A month back, I mentioned that SRK’s perfume Tiger Eyes would now be available in the US (for sale over the Internet).   Not willing to hand over $50 for a celebrity scent, I wondered what it would smell like.   Well, a girlfriend has written to me and here’s what she had to say: […]

Before escaping back into movieland…   MC Riz has a song out that sums up his view on what it’s like  to be South Asian in the UK nowadays: I got the post 9-11 blues On the telly nuthin but the post 911 news War, iraq, suicide bombs Stop hogging the limelight and make some […]

In Mexico when they celebrate el Día de los Muertos, it’s believed that during that time,  the departed souls return to earth, and it’s for that reason that Mexican people will go to the graves with ofrendas of food and drink and incense. Driving tonight – five years since September 11, 2001 –  I was […]

One does occasionally tear oneself away from the movie / TV / computer screens and actually crack open a book. Thanks to a mercifully kind soul who lugged a copy of the 3.5 pound Vikram Chandra novel Sacred Games thousands of miles across the seas from the state of Tamil Nadu to the state of […]

Edison/Iselin, New Jersey.    Proof of Indian citizenship or appropriate visa necessary upon arrival (almost).   Had a very fun day yesterday playing at being housewives with my BFF, the coolest Parsi I know in Inwood, heck, in all of NYC, meandering in and out of shops  ($15 for a Shobhaa De novel!   Chee!), […]

  Rio has midnight of December 31  and people throwing flowers into the sea as an offering to Iemanja, Bombay has Ganesh Chaturthi to honor the son of Shiva and Parvati. Thousands of miles from the festivities, here’s a sampling of some Ganeshas closer to home. The many moods of Ganapati: Snippet from a wedding […]