My first novel, My Friend Sancho, is now on the stands across India. It is a contemporary love story set in Mumbai, and was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. To learn more about the book, click here.
I am currently on a book tour to promote the book. Please check out our schedule of city launches. India Uncut readers are invited to all of them, no pass required, so do drop in and say hello.
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
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.
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.
And while on the subject, here’s the best post I’ve read today: ”This is why you should call to say ‘no’”. I love that line about coffee being pointless: “Life is too short for a non-activity with stilted conversation.” It is, indeed.
In fact, life is too short, period.
Posted by Amit Varma on 30 April, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
British Airways has airbrushed a scene of arch-rival Sir Richard Branson out of its in-flight James Bond movie “Casino Royale”, sources close to the company said on Monday.
The Virgin Atlantic chief is briefly featured in the original 007 film at an airport security scanner, but can only be seen from the back in the edited version.
What to say now? Branson’s sneaky trick of stealing BA passengers—by charming them with cameo appearances in films shown on BA flights—has clearly failed. BA’s executives must be feeling so smart.
Posted by Amit Varma on 23 April, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
Subsidies for pilgrimages. The Times of Indiareports:
In its determination to protect Haj subsidies, particularly in view of the ongoing elections in UP, Centre has told Supreme Court that it was ready to offer similar support, at state expense, to pilgrimages organised by other communities.
Positing its offer as being in sync with the “secular ideals” of the Constitution, Centre virtually made a policy announcement by agreeing to provide financial assistance to Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains and other religious communities.
This is not secularism. To me, secularism has two implications:
1 A complete separation of state and religion.
2. Every person in this country having the right to follow a religion of their choice, as long as they don’t impose it on others.
The right to follow a religion of your choice, of course, is completely different from a right to having your religion sponsored by other people’s money, which is nothing short of theft. Do remember, after all, that “state expense” comes from my pockets and your bank account and suchlike. Money does not fall from the skies, and even if the government actually printed money to afford these subsidies, inflation would result, which is an indirect form of taxation.
If Sonia Gandhi or Manmohan Singh genuinely believe that pilgrimages deserve to be funded, I recommend that they shell out their own money for the purpose. There is no justification for taking away our hard-earned money and spending it on building votebanks for themselves.
If you haven’t already, do read Gene Weingarten’s superb feature in the Washington Post, ”Pearls Before Breakfast,” which details an excellent little experiment the Post carried out. The story begins thus:
He emerged from the metro at the L’Enfant Plaza station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.
It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work…
What is extraordinary is that the musician was Joshua Bell, one of the most renowned classical violinists in the world. Playing “some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made” on a 1713 Stradivarius, Bell made $32.17. It’s a fascinating story, wonderfully told, read the full thing.
And also, check out this follow-up story by Weingarten that has much chat between him and readers who reacted to the story, as well as “something enlightening about the nature of government bureaucracy versus private industry”, also neatly excerpted by The Mises Blog.
I have pondered deeply over many of these points in the past, and am glad that some of my beliefs have been validated. And, if I may, allow me to add a 41st mistake to this list:
Carrying a list of dos and don’ts into bed with you.
And also, please put that damn Blackberry away. She’s already in bed with you, so there’s no further need to signal your affluence. Thank you.
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
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
Cheese is fascinating. It isn’t witty, sexy, erudite, affable or mysterious, but it is fascinating nevertheless. What else can explain CheddarVision.tv, the website where you can watch cheese as it matures?
Yes, it can take months.
Alexandra Topping, who must be tired of jokes about pizza, writes:
Something strange and slightly troubling begins to happen when you spend more than about two minutes watching Cheddarvision, the much-publicised website set up by the cheesemaker Tom Calver, which broadcasts live footage of a single 44lb truckle of cheddar as it imperceptibly matures. First, unsurprisingly, you feel bored and irritable. Then, after a while, and without really meaning to, you slip into a peaceful, meditative, quasi-hypnotic state. You start to breathe more deeply. Peripheral distractions - traffic noise, ringing telephones - fall away. There is you, and there is the cheese. Nothing more. If something should actually happen to the cheese while you’re in this state of mind - every week, the cheese is turned over; on one occasion, the label fell off and had to be replaced - it has an impact utterly disproportionate to the event. It is inexplicably hilarious; astonishing; gasp-inducing. Then the drama subsides, and once again, it’s just you and the cheese…
I must confess the block of cheese didn’t quite have the same impact on me, but maybe I’m just boring. Anyway, if you’re one of those who doesn’t have the patience to sit and watch this great drama unfold over months, you shall find a time-lapse video of the first three months of this block of cheese below the fold.
