“But he could be an axe murderer”

I love serendipity. It’s convenient.

Posted by Amit Varma on 11 April, 2007 in News | Small thoughts

Even an anthem’s got feelings

CNN-IBN reports:

Infosys Chief Mentor and Non-Executive Chairman NR Narayana Murthy landed in a mess on Tuesday after it was revealed that he may have unwittingly insulted the national anthem during a function at the company’s Mysore campus on April 8, where President APJ Abdul Kalam also took part.

It seems the anthem got up and walked off in a huff, and later called its friend, the flag, to whine about being insulted. “I hate being insulted like this,” it said. “You and I should emigrate and then, without us, the nation will have nothing to be proud of. Whaddya say?”

“Quite right,” said the flag. “I’m tired of this pole, in fact. You have no idea what nonsense it gets up to.”

Anyway, here’s a heated Ryze discussion on the subject. I think someone should just implant a chip in the brains of all these uber-patriots that plays the anthem 24/7. They’ll have to sleep standing up then.

(CNN-IBN link via email from reader Siddharth Chhikara. Ryze link via email from MadMan.)

Update: It seems that Sachin Tendulkar has committed “a crime under section 2 of the prevention of insult to national honour act of 1971.” He allegedly “cut a cake in the colours of the national flag during the Indian team’s stay in the West Indies last month.”

Do you think our “national honour”, whatever that is, can be endangered by the cutting of a cake? Pah!

Posted by Amit Varma on 11 April, 2007 in Dialogue | Freedom | India

The mullahs and Musharraf

Gautam brings my attention, via email, to a story about how radical clerics from Islamabad’s Red Mosque are demanding that a minister be sacked from Pakistan’s government because she dared to hug a foreign man. As it happens a Pakistani journalist who is a friend of mine sent me an email a couple of days ago about this very mosque, in reaction to my piece on General Musharraf, ”General Musharraf’s Incentives”. With his permission, and keeping him anonymous for obvious reasons, I reproduce some of it below:

To add further fuel to the theory that it is entirely in [Musharraf’s] interests to prolong this war against terror, this war against extremism, I wonder if you have been following the curious case of the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa in Islamabad?

In short, it is a madrassa illegally occupying government land in the heart of the capital, staffed by thousands of burqa-clad women and run by some hardcore maulvis who are, for all intents and purposes, running a state within a state.

They have Taliban-type aims - they have set up a department of vice and virtue - and recently kidnapped some women claiming they were running a brothel. And then some policemen too. Now they’ve set up a parallel court on their premises, they go around threatening dvd rental stores and take down license plate numbers of female drivers in the capital to harass them for being non-shariah compliant later. All this in the capital. With the President on one side and the PM on the other and all the intelligence agencies nearby.

Basically, the government is not doing anything about it, ostensibly because “they are women and we don’t want to hurt them and we’d rather negotiate with them”. (Balls - that didn’t stop them beating up Asma Jehangir last year when she tried to run a marathon.) The belief is though that it acts as a scary reminder of what the country may lurch towards if the President wasn’t around fighting the forces of extremism and playing saviour.

My friend also pointed me to an article by Masood Hasan in which Hasan describes Pakistan as “a banana republic which has run out of bananas.” Heh.

And also, via email from Quizman, here’s a letter by Hameed Haroon, the publisher of Dawn, about how Musharraf is clamping down on the press. In any case, Musharraf’s shameful behaviour during the Mukhtaran Mai affair should be enough indication of how deeply illiberal he is. He’s masterfully built an image of himself in the West as a moderate moderniser, but that facade is slowly and surely falling apart.

Update (April 12): Nitin Pai writes in to add some nuance:

The mullahs of Lal Masjid are not the same chaps that were long held as bogeys. Leaders of the MMA have not only have had little influence over this business, but they have actually criticised the Lal Masjid brigade for, well, politicising religion. The Lal Masjid brigade has everything to do with Khalid Khawaja-Hamid Gul & Co which are parts of the establishment. Since your post is about Mush using the Mullahs, I thought it is worth pointing this out.

(Personally, I’m not entirely convinced that Mush controls Gul & Co entirely. They may be trying to replace one Mush with another.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 10 April, 2007 in Freedom | Journalism | Politics

God made smallpox!

There’s a fascinating debate on religion between Sam Harris and Rick Warren in Newsweek, in which this delightful exchange takes place:

Warren: I look at the world and I say, “God likes variety.” I say, “God likes beauty.” I say, “God likes order,” and the more we understand ecology, the more we understand how sensitive that order is.

Harris: Then God also likes smallpox and tuberculosis.

