A writer is a professional spinner of lies. His job: to lay out the truth on a bed of magnificent lies so it is visible… »
Musings
Dateline Hastinapur
Suppose, just suppose, there were newspapers when the Pandavas were slugging it out with the Kauravas. The equivalents of The Times of India and The Sun and The New York Times and the BBC. How would the Kurukshetra war and the events that led to it have been… »
Beautiful, beautiful (?) me
Here’s a site that caters only to beautiful people. You upload your pix, and the members of the opposite sex vote. If they think you are beautiful, you are in. You will be “granted a full membership”. Me, I am waiting for the… »
Harry Potter and the gayness of Voldemort
Half-Blood Prince opens up the possibility that Voldemort was gay. Or at least that he – pardon the pun – swung that way in his youth. The 11-year-old Tom Riddle manages to look sinister and pretty at the same time and the scene with Horace Slughorn, where he extricates the secret of immorality from the… »
Why they want to marry Simon
I bet you didn’t know this about Simon Cowell: he can do 50 one-handed push-ups. That’s pretty good for a man of 49. Bet you don’t know his middle name either, nor the fact that he is, ahem, in better shape than a Navy… »
Kiss, kiss, the English way
For a people who are painfully private, the English are pretty public when it comes to kissing. There they would be walking down the road, upper lip stiff and at the ready, when suddenly romance overcomes them. The next thing you know, they have grabbed hold of their partner and are kissing the life out… »
Where dogs don’t bark
Particularly telling on the English way of life was my friend Deepa’s comment the other day (actually she quoted her friend, but never mind): “Yaar, these people, they not only keep their children quiet, but they even manage to keep their dogs quiet! You’ll never have a dog barking at you on the streets!… »
Who but the English
The English are possibly the most stiff-lipped bunch ever to sip beer and watch football, but one thing you cannot accuse them of is lacking a sense of humour. Their humour, like the rest of them, is very English – splendidly… »
Englishman, oh Englishman
The English are possibly the most stiff-lipped bunch ever to sip beer and watch football, but one thing you cannot accuse them of is lacking a sense of humour. Their humour, like the rest of them, is very English – splendidly… »
Bless Rooney’s little foot!
The English have the most charming of all national pastimes. Honestly, can you imagine anything better than swaggering to the pub, swigging beer, swearing at the screen, then getting your nose busted by anyone willing to throw a… »
How to survive the English
Don’t tell an Englishman to shut up. He will drop dead with shock. In India ‘Aw, shut up!’, ‘Buzz off’ ‘Drop dead’, ‘Get a life’, etc are considered essentials in any healthy conversation. In England,… »