Ask the Insider
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"Where is the Bathroom?"
They are the face of a new place for the tourist. But the tour guide is not necessarily a shifty looking, glib talker. We spoke with Parveen Mistry, a licensed tour guide with the Indian Tourist office.
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Any Stunt can Kill You
Jumping off cliffs, ramming cars into one another, leaping through rings of fire… these guys make it look so easy. Stuntman Syed Habib Haji gives us the truth behind the illusion:
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Which Wines Go With Indian Food?
Oenophiles love to surround wine with impenetrable jargon — just look at the word they use to describe themselves! Magandeep Singh, has some down-to-earth answers
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Have You Wrecked a Test Car?
They get to play with the coolest cars; and driving a Lamborghini at 300 kmph is just another day at work. We asked Sirish Chandran, Editor, Overdrive about the travails — yeah, right! — of car testing
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How Do You Know Which Clouds to Target?
The monsoons this year have been a bit of a disappointment. So much so that some state governments are pinning their hopes on cloud-seeding. To understand the concept, we spoke to Arvind Sharma, CEO, Agni Aviation, the only company in India that offers you rain on demand
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Are there pressure points that can paralyse?
Whether it’s at a fashionable spa or the local masseur who does house calls, we all love a relaxing massage. We asked a couple of professionals about what happens on the table
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How Often are Races Fixed?
They are interested in everything from Bollywood to cricket to the stock market to the racecourses. If someone sneezes at a particular time, they make money on that. Of course, if said someone doesn’t sneeze, they still make money. We got talking to a bookie and asked him all the questions that you sent us. We added a few of our own
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Is There a 100-Mile-High Club?
They’re one of the most exclusive groups on earth: The ones who have seen our planet as a whole. Sunita Williams, a Nasa astronaut of part-Indian descent, what it feels like
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Has Tech Changed War Reporting?
They’re out there in the danger zone, not quite in the line of fire, but a heck of a lot closer to the bullets than most of us. How does it feel to earn a living in the killing fields? We asked Nic Robertson, Sr. International War Correspondent, CNN, for some answers.
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How Do I Cure a Hangover?
Wielder of the magic bottle, druid-cum-agony-aunt. What would we do without the bartender? We managed to drag Bhawani Singh Shekhawat, the man in charge of the bar at Starboard, the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, Mumbai, away from his single malts and martinis and got him to answer your questions
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How Do I Beat the Lie Detector?
All of us have worn long overcoats, donned a deerstalker on our heads, stuck our dad’s pipe in our mouth and pretended to be a detective hot on someone’s trail. After a lot of hiding in dark alleys and ducking in taxis, we caught up with an ex-policeman turned private eye (he wishes anonymity) to ask him, if detective work is really just elementary.