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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.
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And ah, my posts on India Uncut about My Friend Sancho can be found here.
Here’s the WTF headline of the day:
If that was a man, this wouldn’t be news. I find that hugely offensive. Don’t you?
*
Tomorrow’s headline: Male Airhostess Fondled on Plane.
Posted by Amit Varma on 19 March, 2010 in
India |
Journalism |
Media |
News |
WTF
Speaking about his new film Shaapit, Vikram Bhatt says:
I did some research and a very important fact emerged. It was how a curse actually functions. The person who has cursed and the person who has been cursed may no longer be there but the curse remains on their family for generations. [...]
Before starting this film, I did a course of psychic meditation. By psychic meditation we can speak to spirits. With constant meditation you can avoid that too. I have seen spirits.
I hope the dude is just saying this to promote the movie, and doesn’t actually believe in this nonsense. And really, how does one research curses anyway? I can imagine the following scene:
Vikram Bhatt knocks on a door. The door opens. An old man stands there, unkempt and grouchy.
Old Man: Yes?
Vikram Bhatt: Sir, my name is Vikram Bhatt. I am researching curses. I hear that you have been cursed. May I come in so we can talk more about it?
Old Man: Ok. Whatever. Come in.
The old man and Vikram Bhatt walk to a table on which lie six bottles of vodka, two of them empty.
OM: I had just begun my drinking session for the night. Wanna join in?
VB: Sure. (Takes a glass from the old man.) So tell me, what’s your curse?
OM: I have been cursed to talk to spirits every day.
VB: Wow. You can talk to spirits? That’s so cool. I’d love to do that.
OM: It’s very easy. Watch. (Starts talking to a bottle of vodka.) Hello, sweety. How are you today sweety? Can I drink you, sweety? Without any mixer, just you and me.
VB: Neat. I like that. Hey, talking to spirits is easy.
*
What do you mean, that’s not plausible? Have you seen the dude’s films?
(Link via email from Kundan.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 18 March, 2010 in
Arts and entertainment |
Dialogue |
News |
WTF
The Indian Express informs us of the invention of a washing machine for pets, which “gives pets an automatic drenching with warm water and a blow-dry. The 33-minute process includes a shampoo, a rinse and a dry.”
They should so put Menaka Gandhi in one of those, no? L’that only.
Posted by Amit Varma on 18 March, 2010 in
News
The WTF opening sentence of the day comes from a Rediff report:
According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) one married man commits suicide every nine minutes in India.
That sentence makes it sound as if marriage is the cause of these suicides, which is surely unjust to the 57,639 wives whose husbands offed themselves. Causation is often complex and not easy to pin down when it comes to suicide, and the following sentence would make quite as much sense: “According to Cricinfo, 13 married men have made scores of 250+ in Test cricket in the last 10 years.” Huh, no?
Given that life is a fatal disease, it’s not unnatural for some of us to want to get it over with quickly. Marriage, like most of what we seek in life, is a palliative. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it can’t cure nothin’, and it ain’t the cause.
(Link via email from Poornima.)
Update: Here’s the NCRB report (pdf link).
Posted by Amit Varma on 18 March, 2010 in
News |
Small thoughts |
WTF
Heard about the recent furore over the garland of thousand-rupee notes that was presented to her Royal Majesty, Mayawati, by her party workers? One of her cronies has now come out and said that the media reports got it all wrong, and the value of the garland was “only Rs.21 lakh,” and not the Rs 5 crore that some people reported. (The rally at which it was presented reportedly cost Rs 200 crore, though the crony denied that figure as well.) Since then, the IT department has ordered a probe into Mayawati’s funds, while Her Highness has gotten herself another garland of notes. (Only Rs 18 lakh this time.)
Now, really, as long as it isn’t our taxes being spent, this should not bother me. But this kind of behaviour demonstrates, yet again, how our politicians believe that they are our rulers, and not our servants. This seems to be an attitude shared by most voters as well. Sure, many of them don’t like Mayawati, and would rather have a tribal leader of their choice on the throne, but you get what I’m saying.
Also, I have to say that a garland of currency notes is more honest and apt for the times we live in than one of dead flowers. Such it goes.
(First link via email from Maria Thomas.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 17 March, 2010 in
India |
News |
Politics |
WTF
I feel hugely sorry for this kid. In her world, it might be a huge deal to become “the youngest girl to ever write the Intermediate or plus two examination in Andhra Pradesh.” (She’s nine or ten; the article states both.) But the pressure on her must be immense, and such ‘achievements’ are not the stuff of life. She’s obviously enormously smart and talented, but I’m sure there’s much parental expectation pushing her, and that isn’t good. Childhood should be chilled out and as stress-free as possible.
I hope she’s doing okay 15 years from now.
Posted by Amit Varma on 12 March, 2010 in
India |
News |
Small thoughts
The government has banned Fashion TV for nine days after finding a program it aired offended good taste and decency by showing women partially nude.
The Information and Broadcasting Ministry statement said FTV channel would go off the air later Thursday until March 21. The statement cited an unnamed FTV program aired in September that showed women with nude upper bodies.
It’s immensely WTF that someone should think that topless women offend “good taste and decency.” Women have breasts. Straight men are attracted to them. These are just ho-hum facts of biology. Only massively repressed and resentful men and women would find partial nudity offensive—and one factor in their repression, certainly, would be this attitude against anything sexual. It’s a self-reinforcing feedback loop—the more you repress, the more repressed they get, the more you find reason to repress them further. In the 21st century, its all a bit bizarre.
What is even weirder is that the continuing spread of the internet threatens to make all this moot. Far wilder things than mere toplessness are a Google search away, and its practically impossible to filter all of that out. And why would you want to do that anyway? Sex is healthy, so let’s be open about it, and not whisper while talking about it or blush when the subject comes up. Or censor boobs.
*
Earlier posts on the subject:
‘A Trial Balloon’.
The Ministry of Wet Dreams.
Posted by Amit Varma on 12 March, 2010 in
Arts and entertainment |
Freedom |
India |
News |
Politics |
WTF
Daniel Pepper of CMS has a worrying story up on how RTI activists in India are increasingly facing a backlash from the people they are trying to expose. He tells us about Ajay Kumar, who questioned “why a local politician had authorized the construction of private houses and shops on public land.” Consequently, Kumar was “attacked by a mob of two dozen” and “beaten in the head repeatedly by an iron rod, leaving him unconscious and bleeding profusely.”
