Magazine
Literary Wars
With uncharacteristic belligerence, the playwright-actor Girish Karnad exposes the clay feet of two global icons in literature — Nobel laureates Rabindranath Tagore and V.S.Naipaul. Is his outburst justified.
Ek Tha Tiger
Parsing the raging controversy unleashed by Girish Karnad’s broadsides against V.S. Naipaul and the revered Gurudev.
NRI Dreams and Parental Nightmares
Overseas Indian oftentimes leave behind aging parents, many of who suffer the pangs of loneliness and abandonment.
The Dumbos of Bollywood
Is Bollywood dumb, lazy or plain indifferent to physical or psychological differences and uses them as a convenient soft target for laughs or tears?
Till Marriage Do Us Part
Happy everafter in holy matrimony, maybe. But sexy starlets divorce their fans when they hitch up.
Why America is Losing the Race for Talent
"Brain drain is a European phenomenon. It’s an Indian phenomenon. It’s a Chinese phenomenon. It’s not an American thing. We don’t have brain drain in America."
Divided States of America
American politics has assumed many of the unhealthy characteristics of its Indian counterpart, such as communal vote banks divided along religious and caste lines — reflected by Southern evangelist and white voters on the Republican side, arrayed against minority and women voters on the Democratic side.
Go Figure December 2012
Are you ready to start cracking the next Go Figure mystery? Deadline January 15, 2013 Enter Go Figure Contest The winner of the October mystery, correctly identifying the
Identity, Architecture, Modernity
Modernity as a concept is not something that should be, or is, exclusively generated in the West, but is also a product of time and place. Why should modernity be exclusively restricted to the standards used in the West?
Go Figure November 2012
Are you ready to start cracking the next Go Figure mystery? Deadline December 15, 2012 Enter Go Figure Contest The winner of the September mystery, correctly identifying the
Mofussil India Sizzles
Are these films really the new cinema, worthy of the hype and celebration and the new directors really the new stars and trail-blazers offering pulsating, exciting, no-holds-barred, creative chutzpah that separates the real from the fluff?
Kushti
Traditional Indian wrestling isn’t just a sport — it’s an ancient subculture where wrestlers live and train together and follow a strict regimen on everything from what they can eat to what they can do in their spare time. Drinking, smoking and even sex are off limits.
Restaurant Sites Target Scale
“Indians are a lazy bunch,” laughs Goyal. “So we wanted to create something very close to their physical world. While menupages.com has menus in [a] standardized format, we scanned the actual menu cards and then put them up.”
How About a National Dumb Day?
We live in a cool, informal and let-it-all-hang-out-environment. Nothing is sacrosanct and irreverence towards buttoned-down conventions and established norms is the new popular mantra.
Republican Sunset
Indian Americans have not experienced the frontal brunt of the GOP’s hostile policies toward immigrants and minorities. Yet, Democrats enjoy far stronger support among Indian Americans than they do, for example, among Hispanics, who are significantly more impacted by the GOP’s uncompromising stance on immigration and welfare.
Ghost Walls Speak
How did archaeologists trace the ghost walls, which curiously is an archaeological term?
Feasting All Night Long
Come dusk and the winding lanes of the Jama Masjid area come alive with the sights and sounds — and smells — of celebrations. Of chicken tikkas sizzling, mutton kebabs roasting over blazing fires, giant woks of puris and massive cauldrons of curries, biryanis, steaming milk, etc.
Go Figure October 2012
Are you ready to start cracking the next Go Figure mystery? Deadline November 15, 2012 Enter Go Figure Contest The winner of the August mystery, correctly identifying the
Bewitching Allure of Home
Returning NRIs are quickly realizing that the nostalgia of the past seldom withstands the harsh realities of an extended stay.
Return of India's Prodigal Daughters
What of the prodigal daughters? Why must I hum and dawdle when my mother urges me to come home? Why does the promise of better jobs and being closer to my family not have me packing my bags now?
Feeling Music with Amjad Ali Khan
“When Amjad Ali Khan performs, he carries with him a deep human spirit, a warm feeling and a sense of caring.”
Far Away Home
Gurmale Singh Grewal's third generation family-owned Singh Developments has become one of the largest Indian real estate empires in the United States.
Have Global E-Tailers Missed the Bus in India?
India's base of unique Internet users has grown rapidly, reaching 120 million and expected to expand to more than 350 million by 2015. India’s unique mobile subscriber base is 600 million.
Bollywood’s Hollywood Fixation
Sure, Bollywood is on the rise, but as a global force that instantly demands and gets respect, awe, admiration and attention, sorry folks, Hollywood is the real thing.
GOP Convention of Liars
The Republican Party, which has nominated an Ayn Rand faddist Paul Ryan as its nominee for vice president to placate the extremist wing of the party, recognizes well that the vision of dismantling the widely popular social safety net of social security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, etc., would be toxic and disastrous in an election.
Go Figure September 2012
Are you ready to start cracking the next Go Figure mystery? Deadline October 15, 2012 Enter Go Figure Contest The July mystery seems to have stumped our readers.
To Hell With Bollywood
Even megastars like Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan are rebelling against Bollywood— the word that is.
Moving to a Digital Future
“When we launched Smartclass in 2004 as the first-ever digital classroom program, it was an uphill task convincing schools to adopt it. These schools had not witnessed any change in a century.... It is a completely different scenario now. Private schools across India today see (technology) as an imperative. A digital classroom is set to become the bare-minimum teaching accessory in schools, just like a blackboard is today.”
The Higgs Boson Manifesto
At a deeper level, the real issue at stake in the debate over the “God Particle” is a choice between two different worldviews.
Desi Ghee Incarnate
The star wrestler-actor Dara Singh embodied all that Indian-style clarified butter or “desi ghee” stands for — not least its potential for good honest home-grown strength and tenacity.
Let's Talk About Dating
“Firstly, I shall ask him to think over the matter very seriously before taking a final decision, talk to him about the possible consequences of such a marriage, giving examples of cases which we both (parents) know about. If I see that he is still convinced about it, I’ll support him.”
Dubai’s Grand Gurdwara
Gurunanak Darbar is a heady mix of spirituality, tradition, modernity, opulence and the determination of a man.
Romance Lost
Frankly, India of the late 1960s was totally unprepared for Rajesh Khanna. The film industry, blown out of its mind, christened him Superstar. Stardust, the new iconoclastic, irreverent and deliciously chatpata new film magazine on the block, baptized him the Phenomenon and sold out its maiden issue within days just via banners enquiring whether Rajesh will/has married his girlfriend (at that time) Anju Mahendru?
