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Kubera. Northern India. 10th century. Sandstone. (Source: Wikipedia (Kubera))
Kubera, Gandharva, Shakuntala, Garuda and .. South Korea. What gives?
Miniature painting of Lord Iqbal Singh in a kilt (Source: Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail)
Certain Sikhs have recently taken to adopting Scottish high fashion.
Marilyn Monroe in the trailer for the film The Prince and the Showgirl (Source: Wikipedia)
Edgar Allan Poe, Marilyn Monroe, Sigmund Freud, and a Babaji are inexplicably linked. How?
Ian Fleming's original sketch impression of James Bond. (Source: Wikipedia)
How did V.S. Naipaul inadvertently help the James Bond franchise become what it is today?
Easter Island Moai (Source: HowStuffWorks (Easter Island Statues))
Often cited as the remotest place on Earth, how is Easter Island linked to India?
Portrait of Alexander the Great. Marble, Hellenistic artwork, 2nd-1st century BC. Said to be from Alexandria, Egypt. (Source: Wikipedia)
Alexander the Great met a group of "gymnosophists" on the banks of the Indus. Who were they?

Quotable quotes

Akbar never denied his mother anything but this …

Ecbar Shaugh [Emperor Akbar] … never denyed [his mother] any thing but this, that shee demanded of him, that our Bible might be hanged about an asses necke and beaten about the towne of Agra, for that the Portugals … tyed [the Quran] about the necke of a dogge and beat the same dogge about the towne of Ormuz. But hee denyed her request, saying that, if it were ill in the Portugals to doe so to the Alcoran, being it became not a King to requite ill with ill, for that the contempt of any religion was the contempt of God.

Hala's Holi

Young girl,
On this day of Holī
—Your breasts dusted with flour,
Your eyes red from too much liquor,
A lotus stuck in your hair
And mango shoots behind your ears—
You are a credit to our village.

Did you know?

Beer and the Butcher

Reginald Dyer, the Butcher of Amritsar, of Jallianwala Bagh infamy, was the youngest son of one Edward Dyer, the man often credited with establishing India's first successful brewery at Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh. It would eventually become Mohan Meakin Breweries.

Bahadur and Ella

The person credited with discovering legendary jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald was a Bardu Ali, his name a corruption of Bahad(o)ur Ali. He was the son of a peddler from Bengal who had settled in New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century.

Teapoy

A tea-poy has very little to do with tea. It was originally the name for an Indian three-footed, i.e., a tī-pāī table which could be used for many things including serving tea.