At least he lived. On Valentine’s Day in Bihar, “well-known RTI activist Shashidhar Mishra was shot dead by unidentified gunmen on motorcycles at the entrance of his home.” And in Pune, “another activist, Satish Shetty, was killed while on his morning walk.” I have no doubt that other RTI activists who are trying to expose the rot in the system must also be dealing with immense intimidation.
Shailesh Gandhi, once an RTI activist and now a commissioner with the CIC, hits the nail on the head:
It tells me that the rule of law is almost absent. The truth is that powerful people feel there is no law.
I’ve often argued that the rule of law is effectively absent in India for those without money, power or connections. But there’s more to this than even that. In most scams of the kind that these brave activists are trying to expose, private parties are actually in collusion with government authorities. Most mafias in the country are public-private partnerships, and the incentives of the men in power are obviously tailored to keeping these partnerships going. Thus, not only is the rule of law absent for the hapless RTI worker who chooses to challenge the system, the government is likely to actively work against him. The machinery he turns to for help generally has every reason to thwart him—and to look the other way when he’s beaten on the head with an iron rod.
That said, the RTI is a powerful tool, and it is precisely because of its power that there is such a backlash against those who use it. If the RTI was ineffectual, this backlash would not exist. These attacks, thus, demonstrate how much the RTI is capable of enabling. That leaves me both hopeful and worried. Perhaps a change is gonna come—but there will be a cost.
(Link via email from Gautam John.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 11 March, 2010 in
India |
News |
Politics
This sentence says so much about the level of parliamentary debate in India today:
Finally, marshals were called in to remove the unruly MPs.
Who elected these dudes and put them in parliament? We did. I would hang my head in shame if that didn’t mean I’d be staring at my paunch.
*
I have mixed feelings on the larger issue of women’s reservation. If I was a woman, I’d find it offensive. Implying that women can’t rise in politics on their own is terribly condescending, especially when so many counter-examples exist—strong women like Uma Bharti, Sushma Swaraj, Renuka Chowdhury and, um, Pratibha Patil. (And Sonia Gandhi, who may be at the top because of her last name, but then, so are so many male politicians.)
Also, it implies that there are fewer women MPs because women are discriminated against by political parties. I’m sure there is some discrimination, but it is not the sole factor. My hunch is that people enter politics because of their lust for power, and that men are biologically programmed to seek power actively, while women aren’t—at least not to the same extent. Thus, there are fewer women who seek validation in how much control they have over other people, and fewer women who are attracted to politics. (In saying this, by the way, I am dissing men and complimenting women, though Renuka Chowdhury, on an episode of We The People where I stated this opinion, attacked me because she thought I was disrespecting women. Quite the opposite.)
Having said that, I think the bill may have some positive unintended consequences. At the very least, parliamentary decorum is likely to improve, and MPs are likely to behave with somewhat more dignity. There might even be fewer instances of marshalls being called in to control unruly MPs. Who can complain about that?
Posted by Amit Varma on 09 March, 2010 in
India |
News |
Politics |
WTF
The WTF news report of the day surely has to be this one:
Six in ten scheming brides force men to go down on their knees by resorting to underhand tactics, suggests a survey.
[...]
While 32 per cent bullied their partner into proposing by threatening to leave him, 17 per cent sent themselves flowers from a fake admirer to stir up their lover’s jealousy.
It seems this survey was conducted by a British TV channel called Really. See the fun.
*
I can’t say why, but I suddenly remembered “The Gift”, the Velvet Underground song. Check it out.
Most young people may have got all romantic this Valentine’s Day, but for this technical institute it was all about brotherly and sisterly love. In what can probably be described as a celebration of V-Day in the spirit of Bhai Dooj, the Ishan Institute of Management and Technology asked its girl students to prepare food for the boys to mark the day.
The underlying motto, as institute chairman DK Garg told the media, was to promote “a culture of knowledge where brothers and sisters could stay together’’. Students said the institute, which believes in strict discipline, had warned them not to get ``carried away’’ on Valentine’s Day.
Well, full marks for being WTF in multiple ways. This is an institute of “management and technology” implying that a woman’s place is in the kitchen. Welcome to the 21st century, and all that.
On another note, given the wisdom of the old adage that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, this plan of promoting “brotherly and sisterly love” might well have backfired. I can imagine one of the boys, Romeo, eating the best mutter-paneer of his life and asking the girl who served him, Juliet, if she made it. ‘Yes,’ she admits, and blushes. He asks her out; they get married; and on the first night after they’re back from the honeymoon, he asks for mutter-paneer. She makes mutter-paneer. He tastes it, and his expression changes. ‘But this is crap,’ he says. ‘You had made it so well on that Valentine’s Day in college.’ And she says, ‘Mutter-paneer? Me? There must be a misunderstanding, I made the palak-paneer. It was Maya who made the mutter-paneer. The pretty girl with the big boobs.’
Anyway, I hope you had a good time yesterday.
(Link via email from Aparna.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 15 February, 2010 in
Dialogue |
India |
News |
WTF
Ah, modern times. Check out these two amazing news headlines:
Community ostracises woman touched by outsider
Muslims on social networks are sinners
Such stories they contain. It’s bewildering to be a writer of fiction sometimes, when the real world is so very far out and strange.
Posted by Amit Varma on 05 February, 2010 in
Arts and entertainment |
India |
News |
WTF
Reader Ruchir Khare writes in to point me to this passage from the Johann Hari piece on Dubai that I linked to in my last post:
A Human Rights Watch study found there is a “cover-up of the true extent” of deaths from heat exhaustion, overwork and suicide, but the Indian consulate registered 971 deaths of their nationals in 2005 alone. After this figure was leaked, the consulates were told to stop counting.
Ruchir’s questions: What has the Indian government done about this? What has the media done about this? These figures, after all, are greater than those coming out of Australia.
*
Oh, and my buddy Madhu pointed me this morning to the WTF headline of the day: “Aussies celebrate R-Day by racially assaulting 2 Indians.”
