The sword of insanity against inanity

Thol to T9 in Thamizh... ?

2008-01-11T00:10:00.000+05:30

The most frequent letters in the English alphabet... are "e t a o i n s r h".. do you realize in most cases it is ergonomically inneffecient to type withouth the dictionary option.. in the cell key pad ?.. "E, N" requires two key presses.. "I" and "O" 3... and "S" the only letter to have 4 key presses... who designed it.. ??? What a godsend the T9 system would have been...

That brings us to the question... since we will nt have a T9 system for some of the local languages in india.. would it be better to have a text entry method for Thamizh... with a different ordering of the english lettters ? Where the most popular letters... in Thamizh are arranged with the fewest keystrokes ???

i am now giving more work for "Maa Nannan" and Thol Thirumavalavan...

Are monkeys a race ?

2008-01-06T17:50:00.000+05:30

Hey.. how can someone calling someone else a monkey be called "Racist"... I thought monkeys were a species not a race... Maybe Harbhajan is a "Speciesist"...
And also whats all this about Harbajan being evaluated through a hearing.. I thought it was Bucknor who needed a hearing test...

Jokes apart, we are still waiting for the whole sordid affair to unravel... (I never thought I would use this adjective in association with cricket... after the betting scandal)... What is this after all going to rake ? The attitude of the Australians ? They were playing the only 'cricket' they know... which is to raise a ruckus with every country that tours them... They did it against Sri Lanka.. called them monkeys (and were not fined for it). They have always done it against England... those guys just laugh it off... and so do almost everyone else. Australians are not at fault here. It is just their nature to be unprofessional.

The only sane reasoning I have heard over the last two hours was Sunny Gavaskar who directly asked the question... "Why are we talking about technology here? Shouldn't we be talking about having better umpires?". So, having known the nature of Australian cricket, isn't it the umpire's duty to be doubly cautious wile mkaing decisions... And what does this bright chap Mark Benson do ? He asks Ponting (a guy who did not even have the integrity to walk when he edges the ball) to depute for the third umpire. Was Benson in some kind of hurry to get home?

What we need to evaluate is also the way any news item is beng spun out of control by the media. Over the last couple of hours I have had the misfortune of watching the various news channels giving their own spin of the events. NDTV promptly reported that Mumbai is ablaze because two kids they interviewed expressed their anger against Bucknor. Headlines Today flashes the mugs of the two umpires and blatantly calls them cheats. Times Now.. time and again flashes the footage of the Ganguly dismissal... in a split screen, and on the other side, a group of people hitting a sack with "Bucknor" written on it. Enough already!

Are SMS contests lotteries ?

2008-01-03T23:06:00.000+05:30

I have always wondered about this. Gambling is banned in Tamil Nadu... right.. ? Then how can cell phone companies make money... by making people respond to truly simple questions like "Do we have red on the Indian tricolour?"... and charge 6 Rs per SMS ?

Doesn't that amount to gambling ? even people without money might just charge their cell phone for 10 rs to answer that question in the hope of winning a Motor bike. The sponsor and the cell phone company would recieve a lak of SMSes, which would more than cover the prize money.

Is this gambling ?

Reasons vs Excuses

2008-01-02T12:41:00.000+05:30

Do people know the difference between a reason and an excuse ?

We keep hearing excuses and people pass those off as reasons all the time. Do you remember the day when India had Australia at 120 odd for 6. then India went ahead and made Australia score 400 during that innings. 300 more runs of the last 4 wickets.

You know what the 'reason' was? Andrew Symonds was NOT given out when he was in single digits. To me that is nto a reason. That at best is a lame excuse. Something like.... why are you late to work? "It was raining." I have only one word for such people. "Umbrella".

Twenty 20. Does the toss matter?

2007-09-24T01:27:00.000+05:30

Click image for a larger version

Sivaji....

2007-06-08T06:20:00.000+05:30

Since it is the trend in almost all blogs.. (Except this popular one) to post some comment on "Super Star's Sivaji", (the name in itself is a shameless gimmick), I will post some of my thoughts too,

1. Apparently it is the flavour of the month to be 'obsessed with Sivaji'. People greet each other with.. "Sivaji tickets vaangiyacha?", and each seems to have his own theory about
what the story is. This pervades through the NRI community too. There are guys who used to think 'Annamalai' was a tech college in South TN, who seem to be genuinely interested in Sivaji. A change of time zones... definitely screws up perspective.

2. Secondly, there are these people who despise the movie because Rajini is overly hyped, and that it is stupid to like his movies. I agree partly, but then if you do not like Rajini movies, then possibly you really cannot watch any other Thamizh movie except maybe "Mozhi" and maybe some of the comedies that Crazy coems up with for Kamal.

'Masala movies', characterized by a phenomenal introduction to the hero, a hero who is a paradigm of ALL virtues, a hero who bashes goon up with his little finger have been the norm even since MGR's hey days. Every Tamil/Telugu hero has followed the same idea. So blaming Rajini for starting the 'trend' is like blaming Saddam for being the first demagogue. Saddam definitely shined in being a cruel demagogue, but by no means was he the pioneer in that art.

3. There is also lots of speculation about how much money this movie would make,and how much greater Rajini is, than the 'Khans' because he makes so much more money. Obtuse reasoning. What I felt was, that irrespective of how much money any of these guys make, none of it is goign to be recycled into the betterment of society. The irony is that Shankar, the director has made movie after movie after movie about how a single man can change society for the better, but still, does not do anything to actually help. (I could be wrong on that... I am not Shankar's auditor... maybe he siphons some money into Vidhyakar's organization).

4. Finally... it is just a movie you guys.. !!! not worth getting worked up so much about it... :-). I get worked up watching you get worked up over the movie!!!

If our gaaptan were to analyze Cricket...

2007-04-26T19:32:00.000+05:30

Number of matches in the league stage - 24
Number of worthwhile matches (between two seeded teams) - 4
Number of games in the super 8s - 24
Two of the teams are useless to even watch, 13 of the matches are hence trashed
Number of worthwhile matches - 11
2 semifinals, 1 final.

So, total watchability index of this world cup ... 18 / 51... only about one third of the matches were worth watching.

