Cow Worship!

Read Full Post »

Commonwealth Games 2010: Time to Play

Commonwealth Games 2010 saw a grand opening in Delhi a couple of hours ago. All the controversy that surrounded it was kept aside as people witnessed most spectacular show ever.

Here is a link to the spectacular live performance of  the CWG Theme song by AR RAHMAN-

And here’s a link to video of the opening ceremony-

For those of you who are outside India, you can watch live web stream here-

* India – Doordarshan, DD Sports
* Australia – Network Ten, Foxtel
* Fiji – Mai TV
* Canada – CBC, CBC Bold
* Cyprus – Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation
* Namibia – Namibia Broadcasting Corporation
* New Zealand – Sky Network Television and Prime (New Zealand TV channel)
* Nigeria – Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria
* Malaysia – Astro
* Seychelles – Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation
* Singapore – MediaCorp Channel 5
* South Africa – South Africa Broadcasting Corporation
* Tanzania – Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation
* United Kingdom – British Broadcasting Corporation
* United States – Video Sound Inc.

Here’s to next 13 days of rigorous games, fun, and party!

Read Full Post »

Dil Se Re…

Read Full Post »

Bloody Brilliant!

Read Full Post »

Obamas Host Singhs

President Obama makes a toast in honor of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

President Obama makes a toast in honor of India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. If you watch the you tube video here, it appears he actually said “Prime Minister Mohammad Singh”.  He welcomed all in hindi, “aapka suagut hai.“

Read Full Post »

Gandhi Lost In Monetization

Mont Blanc's $24,763 Mahatma Gandhi Pen on Gandhi Jayanti

Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday celebration has reduced to  mere efforts to monetize . Mont Blanc has launched 241 limited edition 18k gold plated $24,763/ each  pens. The pen is engraved with Gandhi’s image and tricked out with a saffron-colored mandarin garnet on the clip and a rhodium-plated nib. A billboard put up this week over Mumbai’s teeming slums shows a gaunt Gandhi next to an image of the swanky pen, with golden threads woven around it to represent Gandhi’s spinning wheel. This one is oozing with irony! Gandhi who lived and preached life of minimalism, his name, today, is being used as a sales gimmick for the opulent and  could-not-care-less types. Mont Blanc got it all wrong.

Traffic moves past a billboard displaying a portrait of Mohandas Gandhi, the ascetic father of India's independence, besides an image of a Montblanc pen in India.

Internet search giant Google paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on Friday on the 140th anniversary of his birth, replacing the ‘G’ in its colorful logo with a picture of the Indian independence hero.  Nice gesture.

Read Full Post »

Jai Ho Rocks America’s Got Talent

Read Full Post »

Why Do We Do this?

Read Full Post »

Jai Ho- When Spanish and Hindi Roads Cross

Read Full Post »

Mahatma Gandhi Gets an IPhone App

Mohandas Gandhi Quotes: IPhone App

Well, Mahatma Gandhi now has an Iphone app of his own.

Get all your favorite Mohandas Gandhi quotes all in one place. Pay homage to Gandhi’s intuition with the Mohandas Gandhi Quotes application.

Every time you want to take a peek at one of Gandhi’s quotes, just shake your cell phone or tap the screen with two fingers. This app also gives you a chance to favorite the ones you like.

Just wondering, if only Mahatma Gandhi knew of this viral technology, would he have said more or different.

Read Full Post »

Jhat Pat Bol: Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

Read Full Post »

First Day First Show: Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

It is a Rs 22 crore movie. Expectations were high for other reasons. One, it was Aditya Chopra’s comeback after eight years of Mohabattein and thirteen years of Dilwale Dulhaniya Lejayenge . Well, that does not come as a surprise. After giving a hit like (DDLJ), one is virtually competing against oneself! Not sure if there is a follow up formula to the ‘love’ formula.

Two, it is a Shahrukh Khan movie. He did have sole responsibility in holding the storyline. In fact it is two Sharukh Khan movies in ONE.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi Released Today.

Set in Amritsar around the Golden Temple, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, touches everything that is normal, everything that is way of life in ordinary people’s lives, nothing that you do not know or have not seen in your everyday lives. In fact at times it feels that it has been shot close to home.

The movie starts off on a very old and beaten road- groom does not show up, father finds the first possible match for his daughter from the crowd assembled for the ‘other’ wedding. There starts the one sided love affair, the life of a mismatched couple Surinder Sahni (Shahrukh Khan) and Taani (Anushka Sharma).

Read Full Post »

Lost In Time And Space

Through his lens he communicates with space; light, texture and color are his friends. Together they create unique compositions and art that will seduce you. Sanjay Nanda captures the realities as well as absurdities of life in time and space through his lens which have taken the form of stunning pieces of art on many a walls.

From Varanasi Collection (Click on the Image for More)

Often times he treads out into the urbanscape and captures  the moments from everyday life which go unnoticed but are unique to their surroundings and strangely elegant.

Sanjay captures the moment while life and color are at play!

