The Great Ganesha

Durga Puja in Calcutta is like Ganesh Chaturthi in Bombay. A several-days-long religious festival, filled with increasingly complex and creative idols of Durga (a.k.a. Temple of Doom’s Kali) for the former and, as I had posted earlier, Ganesha for the latter. It’s a huge event for Bengalis, whom urban slang refers to (affectionately, of course) [...]

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Picture by Flickr user racoles

Protesting monks gathering at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon
Okay, this may be a tad too cynical, but take a little Buddhism, add a military regime, throw in a Nobel Peace Prize laureate (imprisoned) and you get something which is just begging for a Hollywood celebrity to make it their cause du [...]

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A ‘Dear Economist’ column of the Financial Times had an interesting letter a couple of weeks ago from a “T.B.,” who asked:
…somebody has just shown me a thing called ?Facebook?, which they say is being used by lots of new graduates. I have been told that the economic value of my ?network? is not what [...]

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Slate.com’s Jessica Winter dissects how Pacino, unlike his peers (Robert De Niro and Jack Nicholson), became better at playing the role of the “Famous Person” than what he did to become famous.
Pacino increasingly sought out big, shouty parts and then inflated them past their already outsized proportions: He out-Sataned Satan in The Devil’s Advocate (1997), [...]

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Reading the BBC this morning, I came across a story entitled Polygamous Lesbians Flee Sharia. Now, just think: How many controversial items are in the title itself? Firstly, we have “polygamous” which is certain to raise some eyebrows. Then we have “lesbians” – enough said about that. And finally, we have “Sharia” or Islamic law [...]

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Last night, The Daily Show’s “Senior Mumbai Bureau Chief” Aasif Mandvi’s sketch on the Richard Gere incident was lackluster at best. It just wasn’t that funny. Here’s my pause ‘n play analysis. Incidentally, if you haven’t watched it yet, go ahead and do so. Then come back here for the fun-alysis.
Play
First, Jon Stewart opens it [...]

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Its nothing new that the majority of movies coming out of Bollywood are mostly junk. In fact, I may even have said a thing or two about it. But when the indomitable Naseeruddin Shah speaks, people listen. An article a few days ago on the BBC, has him ranting hard about pretty much everything [...]

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Goddamn! Running on Thursdays is a bloody pain.
So, the RX Geek and me are training for the SF Marathon coming up at the end of July. We’re using this training schedule. We didn’t choose that particular one for any special reason other than that it was easy to find, was well-suited for beginners (it’s the [...]

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Just caught this off Sepia Mutiny. Mid Day photographer Shadab Khan happened to be at the Gateway of India on New Year’s Eve. Read what he witnessed:
On New Year?s Eve, I was supposed to click pictures of revellers at the Gateway of India, but what I witnessed instead has left me shaken.
A young woman was [...]

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Having only just moved to the the Bay Area a few months ago, one can safely call me a newcomer. But something that I notice here in San Francisco, and that I did not see in New York, is a more laid back and relaxed attitude. In general, people are nicer and treat you a [...]

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