People following Indian cricket - 60 percent of one billion - 600 million.
People following Pakistani cricket - 60 percent of 200 million - 120 million
People following Srilankan, West indian, Australian, South African, New Zealand and English cricket - about 30 million.
720 million of 750 million now, do not have direct interest in the results

Study by news channels mentioned that worldcup watchers reduced from 60 percent when India was present to less than 30 percent when India was eliminated. The same figure could be used for Pakistan. Worldcup viewers reduced to 390 million from 750 million because India and Pakistan were eliminated. Dawood's gain was cricket sponsor's loss.
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This directly impacted on the reduction of advertisement costs per 10 seconds. Rates were reportedly slashed from 4.5 laks for a ten second slot to about 1.2 laks. What does that translate to? Increasing ads between overs making cricket telecast unwatchable for the average cricket fan. During yesterday's match I counted the time slotted for the bowler to complete 6 balls and the time slotted for the ads. This is what I came up with.

Time slotted for the bowler (which shows him just delivering the first ball. The run-up and the field adjustmentsare deemed unimmportant when compared to watching the Bachan guy nodding his head to MOTOROKR). These are average figures compiled when there were no wickets falling.

Time during over : 180 seconds
Time between overs : 55 seconds (sometimes they even cram 3 ads between overs)
In the event of a wicket falling, break duration:120 seconds
2 drinks breaks:300 seconds each

So on average, during a 50 over innings, with 10 wickets falling, you get to watch 150 minutes of cricket and 70 minutes of ads. You watch a little less than 3 minutes of cricket before being thrust upon rudely by almost a minute of advertisements.
Just to keep it in perspective, music channels play 5 minutes of a song/narration before interrupting the program with a 30 second commercial break. Watching cricket these days is like watching a sequence of ads interspersed by a few guys throwing a ball about.

Apart from all these inter-over disturbances there is a ticker that runs at the bottom of the TV screen ALL THROUGH THE GAME asking you if you want to get married, a dancing tiger that comes up in the event of a boundary completely drowing the commentators and another ticker what crops up in the middle of the screen during third umpire decisions that completely hide the action. On average, the Sony Logo, the marriage ticker at the bottom, the tiger and the replay ticker take away 20 percent of your screen directly.

On Wednesday, the encroachment of advertisements was so irritating that I switched off the game and started following the match on the web. Atleast I could get whatever information I needed whenever... Maybe I do sound like a 60 year old... but I definitely miss those glorious days when the ONLY ad available to Doordarshan was the "Only Vimal" ads. Which was played for 10 seconds religiously at the end of each over. We had the comfort of watching all aspect of cricket apart from just the ball hiting the bat.

I sometimes get a feeling pretty soon there would be a bunch of people who would watch the game just for the ads, and not for the game pretty much like most desis watch the Superbowl. The way Indians are playing, that day is not too far off. I look forward to the day BCCI is bouht over by WWE and Vince McMohan becomes the CEO.

GANGULY SACHIN DROPPED

2007-04-20T19:09:00.000+05:30

Euphemisms!!!! Even NOW people are talkign about 'resting' Tendulkar and Ganguly. What the FUCK !!! What did they DO to be rested ? Where they cleanign their house toilets ? Where they sweeping the roads ?

WHy the FUCK should they be RESTED !!!!!!

DROP the MoFos... have the courage to say yes.. those gusy HAVE to be DROPPED !!!

Rested????? Who are you fooling bastards ?

!!! ??? !!!

2007-04-18T06:22:00.000+05:30

Gun control... gun control... gun control.... Who the fuck wants gun control... ? What we need is bullet control.

/ Simple. Yet efficient

The loss of hitting....

2007-04-14T23:03:00.000+05:30

In a startling move, Rahul Dravid has announced that he is taking full responsibility for the whole Atlantic fiasco. In a press meet that the BCCI and the Fox news network organized, he revealed that he even though the whole team had the proverbial finger in the pie, he, as the alpha male, would take prime responsibility for the inglorious denouement.

He mentioned in the conference that as there were a dearth of good knocks in the Indian team line-up, the management had hence wanted to recruit the likes of Anna Nicole Smith and Pamela Anderson. He and ANS had a meeting in the Bahamas before the world cup to discuss about ANS's knocks... and things got out of hand... he mentioned. Our astute reporter noticed that Rahul was trying to lick some Kissan Jam off his cheek when he said that.

The team had considered ANS a brighter prospect because even though she had started her career with a modest 36 point average, she had grown visibily with her tremendous knocks over the years maintaining an average of above 50, the last couple of years. He felt the loss of ANS's unique skills would be felt deep down under by one and all in the team.

"I hate to be the one to have told you... but... I did tell you so... No. That is no vagina that woman had. It was a clown car", he said before lapsing into evil laughter.

Comments on blogs?

2007-04-12T20:38:00.000+05:30

Is there a way eblogger can automatically list the last 10 comments I have written on other eblogger blogs? Has it already been done? I feel this is too simple.. i can see typepad can list all comments written on the same blog. I hope google does something in that regard.

Or am I taking all this too seriously? But I frankly think there could be better thought exchange if something like that is done.

Karunanidhi reinvents mathematics

2007-04-07T08:03:00.000+05:30

Mu Karunanidhi, talking about a discovery that would shake the founding principles of statistics, announced that after exhaustive research, he has unearthed the fact that 'centum' in Latin is the corruption of the words Sen (beautiful) and Tham (Tamil). He announced on Monday that he has unflushable proof of the finding, stored in his restroom. He announced that he has hence named himself Kanidhamedhai Kalaignar Karunanidhi or KKK after this mindblowing discovery.

He further asserted Thiruvalluvar, the first Dalit poet, (arguable... but the thread Valluvar is seen wearing has been archeologically evaluated for being something used to scratch his own back with... according to actor Kamal Hassan) first came up with a numerical value for Senthum, when he wrote his Thirukkural. The value of the centhum has now been officially fixed at 1330.

He proceeded to use this revolutionary finding in all further legislations by the Thamizhnadu government starting with the reservation policy, by alloting 230 percent to Dalit Muslims and 200 percent to Dalit Christians. The rest of the 900 percent reservation would be divided among dalit Bhuddists, dalit Bahaists, Muslim Christians and Christian Muslims from the OBC category. He further elucidated that this move was a fair representation based on a study conducted in A.D. 1330 in Russia... or as he added with his characteristic wit, the turn of the new Cendhoori.

