Saturday Feeling: 75 breakfast ideas to start the day right

“What about second breakfast?” asks one of the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Hobbits, apparently, eat six times a day with one of the meals being “second breakfast”, which is between breakfast and elevenses. A second breakfast is an idea I could get behind, and merrily skip all other meals. A perfect slice of buttered toast or a beautiful dosa is the complete meal, and over the last few years, breakfast has become a bit of a social and work occasion instead of a rushed morning meal to fuel the day. Speciality coffee and chef interventions have taken breakfast out of the dining room and into pretty cafes and themed restaurants, places to which one is invited to “do breakfast”. We have breezy brunches, working breakfasts and catch-ups over croissants. It’s a wonderful new tradition into which we’ve also cheerfully integrated poha, upma, dosa and chole batura. Over the last few weeks, our writers have been rising early to dine in different cities and discover 75 of the best breakfasts across the country. Our list covers everything from paneer pakodas in Amritsar to poha-jalebi in Indore, eggs in Pondy to morning chaat in Varanasi.

Freedom at Midnight Season 2 review

A fraught, exciting second season of Nikkhil Advani's Freedom at Midnight returns stronger and richer, looking back at the months before and immediately after India's independence. Like the first season, this one is also a tussle between Patel’s pragmatism and Nehru’s idealism on a range of issues: the safety and survival of refugees, the calming of religious tensions, the annexing and seducing of princely states. It embraces the messiness of India's first steps as an independent nation, deftly moving between genres—from comic history lesson in the princely states episode to ticking clock thriller for Gandhi's last days, writes Uday Bhatia. Read more.

Chasing Northern Lights in chilly Yukon

The winter light falls differently in Whitehorse, the capital of Yukon, soft and gentle, exuding a warmth that has nothing to do with temperature. Despite a thick blanket of snow all around, the low angle of the sun ensures it is neither sharp nor harsh. In Canada’s western most territory, winter is an invitation to move at an unhurried pace and commune with white expanses, writes Anita Rao Kashi. Just 30 minutes from Whitehorse is the Yukon Wildlife Preserve, a sprawling wilderness home to more than a dozen native species, such as lynx, moose, caribou, bison, mule deer and fox. The clear skies, free of light pollution are also the perfect place to spot the northern lights.

Tired? Blame it on non-stop notifications

Ambient stress is the tension caused by the invisible hum of micro-demands—notifications, nudges and unread messages. The piling up of notifications keeps the nervous system in a state of continuous partial attention. Unlike acute stress which is visible, dramatic and time-bound, ambient stress rarely triggers alarms. It doesn’t spike; it lingers, quietly shaping our emotional, cognitive and physical health. Tackling it requires small, sustainable changes, writes Divya Naik.

CES and the future of television screens

This year’s CES in Las Vegas was all about advancements in display technology. Televisions stole the spotlight, showcasing brighter OLEDs, four-colour Mini-LED panels and borderless, wall-hugging designs. The emphasis was as much on aesthetics and form as it was on sheer screen size and image quality. LG Wallpaper and the Hisense 1643MX are both super-thin televisions that offer finer detailing and deeper contrast than high-end models from rivals. The annual consumer fair established that the lines have been blurred between design and technology, with frameless OLED TVs, massive Micro RGB displays, and TVs that turn into art, writes Sahil Bhalla and picks the five screens he’d like to see in a store in India sooner rather than later.

24 hours at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale

The art at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale can be a mixed bag of the inspired and the incomprehensible—and it can be difficult to sift through it all to pick what you’d like. There’s a lot of ground to cover—22 venues and more than 60 artists until 31 March—and if you’re strapped for time but want to see the best of the biennale, we suggest bookmarking this list.