The year that was!

UNESCO recognition for Hyderabad cuisine

The city of pearls, which is famous for its biryani and other exotic foods has been officially designated as a 'Unesco Creative City of Gastronomy'.

The Hyderabad delegation in its dossier submitted to the UNESCO stated, 'Pre-Islamic Kakatiya cuisines (12th century) have interacted incredibly with the arrival of Turks in 15th century, followed by Mughal influences in the 17th century.'

Leaving a great legacy

Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, a pioneer of modern literature whose imaginative power in 'Beloved', 'Song of Solomon', and other works transformed American letters by dramatising the pursuit of freedom within the boundaries of race, died on August 5 this year. Morrison was 88.

The rising trend of staycation

Travel trend observers say that staycations used to be only for celebratory purposes but, nowadays, couples or families and groups of individuals want to spoil themselves on their days off.

Staycations are small breaks away from the hassle of routine, within the city, in a hotel that offers all the amenities that one would look forward to in a vacation. These staycations are usually of one night and two days, sometimes spilling over into two nights.

Girl power

The dating apps have transformed into more women-centric nowadays. Many of the dating apps have the option of a girl making the first move. This enables more freedom and is helpful is avoiding creepy messages.

On the other side of the dating trend 'Fireworking' ruled the roost in 2019. A person, who indulges in this is called a 'fireworker'.

These individual dates a person only to show off the partner to the world. And he does that for some reason—either to make an ex-partner jealous or just to prove that he has an exciting love life. The other partner who becomes a victim of fireworking may not even be aware of it.

Trending online

Laung Laachi', the popular track from the Punjabi film of the same name, has become the first Indian song to reach one billion views on YouTube.

The film stars Ammy Virk, Neeru Bajwa and Amberdeep Singh in leading roles. The hit song is composed by Aman Jay, penned by Harmanjit, with music by Gurmeet Singh and sung by Mannat Noor; the song which released in 2018 has taken the Internet by storm since its launch.

TikTok craze

TikTok emerged as a platform where millions of people, especially youngsters, participated in entertainment, making quirky, educative and joyful moments that broke the norms of expression and innovation through exciting videos.

The varied content in the form of these short videos was born on TikTok and is now celebrated in the 2019 TikTok hall of fame.

TikTok helped create stars like Awez Darbar, Garima Chaurasia, Awal Ts Madaan, Sangeeta Jain and Dr Animesh MS. They are followed by millions and their content has garnered billions of views.

Winner of Pulitzer award for poetry

Petaluma poet Forrest Gander was awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection 'Be With'.

The prize comes with a $15,000 cash award. 'The Overstory' by Richard Powers; 'The Great Believers' by Rebecca Makkai and 'There There' by Tommy Orange were awarded 'Pulitzer Prize for Fiction'

Sustainable fashion

The year 2019 will be regarded as the year where the fashion industry took climate change seriously. The youth in India and across the globe lapped up sustainable fashion.

Handlooms were ruling the roost in 2019. Khadi was the one of the most preferred handloom amongst the youngsters in the country.

Designers who have been dabbling with sustainable fabrics, have taken to it like fish to water and you saw more and more of them adapting the eco-fabrics into their collection and you saw even wedding and party wear in Khadi and recycled fashion dazzling the fashion ramps.

Indian authors

Amitabha Bagchi's novel 'Half The Night Is Gone' was declared the winner of the $25,000 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019.

"This novel, written in English, feels like a book written in an Indian language, and has the authenticity and the interiority of a work in translation without in fact being a translation," the citation said.

Debutant author Madhuri Vijay was named the winner of the Rs 25 lakh JCB Prize for Literature, India's richest, for her novel, 'The Far Field', which sets a complex personal story against the backdrop of the conflict in the 1990s in Kashmir. It was the unanimous choice of the jury.

Avengers: Endgame

'The Avengers: Endgame' was a culmination of several movies which released in the last decade. When it released it shattered records for the biggest opening weekend. It was the most-tweeted-about movie in 2019.

