under the fire star

The actor Anupam Kher interviewed himself on NDTV 24X7, a news channel, on Sunday night. He said that once his car was stopped at an intersection in Bombay, waiting for the light to change, and a little girl came over to beg. She laid her cheek against the window, to feel the coolness from the air-conditioner inside. Then she forgot to beg, and fell asleep, leaning against the car. He said, "It made me cry. I'll never forget that image."

I've discovered a well-written blog here in my adopted city: Coffee House. (We of Tamil Nadu love our coffee. It's the best in the world. If any Starbucks customer drank Kumbakonam 'degree' coffee from even the cheapest place here, he / she would faint with pleasure.)

p.s.: I'm moving a comment from the erudite Language Hat here -- something I wondered about, but never knew:

In case anyone else is wondering what "degree coffee" is, here's an explanation (from http://forumhub.com/southfood/28317.16.40.38.html):

Degree Coffee: There is a device that measures the density of milk. It looks like a tiny thermometer floating inside an eye-dropper (or ink filler). Milk with certified density is called degree milk and the coffee made with it is called the degree coffee. Since it looks like a thermometer and thermometer measures in degrees, people thought the quality of milk is also measured in "degrees".

Sadly the sanitary inspectors of TN no longer carry these manometers anymore and spot check the milk density in restaraunts, and very few people are even aware that there exists a device that can measure the density of milk using just a few drops of the sample.