A very merry Christmas to one and all!

The Portmanteau team is all decked in red for edition 10. It's been a long, testing year for everyone across the world and we hope that Portmanteau at the very least has been inspiring you to look forward to all the great adventures that lie in store for you in the future.

For our feature this month, we decide to pay tribute to a man whose legacy will echo through the streets of Argentina and indeed the world, for generations to come. Diego Maradona was truly a shining inspiration for the world of football. We head to the realm of the Seven Sisters on our quest to find new food and talk about Axone, that pungent and umami filled goodness that more people really need to experience. Our travel record features indie music from the Indian heartland; you'll be surprised at how talented India's local musicians really are!

We hope you enjoy this edition of Portmanteau, and sincerely thank everyone for sticking with us these past editions. Now don a Santa's hat as our Owl has, and dive in!

Sharing the mutual love for travel!

Ashish

STORIES

One man that changed the face of sports forever. Rest In Peace, D10S.

WHAT YOU MISSED

Remember when all you needed for travel were a packed bag and a free mind?

LET'S GET

Sometimes, it's your taste buds that make you travel.

MOVIES

A Christmas classic, a laughter riot from the American west and a dark comedy involving some Axone.

INSPIRATION

The Northern Lights at the Arctic circle have a sibling down south.

THOUGHTS

A few passing thoughts from our resident nightlord.

FOOD

The Northeast of India reveres this pungent bean paste. Find out why.

MUSIC

Ten Indie Artists you absolutely must Groove to!

PUZZLED?

Puzzles to get your neurons firing.

One man that changed the face of sports forever. Rest In Peace, Diego Maradona.

Buenos Aires, 1968.

A talent scout for local football clubs was perusing the grounds looking for a young player to join the local Argentinian junior football club when he chanced upon a boy of eight doing something truly unique with a football, dribbling like a god.

He soon signed the little boy to play for Los Cebollitas, a little league in the neighborhood and the junior division of the Argentino Juniors. Little did he know then that this boy would go on to become one of the most iconic sportsmen in human history, 52 years later.

If you’re not from the world of football, It’s easy to forget how significant Diego Maradona’s contribution to the sport was even in modern times. His prowess when it came to nonchalantly dribbling the ball away from his opponents is a feat that many aspire to even today. A career spanning nearly 23 years and 320 goals across all formats is not an easy claim, but Maradona made it seem like a walk in the park. He was the highest scorer of the division by 1978 and went on to represent Argentina internationally during the Under-20 World Cup the following year. Years later he would go on to showcase his talent as Argentina’s best football player during the 1986 FIFA World Cup when he defied all odds and scored what is known as the Goal Of The Century, succeeding his ever popular “hand of God” moment.

Setting records was also constant in Maradona’s life. He was the youngest player in Argentine history when he joined the Argentinos Juniors at age 16. His transfer to FC Barcelona that set the club back by a whopping 5.5 million Euros made him the most expensive transfer in the history of football; he then went on to beat his own record by transferring to SSC Napoli for 6.9 million Euros. Napoli soon became his homestead and he developed a real relationship with the Neopolitans that stayed cemented even after his transfer to Sevilla in 1992.

He also united the broken, war torn parts of South America giving fans a voice and a calling in some cases. D10S, they called him, a symbolic gesture proclaiming his jersey to God alone. He inspired millions of people to pick up the ball and play, no matter the hardships. His persona of a young boy who made it from the ghettos of Argentina, a rags to riches story, is what propels most. His legacy will continue to resonate through the streets of Buenos Aires and indeed the rest of the world for decades to come.

Travelling at will: Lack of freedom of travel

“Of all the specific liberties which may come into mind when we hear the word ‘freedom’”, philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote, the “freedom of movement is historically the oldest and also the most elementary.”

Although the freedom of travel and movement considerations could be heavy and politically tinged, here we are restricting ourselves to freedom of travel for pleasure, exploration and excitement. This dimension of travel or movement is no trivial matter. Travellers, explorers and the like are usually the best a country or society has to offer, providing a showcase even if skewed creating a bonhomie between the unconnected lands through the resonance of travellers and the travelled.

