Paris Hilton vs. David Letterman

It’s been a while since I watched Late Night. I see I’ll have to start watching again! The above video is Exhibit A for all those who wonder if a sense of humor is actually that important.
The answer is: Yes! It’s absolutely important! I could think of a million different ways she could have turned [...]

Fat Ladies: Exit Here

The above disturbing image is that of a self-confessed anorexic and model by the name of Isabelle Caro. She’s 27 (twenty seven) years old and weighs about 70 lbs. That’s roughly 31 kgs. She has been starving herself since the age of 12. Part of an ad campaign unveiled by an Italian clothing company [...]

The True Face of Jehadis

 

There is a terribly sad portion in the cover story of last month’s National Geographic in which the writer recounts his meeting with one of the militant young women who took over a children’s library in Islamabad, Pakistan, earlier this year.
Dressed in a burkha, talking in English, she expressed her hopes and dreams for her [...]

Fanatically Stupid

Well, isn’t it nice to be marginalized in my own country in the name of my own religion. Remember how Hindutva-vadis have been telling us for years that Hindutva is all but synonymous with India? That their idea of Hinduism is more a “civilizational” term than a religious one? So we could have “Muslim Hindus” [...]

India Wins Twenty20 World Cup

All credit to me because I kept my eyes averted the whole time. Everybody around me was going crazy but did I even peek? No. Send me gifts:
With Misbah on strike, Pakistan needed 13 from the final over. After a great deal of thought, Mahendra Singh Dhoni gambled on the inexperienced Joginder Sharma. [...]

I’m Now a CatBlogger

I always swore I wouldn’t be a cat blogger but I’m so bored I’m tempted today. I really need to go to the library, put a brake on the reading and devote more time to writing. All good intentions. And yes, I know it’s a Saturday.
I’d say somebody please do something, but lately all [...]

Barbie Lied! Mattel Apologizes to China

Do you remember the furore that broke out a couple of months ago when China stood accused of trying to kill everything we loved, from our pets to our children? Hmm, how does one say, “jumped the gun” in Chinese because as it turns out, that really wasn’t what they were doing:
Until now, Chinese sub-contractors [...]

RIP: Robert Jordan

I remember the day I was introduced to Robert Jordan as if it were yesterday. Bright yellow light flooded the master bedroom where three of the Brigadier’s grandchildren and I sat talking. The three older ones were telling me about this fantastic book they’d all just finished reading.”I’ll let you borrow it,” R said, [...]

Om Shanti Om: A Music Review

Movies, as Akira Kurosawa observed with such penetrating simplicity in his book Something Like An Autobiography, are not just a visual medium – they’re an audio-visual one. To ignore one is to harm the other.
In Indian cinema, we’ve taken this lesson so much to heart that sometimes the visuals suffer for the audio. Conventional wisdom, [...]

It’s…

And don’t you forget it!With much thanks to the wonderful people at Flickr’s One Letter group who somehow knew long back that the day would dawn when I’d require their services. You guys are not only amazing, you also make me feel better about the crazy amounts of time I spend online.
The internets [...]