The Great Ganesha

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 [...]

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Let’s face it. All of us desis grew up reading Archie comics. And I’ve blogged about it before. I was definitely an addict. I would look forward to going to the “library” (which, in 80s Bombay were basically privately run places where you could borrow books for cash) and picking up a stack of Archies. [...]

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I blogged about Tintin earlier, when someone from Moldova dropped by the blog. Moldova was once a part of Moldavia, on which Herg? based the fictitious nation of Syldavia (from The Calculus Affair, amongst others). This time, it’s less a case of life meeting comic-book art, than a case of virtual life meeting comic- book [...]

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In following with the stereotypical British fascination for the morbid, the latest Economist reports on a cadaverous Chinese tradition: Chinese tradition demands that husbands and wives always share a grave. Sometimes, when a man died unmarried, his parents would procure the body of a woman, hold a ?wedding? and bury the couple together. The custom [...]

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The people at Improv Everywhere describe themselves as causing “scenes of chaos and joy in public places” by executing “over 60 missions involving hundreds of undercover agents.” Their last mission: Raising awareness of The Redhead Experience. Redheads, they say, make up less than 1% of the world population and “Agent McCarthy” suggested, “What would it [...]

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If you’re single, and have an iPhone, then there’s hope for you. You can go on an iDate. What’s that, you ask? It’s speed-dating with a techno-twist. You mingle over drinks, you speed-date and then, in an election-booth like enclosed area, you elect your President-to-be at the after-party (and this party definitely surpasses the two-party [...]

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The trailer for the Coen Brothers’ new film No Country for Old Men is out. And, to put it mildly, it does not disappoint. From the trailer, it looks like they are back with a bang and are bringing on all the blood, noir, edginess, and “edge-of-the-seat”-iness from their Blood Simple days. After Ladykillers, I [...]

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Soapstone Marge In the wake of all the brouhaha about the 7-Eleven/Kwik-E-Mart promotion, I thought this would perhaps -er- wash some of the stains left by the show and 7-Eleven, and lighten the mood a little. Although most of them in the remote village of Tabaka in Kisii have never watched the animated TV show, [...]

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Manish points to a CNN panel discussion that turns into a debate. Fast-forward to 3:10 and you’ll see something not unlike this discussion/debate.

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Picture Source In 2001, in Nepal, a four year-old, Preeti Shakya, was chosen to be a ‘Living Goddess‘ (or the “Royal Kumari” of Kathmandu), to be worshipped and adored by millions of Hindus and Buddhists. Well, that is until she hit puberty, at which point she would lose goddess status and come back down to [...]

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