By Sushmita Bose
I’ve always been in a bit of a quandary when it comes to gifting. I know, it’s far easier selecting a gift for a woman — jewellery, perfume, a nice scarf/clutch, household items (for those who are interiors-driven), etc — but men pose a big problem… I once had to ask a male friend his shirt size, and he obviously cottoned on: “Oh, you’re getting me a shirt/T-shirt, is it? How unoriginal!” Continue reading What do you get two pets for their birthdays in one week?
By Allan Jacob
Thank God, they weren’t so reckless as to squander their hard-earned money. They only hid it in some distant paradise. The reaction from an acquaintance two years ago when the Panama Papers revealed the names of the rich, famous and powerful who parked their cash in offshore havens haunts me to this day. How prescient he was, I thought when the Paradise Papers came out in 2017 with more names. Now with diamantaire Nirav Modi’s elevation as a sparkling charlatan after a massive hit on an Indian bank, I thought I’d revel in the afterglow with a piece on corruption. Continue reading It’s simple to get away with corruption. Here’s how
By Bikram Vohra
Someone who smiles too much may well be making faces behind your back. Have you ever had that uncomfortable feeling that this colleague, partner, staffer, is just too nice, too flattering — oily little sod — but it is still a nice sensation to be given such homage and even if he is a bit transparent in his adulation, what the heck, give him a raise.
Continue reading Sycophants and soda water… with some cynical rocks in it
By Nivriti Butalia
Madonna and Oprah love these watches. Back in the day, Oprah listed one of these Philip Stein watches in her ‘favourite things’ section of the show — YouTube the video for an entertaining replay of a hysterical studio audience screeching with delight at being gifted a free diamond-encrusted watch each.
Continue reading No promises, but you might sleep better wearing this
By Keith Pereña
I was going about my regular weekend ritual of gaming and playing the guitar when my phone lit up with a notification. On any other day, I would ignore the phone and carry on but I could read parts of it from the corner of my eye — it was from one of my best friends from high school.
Continue reading How to mourn for someone you went to school with
By Alvin R. Cabral
The realm beyond Earth’s atmosphere has always fascinated me. As a matter of fact, one of my earliest childhood ambitions was to someday become an astronomer. Heck, I was so full of myself back then when I preached stuff like asteroids, comets, galaxies, black holes, quasars and, most importantly, the Mercury-Venus-Earth-Mars-Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus-Neptune-Pluto order that makes up our Solar System to my cousins, classmates and even my elders. Genius was I, back then.
Continue reading Is global warming annoying you? Wait until 2050 when the sun cools down
By Allan Jacob
When a thinking actor fumbles with his opening lines in politics, there’s an uneasy feeling that something is amiss and you wonder if it’s going to plan. Perhaps the role is not tailor-made for him. Did he simply embed his character into a comical storyline — if there is one? One thing is certain though: he’s unwilling to share screen space with other players in this make-believe pursuit of mass happiness and ‘service to society’. His trite opening lines at an academic seminar at Harvard (no less) gave me an indication where this is leading. In his cultured, cultivated tone he said he’d given up his distinguished movie career to build model villages in his home state in India. Nice try, Weinstein, er Einstein.