Former Chief Minister Jayalalitha called this move, ruling party attrocity, and immediately went on a 10 minute fast protesting it. The fast was broken by Vaiko with the traditional offering of Vellai Paniyaaram, and proceeded to give her the sobriquet... "Kanidhaththai". He started on a 30 minute speech which began with the proclamation... "Kanidhathirkaga Paniyaaram Pusitha Perunthalaivali, engal Amma". Jaya TV gave a live telecast of this event, sponsored by Saravana Bhavan.

The PMK party president Ramadoss hailed this move by the ruling party and proceeded to burn effigies of Euclid and Pythagoras. He further lambasted Ramanujam, the Brahmin Supremist for spreading false unprovable ideas about mathematics and banned the year 1729 from existence. The Dravida Kazhagam (DK) marked their displeasure by cutting down a 1729 trees and mounting actors dresses as ABEL prize winners on donkeys. The procession held up traffic on Mount Road from Kathipara Junction to Anna flyover.

Lok Paritran, the nascent student party refused to comment and went back to their bachelor pad. They later released a song on their website after which they started fighting amongst themselves about whose cooking turn it was that evening.

Natwest Series 2002

2007-03-31T22:23:00.000+05:30

What is it that makes our blood boil whenever we hear someone talking about cricket in India? Is it the national team's apathy while playing the game? Is it the build up to the world cup? Is it the tag 'Indian Tigers' given to them by Pepsi.. and you now want those tigers to be sent to China so that their testicles can be turned to virility soup?

Do you ever get the feeling that news everywhere is the same? There is always misdirection... and sometimes willfully as in the case of American politics and sometimes because people rarely every have the capacity to see the big picture.

Why now are we talking about Sachin Tendulkar quitting when the bigger issue is not the individual players but the team spirit on the whole. Why isnt anyone talking about when was the last time India actually won a multi-nation series?

Indian winning record in the last 50 matches has been better than average. It is not winning individual matches that count. But the last time we won a multi-nation tournament was in 2002. The Natwest series if I remember right.

That inability to win tournaments is never going to change even if Sachin is going to be dropped. Let them win these idiotic two nation trophies every now and then, but when it matters, in a multination competition, the Indian team has almost always failed. They are like the best student in Kaveripauk Matriculation higher secondary school. The guy will get all the adulation within the school, but the moment he meets someone from Vivekananda high school from Perambur, he is going to get fucked up beyond all recognition.

The difference is that our man from Kaveripauk will have the intention but not the skills. But our team seems to have the skill, but lacks the drive.

Are you there God? This is me Krishna Sehwag

2007-03-27T10:34:00.000+05:30

While all of us, news channels, politicians, street vendors and other important participants in the Indian sporting industry were wondering about exactly WHY the Indians failed to qualify for the super 8s, a perfectly logical reason came from Krishna Sehwag. The mother of Sehwag, the dimunitive lady had the cricketing brains of all the Indian players put together, when she suggested that "God was not with the Indian team".

I was perplexed. When everyone was investigating Sachin's performance, Dravid's captaincy, the media hype and other frivolous factors, here is a lady who is faulting the selectors for not selecting God in the team. And we were under the impression we had sent the best team possible to the Carribean !!! How could the selectors forget Him??? Especially when India has 33 million Gods to choose from???

And what really was God thinking by the way? When he knew the Indian selectors were not going to value him (neither experience, performance nor brand ambassadorship), the least he could have done was replace Leverock in the Bermuda team. He could have atleast helped them win over Bangladesh by a margin of 400 run or 47 overs. Reasonable ask which would have pushed India into the 8s.

So I propose the main reason why India did not qualify for the super 8s was Bermuda. The country that boasted of immense cricketing talent such as... hmm... Leverock... could not deliver at the right moment!!! When a country of 1 billion was looking upto you... you FAILED!!!

So, as a country, we Indians should mark our protest by burning Bermuda shorts, and avoiding drawing triangles altogether. Kids... the circle is more wholesome. Even Sachin seems to like it a lot!!! It must be good for you, if it is good for him.

Dravida Kazhagam - Part 3 - Where was Rajaji wrong?

2007-03-27T01:24:00.000+05:30

C Rajagopalachary or Rajaji, was a dynamic figure... in the Indian National Congress scene. A freedom fighter and 'the greatest thinker India has produced' as once described by Nehru, he played a small yet significant role in the rise of the Kazhagam culture (if you could call it that) in Thamizh Nadu. I am sure Rajaji has been right on numerous occassions, but he was certainly wrong when it came to judging the Thamizh Nadu political scene.

Even though Rajaji has gained a lot of accolades from other popular politicians (I am by no means insunuating that those popular people were intelligent), he had the dubious distinction of making a few policy and political blunders. He was known to be anti-socialistic, and was one of the main reasons for his split with the socialistic Congress... which made him a new best friend of Periyar.... the Congress hater.

Rajaji failed to judge Periyar properly. Periyar is a guy who propagated the idea that once India gets Independence, the power would just be transfered to the Brahmins and the Banias which then symbolized his own loss of power. He hence considered August 15th to be a day of mourning. Really lofty ideas... from a guy who is supposed to be the father of a 'culture'.

Rajaji, in all his idiocy, just played along with Periyar's logic, that because Brahmins had 'Brahmins only' hotels, held a few high posts and by far more educated than non - brahmins, they had the intent and opportunity to rule Thamizh Nadu by subjugating the weak. This was the driving philosophy behind Thamizh Nadu politics!!! If Rajaji had even an iota of what he was claimed to have, he would have stood against this clearly corrupt Periyar propaganda.

Periyar, had vested interest in joining with Rajaji. Both were against the Congress. Rajaji's even though had in the 1950s, when he was the CM of Madras State, a clearly idiotic idea of "Kula Kalvi", where professions were handed down based on the family, (barber's son would be a barber). This was more elitist than anything suggested so far and went directly against Rajaji's anti-socialistic and pro-free market/profession ideology. In spite of this idea, which is also against what Periyar stood for too, the two came together in the 50s with the broad plan to rout Congress/Brahminism... which-ever way you want to look at it.

