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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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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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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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 inspiring [...]

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