Melissa A. Bell - Livemint.com
ABOUT RECENT POSTS
Member since 11-10-2008
Last visited 11-14-2009
Timezone 5.00 GMT
Total Posts 45
Post Rank 0
  • Saturday, September 12, 2009
    Posted at 12:10:00 PM
    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 of New York and New Jersey (the company that owns the remains of the WTC), are offering cities free of cost the twisted remnants of steel that once stood towering over Manhattan. About 1,800 pieces.
  • Wednesday, September 02, 2009
    Posted at 1:15:00 PM
    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 this question—why India?—a lot because I get asked it a lot. I’m home in California now and no one who lives here, in this seemingly perfect little beach town, really understands the appeal of living.
  • Tuesday, September 01, 2009
    Posted at 9:28:00 AM
    I love Ajay Bhatt. You don't know Ajay Bhatt? Well, you obviously aren't watching Intel's fantastic new ad campaign. The world's largest chip maker has decided to let us know what makes a rock star at Intel. For Bhatt it was co-inventing the USB. No, I don't love Ajay Bhatt for his wily mind. He's just damn cool. Watch: Now, for the bad news, that's not actually Ajay Bhatt. Ajay Bhatt didn't actually want to star in the commercial. He said he's too busy. Probably inventing other stuff I'll never even come.
  • Monday, August 31, 2009
    Posted at 8:01:00 AM
    My favorite columnist, bar none (sorry, Sidin!), is New York Times’ artist and writer Maira Kalman. Her column appears once a month and is a stream-of-consciousness ramble, illustrated with paintings, embroidery, photographs and her wonderful loopy handwriting. The column, named after Thomas Jefferson’s words in the declaration of independence ‘Pursuit of Happiness’, looks at American democracy through a just-off-center, loving glance. Each month feels like Kalman is taking me on a casual walk, gently chiding me to take more pride in my country.
  • Sunday, August 16, 2009
    Posted at 2:26:00 PM
    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 it say about India? Yes, it sucks being detained at the airport. I know. I have been. About seven or eight times. Not because I have a Muslim name, but for whatever reason the security guys have come.
  • Monday, July 27, 2009
    Posted at 3:54:00 AM
    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. While so many India books are written from the outside eye, this captured the funny, sad, chaotic, insipid moments of the great Hippie invasion of India from a local’s perspective. One thing in.
  • Thursday, July 09, 2009
    Posted at 3:40:00 AM
    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 in Illinois, Prashant is newlywed, even newly-er pregnant and he very much wants to move to India. This is nothing new to me since everyone these days wants to move there. But his reason for the.
  • Thursday, July 02, 2009
    Posted at 8:04:00 PM
    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 being the trendsetter for liberal ideas and inclusiveness for the rest of the country. And it was a liberal upbringing: a friend was the first adopted child by an openly gay man. Two kids came dressed.
  • Wednesday, June 24, 2009
    Posted at 7:39:00 PM
    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 that I'm out of their hair). I've been so busy getting things organized I hadn't really had much time to think about coming home. And now that I'm here, well, it's weird. The one.
  • Thursday, May 21, 2009
    Posted at 7:39:00 PM
    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 : "Anecdotal evidence has long held that creativity in artists and writers can be associated with living in foreign parts. Rudyard Kipling, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Paul Gauguin, Samuel.
  • Sunday, May 17, 2009
    Posted at 5:41:00 PM
    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 for the amount of Kleenex I used was going to put us in the poorhouse. Yes, I’m a sap, but crying over an election? It just didn’t feel right. I’m a diehard, long-term cynic. I exploited my secure,.
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