It’s not every morning that you get to chat with a big Bollywood star even before you’ve had your morning cup of tea. So there I was, a bit bleary-eyed with the hot star Riteish Deshmukh on the phone, me in New York and he in Mumbai.

His big movie, the Ram Gopal Varma film ‘Rann’ is being released this month, and so Riteish was chatting up the international media. We talked about Rann, Amitabh Bachchan, and how Riteish developed his passion for cinema

Can Indian men throw off the tyranny of the necktie – and save energy too? A group of corporate workers in Mumbai are trying to pass a ‘No-Tie Day’ on May 3, 2010, their reasoning being that when men dress cooler, they will require less air-conditioning.

It’s not a lyric written for a Bollywood superstar to lip sync, nor is it a script for a million dollar movie, although noted poet Javed Akhtar has done plenty of both. His latest offering is straight from the heart – a love poem, a tribute to Mumbai’s children, the nameless, the homeless who live on the footpaths or survive in the slums, who have to work to get a day’s meal, to merely be able to exist.

Mahatma Gandhi, with his simple khadi loincloth and chappals, was the absolute antithesis of the avid consumer, yet the luxury brand Montblanc has chosen to honor his memory with a gold pen priced at $23,000.

Gunmen take over the city of Mumbai…fire engulfs the iconic 100 year old Taj… explosions at the Oberoi…people trapped in hotels forced to jump from the windows… a numbing stand- off with the terrorists… gunmen shoot indiscriminately in the crowded VT train station…dead bodies and grieving relatives.

All these terrible images flash in the mind’s eye because we’ve seen them so often. Just around this time last year, people across the world were glued to their television sets as the shock waves of the terrorist attacks hit the throbbing, frenetic metropolis of Mumbai

If you can’t go to Salman Khan, Salman Khan is coming to you – by video conferencing! A press conference hosted by Studio 18 with the stars of the new movie ‘London Dreams’ linked New York and Mumbai with face to face interaction with Salman and Asin, the stars of the new blockbuster from director Vipul Shah . Ajay Devgan, the third angle of the eternal triangle, couldn’t be there due to a missed flight.

How many Indias are there?

As many as the eyes that perceive it.

Each visitor sees a different India, bringing in their own experiences to the encounter. British photographer Clive Limpkin has a lively new book ‘India Exposed: the Sub-Continent A-Z’ which shows the results of his brush with India. His camera, however, returns time and again to what really moves him: the human connection. As he writes: “When friends ask for one good reason to visit, I offer them a billion – it’s the people.”

Lord Ganesha enters people’s lives in mysterious ways – sometimes it can even be just a chance encounter on a busy New York street! When photographer Shana Dressler passed a bookstore in Manhattan, she stopped in her tracks. In the window was a photography book which had on its cover a striking 20-foot high plaster of Paris statue of the elephant-headed God in the water, being splashed by a small army of men.