How do you make a woman look beautiful? Simple, Valentino Garavani would tell you: Dress her in red, add ruffles and a bowtie. “I always look for beauty, beauty,” the…
Tan Sri Devaki Krishnan, the first Malaysian woman elected to public service (an honour recognised in the Malaysia Book of Records), achieved eminence in Malaysian politics before the country was…
THE send-off was remarkable. Dressed in their full uniforms, the police officers reverently lifted the coffin onto their shoulders and carried it to the hearse nearby. Once the coffin was…
Macaques, the most brilliant of monkeys, have a habit of intimidating uninvited guests by beating the trees they are on. Chimpanzees also make crude drumming sounds to signal distress. Humans,…
The 15-year-old was about to put the buttered slice of bread into her mouth, when it was yanked from her hand. “This bread belongs to Pure Life. It’s not for…
The year was 1971. The Hindustani music world — the epicenter of what the world calls Bollywood — was enthralled by a powerful new voice that came not from a…
What’s in a Coke? If you asked the kids back in the 70s and 80s, they’ll tell you: “It’s the real thing” (one of the marvels of advertising, no doubt).…
Shinzo Abe had as many falls as triumphs in life. One thing was certain though: he would always pick himself up and run again. He was never afraid of trying…
During the 1990s, Malaysia’s longest-serving premier Mahathir Mohamad — an authoritarian loved, despised and feared almost in equal measure by his people — was invited to an evening of comedy…
She was widely regarded as “The Voice” of India, and by some as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”. For decades, Lata Mangeshkar, the "nightingale of Bollywood" was India’s most…
It was still early in the school day, probably a couple of hours after the opening bell. In the corridors of Form Four (Americans would call it Grade 10) of…
“You do good, good will come to you. I follow this mantra,” Nagalingam Nagaraju says in an inspiring message broadcast on Malaysia's 64th Independence Day. While he wouldn’t make another…
India has the distinction of producing some of the world’s greatest singers, with intensity, range and vocals that only seem to get better with each decade. S.P. Bala, who regaled…
For several decades it was difficult to imagine there would ever be a wrinkle on Rishi Kapoor’s face. A few years before his death in April 2020 at the age…
In 1986, when the director Mira Nair was scouting for her film Salaam Bombay! at the National School of Drama in New Delhi, she fixed her gaze on a young…
Throughout the 1980s, the Bollywood film star Sridevi was the undisputed queen of Indian cinema, often eclipsing the male actors she starred with. In breaking through this glass ceiling, she…
Vinod Khanna belonged to the second wave of Punjabi heroes who ruled Bollywood - known as "Partition Punjabis". His family hailed from Peshawar in Pakistan and had moved to India…
As an actor, Om Puri exuded reassuring warmth and gravitas over a long career divided between Bollywood and Hollywood. At home, his Hindi hits included the political comedy Jaane Bhi…