What neither Periyar nor Rajaji wanted to pay attention to was, the possiblity of guys like Kamaraj, who were not from the supposedly elitist Brahmin class, to have such an astouding effect on Thamizh Nadu. It is truly pathetic that even a great human being like Kamaraj, could not saveThamizh Nadu from the clutches of the Kazhagams.

People just had to understand that Kamaraj, an excellent example from the 'downtrodden', had the capacity and the opportunity to rise in ranks and serve as one of the most efficient CMs in Thamizh Nadu to date. His case alone stands as an anti-thesis for Periyar's supposition of purported Brahmin supremacy. Rajaji in his blind hatred for the Congress chose the wrong side, comminting one of the biggest blunders in his political career.

In the year 1959, Rajaji at the fag end of his career, formed the Congress Reform Comittee which later merged into the Swatantra Party headed by guys like Rajaji and Minoo Masani. The SP had famous associations with the DK, and the Forward Bloc. (More about the joke called The Forward Block later). He joined with the DMK lead by C.N Annadurai, and contested the elections in the year 1962. The Kazhagam garnered immense support and established itself as a worthy adversary to the Congress. Since then there has been no looking back for the kazhagams.

Literally, their claim to popularity, which had been Brhamin hatred, was validated and brought to the forefront because of one Brahmin. Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari, who gave it the much needed credibility. Instead of exposing the idiotic premise, Rajaji, all 79 years of age, supported it, when all he had to do was to turn and point at his earstwhile Congress colleague, Kamaraj. (If Kamaraj had not been alive till then, the least he could have done is talk about his legacy)

By the year 1967, when the next elctions were held, the DMK did not need the help of Rajaji , who by then had weakened considerably in body and political power, and swept aside Congress starting a new era of callous politics in TN.

Next up: Where Kamaraj was wrong

Naach Pakistaneeee...

2007-03-23T10:28:00.000+05:30

There was a time when cricket was all about 22 fools playing with a ball, a abat and 6 pieces of wood. Hehe... But what has happended recently... has made EVEN 20 year olds... sound so old!!! I mean look at them.. they have started talking about "back in my days when cricket used to be fun"... Like that old athimber sitting in the back row of the kal mandapam slapping his thighs... So why not me?

Hehe.. I rememeber watching my first match.. 10 years old and Hirwani had a 16 wicket haul. I still remember the headlines on Indian Express that day..."DANCE says Hirwani... and the West Indians danced"... That was cricket for the sake of cricket.

I feel now it is Gabbar Dawood Singh saying "Naaach Pakistani"... and they seem to comply. I wish cricket is once again played only as a pass time, with cricketrs having other reputable professions. It should be only for pleasure that people play cricket.

Al Sadr at it again

2007-03-19T12:06:00.000+05:30

Our Man Al Sadr is at it again. He had gone on record saying, he is willing to cooperate witheh American forces, and now has categorically denied ever having made such comments. He is now asking for Baghdad's uprising against American forces.

Recent history is that Sadr, who controls a huge Shia stronghold, got into trouble withteh Sunnis regularly. Now, when the USA promised the surge, he allowed American troops inside the Sadr city ghetto. Apparently there is a hidden agenda in this. By allowing the American troops inside the Ghetto, he has greatly reduced the number of Sunni uprisings against his militia, without endangering his forces. He hasnt lost control of the Sadr city ghetto either, and now is making bombastic statements against the Americans, because he feels the Sunni threat is reduced.

Even though there is a lull in the number of bombings, the underlying problems remain the same. Al Sadr ultimately wants to rout the SUnnis using the Americans and stake his claim to teh government. He already has 30 people of his party in the ministry, and can very easily progress from being a militia head tot he head of the government, once or if the American troops withdraw.

That starts a whole new ballgame for America... one more terrorist state in the middle east region with a clear agenda against America. What are they going to do now ?

Comical Lele

2007-03-18T11:13:00.000+05:30

Jaywant Lele is our version of Comical Ali... I hope the joke never gets old, but the way he predicts things happening is awesome. Look at this interview. :-). I hope more people interview him.

Adi Kamalacharya?

2007-03-06T17:53:00.000+05:30

I had the opportunity to watch the Kamal inerview again... and at one point of time KS Ravikumar came by and asked one trivial and idiotic question. he asked Kamal... how he was able to enunciate all those sanksrit slokas so well.

Loaded question. I was expecting somethign idiotic from Kamal. As always and he did not dissappoint me. He started out with probably the toughest by Adi Shankaracharya, and proceeded to give the meaning to it.

Some guys say the meaning he gave was completely wrong. But what irked me the most was when he compared Adi Shankara and Periyar and effectively said they taught us the same thing. This from the same guy who, when asked why he did not wear the sacred thread... nonchalandtly said "I have no need to scratch my back in the bathroom".

NOte to self: When you lie, lie big

2007-02-21T10:00:00.000+05:30

YES... that seems to be the case atleast with the US government.

Look at all the trussed up cases.

Anthrax scare = made by US Army
Iraq/9-11 link = fabricated evidence by Pentagon/White House
Patriot Act = written before 9/11, but just needed an excuse
1.6 BILLION dollars spent by Bush on propaganda
12 BILLION dollars in US treasury cash missing accounting

And the strongest rebuttal to all these claims is "So did you expect anythign better than that? You already knew it from all those 'crazy' theories right?" And STILL people are not able to sack Bush. I am not able to understand the whole thing. Is there something that is preventing him from being sacked? He has systematically lied to his own people and yet people arentdoing a thing about it.

So basically when you lie, liie big so that people would think this cannot possibly be a lie... it is too absurd to even be a lie. This seems to be the straategy with the American politicians.

1. Claim proof about something that you do not really have
2. Do somethign really stupid like killing a few thousand people
3. Wait for some time for people to scream their heads off about the attrocities
4. Keep reiterating that you really know what you are doing
5. Wait some more time
6. Give out a meek undercovered media statement that what you thought initially was wrong
7. Cover it up with with a bigger threat immedietely
8. Goto step 1

Dravida Kazhagam - Part 2 - C.N Anna Durai

2007-02-18T14:37:00.000+05:30

Among the bigger leaders of the Kazhagam movement, Arignar Anna was probably the most well educated. He had an M.A. in guess what ? Thamizh ofcourse. Well... he was one of the more mellow leaders of the Dravida movement. He was a thinker, and split from the Periyar group pretty early because of two things.

