Nikhil Pahwa points me, via email, to the site ”Rate My Turban.” It seems to be like a Digg for turbans, with users rating user-submitted turbans. Most intriguing.
There are also female turbans on show, by which I mean don’t mean turbans with mammaries, but turbans worn by women. I’m a huge fan of women wearing turbans, but only when they wear nothing else, for why insult the turban by implying that it is not enough? Anyway, this site is eminently safe for work, even though you are certain to find it so engrossing that no work gets done. Just compare the number of total turbans (842 as of now) with the number of ratings (823,049 at the moment). That’s a lot of turbans, and a lot of people with immense time on their hands.
Posted by Amit Varma on 16 May, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
Why is the average age at nudist camps steadily rising?
My guess is that young people come to check it out, find themselves surrounded by older, fatter people, and don’t bother to turn up again. Meanwhile, older, fatter people who turn up see people like themselves, and feel comfortable enough to return. It’s a vicious circle—or a virtuous one if you don’t like youngsters around.
And what if someone started a nudist camp in India? My guess is that there would be no women and 80,000 men, all craning their necks madly to spot the women they fantasized about, and discreetly checking out each other’s, um, size. Social networking in the buff, until the moral police descends and points out that nudity is against Indian culture.
(Link via email from Abhinav.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 15 May, 2007 in
India |
Miscellaneous |
Politics
Adil Najam has a hilarious post here on something he saw recently in Islamabad. The Czech prime minister was due to visit, and to welcome him, the government’s PR people decided to put up a banner with the Czech flag and Pakistan’s flag together. Only, instead of the Czech flag, they put the checkered flag, as you can see in the image below.
Immensely typical of a subcontinental government. I can quite imagine a mid-level mandarin telling his flunky, “Check jhanda laga do yaar.” And the flunky nods, pleased at being given a task that is so easy to carry out.
(Link via feedback from reader Scribina.)
Update: Gautam John points out that the bureaucrat probably used Google.
Posted by Amit Varma on 15 May, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
The placard in the picture below, from the protest in Mumbai about the Chandramohan affair, says it all (click to enlarge):
My summary of the events that led to the protest is in the post, ”Fascism in Baroda.” The turnout at the protest was immensely encouraging, and Ranjit Hoskote and gang did a great job of organising it. Senior artists like Tyeb Mehta, Jehangir Sabawala and Jaideep Mehrotra turned up, and I spotted many younger artists among those gathered, such as Riyaz Komu, Payal Khandwala, Apnavi Thaker, Julius Macwan and Dhruvi Acharya. There were also others like Syed Mirza, Anil Dharkar, Pratap Sharma and Keku Gandhi present. A few speeches were made. The people gathered seemed attentive, and committed.
I have two concerns, though.
One, in rightly condemning the gundas, I worry that we might forget about the laws that enable such gundagardi in the first place. The Indian Penal Code has simply too many draconian laws that need to be scrapped, starting with Section 295 (a). These are not archaic laws that rarely gets used: As I outlined in my piece, ”Don’t Insult Pasta,” these laws have been invoked with alarming regularity in recent times.
Two, I worry that protests such as these might turn out to be ad-hoc events, and not part of a broad-based movement to defend free speech. For example, as Peter pointed out in a chat when I mentioned this worry, when Blogspot was blocked by the Indian government, many bloggers rose up in arms because they were affected, but have not been heard from since. Similarly, the artist community has rallied superbly behind their man, but will they show the same commitment towards free speech if the moral police attacks someone from another profession tomorrow? For example, how many people protested when the publisher of a joke book was thrown in jail because the “religious sentiments” of some people were offended?
The issues here run deeper than one bunch of goons attacking one painter and his work. I hope the scope of the protest expands beyond that.
Posted by Amit Varma on 15 May, 2007 in
Arts and entertainment |
Freedom |
India |
Politics
... can no longer be denied.
(Link via email from Kartik Varadpande.)
Update: Reader Raoul points me to ”Hundreds of Proofs of God’s Existence.” My favourite is this one:
666. ARGUMENT FROM ASSUMPTION
(1) God exists.