This is not on some random blog somewhere, it’s from The Economic Times. Some editor actually approved this. Such it goes.
The WTF statement of the week comes from a Dubai cop:
The woman confessed that she had sexual intercourse with her fiancé and that she had alcohol. We cannot just ignore such an offence.
The woman is question is a British tourist who complained on New Year’s Day that she had been raped by a waiter the previous evening. The cops “arrested her after she revealed during questioning that she had drunk alcohol and had sex with her fiancé, with whom she was on holiday.”
As for the waiter, he’s presumably still on the loose, still waiting.
*
And while on Dubai, check out this superb article by Johann Hari: “The dark side of Dubai.” (Link via Sonia Gupta.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 26 January, 2010 in
Freedom |
News |
WTF
The US Army has killer robots. The Lashkar has para-gliders. I’d love to watch the movie—but I’m scared about the real world.
Posted by Amit Varma on 22 January, 2010 in
News
The tastiest bit of the recent controversy over the IPCC’s mistake is this nugget:
Interestingly, the IPCC study is reported to have taken the deadline on the melting of the Himalayas from a Russian study, which predicted the melting of the glaciers by 2350. IPCC changed it to 2035, making it a ‘Himalayan’ blunder.
If you’re predisposed to reaching a particular conclusion, and all your incentives are tailored towards it, then such mistakes become inevitable. It doesn’t help that RK Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, calls himself “unsinkable”. Mr Pachauri, remember the Titanic, for which that term was also used? There’s an iceberg of truth heading your way.
Also, Pachauri really does owe VK Raina an apology. Maybe, following the example of David Frith, he should literally eat up all the IPCC reports. That would make for a good YouTube video.
(I got some of these links via an online discussion involving Mohit Satyanand, Barun Mitra, Yazad Jal and Sruthijith KK, among others.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 22 January, 2010 in
News |
Science and Technology
Reuters informs us that Air France has denied that it plans to charge overweight passengers extra. There had earlier been speculation that they could “bar obese passengers from flying.” Well, that’s been clarified.
Here’s the interesting thing, though: fat passengers do cost more for the airline to fly then thin passengers, as greater weight leads to more fuel consumption. It would politically incorrect and logistically impractical to charge passengers according to weight, of course, so the airlines don’t make that a factor in their pricing. As a result, thin passengers end up subsidizing fat ones.
I would have complained about this bitterly in my college days, when I was slim like a male Kate Moss. But I couldn’t afford to fly in those days, and had no stake in the matter. Today, I’m probably one of those benefiting from the subsidy, so you won’t find me complaining anytime soon. It’s all worked out well.
(NDTV link via email from Sudipta.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 22 January, 2010 in
Economics |
News
Hindustan Times reports the WTF news of the day:
A Pakistani parliamentary delegation has cancelled its visit to India after none of the country’s cricketers found any takers at an auction for the third edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
National Assembly Speaker Fehmida Mirza made the announcement in the House on Wednesday after opposition members raised the issue, terming it a “planned conspiracy” to prevent Pakistani players from featuring in the cash-rich series.
Now, really, if you were in charge of an IPL franchise, what would you do? Your resources are limited, and you want to make sure that every player you bid for and buy actually turns up and plays. If there is a no-show, even if you don’t have to pay the player, you incur an opportunity cost, and there’s a gap in your team. And with India-Pakistan relations being the way they are, it’s quite possible that, like last season, there may be no Pakistan players. All it takes is one more terrorist attack like 26/11.
The rational thing to do—indeed, the responsible thing to do, from your shareholders’ point of view—is to play it safe and not bid for any of Pakistan’s players. As a cricket fan, I find this tragic, because I love watching Umar Gul, Shahid Afridi and Sohail Tanvir in action. But from a business point of view, there was really nothing else the franchises could have done.
All this speculation about government directives and collusion between teams is, thus, pointless. Each franchise looked to its self-interest and made a perfectly rational decision. Such it goes.
As for the anger in Pakistan about their players not playing in the IPL, it is entirely justified. But it should be directed at the Lashkar, not at the IPL franchises.
*
And I don’t get this whole business of auctioning players. Why can’t the franchises just negotiate with players on their own? Why do we need the BCCI in the middle, distorting price signals?
If I remember correctly, Lalit Modi had once argued that the auction system and the spending caps in place are necessary so that a franchise like the Mumbai Indians, flush with Mukesh Ambani’s money, can’t buy out all the good players, thus killing the competition. But such a state would be unsustainable—consider these two scenarios:
1. Assume that Ambani has way more money than anyone and can conceivably buy off all the good players. But once he has an XI full of superstars, the attraction of being part of his franchise diminishes for the others. No up-and-coming star will want to be part of his team because they need the exposure more than the extra money—that is where their long-term equity lies. And established stars not guaranteed a place in the XI will also have an issue with the tradeoffs involved, because their long-term brand value can only go down, not up, if they don’t play.
2] Make the far-fetched assumption that Ambani somehow pulls it off, and his team is by far the strongest, and is thrashing everyone else. What happens? Because the matches are one-sided, the crowds lose interest, ratings fall, revenues go down, and it is no longer sustainable for Ambani to be spending those big bucks. He scales down, the players drift to other teams, and we move towards an equilibrium again.
Also, the auctions harm the players more than they help them. A franchise may be willing to pay, say, US$80,000 for a player, but the base price set for him is $100,000. So they don’t bid for him, and both the franchise and the player suffer—after all, where he could have been earning 80k, he’s earning nothing. (At this point, you might want to listen to Milton Friedman on the minimum wage. Here’s the transcript.)
And this affects the superstar players as well, who might command much higher prices than the franchises are allowed to pay. In other words, players and franchises are all made worse off by this auction system—so what’s the point of it at all?
Posted by Amit Varma on 22 January, 2010 in
India |
News |
Politics |
Sport
... to be the only hippo in Montenegro.
Not as bad as it must be for the only pig in Afghanistan, but still.
And imagine being the only human in a country full of hippos. I can see you in a cage in a zoo, mournfully contemplating what might have been if humans were the dominant species, when the zookeeper hippo and his hippo girlfriend put on some music and start dancing outside your cage.
‘What are you doing?’ you ask.
‘It’s called the Hippo Hippo Shake.’
