Early morning, dirt, skin, sweat and muscle. So much muscle. This is what comprises dawn for the gentlemen of the Ram Singh Akhara, an organization devoted to teaching north India’s age-old, Persian-influenced grappling-style wrestling to the next…

It was Eid al-Fitr, the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and Muslims and non-Muslims alike thronged the streets of Mumbai. Billboards announced sales on shoes. Boys wore their finest taqiyahs. But at the southern tip of the city, in the Fort…

The following article contains information about depression and suicide that may be triggering for some readers. It was the kind of television event that dominates dinner conversations for days, like the time Bruce Jenner became Caitlyn during a…

Walking through the sun-saturated courtyards of Mumukshu Bhawan, one encounters an array of pilgrims as varied as if Chaucer himself had written them. There’s an orange-clad sannyasi — an old man who has given up family and possessions to wander…

It takes me more than two hours to reach the office of Mumbai-based startup Fynd, which sits about 10 miles from my house. As the car moves, inchworm-like, along roads turned into parking lots, I wonder about the millions who make these sorts of…

In this occasional series, OZY takes to streets and neighborhoods across the globe to ask a simple question: “How was your day?” Khushboo Singh, 24 Rajni Dubey, 26 Vardhika Pandey, 28 Varanasi, India We answer the new 181 helpline, which connects…

In this occasional series, OZY takes to streets and neighborhoods across the globe to ask a simple question: “How was your day?” Rajendar Kumar, 26 Varanasi, India I sit here every day, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., on the corner, doing this job with my younger…

Across newspapers and televisions in the world’s largest democracy, there’s one business message being blasted by the ruling party: 70 years after the end of British colonial rule, it is time for India to start making things. The call to create is…

Ask your typical politicians in the north Indian city of Varanasi to talk policy, the impending 2017 elections or all the graffiti advertising various parties — including lotuses, elephants and the face of the prime minister — and they inevitably…

Because whether you’re brown or not, you might learn something from this changing world of love and sex. Should he be a vegetarian? This is the first question that makes me pause. Before it, Jasbina Ahluwalia has asked me for a boatload of…

Many tourists zip past Delhi, making for the Taj Mahal or Jaipur’s camels and rugs. The capital hasn’t had a great reputation of late, from its mask-inducing pollution (which, yes, can be as stifling as the summer heat) to the headlines that warn…

It’s been four years since Ashok Sinha decided to head to a retirement home. It wasn’t the obvious choice to an outsider: Sure, he’s now 72, with a full career behind him as a satellite engineer and a wife struggling with memory problems. But he is…

His hand gestures are grand and performative. His words are as rapid as his train of thought. He races ahead, and as he speaks, the weight of Indian society itself bumps along in his wake like tin cans tied to a speeding car. Catch up! The restless…

At the end of a college admissions season, Viral Doshi can count his successes in the mugs, pennants and cheery “welcome” posters his clients receive. His office is dotted with mementos from Cornell, Penn, Harvard, Princeton — plenty to whet the…

While most nations around the world are preparing for the 2016 Olympic Games by pumping up their star athletes poised to win medals, India is celebrating something else: Its mere presence at the games. For anyone who’s ever received a participation…

Cows obstruct the way as you drive along the road that leads to the place where India ends. They are regal, as Indian cows are: arrogant, casting supercilious glances at the Jeeps, motorbikes and pedestrians trying to make their way through the…

Photo essay by Smita Sharma As 86-year-old Maharani Pudahar steps out of her terra-cotta brick home to say hello, her neighbor Robi Das laughingly remarks that she looks like Mahatma Gandhi. Wearing cotton cloths wraped loosely across her torso, with…

Anik Dutta’s house consists of two flats in an apartment building in chic South Kolkata. Inside are bright white marble floors and ethnic décor that could suit a Pottery Barn: Eastern Flair Edition. It’s across from a Chinese restaurant; next door…

Midmorning on a weekday, Reshma Begum is walking her daughter back from school. Begum spends her days selling cheap jewelry at local markets, and her husband works construction, but she has different plans for her 7-year-old daughter, Salia. “We are…

Richard Lee’s family history sounds like a Columbus story. In the 1930s, his father boarded a ship from China to Indonesia, because “at that time, China was very difficult,” he says. His family wanted out; they wanted opportunity. So out they went —…