Dispatches from Kolkata

Monsoon Wedding by Mira Nair was an unlikely hit in 2001.

This mother’s Day I was thinking about a very particular mother. Not mine but a woman named Leila Seth.

Air India’s reputation is of a sort of futzy dowager, very uncool. Even its mascot a Maharajah in a red coat and turban with a pointy mustache seems very quaint, harking back to an old colonial India.

There’s a new political force center stage in India these days. The cow.

There have been other mob attacks in India before three Nigerians were beaten in a mall in Delhi on March 27. Each time the government promises stringent action.

Used as Indian Americans are to being heralded as the model minority, their feathers might be ruffled by the stories of harassment coming out of the US

I was in the holy city of Varanasi and I saw what CNN showed the world on the new show Believer with Reza Aslan. I saw the Ganga, the holy river of the Hindus polluted.

Perhaps an unwelcoming America is not such a bad thing for the rest of the world.

When I landed in the US I had one advantage over many other immigrants from different parts of the world. I spoke English. Other Indians are less lucky.

When I was a little boy I once lost my parents in a busy market in Kolkata. I was probably lost for all of 15 minutes.