In a spacious room with an intricately patterned ceiling recline four or five armed members of the Taliban. They might be ruling Afghanistan with an iron hand, but right now they are relaxed and ready to try a Kerala snack—banana chips. YouTuber Maheen S. from Kerala passes around a bowl. The men take a chip each, taste it and grin widely. They all give it a thumbs-up. The chips have passed the test, and so has Maheen.
Maheen’s video of him feeding the Taliban banana chips has clocked more than nine lakh views; it is one of his most popular ones. “Wherever I go, I promote Kerala,” he says. “Most of the people outside India only know about bigger cities like Mumbai. So I explain to them the culture and people of Kerala.” He is a college dropout, and his YouTube channel, ‘Hitchhiking Nomad’, has over five lakh subscribers. Maheen got hooked to travelling after reading travelogues as a child. Now 22, he has been hitting the road for three years. In school, he would take KSRTC buses to places that caught his fancy. Today, he has progressed to hitching rides in cars and trucks in foreign countries like Nepal, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. And now, Afghanistan.
“I always wanted to visit Afghanistan and west Africa,” says Maheen, who has always been attracted to conflict zones. “I thought I would be proud of having visited them when I looked back at the age of 40 or 50.”
Denne historien er fra September 18, 2022-utgaven av THE WEEK India.
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Denne historien er fra September 18, 2022-utgaven av THE WEEK India.
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William Dalrymple goes further back
Indian readers have long known William Dalrymple as the chronicler nonpareil of India in the early years of the British raj. His latest book, The Golden Road, is a striking departure, since it takes him to a period from about the third century BC to the 12th-13th centuries CE.
The bleat from the street
What with all the apps delivering straight to one’s doorstep, the supermarkets, the food halls and even the occasional (super-expensive) pop-up thela (cart) offering the woke from field-to-fork option, the good old veggie-market/mandi has fallen off my regular beat.
Courage and conviction
Justice A.M. Ahmadi's biography by his granddaughter brings out behind-the-scenes tension in the Supreme Court as it dealt with the Babri Masjid demolition case
EPIC ENTERPRISE
Gowri Ramnarayan's translation of Ponniyin Selvan brings a fresh perspective to her grandfather's magnum opus
Upgrade your jeans
If you don’t live in the top four-five northern states of India, winter means little else than a pair of jeans. I live in Mumbai, where only mad people wear jeans throughout the year. High temperatures and extreme levels of humidity ensure we go to work in mulmul salwars, cotton pants, or, if you are lucky like me, wear shorts every day.
Garden by the sea
When Kozhikode beach became a fertile ground for ideas with Manorama Hortus
RECRUITERS SPEAK
Industry requirements and selection criteria of management graduates
MORAL COMPASS
The need to infuse ethics into India's MBA landscape
B-SCHOOLS SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT INDIAN ECONOMY IS GOING TO WITNESS A TREMENDOUS GROWTH
INTERVIEW - Prof DEBASHIS CHATTERJEE, director, Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
COURSE CORRECTION
India's best b-schools are navigating tumultuous times. Hurdles include lower salaries offered to their graduates and students misusing AI
