Alternative Lifestyles

I've always believed that although we may speak different languages and worship different gods, people all over the world can come together through their lifestyles. Case in point, The Times of India, the world's largest-circulation English newspaper, has a lifestyle section that's every bit as pea-brained as your local paper's.

It carries all the latest buzz about Bollywood of course, but also articles about Kollywood and Tollywood. If Bollywood is where the musicals come from, is Tollywood where they make the Indian detective stories and Westerns? Just a thought. A headline asks us to wonder, "Modelling: Ticket to Bollywood?" Oh, if only.

An entire sub-section is devoted to "Parties", with sub-sub sections for Bangalore and Hyderabad parties. You would think a country of over 1 billion people might find parties commonplace, but evidently when a party happens, they send the reporters.

Since this is monsoon season, we get some monsoon fashion advice -- 'Suchismita Dasgupta, a prominent fashion designer says, “Gone are the days when people used to look clumsy during monsoon."' -- and monsoon personal advice. "Twenty-four-year-old Divya V. hates the monsoon." Chin up, Divya, V.! It'll be, um, not-monsoon season pretty soon.

Moving on, we see that the yoga craze has spread to India, that Indians can't resist a married man, and that cricket gets its own section, to distinguish it from other (lesser) sports.

And lest you forget this is India, there's the poverty. Due to "the steep rise in the level of inflation," The Times is now offering recipes for vegetable peels. Tired of wasting those watermelon rinds? Just "heat a little white oil in a pan and pop a little jeera into it. Add the chopped peel. Add salt to taste, a little haldi powder, [and] some dhania powder." I'm told you can add amchur powder if you want, but personally, I just don't know.