An ice-cream vending contractor caught raping a six-year-old girl at Nithari was lynched by a mob yesterday. Apart from the anger you’d expect the crowd to feel, what else did the lynching demonstrate? Their lack of faith in the cops and the justice system, that’s what.
The mob might well have felt, “The courts will take years to punish this man, if they ever do at all. Why should be not take matters into our own hand and ensure that justice is done?”
Now, I’m against mobs and lynching and so on. But how do you answer that question?
Posted by Amit Varma on 04 April, 2007 in
India |
News
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.
Read more...
Posted by Amit Varma on 03 April, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
A few months ago, I’d linked to a superb piece by Barun Mitra about how endangered species such as the tiger could best be saved by market economics. To recap, Mitra had written:
[L]ike forests, animals are renewable resources. If you think of tigers as products, it becomes clear that demand provides opportunity, rather than posing a threat. For instance, there are perhaps 1.5 billion head of cattle and buffalo and 2 billion goats and sheep in the world today. These are among the most exploited of animals, yet they are not in danger of dying out; there is incentive, in these instances, for humans to conserve.
So it can be for the tiger.
Well, Arvind Kala has a piece today in Mint that makes a similar argument.
Right now, our wild animals are a wasted resource. Only private companies can unlock their true value by turning them into a dollar-earning tourist attraction. Wild animals flourish in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana because these nations treat their wildlife as an industry. They give land owners full property rights over the wild animals that roam on their land. The rights include hunting the animals and selling their meat, hides and horns. Thousands of privately owned ranches in these countries have switched to wildlife and safari tourism. They attract wealthy Americans and Europeans who pay $500-1,000 a day to go on photographic or hunting safaris, which typically last two to three weeks. So we have a paradox. These countries have booming wild animal population. But India’s wildlife diminishes even though shooting a partridge is a criminal offence. The paradox stems from a simple reason. Landowners of southern Africa protect their wildlife because they earn from it.
India’s tigers or elephants die because nobody owns them.
In other words, it’s the tragedy of the commons. Kala asks later in the piece: “If the private sector can run our phones, airlines and high-tech hospitals, why can’t it run game sanctuaries?” Indeed.
Or do you trust the government to protect these animals? Heh.
Posted by Amit Varma on 03 April, 2007 in
Economics
This piece has been published in the April 2007 issue of Cricinfo Magazine. It was written the day before India’s loss to Sri Lanka.
Imagine a man, dressed respectfully, and a scruffy dog he owns. The man catches the dog and sets its tail on fire. And then, as the dog runs around frenetically, the man says smugly: “Look – mad dog.” He even sells tickets. He calls it: “The Mad Dog Show.”
Indian cricket is The Mad Dog Show. Indian fans are like that burning doggie. The media is the respectable gentleman. Every time I see footage of mobs burning the effigy of a cricketer, and the voice-over of an anchor droning sanctimoniously in the background, I am appalled by the hypocrisy. “That is a beast you feed,” I feel like screaming. For all their talk about crazed subcontinental fans, the crazed subcontinental media is no different.
Read more...
Posted by Amit Varma on 03 April, 2007 in
Essays and Op-Eds |
Journalism |
Sport
Sometimes I wish I’d never been born. The problem is this: if that were the case, I wouldn’t be around to enjoy it. What would be the point then?
Posted by Amit Varma on 03 April, 2007 in
Personal |
Small thoughts
A headline on NDTV says: ”Chappell unhappy with senior players.” Read the story, worrying stuff.
If this is a leak by Chappell, then I really don’t see how he can continue to play a role in Indian cricket any more. Either you say what you have to say in public, or you deal directly with the board, and keep your report confidential. Playing games through the media is simply not on, especially when it is so blatantly done.
His allegations should be investigated, of course. But the substance in them is a separate matter from the issue of the leak.
The other night I caught a few moments of Viruddh, the much-advertised soap-opera starring Smriti Irani. It was awful: the screenplay was overwrought, the dialogues were cheesy, the characters were caricatures and the acting was hammacious enough to be beyond parody. “It can’t get worse than this,” I thought.
But I’d forgotten about Indian cricket.
Update: Chappell denies it.
Meanwhile, I was watching NDTV a while back and one of their anchors, while chatting with Ajay Jadeja, said: “I can assure you that our source is very reliable.” Hmmm.
Posted by Amit Varma on 03 April, 2007 in
Arts and entertainment |
Sport
Imagine you’re a cow. Every morning, some ignorant cowherd comes to you, grabs your boobs, and milks you. This happens day after day after day, and the only way out is beef. You’re likely to be one pissed cow, but you might also rationalise your situation and say, “Well, at least my milk provides nutrition to the benevolent human race, which has done such wonderful things to the world, like, um, whatever. Why should I object?”
Sounds plausible? Now, keep imagining that you’re that cow, and tell me how you’d feel when you read this report of what your milk was being used for:
After speculations regarding the date for Bollywoods most talked about wedding were finally put to rest, the fans of Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan are now wishing that the star couple have a blissful married life.
However, 50-year-old Bhani Bhagat from Varanasi took a bath with scalding milk praying to wish for the couples successful married life.
‘’This is the Gwal-Bal puja done by my ancestors for appeasing the heavenly powers especially Goddess Durga and Shitla for public prosperity, especially for granting blissful married life to would be and newly married couples,’’ news agency UNI quoted Bhagat as saying after taking the fuming bath amid a swollen crowd of devouts.
Bhagat took bath with scalding milk, ghee and kheer amid the beating of drums as an offering to Goddess Durga in the Saptsagar area in Varanasi.
“They maul my boobs for that?” Yes, they do, imaginary cow. I bet even the dinos weren’t so stupid, and if they’re extinct, don’t we deserve the same? Pah.
(Link via email from Prabhu.
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.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 02 April, 2007 in
Old memes |
Cows
This is beautiful:
ARS BREVIS
There is
one art,
no more,
no less:
to do
all things
with art-
lessness.
You can read more by Piet Hein here, and about him here. I especially liked “Problems,” “Mankind” and “A Toast.”
(Thanks to reader Balkrishna Nadkarni for the link.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 01 April, 2007 in
Arts and entertainment
Manish brings my attention, via email, to this delightful nugget on Salon:
“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
Here’s what I saw on the Yahoo! homepage a short while ago:
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