1. None of the DK had participated in elections and tried to claim power in Thamizh Nadu. Arignar Anna himself had mentioned that Periyar is more intent to see Congress lose than to see their party stake claim to the government. None of the Periyar's party even wanted to contest elections. So Anna came out.

2. Periyar married someone half his age when he was 70. This irked people in the party and probably there were a lot of unwanted politics in the party. This made Anna leave the party and start his own. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. Such things would happen quite a bit later on inthe party, but it somehow did not affect party leadership that much. Maybe by then there was too much money involved to be stuck on principles.

So. The DMK was formed. This was the main seed of what went wrong in Thamizh politics. A party founded on principles of Atheism and Brahmin hatred, the DMK had a more powerful leaning towards politicking and ruling. Anna proceeded to capture the imaginations of the pseudo rationalists, and the neuve Dravidas as I would call the new age Dravida chest thumpers.

Arignar Anna also has contributed to the philosophical base of the Dravida culture. An quick peek into his "Anna Kalanjiyam" would give you an idea about his thinking capabilities and intent. His Kalanjiyam is divided into thoughts about 'Society', 'Politics' and 'Religion'. A sample of some of his 'pearls'.

"If all weddings are love marriages, and are performed without constraining oneself to Jaadhi, Madham and any other divisions, then there will be no prostitution in India"

"Even Robert Clive had performed many a yagnas and poojas. Then why did the British goverment lose to the Japanese in the second world war in the initial stages ? They should have won on the first go, right ?"

"Thamizh temples built by Thamizh people no Thamizh land using Thamizh money, do not give equal rigths to the Thamizhians"

Such arguments started the intial movement towards separatism. Sanskrit hatred (veiled Brahmin hatred) and immedietely followed by Hindi hatred (veiled Congress hatred), laid the foundation stone for the great Kazhagam empire to build itself into a strong fort.

Most of the 'thoughts' of the great Kazhagam thinkers were shallow and appealed to the masses and the masses alone. None of them even had a vision for THamizh Nadu. The intent was that they had felt oppressed over the last efw decades, and they were going to take over Thamizh Nadu with the strength of numbers rather than intellect.

A carefully controlled propaganda machine started rolling slowly. Movies were the predominant propaganda tool. Anti Hindi and anti-brahmin was the main thrust behind the movement. Anna was the figurehead and people like Karunanidhi and MG Ramachandran flawlessly ran the machine.

Next up: C Raajgopalachary. Was he at fault?

Mani Ratnam

2007-02-15T18:09:00.000+05:30

Me and a friend were having a semi inebriated discussion (we had had too much to eat... not alcohol) about Mani Ratnam and his movies... how Jilebi-like they are. Sweet on the outside but oily and unhealthy on the inside. Some rants on afterthought. He seemed to think Mani is a good feature film maker. I felt he was a better ad film maker.

Let me define a feature film as something like a good book. Something that entertains us but also has a interesting and 'good' underlying theme. Also... ad films are in general trivial. Now here goes.

1. In Nayagan.. the underlying theme being that of "You, 4 people for do good.. then nothing is wrong" seems to be the UL theme in Thalapathy and much more callously in Guru. This reeks of childishness. He has not changed the way he thinks in 20 years. Giving an incomplete justification for big level misdemeanours appeals only to the teenage audience.Not something a responsible film maker (albiet one of the best in India) would offer.

2. In Alaipayudhey, he tries to talk about eloping (he wraps it up as knowing what you want and doing it...) and tries to make a cartoon of a couple's love life. When the girl's father dies because of them eloping... the girl blames it on the mother... "Yean maa nee enna thadukkala?". Whoa bitch !!! Trivial... logic only suitable for an ad. Theme of love growing only when there is a calamity... ok... but substance-wise weak.

3. KM is one more justification of youthful indulgence if ever there was one. A brat who cannot appreciate what her parents have done for her is being justified in the movie. Maybe the kid is going to have emotional scars later on in her life because she could never meet her real mother, but what the heck? Can a father really endanger the rest of his family by doing something like that? One more cartoon movie that has characters with bogus attitude and childish values. Something that all Mani characters seem to have. Ad characters.

4. Iruvar is one more sham. He takes some one's life... actually two people's lives, and tries to give a semblance of decency to them. Neither person is decent even in the loosest meaning of the word, and by showcasing neither person's misdemeanors, he attempts at pleasing the nether regions of both parties involved. Spineless, and reminds me of Alexander... Oliver Stone who could not explicitly show Alexander as gay.. just leaves it hanging in the air... just to raise a controvery and interest. Why the false suavity? Why cannot he just show them as the principle-less opportunists that they are? Thankfully the movie did not do well. Once again bad movie substance-wise.

5. The only good parts in his movies are the additional characters. The school teacher in Alaipayudhe, the warden in KM, Chandramouli in MR... people who you come across in everyday life and instantly you smile. AD films man... ad films. He does not make feature films. Infact I am one person who watched Alaipayudhe atleast 50 times... not for the songs or Madhavan.. but for the maligaikadai Naadar, Madhavans small cousin and the teacher outside the temple... those three characters signified Madras for me.

6. Mani hence would have been one great ad film maker if he had only stuck to it. I am not sure if his movies are as good contentwise as they are presentationwise. Thats it. Mani would have made the next Alyque Padamsee but is certainly not worth any awards. I hope people realize that and never give him any awards. Teenagers all over India will however give him more of their parents' money anyway. Who needs awards? As Mahesh Bhatt said.. awards are only used as good door stoppers.

7. Another positive way oflooking at Mani's movies is, well if you watch Steven Soderbergh movies, all the principal characters are atleast as intelligent as Soderbergh... so I mean they all seem to scream "look at me I am so intelligent" in each movie. That is not the case in Mani's movies. The protagonists is militantly arrogant and all the some of the side characters are militantly ordinary (no it is not an oxymoron). Sort of a cross between Visu and Soderbergh.

I don't know what you make of all these. I will put a few photographs of people from Mani's movies so that you will read through anyway. These are a few things i thought about... maybe none of it even makes sense... I do not want you guys to compare Mani with other directors in Thamizh.. I mean Hari or SJ Suryah... I also want Mani to make one 'art movie' based in Chennai so that we could watch it for the social commentary. There must be no central character... but a 'Slacker' kind of movie with about 30 different characters. Would be fun to watch.

