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Right, I’m ill, incapacitated, out of action, so until I’m healthy again and can blog normally, here’s another priceless YouTube Video, from Bulgarian Idol.
(Link via email from Vinjk.)
Update: And here she is again. There’s even a Ken Lee online community. I love YouTube!
Oh, and here’s Mariah Carey’s gracious reaction.
Posted by Amit Varma on 09 May, 2008 in
Arts and entertainment
I am henceforth going to take great interest in the environment.
(Link via separate emails from Ken and Ulrik.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 09 May, 2008 in
Miscellaneous
I love this:
(Link via email from Vinjk.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 09 May, 2008 in
Media |
Miscellaneous
I won’t be blogging any more for most of today: my sinus has exploded, my throat has imploded, and there’s an elephant on my head. My laptop screen is swimming in front of me, and the only person who gives me TLC and treats me like a baby is half a continent away till Monday. So you’ll just have to manage without India Uncut updates for a while.
Note: Also, allow me to inform you that none of my photographs look like me. None at all. It’s most inexplicable.
Posted by Amit Varma on 09 May, 2008 in
Personal
Oh Dog, here comes another punny headline:
And what causes the sari state? Saris do, that’s what.
Hemashree (24), the youngest contestant in the fray, is banking on her appeal as the host of a TV show that gives away saris to women.
I actually don’t find this deplorable at all. It is a given that voters will be bribed in elections, in different ways. How much I object to politicians depends partly on how much taxpayers’ money (my money) they offer as bribe. (Free TVs, saris, make-work employment schemes etc.) If this woman is cashing in on popularity that she has earned by giving away saris bought with private money, what’s wrong with that? It is at least, odd as it sounds, an honest form of corruption.
(Link via email from Abhishek.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 09 May, 2008 in
India |
News |
Politics
It is redundant to mention WTFness when one speaks of Bejan Daruwalla. Here’s a gem:
One night during my moment of revelations with God, I learnt that ‘devi maa’ will conquer the world through her splendid glory. As I was writing my conversation with God and I wrote Ganeshji will support this year through its turbulent times. Next morning to my surprise the letters changed and it was the Goddess in its place.
If you said something like this in any context besides religion, your loved ones would be calling a psychiatrist. But somehow religion makes it all okay.
And hey, remember Pratibha Patil?
Posted by Amit Varma on 08 May, 2008 in
Old memes |
Astrology etc |
WTF
I begin a fortnightly column on cricket today for NDTV Convergence called Over the Wicket. Here’s the first installment: The IPL reveals India’s bench strength.
Related pieces:
Celebrating Twenty20 Cricket (April 20, 2008)
Opportunity, choice and the IPL (March 13, 2008)
There’s Nothing Wrong In Being ‘Commercial’ (Feb 24, 2008)
The Twenty20 Age Begins (Aug 8, 2007)
Posted by Amit Varma on 08 May, 2008 in
Essays and Op-Eds |
Sport
The only good thing about the tie below is that it deflects attention from that WTF shirt. My sensibilities are furiously upset, and I demand that Salman Khan be arrested.
(Image courtesy Rediff.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 08 May, 2008 in
Arts and entertainment |
WTF
Oh man, this is surely the WTF headline of this generation:
Incestuous dad wants credit for not killing children
Just read that story, it’s amazing. The incestuous dad in question is Josef Fritzl, about whom I’d written here. I hope they shove him in jail for the rest of his life and make sure he’s buggered 48 times a day by a posse of trained gorillas, who then get extra bananas for good behaviour because they didn’t kill him. Justice.
(Link via email from Vinjk.)
The Bollywood revelation of the day comes from Feroz Khan:
When the censor board lady objected to the two-minute kiss in Dayavan I asked her, ‘Haven’t you experienced this or else your husband is not a romantic man, ignoring a beautiful lady like you?’
Charming. (I wish he’d tried that line for a full-on sex scene.) I can imagine the censor board lady, presumably a 55-year-old housewife, going home and confronting her husband.
Censor board lady: You haven’t kissed me in 20 years now!
Husband: Eh? Where did that come from? It’s time for my tea.
Lady: You are not a romantic man!
Husband: Eh? Where did that come from? Can you repair the tear in my banyan please?
Lady: I am a beautiful lady and you are ignoring me!
Husband: Eh? Where did that come from? Didn’t I buy you a saree just three years ago?
Lady: That was three years ago.
Husband: Okay, I’ll buy you another saree then. And if you really want a kiss… [gets up to kiss]
Lady: Ugh. Coming to think of it, saree will do. Let’s go to Kala Niketan.
Posted by Amit Varma on 08 May, 2008 in
Arts and entertainment |
Dialogue
Andy Borowitz is in top form. (Via Joby Joseph.)
By Amit Varma in Miscellaneous
You run the risk of a bow chica bow bow.
Loins of Punjab Presents is a declaration of independence by the desi diaspora
Read more...
Sample clues
9 across: Van Morrison classic from Moondance (7)
6 down: Order beginning with ‘A’ (12)
Question by Amit Varma
"I am a small eye poet.” Who once wrote these words in a letter to his mother?