“Maybe [Pakistani cricket fans] should focus less on cricket and a little more on hygiene,” opined Rachel Marsden on a recent episode of Fox News’ middle-of-the-night talk oddity “Red Eye.”
Heh. The lady’s being groomed to be the next Ann Coulter, we are told, which will certainly ensure for years to come that America is loved around the world. It’s not only non-Americans who face Marsden’s derision, of course. Here’s what she has to say about Al Gore:
Al Gore could really pollute a bathroom ... Just look at the guy. If someone doesn’t take away his pork ‘n’ beans, he’s bound to get another one of those ‘gut feelings’ and mistake his own greenhouse gas production for science!
Such a charmer.
Posted by Amit Varma on 01 April, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
On clicking on the Arnie story, I came across a blurb that said, “Watch as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger interrupts a speech to help a fainting girl.” I think they should just make a reality show around him now, with SMS voting on what noble task he should perform next week. Such fun will come.
Posted by Amit Varma on 31 March, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
I have to ask: after all, it was in 1968 that Andy Warhol said, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” YouTube enables that like nothing else can.
Consider the story of the gent who “hurtled down nearly 200 feet at Angel tube station with a camera strapped to his head and posted the video on the YouTube Web site.” I can guarantee you this: the young man wouldn’t have bothered to do the stunt had YouTube not been around. What else will come from this?
This is scary. I feel sorry for the girls who go through this.
I can understand talk of purity when it comes to milk or oil and suchlike. But people can be impure? What evil weed do such men smoke that their minds get so filled up with rubbish?
(That was a rhetorical question. I know the answer is religion. Quiet now!
Link via email from reader VatsaL.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 26 March, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
A couple of posts about Nandigram by Somnath Batabyal and Yash Jain. Somnath makes an interesting point:
I see Nandigram in the same light as the horrific events in Gujarat. Yes, the number of deaths is less but it is the state machinery that went out to hunt the minority. In Gujarat, it was the Muslims, here they were poor peasants. Show me the difference? Both are minorities.
Ayn Rand once said, “The smallest minority on earth is the individual.” But some minortities, of course, are more equal than others. My thoughts on Nandigram are the same as my thoughts on Singur, which I’d expressed here.
Last link for this post: Old pal Rohit Gupta, who now calls himself DJ Fadereu, is writing a book, of which the first chapter can be downloaded here. If you like it, he is asking you to donate money that will help him write more of the book. I like the model: doodh ka doodh, paani ka paani.
A short while ago Set Max, as part of Extraaaaaaaa Innings, showed a gentleman somewhere in India doing Pooja for the Indian cricketers. He stood in front of an idol and chanted things like “Om Wicketkeepera Namah” and “Om Googly aur Offbreak”. Then the cameras cut back to the studio, where Charu Sharma and Mandira Bedi had their palms folded in prayer. “She is very religious,” Charu informed us about Mandira. (I would argue that her being on a cricket show instantly disproves the existence of God, but let’s not go there.)
Now, isn’t it ironic that all this should be happening for sport? To me, sport is all about celebrating human endeavour. Perhaps this is best reflected in the fact that the team that invokes God the most was the first strong team to crash out of the World Cup. Divine intervention ain’t no good if you don’t walk the hard yards yourself: that’s one good lesson sport teaches.
On a related note, do check out this excellent piece by Austin Cline on atheism, in which he makes the following point:
The BBC informs us about a new currency started by a group called the Global Country of World Peace, set up by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, called the Raam. Check it out:
The currency is being used as unofficial tender in Holland, as well as in the Maharishi Vedic City in the US state of Iowa. All quite droll, and I’m particularly amused by this bit:
Benjamin Feldman, ‘Minister of Finance’ of the Maharishi movement, told BBC News Online the raam could be used to battle poverty and create world peace.
