The Great Ganesha

In this holiday season, it is with great pleasure that I discovered this wonderful video, uploaded by a devout Hindu, no doubt. It is a piece from a wonderfully Hindu BBC show called Goodness Gracious Me, with Sanjeev Bhaskar, Mira Syal, Kulvinder Ghir and Nina Wadia. All pious Hindus, I am sure. No matter what [...]

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This week’s Economist has an article in the ‘Books and Arts’ section about detective fiction across the globe. The article cites Raymond Chandler as creating the cool-as-ice detective character. You know, the world-weary, philosophical, alcoholic-but-alert man, with a mess of relationships in his wake. I think they put it best: The hardboiled hero is cynical [...]

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This appeared in this month’s issue of Thirsty [here] and a version was posted to Blogcritics [here]. Two films stood out among those that were screened at the 2006 South Asian Film Festival in San Francisco organized by 3rd I (San Francisco) on Nov 10-11-12. Omkara What if Othello were to come on Oprah? She [...]

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An article on BBC News a couple of days ago told about Indian soldiers’ suicides. Because of the long, drawn-out war in Kashmir, several soldiers are killing themselves or their colleagues. Here’s a shocking statistic: The army has lost 72 soldiers to enemy attacks so far this year. But over 100 soldiers have already taken [...]

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An article in yesterday’s Times says that too much marathoning might just be a bad thing. What? After all I’ve said about how much running is good for you? Well, it’s not quite that simple. Running is still good for you, however, After years in which almost no deaths were attributed to heart attacks at [...]

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Check out this month’s issue of Thirsty. It’s got my (brief) coverage of last month’s South Asian Film Festival in San Francisco here. I review Omkara (2006) and Sholay (1975). The Sholay one is not so much a review as a retrospective look into why it’s the phenomenon that it is. Can’t give you any [...]

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