We spotted this man just the other day on W47th St in the Jewelry District of Manhattan sporting a back-board that advertised a nearby Barber Shop. Just a few blocks from New York City’s famous Times Square landmark, the Jewelry district in Manhattan is chock-a-block with stores selling gold, diamonds and other precious gems. Amid […]
One of the tragic eyesores of modern India, the Dharavi slum in Mumbai epitomizes the failure of the Indian state to provide the most basic necessities for its citizens. Asia’s biggest slum, Dharavi is located in Central Mumbai, between Mahim in the west and Sion in the east and attracts poor people from across India […]
Mounted police are an interesting sight anywhere. In this age of Hummers, BMW and Mercedes Benz cars, the sight of a policeman atop a big horse makes for a nice picture. Horses, once ubiquitous in New York (according to a recent issue of the New Yorker there were 120,000 horses in 1908) are a rarity […]
Watching Shootout at Lokhandwala is cruel punishment for Bollywood fans. By golly, we haven’t seen such a juvenile, amateurish gangster movie – either Bollywood or Hollywood – in 45 years. Shootout at Lokhandwala’s director Apoorva Lakhia has accomplished a feat that we thought was impossible. Lakhia has made a movie worse than his previous disaster […]
Some 50,000 low-caste Hindus and nomadic tribesmen converted to Buddhism at a horse race-track in Mumbai on Sunday in one of the single largest conversions in recent times. For centuries, the stratified caste system has been one of the greatest scourges of India, particularly in the rural hinterlands where those from the lower castes and […]
Cheeni Kum is one of the better movies to come out of the Bollywood stables this summer. Featuring the talented actress Tabu and the budda (old Man of Bollywood) Amitabh Bachchan in key roles, Cheeni Kum is the charming love story of a 34-year-old woman and a 64-year-old man. Eschewing the usual Bollywood trappings of […]