“Read a blog.  Save a tree.”

Best motto ever!

Posted by Amit Varma on 27 April, 2007 in Miscellaneous

The Ministry of Blogging

We could have one if some chappies in our government read this and get inspired. Can you imagine what would happen if Arjun Singh ran it?

(Link via email from Scribbler.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 27 April, 2007 in Blogging | Freedom

Freedom in Pakistan

The most delightful thing about good satire is that a lot of people inevitably don’t get it. Read this piece, and then read the comments. Joy.

It’s especially bracing to discover that humour deficiency isn’t an Indian ailment alone.

(Link via separate emails from Arjun Swarup and Anand Krishnamoorthi.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 27 April, 2007 in Freedom

The law as a revenue stream

DNA reports:

Sources said a gang of women thieves operating at the Thane station area is increasingly targeting, apparently well-to-do people walking out of the railway station and rob them of valuables and cash. According to information, these women after identifying their target deliberately bump into them and begin shouting for help. The police constables present nearby immediately approach them and start threatening the victim. In full view of the crowd that accumulates to witness the commotion, the policemen whisk away the victim and the woman concerned on the pretext of taking action against him for eve-teasing.

However, on their way to the police station, the constables start negotiating with the victim threatening him with police action followed by legal complications.

A terrified victim usually agrees to settle the matter by paying up. After ‘settling’ the matter, policemen and the lady return to the station in search of their next victim.

In an earlier piece, The Matunga Racket, I’d written about similar blackmail carried out by the police in the context of Section 377. But it isn’t only laws against victimless crimes that the police can exploit to harass people, but absolutely any law out there, as this report illustrates. It’s all a revenue stream. 

Posted by Amit Varma on 27 April, 2007 in India | News

Tears in Jaya Bachchan’s eyes

Ullas Marar writes in:

Your comments on the Abhishek-Aishwarya wedding reminds me of a hilarious news item on IBN7 last night… about the couple leaving for their honeymoon, replete with footage of a dramatic farewell.

The funniest part were the headlines which IBN7 kept on beaming:

“Amitabh ne Abhi aur Ash ko gale lagaya”

“Jaya ke aankho se aansoo chhalak gaye”

Seriously, is this journalism?

Heh.

Posted by Amit Varma on 27 April, 2007 in India | Journalism

“Between a handshake and a kiss”

Have you read The 86 Rules of Boozing yet? You must!

Reading No. 24, I realise that I am always six drinks down. Not good.

(Link via email from Shruti.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 27 April, 2007 in Miscellaneous

Where should Aishwarya Rai stay?

Why on earth does DNA consider that a subject that its readers should weigh in on? Why? Why? Why?

But I really want to see Salman Khan post a message there. No?

Posted by Amit Varma on 26 April, 2007 in Arts and entertainment

Why should Veronica wear a saree?

This news baffles me? Where in India have you seen school and college students wearing sarees, except for special functions and suchlike? Is India’s Riverdale going to be based in an India of stereotype, or the India of 2007?

Having said that, I wouldn’t object if they put Jughead in a saree. The palloo should keep getting trapped in his hat thingie. There’s a story-arc right there.

Posted by Amit Varma on 26 April, 2007 in Arts and entertainment | India

Govinda, Chow and Mow

For some inexplicable reason, immense trepidation comes when I read this:

Govinda is very serious about his comeback and he is practising his dancing like earlier days. His old buddies Narendra and Kaushik, also known as Chow and Mow, of the Modern Dance Academy are teaching the actor how to salsa and jive.

All we need now is Chunky Pandey in leotards and Javed Jaffery in a bikini, and we can tell the Ramsay Brothers to retire. What horror is left?

Posted by Amit Varma on 26 April, 2007 in Arts and entertainment

George Orwell and Ashwani Kumar

George Orwell once wrote, in his classic essay ”Politics and the English language”:

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

A fine illustration of the kind of sloppy language Orwell warned us about appears in the Hindustan Times today, in a piece written by a minister in our national government, Ashwani Kumar. He writes:

For the record, and by way of a gentle reminder, it needs to be reiterated that Nehru’s contribution as the architect of modern India and as the leader of the freedom movement is firmly established in the annals of modern Indian history. Nehru’s pre-eminence is assured for his idealism and for being the one who articulated in his vision the will of his age and redeemed his promise through ceaseless service of his people.

That second sentence, especially, is monstrous, and I worry when the language of our politicians is so shabby, for it surely reflects in the way they think as well. ("Will of his age”? Individuals have a will, ages don’t!) And yes, it is entirely possible that Mr Kumar’s first language may not be English, but there is then surely all the more reason for simple writing. The rest of his piece, in which he defends the Nehru-Gandhi family with all the eagerness and lucidity of a well-trained labrador, is quite as worrying.

(As if you haven’t read it already, here’s my piece on the Nehru-Gandhi family. And yes, I know a case can be made for the family as well, but for FSM’s sake, make it well then!)

Posted by Amit Varma on 26 April, 2007 in India | Politics