Obviously only those who hang upside down in the sylvan neighbourhood of Bandra, Mumbai, need heed this warning.

(A lot of the links are to YouTube videos so apologies to those with slow internet connections. In most cases they are, however, worth waiting for. )

He has Shah Rukh Khan’s title, Tamilian superstar Gemini Ganesan’s hair, Kannad cine and YouTube legend Rajkumar’s moustache. All hail King Khan, who with The Shrines (an eleven-piece […]

Mircea Eliade, mythologist and writer, wrote about myth, ritual, religious symbolism and seducing his Indian mentor’s 16-year old daughter (she wrote a way better book in response to his La Nuit Bengali), among other things. Francis Ford Coppola did not pick this steamy, bitter romance for his first film in ten years. He picked Youth […]

Burma is disappearing, like Atlantis; sinking under the weight of bloated corpses and greedy governments. We can thank the inimitable junta and Cyclone Nargis (which macabre twit named a cyclone after a flower?) for giving the country the mystique of Greek myths and making sure it doesn’t last into 2009. One million people are […]

When I came to Mumbai for the first time, years ago, I was certain that the city had a strong Japanese community. What else explained neighbourhoods being called things like “Saki Naka” and “Oshiwara”? A couple of months in the city and I realised my chances of getting miso soup were about as high […]