BBC reports:
Hindus have launched a last minute appeal to prevent the slaughter of a sacred bull which has tested positive for tuberculosis.
The bull, Shambo, lives in a shrine in Llanpumsaint, Carmarthenshire.
I have just one question: if the bull is sacred, how come God allowed it to get Tuberculosis? Tuberculosis is more powerful than God or what? Shouldn’t people be praying to Tuberculosis then?
(Link via email from Sanjeev Naik. Previous posts on cows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 , 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 13 May, 2007 in
Old memes |
Cows |
Small thoughts
I’m back from my hiatus, and regular blogging will now resume at India Uncut. You may breathe again. Slowly. Count to ten.
I hadn’t bothered to activate roaming on my phone, and Hutch hasn’t kept the messages sent to me in this period, so if you messaged me during this period, I wouldn’t have read it. I also have hundreds of unopened emails piled up, so if there’s an important email you sent me that you feel I should read urgently, please do resend. If it has anything to do with penis enlargement or cialis, though, don’t bother. Thanks for the thought, however.
And now onwards to Landmark and the Infinity food court. Life is good!
Posted by Amit Varma on 13 May, 2007 in
Personal
This is the 13th installment of my weekly column for Mint, Thinking it Through.
I am in Thailand as you read this, and no, I haven’t been deported by the Indian government for joking about our anthem and flag – things aren’t that bad yet. Instead, I’m vacationing, gathering up sea, sand and seafood. I knew I would enjoy the visit as soon as I saw Bangkok’s airport. Compared to Indian airports, it was a swank expanse of ease and luxury, and I immediately felt good about being here.
On the other hand, when a foreign traveller comes in to Mumbai, as has been much written about, among the first things he is likely to see, from the air, are slums. The airport itself is shabby and disorganised, and delays and dysfunctional staff abound. And if he hasn’t organised transport in advance, he’d have to be lucky not to get ripped off. His first experiences of India are likely to be rather unpleasant.
Why should first impressions matter? Well, because of a cognitive bias called the Halo Effect. We tend to carry over impressions of one aspect of something to everything else about that thing. For example, if we get a flat tyre in the middle of nowhere, and a friendly passerby helps us out, we are likely to think of him as a good sort, even if we are later told that he also happens to be a wife-beater. Our early bias affects the way we view him, and we are more likely to gloss over his other failings.
Read more...
Posted by Amit Varma on 10 May, 2007 in
Essays and Op-Eds |
India |
Thinking it Through
You need to sit down before you read this.
Thanks. It’s like this: I’m headed out of the country for a few days, and will be back on May 13. I’m off on vacation, and will be blogging very little, if at all, during this time. I have never been off for so long since India Uncut began, but it has to be done. So, for the next few days, my frequency of posts will dip drastically. On some days, I may post nothing!
Calm down, drink some water. Count to ten. Okay, hundred.
During this time, though, other sections of this site will continue getting updated. Rave Out will stick to its new Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule of publishing. Extrowords will appear every weekday. The Linkastic boys will do their bit. And when you least expect it, I’ll show up and surprise you on the India Uncut Blog. There, see, it’s not so bad.
Also, if you haven’t already, now might be a good time to subscribe to my RSS feeds. Click here for a list of all of them.
Be good now.
Posted by Amit Varma on 04 May, 2007 in
Personal
Nitin Pai send me an email forward that puts it well:
In USA you can kiss in public places but cannot shit; in India you can shit in public places but cannot kiss.
No doubt one can argue that shitting is not against our culture. Heh.
(I couldn’t find the source of this forward, but will be glad to attribute if someone can point it out.)
Update: Quizman points me to a piece on Churumuri: ”Kissing isn’t part of our culture? Pissing is?”
Update 2: Anand Krishnamoorthi writes in:
The piss/kiss thingy was part of Tamil comedian Vivek’s routine from about a year ago. The scene is set in Australia when Vivek kisses this
girl after he steps out of her car and some righteous Tamil brethren question his actions. That’s when he comes up with the line. Do not remember the name of the film…
Posted by Amit Varma on 03 May, 2007 in
Freedom |
India
This is the 12th installment of my weekly column for Mint, Thinking it Through.
This is the transcript of a speech given by the demon Beelzebub at the 90th Annual Convention of Demonic Beings.
Comrades and Monsters,
Welcome. I can barely express my joy at the unspeakable horror of being present among such hideous monsters as yourselves – demonic beings dedicated to the ruin and damnation of humanity. In various ways, under the cunning guise of doing good, we have brought sadness and misery upon humanity. We have perpetuated poverty, hatred and ill-health. I wish today, for the sake of the young apprentice beasts present here, to speak about our primary tool of achieving all this: Compassion.
Humans, you see, are fooled by appearances. Come to them as a wrinkled monster with horns, and they recoil. Pretend to be a loving grandpa, and their defences are down. We senior demons realised long ago that to hurt the humans, we have to pretend to care for them. Even as we have nothing but their marination in mind, we must appear compassionate. Stating the most noble intent, we must unleash the very worst of policies. Even better, we must fool some humans, who themselves wish to appear compassionate, into pushing these very policies.
And how we have succeeded! Everywhere there are politicians sincerely pushing well-intentioned policies that are disastrous for the people they are supposed to help. Of course, some people see through our evil designs and protest, but they are dismissed as cruel and uncaring, for they are questioning compassion itself. The irony!
Read more...
Posted by Amit Varma on 03 May, 2007 in
Economics |
Essays and Op-Eds |
Freedom |
India |
Politics |
Thinking it Through
Reuters reports:
Villagers at a wedding in eastern India decided the groom had arrived too drunk to get married, and so the bride married the groom’s more sober brother instead, police said Monday.
Scott Adams wants to know “if the bride is hideous.” Does it matter when you’re drunk?
I can actually imagine the Reuters reporter asking the police that. Guess what they’d probably reply.
“Monday.”
(Adams link via email from Gaurav Mishra.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 02 May, 2007 in
India |
News
Enjoy.
Update: Reader Dushyant Wadivkar was kind enough to email and point out that the ToI shifted the picture I linked to another page. So I’ve changed the link to point there! You can also see it here.
Posted by Amit Varma on 02 May, 2007 in
India
It’s shocking, what these cops from Gujarat got up to. (1, 2.)
But is it surprising?
Update: Reader Srikanth Viswanathan points me to a piece by PR Ramesh in the Economic Times that stands up for the police, and says that “we have to defend those who defend us.”
I see!
Posted by Amit Varma on 02 May, 2007 in
India |
News
This is immensely cool.
Go ahead now, make a prediction. Do it. Do, no!
(Link via email from Aadisht, who uncovers the secret behind Babubhai Katara here.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 01 May, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