Most retweeted tweet in entertainment in India

The Tamil entertainment industry continued to rule hearts as well as the Twitter charts. Vijay's (@actorvijay) Tweet sharing the poster of his film #bigil became the Tweet to receive the most Retweets in the entertainment sector, as well as became the Tweet to achieve the most Retweets with comments overall, indicating South-entertainment fans' active engagement on the platform to discuss their favourite movies and stars.

India at Emmy's

September was a good month for Indian OTT when two Indian original shows, 'Lust Stories' and 'Sacred Games' earned three Emmy nominations, first for 'Lust Stories' (Best Miniseries), second for 'Sacred Games' (Best Drama) and third for Radhika Apte (Best Actress, 'Lust Stories').

CBD Cocktails

There's no doubt that cannabidiol cocktails are making headlines. It's still the wild west out there for this now-trendy ingredient.

While many argue it has positive health effects, there is very little regulation on its use in cocktails. This trend will continue to grow in 2020.

CBD is typically associated with feelings of relaxation which can be a welcome addition to a cocktail.

Year of mobile gaming

With mobile phones becoming powerful, gaming on phones rose to new echelons. This year was dominated by battle royale titles.

Games like 'Free Fire' was the most downloaded game of 2019. It was followed by 'PUBG' and 'Call of Duty: Mobile'. Long-standing favourite game 'Subway Surfers' was in the top three.

2 Telugu writers bag top honours

Telugu author Bandi Narayana Swamy won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award for his novel 'Septabhoomi'.

Swamy, who hails from Anantapur district is an alumnus of Sri Venkateshwara University in Tirupati, will receive an engraved copper plate and Rs 1 lakh cash prize at a special function on February 25, 2020, in New Delhi.

Mamidi Harikrishna, Director of Culture, Telangana, was selected as a National Poet from Telugu for the symposium of Poet 2020 organised by All India Radio. Harikrishna will participate in the symposium on December 26-27 in New Delhi.

'Friends' on Netflix

Aired in September 1994, the hit sitcom 'Friends' enjoys a quite successful re-run. This year Netflix acquired the rights of 'Friends' and it was the second most-watched show on Netflix in 2019.

Disappointing finale of 'Game of Thrones'

The most-watched TV series 'Game of Thrones' had its final season this year. Fans across the globe were waiting for the last season with bated breath.

However, the show did not match up to the audience expectations. The disappointed fans started a signature campaign and garnered over 1 million to sign the petition calling for the remake of season eight.

'Game of Thrones' was the most talked-about TV show on Twitter this year.

The Booker winners

Canadian writer Margaret Atwood and British author Bernardine Evaristo were the joint winners of the prestigious literary award.

Atwood, the author of 'The Testaments', and Evaristo, who earlier this year released 'Girl, Woman, Other' shared the cash award. This is the 79-year-old Atwood's second Booker of her career, taking the honours this time for her sequel to 'The Handmaid's Tale' (1985).

Evaristo, meanwhile, at age 60 becomes the only black woman to take home a Booker, her first, for a work exploring the lives and struggles of different black women in the modern-day United Kingdom.

Tharoor's stint in comedy

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor donned a new role this year. The former diplomat, who has been a successful author and whose rich English vocabulary often has people scurrying for the dictionary, tried his hands at stand-up comedy.

Tharoor has made his debut in the world of humour with 'One Mic Stand', a comedy show streaming on the OTT platform Amazon Prime. His performance received a standing ovation from the audience.

People switching to plant-based food

The year 2019 saw people switching to a plant-based diet. A plant-based diet centres around whole plant foods, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, mushrooms, nuts, spices, seeds and herbs.

According to a study of the most searched food topics on the internet in 2019 was plant-based meats. The trend has started in the last half of 2018 and surged in 2019.

Plant-based meats differ from veggie burgers and the texture and taste are of actual meat.