The Great Ganesha

[This appeared in this month's issue of Thirsty Magazine here. Incidentally, stay tuned for next month's issue where they will publish my interview with Man Push Cart director Ramin Bahrani.] Ahmad is a sad, young man. Once a budding rock star in Pakistan, with a hit album in 1995, he immigrated with his wife and [...]

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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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(Crossposted at Desicritics.org [link].) Meet Nicholas Garrigan. He’s rich, young, and charming. Fresh out of medical school in Scotland, he wants what every male youth wants – to annoy his father. So Nicholas goes to Uganda, to a charitable mission run by a Brit doctor and his wife (Gillian Anderson) where, through a series of [...]

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[Originally appeared in Thirsty Magazine here and crossposted at Desicritics.org here.] Shoreline Amphiteatre, Mountain View, CA. October 10th, 2006. As we walked into a packed, sold-out stadium, you could almost smell the excitement in the air. Judging from the miles-long line of cars extending on to the freeway and the throng entering the venue, this [...]

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Continues from Day 1. We were greeted at our entrance into the park with a common sight. Then we walked by the banjo twanging and rhythmic fiddling of Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder. The only appropriate response to these guys is this one. But we didn’t stick around there for too long. We were headed [...]

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So this last weekend, the RXGeek and I were jogging in the Golden Gate Park and realized that the one of the biggest bluegrass festivals in the country was going on in the park, right under our very noses! Well, we live half a block away, so I guess we have pretty long noses. Ok, [...]

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Pakka NRI Ok. I’ll admit it. I’m one of those desis who only really started watching Hindi films once I came to the US. Before that, I got my dose of Bollywood on the occasional Sunday evening, when Doordarshan screened its weekly movie. And the only reason I really watched them then, was to avoid [...]

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Grade: B Here’s an interesting recipe. Combine: (1) a failing motivational speaker; (2) his heroin-addicted father; (3) his Nietzche-obsessed step-son; (4) his chubby, prepubescent, Miss America-wannabe daughter; (5) his weary wife; and (6) her brother, a suicidal Proust scholar. Throw them all into a beat-up, banana yellow VW van, get them on the road, and [...]

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Here’s to the profound religious experience that comes from doing a job well and being grossly underpaid. Having successfully survived another meeting with a couple of my committee members, one of whom routinely strips me naked and flogs me, while the other idly stands by and watches with a smile, I decided to finish up [...]

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