(Pic courtesy Reuters)
Posted by Amit Varma on 14 January, 2010 in
Miscellaneous |
News
The WTF statement of the day is the warning given by Chandra Shekhar, a politician in Bhopal, to local shopkeepers:
Your mannequins should wear sarees, not underwear. From now on, keep all undergarments inside. Show it to the customer when he or she asks for it. Five days from now if undergarments are still hanging outside, we will light a bonfire of the lingerie.
Yes, the culture police is protesting against the public display of lingerie now. In a country in which there are so many serious issues to tackle, this is getting surreal. But why, it must be asked, are they doing this? Is there actually a constituency that approves of this kind of behaviour?
My answer: Yes, there is. We are a country that contains around half-a-billion sexually repressed men. Many of these dudes, who don’t get the kind of action they desire, resent anything that reminds them of this. Like lingerie on mannequins. Like advertisements for coffee-flavoured condoms (another target of these thugs). Like the ubiquitous bogeyman of ‘Western Culture.’
And where there is widespread resentment, there will be a political party tapping into it. Such it goes.
Posted by Amit Varma on 14 January, 2010 in
India |
News |
Politics |
Small thoughts |
WTF
In a significant ruling, a three-judge bench of the Bombay high court has held that in India criticism of any religion is permissible under the fundamental right of freedom of speech, be it Islam, Hinduism, Christianity or any other religion, and a book cannot be banned for that reason alone. But the criticism must be bona fide or academic, said the court as it upheld a ban issued in 2007 by the Maharashtra government on a book titled Islam—A Concept of Political World Invasion by Muslims.
Aah, that first line sounds so nice, gives so much hope. And then the second one makes it meaningless. Why should only “bona fide or academic” criticism be allowed? Who decides if a particular critique is “bona fide or academic”? The judges there paid lip service to free speech—and in the very next sentence, added caveats that took the ‘free’ out of it.
It could be argued, of course, that the bench merely followed a precedent already set by the framers of our constitution. They too, in Article 19 (1) (a), paid lip service to free speech. And in article 19 (2), allowed restraints on it on grounds such as “public order” and “decency and morality” that are open to interpretation, and make it easy for those in power to stifle free expression. Such it goes.
Also read: Don’t Insult Pasta.
Posted by Amit Varma on 07 January, 2010 in
Freedom |
India |
News |
WTF
... pork?
The Bombay High Court has stayed the disbursal of Rs 1,000 crore of the taxpayers’ money — in the form of subsidy by the Maharashtra government — to distilleries that make alcohol using foodgrains.
The subsidy is applicable to 21 distilleries, many of which are controlled by politicians.
Questioning the state’s policy, the court on Wednesday asked: “What is essential commodity — foodgrains or wine?”
[...]
The beneficiaries include former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s son Amit and Nationalist Congress Party leader Govindrao Aadik.
That last line I quoted is the killer, isn’t it? What’s the point of power, a politician might argue rationally, if you can’t enjoy its spoils?
(Link via email from Deepak Shenoy. For more posts on how our taxes are misused, click here.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 07 January, 2010 in
India |
News |
Old memes |
Taxes |
Politics |
WTF
One of the first things I did on getting back to Bombay after a wonderful vacation in Goa was go to watch 3 Idiots. I’d been following the controversy on Twitter for a week: Chetan Bhagat’s aggrieved post about how he wuz robbed, Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s rejoinder, the contract between Bhagat and the film-makers which Chopra uploaded on his site, Vir Sanghvi’s spot-on comment on the fracas, and the opinions of Twitterverse. Damn, I thought, the film must be something special if there’s such a fight to take credit for it.
Well, well.
I enjoyed watching the film, but if there was one thing about it that truly sucked, it was the story. Even accounting for the necessary suspension of disbelief while watching a Bollywood film, the story was ludicrously bad. Everything else about the film was excellent: the screenplay was immaculately crafted, the dialogues were easy and natural, the acting was delightful. Even though Aamir Khan’s lecturebaazi about something everybody already knows got occasionally tiresome, I enjoyed the film. But think about it, what a silly story. And they’re fighting for credit.
*
Regardless of whether the story was good or bad, I think Bhagat is right to feel hard done by. While much of what made the film so entertaining was not in the book, that is the case with many adaptations—Slumdog Millionaire being a case in point. The genesis of the story was certainly the book, and by having a story credit at the start of the film that did not include Bhagat’s name, the film-makers were being intellectually dishonest. Hell, what would it have cost them to put Bhagat’s name there, along with Abhijat Joshi and Raju Hirani? It was silly on their part not to do that—though I’d say that the resultant publicity has done everyone involved a world of good. Bhagat’s books must be flying off the shelves, and I don’t imagine he will be pissed for long.
*
Also, the contract itself is ridiculous. Bhagat actually signed his film rights away in perpetuity. This is crazy. A standard clause in most adaptation rights in the West is that if the film isn’t on the floors within a particular period, the rights revert to the author. What if Chopra’s team lost interest in this film, moved on to other projects, and Danny Boyle came to Bhagat and said he wanted to make a film on his book? Bhagat would be helpless, because the rights would be with VVC, who could either be churlish and refuse to part with them, or could benefit from the resultant windfall without Bhagat seeing any share of it.
The clause about discretionary payment is also most WTF. It didn’t hurt Bhagat in the end, but still…
Admittedly, Bhagat was probably not in a strong bargaining position at the time the contract was signed. But this should serve as a cautionary tale to any other novelist today selling film rights to Bollywood.
Posted by Amit Varma on 05 January, 2010 in
Arts and entertainment |
News
Much amusement comes from the news of the sex tapes that allegedly show ND Tiwari “in a compromising position with three women.” The guy is 86. I didn’t even know you could get it up at that age. What a man.
I can imagine him being confronted by the president:
Pratibha Patil: Mr Tiwari, I have seen these sex tapes of yours. Amazing. I mean, disgusting. You are a governer, how could you do this?
ND Tiwari: He he he. Is that a rhetorical question?
PP: No, I mean, yes. But tell me, why three women? That is so perverse!
NDT: Well, I was told once that I should only be sleeping with girls my age. Or, at least, not more than 20 years younger than me. And the three of them put together…
PP: Oh, you are so disgusting.
