Mumbai

Private School? Play Here! Public School? Wait Over There!    read more »

Charges of racism are flying over the State Liquor Authority's decision to suspend for two years the liquor license for the Chelsea building that houses Club Mumbai. It's racked up dozens of violations in the last four years for underage drinking, excessive noise and blocked exits, the New York Post reports.

But owner Brahm Prasad thinks the SLA's cracking down on the club mostly because of its African-American clientele:

"We got shut down because of racism, that's the bottom line," said Prasad, who said he's considering a civil suit against the city and has met with the Rev. Al Sharpton recently to discuss further action.

- Tom Acitelli

The frontpage, 4th column feature (I think it's called an A-head) in yesterday's WSJ, unfortunately firewalled, was a sweet piece of reporting by Eric Bellman about daytraders playing the Indian stockmarket at internet cafes in Mumbai. They've left their jobs as sailors and real estate agents to try and eke out a profit of $10 a day to provide for their families. "I should have sold," one laments. "Now I'm waiting for Bernanke to shut his mouth."

I have to catch myself from loving this story too much. Those Indians are so fuzzy and smart and cute! And they are just like us! Daytrading and worshiping Bill Gates...

The Indians are incredibly comforting to us because they affirm capitalism, and our brand of capitalism, secular, meritocratic, all-out—from a foreign and brownskinned perspective. So much of the rest of the world is lagging on the capitalist model, not figuring it out like the Russians or choking the atmosphere with poison like the Chinese or afraid of it like the Muslims. The Indians have our modern religion and it seems to work for them.

You'd never guess this used to be a Jewish delicatessen serving pastrami sandwiches, lox and bagels.  read more »

I spotted the wooden zebras on a high shelf in an antiques warehouse in Bombay last year and dragged  read more »

The Ground Beneath Her Feet , by Salman Rushdie.  read more »

On Jan.  read more »