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Sunday, November 22, 2009

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Venkatesan Vembu
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Venkatesan 'Venky' Vembu attained his first Fifteen Minutes of Fame in 1984, on the threshold of his career, when paparazzi pictures of him with Maneka Gandhi were splashed in the world media under the mischievous tag 'International Affairs'. But that's a story he's saving up for his memoirs...

Over 20-plus years, Venky worked in The Indian Express, Frontline newsmagazine, and Outlook Money, before joining DNA ahead of its launch. Additionally, he has been published, at various times, in, among other publications, The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Outlook, and Outlook Traveller.

From his current station in Hong Kong, where he is frequently (and quite inexplicably) mistaken for the bumbling movie character Mr Bean, Venky endeavours to convey through his despatches the dramatic changes that are sweeping across the East Asian region and the glacial but steady Asia-ward shift in the geopolitical and economic centre of gravity.

When he is not scrambling to meet manic deadlines for his contributions across the different sections of DNA, Venky overdoses on Zhang Yimou movies - and struggles valiantly with the tonal complexities of the Chinese language.

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Of left hooks and pawns

Sports enthusiasts, who are an impressionable lot, have embraced with breathless excitement a ‘new’ hybrid sport called ‘chessboxing’.
July 8, 2008

Indians join in fight against race bias

On July 1, the anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China, the erstwhile British colony came alive with the most boisterous demonstration of political assertiveness.
July 4, 2008

Why Indian nerds can’t rap

This year’s National Spelling Bee in the US, that annual celebration of linguistic ratta-maar pointlessness, has, predictably, thrown up an Indian-American winner.
June 24, 2008

‘Double-digit inflation is here to stay and will get higher’

But there’s no immediate risk to GDP growth,HSBC economist Robert Prior-Wandesforde tells DNA Money
June 21, 2008

If it’s luxury, it must be India

Franck Muller was in Hong Kong last week to meet the swarms of people in this territory who think nothing of forking out obscene amounts of money to buy his lifestyle accessories.
June 20, 2008

Mumbai on its mind

Mercifully, those unrealistic dreams have since been tempered by the cold realisation that before it aspires to become a Shanghai, Mumbai has, first, to become a better Mumbai.
June 16, 2008

How to deal with China

The stiff-upper-lip protocol of international diplomacy requires negotiators to, in the idiom of a Malayalam saying, Ask for a match-stick to light your bidi even when your beard is on fire.
June 10, 2008

The Sonia Gandhi syndrome

Hong Kong is in the grip of a videshi-swadeshi debate of the sort that resonated in Indian politics a few years ago when the BJP made much of Sonia Gandhi’s “ineligibility” for public office owing to her “foreign” origins.
June 6, 2008

The confessions of a teenage stalker

I suppose if you're above a certain age, you often have your moments when you shake your head, sigh wistfully and tell yourself, "The world isn't what it used to be".
May 31, 2008

Jet polishes Brand India image

Many Indian and Chinese businessmen in Hong Kong who travel frequently to India have at least one horror story to narrate about their experience of travelling on Air-India.
May 30, 2008

Dealing with a home-grown bias

Walking gingerly along the pavement one rainy day in Delhi some years ago, I had my first face-to-face encounter with a racist bully.
May 27, 2008

Why we’re all Sichuanese today

Every once in a while, along comes a tragedy of monumental proportions that shakes humanity’s soul to the core of its being.
May 21, 2008

Something fishy in the heart of Mumbai

Seminars on the theme of ‘China and India’ may appear to some to be overdone, but they continue to be top-draw billings, reflecting the huge curiosity in each country.
May 14, 2008
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