Nitin Pai sends me an email titled “Nerds & Geeks are Scheduled Tribes.” He points me to the criteria for being recognised as ST:
The first list was thus promulgated on Sep.6, 1950 and is known as the Constitution (ST) Order 1950. The criteria fixed for inclusion of a community in the list of STs are:
1. Indications of primitive traits,
2. Distinctive culture,
3. Geographical isolation,
4. Shyness of contact with the community at large, and
5. Backwardness
Nitin’s got a point. I think nerds and geeks should just get together and organise a bandh now. Dweebs of the world unite!
Posted by Amit Varma on 04 June, 2007 in
India |
Politics
The video below is one of the most dramatic I’ve seen recently. First a few buffaloes walk on the shore as a bunch of lions lie in wait for them. The lions attack. The buffaloes run. A young buffalo gets trapped and falls into the water. The lions jump on it it and try to drag it out. Two crocodiles come and try to seize the buffalo away. A tug of war happens. The lions win. They’re all back on the shore.
Then a herd of buffaloes storms into the scene.
Yes, yes, the background chatter is rather irritating, almost making me wish that the lions, crocodiles and buffaloes had teamed up against these humans. Someday…
At the time, the rival Labour politician Barbra Castle looked at these achievements and said: “We do not know if Mr Heath is a repressed homosexual or a repressed heterosexual. All we can say is that he is a repressed something.” He seemed so sexually unusual that his biographer John Campbell records a rumour that swept across London during his Premiership. Every Friday night, it was said, a black limo was pull up outside Number Ten and he would be whisked to Regent’s Park. The gates to London Zoo would silently swing open and Heath would be led to the panda den - into which he would descend for a long fuck-session with the Chinese bears.
I think Indian politicians should also be provided pandas. I’d rather have them screwing the pandas than screwing the country. After all, who cares if pandas are over-regulated, over-taxed and don’t have enough individual freedom? Not me. Bring them on.
During my years as a hero of the chess-crazed Soviet Union, I appeared regularly on state-controlled television and in newspapers. What I would give for such access today! Since I retired from chess two years ago to enter a new fray, the fight for democracy in Russia against the increasingly authoritarian rule of President Vladimir Putin, traditional media have been closed to me. Instead, I’ve gained an appreciation for a less-traditional means of communication: the Internet.
I feel both cynical and hopeful about what he’s saying. Cynical, because if the internet ever becomes a threat to Putin and his men, they’ll clamp down on it instantly. Hopeful, because it is still useful in telling the outside world how things really are in Russia. Cynical, again, because who cares? Hopeful, again, because Kasparov, I believe, is an immensely shrewd man, and will find a way to win the greatest game of his life. Cynical, again, because he has to defeat not just a corrupt regime, but the weight of history.
Because of greater efficiency, we will be able to price our tickets higher.
And then, Venus Williams, after losing in the French Open to Jelena Jankovic:
I actually feel like I’m playing well. I just made errors before her.
It reminds me of the time Don Bradman said, “I saw much better batsmen than I was. Lots of them… they just kept getting out.” Bradman, of course, was being modest, or maybe naughtily funny. Williams, I think, just misses the point entirely.
And for more WTF action, here’s someone complaining about her allegedly gay bunnies. (Via email from MadMan.) What to say now?
After my post on how to predict the next Indian Idol, I suppose it is incumbent on me to give my impressions of the first piano round for the boys (as I did for the girls here). That way, you can all come back to this post a few weeks later and laugh your guts out at how badly I got it wrong. Ho ho ho, you can go. So, so, so?
My first impression is that the standard of singing is a bit lower than the last two seasons. Also, there is no one quite as outstanding as NC Karunya was last season. But there were enough good singers to keep me watching, though one full performance is too little to go by. The next week should be fun.
