Author Archive

Tharoor and the sacred cows of India

It is a truth universally acknowledged in India that a politician bereft of an issue to express his indignation over, would concoct one out of thin air. The moment such a concoction is introduced to the mango citizens (aam janta if you are wondering), the Indian news-media congregates to take a swig out of the barrel and proceeds to get high.

This familiar scene is playing out currently in India. In what has to be the most WTF evoking “It happens only in India” type occurrences that I have seen since moving back home, an innocuous exchange on Twitter (see image below) between a journalist and the most famous Indian recipient of the Colbert Bump in dominating newsprint and airwaves. It has politicians jostling among themselves to express their displeasure and the media, not one to be left behind, has been fanning the flames mentioning twits and twats every minute of the day for the past 24 hours and counting.

Chak De, Geethu…

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!It was the stuff fairy tales are made of. It was a fairy tale that every sports person playing a sport other than cricket in India dream about, a Cinderella story in which you were picked by foreign team to [...]

Indie rock band on the run in India? (UPDATED!)

This has been a week when the culture police has been out in full force in India. But this post is about an incident with a difference. For a change, it was the actual police that got into the act, this time to enforce public indecency laws that are more stringent in India than other [...]

TOW Anantha gets to ask A.R.Rahman a question

I have been off the blogging scene for the past few weeks for various personal reasons but this was one opportunity that I would not have missed for anything in this world – a chance to listen and interact with one of my musical idols, A. R. Rahman. Thanks to SAJA, I had a chance [...]

Über Showcase: Slumdog Millionaire

As someone who indulges in the nerdy pastime, my ears perk up when I hear about movies that revolve around quizzing. Such movies are few and far in between and the subject being such a niche, it is not surprising that the movies that get made are made by exemplary auteurs and writers who are [...]

Über Review: The Other End of the Line

For most level headed people, falling in love with a person that you have only spoken to over the phone is the stuff movie scripts are made of. Yet for others, it is what marriage is all about.
Priya Sethi is one of the latter. Even though she is engaged to marry a suitor chosen by [...]

Benny Lava stumps for McCain-Palin…

… or NOT!
It is a fact that Prabhu Deva is quite well known among the Youtube types as the Crazy Indian. While it is mostly due to the excellent subtitling from one particular Youtube user named “Buffalax” (leading to the now famous verb, Buffalaxed), the Crazy Indian meme actually precedes Buffalax by at least a [...]

Force India ties up with McLaren

Each week between March and November, a deep schism develops between some of the Über bloggers here as the Formula One circus travels round the world, a direct effect of the omnipresent cold war between the Intelligent World and the *cough* dumb *cough* Tifosi. But when it comes to Vijay Mallya and Team Force India, [...]

Arvind Adiga wins Man Booker

Chennai born Arvind Adiga has won the 2008 Man Booker prize and £50,000 prize for for his debut novel The White Tiger. Adiga, only the fourth first time novelist to win the prize, beat out established names such as Amitava Kumar and Sebastian Barry to win the prize for his novel that the Guardian describes [...]

Über Showcase: The Other End of The Line

Dial 1800-ROMANCE! Ever imagine picking up a phone and talking to a customer service person and ending up falling in love with them? What? That’s the stuff movie scripts of made up of? Oh well. You caught me. That is the plotline of “THE OTHER END OF THE LINE”, the latest comedy from Ashok [...]

Desi family found dead in San Fernando Valley

6 members of a desi family were found dead in a house in the San Fernando Valley area (hattip: Annu). At a news conference this afternoon, LAPD Deputy Chief Michel Moore characterized the incident as an apparent murder suicide (Link).
Karthik Rajaram, 45, used a handgun he purchased Sept. 16, Moore said. The weapon was found [...]

Loins of Punjab – The new lion

It is a truth universally acknowledged by people in the know that when you get a bunch of immigrant desis from the length and breath of India into a single room, chaos will reign. Some would say its organized chaos, but nevertheless. Manish Acharya’s debut feature, Loins of Punjab, turns this organized chaos into a [...]

Make way for the Loins…

A group of strangers converge on that desi-est of desi addas (and my home away from home), New Jersey. For three days, each of them work towards fulfilling their biggest aspiration – to win the title of Desi Idol and $25000 in cash. And as each of ecelectic mix of characters do their bit over [...]

The TOI screams “holy C.R.A.P.S!!”

Almost four months ago, Metro.co.uk reported that BMW had embarked on a crusade against canine urination. Describing the Canine Repellent Alloy Protection System, Dr. Hans Zoff stated the obvious.
‘Research shows that most BMW customers love to keep their cars clean – but dog fouling is a constant irritant.’
They even brought in an animal rights group [...]

A Lamborghini totaled – in INDIA!

15 minutes ago, this post popped up on my feed-reader and my eyes popped out of their sockets.
Some n00b has totaled his/her LP-640 (that’s the Lamborghini Murciélago Roadster, for you uninitiated n00bs) in Mumbai, of all places. *sigh* And the Team-BHP forums, has a few more unsubstantiated mentions of accidents involving high end cars (incl. [...]

Beijing bound Indian weight lifter fails drug test

Monica Devi, the only weightlifter chosen to represent India for the Beijing Olympics will not be in Beijing at all. Rather, she will be cooling her heels back home, after she failed a drug test (Hat Tip: Tony via email) and tested positive for “anabolic salt”.
Anonymous sources told PTI that the drug test was conducted [...]

Deepak Ahuja – Tesla Motors’ new CFO

If you are a enthusiast with a keen interest in automobiles and the business in general, like a couple of us Über bloggers are, you will certainly recognize Tesla Motors.
Tesla is an automobile startup that produces high performance automobiles with a difference – their cars are battery-electric hybrids. Their first first production vehicle (lucky customers [...]

Kuselan – Not your usual Thalaivar padam!

This is a first for UberDesi. In spite of Tamil being in a majority here at UD, we have resisted joining the quest for Tamil domination in the desi blogosphere. But, perhaps it is time to give in to our baser instincts. And what better way to hitch our cart to that bandwagon than to [...]

Wordscraper – Facebook’s Phoenix?

Rejoice all you word freaks on Facebook. Your favorite game is back, albeit in a new avatar.
In case you have been living under a rock or something, Rajat & Jayant Agarwalla pulled their popular Scrabble like app off Facebook last week (Pssst.. check out Scrabulous.com), after they were sued in US federal court in [...]

TOW SAJA Convention 2008

Last year was fun. So three weeks ago, when one saw Sree’s email wondering if someone would represent this Über blog at SAJA’s annual conference this year, disappointment arose. With work being the dampener during the week and cricket occupying much of the weekend these days, it was natural that the timing of the invite [...]