I think Harris the atheist comes off much better than Warren the believer in this debate, but the nature of these polarising discussions is such that if you’re a believer, you might agree more with Warren, even when he says things like “I talk to God every day.” I find the guy hilarious, though, especially when he tries to explain why Christianity is superior to other religions:

In 1974, I spent the better part of a year living in Japan, and I studied all the world religions. All of the religions basically point toward truth. Buddha made this famous statement at the end of his life: “I’m still searching for the truth.” Muhammad said, “I am a prophet of the truth.” The Veda says, “Truth is elusive, it’s like a butterfly, you’ve got to search for it.” Then Jesus Christ comes along and says, “I am the truth.” All of a sudden, that forces a decision.

Big deal. Here and now, on India Uncut, I announce:

I am the truth.

You decide now. Your favourite blogger or dead man with beard?

Posted by Amit Varma on 10 April, 2007 in Miscellaneous

On debate and blogging

Oliver Kamm writes in the Guardian that “parasitic, political blogs tend not to enhance but poison healthy debate.”

Well, I’d point out here that debate tends “not to enhance but poison healthy debate.” That’s the nature of the beast. Open debates, especially, tend to degenerate into incoherence, particularly on the internet, where anyone can enter a conversation, and anonymity enables trolling.

Despite that, I’m not sure what to make of this proposal to have codes of conduct for bloggers. All bloggers already have implicit codes of conduct for themselves, manifest in the way they blog and moderate comments and so on, and their credibility and readership derives from that. I’m skeptical of a formally stated code of conduct, and don’t think it would serve any purpose. Except for debate.

(IHT link via email from Arun Verma.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 09 April, 2007 in Blogging

Ah, family!

Vinod Nayar, Arun Nayar’s daddy, is upset because Liz Hurley didn’t treat him well during her wedding to Arun, from which he was apparently ‘ejected’. Nayar has been quoted as saying:

May be they didn’t really want my side of the family there. They didn’t even have the manners to invite my 87-year-old mother. I have totally disowned them (his sons). I want nothing more to do with them or their wives. It was important for her (Hurley) to get celebrity faces there.

No matter how much Liz may dislike Arun’s family, she should thank her freakin’ stars that it’s nothing like this one. Indian families contain unspeakable horrors. The only way to put an end to the monstrosity is to ban copulation. You with me on this?

Ok, fine, forget it. Have a good day.

(KSBKBT link via email from reader VatsaL, though not in this gory context.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 09 April, 2007 in Arts and entertainment | India | News

Sari vs Salwar Kameez

Right now, it’s 1-0 to Sari. The Times of India tells us about a young lady in Patna who was caught cheating in her exams in rather unusual circumstances:

Answers to different probable questions were written in fine handwriting on the pleats and borders of the sari worn by the examinee.

I can imagine the lady in question not finding an answer she is sure she has written down, and unwrapping her sari furiously as she looks for it. Time is running out, answer is elusive, sari unwraps. Petticoat emerges. Everyone else fails.

Anyway, you know the score. And yes, I know salwars have pleats too, especially them volumnious Patiala thingies, but there are logistical issues, as a kameez or kurta or kurti hides them, and you need to lift that out of the way before you can stare nonchalantly at your lap. Most complicated.

And what about the guys? I suggest they study.

Posted by Amit Varma on 08 April, 2007 in Miscellaneous

“We’re suckers”

"We’re suckers and we should break our addiction,” writes Martin Kettle in the Guardian about football. Could be said about cricket also, no?

Matches like this one make it hard to break the habit, though. Just one more drag, you think, and then no more.

And then you’re floating!

Posted by Amit Varma on 08 April, 2007 in Sport

Cut carbon emissions instantly

There’s global warming on Mars.

Posted by Amit Varma on 08 April, 2007 in News | Small thoughts

Don’t regulate either ghee or endorsements

This piece first appeared on Rediff.

Indian cricket has many problems, but imagine the following scenario: An investigative committee formed by the BCCI finds out that the reason many Indian players are unfit is pure ghee. On their time off, it seems, many of them eat food cooked in pure ghee, and as a result put on weight and become lethargic. It starts with Virender Sehwag, spreads to Sachin Tendulkar, and soon they all became pure ghee addicts and lost their vigour on the field.

The mandarins at the BCCI come up with an obvious solution: ban pure ghee! Or rather, ban the cricketers from having any food cooked in it, even in the off season. “Our cricketers are losing their focus on cricket because of pure ghee,” they argue. “We can only counter this with strong action.”

Read more...

Posted by Amit Varma on 08 April, 2007 in Essays and Op-Eds | Freedom | India | Sport