Arent we all sadder ?

2007-02-08T13:36:00.000+05:30

Sorry for the idiotic title. I have already blogged about Al Sadr and his Sadr city Ghetto in Baghdad. This Shia muslim has a huge militia and 30 members in the current 'parliament'. He controls a huge Shiite base in Baghdad and has offered to NOT shoot down any American soldiers who are found in the area. "They can basically eat in any restaurant here and help in the rebuilding of Sadr City Ghetto"... In his words.

Interesting to say the least. There is an offer to NOT shoot down the 'liberators'... and this is now seen as a positive move by the 'liberators' :-). Ok.. so what will this lead to ? The already Sunni muslims who are the target now from both Americans and the Shiites have nowhere to run. There is no way they can stay in Baghdad after Al Sadr gains in power... they will not be able to fall back on the Americans.... and they would just have to rush back to their hell holes in northern Iraq.

What would this move mean to Sadr? He, in just a week has erased the "Greatest threat to Iraq Security" tag he had recieved. Also, he has made his position stronger by establishing himself as the leader of some of the most powerful areas in Baghdad. He does not have to spend anything on fighting American forces and the Sunnis will automatically keep away from Sadr city because of this. This move also comes closely after the US government announced the 'surge'. He feels whatever he plans to do it would be better to wait a while and see how the surge shapes up.

Atleast half the additionnal troops will be sent to Baghdad in the surge. Maybe you think Sadr is offering peace talks because he has no other option... He has quite a few options and is much stronger than most Americans think he is. Look at the state of affairs in Baghdad. While western media keeps saying that the American military controls Baghdad... in actuality, it is Al Sadr's Mahdi army that already controls Baghdad. The Iraqi military and police have already been heavily infiltrated by Al Sadr's Mahdi Army and it looksk like he is just waiting for the Americans to leave the place before he can make his moves.

Dravida Kazhagam - Part 1 - E V R Periyar

2007-02-07T18:44:00.000+05:30

In a previous article I had linked a post about Brahmins and how they have been systematically sidelined. It chronicled the saga of the Dravida Kazhagam... and their offshoots. It explained why DK was founded... who the protoganists were... and how things have changed drastically over the decades. Somehow the article has been taken off and here I attempt to cover what was written in that article... I have liberally interspersed my own stuff along the way... so it is not an actual reproduction.

See... at the beginning of time there was this guy called Periyar. Did you guys know Periyar was once in the Congress (INC)? I did not. Apparently he was and he once sold newspapers and stuck notices during the struggle for Independence and beyond. At one point of time during middleage... a brainwave struck him that if he was in the Congress, there was no way he could come up in life. There was no way he was going to pass on his own legacy and the Congress and its leaders would always eclipse him.

So he wanted to rebel. But against whom? India had already rebelled against the British and had won. But now... all he could rebel against was India. He needed a figure to rebel aginst. He needed a new motif to hate and destroy. He needed an vessel for his 'movement' and 'vision' to be carried forward in. So what did he do ? Who is the easiest person to hate? He chose the easiest and safest and least dangerous group. He chose the small group of Indians called Brahmins to rebel against.

Who were the the Brahmins?
Brahmins were meek... were about 10 percent of the population of Thamizh Nadu at that time. But yet had been an effecient lot to take up some of the better positions in the government. They were not rich in finances. Most of them did not even own businesses. A high percentage of them were educated and hence had a better representation among the 'white collared' class... The class that is always percieved with jealousy and held in contempt in any society.

Periyar was smart. He threw in a few random stuff that he connected to 'Brahminism' together and started out on his 'movement'. I would call it the Dravida movement since the Brahmins were called "Aryans" at that time. Since then, the Aryan Invasion Theory has been dug up and redestroyed but that no longer has any significance to the argument...

So back to , Periyar... this guy starts among other things....

1. Destroying idols of gods... since it is obviously... extremely rational to do that.
2. Bad mouthing the 3 percent brahmins who hold a lot of power in government (aka. the Congress)
3. Having loud and long processions where people who felt depressed about their stupidity and innefeciency could come by and pelt the idols with their slippers.

On the whole, the entire idea of 'evil Brahminism' that was the crux of the Dravida movement... started out because of Periyar's inherant need to shake away the Congress Shadow. Brahmins were the scapegoat and paid the price by being humiliated in the 1960s and are still being humiliated so that the Kazhagams continue to have someone to hate.

This is the legacy of Periyar. One of the greatest 'thinkers' in the Dravidian movement... who advocated abusing idols with slippers and spit. The followers of this leader are in power now. And we wonder why TN is still a shit hole. I would be surprised if it is anything else.

The article I read had more unbelievable crap about Mu Ka... the author had held Anna Durai in high estemm and felt if he had continued the DK movement would have actually been good for Thamizh Nadu. I will post all that in my next post.

The happiness in unpredictability

2007-02-07T17:56:00.000+05:30

I have a feeling that what the world needs these days sorely is surprise. Pleasant surprises. People need to be surprised all the time. It keeps them occupied and happy and permanently on their toes. Have you ever chanced upon a blog that surprises you or a movie that surprises on a really bad day? It changes you completely. The way you think and the way you percieve things. You are in general more happy. I think we should come up with restaurants that surprise you... shopping malls that surprise you... jobs that surprise you... Everyday, something that you come across must compeltely sweep you off your feet.

I mean... imagine. You are in a restaurant. You just go in and sit... and order 'food'. They can give you anything from potato bajjis to eggplant parmigiana. It would surprise you. You walk into your office cubicle has been shifted suddenly to near the window on a purely random basis. It changes your day doesnt it? Just for one day... but the next day YOU would have another surprise... and yet another person would be surprised by the cubicle changing routine. Just have to be sure that the person in no way.. 'expects' the surprise. It should not always be at work... or home.. just keep mixing that up too.

Yes I agree this would not solve the world of Terrorism or Bushism... but still it would atleast keep the few people who want to be happy.... happy. Visit this website. I am not sure why I like this website... but the person who writes never ceases to surprise me. I somehow like that.

Brahmin bashing.....

