General

Twisted Philanthropy of the Maharaja of Jodhpur.

It is touted that the Umaid Bhawan Palace was built as a drought relief measure by Maharaja of Jodhpur Umaid Singh. The idea was to make a luxurious private residence for the Maharaha in order to create employment for the starving people of Jodhpur. I find it ironic. Imagine a man thinking of making a 347 room luxurious villa for himself out of the misery of the people is he supposed to serve. Surprisingly the Maharaja is glorified till this day as a philanthropist for his `noble gesture’. The moment you enter the Umaid Bhawan a large plaque informs you about this `generosity’.


Why any Rules for Love and Sex are Simply Regressive.

In my grandfather’s time, ‘good old days’ were indeed the good old days. There were no rules for love and marriage and sex was free. You met a girl at the village fair and if she was willing, you could have a roll in the hay. If you wanted something more serious you brought her home as a bride . If you didn’t get along you simply broke off because divorce was not a stigma. Not even for women. My grandfather boasted of having married 13 times in this fashion and my grandmother thrice.


Why You Should Read All the Banned Books. Including The Satanic Verses.

Banned books are fantastic for the obvious reasons. They question the status quo, challenge existing paradigms, question idiotic beliefs no matter how sacred, and provoke you to think anew. The very reasons the politicians and the clergy would not want you to touch them. But what is good writing if it won’t give you a fresh perspective. And what is freedom of expression without the freedom to offend. Because for how long can you read Paulo Choelho or Chetan Bhagat


Merry Christmas from Santa Claus Village, Lapland

The `Official Santa’ is very much the Santa of my imagination. Long white undulating beard. Rose tinted rotund cheeks. And the all too familiar corpulent frame. He greets us a predictable Namastay when told we are from India. He takes turns greeting us all and asks the girls in our group if they have been good-girls in a manner and tone he would ask any naughty children visiting him. The girls play along with one of them insisting on getting a photograph shot sitting on his lap.


Animal Sacrifices and the Temples of Gore.

Its interesting that almost all the religions of the world decided that the best way to appease their Gods was to butcher hapless animals to them. Apart from reasons of piety, I suspect it had something to do with guilt. Taking another animals life for food may have looked a bit selfish. Therefore as in most things, men decided why not do it in the name of God? You get to eat the meat and God takes all the blame for the blood and gore.


Making of an Apple Orchard House

When my father said he wanted to build a house in the orchards, I was surprised. What’s wrong with this one I said? We already had an orchard house. Though the house was a bit unplanned- with no attached toilets or modular kitchen, it was still beautiful. It was in the middle of our apple orchards . It was glazed on three sides and had a spacious lounging area around it. The kitchen was the old pahari-style, complete with a chulla where we burnt firewood to warm our hands and sometimes cook. The house had a huge gable with a spacious living room below it and an attic with splendid views of the apple orchard valley.


Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the Art of Living it Up.

I am amused by the irony of a man who claims to own nothing, zipping by in a gleaming Mercedes while those who can actually afford one, bumping along the Delhi – Agra highway in the less than comfortable bus. I try to ask the followers about this but I am scoffed at for my `ignorance’. ” You will never understand the ways of our Guru”, they concluded.


Are Indian Weddings a Big Yawn?

Indian Weddings are said to be a multi-million dollar industry. But are they a big bore? Do the endless rites and rituals put you to sleep? Most importantly do the bride and groom really have any good time themselves or are they just happy to get it over with before they can head to their exotic beach honeymoon.


Hazrat Nizamuddin and its Monuments

Nizamuddin’s shrine like most sufi shrines attracts not only muslims but a fair share of christians, hindus and sikhs as well. Coupled with its tradition of music Sufi shrines such as Nizamuddin are also on the radar of fanatics who feel music is against Islam.


Anglo Arabic School- Delhi’s Oldest Educational Institute

Anglo Arabic School is the oldest educational intuitions in Delhi and one of the oldest in India. It was established in the 1690’s by Ghaziuddin Khan the deccan commander and general of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. It opened as a madrasa and took the name of its founder. Despite it ancient pedigree , it was as recent as 2002 when the very bureaucratic Archeological Survey of India declared it as a heritage monument.


More a Stud than Slut Walk

But the girls did not oblige. The organisers of Slut Walk Delhi- a motley group of college students, had made it clear. This was India so no revealing outfits. The Slut Walk Delhi was christened Besharmi Morcha and the organisers were at pains to explain that the walk was not just about women’s right to wear skimpy clothes. The only skimpily clad person for miles around was a resting ascetic who sat topless bang in the middle of the Slut Walk route.


