What does YOUR India look like?

I wonder why all the uproar? Because the movie won awards, and we are jealous? Because what it says is true and are ashamed that the truth is out there for everyone to see?

Rajsamand Lake

After traveling for eight days in Rajasthan by road, through the deserts, hills, mountain ranges and forests, we finally got to see something pleasant and cooling to eyes. It was the Rajsmand Lake,

Coconut fiber car parts

A research team at Baylor University, Texas, has made car parts - trunk liners, floorboards and car-door interior covers - using fibers from the outer husks of coconuts

278A. Affray

It fell in nineteen fifty one upon an April day
That out into the channel went the submarine 'Affray'.
Her back was shining like a seal's and strong and thick besides.
Three score and fifteen mariners were locked within its sides.

Bribes and Fear Psychology

How does a government employee manage to extract bribe from you? Experiences in the past one week have clearly showed me that it is by installing fear. Example this conversation:

Slumdog Musings

Everyone is talking about Slumdog Millionaire. I have not seen the movie as it is yet to be released in India. I had read Q & A almost two years ago when the book had been recommended...

To my mother, with love

When I look at myself in the mirror, it surprises me how remarkably I look like my mother. Everything from the hair texture to facial features show an uncanny resemblance, and our childhood photos look exactly alike...

P.S. Dear Sir!

Dear Mr Minister; You in Charge,
Who writes your name so proud and large,
I'm looking for an explanation
For a crazy situation.

Why don't humans hibernate? - Musings on foggy morns

I can't see beyond 50 metres in Delhi,
you can't drive afore you clear your Boston drive
Look at the bear - he's wise, no balaclavas,

Photos: Flowers and Berries

Men, women and personal taboos

This is a clear indication of the breakdown of traditional barriers and taboos at least among the city folk. I am sure these must be rare couples who are in near-perfect harmony. The average guy, I guess, is still shy when it comes to condoms.

For Heaven's Sake

The one regret Bush has is that he couldn’t find the WMD’s in Iraq! I wish him all luck in finding them since he has now all the time in his hands. He can start digging Texas first.

Smell of an Indian Bazaar

My Granddaughter, My Mother

Everything Arundati did seemed so delightful, right from teasing her 'Thatha' (grandfather) by taking away his woollen night cap and running to hide it, to rubbing away the kolam...

The Mad Maruthi Driver of Noida

It was precisely at that time that I heard the sound of a car, or better to say the sound that one hears when a car moving in high speed suddenly applies the brake (kiiiiichhh)....

A Sigh!

Same life, same project for the last two years, and getting lonely by the day, and, losing friends to marriages. So, no tours, no meet ups.The last sentence hit me big time...

Food Technology and the Fourth Estate

Indian Food Industry (IFI), run by AFST(I), a thoroughbred food scientists organization is a star on its own category with articles of high technical content as all the contributing articles undergo strict peer review...

Google and greenhouse gases

Thus, rose a storm in the tea cup. Set off by a report in The Sunday Times, London; stirred up by blogger Crabtree , it gathered velocity as Google’s rapid rebuttal team got into the act.

Raymond and Debra ... revisited yet again

As usual, there was an Indian on a table of maybe 10, giving investment advice to anyone who cared to listen. It made me wonder why do typical Indian men talk only about money and stocks?

At the gym

So thus equipped, I trudged gingerly to the gym with an airbag, wearing a not so short but short shorts, a tighter company T shirt (one that I got free after a company outing), my new ‘N’ trainers, a water bottle (I planned to fill it with water at the gym drinking fountains...

The Inspiring Pig

The pig named Zhu Jianqiang or Strong-Willed Pig became celebrity after surviving for 36 days buried beneath rubble after this year's Sichuan earthquake has been named China's most inspirational animal of 2008.

Charity begins at home...

Parents teach their children to be nice to their siblings, to help each other out when need be, so on and so forth. But unfortunately, very often that is where the lesson ends....

Good Morning in Vietnam

Towards the end of the year 2008, I made a trip with golfing enthusiast friends to check out what was available for golfing, in the Vietnam....

Ayurveda at Ashtamudi

I missed the buzz at Chennai Sangamam and the only way to feel good is to remember the wonderful massage I had at Svaastha -the branded ayurvedic spa at Club Mahindra...

Can BRIC save the world?

Let all of us, including the distinguished ambassadors of BRIC send a joint resolution to Senator Obama [Images],' thundered the tall old man in an immaculately tailored suit in the front row...

Chief Idea officer?

Ideas are just a small part when you embark on a big project. As long as you have the ability to think wide, ideas never fail you. However, ideas by themselves do not take you anywhere. Execution is what is required to realize the idea.

Please Admit My Child

Take this said the desperate mother as she held out a 5oo Rs note but please admit my child. This incident occurred last week at the women centre...

Tribute

Some memories remain vivid. I remember the evening I went with him and Vijaya Manni (my sister-in-law) to the famous 'Ayyappa' drama by TKS Brothers. Our car gave us trouble and would not start on our return trip. There were no taxis in those days, and he brought us back home in a bullock cart...

Kutti plantains and Kitchen Gardens!

I laughed and laughed before I told my amused host that the nook with the bananas looked like Nair's tea shop in Irinjalakuda.
The plantains were delicious.
They had to be. They had grown on the trees that Manoj has in his kitchen garden.

A happy farmer near MHOW, Indore

"The agrarian crisis is about a much wider rural distress. It's a crisis driven not by drought or natural calamity as Mr Sharad Pawar has said in the Parliament. And he didn't use the word crisis. It's a crisis driven by policy; global, national, local.