There are few finer views of the new India than from the cliff-top terrace of manufacturing magnates Parmeshwar and Adi Godrej. At night on the horizon, like a diamond necklace, streetlights trace a shoreline curve past the high-rise bank offices and apartment blocks of downtown Bombay, skirt the bars, gyms and boutiques of Marine Drive, and encircle Chowpatty Beach, ending in the rocky surf below. On a warm, monsoon night this summer, the pool lights ...

The first time I tried shark-fin soup was at Time Warner's annual dinner in Hong Kong, a few weeks after I had moved to the city. A server came to our table with a cluster of small white bowls, which a few of my colleagues politely declined. I knew the soup had a whiff of controversy around it, but I hadn't yet formed a personal policy, so I gave it a try. I found it underwhelming. The ...

Little kids still ring ryan Boatright's doorbell, wondering if the future University of Southern California point guard can come outside to play. During a recent family dinner at T.G.I. Friday's, as dessert crept dangerously close to the start of a movie at the mall, panic swept over Ryan's face. He looked as if he'd rather do a month's worth of dishes than spend another second of Saturday night with his family. In other words, Ryan Boatright is 14 years old. ...

Dear America, Are you wearing pajamas? I do not mean to begin this letter by getting personal. I was just wondering if you people leave the house anymore--something that seems to be increasingly unnecessary these days, a hundred years ago. Not that leaving the house is always a good idea. Outside lies the wide and brittle world of wars, gunplay, scandal, disease, superstition, categorical hatreds, willful ignorance, envy, pettiness and cant. In your perfected age, all such things undoubtedly have ...

Tareq and Michaele Salahi were hoping for reality TV stardom when they strolled uninvited into a Nov. 24 White House state dinner. Legal experts say the party-crashing duo may have to settle for the reality of a courtroom fight instead — and possibly a prison cell. "There's no question the Secret Service is likely to push very hard for a criminal charge," says George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. "They are famous for lacking a sense of ...

Tareq and Michaele Salahi were hoping for reality-TV stardom when they strolled uninvited into a Nov. 24 White House state dinner. Legal experts say the party-crashing duo may have to settle for the reality of a courtroom fight instead — and possibly a prison cell. "There's no question the Secret Service is likely to push very hard for a criminal charge," says Jonathan Turley, law professor at George Washington University. "They are famous for lacking a sense of ...

Public interest in "The Real Housewives" of hither and yon notwithstanding, the well-behaved trophy wife is not, generally speaking, a character we're dying to know more about. And beautiful Pippa Lee is a trophy wife of the highest order. Polite, restrained and seemingly vacant, the heroine of writer/director Rebecca Miller's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, cooks a mean butterflied lamb, keeps a meticulous house and floats around in silky pajamas, all the while gazing fondly at her ...

The White House Press Office accidentally e-mailed a draft version of President Obama's Thursday schedule on Wednesday night that included the back-and-forth between White House staffers. The e-mail, sent on a daily basis to inform the media of the next day's events, at first appeared to be like any other press schedule. But at the bottom of the e-mail, there was a series of exchanges from the press team, as well as a draft of the schedule. The first section ...