In the land which gave us the Tempurpedic mattress, some people now like to sleep on beds of nails. Here we are in the US, going from Plush to Pillowtop to Europillowtop, sinking deeper and deeper into our mattresses, trying on Memory foams and the ultimate Swedish Tempurpedic mattresses, and the Swedes seem to be…
Do you have a spouse or a roommate who snores? You are in luck. New research has found that if a certain sound plays while someone is learning something, and then that same sound plays while the person is sleeping, the person will remember better whatever he/ she was learning. The experiment itself sounds rather…
If you’ve ever wondered why there aren’t enough women in the Indian Armed Forces, now you know why. The Vice Chief Air Marshal P K Barbora of the Indian Air Force has just let the world know exactly how misogynistic he is. “In a few years time, we might see this change (women getting inducted…
The Arras theme has a custom header option, though that fact is not readily apparent. You cannot change to a custom header through the Theme options pages. You will need a very minimal amount of CSS editing. If you’ve never done any CSS editing before, you have come to the right place 🙂 After the…
“I will not be teaching you from tomorrow”, the teacher told the class. “I have been suspended.” The students exchanged looks. “What did you do to get suspended ?” asked one student. “I paid a Rs 50,000 bribe” said the teacher proudly. “I am getting a full 1 year suspension.” One student stood up at…
One wouldn’t expect this ill-written an article from the New York Times. In how many ways can you catalog the errors here? You can start by wondering whether someone who cannot even spell “Gandhi” correctly is qualified to write about India. But we are inured to mis-spellings of Gandhi, so I shall pass that by.…
The two headlines in today’s Wall Street Journal said it all. They brought out the history of women in the workforce in two short sentences. The first headline read “Recession Drives More Women to Work“. Below it, the second headline read “Returning Workers Face Big Pay Cuts“. And so the cycle continues. Women flood into…
Who buys these things? That’s the question I’ve asked myself whenever I’ve come across a display of candies at Indian stores in the US. By candies, I mean the uniquely desi ones – the Nutrine, Melody, Ravalgaon and similar confectionery.   Which children are these displays targeted at? Indian-American kids in the US have grown up…
Were they the world’s first cattle-rustlers and cowboys? The historian Wendy Doniger thinks they were. I am currently reading her “The Hindus : An Alternative History” by Wendy Doniger, Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago. It’s a fascinating 690 page tome that purports to cover the history of India from…
After days of searching for a magazine-style blog theme, I chose Arras.  I liked the featured post slider, the thumbnails and a quick search of the support forums showed up answers to most of the questions I had in my mind (like whether I could upload a custom header banner). I admit the featured slider…
The Imagined Universe 