I have a habit oƒ clapping when I hear something ƒunny (excuse the curious “ƒ”s; there’s something rotten in the state oƒ my keyboard’s f-related circuitry. And wouldn’t you know it would type the letter ƒine when I want to write f-related…). It isn’t the most discreet of habits but it certainly gets the point [...]
This morning, when a friend of mine sent me a text message screaming, “SUPPORT MNIK!”, I sent her a gory description of what happens to minks in the process of going from animal to fur coat. Which led to her writing back, “Get with the program.” So I’m probably the only person in Mumbai who [...]
Session: Bin Laden After Bush, moderated by Basharat Peer.
There’s something a little off about sitting in the sunny front lawns of Diggi Palace and talking about terrorism. This type of thing should happen somewhere gloomier, grimmer, clammier. But here I am, surrounded by pretty decorations and prettier people, turning into a kebab in the sun [...]
For the past ten days, I’ve been trying to write this post and I’ve failed. I don’t know how to begin it. There’s nothing funny in what has happened and the events offer no insight that I can share. This time next year I will probably not remember what made me sit down to write [...]
Apparently, if you’re a guy from South Mumbai — sorry, SoBo; for South Bombay, naturally — then there’s a new way to hit on a girl. You go up to her and pretend to be a dude from Andheri. This involves saying things like, “Hey, wanna dance?” (with dance pronounced with a Texan twang) or [...]
Michael Jackson, Pina Bausch, Tyeb Mehta all died this week. A couple of weeks ago Ali Akbar Khan passed away in his Los Angeles home. A little more than a month ago, Kamala Das died alone in a hospital at Pune. Barring Bausch, the others were well past their glory days. Michael Jackson was living [...]
It’s bemusing to be writing this right after the last post. Since that post, I’ve been to a place that is a shortish train ride from the site of what many consider a civil war that is being powered by the ideological descendants of the Naxals. I ate biriyani there, drank some superb vodka and [...]
As I write this, Marlo D. Cruz just tweeted that the Iranian Army has moved into Tehran. It’s about 11.27pm over there. By the time I’ve finished writing this post, we might know whether his source in Iran was bona fide or not but it’s unlikely. News is haemhorraging out of Iran but it’s difficult [...]
Hercules killed a few animals, cleaned a stable and stole the Amazon Queen’s girdle when completing the twelve labours that would restore his honour. Rostam’s seven labours included wrestling with a dragon, killing a witch and a demon. Having written almost 70,000 words and thereby completing an entire book, I feel I’ve earned the right [...]
Two hours into counting and here’s what the leads look like:
Congress-led alliance:225
BJP-led alliance: 149 (is the cow looking a little less petrified?)
Janata Dal and Communisty Party-led alliance: 70
RJD-led alliance: 32.
There are 543 seats altogether.
In Orissa, Navin Patnaik has emerged as a winner without tying up with either Congress or the BJP. Neither Congress nor the [...]
The building I live in has what we fondly like to call a “lobby” on the ground floor. This means it has marble tiles on the floor, yellow lights, the door to the lift, a desk, a chair and a perenially sleepy guard who sits on the chair and uses the aforementioned desk’s surface for [...]
Omair Ahmad’s “The Storyteller’s Tale” opens with a poet in front of an open road. Behind him is a city he loved. One that was known for its beauty and now it is burning, ravaged, destroyed. A city that can no longer afford indulgences like poetry and poets. The poet, who speaks some of Ghalib’s [...]
Someone tell Barack Obama’s PR machine to stop. The whole world knows he is most awesome. Ok, so he authorised the killing of Somalian pirates and his Af-Pak policy doesn’t look like it’s working out so well. This doesn’t mean there is any need to release adorable pictures like the one below. We have not [...]
Many years ago, I met a man who ran a little production company at a party. He told me he ran a production company that was looking for ideas for television. I asked if they’d thought of reality tv-type shows, like a show that followed how an arranged marriage happens. Over stiff mojitos, I outlined [...]