2007-02-06T21:32:00.000+05:30

Interesting article about the history of Thamizh Nadu politics and the current state affaris... Essentialyl talks about the founding principles of the DK movement and how much that 'rationalism' preached so ardently by Periyar has been systematically compromised by its own leaders over the decades. From Periyar smashing hindu god statues to Karunanidhi seeking the God's blessings covertly to cure his eye problems... to now Dayanidhi Maran not even needing to be apolegetic while seeking Sai Baba's blessings.

Even though the second Periyar premise of aethesim because of rationalism has been kicked into the gutter, the DK groups hold on to the initial premise of brahmin bashing like an iguana. Now, that Karunanidhi understands he is having his last term as the chief minister of Thamizh Nadu, he is presently doing the maximum he can to completely rout Brahmin presence in the temple structure. The first move was when he made it possible for non brahmins to be purohits too. That in one sweep rendered impotent thousands of years of Hindu tradition. I mean for an atheist to even want to restructure something that he has no faith in. It is like George W Bush trying to reorganize a library. Why should he care?

He has now made it his life's mission to completely remove Brahmin presence from the temple trusts. This is an obvious insult to the Brahmin community as a whole since they had been atleast partly instrumental in building community around a temple for thousands of years. Temples... being the foundation stone and halmark of any civilization or empire.

Thermopylae in Chennai

2007-02-06T20:41:00.001+05:30

LIBA.. Loyola's quiz this year has a central theme of the 'Battle of Thermopylae'. Events are named after the chief characters. Leonidas, Xerxeus and the rest... and their LIBA website is liberally splattered with promo stills from the movie 300. Wonder if Warner Bros are paying the Loyolites to popularize the movie to be released on March 9.

Or are these guys in general latching onto the flavour of the day? Because after Sin City this movie... 300... is sure to make waves. Graphic novel. Excellent production. Amazign creativity. Lots of action. A sure recipe for success. I did not know Chennai had a FRank MIller following :-).

The Pharmaceutical Quandary

2007-01-29T19:43:00.001+05:30

The concept of free software is gaining in momentum. This leads me to an interesting question. What other industry apart fom the software industry, would benefit from this kind of a system? What if IPs were released free of cost in certain industries? Let us take the example of the Pharma industry.

The pharmaceutical industry already has such an arrangement but it has been defered by 7 years. It basically allows any drug company to keep the IPs close to its chest for 7 years before being released to the world. This has a benefit and a disadvantage. The lifesaving drugs that are being invented in the states and other advanced countries do not reach the poor masses in Africa and South asia because these drugs are insaanely expensive. On the other hand, it is necessary to make these drugs expensive to cover the extensive research and development costs incurred by the pharmaceutical companies.

How did the third world countries deal with such a problem? They do it in the only way possible. The Indian companies started creating similar medicines to the western medicines and sold them at a much cheaper price. This is possible because Indian patent law only recognizes manufacturing process patents and not the medicine itself.

It is a big quandary. Now, with Indian companies undercutting the western companies (that can justify the high prices of their drugs through extensive decade long research programs... that Indian companies just 'stole'...), inventing life saving drugs would no longer be that simple. If Indian companies ar enot upto that 'malpractice' the life saving drugs would not even reach 90 percent of the world popuulation. What a paradox!!!

Everyone understands that inventing drugs is not as simple as writing a few lines of code. It takes years and years of hard work... and most scientist invent only 1 or 2 drugs in their lifetime. So how is it possible for pharma companies to just open up their 'source formula' and yet maintain business margins and fund future research?

There is one solution though. Pharma companies can slash the prices of the same medication drastically in just the developing countries so that they can have the cake and eat it too. They can both maintain their monopoly in drug manufacture and yet reach as many people as possible with the drug. This is not being followed by drug companies... companies that are essentially capitalistic in nature.

So the Pharma world is at a stalemate now, with companies neither having the courage to open source their products, nor the heart to reduce the prices of life saving drugs in third world countries. Meanwhile WHO and the Clinton Foundation have started taking active steps by partnering with CIPLA in India to manufacture the drugs cheap of cost. This will deal a huge to the bigger pharma companies like Pfizer to lose sacks of money... This kind of a brave decision by the Clinton foundation is welcome but at the same time could be termed short sighted.

What did Gibbs say?

2007-01-16T04:04:00.000+05:30

Cricket is a gentleman's game. Gentlemen mostly do not speak about people but they speak about ideas. And gentlemen definitely do not speak badly about other people... especially those who they know nothing about.

Gentlemen also definitely do not like their private and passionate utterances to be eavsdropped upon.

Gibbs... maybe not at fault here, has been banned for 2 test matches for something anyone would have done at a time like that. Pakistani cricket fans were heard uttering racial slurs, directed at Gibbs abd Paul Harris... and Gibbs responded... not to the spectators... but to his own team mates. This is not even sledging!!!

What did he say? Well apart from calling the spectators a pack of hyenas... he also directed them to the zoo where they had come from. Apparently there were a few other clearly racial comments... but is that bad? Did that warrant a two match ban? I am definitely not for the ban. This is just a childish reason to ban a person.

Do the people who advocate the ban... really think Larwood and Jardine not have hurled anythign verbal against the Australian race... when they were hurling leather bouncers at the Australian bodies? Isnt it all part of the game... and in Gibb's case, it was not even at the players... just at the spectators. Jardine and Larwood are not even spoken among the 'greats'... plainly because of their attitude.

Now.. on a different track, I heard a South African commentator talk about how technology is eroding the decency in sport... especially in cricket. Earlier, before the advent of the third umpire, it was left to the integrity of the fielder to claim a catch. If the fielder claims a catch, the batsman HAS to leave... and if if at all later on it is learned that it was never a catch... "Let the fielder live with it"... anyway it will never be forgotten.

Now the advent of technology has kind of eroded the integrity in cricket players... who have minimal or no say in out/not out decisions. Even if the player knows the outcome, it is resolved only by the third umpire... and not by the men on the playing field. This set-up, to most old timers is not 'in the spirit of the game' which had been all about integrity, magnanimity and other gentleman-like conduct.

What Gibbs did need not have come out of the field. Gibbs must have lived with the comments he made... pretty much like we live with the comments we make... absolutely no necessity to install stump microphones and broadcast player chatter to the rest of the world. Technology, in this case, certainly is making us focus on a seemingly harmless act and making us over-react to it.

Is secular religion an oxymoron?

