Tag: India
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Maneater
This review just slays it. Jason Overdorf hunts with a sharp pen and takes down Dane Huckelbridge’s narrative about what would seem a brutally interesting topic. And he doesn’t stop there. He spills ink like blood all over the slain author’s enablers: “He is not without accomplices in this crime against the English language, either.…
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Death Star
We call this project the Death Star. The Death Star is going up across from my flat. Just outside our bedroom window, as a matter of fact. Here’s an eyewitness account of how they build the Death Star: After fielding an unusual duty call at midnight last night, I returned to bed at 01:00, badly…
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Mumbai Halloween Posse
Posin’ not posers, trick-o-treaters for life! Copper, Pirate, Scoundrel… Jolly Rancher. No candy? Step back! ##
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A Gift at Navratri
Navratri celebrates female energy and the conquest of good over evil. Appropriately, this year’s nine nights marking Goddess Durga’s battles against the buffalo demon Mahishasuran arrived in concert with the power of India’s #MeToo movement. Accusations of sexual assault and harassment by men against women first took aim at prominent figures in the Indian film…
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Ozymandias and the Alter Ego
Dunking Ganpati into the sea is all about dissolution (more). Even so, witnessing his mortal remains embedded in the mud tonight brought to mind the enormous ego of past Lords: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck,…
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Ganpati Visarjan
Toward sunset ahead of a near-full moon, the tide far out on the Arabian Sea, Ganpati marches shoreward. Carried through the streets on trucks surrounded by throbbing drums, hoisted at the beachhead on a multitude of shoulders, carted across the sand to the edge, then towed, bobbing on the waves, by Zodiac. Ganpati topples into…
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Cricket
Travels around India don’t have to include the Taj Mahal, the Gateway of India, or a dip in the Ganges to be special. Our four-day journey to Karnataka state included stops at Chamundi Hills, the ancestral village for which my father-in-law takes his name—Kuppahalli, and half a click from where we stayed, the Mysore Palace.…
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The Elephants’ Thunder
Every night I hear the drums. Out there, on the fairgrounds in the dark, the big drums throb and the high snares crackle. Two weeks from now Ganesh will march the streets, Gunpatti’s thunderous procession to the sea shaking the city’s windows and doors. Hordes will carry idols of the elephant deity in waves across…
Ben East Books 