Tushar Mangl

Nelson Wang's China Garden defines the evolution of Indo Chinese Cuisine in India. Spread across India, the restaurant chain as two outlets in the National Capital, Delhi. Recently they opened up their doors at Trillium Mall, Gurugram, a short distance from the City's district center and the famed Gymkhana Club.  In fact, Mainland China used to be located a couple of miles down at the famous Sector 29 market before it shut down. The locality also used to boast of Unlimited by Golden Dragon, which has also been shut down since.  Rising amidst the demand for Chinese Food in Gurugram, the place does impress. It has been beautifully decorated in shades of gray and blue. I visited it recently for a Duck and Dimsums fest curated by Plates2Miles, a community of food lovers with an active Facebook group. They organize a variety of food events across Delhi NCR, and this was the first time I was invited to attend. The best part of the evening apart from the great com...

Venita Coelho scripts a gripping thriller in this book based in Goa. Jamshed Fali Irani hails from a rich background and travels from Mumbai to Goa in hopes to achieve his dreams of becoming a famed  writer. He rents a crumbling, ill maintained Bungalow,  all set  to  prove his mettle. Things go off track when he  meets Alice who requests him to find her sister Sara. The trouble is that Sara has been missing five years and no one it seems wants her found. Young Jamshed soon  crossed path with Constania  who helps him unravel the mystery. Much  clues are to be found in a Diary they find in the house, which presumingly belongs to Sara. Her closeness to her friend Nina leaves an impact on the reader. This is  a Gothic Mystery Thriller and Venita Coelho's storytelling really impresses. The way she has brought out the setting of a Goan village of yesteryear is vivid and inspiring.  Not many Indian authors have been able to...

A poignant tale of love, author Krishna Chhetri's book revolves around Karma, Ghazal and Diana. They are three very different people enveloped with mystic, deep emotional love. The book is peppered with plenty of poems and shayaris making it almost a poetic narrative with each turn of page reflecting deep emotions of the characters. A Drop of You explores loves in its bare and soulistic form. Karma loves Ghazal, and Diana loves Karma, who is her best friend. They all meet at a bar in CP, Ghazal being introduced by a common friend Saddah and life is never the same again for them. Through poetry the narrative is enriched and expressions enhanced. The way there love unravels, its almost a cosmic intervention, a twist of fate. For some, the way Karma pursues Ghazal with all the excitement of overwhelming love can be too much to handle. But would work for die hard romantics. At the underlying theme of the story is a question about eternal love. Is it real...