The recent terror attacks in Mumbai had me reaching for my Indian photo album, which I hadn’t opened up for some time. See, I was sure I’d taken a picture similar to that chilling photo of the deserted, bloodstained floor inside Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, which flashed around the world early on in the siege. Turns out I had, kind of — albeit a particularly shit one.

But that’s not really the point of this post. While flicking through the pictures, I was reminded all over again what a weird and wonderful country India is — which was a welcome distraction amid the tales and images of carnage, and the fucking idiots who wasted no time in exploiting the tragedy to score cheap political points.

Anyway, this photo in particular made me laugh. It’s taken not far from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, and shows a young E Rogenous posing for a portrait while enduring the kind of hilariously shameless curiosity visitors to India attract at every turn:

I imagine a few conversations in offices around Mumbai’s financial district later that afternoon sounded something like this:

PRABHU:  What’d you get up to on your lunch break, Sanjay?

SANJAY:  Watched some white chick having her portrait drawn.

PRABHU:  …

SANJAY:  …

PRABHU:  … sweet.

Embarrassment aside, though, the portrait itself was worth every rupee.

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a new six-week cricket competition scheduled for April. Not sure of the details but there’s eight teams, all based in Indian cities but containing a mix of foreign and local players. Each team is owned by a corporation or consortium which has purchased a franchise; the eight franchises total in excess of $US720 million. A ten-year deal to broadcast the IPL has cost two media outlet an astonishing $US1.026 billion. Players are ’auctioned’ and purchased by the team franchises for extraordinary amounts, e.g. Mahendra Singh Dhoni $US1.5 million, Andrew Symonds, $US1.35 million, Sachin Tendulkar $US1.12 million.

Meanwhile, the World Food Programme reports:

Nearly 50 percent of the world’s hungry live in India, a low-income, food-deficit country. Around 35 percent of India’s population – 350 million – are considered food-insecure, consuming less than 80 percent of minimum energy requirements. Nutritional and health indicators are extremely low. Nearly nine out of 10 pregnant women aged between 15 and 49 years suffer from malnutrition and anaemia. Anaemia in pregnant women causes 20 percent of infant mortality. More than half of the children under five are moderately or severely malnourished, or suffer from stunting. 

At least all those anaemic, stunted and malnourished Indians will be able to watch some good cricket as they wither away.