Just took a proper look at ToI’s child-free zone story in which I was quoted recently and found that it uses only a couple of short quotes (one of which was taken from this old post - a humour column for Metro Now - and included in the piece as if it…
Does anyone else feel sceptical about the little “bomb-checks” that take place outside the parking lots of movie theatres, malls and hotels? The ones where a bored-looking security guard positions a stick with a tiny mirror at its end under your ca…
Cartoonists Tom Toles (above) and Ruben Bolling (Tom the Dancing Bug) argue that a satirical drawing, like a turbaned Obama on a New Yorker cover, are only successful if they work without context:
… it’s actually less clear what the satirical intent of The New Yorker cartoon is. It just shows an America-hating, terrorist President […]
I recently met a desi Louisianan who insisted that Bobby Jindal’s accent is of recent vintage. ‘We knew him growing up,’ she said, ‘and like me, he had no Southern drawl. It appeared all of a sudden when he ran for governor.’ Another friend who went to college with Jindal confirms he had a neutral […]
Well, the vacation happened and it was nice, which is just as well since tough times loom ahead – the family situation is getting more intense generally. Shortly after touching down I learnt that my grandfather had passed away around 36 hours earlier…
It recently struck me that if you look at even non-cliché South Asian lit covers, such as the U.S. cover for Gifted, they usually have fabricky patterns or some kind of foliage. This is true even of novels on weighty topics, such as A Golden Age, about the Bangladesh genocide. There are some exceptions […]
Take this news item from Turkey, about a misplaced character in an SMS sent by a husband to his estranged wife resulting in two gruesome deaths. Of course, a language where the omission of a single dot in a single word can completely change the meaning…
(a.k.a. Harold and Kumar Go to Chai Castle)
After gorging on kati rolls this weekend, my cousin the orchestra conductor decided he just had to have some masala chai. I vaguely remembered a Midtown chaat house I’d been to once six years ago which began with the letter ‘A.’ We texted GOOGL and settled on Amma […]
Oh, how I’ve longed for my very own literary feud. Rushdie-Greer, Naipaul-Theroux, Amis-Eagleton sniping from highfalutin’ British papers and lit mags. And now I have one! A bloodthirsty throwdown between British author Nirpal Dhaliwal, Bombay UB contributor AnonAndOn and me. It takes place not in the London Review of Books, but rather in Tehelka and, […]
When I was 20, I was convinced that the concept of the generation gap would soon cease to exist – that liberal-minded youngsters of my age had seen it all and could never be surprised by anything that the next generation did. Well, as I’ve indicate…
Carrying on from the short post about Arthur C Clarke…some of us were watching Superman II on TV a few weeks ago, and during the scene where General Zod and his villainous associates make their way towards Earth (a glowing blue-green orb suspended in…
The short-lived Bhoja Café
I’ve lived in plenty of interesting hoods: Williamsburg with its blend of Latino and Polish. The Nuyoricans and Dominicans of Loisaida (Lower East Side). A corner of Harlem with African immigrants, upscale art cafés and a smattering of Caribbean desis, the devout coming bleary-eyed into the mosque at four in the morning […]
I was withdrawing money at an ATM a couple of days ago when the machine became unsolicitedly chatty. “It’s been a pleasure servicing you,” said the display screen, “Have a nice day and don’t forget to take your cash.” Now, with a little eff…
Parag reppin’ D.C. on a glorious summer morning at Lands End in the Second World
My buddy Parag Khanna launched his book The Second World at a clutch of readings around Harvard last Friday and had a chi-chi launch party at Sparks House, the residence of Harvard’s official chaplain.
When I was living in Bandra, my pad […]