Monthly Archives: March 2008
I am not a wimp
I consider it a good day in India if I don’t get asked the following questions at least ten times: “Which country are you from?”, “Are you married?”, “What’s your job?”, “Are you travelling alone?”. (The last one has a …
How many people does it take?
I’ve been visiting India on and off since ’94, so I like to think I’ve got a pretty good handle on the place. Still, every now and then India likes to throw something up that will throw me. Take the …
What’s in a name?
No prizes for guessing what’s been headlining the Indian newspapers this week (March/April 2008). It’s a done deal: Tata Industries has agreed to buy Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motors, and it’s fair to say that most Indians are …
Sunday in the Park
If it’s Sunday afternoon and you’re in Kolkata, there’s really only one place to be. That’s the Maidan, the big green expanse that stretches down from Eden Gardens to the Race Course, and across from the Hooghly river to the …
Good Friday – Holi, Holi, Holi
The streets of Kolkata were eerily quiet as my taxi sped into town from the airport. Empty streets, boarded-up stalls, only the occasional pedestrian: was this ghost town really the city I remembered from ’94 as a seething mass of …