India: Is The World Really Flat? It looks like. · Global Voices
Kamla Bhatt

In this roundup we celebrate an eclectic mix of blog posts on India. In this patchwork quilt of Indian blogs with a global flavor (is the world flat or what?) we have posts about  motorbikes, travel, traffic (Bangalore traffic to be precise), comics,and those three great Indian passion: festival, food and films or the three F's.
But, first if you have not read about this here it is: Infosys, India's top IT company finally got a blog with a suitable name Think Flat.  If the company”s  name sounds familiar that is because Tom Friedman's idea  for "The World is Flat" book originated in his conversations with Nandan Nilekani the head of Infosys.
Chris Kaufman's blog chronicles the Two-Wheeled Asian Invasion, the motorcycle, and in this post he talks about motorbikes (and scooters) in Bangalore. Another American Kevin from Bozeman, Montana is in Bangalore and in this post he describes his meeting with Bangalore's top bureaucrat. Read what he has to say about the meeting. Jayan Sree Rangan of Motorcycle Diaries has a post about their Himalayan trip, on what else but motorbikes. He does a great job of describing parts of Ladakh that very few will ever get to go. Have you heard of salted tea? Read the post to find out what else is interesting about this region of the world.
John Kirby has a post about Indian hospitality in Bombay and a well-known eating joint called Bademiya, which is located in a narrow lane in downtown Mumbai/Bombay. Checkout his post and read what it is like to be a guest in an Indian home and his thoughts about reading Indian newspapers. I privately like to think that you cannot beat the creative headlines that you see in Indian newspapers.
Ajay's post called Smile Specialist gives a run down of the new radio station in Bangalore and is all praise for one particular RJ,or Radio Jockey as radio show hosts are known in India. Vasu has an interesting article about Bangalore's traffic and pictures and some of his thoughts are similar to the stream of thoughts that pop in my mind when I am navigating Bangalore's traffic.
Virgin Comics launched its first comic in India titled Sadhu and Gautam Ghosh has a review of the comic. Comic-lovers might want to take a look at the review and see if they want to get their hands on this new comic.
Bollywood: Blogs devoted to films appear to be on a upward swing, and there appears to be a couple of new ones every week. MovieWatchers is a collab blog by VSAT and Bloomiboy and here is their review of Omkara, a Bollywood movie fashioned after the famous Bard's story: Othello. Here is another new blog called The Watussi by Ryan in California, and this one seems to be different in that he has video clips from that great repository YouTube. Go watch the first few that he has up on his site. T-Hype is a Bollywood fan located in Southern USA and the tag line for her blog is Belief, Blackness and Bollywood.  I have been reading this blog for a few months now, and she has a hilarious post with a YouTube clip titled Shake What Yo Mama Gave Ya! With a title like that how can you not click on that link and read the post for yourself?
Food blogs on India cuisine appear to be proliferating. When I checked this time last year there were a handful, but now there are so many all over the map that it is hard to keep track of them. Browsing through cooking blogs is a delightful experience and you never know what you will end up learning about food history, or dishes that are long forgotten. This is espcially true of Indian food blog when there is a festival to celebrate like Ganesh Chaturthi. Ganesh, Ganesha Ganapathi, Vinayak, Vinayaka, or Vinayagar (the word avatar did originate in India you know) is the elephant-headed god who brings you good luck. But, first lets us look at a modern  Ganesha, or a modern avatar of the god that is complete with headphones and computer mouse from Puja's blog post. We switch gears and pop over to neighboring Malaysia, where The Vadai Has Landed has a wonderful post about how Ganesh Chaturthi or Vinayagar Chathruthi. The visuals describe how the festival is celebrated in Malaysia that has a sizebale Indian community.  A Mad Tea Party has a really nice post on celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi with traditional Kashmiri offering to the god. She also has a bunch of other interesting recipes. Go check it out. Ashwini of Food For Thought has a nice post about Nevryo, a dish that her grandma used to make for Ganesh Chathurthi. This is an unusual recipe for a turnover from the Konkan region …you might want to try making them. Indian Food Rocks celebrates her first Ganesh Chaturthi in Louisville and has a step-by-step recipe for one of her favorite dishes: chavde, yet another traditional dish.  Spiced For Life celebrates Ganesh Chaturthi in the southern city of Atlanta, and has an easy to cook recipe for Kozhakatta or modaks, which  looks like a Japanese/Chinese dumpling (shumai), except they have a really nice sweet concoction as a filling.  See Cooking Medley's  home-made clay images of Ganesha made by a young Indian IT professional working in a small town USA.