(2) Therefore, God exists.
Immensely blogospheric logic, that!
Posted by Amit Varma on 14 May, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
Quote of the day, from this article:
People think publishing is a business, but it’s a casino.
Posted by Amit Varma on 14 May, 2007 in
Arts and entertainment
I suppose many of you would be familiar with the recent events in Baroda. An internal evaluation of students is on at the Fine Arts Faculty in Baroda. A BJP leader named Neeraj Jain storms in with a bunch of gundas. He has a problem with some paintings by a student named Chandramohan that use religious imagery. Jain and his gundas beat up Chandramohan, and abuse faculty members and students. Things are getting out of hand when the police arrive. They will surely arrest Jain and put an end to this, you would think.
But no, they arrest the painter, for his art is the crime under the Indian Penal Code, not the hooliganism showed by Jain and his cohorts. Chandramohan is whisked off to jail. Five days later, as I type these words, he is still behind bars.
The artist community obviously rises up, and organises an exhibition documenting erotica in Indian and Western art. It is a peaceful way of showing their protest. The pro-vice-chancellor of the university arrives and demands that the exhibition be terminated. The dean of the faculty, Dr Shivaji Panikkar, takes a stand and refuses to do so. He is suspended. As I type these words, he is in hiding, worried about what the ruffians could do to him.
The matter is being followed at Art Concerns, who have a detailed chronology of events up here. Do also read what Ranjit Hoskote, Gulammohammed Sheikh and Johny ML have to say, as well as this piece by Abhijeet Tamhane. Peter Griffin has more links here, as well as details of a public protest I intend to be part of in Mumbai.
My feelings on this will be known to regular readers of India Uncut, and have been laid out in pieces like ”Don’t Insult Pasta” and ”Fighting Against Censorship”, as well as many posts (such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.) It is ludicrous that giving offence is a crime in India, and shameful that the Indian Penal Code actually enables this suppression of free speech, and empowers oppression. For Chandramohan the artist to be in jail for five days (so far) and for Neeraj Jain the gunda to walk free is a slap on the face of all those who think that our nation respects and protects individual freedom.
No doubt some readers will be upset that I used the word “Fascism” in the headline to this post. Well, I hesitated before doing so, wondering if such a strong word was advisable. Then I went to the Wikipedia entry on Fascism, and came across this excellent definition by Robert Paxton (from this book):
Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
The Wikipedia article then quotes Paxton as summing up the essence of Fascism thus:
1. a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign `contamination.
All this sounds immensely familiar to me. And so I shall end by quoting the end of Ranjit Hoskote’s fine piece:
It appears that the champions of a resurgent Hindu identity are acutely embarrassed by the presence of the erotic at the centre of Hindu sacred art. As they may well be, for the roots of Hindutva do not lie in Hinduism. Rather, they lie in a crude mixture of German romanticism, Victorian puritanism and Nazi methodology.
What happens next? Will the champions of Hindutva go around the country destroying temple murals, breaking down monuments, and burning manuscripts and folios?
Also, isn’t a Hindu then entitled to say that his religious feelings are offended by Hindutva? Huh?
Update: Chandramohan has got bail, but I am informed that things are still tense in Baroda. The protest there has been called off, but is very much on in Mumbai at least.
Posted by Amit Varma on 14 May, 2007 in
Freedom |
India |
Politics
I return to India to find that things have changed for the better in the few days that I have gone. HBO is promoting a series of films under the branding “Reptilian Rhapsody.” Two of them involve anacondas.
Have you ever wanted a pet that could eat your neighbors?
On a tangent, one of my friends happens to live in the same building as Yukta Mookhey, and I am told that her dog keeps peeing outside his door. (My friend’s door, not the dog’s door.) Society meetings on the subject haven’t helped. A solution does come to mind now, actually…
Update: I was kidding, okay? I do not recommend this. (Via Gaspode, who likes the Iliad.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 14 May, 2007 in
Arts and entertainment |
Personal
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
