Gaurav Rastogi is blogging his thoughts as he reads the Bhagvad Gita for the first time. He is 35, lives in the Bay Area, curiously religious but not a Sanskrit scholar. His blogs on the first few chapters of the Gita can be found in our archives under the category "Blogging the Gita".

As I read and blog the Gita, I notice that my approach to life is improving! As you will notice I haven't become a complete Karma Yogi or an Ascetic yet. Like all year-end reviews, let me rate my favorite verses/advice in ascending order of ease of use. More »

Shobha Reddy is a fitness guru and personal trainer based in the Bay Area. She will answer reader queries on fitness and nutrition. Questions may be sent to her via our feedback form.

1. What are the diet challenges for a vegetarian who wants to train for a marathon?
For any person training for a marathon, he or she needs to consume a lot of complex carbohydrates which will give him a lot of energy for endurance events, such as marathons. Complex carbohydrates include whole wheat bread and brown rice, NOT white rice and white bread, etc. Moderate to high protein consumption is also needed.  This is one of the challenges for vegetarians.  Good vegetarian protein sources are nuts, lentils, tofu, and cheese.  There is nothing wrong with adding a little protein powder to a meal as well.  Morning fruit smoothie shakes with protein powder is a great addition.
 
The key is not to skip balanced meals when training for a marathon.
 
2. After age 40 what are the diet no-nos and fitness yes-yesses for a woman?

Women need to cut back their sugar intake, including sweets, simple carbs such as white bread/rice, and soda, and increase their iron intake such as broccoli and green leafy vegetables.  Fitness should be increased to at least six times a week. Weight training is a must to prevent osteoporosis, especially after age 40.

Bollywood has been indulging a bout of navel-gazing this last year, offering up movies that have been tributes, analyses and spoofs of itself. If Om Shanti Om treated the 70’s as a glorious, inventive period in Indian mainstream cinema, KKC takes a peek into the 50’s, a time when heroines led perhaps more emancipated and free-thinking lives than their contemporaries today, and moviemakers, cast and crew, were literate and cultured. More »

Salil Chaturvedi takes a humorous look at the American obsession with spreading democracy around the world.

Americans had stopped going to heaven. It wasn’t the air-conditioning. That was the most obvious thing that came to mind, but a quick discussion between St. Peter and the angels threw that possibility out of the window.

“But we don’t need any air conditioning here in heaven,” said an angel fluttering his wings. “The physical body might need it but an astral body lives in a constant state of comfort and bliss, at least when it’s in heaven.”

“Then why aren’t the Americans coming to heaven anymore?” asked a second angel, playing with a cloudlet.

“That’s got me stumped,” said the first angel.

“Me too…do you think they are going to hell?” suggested a third angel.

“I checked with Satan,” said St. Peter. “He said that things were normal and there was no dramatic increase in American souls in hell. He was interested in what was going on, though. I guess he figures that if he could find these lost souls he could get them in to hell somehow.”

But don’t these American souls turn up at the Pearly Gates? Perhaps we should check with St. Michael if there’s a problem during the soul’s journey to heaven” the second angel asked.

“I checked with the archangel, but the transportation is progressing normally. I just don’t know where they are disappearing to, or why.”

“Could it be that the American souls can see souls of people from communist countries here? Or maybe they can see souls of some Iraqi children and innocent bystanders. Do you think we should build a barricade so new souls can’t look into heaven?” asked the first angel.

“That’s as silly as the air-conditioning idea. The astral body perceives everything, it does not need to ‘look.’ And what a crazy idea… partition heaven! I say we keep things as they are and not change any thing. Next, you’ll say let’s introduce sin credits,” said the second angel, as it absent-mindedly shaped a cloud into the Statue of Liberty.

“Wait! There is one thing. During the interview at the Pearly Gates they all ask one strange question. Maybe that holds the key to this riddle. Come to think of it, I’m certain it does,” said St. Peter.

“Well, what is it?” asked angel two, making a fish out of a cloud.

“They ask if they have voting rights.”

“And what do you say?” asked the first angel.

“What do you think? The obvious thing, that there’s no voting in heaven. They do look very disappointed with that,” said St. Peter.

“Don’t you get it?” said the second angel. “No voting means no democracy. And what are Americans dying and killing for? Why are decent, god-fearing Americans supporting military action in places far away from their homes? For democracy! And if they die and find out that there’s no democracy in heaven…”

“You could be right,” said St. Peter.

“So what do we do now?” asked the third angel. “Should we introduce democracy in heaven?”

“That’s up to Our Father,” said St. Peter. “I don’t think he’ll like the idea too much… it’s not going to be viable to do that. Imagine running the Universe by majority consensus.”

“What about the lost American souls then?” asked the first angel.

“I guess we’ll have to wait for them to get over their democracy trip,” said St. Peter. “Maybe they’ll remember that it’s ‘Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven,’ and not the other way around.”

By Vidya Pradhan

It all began when, sick of the materialism and unashamed greed of the holiday season,I suggested to my 11 year old that he give, instead of receive, this Christmas. He was surprisingly receptive. Having planned a holiday trip to India, I suggested to family back there that maybe we could donate some clothes or blankets to needy children in India 'in his name' as they say.
As usually happens with long distance communications, somehow this got translated into a semi-formal visit to one of the local orphanages. I had a horrible vision of us behaving like urban socialites as they make their much publicized photo-op forays to slum it out while the orphans are dressed and combed and made to sing and dance for the visitors. Unhappily, that is exactly what happened. However.. More »

Observe a group of Asian immigrants huddled around the Super Bowl game and chances are at least 50 percent of them are waiting for ads that premiere on television that day. Well this year there may be a uniquely desi reason to watch the half time show as well, a show that has been made memorable in the past by wardrobe malfunctions( Janet Jackson) and resurrections ( Rolling Stones, literally). More »

By Rohini Mohan 

And now for the big question, is America heading for a recession? A rising job market crunch, galloping oil prices and the real estate market in doldrums marks the economy today. More »

By Rohini Mohan 

Almost 50 million Americans have no health coverage, 9 million of whom are children. Today on an average, an American spends $7000/ year on healthcare, but premiums, deductibles and co-payments are getting higher and higher, forcing people to put off getting medical aid. And if you’re over 65 without a job, it’s a scary thought to be living in America from the health care point of view. In Sicko, Micheal Moore compares America’s profit oriented health care system with that in Canada and England. He calls the system here, “Soul less” More »

By Rohini Mohan 

War or peace? Bush certainly did not make it clearer with his statement “I just want you to know that when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace”.
Here’s what the candidates have to say about the war in Iraq…

More »

We continue our series on where the presidential candidates stand on various issues. This week we take on the candidates’ agenda on the environment.

After the early threat of Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore’s candidacy, Democratic presidential hopefuls quickly trotted out comprehensive approaches to the looming climate crisis. Even Republican candidates have had to soften their anti environment stances after an international body of scientists concluded that global warming was one of the major threats to global peace and stability. Here are the front-runners’ agendas. More »