I remember the thrill a windy day last March, when I first set eyes on what was then the world’s most controversial skyscraper being built. It still draws China’s biggest buzz about a building. Read more

“…and he had once famously dined with a warlord in Yantai while the blood of his recently executed enemies dripped from the floor above into his noodles and shredded beef’’ _ Through the Looking Glass: China’s Foreign Journalists from Opium Wars to Mao, by Paul French. Read more

At this time last year I was on a flight from Mumbai where I had spent six years, to Beijing where I had spent six days on a previous recce trip.

I have now lived in China for one year, a year that seemed very long on my own in 21M. I like to think that the M in my apartment number stands for Mumbai and suburban Malad where I used to live. My only friend in this 42-storey apartment is a young professional migrant from Mumbai. Read more

Economic Crisis Menu, said the list of choices for one main course plus drink for 58 yuan (Rs 406) in a cafe in Beijing’s best-known art district housed in former military factories called Dashanzi.

My afternoon browsing Indian art at an Italian gallery here had ended within minutes. The exhibit titled My Little India had turned out to be truly little. It showed two to three works each by four artists — Chitra Ganesh, Reena Kallat, Yamini Nayar and Tejal Shah in one big yellow-walled room of the Marella Gallery. Read more

In November, I visited China’s New York and Mumbai’s envy.

And I’m relieved I don’t live in it, despite the six years I spent, until last March, in the Mumbai of Shanghai dreams. Read more