He said governments could use the raam to start up agricultural and other development projects around the world.
Perhaps Mr Feldman and his followers function in a spiritual realm where the traditional laws of economics do not apply. A bit like R’lyeh, maybe, with its famously non-Euclidean geometry.
A baby polar bear named Knut is abandoned by its mother. The staff of Berlin Zoo, where Knut is based, take over responsibility of looking after the baby rather than leaving it to die, and begin bottle-feeding him. However, some people are not happy about this. Daily Mailreports:
Animal rights activists argue that he [Knut] should be given a lethal injection rather than brought up suffering the humiliation of being treated as a domestic pet.
“The zoo must kill the bear,” said spokesman Frank Albrecht. “Feeding by hand is not species-appropriate but a gross violation of animal protection laws.”
Yes, and I’m sure there’s a great bureaucrat in the sky looking down and noting this severe breach of protocol. Pah.
Do check out pics of this incredibly cute bear here. And below the fold, a YouTube clip of Knut. It’s in German, but that hardly matters. Just look at that bear, utterly adorable and harmless: can you imagine that some bastards want it killed?
I don’t understand how it would work. I’m sure women aren’t expected to wear it all the time, but only when they might get into a situation where they’re in danger. Now, if they knew that in advance, why would they get into such a situation? I’ll be interested to know how well this sells.
The best anti-rape device, in my book, is an efficient police and a swift judiciary. That isn’t enough by itself, of course, but it’s essential. And do we have one? Ha!
Posted by Amit Varma on 21 March, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
As a cattle rancher, I am comfortable raising animals for human consumption, but they should not be made to suffer. Because we ask the ultimate sacrifice of these creatures, it is incumbent on us to ensure that they have decent lives.
Ah, such compassion. It’s okay to slaughter them and eat them, but while they’re alive, keep them comfortable. Give that pig a cushion, someone. Make some iced tea for the chicken. We’re going to ask them for the ultimate sacrifice, let’s hope they say yes.
Posted by Amit Varma on 14 March, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
Reader Vikram Chandrashekar points me to a couple of news pieces (1, 2) about the launch in the UK of Current TV, the television channel started by Al Gore. We are informed:
The user-generated programming will feature three to eight-minute short documentaries, known as pods, and half-hourly “news” bulletins describing the UK’s most popular Google search terms.
A third of the films will be made by members of the public and the rest voted onto the channel by viewers.
I’m rather sceptical about “user-generated programming.” As I mentioned here, crowds are great at collating content (Wikipedia) and filtering content (Digg etc), but not so much at creating content. Still, the content creation of crowds can work if you have a real-time filtering mechanism that crowds themselves operate, and if you can cater to the long tail. YouTube can do both of those; Current TV can do neither. For that reason, I think Gore’s venture is likely to fail.
Thanks goodness my days of working for others are behind me. Socially awkward chappies like me would have immense difficulty in impressing anyone with a video résumé. I’d imagine, however, that even if good video résumés help some confident freshers get entry-level jobs, their usefulness will diminish as one goes up the ladder. After a point, what you do surely has to have more impact than how you present yourself. No?
I wonder why the British haven’t yet thought of putting their royal family on a reality show. Clearly there’s a market for it, and the royals would hardly notice the difference.
The Indian Economy Blog is looking for contributors. If you enjoy writing about the Indian economy, and are interested in joining the team at the IEB, get in touch with Prashant Kothari at ppkothari[AT]stringinfo[DOT]com. Make a difference!
Posted by Amit Varma on 12 March, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
Maybe we will? It’s interesting that the tools that Big Brother can use to watch you can also be used to keep an eye on Big Brother himself. Case in point: the Toni Corner arrest.
Toni Corner is a 19-year-old woman who was roughed up by some cops in Sheffield during her arrest last year. The footage was captured on CCTV—have a look. (There’s a button there that shows you a full-screen version.) Naturally, there is immense hoo-ha over this, and the cops in question have now found themselves accountable through what is a classic law-enforcement tool. (By the by, just to be fair, here’s the main cop’s side of the story.)
I’ve visited England but have never lived there, so I lack first-hand experience of English law enforcement. Two questions come to mind:
1] Would the cops have behaved differently if the woman wasn’t black?
