The Expat Blog

Should India have its own 9/11 memorial?

Posted by Melissa A. Bell at 
Eight years ago, 34 Indians were murdered at the World Trade Center in New York. It’s not a huge number. Many more died in Bhopal, in Mumbai, in Ayodhya. But after the UK and the US, India lost the most citizens out of any other country in the world on that bright blue morning. And now, according to an article in the New York Times, the Port Authority...

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On screen India: enough with the stereotypes already?

Posted by Ayeshea Perera at 
The television show ' Paul Merton in India ' is quite old, but being a sporadic television viewer at best; I saw it just yesterday on Fox History channel. That days episode was on Delhi, so I suppressed my natural urge to switch channels and decided to watch instead. The first shot was of Paul Merton travelling through the narrow, crowded streets...

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Why I live in India.

Posted by Melissa A. Bell at 
Okay, it took me slightly longer than a day, Jose, my apologies. (For those not intimately engaged in our comment conversation, Jose, a reader on this blog, asked why I came to India. Something tells me he would prefer to ask why the heck haven’t I left yet—and he’d be happy to show me the door—but, as is his way, he was very polite.) I think about...

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Who is this Shahrukh Khan character anyway?

Posted by Melissa A. Bell at 
Kidding, kidding, kidding. Let's just get this out of the way: Yes, an officer likely religiously profiled the guy. Yes, it sucks that we religiously profile and racially profile people in the US. There are small-minded people in positions of authority and that authority can be abused. But that's what this incident says about the US. What does...

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Why I can’t find a good yoga class in India to save my life.

Posted by Melissa A. Bell at 
On a previous blog post (sorry, I can’t hyperlink to it in here, it’s called “The Great Indian Novel”), readers recommended a slew of books I should read about India. Last month, I finally got to Gita Mehta’s Karma Cola, one of Aditya’s recommendations. It’s a fantastic glimpse at the spiritual expats of the 70s through the eyes of a world-weary Delhiite...

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Welcome (?) to Incredible India

Posted by Ayeshea Perera at 
(A traveler’s tale and a plea for helpfulness at airports) I found myself in a rather unusual predicament on my return to India from a trip to Malaysia a few days ago. I realized I was roughly 30 rupees short of money for a prepaid taxi. I tried both the ATM Machines at the airport and for some reason, both machines were unable to process my request...

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Can the Indian-American immigrant come home?

Posted by Melissa A. Bell at 
A couple posts back, Pankaj, a reader on here, commented that people in the West often have certain beliefs about India and aren’t really interested in finding out the truth about the place. For some reason, it made me think of my friend Prashant. Not because my friend is uninterested in India--it's quite the opposite with him. Born to Indian parents...

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Hooray for Gays! Goodbye, Section 377.

Posted by Melissa A. Bell at 
After an arduous cross country road trip (actually a really incredible re-introduction to the US; Iowa is actually beautiful), I made it home to San Diego, CA. When I left for college, I wasn't terribly sad to shake the sand from my shoes of this foggy, sleepy town. But I've always been proud of where I came from. California is notorious for...

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This expat is no longer an expat.

Posted by Melissa A. Bell at 
Sigh. So, I'm sorry to my two readers, (hi, mom!) that I've been so silent of late, but I've had a bit of a hectic month behind me, and a couple more to go. For family reasons, I've had to come back to the states for the next two months. My bosses at Mint have kindly given me leave (or they're just finally heaving a sigh of relief...

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The International Community and Sri Lanka

Posted by Ayeshea Perera at 
Disclaimer: the author knows that she is susceptible to being accused of doing too many Sri Lanka posts. There has been a strong international outcry against the Sri Lankan government for its handling of the humanitarian crisis in the Vanni . The UNHCR recently adopted a draft resolution calling for an investigation into possible war crimes and UK Prime...

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I'm more creative than you are.

Posted by Melissa A. Bell at 
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but, I'm really creative. Well at least, statistically speaking, I'm like a whole 28 percent more creative than most people. (Actually don't believe that--I think I failed out of my statistics class.) The point is, scientists now say that living abroad makes people more creative. According to The Economist...

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What does Prabhakaran's death mean for Sri Lanka?

Posted by Ayeshea Perera at 
Prabhakaran is dead, the LTTE are finished and the war is over. A war that has been such a big part of my life, that its difficult for me to envision Colombo without its hundreds of checkpoints, the necessity of carrying identification papers at all times and the half expectation that either me or someone I know will get blown up in some random bomb...

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Who'd have thought? Elections bring out the sap in me.

Posted by Melissa A. Bell at 
November 4, 2008, I had just flown back to Delhi from New York and came straight to my office. With five editors, I watched Barack Obama accept the US nomination for presidency. Wow. Even typing that I get tears in my eyes. You should have seen me that morning. As one editor put it, “Melissa could solve the water crisis.” Another said that our budget...

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Expats say the darndest things

Posted by Melissa A. Bell at 
This may come as a surprise to people, but I don’t actually like to go out, especially to cocktail parties where I don’t know many people. I always wind up talking to the one person at the entire party who either wants to tell me the entire saga of his blighted love affair that ended ten years ago or the girl who really thinks the guy likes her—right...

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Cheers for IPL deals!

Posted by Ayeshea Perera at 
Pubs in Delhi are good places to be these days. Now that the IPL has been moved to South Africa (as a friend so aptly put it) "Only a really suicidal pub won't have some IPL deal going on". So what this means apart from the fact that you can watch the matches on big screen, is that you get some great offers on food and beer (yay!) and...

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