We began the elephant leg of the tour at the Pinnewala elephant orphanage just off the Kandy road – a key tourist attraction for anyone visiting non-coastal Lanka.There are shops here that sell products made of elephant dung. On average you get 4 kg …

Am putting the pics up in random order over a few posts, along with some commentary. (Click photos to enlarge.)Nearly everywhere we travel, we manage to do some impromptu “cat tourism” and the pattern continued in Lanka; our guide was befuddled by …

Tea strainer at the local, friendly, lesbian-run megacafé:

The base for Tibetan prayer wheels in Central Square, Cambridge, say ‘dream’ in Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil and Gujarati. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure it’s not Berkeley:

I was sitting in a Davis Square café the other night when a tall, shambling desi dude wearing a corduroy jacket with arm patches massacred the Shins on open mike night. He called himself Azeem, and he was pretty good with the guitar, but he brought a song with almost every note out of his […]

Dado Tea in Harvard Square and Tea Zone in Somerville are two of the innumerable specialty tea shops which dot the Boston area. From fancy shops on Newbury Street to the humble Tea Zone, I’ve never seen a place so obsessed with tea, or with such a density of Indian restaurants. It’s almost as if […]

Cambridger and The Office star Vera ‘Mindy’ Chokalingam made the cover of the Improper Bostonian’s Valentine’s issue this week, pithy as always:

Check out these marvelous photos from the ‘Soho Road to the Punjab‘ exhibit of UK bhangra history (thanks, Lucky). A physical art gallery exhibit was on display this past summer in London:

And it was even parked on a hill.

Check out the snaps from Diwali festivities at Manhattan’s South Street Seaport yesterday. Despite excellent weather, it was much less crowded than usual — people were all desi’d out from the India @ 60 celebration. The masala dosas and chhola bhaturas tasted like they were made in large cauldrons with scant titration of spices. But […]

When a good Punjabi boy gets invited to a red carpet premiere, does he choose between inviting his girlfriend or his mother? No, he rides dirty. In some eyes, this makes him part-Irish and Jewish. You gangsta, Avram Singh O’Sullivan, you gangsta. (thanks, Gitesh)
Related posts: The tao of Steve, Waris X, He got game, Wes […]

Avaaz in Williamsburg last night was live music overdrive. My Pet Dragon crooned emo alt.rock while Reena Shah writhed classically on stage:

Presidential candidate Barack Obama stepped out of a black SUV outside Washington Square Park last night and begin glad-handing his way through the crowd. Smiling dazedly without locking eyes, he seemed more reserved than Bill Clinton, who I’m told sprouts tentacles of personal interest. But he was late for his rally and reportedly battling […]

Nike has just released a sneaker line for Native Americans called — no joke — the ‘Air Native’ (via Boing Boing):

American Indians have a much wider and taller foot than the average shoe accommodates. The average shoe width of men and women measured was three width sizes larger than the standard Nike shoe… The design […]

The new India is about Hrithik-sized guns, size 0 girlfriends, men in ironic tees and Punjabi noses, and people who consider buying underwear a double date. Brought to you courtesy of a studio in Lokhandwala.

Here’s more of the India @ 60 campaign by the Indian Ministry of Tourism. This smack talk aimed at China is in Times Square:

‘India on the move’: the latest Indian tourism campaign, or a reference to the taxi driver?
Related posts: Incredibly off-k!lter, Incredible advert!sing

Here are snaps from the Zerobridge release party for their new album Havre de Grace, last night at Mercury Lounge in Lower East Side. These guys put on a hard-rockin’ show, but the Wednesday night crowd was a little stiff.
Mubashir worked in a few Hindi lyrics at the end of ‘Havre de Grace‘: ‘Pardesi, pardesi, […]

Check out these lovely shots of the desi diaspora by National Geographic photog Steve Raymer (thanks, Prashant). He hoofed it across Yuba City, South Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, San Jose, Queens and Trinidad, among other places:

Seen on public health ads in New York subway stations:

Ganesh on a water faucet