I think it is immensely cool for an Indian Idol contestant to have a blog. Indeed, make that blogs. Here’s Meiyang Chang’s Blogger page, which lists all his blogs: The Buddha Soliloques is his regular blog, with travel posts and stuff, Fool’s Imagery contains his photographs, and The Amyegin Outburst has cartoons drawn by him.
Chang comes across on the show as much more intelligent and balanced than the rest of the contestants, and that comes through in his blogs as well. I predicted in my last Indian Idol post that he will reach the final three, and last night’s performance gave me no reason to rethink that. Among other things, his voice has a timbre that sets him apart from the others, and he sings with a certain sukoon, as it were, that most of the other singers just don’t have.
The boys were outstanding in last evening’s episode, and seem to be getting better with every performance. I take back what I said earlier about this year’s contestants not being as good as those in the last two: The boys, at least, are every bit as impressive as their predecessors in the last two seasons, even if there is no one quite as stunning as Karunya was last season.
Speaking of stunning, I never thought I’d think something like this, leave alone open myself to ridicule by expressing it publicly—but isn’t Alisha Chinai just superfreakingcute? The years have sat really well on her…
(More Indian Idol posts here.)
Update: Oops, apologies, forgot to indicate that I got the link to Chang’s Blogger page via email from reader VatsaL.
Posted by Amit Varma on 08 June, 2007 in
Arts and entertainment |
Indian Idol |
Blogging
Heh.
(Via email from Gautam.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 08 June, 2007 in
Blogging
... there are aliens listening to KL Saigal.
I’m certain that they’ll start making plans to exterminate us by the time Himesh Reshammiya gets to them. But it’s too late now.
(Link via email from VatsaL.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 07 June, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
My life is complete after reading Gene Weingarten’s satire on outsourced, long-distance journalism. Weingarten reports on a meeting of the local legislature in Tamil Nadu via webcast:
A man whose name is, I swear, “Somnath Chatterjee,” addressed the state legislature here today. Mr. Chatterjee was introduced as the leader of the “Lok Sabha,” which is evidently some sort of important national lawmaking body about which few details are available at this time.
Mr. Chatterjee is apparently in ill health, as he arrived surrounded by attendants in white hospital garb. However, he proved hale enough to mount the podium, where he delivered a lengthy speech in praise of an elderly, revered local government official whose name sounds something like “Dr. K. Haminahamina,” a name that, unfortunately, didn’t get any Google hits. But it’s got to be pretty close.
Mr. Chatterjee’s speech was interrupted many times by the sound of antelopes thundering by, which turned out to be people thumping their palms on their desks. This seems to be a local version of applause, a fact that became apparent as the camera panned the audience, and HOLY COW, wait a minute—everybody’s wearing all white, head to toe!
You can read the full piece here. If you want to. No one’s forcing you. I’m sick of being blamed for making people read sick things. Sick! Am I holding a gun to your head? Huh?
(Link via email from Deepak and two mailing lists. Blame them! Pah!)
Posted by Amit Varma on 07 June, 2007 in
Journalism
My life is complete with a glimpse of God’s inbox. I especially love which mails she opened and which ones she didn’t. Poor rdawkins.
Even after resigning, the lady’s got no peace. Create kiya, ab bhukto!
(Link via email from Lalbadshah.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 07 June, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
My life is complete with The Paris Hilton Diaries. From jail, of course. A sample entry:
Day 5: Gandhi went to prison. So did Martin Luther King Jr. So did Robert Downey Jr. and Martha Stewart Jr. and I think Nelson Mandela Jr. Mandela was imprisoned for, like, 50 years or something for being black and also for driving an uninsured vehicle, if I’m reading Wikipedia correctly. Nicky often mentions me and Gandhi and how incredibly thin we both are and how she wonders if he used bronzer.
Such wisdom waxes. I especially like Days 11 and 18. But where are the pictures?
(Link via email from Gautam John.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 07 June, 2007 in
Arts and entertainment
This is the 17th installment of my weekly column for Mint, Thinking it Through.
I felt an intense desire yesterday to go out and burn a bus. There was no specific reason for this – it was like a craving for ice-cream – and I also figured that I would throw stones at shop windows afterwards. Being in a social mood, I called up a couple of friends to ask if they would like to join me. They politely declined. Oddly, they also asked if I was okay. “I’m just fine,” I told them. “You go have latte and feel sophisticated.”