A few years ago, a man-made event, Brexit, precipitated a similar crisis of travel and movement, endangering the romantic notion of a borderless world, well at least Europe. But this year, an act of God, for the lack of a better phrase, imposed harsher restrictions upon us. Movements restricted across class, a grim unifier in some sense; but on the brighter side, the conversation around travel, its beneficial role in our modern society and psyche, interspersed even, with some soul-searching sojourns on conscious travel among others, was never this intense, focussed and sustained.

Being locked down has given us a renewed appreciation for home and what it should be, even as we dream of the alien, the new, the ‘unexperienced’. As we remained grounded, hopefully, we got firmly grounded in our need to travel, opening the world as the world opens to us.

Written by Nandish Ratkal

A classic Seth MacFarlane movie, A Million Ways to Die in the West is a star-studded western comedy, the likes of which you would never have seen. A complete suspension of reality, well at least our reality of today, superbly caricatured characters relating the stories, deconstructing the romanticism of the Wild West of yesteryears.

Mild-mannered sheep farmer Albert Stark (Seth MacFarlane) is certain the Western frontier is out to kill him. He loses his girlfriend, Louise (Amanda Seyfried), to the town's most successful businessman. However, a beautiful, pistol-packing woman named Anna (Charlize Theron) rides into town and helps Albert find his inner courage.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

A series of four movies, Home Alone is our must-watch holiday movie marathon. All set with a similar backstory in which a particularly creative and naughty child accidentally gets left behind home alone for the year-end vacation and inadvertently becomes the protagonist of an adventure.

A quintessential, evil vs good story, retold in the funniest physical comedy, with laughter induced stomach cramps with no hope for immunity no matter how many times you are exposed to it, Home Alone is the ideal choice for a family movie with all generations of the family or if you are locked home alone.

WATCH ON HOTSTAR

A Netflix original released in 2019 is a comedy with a message, humanely and hilariously laying bare the many travails of migrant populations across the world, some within their own country. A wedding party planning is a backdrop to this wonderful story of aspirations, hardships, intolerance and celebrations amidst it all.

A bunch of friends from Nagaland decide to cook Axone, the pungent and bitter, fermented soybean dish, a celebratory accompaniment for all occasions, trying to recreate something of their mountain home in the flats of Delhi. What ensues is a laughter riot but with a deep message that is designed to make you think, an acquired taste for most these days.

WATCH ON NETFLIX

The Improbable Southern Lights in South Georgia

A life-sustaining natural phenomenon burns bright in solitude with hardly any human eyes ever beholding this wonder, in gratitude or awe.

Yes, we are talking about the Aurora lights of the poles. A quick science refresher in one-line: Van Allen Belts, the magnetic lines of forces surrounding the earth due to its spinning iron core, channels the harmful cosmic ray particles to the uninhabited poles where it culminates in the brightest and fiercest outburst of colours.

Most people have seen this in the Northern hemisphere which is not just more accessible but even inhabited. But the very same phenomenon unravels in the dead of winter in the Southern Hemisphere that very few human eyes have chanced upon. With no habitation or large landmasses, Aurora Australis is a bucket-list-worthy experience that every true travel connoisseur/ seeker hunger for. Nowhere is it more exotic than the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia Island.

First discovered in 1675 by a London merchant, it became eponymous him being called the Roche Island. With a span of 165 km to 35 km, South Georgia is one of the largest islands around, yet has no native population as the winters tend to be particularly harsh. With no airstrip on the land and the nearest island, the Falklands, with an airport facility about 1300 km away, very few brave souls venture in the dead of winter here.

Historically, South Georgia was used as whaling and sealing station, but in recent years it has come under a lot of flak as these activities have been relegated to the dark annals of humanity. Today, fishing and tourism have become the mainstay of the island and the harbours are closely guarded with very few ports allowed for private yachts and cruiseliners to dock. Given these reasons, South Georgia remains an improbable place to travel.

The natural beauty of South Georgia is something to write home about, with 200,000 strong King Penguin population proliferating its shore and the Southern Bull Kelp providing nourishment to the aquatic life and the birdlife unique to the island such as South Georgia Shag are seen only here if you are into biding.

