Past forward to January 2026 |
A run-through of personal favourite Eureka moments from the last year which featured on these pages
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalytic therapy, at his home office in Vienna. Pic/Getty Images
January 2025 began unusually in the middle of an annual Jewish feast. Hanukkah is the festival of lights in Judaism. The eight-night feast started on Christmas day of December 2024 — a special occurrence last witnessed in 2005. The Jewish month of Kislev (or Chislev), remarkable for the festival of Hanukkah beginning on its 25th day, aligns with the Gregorian calendar any time from November 28 to December 27. The first day of Hanukkah falling on December 25, coincided with Christmas 2024 for only the fifth time since 1900.
This tradition of lighting lamps or candles over eight consecutive nights derives from the period when the community won back Jerusalem’s Second Temple after a band of brave Maccabees revolted against the Greeks around 164 BCE. Rejoicing with a rededication ceremony on defeating Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Seleucid empire, they found there was enough olive oil to light the wick of the menorah lampstand for a single night. To their astonishment, the pure oil instead lasted eight entire nights.
To commemorate that miracle, Jews light the nine-branched Hanukkah menorah candelabrum eight nights in a row. The main flame — a central “starter” called shamash (attendant), on either side of which are four upturned branches — is lit the first evening. It in turn illuminates the second lamp and so on… till nine flames glow on the eighth evening.
As the oil burns for long, fried foods are an essential part of this week. The city’s Jewish families eat chicken, kanda bhaji, and potato pancakes, with sweet rice cooked with ghee, cashews, and saffron. And there remains the belief that one who sees a Hanukkah light should recite a blessing. A poignant tribute to a miracle of faith two millennia ago.
Some mysteries are resolved in strange ways. This one fell into place while I was digging into the history of Malboro House on Peddar Road. Formerly Kamani House, this Claude Batley-designed gem, with deep circular balconies skirting spacious apartments, was intended for a German lady who left in World War II before she could move in.
Why is this Malboro House — not Marlboro House — on Peddar Road? Pic courtesy/Art Deco Mumbai
Not content with collecting its construction details — like the fact that contractors Messrs Gannon Dunkerley executed the vision of the........