But I understand their apprehension. Had a couple of us gone out and burnt a bus, we would have been arrested instantly, and later thrashed in the lock-up. On the other hand, had a couple hundred of us gone, nothing would have happened. We would have been allowed to burn buses and throw stones, and even hurt or kill a few people as long as they weren’t anyone influential. All we’d need was a banner or two, or even just some slogans to shout. “We want justice,” we could proclaim, while figuring out whether you set fire to the tyre before or after it’s around the hapless passerby. It takes skill.
In India, mobs are above the law. The events in Rajasthan in the last few days are an illustration of this. The losses to business because of the protests by the Gujjars and their clashes with the Meenas are estimated to run in the hundreds of crores, and I think you’d agree with me that a lot of it was avoidable. Most mob violence in India is.
Read more...
Posted by Amit Varma on 07 June, 2007 in
Essays and Op-Eds |
India |
Politics |
Thinking it Through
Mid Day introduces a story thus:
Four well-built Nigerian drug peddlers beat up a scrawny constable during a raid.
Sigh. Bloated government and scrawny policemen is the exact opposite of my dream society. Our priorities are just upside down, aren’t they?
Posted by Amit Varma on 06 June, 2007 in
India |
News
Building malls.
You have to wonder what we have learned in the last 60 years. The BMC is reportedly planning to “construct ‘municipal malls’ at various spots in the city,” where “prices of commodities would be regulated ... so that they could ‘cater to the masses’.” Mumbai Mirror rightly lashes out:
All this focus on a ‘business enterprise’ comes at a time when hundreds of roads across the city are still dug up, a large part of the Mithi river is yet to be cleaned up though the monsoon is already here, the city’s massive parking problems need urgent solutions, the Jijamata Udyan needs a thorough clean-up, octroi evasion is depriving the BMC of crores of rupees, the question of adequate and 24/7 water supply is still to be resolved, most BMC schools are on the verge of closure, and Mumbaikars on the whole want the city’s crumbling civic services to be improved.
The populist rhetoric accompanying the proposal is startlingly naive. These malls, a ‘civic official’ is quoted as saying, will “accommodate small shops that have been forced to shut because of big malls and also the BMC’s development projects.” The BMC should ask itself a few basic questions: If some small shops have shut down because of big malls, why is that so? When they don’t regulate prices outside those malls (with good reason!), how will regulating them inside the malls help? If those shops could function at a price lower than the market, wouldn’t they have destroyed the big malls, instead of the other way around? Isn’t the whole point of a market to satisfy the needs of the consumer, and is there any point accommodating stores inside government malls that the consumers have rejected outside them?
My prediction: If any such malls come up, they will become vehicles of enrichment for rent-seeking officials. Space within the malls will be allocated to merchants at the discretion of municipal officials, and corruption will be rampant. These malls will not turn a profit. You and I, again, will end up as shmucks. And the roads will still have potholes.
(Where your taxes go: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Also see: 1, 2, 3.
My essays on taxes and government: Your maid funds Unani, A beast called government.)
Posted by Amit Varma on 06 June, 2007 in
Economics |
India |
Old memes |
Taxes |
Politics
I’m sticking my neck out: the two guys named in the headline of this post will reach the final three of this year’s Indian Idol. The third will either be Emon Chatterjee—good singer but a bit kiddish—or Parleen Singh Gill, who I see as a dark horse. There will be no girls in the final three, as much because of the bias against girls in the last two seasons that I spoke about here, as because none of the girls this time seem to be a complete package. All the boys I named are likable, and sing well, and that’s the ticket.
However, they have the lottery of the next two rounds to get through first. Last night, three out of 12 girls were eliminated, and this evening three boys will get a ticket home. I think there’s a fair bit of luck involved at this stage, as the supporters of a good singer might feel complacent, and criticism of a bad singer might just propel that person’s supporters to vote furiously. I’m assuming that’s why the excellent Aisha Sayed got eliminated, and the much-criticised and mediocre Vartika Shukla stayed in the contest. If Indian Idol had the voting mechanism of Bigg Boss, and viewers had to vote to throw people out instead of to keep them in, the results would be different.
Read more...
Posted by Amit Varma on 06 June, 2007 in
Arts and entertainment |
Indian Idol
