When I started planning to move to India in 2005, my friends said I was mad. “How can you work in a newspaper there? You don’t even speak Hindi,” one said. Read more

“India has an amazing ability to muddle up things. The goons in Bihar are running the show when the country is aspiring to be a world leader,” author Charles Allen once said in an interview to Hindustan Times. Read more

Ok, well for those of you that said I was being over optimistic with the dating of ‘my new Indian male interest,’  err, well you were right. It lasted three weeks, to the day.

Good thing, probably, as neither of us wasted the other’s time. Read more

I went to an interview this morning in a Mumbai hotel basement. A young Indian woman in a sari greeted me. I presumed she was one of the hotel staff, as at these high-end hotels, they often dress in saris, so I smiled and walked past. She shouted out my name and it turned out she was the PR woman waiting to meet me. Read more

It’s taken me a while to work this out, since the initial difficulties of properly dating Indian men have been so all-consuming, since moving here, but I have recently figured that if you get an Indian guy to take you seriously, they are pretty romantic. In fact, they beat English men hands down. Read more

Well, well, well. I did not have my anticipated reaction to Kites. At all. The way the film was promoted was such that I thought it was going to be mere ego boost to Hrithik Roshan – a chance for him to dance around, flex his muscles and kiss and dance with several foxy women. Read more

Each morning to reach the HT office I follow the same ritual. Firstly, I wait to cross the road, but am not allowed to stand still. No, I have jump around and avoid all the auto rickshaws and motorbikes, which are heading towards me. Read more

On Saturday night I stumbled across Jalabee Cartel playing at the Blue Frog – Mumbai’s pioneering live music venue. It was my best night out this year and the music of this Delhi–based band actually kept me entranced. Read more

I have just returned from a trip to the USA. It was amazing, and the country is near-perfect, in my opinion. So, although I share Mark Tully’s views on many aspects on India, I disagree with him on one point: Read more

There are two occasions when I have felt as though I have woken from the dead. The first was, aged 16, after I had an operation on my back, which had required a general anesthetic.

The second was last Friday when I came ‘to’ so to speak following a week off work ill following my trip to Jaipur. Read more