Cow Worship!

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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.

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Jai Ho Rocks America’s Got Talent

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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.

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Year That Was

Recap the madness of last year (from the financial crisis to the Presidential election to Elliot Spitzer and Miley Cyrus) and then thank your lucky stars the year is over.

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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.
   

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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.

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(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.

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India 100 Years Ago

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Harsha Paints A Social Repsonse

NS Harsha is a gifted story teller who captures everyday life from India as seen through the lens of news and world events on his canvas through the medium of paints and color.

Miniature art form is not unknown in India. In fact, it has been used through the ages to depict life from courts of kings to humble settings of huts or villages. However, Harsha has picked up this technique to bring to the world his observations of Indian society which at times are whimsical and at times absurd, or even tragic or significant on the world scene.

Perhaps painting is just a medium to express the philosopher and the thinker in him. Perhaps brush is Harsha’s tool in an attempt to bring a social change, and awareness and curiosity that surrounds humanity.

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The Shape Of The Beast

Eleven years after she won the Booker Prize for The God of Small Things, 14 conversations (2001-2008 ) with Roy on her social and political activism appear in a new book The Shape of the Beast.

Even before The God of Small Things hit the world of fame, this female Rushdie of India attracted lot of media attention when she criticised Shekhar Kapur’s film Bandit Queen, based on the life of Phoolan Devi, charging Kapur with exploiting Devi and misrepresenting both her life and its meaning. For sometime Roy was involved as film script writer as well. She even tried her hands at acting in films. Not many remember but Arundhati Roy played a village girl in the award-winning movie Massey Sahib.

(Click on the Image for a Video of an Interview with Arundhati Roy on The Shape of the Beast).

The Shape of the Beast finds Roy fulminating against the 2002 Godhra genocide, empathising with the adivasis of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh and venting against the military operations in Nagaland, Kashmir and Manipur.Through this book Roy has revealed both a personal and social journey.

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Ecstasy Of Life In Color

“In the silence of the night when I take a break from my work, and sit alone in the balcony, I see a young boy with a bag on his shoulder and a drawing board in his hand. Black clouds cover the sky while people take shelter from the rain, but the boy sits on the steps of the monument under an open sky – and the rain pours. The streets are full of crowds and everyone is running. He does not know for what? He is sitting on the huge iron pipes at Metro Railways, placed on the mud hills on the sides of Park Street. He sits for hours – from evening to midnight – with no one to ask for any explanation! Freedom?

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Decathlon Of Indian Pilgrimages: Kailash Mansarovar

To the Hindus, the Himalayas are central to their cosmology. The peaks are the petals of the Golden Lotus which lord Vishnu created as a first step in the formation of the universe. On one of these peaks – Mount Kailash, sits Shiva in a state of perpetual meditation, generating the spiritual force that sustains the cosmos. Of the three worlds–patala (netherworld), prithvi (earth) and swargalok (heaven)–only Shiva lives on this planet and Mount Kailash is his abode.

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Missing Daughters of India

Son preference in India is a well documented fact and its implications on skewed sex ratios, female feticide and high child morality rates is no news either. For over a century India has shown marked gap in the number is boys vs girls born each year. With technological advancement this gap is only increasing.

Indians worship the goddesses in temples but kill their daughters at home. Preference for boys over girls is driven by these factors:

• Sons are expected to provide emotional and social care to parents especially in their old age as well as are responsible for their lineage while daughters will go away to other families. It appears sons compensate for the lack of social security in India.
• Only if the son light the funeral pyre can the parents ascend to heaven.
• Sons add to family wealth and property, whereas daughters will drain that in the form of dowry for marriage.
• Sons will protect the parents whereas daughters have to be protected.

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Prohibition Centric India Raises a Toast

Some Facts:

• India is the only country in the world where age bar for alcohol consumption is 25 years.
• It is illegal to directly or indirectly advertise alcoholic beverages in India.
• Hinduism declares alcohol consumption as one of the five heinous crimes and is comparable to murder and adultery. A drunkard is a dead body, say the scriptures.
• Broadcasting Bill of the country prohibits screening of smoking and drinking scenes and are categorized as adult.
• A prerequisite to become a congressman is to abstain from alcohol.

Mahatma Gandhi had canvassed total prohibition, and the Constitution of India endorsed, adopted, and imposed total prohibition in 1977. It lasted only two years leaving behind a few dry states like Mizoram, Manipur and Gujarat, and a couple of ‘dry’ holidays like Gandhi Jayanti and Independence day.

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What We Mean: A Pocket Guide

For the travelers to the mysterious land of Indian Culture we know how confusing it can be at times. It is an ancient culture rich with confusions and contradictions that we Indians learned to live with – do we have a choice. What is merely a daily matter to us, my foreign wonderer, for you it is a mystery. In the land with busy billions it is hard to find the key that would unlock the secret of the conundrum that is Indian culture. So we have put together a short phrasebook to help understand a few details about us. Here are some excerpts.

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Brains Coming Back to Boost India

India has initiated reverse brain drain. Realizing how many scientists, doctors, engineers and other professionals they loose every year, Indian government is taking steps to lure them back to the country.

The scheme for NRIs, though still in infancy, has already netted at least 40 PHDs and MTechs working in academics or industry in countries like US, UK, Japan and Sweden.

“We are intensifying the drive. In 2007 alone, we received 150 applications from NRI scientists and engineers and finally picked up 22. The number of applicants is increasing, with the majority coming from US,” a top Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) scientist said.

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India Too Dim To Dim For Earth Hour

India has decide to stay illuminated when the world will switch off for Earth Hour between 8 and 9 pm on March 29. As of today no Indian city has officially joined the campaign to black out to show that India too is in the crusade to reduce global warming.

So far, 35 nations, 370 cities, towns and councils worldwide have pledged to turn out their lights for one hour. This includes cities like Christchurch, Bangkok, Seoul, Dubai, Antarctica’s Casey Base, Manila, Copenhagen, Rome, Dublin, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco and Mexico City.

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Prosperity and Principle

The recent turbulence in Tibet is turning to be a trouble for India. Though no Indian life or interest is under any threat, India is finding it difficult to respond. It is the Indian response, or lack there of, that is the most troubling. If it was an isolated case of confusion for India, it is no big deal. But this is deliberate and exposes a fundamental characteristic of Indian psyche.

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Reasons to Marry an Indian Man

Over the years, Indian men got a bad name all over the world. Most women complain about immaturity, insensitivity, and insufficient evolution of Indian men. The demand for dowry did not help the image at all. The news of burning bride turned most women against them. But ladies no one ever tells you about the advantages of marrying an Indian man. If only you knew the truth, you are surely to see them in a new light. Maybe even consider them when you are ready to take the plunge. If you are already married, maybe you can tell your friends about them. So here are the top ten reasons to marry an Indian man.

• 10. They come in a family pack. You get a mother, a father, a few sisters-in-law, half dozen cousins, and countless relatives for free.
• 9. They would never leave you. They get fat and lazy too fast and no woman will ever be interested in them.
• 8. You will never get tired of hubby improvement projects. They come with countless imperfections and guaranteed to be really slow learners.

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