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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A little late in posting, but here goes anyway. Last Sunday’s NYT had another feature on India, this time on its burgeoning art scene: … the air is heavy with the smell of gasoline and flowers, you are approached by women begging for money and food. Men shout invitations to enter their carpet shops or [...]

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Today’s WSJ has a front-page write-up about Azim Premji and his “muslim-ness” (or lack of it, thereof). His secular stance is pissing off a lot of imams, but the article also highlights how imbalanced the Hindu-Muslim equation is, in terms of employment and opportunities for education. Here are some excerpts: Mr. Premji’s rise is already [...]

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San Francisco is cold and foggy again and I’m loving it. We had quite a scare last week, when it was sunny and hot. I thought the heat would never end. I could actually walk outside in shorts for extended periods of time. We had to open all the windows in our apartment, it was [...]

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[Originally on Blogcritics] So Nikhil left a comment on my post about Apu and the 7-Eleven/Kwik-E-Mart promotion. He said: I see your point about the negative stereotypes, but that’s the whole point isn’t it? Aren’t all the characters stereotypes? Yes, the accent is inaccurate, and the character is two-dimensional, but….it’s a cartoon (one of the [...]

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[Originally on Blogcritics] Seems like everywhere I look, people are talking about the 7-Elevens that are turning themselves into Kwik-E-Marts as a promotion for the upcoming Simpsons movie. Manish at Ultrabrown is far and above at the forefront of the opposition movement to this conversion. Kudos to him. I highly recommend you read what he’s [...]

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[Originally on Desicritics] …or “the puckish humor of Pop Art [combined] with the serene and cerebral qualities of Minimalism” [link] depending on your point of view. Stingel’s Buddha An article in last Sunday’s Times talks about Italian artist Rudolf Stingel and his association with Buddha and India: Mr. Stingel?s associations with Buddha are longstanding. As [...]

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[Also on Desicritics - with a few interesting comments there] I’m a big fan of Emmanuel Derman. Both he and I are in the same field (quantitative finance) and he’s a much accomplished and widely published academic and quant, who’s at the top of his field. He gives good reason to us young ‘uns to [...]

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So it seems that there’s been a flurry of activity after the Google ‘Street View’ feature has come out. First off, we had a woman get frantic about the people circling her streets in vans while taking pictures of her cat. Sounds like 24? Well, think again. Here’s what she wrote to BoingBoing: I’m all [...]

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(Crossposted at Desicritics.org [link]) When you come to the end of all the light you know, and it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: Either you will be given something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly. -Edward [...]

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