Why You Should Steal Pigs

Because you can’t throw cows at the police. Ok?

(Link via separate emails from Salil and Deepak.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 18 November, 2008 in Miscellaneous | News

Sancho Finds A Home

Right—I’ve finalized a publisher. I’m pleased to announce that my first novel, My Friend, Sancho, will be published by Hachette India in April 2009.

Hachette India is part of Hachette Livre, the world’s second-largest publisher, who had more books than any other publisher last year in the New York Times bestseller list. While they’re giants worldwide, they’ve just set up shop in India. They launched officially in a function in New Delhi last evening; my book will be the first release in their local list.

So all of you complaining about how I no longer write five posts a day will soon, I hope, see that it’s been worth it.

Meanwhile, the broadband connection of the friends I’m staying with in Delhi is down—I’ve cunningly managed to log on to a neighbour’s wi-fi just to make this important announcement—so blogging will be slow for a couple of days. But your patience will be rewarded.

Posted by Amit Varma on 18 November, 2008 in My Friend Sancho | Personal

The Amartya Sen Fallacy All Over Again

Long, long ago, my good friend Aftab wrote about the Amartya Sen Fallacy, which he illustrated with the following chain of reasoning:

1. We need government-run schools because private schools aren’t up to the task
2. But government schools aren’t doing a great job either, the reason is that competition from the private tuitions are taking resources away from them.
3. Hence we should ban private tuitions.

So what reminds me of the Amartya Sen Fallacy today? This post by Michael Arrington of Tech Crunch:

In August I wrote about a carpooling startup called PickupPal. The idea is that people can gather on the site to find others traveling to the same places, and carpool there to save gas.

Great idea, right? Wrong. The bus companies freaked and sued under an Ontario law that limits carpoolers to traveling only from home to work and back, riding with the same driver every day and paying only by the week, among other restrictions. [...]

Anyway, the court case was decided and PickupPal lost.

For Indians, especially, this kind of thinking will surely seem familiar. I asked some friends on an email group for examples. Mohit Satyanand wrote, “The most egregious parallel is in education, where anyone seeking to set up a school has to obtain an ‘Essentiality Certificate’ from the local Education officials which is issued after they ascertain that the proposed venture will not have any impact on the schools already operating in the vicinity.” (More on this from me.)

And Devangshu Datta said: “FM channels and foreign-owned magazines cannot disseminate news. Technically the FM guys are in violation when they warn you that there’s a traffic jam.”

And then there’s our Department of Posts:

Most people prefer to have a courier collect mail for delivery instead of standing in line at the local post office. Hence it is not surprising that India’s Department of Posts has been feeling threatened by the courier industry, which is now worth US$800 million in India.

The result of the department’s insecurity is a proposal to amend the Indian Post Office Act, 1898 to ban private courier companies from carrying packages that weigh less than 500 grams and to make carriage of this category of parcels the exclusive domain of the Indian Post Office. The proposed amendment also seeks to raise the registration fees for courier companies to about US$2,272, with renewal fees of about US$1,136 a year.

Sigh.

(Tech Crunch link via email from Visu.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 16 November, 2008 in Freedom | India | WTF

“The War Is Over”

On an email group I’m part of, Roswitha writes that the recent New York Times hoax reminded her of the gorgeous poem below:

Ginsberg
by Julia Vinograd

No blame. Anyone who wrote Howl and Kaddish
earned the right to make any possible mistake
for the rest of his life.
I just wish I hadn’t made this mistake with him.
It was during the Vietnam war
and he was giving a great protest reading
in Washington Square Park
and nobody wanted to leave.
So Ginsberg got the idea, “I’m going to shout
‘the war is over’ as loud as I can,” he said
“and all of you run over the city
in different directions
yelling the war is over, shout it in offices,
shops, everywhere and when enough people
believe the war is over
why, not even the politicians
will be able to keep it going.”
I thought it was a great idea at the time
a truly poetic idea.
So when Ginsberg yelled I ran down the street
and leaned in the doorway
of the sort of respectable down on its luck cafeteria
where librarians and minor clerks have lunch
and I yelled “the war is over.”
And a little old lady looked up
from her cottage cheese and fruit salad.
She was so ordinary she would have been invisible
except for the terrible light
filling her face as she whispered
“My son. My son is coming home.”
I got myself out of there and was sick in some bushes.
That was the first time I believed there was a war.

Posted by Amit Varma on 16 November, 2008 in Arts and entertainment | IU Faves

Beam Me Up, Tricolour

The WTF line of the day comes from Rediff:

A beaming Tricolour will flutter on the moon now.

I never knew flags could show emotion or something could flutter on the moon, but what would I know, I’ve never been up there with a flag. And this is also very funny.

