Here’s what puts me slightly off Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, the It Book of this year’s Booker longlist: it’s a dry buzz, not a wet one. Yes, this tale of a Trini hustler named Khamraj ‘Chuck’ Ramkissoon with a dream of building a grand cricket stadium in Queens is written with hyperverbal virtuosity. Yes, its adult […]
[A diffident sort of review I did recently - it wasn’t exactly by choice, and I’m not particularly well-read on the subject; think that comes across here]Anyone who recalls – or has even read about – Indian hockey’s glory years at the Olympics wi…
Vijay Amritraj interviews Deepika Padukone for Star Sports, just before the Wimbledon semi-finals.Vijay: What are your feelings about the Nadal-Schuettler match?Deepika: Obviously Nadal is the favourite, but it’s great to see this new guy doing well …
NBC recently ran a human interest segment on how Raj Bhavsar dealt with not making the Olympic team in ‘04. Two words: naked yoga.
Rings specialist Raj Bhavsar has again narrowly missed the U.S. men’s gymnastics Olympic team for the second Games in a row:
USA Gymnastics officials took two hours longer than expected to determine the lineup, working through 49 different scenarios — 40 generated by computer, nine of their own… Perhaps the most difficult fates befell Artemev, who […]
Some people derogatorily use the word “intellectual” (or the more direct “pseudo-intellectual”) to brush off a dissenting view. If you didn’t care for a “masala entertainment” film that everyone else liked, it can only be because you’re pseudo. Mention…
One of the covers of Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance features a little boy sitting atop a pole. It always reminded me of mallakhamb, the Indian art of pole gymnastics. In this mallakhamb clip, a lean, oiled Circque du Soleil-style acrobat shatters the idea of Indian unathleticism. Hottest pole dance ever:
The Net is awash in Twenty20 cheerleader videos, the proud fruit of a horny subcontinent armed with a modicum of technical aptitude. This one shows the cheerleaders in context next to the cricket pitch:
Sri Lankan-Aussie pro baller Chantella Perera, 5′9″, is a rainmaker in Melbourne for the Dandenong Rangers (via Brown People):
Perera was a member of the Australian Sapphires team which won a silver medal in the under 21 World Championships… after a four-year playing and studying stint at Fresno State… [Link]
Chantella is the second daughter of […]
The title of a new fetish site, or the real results of the Bangalore Open? Presenting Venus and Serena Williams and Jelena Jankovic (thanks, Dari):
The DLF Indian Premier League’s team names have been announced following the latest round of player-bidding. Some are more inventive than others (cf. The Mumbai Indians). Of note, Kolkata’s owner Shah Rukh Khan said he chose ‘Kolkata Knight Riders’ to “appeal to the youth”. I’m unsure which youth he’s referring to (especially since an […]
While most Indian cricket journalists Down Under are busy celebrating the tri-series win and falling over each other trying to get silly quotes, that intrepid adventurer and eater Shamya Dasgupta has other things on his plate. Namely, possums. He kindl…
Meaningless quote of the day:”He has scored 16,000 runs. I haven’t even played 16,000 balls.”- M S Dhoni, asked about Sachin Tendulkar not doing too well in the Commonwealth Series (before yesterday’s match, of course)First, the answer has absolutely n…
A mailing list rental house owned by Clinton donor Vinod Gupta ran a Super Bowl ad featuring a Ramesh doing a straight-up Apu impersonation, complete with that fake accent and seven kids. Why would a desi-owned company run that accent, playing to a racial caricature propelled into Americana by comedians in brownface? And their panda […]