here to force everyone to my opinion that idlis are beautiful & delicious (they are). Just here to present some of what I learnt as I explored the question: how exactly did idli become popular outside south India?
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Are other Malayalis also now recalling THAT scene from one of our favourite political satires?
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Home food ❤️
(rice with payar thoran, beetroot pachadi, theeyal, pulissery)
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It oughtn't to take much to embarrass this government, but Raghuram Rajan expounding on its cronyism & general incompetence would be a sweet, sweet thing to see
and here it is embarrassment for Modi & cronies as Murli Manohar Joshi wants Rajan to explain fat cat NPA's
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Guys, just a suggestion: when someone you know is going through bad shit, just be there & be supportive. All your logical arguments and solutions can be kept for when the person affected has had time to process the shit
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If you want, you can do the heating & oiling every few hours that first day, but you don't need to. When you do try making a dosa, though, be prepared to sacrifice the first one, maybe two, dosas. It should be perfectly non-stick by the third one.
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TIL that Europe's first ever "Green Revolution" (yeah, they had those too), which powered 19c Britain's intensive farming (AKA 'high farming'), came down to one very valuable and incredibly smelly thing - bird poop.
Or guano, as polite society calls it.
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Where did the Kerala or Malabar parotta come from? What does it have in common with Chinese scallion pancakes? (Hint: a trading history with West Asia is a great way to develop a fascinating cuisine)
I explain in
@IndianExpress
@ieexplained
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As a Malayali from Bombay, I got very excited about Dilli's sweater weather yesterday
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This year's
#SundayEye
Diwali special is one of my favourites ever. Each addresses the Ramayana in its own way, & is ruminative & gently subversive in a way that we're all increasingly devaluing. Do read them all
@IndianExpress
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You may or may not follow the Malayalam Hindu calendar, according to which Karkidakam or Ramayana Maasam began yesterday, but it's never a bad time to read this piece about the Mappila Ramayanam that I wrote a few years ago
#ThrowbackThursday
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I'm always amazed when women cite wanting to participate in (legal) violence as a feminist goal. It's an indication of the half-baked understanding of feminism that typically also betrays a failure to understand how the world works
Sorry Zomato, as woke as your decision on
#PeriodLeave
is, this is exactly what ghettoizes women and strengthens biological determinism. We cannot want to join the infantry, report war, fly fighter jets, go into space, want no exceptionalism and want period leave. PLEASE.
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Assignment over. Time to stuff the face with a mooli paratha topped with generous quantities of fresh makkhan.
At Pahalwan Dhaba in Murthal, Haryana
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It's been an exhausting couple of weeks, feeling low & hopeless about everything that's happening. So I dragged myself into the kitchen to recover my spirits in the way I know best. It's almost Christmas, so I made kulkuls. Not bad at all for a first attempt, I think 😊
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Sacred Games, Midnight's Children...can we look at non "epic", more intimate books for adaptation? I understand the seduction of the larger-than-life narratives, but there are SO MANY wonderful books with minute focus on human relations & psyche, which deserve an audience
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"What was earlier just bigotry or simple incomprehension I faced in casual encounters is now being made into State policy — the space for a non-religious identity that’s plural no longer exists"
A wonderful piece by my friend
@RadhaKhn
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And, kids, that's the story of how yet another idol came crashing down from his pedestal
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"In Badru and Hamza’s case, everyone knows how Hamza is to Badru. But she can’t leave him because she is terrified of abandonment. She is terrified of life beyond Hamza"
@ManjiriIndurkar
on the scary accuracy with which gaslighting is shown in 'Darlings'
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My mother is one of my heroes precisely because she takes the trouble to learn & speak (no matter how badly) the language of the city she is in. At 61, she's fluent in Malayalam, English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi & Tamil. She learned Chinese when we were +
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To celebrate Jasmine's return, this boy stole fried bhindi 😐
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Rainy day breakfast: kanda poha, pyaaz ke pakode & garma-garam chai
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Does the deeper joy of rereading a favorite book match the joy of discovering a new one?
http://t.co/MV7omboxwP
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So I finally gave vent to my deep disappointment in my former heroes and my dismay at their utter obtuseness & arrogance in their position
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Currently wafting through the house: aroma of roasted lentils + asafoetida in preparation for the making of molaga podi
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I never have any illusions about mainstream Hindi cinema's concern for propriety & respect for rule of law, but using this kind of rhetorical question seems like a particularly irresponsible way of promoting a movie.
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Just read a review of Prasenjit K Basu's book (the one he mentioned at that RaGa interaction). Here's a passage from the review about how Basu demolishes the belief that Japanese imperialism was "more evil" than that of any European power. The reviewer is blown away by this:
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Closed the weekend on a great note with mangsho-bhaat.
I'm with the Bengalis on the addition of potatoes to meat dishes. One hundred per cent. The way the potato chunks absorb the flavours & how they simply collapse...beautiful!
Mangsho (mutton) made by
@tanushreeghosh
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Mumbai is a woman in her twilight years, with no more fucks left to give about anything or anyone
"Every city has a sex & an age..London is a teenagr,an urchin..Paris is a man in his 20s in love w/an older woman"
[what abt Indian cities?]
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