Fatehpur Sikri- The Lost Mughal City

I love Mughal Emperor Akbar. I think he was perhaps the first and the last great secular ruler in India. However like most powerful people, he was also given to superstitions. He believed that his wife bore a son because of Sufi Saint Shaikh Salim Chisti’s prophecy. Akbar built his palace in Sikri in gratitude to the saint. He lived in Sikri for 15 long years before realizing it had a chronic water- shortage problem and moved bag and baggage to Lahore.


What’s HAIR got to do with it?

What is it about the female’s hair that makes the male of the human species get so wild and crazy? Going by the Islamic culture that is one of the main reasons why girls are enjoined to cover their head. But its not just a phenomenon of Islamic societies alone. When the debate first erupted after France banned the burka in public places, I realized it was a belief more closer home than I ever realized.


Golden Temple, Amritsar

However a lesser known and a very interesting fact about The Golden Temple is that it receives more visitors than even The Taj Mahal -making it the most visited Monument in India. Maybe the statistics have changed over the years and if anyone has the latest statistics kindly do share.


Taj Mahal – The Eternal Show

Apart from the foreigners its mostly the poor and the lower-middle class that turns up in overwhelming numbers to visit our monuments. Sometimes making long arduous journeys crammed up in train’s sleeper class for days.The upper-middle class and the glitterati are conspicuous by their abscence at not only The Taj but at any other Indian Monument. Except ofcourse when a fashionable concert like Yanni’s is organised near it. But then now we have The Malls and The Multiplexes- our new monuments of our times.


Bengali Wedding in Chandigarh and Kolkata

From Chandigarh to Kolkata you make a giant cultural leap. The robust Punjabi spirit to the genteel Bengali mannerism, it was interesting how the same marriage played itself to the nuances of two very different cities.


Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple’s money belongs to the people

The wealth that some of our temples have is indeed phenomenal. It is not very surprising that such unaccounted wealth is found in temple vaults. Devotees rich and poor make regular donations to temples hoping to bribe the Gods to have some of their sins forgiven. But the immense wealth of this Kerela temple took everyone by surprise. There is a big debate on whom this money really belongs. I think this money belongs not to the temple but to the people and that’s where it should be used.


Bengali Wedding In Kolkata, India

Bengali weddings usually have a lot of rituals but in this wedding some of them were given a miss. This was a bit unusual as the older generation usually has its way on the wedding day. If you talk to a couple before their wedding, they will tell you their wedding will be different. That their wedding will be a bit more “chilled out” and wont have the usual repertoire of rituals. But on the D-Day the couple usually succumb to the admonitions of the milling relatives who make sure all wedding ceremonies are performed to the letter.


Christian Wedding Photography

From my experience I feel, Christian weddings are indeed a more fun-filled affairs. The focus is more on the bride and the groom rather than the rituals or the endless relatives and the wedding couple manage to have some fun themselves after all. In fact the grooms and the brides friends who make up the bridesmaids and the best men get much more attention than the relatives.


South Indian Wedding, India

This was a South Indian Wedding shot in New Delhi. However the venue where we gathered had a complete south indian feel to it. There was less noise and commotion. The decorations were more sedate. The wedding guests were more restrained in expressing their joy. There was South Indian Music being played live by south indian musicians. And there were endless rounds of south indian wedding rituals.


Hindu Muslim Wedding

This was a unique wedding. It was a Hindu -Muslim union. All the marital rites of both the religions were followed to the letter including the elaborate Bengali rites and the Muslim Nikkah. But in the end it was about the two individuals. You could not have guessed which of the two was a Muslim and which one Hindu.


How to Grow your Business with a Sloppy Lonely Planet entry.

If you are want to make a killing like this man in the picture all you need is one sloppy Lonely Planet writer. The immensely popular travel guide prides itself in employing `credible and unbiased writers’. But every once in a while these travel-weary journos slip up . Ram Kishen ( The man in the picture above) is a man who is making a killing because of one such error of judgement.


Maharashtrian Wedding in Pune, India

They also danced during mehndi in the lawns and during the all-female functions. In one such mesmerizing dance they held each others hands and spun around like tops at great speeds. Until then I had thought this feat could be possible only in the Bollywood movies.


Assamese Wedding in Assam, North East India

Next day was the main wedding ceremony and i witnessed many new rituals. There was one where the mother-in-law literally drags the groom inside the wedding venue by the hem of his headgear. However the highpoint for me was my shoot with the newly weds on a boat on the Brahmaputra. We hired a boat early in the morning. It was misty all around and that lent a great atmosphere to the photographs. We sailed for over an hour on the mighty river to a small island where we stopped to take in the view and the photos.