NDT: Thank you.
*
Well, Tiwari’s lost his job. Fair enough. But, as Prem Panicker tweeted, in this context, a few hours ago:
Strange: so NDT’s bedroom antics bother us. But not the corruption? Strange sense of priorities.
Quite.
Posted by Amit Varma on 28 December, 2009 in
India |
News |
Politics
The WTF statement of the day comes from Sheila Dikshit with regard to the Commonwealth Games:
I only keep praying that we won’t let the country down.
Pray?
Posted by Amit Varma on 20 December, 2009 in
India |
News |
Politics |
WTF
I’m assuming this is a publicity stunt. But even then, there is the question, who think of such stunts?
And while on PR, remember the khakras?
(Link via Mudra Mehta.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 20 December, 2009 in
Arts and entertainment |
India |
Media |
News |
WTF
Dear P Chidambaram
A newspaper report today states that you are willing “to drop all cases against Telangana activists booked since November 29.” Many of these ‘activists’ were booked for rioting and damaging public and private property. Now, for political purposes, you wish to drop charges.
I don’t get it. For the rule of law to mean anything, surely the law must take its course. Even you, as the home minister, cannot be above the constitution. How then can you justify this move?
I’m not even getting into the bad precedent set by your succumbing to blackmail and gundagardi. Already the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha has announced “an indefinite hunger strike.” Who knows where this will end?
Regards
Amit Varma
*
More open letters here. Also read: “Mobs are Above the Law.”
Posted by Amit Varma on 11 December, 2009 in
India |
Letters |
News |
Politics |
WTF
When Byculla girl Afasha Sheikh first met her fiancé Abdullah Sayed, it didn’t take her long to agree to the marriage. By all accounts Sayed was a good catch-he was young, with average if unexceptional looks and to boot, he was an NRI who worked with Emirates Airlines.
But the image of her groom unravelled-quite literally-on the wedding night. As Afasha, 25, waited with breathless anxiety turn to and anticipation, she saw her husband leisurely sit on the bed and proceed to take off his wig and then to her utter horror, his dentures.
Confronted with this metamorphosis, she did a quick transformation herself from coy bride to avenging angel: she packed her bags and then lodged a complaint against Sayed for cheating and impersonation.
This story seems incomplete to me. What should have happened is this: after Sayed takes off his dentures, Afasha should stand up, shocked, ready to storm out. Then Sayed says, through his toothless mouth, “Wait, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
He takes off one arm and puts it on the table. Then he takes of his legs and folds them away. Finally, with his only functioning limb, he removes his head and puts it on the bed. Then his head says:
“What are you so pissed about? From this whole damn planet, I picked you. You should be so proud.”
*
No, but really, this right here is the story of all relationships. We can never completely know another human being—and whenever we go into a relationship, we generally do so with an idealised version of this person in our heads. Our expectations are based, out of necessity, on a sort of fiction. And generally, as new facts come to light, we fit them into the narrative in our heads, and we get by. Most people, in terms of what their new romantic partners know about them, are far worse than bald and toothless. Afasha is shocked because these revelations came upon her so suddenly. Poor girl.
And also, stupid girl. Marriage is a huge commitment, and it’s foolish to get married without knowing your partner well enough. Would you buy a new car without taking it for a test drive? Isn’t marriage a far bigger deal than a new car? Does it make any damn sense to get married to someone without living with that person for a year or two first, giving it a spin to see if it can work?
Of course it doesn’t. But people do it nevertheless, and then expect others to feel sorry for them when it doesn’t work out. Such it goes.
Posted by Amit Varma on 07 December, 2009 in
India |
News |
Small thoughts
The news para of the day comes from a Times of India report on the International Film Festival of India:
Korean director Ounie Lecomte walked away with the Silver Peacock for ‘A Brand New Life’, which translated her own experiences as a child into a collective film. She also received a cash prize of Rs 15.
There’s a part of me that wants that to be a typo, so that the prize is Rs 15 lakh. (That’s actually quite likely.) But there’s another part of me that wants the director to actually have received Rs 15, in three tattered five-rupee notes, the kind your auto driver tries to pass on to you when you’re in an absent-minded haze. I can imagine the baffled director hold up one of them and ask a festival volunteer, “How much is this in my currency?”
“I’m not sure, ma’am, I don’t know anything about your currency.”
“Ok then: How far can it go in India? I mean, what can you spend it on?”
“You can buy a wada pav.”
‘What’s that?”
“It’s a building in Worli.”
(Link via email from Luv.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 04 December, 2009 in
Arts and entertainment |
Dialogue |
News
Mahatma Gandhi’s use of this particular tactic might have sanctified it, but in my opinion, threatening to fast unto death until your demand is met is a crude form of blackmail. Take K Chandrasekhar Rao, for example, the president of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, who recently announced that he would fast until he was given a separate Telengana state. In a democracy, there are constitutional ways to raise such issues—fasting unto death is just crude blackmail, and one that the state should not give in to. Rao was administered saline forcibly at a government hospital, an action that I consider a violation of his rights. If the man wants to fast unto death, let him fast unto death. It’s his life, his choice.
The TRS isn’t just about blackmail, of course—they’re also using standard political gundagardi. I find it delightfully ironical that after Rao broke his fast by having orange juice for health reasons, the “students who had attacked policemen and public and private property for two days to support Mr Rao did not take kindly to this sudden decision.” They might have suspected that Rao was not sufficiently dedicated to their cause, to which I’d respond that no politician is devoted to any cause other than himself. That’s human nature. Orange juice zindabad.
Posted by Amit Varma on 02 December, 2009 in
India |
News |
Politics |
Small thoughts
ToI has a report today on a former Miss Argentina who died “from complications after undergoing cosmetic surgery on her buttocks.” A close friend of hers remarked:
A woman who had everything lost her life to have a slightly firmer behind.
She could have used a stepmill instead, which I can attest does wonders for the butt. But really, whether we find Solange Magnano’s story poignant or absurd, most of us are no different. Every day, in a hundred ways, we give more importance to trivial things than they deserve. So the next time you’re stressed out about something, think of how insignificant that particular problem will seem to you ten years later—and chill.
Or find a stepmill.