2] Would the media have behaved differently if the cops had beaten up a white woman in an identical manner? Or a black man? Or a white man?
The answers to those questions should not impact what is done in this particular case, of course. Just interesting, that’s all.
(Link via email from Kind Friend.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 09 March, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
Every now and then I get hate mail from some religious dude (always a dude, never a chica) lambasting me for being anti-Hindu, or anti-Muslim, or anti-Christian. (If it’s the first, I’m also pseudo-secular.) If I reply, I generally point out that I’m an equal-opportunity religion basher, and if they look past the particular post that has provoked their ire, they will find that I speak out regularly against people who use any religion as an excuse to impose their views on others. I consider free speech to be more sacred than any God, a view that is clear from my defense of the Danish cartoonists, ”Do not draw my unicorn.”
Definitions can be immensely amusing. Consider the following definition of ‘Bed’ from Wikipedia:
A bed is a piece of furniture or location primarily used or intended for resting upon, but can serve other functions, such as providing a place for sexual intercourse and/or relaxing.
The “and/or” at the end blows me away. It is a masterful comment on the role sex plays in all our lives. No?
Posted by Amit Varma on 04 March, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
Earlier today, I’d posted on Linkastic about Wired‘s story on how rankings at Digg can be manipulated using money. Well, Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch has a problem with this: Wired‘s parent company owns Digg competitor Reddit, he points out, and he perceives a pattern to how they’re gunning after Digg, in this case “actively creating negative news about a competitor and then using the massive reach of Wired to promote that ‘news.’”
“Digg should sue Wired,” Arrington’s headline reads, which I think isn’t practical. Users aren’t stupid, and they’re the ones who will pass judgement on Digg and Wired’s behaviour. If Digg’s system really is corruptible, if there aren’t enough checks and balances in place, then the quality of stories on the site will suffer, and so will its readership. You don’t need a sting operation by Wired to achieve that.
Equally, if Wired is being unethical for commercial reasons, then readers will see through that, and Wired‘s credibility will fall, impacting their readership. You don’t need Digg to sue for that.
In either case, the people will decide. Or the markets, if you will.
My take: By and large, Digg works pretty well in displaying the wisdom of the crowds, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon. And Wired has enough credibility for most readers to accept that there was no ulterior motive in reporting this story. This time. The next time Wired wishes to bust the Web 2.0 party, though, they’d be well advised to look towards Reddit.
(Arrington link via email from Gautam John. You can read related posts by me here.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 02 March, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
The moms in my set are convinced—they’re certain; they know for a fact—that all over the city, in the very best schools, in the nicest families, in the leafiest neighborhoods, twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls are performing oral sex on as many boys as they can. They’re ducking into janitors’ closets between classes to do it; they’re doing it on school buses, and in bathrooms, libraries, and stairwells. They’re making bar mitzvah presents of the act, and performing it at “train parties”: boys lined up on one side of the room, girls working their way down the row. The circle jerk of old—shivering Boy Scouts huddled together in the forest primeval, desperately trying to spank out the first few drops of their own manhood—has apparently moved indoors, and now (death knell of the Eagle Scout?) there’s a bevy of willing girls to do the work.
In her piece, Flanagan tells us about how the nature of teenage sexuality has changed in her lifetime. She is horrified by what she calls “Blowjob Nation,” and believes that we are “raising children in a kind of post-apocalyptic landscape in which no forces beyond individual households—individual mothers and fathers—are protecting children from pornography and violent entertainment.”
Scott Adams speculates on how angry Haysoos would be if he’d been trapped in an ossuary for 2000 years and someone found it and let him out now.
If I was Haysoos and someone kept me in an ossuary for 2000 years, I wouldn’t be angry—I’d be horny. 2000 years, dude. How’s God going to have grandchildren at this rate?
Posted by Amit Varma on 28 February, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
What bugs me the most is that if some people unconnected with religion spread such rumours, and deaths were caused by that, legal or police action would almost certainly be taken against the mischief mongers. But because these guys are clerics, they’re untouchable, immune from the consequences of their actions. It’s a pity so many of us put religion on such a pedestal—and it’s not only Islam I’m talking about.
Posted by Amit Varma on 16 May, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
