Really? I’ll definitely have to see that. She always struck me as the RealDoll of India- all looks and nothing else, including talent of any sort.

The main asset of the movie was Rajnikanth even if he curtailed his famous mannerisms for the story. I actually thought his scientist character was a selfish jerk and had a hard time rooting for that character.I never lked Aishwarya Rai as an actress, but didn’t realize she could shake her ass so well in those song sequences. She always seemed too restrained in movies I have seen her in.

“Young journalists [should] go work in India,” she said. “There are so many great newspapers in India. I go quite a lot, actually. It has a very vibrant newspaper and magazine culture. There’s a lot of energy in Delhi, a lot of newsmagazines. It’s a very literary culture, it’s great.”–Tina Brown

I believe her about the culture. It is kind of sad to think that working at one of these great publications might carry a bit of a taint if stories like this happen a lot (do they?).

I have lived in the US for quite a while as well, not sure if that makes me Indian American to the desi crowd. But I follow certain stories dilligently, and your choice of stories may be different from mine, thats all.

CWG=Commonwealth Games. The games were held in Delhi a couple of weeks back, with about 70(?) countries participating. There was corruption in the organization of games, and there is an ongoing enquiry. But more than the corruption, what bothers me is the media. Rather than playing a rational watchdog, they blew things up so out of proportion that a majority of the people were surprised the games even happened, and went largely without hitches. The point is, it stopped being a fair enquiry a long time ago, rather it has degenerated into a gleeful witch hunt.

For example, several “facts” used to pillory the organizers turned out to be gross misprepresentations: allegations of bribery during the bidding process, which turned out to be regular incentives every bid had to contain; allegations that they deliberately overpaid for maintainence of the games nerve center, when all that happened was that the rent increased over a period of 5 years.

The Ayodhya verdict was handed out by the High Court, partitioning the Babri Masjid and adjoining areas equally among the three litigants. What is not clear at all from the reporting is whether the masjid land is itself partitioned—from what I gather, the answer is no—though, to me, the point is moot. But there is so much nudge nudge, wink wink, selective reporting from all sides that, depending on the newspaper you read, you would think the court insidiously sold out either muslims or hindus.

It bothers me that hysteria trumps reasoning to this extent. And if don’t see a reasoned process, I am very reluctant to give any credence to what anyone says. While I understand journalism is a cynical profession in every part of the world, in India, it falls into deeper chasms than pretty much every other place I know—including the India of 15 years back.

And spells his last name as Purie? How pretentious!

This is India, where copyright is the right to copy. We copy a movie plot from hollywood, and then 20 years later we recopy it, to keep it fresh.

sab chalta hai. http://www.indiadailyphoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/google-gola.jpg?w=560

i get the references, but don’t really get what he is saying. CWG = commonwealth games.

btw, grady hendrix had a couple of brilliantly sarcastic responses, both to the initial non-apology – which was left as a comment on the blog that broke the story, and to the more formal non-apology from purie.

http://mumbaiboss.com/2010/10/14/aroon-purie-likes-slate-a-little-too-much/

http://www.slate.com/id/2271859/

purie is a big name in indian media. it remains to be soon whether purie will live this down in an age of blogs keeping this embarrassment alive, although i am not hopeful of anything happening.