�Look Ma, no hands!� By which what I mean is I am actually doing a headstand all on my own and for the first time. With no helping hands that belong to the legendary Yoga Guru B. K. S. Iyengar, who is pleased merely to peep out from behind my legs! That was some feat I attempted, the ultimate yoga asana. What an incredible experience. What a rush of blood to the head. Check out my red eyes in the other picture. What a treat for my brain!

Yoga is something that is so intrinsically Indian, I wish it were to become a part of everybody�s life. To see Iyengar is to know what agility, fitness and peace is all about. That�s for the yoga part of it. The loveable guru is also a great foodie. He can cook. And though he recommends a vegetarian diet, he is not strict about it, nor hidebound about fasting. There are several other unusual foodies like Iyengar in this issue.

Like Jafferbhai Mansuri, the Delhi Darbar man who is arguably Bombay�s most successful restaurateur. The formula to his success is simple: you must know how to cook everything on your menu. And Jafferbhai can, from Kebab to Caramel Custard. He is the King of Mughlai food in Bombay. But coming in from the North, is the Shahenshah of Dum Pukht cuisine, celebrated master cook Imtiaz Qureshi. What a gem of a man! Completely old world, in mannerisms, style, thought, and cooking too. You can�t rush him. He will take his time narrating his story. Which naturally is always about food. Nuggets which we must record for the sake of history. Food history. He comes from an era where the slow food movement meant something else. And it happened in the kitchens. Dum cooking, ah the aroma!

Another delightful character you will run into is the AXN Who Dares Wins man, Mike Whitney. He doesn�t just dare, he even does! The tables were turned on him this time around, and they were dining tables on which the most exotic and spicy Indian foods were placed. UpperCrust dared Whitney to eat them all. Check out his range of expressions from Pages 46 to 52 before reading Whitney�s story.

And there�s also Busybee�s old buddy, Vinod Mehta, bossman of Outlook and a real Bombay foodie at heart. He escapes Delhi now and then to slip into Bombay to inspect the eating out scene here. When I invited him to Leopold Cafe for lunch, he happily wound up his act at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research where he was attending a British Council-organised seminar to dig into his old, all-time favourite: mutton biryani.

As if it isn�t enough meeting such fascinating people, my job offers me further excitement. I�ve been meaning to go to Orissa for a long time. And finally did. That was our gourmet destination of this quarter, where my colleague, Mark Manuel, and I plunged recklessly into dark and dingy lanes and alleys of Bhubaneshwar, Puri, Cuttack and Konark in search of Oriya cuisine. We dined at people�s homes and in five-star dining rooms. We checked out the food at roadside eateries and in the Puri Maharaja�s palace restaurant. Unfortunately what we were not allowed to do, being non-Hindus, is enter the famous Jagannath Temple of Puri or the Lingaraj Temple in Bhubaneshwar. So, respecting religious sentiments, we didn�t. But a temple priest displayed for us, on Puri�s main street, the mahaprasad which is offered to the Lord. And another temple cook took us into the back areas in Bhubaneshwar where a hundred priests were engaged in cooking the bhog over woodfires.

This is one issue that I promise you offer�s a visual treat for the eyes. Check out the photographs and don�t worry about trying to identify the food and the people behind it, you will not be able to. I was seeing it all myself for the first time. And I came away from Orissa wondering about the India which is outside Bombay.

The cover people are special friends of mine. Have been for a very, very long time. What makes the bond stronger, more sentimental is that we married around the same time. Behram and I, Shobhaa and Dilip. That�s 17 years ago. It�s an interesting life they lead. Specially their �food life�.

Read all about it. Written by Shobhaa, in her inimitable style, in first person.

Farzana Contractor