Om Malik

A Proposal I Never Thought I’d Consider. Sabaa Saleem, a student at UCLA, and a summer intern working as a copy editor on The Washington Post’s Foreign desk has a rather interesting argument favoring arranged marriage.

Like so many other young South Asians in America, I am the product of two cultures whose conflicting values pull at me with equal urgency. Never have I felt as torn between the two as I do about the question of marriage. I have been a Californian for all but the first year of my life, when my family lived in Britain, where I was born. I grew up in a small town in the Mojave Desert where conservative Republicans were as common as cacti. Inexplicably, I grew up liberal and a feminist.

Well everyone has heard about the California Recall and Arnold and 134 other gubernatorial candidates. What you don’t know is that one desi, Tony Srivastava, has thrown his hat in the ring as well.Tony runs a cruise travel agency in Covina, California. We have heard there is another N.R.I. in the race, but no details are forthcoming at this time

Continue reading...Continue reading Zakaria versus Zakaria

They were dead giveaways in their shiny white sneakers and dress slacks: hi-tech Indian workers in Silicon Valley on H1-B work visas. But more than Indian surgeons or entrepreneurs, they’ve put Indian Americans on the cultural map nationwide. As the Silicon Valley economy splutters, the ubiquitous H1-B engineers who came to the United States on temporary work visas have become a vanishing breed. Their impact on the cultural landscape, however, is here to stay. [Pacific News]

Continue reading...Continue reading Dalai Lama Tour 2003

Thomas John, one of the 2002’s ten best chef’s according to Food & Wine magazine, when asked what he would eat on a $10 budget: “”I’d probably go hungry.” John who worked at Le Meriden in New Delhi is now the head chef at Mantra, in Boston. Delhi chokra with such attitude.

The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating story about how Indian hair donated by devotees visiting the world famous Tirupati temple end up on the head of washed out celebrities like Lisa Marie Presley.

Although India is a small part of the global hair business, compared to the market leader China, so-called Indian temple hair fetches among the highest prices. Indian hair is generally finer than Chinese and more similar to much European and American hair, hairdressers say, making it the lock of choice for certain clients.

And it is proving to be a growth business – hairy business, but surely a growth business.

The temple says it took in $5.6 million through hair auctions — twice as much as the year before.

Who needs software when you can weave a magic spell like this.