(Link via email from my buddy with an iron posterior, Manish Vij.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 02 December, 2009 in
News |
Small thoughts
PTI reports on an interesting little controversy in Goa, where some police officers visited an offshore casino. This drew criticism, and Goa’s police chief BS Bassi duly defended his men:
Offshore casinos are not illegal here. What is the problem with police officers going to offshore casinos when they are not on duty? Many people go to temples, churches, on fishing trips…
As you’d expect, the religious loons jumped on Bassi, whose statement “drew strong criticism from officials of churches, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the main opposition BJP.”
“I was very much shocked to see the statement coming from a person who is supposed to be the guardian of law and order,” Father Francisco Caldeira, director of the Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media of the archdiocese of Goa and Daman, said. “It is a blasphemous statement to compare casino with temples and churches.” He said that Bassi does not understand what religion is and what casino is.
I agree with Caldeira that comparing a casino to a temple or a church is pointless. But I come to that view from a different perspective.
Consider this: In a casino, a gambler looks at the odds available to him, figures out the amount of risk he is willing to take, and makes his investments accordingly. He takes his chances; and takes responsibility for the consequences. That is the stuff of life itself.
In a temple or a church or any other place of worship, on the other hand, the worshipper engages in an escapist fantasy, that there is a greater power out there that can solve his problems. He nurtures delusion and often avoids responsibility. He tries to evade the inescapable truths of the human condition: especially our mortality and ultimate helplessness. He is living a fantasy.
Which man would I trust more: the gambling man or the religious man? (FSM forbid they are the same man, for then he is truly fucked.) You know my answer.
*
On a tangent, not every game in a casino is a game of chance. Poker, for example, is a magnificent game of skill—even more so, in my opinion, than bridge. It requires not just a mathematical ability to work out odds and suchlike, but also the ability to read human nature. I was a competitive chess player in my youth, but I consider poker a far greater game. In chess, there is always a right answer, and it is always on the board in front of you. In poker, the variables that determine the right way to act are the people in the game with you, and not just the cards on the table. This makes it a far richer game than any I have played.
*
On another tangent, every decision we make in our lives is essentially a gamble. There is some risk involved, a subconscious weighing of odds, a decision taken. From an investment at the stock market to a real estate purchase to the decision to ask someone out on a date to taking the stairs instead of the elevator. There are different levels of risk attached to each of these, but fundamentally, whenever we make a choice, we are gambling. The world is a casino.
Posted by Amit Varma on 26 November, 2009 in
India |
News |
Poker |
Small thoughts
On paying the salaries of 22,800 fake employees of the Delhi municipality.
That’s right: it’s been discovered that 22,800 of the 127,094 employees on the rolls of the municipal corporation of Delhi do not exist. These non-existent employees get a salary of Rs 17 crore per month. Guess who pays their salary.
There’s an ecosystem of ghosts out there that you and I are funding. At night, while the city sleeps, they get to work. They deliver mail that was never sent, sweep streets that were never paved, file applications that will never be read. When morning comes they’re gone, giving way to a government that is not much better.
(For more on how our government loots us, click here.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 26 November, 2009 in
India |
News |
Old memes |
Taxes |
WTF
The Times of India has a news report up about a 12-year-old-girl raped in a moving car. This happened in Palam, near the IGI airport in Delhi, where this seventh-standard girl was taken for a drive by her neighbours. “The car had tinted dark windows and I couldn’t see anything,” the girl said. She was raped by both men. A senior cop has been quoted as saying, “The accused threatened the girl not to report the matter to the police.”
And then:
The girl, however, recounted her ordeal to her parents who landed up at the Palam Village police station to lodge a case. The police initially refused to treat the complaint seriously as “that would bring a bad name to the family”, said the girl’s father, who works as a clerk in a private firm. [...]
It was not until the media intervened and senior officials were sounded that the arrests were carried out.
In an earlier post on a similar subject, I wrote that “our cops are generally an apathetic lot” and that they weren’t too responsive to people who weren’t “well heeled or well connected.” I then received disapproving emails from people, presumably connected to the internet, obviously writing in English, who insisted that from their personal experience, this was not so. The police had always helped them out. Well, duh.
Let me reiterate: for the vast majority of people in this country, the rule of law is notional. If you live in a slum and your rights are infringed by some local gangster, you’d have to be damn lucky to get any kind of justice. This is especially true for women. Indeed, out of the context of this particular case, imagine how hard it would be to be a single mother in a slum bringing up a couple of daughters. Think of the daily stress.
And think of the bad name your family could get.
This is quite the quote of the day:
The accidents are not my responsibility as I am not in charge of solid waste management.
I’m not trying to make a point here—the quote, by itself, just seems to capture something of our zeitgeist. Doesn’t it?
Posted by Amit Varma on 14 November, 2009 in
India |
News |
Small thoughts
It is a subject that would make most governments blush, but officials in the Spanish region of Extremadura have launched a major programme to encourage what could be described as a more hands-on approach to sexuality.
The region’s socialist government has launched a €14,000 (£12,600) campaign aimed at teaching young people how best to set about “sexual self-exploration and the discovery of self-pleasure” – or to put it less delicately: masturbation.
“Pleasure is in your own hands” is the slogan of a campaign that has sparked political controversy and challenges traditional Roman Catholic views on people having sex, even on their own, for non-reproductive reasons.
The logical next step, of course, is to give licenses for masturbation to those who trained by the government in it, and arrest anyone found masturbating without that license. Indeed, there could be masturbation inspectors authorised to peek into bathrooms and suchlike to catch offenders, with the aid of government-installed cameras. For those of a certain orientation, the act of watching potential offenders could itself lead to the offence being committed.
But leave aside the satire. We can all express outrage at taxpayers’ money being spent like this, and go WTF at the thought of the government getting involved in such a private act—but consider for a moment the principle behind our going WTF: that the government has no business bothering about what we do with ourselves. Our own government might not attempt to teach us how to masturbate—but it interferes in our private lives in hazaar different ways that we accept and take for granted. It punishes various victimless crimes, and even treats attempted suicide as a crime, which is silly if you accept the right to self-ownership. It treats us as subjects, not as citizens—and in countless different ways, is no less outrageous than the regional government in Spain that teaches wanking.
