Les Writes

  This piece was written for the magazine DOT .in, an Australian publication which has a lot of focus on India.  You can read the online version here: https://www.dotin.com.au/article/the-sounds-of-kolkata The sounds may have changed, as cities do, but Kolkata still finds new ways to make itself heard. A hand-painted illustration by Avanish Trivedi, a self-taught artist whose energy is fuelled by Kolkata’s chaos Here's what was written originally. Calcutta wakes up to calls. The crack of dawn had the muezzin chant his soothing, acoustic azaan, now replaced by high powered microphones, jolting you out of bed. If you are close to the local train lines you might hear an early morning horn heralding the arrival of the workforce from the hinterland. Back in the Ripon Street area the squeak of the community hand pump announced early morning bath time with its bucket clanging. The noise of the bhistis ( water carriers) jousting to get their goatskins filled was occasionally matched ...

  I wrote this piece about Live Music for the online magazine Bengal Soulfully Yours in February 2026. Here is the link: https://soulfulbengal.com/experiences/tune-kolkatas-live-music-scene   [The pictures and captions have been removed from this Blog version] The Aquatica grounds is a popular venue for big live acts. (Picture by Clockwork AV) Travelling and love live music? Kolkata should be on your radar. From open-air festivals and jazz clubs to barge parties on the river, this city has always cherished its live music culture. Whether your taste runs to rock, blues, jazz, Bangla folk-rock or international headliners, Kolkata’s stages deliver. While there’s no better time of the year to dance to great live music than during winter in Kolkata, when live performances take to the outdoors with makeshift dance floors and open-air festivals, make no mistake — Kolkata’s gigs and live music run year-round, with pubs and clubs continuing to organise parties whenever they can. And wh...

  This piece was written in November 2025 and published in the online magazine Bengal Soulfully Yours https://www.soulfulbengal.com/stories/inside-anglo-indian-kitchen .  Here is the extracted content from the site, without the beautiful photos and tables which add a lot of value to the piece. Inside the Anglo-Indian kitchen: Flavours of a hybrid heritage Discover how colonial influences and Indian spices blended to create one of the most distinctive culinary traditions in the subcontinent A Cultural Kichudi As diverse as Anglo-Indian culture is their food — mixed breeding led to mixed tastes. Hence, both the community and its food are lovingly referred to as a kichudi (kedgeree in old British), which is everyone’s favourite dish. Borrowing cuisine from multiple backgrounds and adding the ‘masala’ gives Anglo-Indian food a separate identity. And because of the varied roots, arguments still continue as to which might be the ‘right' recipe for a dish.  Let’s leave the jury...

 Published in My Kolkata   https://www.telegraphindia.com/life/a-humorous-take-on-new-year-resolutions-and-why-they-are-like-low-res-images/cid/2074715 In the aftermath of Christmas, on the edge of the New Year, we take a look at all sorts of resolutions and how they impact our lives. The most played out joke every end of year must be the Q & A where “What’s your resolution this year?” results in “It’s still 1024 by 720 as it was last year.”  Not funny for photographers for whom pixel count is everything. Digital cameras come in with higher and higher resolutions, trying to stay ahead of mobile phones with growing numbers of high end cameras built in. The eternal debate of whether 64 MP is better than 8MP for a front camera rages on.  This is not true of the political sphere where it is alleged that a lower number of thinking MPs could actually be more sensible than the larger horde of elected ones. Sorry for the political comment but MP occasionally sounds more ...

 Published in My Kolkata https://www.telegraphindia.com/my-kolkata/lifestyle/staying-home-for-christmas/cid/2073526 After decades of being out and about at Christmas, the author takes a break from the nightlife and finds himself at home on Christmas, with only memories for company in a lighter vein and hopefully not in vain. That famous set of Christmas songs have been on loop for nearly a month now. I say Christmas songs with impunity despite the season being rebranded “The Holiday Season” in the US of A and “Good Governance Day” back home. For one thing, in our country we don’t have a season for holidays - we have a couple of planned holidays every month and a few more unplanned days scattered here and there throughout the months. In fact, we don’t even use the term ‘holiday’ when we go out of town, we say ‘tour’ for some reason. I guess that’s why we are disdainfully known as ‘local tourists’ wherever we make a nuisance of ourselves. And Good Governance, even for a day, is a gre...

 Published in My Kolkata https://www.telegraphindia.com/my-kolkata/lifestyle/the-legacy-of-kolkatas-band-music-musical-legacy-through-bands-genres-and-generations/cid/2061131 A former rock musician who is now a music hobbyist relives the changes that Kolkata musicians have undergone in form and feature while keeping the rhythm going. Names mentioned in the text are mentioned with admiration and love for the music they gave and still give us!  Every November the music of Christmas wafted from our old radiogram at home. Bing Crosby sang, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” and random choirs belted out, “Silver Bells … soon it will be Christmas Day!”   That anticipation translated into other frantic activities for the myriad “dance bands” that sprang up around the season which lasted through December and early January.  ‘Tis the season to be jolly involving Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and multiple Christian weddings which dot the 12 days of Christmas.  New...