Norwegian whalers had introduced the Sami reindeers for the game and soon the island was overrun. One can indulge in the hunting of these Sami reindeers, now considered a pest in South Georgia. Yet another awe-inspiring feature of this remote island close to the south pole is the fact that it is in the line of huge icebergs, quite tastelessly named keep colliding with the island creating massive damage to the shoreline and wildlife. In 2020, Iceberg A-68 the colossal 4,200 square kilometres behemoth, similar in size to the island itself is on a collision course.

But coming back to the raison d’etre of the article, the southern lights or Aurora Australis starts becoming visible by end of March, still in time for the last cruises to this remote island, providing a brief window of opportunity for the adventurous amongst us to tick of this rare bucket-list item.

Most of our favourite things in life are, if you introspect, acquired tastes, be it our favourite dish, drink, friends or even the spouse.

AXONE!

Hailing from the mysterious Nagaland, a mountainous country of 16 tribes, Axone is one such, that grows on you more, the more you are exposed to it.

No wonder this probiotic, fermented Soybean paste is ubiquitous across Nagaland, available not just in every home but also shops for those too busy to make their own, or having consumed more, run out of stock. Originally crafted by the Sumi or Sema tribe of South Nagaland, Axone or Akhuni or Aghuni as it is variously called, came to be the uniting taste of all the tribes of Nagaland.

The tribes of the world and India are looked upon as curiosities rather than being celebrated as an industrious group of indigenous people who made the most the land, mind you, the most inhospitable ones too, they lived in for millennia and sustainably to boot. A rapidly modernizing world has effected paradigm shifts in aspirations of Nagas as they move out into the larger world. Unfortunately, they are aliens in their own countries and a human story beautifully captured in the Netflix Original, Axone released in 2019 holds a mirror to our society, the ‘halo effect’ and more. Check out The Reel for more on it.

Historically, cultures have assimilated into one another through the alimentary way, be it the idlis of South India created by Halal consuming Muslim population, newly arrived on the coasts of Kerala to the Mughals and Persians winning the hearts with Gulab Jamoons. You might have witnessed a more recent phenomenon post World War II when he Turks settled all over Europe making the Doners a local favourites in the smallest town. Are you ready to welcome the taste of a tribe, pungent and acquired nonetheless, with an open mind?

the recipe...

Preparing Axone (Aakhuni) at home:

1. Wash the soya beans and soak it for about 20-30 mins
2. Cook it in a pressure cooker, then strain it dry
3. Then pound the soyabean to make it into a paste (as shown in photo)
4. Wrap portions of the pounded soyabean paste in leaves (sycamore leaves) and place it over a fireplace for 2 nights. You can also sundry for about 3-4 days.
5. This paste will last for months. You can keep it on top of the fireplace or an airtight container in the fridge
Recipe brought to you by Roots and Leisure.

"May you never be too grown up to search the skies on Christmas Eve."

X | December 24th, 2020

THE EDITOR'S NOTE

STORIES

One man that changed the face of sports forever. Rest In Peace, D10S.

WHAT YOU MISSED

Remember when all you needed for travel were a packed bag and a free mind?

LET'S GET

Sometimes, it's your taste buds that make you travel.

MOVIES

A Christmas classic, a laughter riot from the American west and a dark comedy involving some Axone.

INSPIRATION

The Northern Lights at the Arctic circle have a sibling down south.

THOUGHTS

A few passing thoughts from our resident nightlord.

FOOD

The Northeast of India reveres this pungent bean paste. Find out why.

MUSIC

Ten Indie Artists you absolutely must Groove to!

PUZZLED?

Puzzles to get your neurons firing.

01 Stories That Matter

One man that changed the face of sports forever. Rest In Peace, Diego Maradona.

Buenos Aires, 1968.

02 What You Missed When Grounded

Travelling at will: Lack of freedom of travel

03 Let's Get Comical

04 The Reel

05 Improbable Places

The Improbable Southern Lights in South Georgia

06 The Thinking Owl

07 Food for Thought

Most of our favourite things in life are, if you introspect, acquired tastes, be it our favourite dish, drink, friends or even the spouse.

AXONE!

the recipe...

Preparing Axone (Aakhuni) at home:

If you'd rather buy an authentic jar of Axone, continue to the North East Store...

08 The Travel Record

09 Puzzled?

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