There will be much celebration this week on India reaching the moon, but I’m not sure if the benefits of getting there are worth the cost to the taxpayer. Unless that flag really is fluttering, and we can be the first nation to open a golf course on the moon.

Posted by Amit Varma on 15 November, 2008 in India | News | Old memes | Taxes | WTF

Noah’s Ark 2008 (And Rama’s Bridge)

Gaurav points me to this modern retelling of Noah’s Ark, which serves as a nice little parable about government regulation.

And can you imagine Rama’s men building a bridge to Lanka in modern India? I can see Rama at the local government office asking for a license to build the bridge. “Why do you need to build this bridge?” he is asked. Rama tells them that his wife’s been kidnapped. “File an FIR first at the local police station.”

So Rama lands up at the local police station to file an FIR. “Hmm,” says the inspector in charge. “First I need birth certificate, as proof that you exist. Then marriage certificate. Then ration card. Then pan number. Then chai-paani.”

Rama, with Laxmana’s help, provides the documents and a cup of hot tea. “This is not what I mean by chai-paani,” says the inspector, “but never mind. See, I can’t file your FIR because the kidnapping did not take place in my jurisdiction. You need to file it in the local police station there.”

Elsewhere Hanuman, caught trying to leap over the sea into Lanka, has been detained at customs because his passport is not in order. It’s all a mess. 

Posted by Amit Varma on 15 November, 2008 in Freedom | India

Congratulations, Miguel Syjuco…

... for winning the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize!

*

After Miguel’s book Ilustrado was shortlisted, he had told the Guardian that making it to the shortlist was “like someone coming into my dark room and throwing open the curtains.” That seemed like a perfect simile to me—writing is a solitary act, with insecurity and self-doubt our closest companions, and the room does seem terribly dark sometimes. This prize ensures that the curtains will always remain open on Miguel’s work, and I’m delighted for him.

Miguel and I had exchanged emails after we got longlisted for the prize, and we promised to send each other signed and inscribed copies of our books. Now I can’t wait!

*

And when will My Friend, Sancho be on the shelves? I’m going to Delhi this Sunday to meet all the publishers who have made me offers, and finalize a deal. Whoever I sign with, the release date is likely to be around the end of April 2009. I’ll announce it here within a week.

Posted by Amit Varma on 14 November, 2008 in Arts and entertainment | My Friend Sancho | Personal

Share The Pain

One of the defining characteristics of our species is that when we are miserable, we like to see others miserable as well. Indeed, if everyone is more miserable than us, we might even start feeling cheerful. The joy of others seems an affront to our misery, an injustice to be set right. Perhaps that as why, in Philip Larkin’s words: “Man hands on misery to man./ It deepens like a coastal shelf.”

So why is this news so shocking?

A Dutch court convicted two men Wednesday for attempting to infect 14 victims with HIV in a bizarre sex case.

The Groningen District Court found the two guilty of severe assault for injecting semiconscious men with HIV-infected blood at sex parties between January 2006 and May 2007.

[...]

Prosecutors had argued that the two men, along with a third who was acquitted of major charges, had drugged the 14 victims and intentionally infected them.

The statement by the judges quoted in that piece indicates that at least one of the two men was himself HIV-positive. His action is reprehensible, but imagine yourself in his place—would you think, Why me? Why not him? Or her?

*

Lest I be accused of spreading misery myself by linking to such news, let me share an old joke that I first heard in the 1980s.

Santa Singh goes to New York for the first time. He wanders down the wrong roads, and is mugged by a gentleman with a syringe. The mugger says, “Give me all your money, or I will plunge this syringe into you. It contains HIV-infected blood.”

Santa Singh says, “Oh balle balle, I am not giving you my dollars. Go ahead, plunge syringe.”

“Dude, are you insane?” says the mugger. “If I inject this into you, you will get AIDS.”

“No problem, praa-ji,” says Santa. “Plunge away.”

The mugger injects Santa, then looks with astonishment at his victim, who is still smiling.

“I don’t get it dude,” says the mugger. “I just injected you with HIV-positive blood, and you’re smiling.”

“Oh that’s okay,” says Santa. “I have protected myself against AIDS. I’m wearing a condom.”

Posted by Amit Varma on 14 November, 2008 in News | Small thoughts

Tequila Is a Girl’s Best Friend…

… in more ways than one.

Actually, both diamonds and tequila can make a girl weak at the knees, so this new development is quite apt. If you can’t afford a ring for the love of your life, just dip her finger in a shot of tequila.

(Link via email from n.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 14 November, 2008 in News | Science and Technology

Worst First Date Ever

See the result.

(Link via email from Neel.)

Posted by Amit Varma on 14 November, 2008 in Miscellaneous | Science and Technology | Small thoughts