The first parameter I had stated was likability: “The winner is likely to be not the best singer, but a good singer with a pleasing personality,” I had written. In that regard, Bhavin Dhanak and Meiyang Chang score. Bhavin’s got good stage presence, and he sang well—he seems a complete package. Chang, who is of Chinese origin, was excellent, and both his persona and his voice seem more mature than his fellow contestants. I wonder if there will be any bias against his Chinese origin and looks—if not, he should go at least as far as the last three.
Among the others, Parleen Singh Gill has the likability, but I’m not sure about his voice. Emon Chaterjee’s got a great voice, but may come across as just a kid. Suhit Gosain has the best stage presence and the most enthu, but his voice, alas, doesn’t seem up to it.
And the judges, well well well. As I pointed out in a comment here, Javed Akhtar could spout philosophy about a shoelace. You could collect all his aphorisms from this show and put it in a self-help book, and mothers would use it to put their children to sleep. When is Anu Malik coming back? Nice is nice, but I want nasty!
Yesterday at the gym, puffing and panting and wondering if fitness was over-rated, I saw on the monitor in front of me a startling revelation. For a full five minutes it flashed again and again, the same caption, the one you see below: ”Amitabh no farmer.”
This piece of mine has been published in today’s Lounge, the Saturday edition of Mint.
We’re the world’s largest democracy, but let’s face it, politics is boring. Who to vote for? Why can’t we vote by SMS instead of having to trot to a voting booth? Why don’t our politicians perform? Pah!
That’s why Indian Idol is such a perfect show for us. It gives us the power, it gives us the ease, and it even gives us something to choose from. We’ve given up on governance – let’s vote on entertainment.
And wouldn’t it also be nice is if you could forecast the winner long before the rest of the country knew who it was? Oh, how your friends would admire you then! You would be the Indian Idol Pundit!
Well, Lounge is here to help you pick the Indian Idol winner this year. Large quantities of telephone polling are not required. Public choice theory need not be studied. All wisdom will now be revealed in seven points in the next few paragraphs. Read carefully.
One: The winner will be the boy next door.
Indian Idol is not a singing competition but a likability contest. The winner is likely to be not the best singer, but a good singer with a pleasing personality. In the first season, Rahul Saxena, Rahul Vaidya, Amit Sana, Aditi Paul and Prajakta Shukre were all better singers than the eventual winner, Abhijeet Sawant. In the second season, NC Karunya was streets ahead of Sandeep Acharya. And yet, Abhijeet and Sandeep, besides being competent singers, also had boy-next-door charm. The girls found them cute – the boys didn’t feel threatened by them. Killer combo.
Two: The winner will be an early favourite.
Keep a close eye on who wins the early piano rounds. Both Abhijeet and Sandeep won their piano round in their season of Indian Idol. Most viewers tend to decide early on who they like. The rest of the season, they ignore that person’s failings – unless they are too glaring – and find reasons to reinforce their choice.
This is also why Ravinder Ravi, who won a piano round with a powerful performance in the first season, survived until the final five despite a series of monstrously besura performances: those who had chosen him as their winner overlooked his failings, and kept finding reasons to validate their early choice. This brings us to our next point…
Three: Don’t worry about the besuras
It really is no fun unless a lousy singer goes really far in the competition, despite the jury’s criticism. This happened to Ravinder Ravi in Season One, and it happened recently to Sanjaya Malakar in American Idol. Both times, immense worries were expressed that they would win. But that could never happen.
No matter how much support they get, and for whatever reasons, bad singers will always have more people against them than for. Now, when there are seven or eight contestants left, those votes against are diffused among many people. When there are four or five left, the supporters of good singers who are eliminated switch allegiance to good singers still in the show. It then becomes harder for the besuras to survive. This also works against polarising personalities who are otherwise good singers, such as the arrogant Rahul Vaidya in Season One: the ‘against’ votes count for more as the field narrows down.
But criticism can also help the besura singers, as the next point illustrates.
This character’s creator described him as “insufferable”, and called him a “detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep”. On August 6 1975, the New York Times carried his obituary, the only time it has thus honoured a fictional character. Who?
Posted by Amit Varma on 04 June, 2007 in