Still Life (Click on Image for More)

Sanjay shoots a variety of subjects. He looks for scenes that he can compose in a thought provoking way and colour combinations that somehow stir him without attempting to edit the work or discriminate when in the field. When he gets back to his studio, he sorts through his images, and then chooses the ones that have a staying power for him. He is not interested in merely reproducing a particular scene or image photographically; he is more interested in collecting the raw visual materials that allow him to explore the inherent dynamics and tensions of the picture plane.

Read Full Post »

JhatPat Bol: Cinema

Read Full Post »

Driving In India: Can You Do It?

Driving On Indian Roads: Can you do it?

Indian road rules broadly operate within the domain of karma where you do your best and leave the results to your insurance company. Here is a funny, and sadly true account by Coen Jukens on driving in India.

The hints are as follows:
Do we drive on the left or right of the road? The answer is “both”. Basically you start on the left of the road, unless it is occupied. In that case, go to the right, unless that is also occupied. Then proceed by occupying the next available gap, as in chess.

1. Just trust your instincts, ascertain the direction, and proceed. Adherence to road rules leads to much misery and occasional fatality.
   
2. Most drivers don’t drive, but just aim their vehicles in the intended direction. Don’t you get discouraged or underestimate yourself. Except for a belief in reincarnation, the other drivers are not in any better position.
   
3. Don’t stop at pedestrian crossings just because some fool wants to cross the road. You may do so only if you enjoy being bumped in the back. Pedestrians have been strictly instructed to cross only when traffic is moving slowly or has come to a dead stop because some minister is in town. Still some idiot may try to wade across, but then, let us not talk ill of the dead.
   
4. Blowing your horn is not a sign of protest as in some countries. We horn to express joy, resentment, frustration, romance and bare lust (two brisk blasts) or just to mobilize a dozing cow in the middle of the bazaar.
   
5. Keep informative books in the glove compartment. You may read them during traffic jams, while awaiting the chief minister’s motorcade, or waiting for the rain waters to recede when over-ground traffic meets underground drainage.
   

Read Full Post »

No Reservations In India

Anthony Bourdain in India

Anthony Bourdain is well known for hosting travel and food show Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. He travels to cities worldwide where hosts treat him to local culture and cuisine.

He traveled to Kolkata , Mumbai, and the state of Rajasthan. The shows based on these travels was aired on May 29 and June 5, 2006.

Tony exposes you to diverse experiences in these cities that have been traveled many a times. He has successfully been able to present a diverse bouquet called India through these shows. Tony eats on the roadside dhabas as comfortably as he dines with the royalties. Gaj Singh, Maharaja of Jodhpur,  plays the royal host, cooks for Anthony Bourdain and also invited him to a royal wedding dinner!

But in his desire to explore the best of local cuisines he agrees to be a guest at a chef’s home. He lives the Indian life not as a tourist but as one of the crowd. He visits a fortuneteller, enjoys bhang in its various forms, rides the bus, and eats on the roadside. He loves Bollywood and just fits very well.

No Reservations at all.

Read Full Post »

India’s Moment

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge…At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.”

– Jawaharlal Nehru Claiming Independence from British
Midnight of August 14, 1947

Read Full Post »

Rare Gandhi Recording in English

Mahatma Gandhi rarely spoke in English. He would address crowds in Hindi, Gujarati and even other Indian languages but never in English. There have been only two instances when he addressed people in English.

A rare recording of his speech in English made 7-8 months before his assassination has been found in Washington DC. This speech was made to a conference of Asian leaders convened by Jawaharlal Nehru.

Hear it.

Journalist Alfred Wagg recorded the speech in New Delhi on April 2, 1947 and produced four 78-rpm LPs that included both Gandhi’s voice as well as Wagg’s own commentary about the man revered as Father of the Indian Nation.

It had been lovingly preserved for 60 years by John Cosgrove, a former president of the National Press Club in the US capital, who discovered the significance of the recording during a chance encounter with Rajmohan Gandhi, Mahatma’s grandson and biographer.

Read Full Post »

(G)oogle Saree

Fashion Designer Satya Paul has done it again. This time for designing a Google inspired saree called Ooogle / Oogle. Satya Paul has been known to be inspired by nature, people, and beautiful things around him.

Indian Actress Aditi Govitrikar, Mrs. World of 2001, modeled for (g)oogle saree in India Fashion Week 2007 under Pop Art Collection category.

Starting in the 50’s, Pop art is a reflection of popular culture in art. Pop art is neither praise nor condemnation but explores the everyday imagery that is so much a part of contemporary consumer culture. It often uses media, advertising, packaging, celebrity and comic book art styles to bring art closer to real life.

The fabric is georgette jacquard and it is a printed saree. Priced at affordable $ 299.88 (Rs. 11.950). The url in the web address bar on the saree, of course, points to Satya Paul’s online shop! Rest of the saree showcases the google search page.

Saree is available online as well as in malls in Delhi.

What are we going to see next- iphone lehnga or Microsoft Vista Punjabi suit? Not sure if Indian women would like the idea of being walking billboards.

Read Full Post »

Journey Through Indian Ads: Then and Now

Ali Baba’s Password?

Simpu Singh Presents Jury Marksheet

Simpu Singh and Gabbar

Read Full Post »