May 25, 2006
NEW DELHI, INDIA—Transported in plastic bags or clasped between hands, the birds arrive 30 to 40 a day. In the summer, they are often dehydrated; in the winter, they suffer from pneumonia. Whether wounded by a passing auto-rickshaw or a...
May 17, 2006
PAHAR GANJ, INDIA -- Shai Levi spent three years in the Israeli army, a mandatory requirement for all Israeli citizens. As soon as his service was over, he fled Israel and spent the last five months traveling in India, a...
May 15, 2006
Most of ORT’s children and teachers are no longer Jewish (Shira Schoenberg) MUMBAI, INDIA -- In many ways, Queenie Mendoza, 34, is a typical success story for ORT India’s Vocational Training and Computer Center in this coastal Indian city...
May 09, 2006
In two temples, 7000 miles apart, the youngest members of a dying faith are preparing for their formal initiation into Zoroastrianism. In both, the smells of sandalwood and smoke are the same, as are the prayers and the white skullcaps...
April 24, 2006
On top of the usual packing decisions tourists must make—this shirt or that one? a money pouch or a fanny pack? white tube socks or black tube socks?—our intrepid group of travelers from Columbia University had extra considerations to weigh...
April 22, 2006
MUMBAI, INDIA -- When Sameera Khan and Manesh Patel got married here in December of 1998, they decided to hold a civil ceremony rather than plan a wedding that would have them choose between their faiths. “There was a prayer...
April 22, 2006
NEW DELHI, INDIA -- The motorized rickshaws of this city have the engines of lawn mowers but are driven like rocket ships. It is a rainy day in March, and as buses, fuel trucks, grandmothers on motorcycles, and vintage cars...
April 22, 2006
AMRITSAR, INDIA -- Rama Ranjit Mehra watched cancer take her husband’s life and nearly take her own. Mehra turned to Ayurveda—a 5,000-year old Indian holistic system of healing—after Western science failed her husband. She beat her cancer and opened an...
April 22, 2006
MUMBAI, INDIA -- It’s a mid-March afternoon, and on sun-drenched playing fields and vacant lots all over the city, the crack of the bat can be heard along with the exuberant cries and good-natured taunts of the players. These are...
April 22, 2006
VARANASI, INDIA -- It was more than 50 years ago when Veer Bhadra Mishra’s dhoti kurta lost to the lathe. His teacher in the machine shop at Banaras Hindu University’s engineering school took one look at the flowing dhoti wrapped...
April 22, 2006
In Pakistan and India, rock star Salman Ahmad plays to crowds of hundreds of thousands, filling cricket stadiums with fans obsessed and screaming his name. The goateed, long-haired musician can’t walk the streets without being besieged for his autograph. His...
April 22, 2006
DELHI, INDIA --Sadness and rain filled the faces of about 200 Tibetans, their cheeks painted with the rising sun flag of the country they long to see again. Hands chained together and their voices raised aloud, school children, monks, elders,...
April 22, 2006
AMRITSAR, INDIA -- Here, in the spiritual center of the Sikh faith, one man stands out. He appears to be a walking contradiction: he is both taller and fairer, but also much more visibly "Sikh" than almost everyone around him,...
April 22, 2006
MUMBAI, INDIA -- On the bustling streets of Mumbai, journalist and activist Sameera Khan is an ordinary face in the cosmopolitan landscape and a contributing member of the city’s globally competitive workforce. Yet in the villages of India, she might...
April 22, 2006
When Hindu militants gather, it's equal parts yoga circle,
calisthenics, capture-the-flag and story-time.
