Barbed Wire, Not Silk: Journey to Nathu La Pass
The historic Nathu La Pass in Sikkim is a frontier with a violent past that speaks only of an uneasy truce in the present. Out here, Hindi-Cheeni is not so bhai bhai.
Hi, and welcome to my site.
My name is Nishi Malhotra. I am an independent editor and writer who has lived and worked for over three decades in the US and in India. Home for me these days is the bustling UP township of Noida that skims the eastern edge of New Delhi.
As a professional editor, I have worked with websites, international development agencies, magazines, newspapers, and publishing houses. Some of these are The Times of India, The World Bank, UNICEF, The Better India, Oxford & IBH Publishing, and Dataquest magazine.
My freelance writings have appeared in The Indian Express, International Living, Overseas Tribune, Hindustan Times, The Pioneer, Femina, Sheroes, Chandigarh Times, among others.
I am also experienced in corporate communications, public relations, and conducting children’s writing workshops.
I now work as a freelance writer and editor. Do check out the Services I offer and go through my Portfolio of articles. I also share some of my musings, travels and other activities in the Blog section. You are welcome to email me at malhotra.nishi@gmail.com for more details.
I am the founder and owner of a humorous Facebook page called English Whirled Wide – it explores the vagaries of the English language through daily picture, video and article posts. The page has a fan following of approximately 150,000 people from over 20 countries; the linked Twitter account has 22,000 followers.
The historic Nathu La Pass in Sikkim is a frontier with a violent past that speaks only of an uneasy truce in the present. Out here, Hindi-Cheeni is not so bhai bhai.
Andretta sits on a gentle gradient below the august snow covered peaks of the Dhauladhar. Home to actors, artists and potters, it is now experiencing a cultural renaissance…
Near the LoC at Turtuk in Ladakh, in the rocky wilderness of a narrow, boulder-strewn valley flanked by lofty blue-black tors, lives a populace of some 2,600-odd Balti-speaking Muslims.
These descendants of pioneering Sikh (mostly) Indian immigrants from the early 20th century, who married cotton-picking Mexican women, are a vanishing breed today.
I went to see Roland at a correctional facility in Maryland where he was serving a 20-year sentence. No other society in history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens as the US has.
In an era of hyper-connectedness, India’s ageing population is struggling with loneliness and becoming increasingly disconnected from its environment. But, there are ways of coping and help is available.
The second inferno quivered for a brief moment in the blinding sunshine of the late summer day, before collapsing in a mushroom cloud… In an instant, the famous skyline was gone, erased, along with a thousand lives, from the map of the Big Apple forever.
A childhood spent playing gulli danda with her brothers, wearing a burkha to school, sleepwalking at night, making her own ice cream, and snacking on dry fruits from Kabul…my mother’s memories of her childhood.
In 1970 in Trinidad, everyone was humming the lyrics of a hugely popular single – ‘Nana drinkin white rum and Nani drinkin wine,’ a chartbuster that gave birth to a new form of music known as ‘Chutney’.