JASON OVERDORF

Wrote “Indian Modern,” p. 132

After living in India for the better part of 20 years, Overdorf found himself moving back to the United States in the midst of writing this article about contemporary Indian cuisine. It was an appropriate farewell, he says. “There are a lot of things I love about India: the Himalayas, the desert, the resilience and humor of the people. But the food kind of changed my life. I still eat roti-sabzi every day.” What interested Overdorf about this story, though, was the way it encapsulated how India is wrestling with tradition and modernity. “Calling the cuisine ‘modern Indian’ sort of says it all,” he says. “Forget the political anxiety about change. These chefs have their finger on what’s really going on. At a restaurant like The Bombay Canteen, you can really feel a new swagger—a new confidence that the country doesn’t have to keep looking forever into the distant past for its glory. That the glory is on the horizon.”