The Great Ganesha

Dow Jones and an India-based company Dharma Investments have created a new financial index that is going to be based on the dharmic principles of Buddhism and Hinduism. No, that does not mean that you can invest in the stock of gods (in which case Ganesha - ahem, ahem! - would certainly be the industry [...]

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Not much seems to have changed in ten years. Bombay is still pulsating and I’m loving it. For all the hype about change, the city and its people have remained the same. Sure, there are a few more people, a few more buildings and a few more cars, but on the whole, it’s still my [...]

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This month’s Portfolio magazine has a write-up on Mukesh Ambani, partial heir to Dhirubhai’s empire and India’s richest Indian (the world’s richest Indian being Lakshmi Mittal). Mukesh beats out his brother Anil by a scant $1.9 billion. So close!
The article discusses, amongst other things, Dhirubhai, the Reliance empire, oil refining and more. They spend an [...]

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What do Jessica Lange, Naomi Watts and Ganesha have in common? This question has plagued humanity for centuries. In fact, it kept me up for practically the entire night just a few days ago. But that was before I was alerted by ChapatiKid to our friend Ravi’s pics. Then - and only then - was [...]

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Today’s NYT is chock-full of articles about aamchi Mumbai. Well, not quite chock-full - that’s my Bombayite exaggeration surfacing - but there are two of them. Both pretty elaborate and interesting. Here’s a synop-analy-sis (remember - you heard this word here first!).
The First Article
The first is in the Travel Magazine (called T) by Alex Kuczynski. [...]

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Well, the Ganesha Festival fervour is on in full swing (but thankfully, tinny music playing is still banned at night) and the ten-day visarjan date is only a few days away, on September 25th. While the statues get bigger, more elaborate and quite creative, the Arabian Sea gets more polluted.
Picture via Flickr user chinese_fashion

A “creative” [...]

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“O Mighty Lord Ganesha, will you accept this can of generic diet cola nestled in my crotch, in return for just one box office hit? Please? Pretty please?”
A buff Bollywood actor (whose half-naked pic I have gratuitously posted for the viewing pleasure of our thus inclined readers) decides that he wants to visit a Ganesha [...]

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Was browsing through last week’s Economist when I came across this full-page spread on page 84:

This is what the first paragraph reads:
The State of Maharashtra is the third largest and the most progressive and industrially advanced state in India….Mumbai, country’s leading financial, trading and service centre warrants aviation facilities of highest order. To [...]

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Picture Source

19th century bazaar in Calcutta
Today’s WSJ has an article about the Indian retail baron Kishore Biyani who founded Pantaloon Retail (currently the largest retailer in India, in terms of revenues) and owns the supermarket chains Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar. For the supermarkets, he initially tried to emulate the Western model of quiet, spacious [...]

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“I am walking in my city. The island sleeps, and I can feel the jostling of its dreams. I know they are out there, Mahalaxmi, Mazagaon, Umerkhadi, Pydhuni and the grand melodrama of Marine Drive. I have music in my head, the jingle of those old names, Wadala, Matunga, Koliwada, Sakinaka, and as I cross [...]

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