So why is that WTF and not this?
*
Okay, so if the Indian government was actually to start a Ministry of Masturbation, who would be the first masturbation minister?
Why, Mahinder Watsa, of course!
(Link via email from Manish Vij.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 14 November, 2009 in
Freedom |
News |
WTF
On doing up BS Yeddyurappa’s home. The Times of India reports:
An RTI reply has revealed that Yeddyurappa has [...] spent a staggering Rs 1.7 crore to renovate his bungalow, Rs 35 lakh of which went into redoing his bedroom. [...] Renovation and fittings of the master bedroom cost Rs 34.55 lakh. This includes toilet works and interiors at Rs 10 lakh, marble flooring at Rs 10 lakh, a false ceiling and wall designs at Rs 4.40 lakh and Rs 10.15 lakh for gypsum board and wall panelling.
Since that’s our money, that’s our bedroom, and we should all be allowed access. How would you like to spend a night in Yeddyurappa’s bed? I’m sure he has silk sheets.
Somewhere, though, Mayawati is snortling.
(Link via email from Dev. For more on how our government loots us, click here.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 13 November, 2009 in
India |
News |
Old memes |
Taxes |
Politics
It seems that Elesh Parujanwala, the ‘winner’ of Rakhi Ka Swayamwar, is “deeply hurt and angered” by the things his supposed fiance, Rakhi Sawant, has been saying about him. Among other things, he feels her comments about him not being rich enough were “stupid and unnecessary”. Quite.
In other news, we are told that nine female inmates of the Bhopal Central Jail have applied to take part in Rahul Dulhania Le Jaayega. Amazingly, 16746 other women are also keen to marry Rahul Mahajan. WTF indeed.
To all these ladies, I’d like to offer the advice Elesh should have gotten before he embarked on his adventure: Don’t. Crib. Later.
Posted by Amit Varma on 29 October, 2009 in
Arts and entertainment |
India |
News |
WTF
This is hilarious.
Posted by Amit Varma on 27 October, 2009 in
India |
News |
Politics |
WTF
Dear Bal Thackeray
I read your diatribe against “the Marathi manoos” yesterday with great interest. I have two points to make:
One: You say that the Marathi manoos stabbed you in the back. You are wrong. They stabbed you in the front. Could the election results be any clearer?
Two: Has it ever struck you how limiting the term ‘Marathi manoos’ is? There are many markers of identity for a Maharashtrian person, and Marathiness is just one of them. A Marathi person could also be a cosmopolitan Indian, a secular humanist, a death-metal fan and an India Uncut reader. We all contain multitudes. By trying to reduce people to just one of these, or by insisting on its primacy, you insult them. You might be hurt that so many Marathi people have not voted for you—but I am surprised that so many have.
That said, even if your party has lost ground, your brand of politics is still alive and kicking. Many of the manoos who stabbed you in the front went and embraced your nephew Raj, who is a true heir to the Shiv Sena’s divisive legacy. Congratulations.
Regards
Amit Varma
*
More open letters here.
Posted by Amit Varma on 25 October, 2009 in
India |
Letters |
News |
Politics
The WTF sentence of the day is a classic case of trying too damn hard. Mumbai Mirror, while reporting how Sanjay Leela Kempinski lost his temper of the sets of a film he’s shooting, tells us:
On seeing Bhansali’s fit of rage, the entire unit trembled with fright.
The entire unit trembled with fright? That must have been quite a sight. Really, now, is it asking too much to actually sit back and read one’s copy after it has been written?
And don’t get me started on that headline.
Posted by Amit Varma on 22 October, 2009 in
Arts and entertainment |
India |
Journalism |
Media |
News |
WTF
Dear Mr Sibal
I have always thought that the IITs are the glowing successes of India’s educational system. Equally, I believe that the regular schooling system, including the Class X and Class XII boards, are #FAIL.
That is why I am rather surprised at your ministry’s proposal that it be mandatory for IIT entrants to score at least 80% in their Class XII board exams. They already have to work hard enough for the JEE, which seems to have served its purpose for generations now. Why add to their stress?
It’s been reported that your reason for doing this is “to squeeze out the hundreds of coaching institutes who thrive by selling hope to unrealistic aspirants.” But why do those coaching institutes exist in the first place? It is because students find the existing education system to be inadequate. So why not fix that first? The coaching institutes won’t have a reason to exist then.
You must have heard of that old cliché, If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. Mr Sibal, what you’re trying to fix ain’t broken. Yet.
Regards
Amit Varma
*
More open letters here. And some essays by me on our education system:
Our Unlucky Children.
Fund Schooling, Not Schools.
Posted by Amit Varma on 20 October, 2009 in
India |
Letters |
News |
Politics
Three men holding key positions in one of India’s biggest private sector companies were on their way to a party at their boss’s swanky Cuffe Parade home, when driver Goverdhan Vaidya, who is in his mid fifties, suffered a cardiac arrest.
The men asked him to stop the car, which was at Cooperage, helped him out and sat him down on the pavement.
Then, they got back in the car and drove off to the party, leaving a breathless Vaidya holding his chest in excruciating pain.
Luckily, a passerby took Vaidya to hospital and he was saved. But here’s my question: nowhere in Mid Day’s article are the names of the three men in the car mentioned, or of the company they work for. Why?
Posted by Amit Varma on 18 October, 2009 in
India |
Journalism |
Media |
News |
WTF
Social networking takes a whole new dimension. HT reports:
This Halloween, Twitter users will get the chance to communicate with departed film stars in the world’s first online séance, according to a report on The Sun.
Tweeters can choose which of their deceased idols they want to talk to, pick a question — then follow the “Tweance” in real time using the social networking site.
Twe-fuckin’-ance? Unbelievable. I think it’s about time Pratibha Patil gets on Twitter. She’s already good at speaking to spirits, after all.
And while we’re at it, why not extend the participation of the dead and have a Bigg Boss season just for dead people? Instead of an eviction every week, you could have an exorcism. And ya, as a wild card, we could still have Kamal R Khan in there. If the spirits are as snobbish as some of the current BB participants, they’ll probably just look straight through him.
