Breakups Are Big Business | Be hind Modi’s Kashmir Power Grab

Eight years ago, Amy Chan was in a relationship with a man whom she thought she’d spend the rest of her life with. When everything suddenly fell apart, Chan “broke into pieces,” the 37-year-old says. “Not only did I lose my partner, my best friend, but I lost my identity. I spiraled into depression, broke out into panic attacks and had thoughts of suicide.” To heal herself, Chan searched for support but found none. It took her almost two years to fully recover from the heartbreak. But eventually, something good came out of it.

In 2017, Chan founded Renew Breakup Bootcamp, a company that holds retreats for the brokenhearted on a private 100-acre estate in upstate New York along the Hudson River. At the three-day retreats, clients — whom Chan charges between $1,995 and $2,500 depending on the services they use — are under the tutelage of a psychologist or a “chief heart hacker.” Clients can attend lessons by a professional dominatrix on the psychology of power and sexuality, participate in yoga and meditation sessions or pet alpacas and goats. A hypnotist, an anxiety coach, a sound bath practitioner and a “tantra master” are on call.

He has the makings of the consummate basketball player. Two-handed dunks with force. Sturdy build. A 6-foot-4 swing guard who can dribble through a crowd. His shot may look a tad awkward, but it goes in. He shows poise, shares the ball, clowns around with his teammates.

He’s got game, and he’s also got name: Mojave King.

Leonard King, his father, says his son, aka Mo, was indeed named for the Mojave Desert, the 48,000-square-mile region in the southwestern United States that includes Death Valley. The elder King, who is from Cleveland, says his great-grandmother was full Native American, and his grandfather, Walter, was half Native American and half African American. King has taken Mojave to the Mojave Desert “plenty of times.”

Noise and bedlam come easy for India’s parliament, but on Monday it reached a new level. Opposition parliamentarians were angry over the bizarre manner in which the central government had shut down the contentious state of Kashmir. A popular pilgrimage — Amarnath Yatra — had been canceled; tourists and pilgrims were ferried out of the state; internet, mobile and landlines were shut down. The opposition parties and the media wanted answers from the government rather than rumors and speculation.

Amit Shah, India's new home minister, was a bit agitated and nervous when he rushed to the parliament carrying a sheaf of paper. “Give me five minutes, and I will answer everything,” the portly Shah said. And he did, to the shock and bewilderment of the parliamentarians and the nation. He said Kashmir’s special status — which gave it more autonomy than other states — had been withdrawn. Shah also announced that the state of Jammu and Kashmir had been diminished to a union territory and it had also been bifurcated from the predominately Buddhist area of Ladakh.