Brinda Miller’s philosophy of variety; Sensorial experience in the Thar desert

Hello,

Another day, another new twist in BYJU’S insolvency saga.

MSKA & Associates, an affiliate of BDO International in India, cited a lack of communication and transparency from the management among several other reasons which compelled it to resign as BYJU’S’ statutory auditor.

This comes on the heels of reports on the edtech owing over a whopping Rs 15,000 crore to a bunch of operational and financial creditors, including its wholly-owned subsidiary, Aakash.

Talking of huge sums, the IPO market has yet another mega debut to marvel at, this time courtesy of Carlyle Group-backed Hexaware Technologies.

The company has filed preliminary papers with SEBI for floating a Rs 9,950-crore initial public offering, the largest in the country's IT services sector since TCS' Rs 4,700-crore IPO over two decades ago.

It's raining money, indeed!

ICYMI: Finding a new job in the current market is hard. Getting laid off is harder. However, workers are finding a new way to process the loss of a job–by posting about it publicly on social media.

Lastly, with the various stressors in our environment, it’s no wonder that a good night’s sleep is becoming rare.

One capsule hotel chain in Japan is going beyond its purview of convenient and budget-friendly stays to offer an additional perk: evaluating your sleep health.

Health and comfort in the same place? Sounds like a dream!

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about

• Brinda Miller’s philosophy of variety
• Sensorial experience in the Thar desert
• A taste of Japan in India

Here’s your trivia for today: Which James Bond film was made into a video game for the Nintendo 64?

Art and Culture

Brinda Miller’s philosophy of variety

Everything in life should be a mix-and-match of a variety of styles, from the clothes you wear to the food you eat and even the art you create, believes Brinda Miller, veteran artist and Chairperson of Kala Ghoda Association.

A sense of appreciation for art of all types brought Miller, along with other patrons, art galleries and enthusiasts together to form the Kala Ghoda Association in 1998, which has been at the forefront of preserving the heritage of Mumbai’s art district, Kala Ghoda.

Art of curation:

• Variety is also Miller’s advice when it comes to art collection, and she believes people should consider collecting different kinds of art, whether it is sculptures or paintings, and dabbling in different art forms, styles and mediums within those.
• As an artist, she cautions other artists to steer clear of complacency: “No artist should think they created their masterpiece…Art is always something that you keep learning. Even if you master it, you still won't. As you keep learning art, and you keep on discovering, you keep on experimenting.”
• As the Festival Director of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival for several years, Miller has been instrumental in curating and bringing together the seven-day-long art festival that attracted eight to 10 lakh visitors from across the world, this year.

Travel and Leisure

Sensorial experience in the Thar desert

Scents and memories are inextricably linked, whether it is childhood memories brought forth by the smell of comfort food, or the memories of a friend or family member with one whiff of a familiar perfume.

Sapna Bhatia’s love for the sights and smells of the Thar led her to open Kaner Retreat, India’s first desert botanical resort located on the Jodhpur-Jaisalmer highway. She later teamed up with Esha Tiwari, Founder of the ittar brand Kastoor, to start ‘Scents, Saawan, and Wellness’—a three-day sensorial staycation in the last week of August.

Sensory heaven:

• Kaner derives its name from the oleander flower, commonly known as the desert rose (kaner in the local language). It was opened in 2021 by Bhatia, who grew up in the Thar Desert, pursued a career in Delhi and London, and then yearned to return to her roots.
• The staycation experience is a blend of sights, smells and sounds, starting with a walk through the Oran, an ancient system of conservation in the desert, followed by a perfume blending session, guided scent meditation sessions, and a five-course meal, with each course paired with a scent.
• Tiwari stresses the importance of focusing on the emotional aspects of scents and their role in wellbeing. Her scent-based memory mapping encourages participants to “not be intellectual about what you are sniffing, but rather be intuitional and emotional.”

Wine and Food

A taste of Japan in India

Delhi’s close cousin, Gurugram, is fast turning into one of the hottest destinations for food and nightlife. From global cuisines to world-class mixology, it has everything to appease the city’s cosmopolitan crowd.

The newest kid on the block is Arigato, the brainchild of Avantika Sinha Bahl, which promises to offer a taste of Tokyo’s pulsating gastronomy.

Asian delights:

• As one enters the 3,000-square-foot dynamic space in M3M’s International Financial Centre, several elements vie for attention—from the Sakura-inspired light panels to the artworks that draw from Japanese gardens.
• There is a dedicated selection of drinks infused with ingredients from the ‘land of the rising sun’, with flavours like miso, matcha, yuzu and sake as the star of their own individual concoctions.
• Arigato also offers an extensive selection of small plates and mains– from crunchy Bang Bang Prawns to soft Oriental Chicken dumplings with spicy-creamy laksa sauce to a Japanese pizza and New Zealand lamb rack with truffle edamame hummus and Korean sauce as accompaniments.

News & updates

• Postponed: Goldman Sachs adjusted its expectations for OPEC+ oil production, saying it now expects three months of production increase starting from December instead of October, the bank said in a note on Friday.
• Return: Boeing's Starliner spacecraft landed uncrewed in a New Mexico desert late on Friday, capping a three-month test mission hobbled by technical issues that forced the astronauts it had flown to the International Space Station to remain there until next year.
• Timeline: The US federal judge who recently found that Google illegally monopolised the search market pushed back on the government’s request for more time, asking the Justice Department at a Friday hearing to file its proposed remedies to bring back competition to the market by the end of the year.

Which James Bond film was made into a video game for the Nintendo 64?

Answer: GoldenEye (1995).

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