Remember my recent post about how cops in Delhi argued over jurisdiction while a woman was being gang-raped? How do you satirize something like that? Here’s one way: You have a man walk into a police station and confess to murdering his wife—only to be turned away by the police, and directed to go to another police station, because the scene of the crime does not come under their jurisdiction.
Wait—is that too unbelievable?
You know what I’m getting at. It really happened.
Posted by Amit Varma on 11 October, 2009 in
India |
News |
WTF
Reuters has a story on how a zoo in Gaza painted black stripes on a couple of white donkeys and passed them off as zebras. The kids who came to the zoo were reportedly delighted. The other donkeys no doubt went WTF.
And the thought that struck me as I read this news: What a delightful metaphor for media hype.
No?
(Picture courtesy Reuters.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 09 October, 2009 in
Journalism |
Media |
News |
Small thoughts |
WTF
DNA has a story today about an incident that took place last evening in Delhi. At about 8.30pm, two teachers, a man and a woman, stepped out of a computer training institute in Sultanpuri in West Delhi. Three ruffians started eve-teasing harassing the woman. The man with her, named Prakash, protested, and got beaten up. And the woman was dragged away. Here’s the next line of the news report:
Although Prakash was quick to alert the police, tracing the victim took time because of a dispute over jurisdiction between officers of Nangloi and Sultanpuri police stations. When finally the girl was found, it was too late. She was lying near the tracks in a bruised condition.
Naturally, she had been gang-raped. All while the cops were busy in “a dispute over jurisdiction”.
This is hardly an unusual story. Such petty bureaucracy is common in India, and our cops are generally an apathetic lot. Indeed, if you’re not well heeled or well connected, you’d be lucky getting any help from them at all. They are tenured and unaccountable, and I guarantee you that no action will be taken against the policemen who argued about technicalities yesterday while a woman was being raped down by the railway tracks.
So why would they care?
Update: I’ve replaced the phrase ‘eve-teasing’ in the post with ‘harassing’ because of the following email I received from my friend Nilanjana Roy (quoted with permission):
I’m not usually an advocate of politically correct speech, but shouldn’t we reconsider using terms like eve-teasing? I know we all do, this is India, but I have hated that term for years for its inaccuracy. Having been at the receiving end of “eve-teasing”, I’d say it’s a combination of verbal abuse and physical assault, and that even “molestation” doesn’t cover the actual effects that kind of aggression has on the victim. “Harassing”, “threatening” or “assaulting” might be better equivalents.
Dead right. We use the term out of habit, but it’s imprecise—and I’m hardly surprised that a lit critic was the one to point out this imprecision to me! Another word I can think of that gives an innocuous tinge to a major social problem: ‘Ragging’.
Update 2: Thanks to Twitter, I’ve discovered that the “dispute over jurisdiction” was actually against the rules. @gkjohn’s query about this was answered by @mumbaicentral thus: (1, 2):
1. ... one Police Station can go wherever it wants to nab a suspect. Here any PS could have lodged FIR and caught the guys.
2. 5(c), FIR Format “In case occurrence outside limit of this PS”. Such situations have been envisaged: these guys were just assholes.
So there you have it.
And Twitter rocks. You guys following me yet?
The Times of India has a report on a bizarre fight that broke out between a couple in Kolkata airport:
The woman, a South African, had married an NRI from Kolkata in Cape Town recently. She arrived in the city on Sunday morning, her first trip to visit her in-laws. But within hours, a quarrel broke out and she decided to leave the city.
She was booked on the 3.45 pm Jet Airways flight to Mumbai, but her husband and in-laws caught up with her before she could check in.
The couple then fought for hours, which led to the woman missing her flight. At one point, the woman threw her bags at her hubby, who responded by slapping her.
That’s right, this man slapped her in a public place, presumably with hazaar onlookers. And the airport security simply escorted them out. In my view, the slap was reason enough to call the cops immediately and get the guy arrested—as might well have happened if he had hit someone other than his wife. But because it’s his wife, he can do what he wants, ghar ka maamla hai. Shameful—both his behaviour and our attitude.
(Link via email from Vivek.)
HT reports that the I&B ministry has just given the go-ahead to the producers of a film called The Indian Summer to shoot in India. However, after going through the script, it wants four scenes deleted from the film—these show “a kiss between Nehru and Edwina; a dancing scene; one where Nehru says ‘I Love You’; and a scene showing them in bed.”
Normally, when two people have an affair, there is kissing, there are confessions of love (or lust), and there is carnal action. I don’t see the point of pussyfooting around all this—an affair without these would not be an affair, so why should a film about an affair have to avoid these?
The government also insists that the film carry a disclaimer that it is a work of fiction. Why not keep those scenes then?
The ministry says it is doing this because it doesn’t want anyone to “show Nehru in a poor light.” That is bizarre: I don’t think his alleged affair with Edwina shows him in a poor light—the guy was human, after all. (Most Indian men would probably think more highly of him because he scored with a white chick, but leave that aside.)
And even if it did show Nehru in a poor light, so what?
Anyway, as revenge on the Indian government for this preemptive censorship, I suggest that the producers get Salman Khan to play Nehru, and have him sing a Himesh song as Edwina runs around a tree. That will show them.
*
And for what I think of the I&B ministry, see point 3 of this old wishlist of mine.
Posted by Amit Varma on 02 October, 2009 in
Arts and entertainment |
Freedom |
India |
News |
Politics |
WTF
This comment, made by PatrickO on the Le Monde website and quoted by the Guardian, sums up my feelings on the Roman Polanski case exactly:
What would have happened if Mohamed, a factory worker from a working-class, immigrant-heavy suburb, had been accused of the same crime?
The argument that Polanski deserves some sort of special treatment because he is such a great filmmaker is absurd. Everyone’s got to be equal under the law. It’s irrelevant how long it’s been, or how they arrested him, or how many people sign petitions arguing for his release. He’s been accused of a crime, and the legal process should treat him the same as anyone else—including Mohamed.
If any argument can be made in his favour, it has to be based on the particulars of this case. That argument should be made in court. It is an argument for his acquittal, not for a pretrial release.
Given that he’s already pleaded guilty to having sex with a thirteen-year-old girl, I don’t see what that argument could be. But that’s for the courts to decide.
Posted by Amit Varma on 29 September, 2009 in
Arts and entertainment |
News
