Miss Adventures
India
The Town of Boiled Beans
Bombay has changed to Mumbai. Madras to Chennai. Calcutta to the much less evocative Kolkata. Now, it looks like Bangalore is jumping on the renaming bandwagon. It intends to change its name to Bengaluru, which means “the town of boiled beans” in the local Kannada language. Is this really necessary? When a friend sent me [...]
Bombay in November
I’m finally back to work after three restful weeks back in the States. Besides traveling around and seeing family and friends, I had the chance to while away a few afternoons in some national and state parks, including Wakulla Springs, where I saw alligators grinning in the sun, and Sagamore Hill, the former home of [...]
Golden Triangle and Ganpati
September Ho Gaya…September is gone. And I didn’t even have much time to blog. I did some traveling – again to the Golden Triangle (see below) – went to a film shoot (see my last post), attended the Elle Decor India Design Awards, and also found time to check out the Ganpati Visarjan (immersion) on [...]
Rani, Abhishek, and SRK
Much has been made about a possible link-up between Rani Mukherjee and Abhishek Bachchan, two of Bollywood’s biggest stars of the moment. As I’ve mentioned before, Rani is on a hot streak, having had hits with Black (a remake of the Miracle Worker) and the recent Mangal Pandey, as well as lighter fare like Hum [...]
The Raj of Wankaner
As Indian states go, Gujarat has a long way to go before becoming tourist friendly. It may be the homeland of many a global Indian (the Patel clan comes from there), but it’s lacking in some of the things that draw tourists, namely the Taj Mahal and alcohol. Nevertheless, as Gujarat borders on Maharashtra, we [...]
Mangal Pandey: The Rising
No matter what the raging controversy is about the new film about Mangal Pandey, whether it was too harshly anti-British or that Pandey, India’s first so-called freedom fighter, was blasphemously portrayed as a having a relationship with a nautch girl, the picture was a pleasure to watch. I went to the film with approximately 20 [...]
I’m Not Bajirao
I’ve often mused at the title of “I’m Not Rappaport,” the play-then-film about two men from varying backgrounds coming to terms with the ravages of old age. Even though I’ve never seen the play or the film, I was always tickled each time the phrase was used as the punchline of any dumb joke. After [...]
The Rainfall and the Fallout
Three days after record-breaking rains brought Bombay to a halt, I’m finally beginning to hear about my friends’ and colleagues’ unbelieveable journeys. South Bombay, as I’ve mentioned before, got hit with 7 inches of rain on Tuesday, but, save for the lack of bustle, it looked pretty normal on Wednesday. On the other hand, the [...]
Monsoon Update #2
Well, I’m still pretty high and dry here in Bombay. But now I see that the international papers have caught on to our little rain problem. So, it must be a big deal. Actually, it rained about seven inches in 24 hous in South Bombay. The suburbs, on the other hand, got 27 inches of [...]
Monsoon Update
Nine hours later and…it’s still raining! No flooding where I am, but most of the city is shut down. I guess this is the equivalent of a blizzard, so I’ll concede that flooding is inevitable at this point. News about the Monsoon: Maharashtra rains leave many dead [BBC News] Rains bring life to standstill in [...]
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