Butter Thief?!

Why would anybody want to eat handfuls of butter?
There is a painting in my parents’ home that I have coveted ever since I was a kid. When I was little, I’d beg my mom to let me hang it up in my room. She refused and I can’t say I blame her: it really is [...]

Monica Pradhan’s The Hindi Bindi Club

I’ve been reading long enough to be extremely wary of books whose back covers proclaim this one is just like that other massive bestseller that everyone has read and/or been raving about. You know the kind - “The Man in the Nun’s Costume”, which is just like The Da Vinci Code or “Wizard Boy Takes [...]

Malay Tamils Want Brits to Pay

This is one of the best stories I’ve heard in a while.
To go back in time a bit, if you were paying attention to world events in the 1990s, then you might remember Anwar Ibrahim, a Malaysian politician and former deputy prime minister who was jailed on charges of corruption and sodomy. Ibrahim, a Muslim [...]

Stats = People

There’s nothing like a road trip to clog the sinus and clear the head. I don’t know about you but I am quite capable of seeing a certain thing everyday without quite grasping the idea behind it until one fine day it slams into me with all the grace of an obese elephant taking a [...]

Incredibly Dumb Celeb News

This Friday I bring you stuff that you just can’t make up:
Bollywood’s very own Karan Johar is making an animated version of his hit hit debut feature Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Full length animation will apparently have “animals in lead roles”. Name of the movie? Kootchie Kootchie Hota Hai. From “loving your parents” to loving [...]

Phone Lapse

I don’t know what happened.
There used to be a time when I could talk to my friends all day, every day at school, then come home, pick up the phone and talk the whole evening away to those same friends. No subject was taboo or too little to be discussed. We’d conference call so nobody [...]

Calcutta Riots - Part One

“Inquilab zindabad!” (Long live the revolution!) is a cry that you can hear in season and out season across India, especially the bits with a strong Communist presence. There are usually long, slightly bedraggled lines of men and women somewhat dis-spiritedly marching along, calling for violent change with all the enthusiasm of a traveling salesman [...]

The Om Shanti Om Reaction

Of all the things I expected of Om Shanti Om, I didn’t expect it to be such a blatant “fuck you” to the rest of the world.
You people out there have probably already seen the movie, trashed it / adored it, blogged about it and moved on but I’m still playing catch up here so [...]

John Travolta + Kirk Douglas = Jork?

Hot new couple alert? I don’t think so.
Can you imagine? You fight in the Second World War, play Van Gogh and Spartacus, survive decades of Hollywood life including the blacklist, see your fluke of a career turned into the family business, win an honorary Oscar just by hanging around and giving everybody a guilty conscience [...]

Hola!

The Scene: An OR full of people in surgical masks, all whispering to each other and sort of ignoring the most important person in the room - me.
The Victim Patient: Me
The Doctor: Dr. Jekyll/Ms. Hyena
Me: So, um, I know this is a bit late but how much is this going to hurt?
Doc: Only as much [...]