2007-01-13T15:03:00.000+05:30

Are societies, where people arent too religious, looked upon as secular societies? This is a pretty trite, but nevertheless holds an important question. How do you remain secular and yet believe in a definite faith? Men have mulled over this question for a long time, since more than two thirds of the world firmly believe that their God is THE only God. As long as such a belief remains, it is tough for people to envision secularity and religiosity to overlap. In the present world, Secularity and Religiosity ARE mutually exclusive. There is no way of resolving it and making everyone secular AND religious.

This brings us to the question of how issues related to religious belief can be resolved in a bi-partisan way. How? The only way that could be done would be to bring a more significant threat to 'our collective way of life', which could make religion a defining parameter, fade into oblivion. Is that possible?

What if the world has a common enemy in the aliens? What if the American Government, instead of using the media to alienate one particular society (such as muslims), reveal all the 'proof' about alien abductions and 'alien gods'. Probably this 'proof' could be extended to warn people about an impending alien attack and the need for us to come together. Maybe people will stop fighting over their belief structures so that we could collectively fight the aliens.

Otherwise the whole world is going to become a pretty messed up place in about 10-15 years.

Iraq... the seeds for a new Palestine ?

2007-01-11T22:22:00.000+05:30

The Shia-Sunni conflict has been raging ever since the death of the Profit Mohammad... for more than 1000 years. Iraq is unique in its Sunni composition, while neighbouring Arab countries are less than 8 percent Sunni, Iraq has around 20 percent Sunnis. The Shia-Sunni divide was further exacerabted by Saddam's 30 year Sunni monopoly.

All this was known by the Bush administration before they went into Iraq on trussed up reasons. The Shia population is just waiting to get back at the dominant Sunni population which is economically more powerful. Even though they are fighting the Sunnis, the Shias are not united in their hatred for Saddam. This division in the sects is very clearly seen during the recent execution of Saddam.

While Saddam was chanting his last prayers, viewers started chanting a certain Muqtada's name... who by the way controls Sadr city Ghetto. He is the cause for atleast 20 percent of the bombings within Iraq and has both the resources and the intent to take over from Nouri Al Maliki the current 'elected' Prime Minister of Iraq. Just goes to show that even opposers of Saddam are not united. There is no way Iraq is going to see peace in the near future...

Even if the Shia-Sunni conflict is resolved through the intervention of Iran (USA is by far the weakest hope for Iraq), the Shias will tend to continue fighting amongst themselves. Iraq has a very weak chance of limping back to normality. Instead, it would just become one more Afghanistan... a breeding ground and safe house for terrorists.

Bush's idea to increase troops in Iraq is the only way to even attempt at a resolution, though as most political analysts would say, it is just throwing more wood into the fire. The intention is correct... but it is pretty much like Dhoni trying to hit a yorker over mid wicket for a six... doomed to fail amidst cries of 'timber'.

There is no logical reason for the turmoil in Iraq right now. I would just put it down to a sequence of very bad decisions by a huge number of people. Right from the people who collected the 'intelligence', to people who were determined to imprison Saddam... to the people who executed the war without even questioning. It was just a few bad decisions multiplying into worse decisions cascading into abysmally stupid decisions.

Fault lay on Iraq's side too. Why didn't Iraq have good diplomatic relationships with other European nations? Nations that would have vehemently opposed the war instead of just standing aside being spectator to the agressors? Had Saddam pissed those guys also so much, for them to turn a blind eye to a cognizant disturbance of an unstable equilibrium?

So now American political analysts are comparing Iraq with Vietnam. I would tend to compare Iraq with Palestine. Vietnam is no longer in the news... but Palestine still is... after 50 years. By current trends... Iraq too would be in the news for the same reasons... 50 years from now.

"Is Ponting the next Bradman"?

2006-12-27T20:41:00.000+05:30

This is an excellent article about why Ponting and Bradman can be compared. yes proably in the way they play, but the article starts out with saying that the averages were great too. I find that idiotic. How can you even compare someone with a an average of 60 with someone with an average of 99 and say OH wow that is the closest, so A is the next B... Also averages depend on the number of times the batsmen remain not out. So any comparison based on averages is plain balderdash. I made a quick comparison of career averages of players who have been compared with Bradman (I have left out Symonds, Niel Harvey, Brendon Kuruppu, Hussey amd ofcourse Hayden... for obvious reasons....).

But here goes. Ponting (in bright pink) is on average much lower than Lara and Tendulkar. The blue is Bradman who will not be surpassed by any man... in being the most prolific. Lara has remained not out only 6 times versus 9 NO for Bradman, 21 NO for Sachin and 25 NO for Ponting. So based purely on cummulative run aggregates, I could say Lara (in bright red) has been a much more prolific batsman than the other tho who had been compared to Bradman. So would I be right? Ofcourse not!

The article was right on one count. It actually asked someone who had bowled to Bradman how he would rate Ponting. That critical analyses was nice to read... but by no way can a 60 average be compared to a 99 average.

We all know Y...

2006-12-23T15:40:00.000+05:30

So what makes a person a eunuch ? The absense of male characteristics in a man? Or too many Y chromosomes in a woman? Apparently it was the second case that made Shanti Sounderajan fail the 'gender' test. Well it is another case whether she (he?) is thinking... "Y oh Y is this happening to me?"

Where does the fault lie ? With the Indian Government ? (Apparently Shanti has had the gender test done twice before and both times she has been certified a girl). The Indian government stoutly denies her having had any sex change operation. So she is officially a eunuch, a girl born with more Y than normal girls have. So is it wrong that eunuchs must be barred from entering all girl events ?

The Y chromosmoe apparently does contribute towards muscle mass, body fat, bone density and other important factors that determine the capability of an athlete. So it is pretty fair that the Asian comittee wanted the medal back because basically this was a case of a 'non female competing in an all female competition'. Am I wrong?

Note: Apparently the statement "more Y chromosomes than teh allowed level... is factually wrong. The moment a 'woman' has has even one Y choromosome, she ceases to be a woman. Also, what is astounding in this case is that the parents had automatically assuemd SHanti to be a woman because she lacked the male paraphernalia. Her father is a labourer, and mother sits at home. So does it make sense to fault Shanti? Does not the Indian government have to take complete responsibility for the fiasco?

What I would really like to know was if 'she' is fastest person in India in the 800 metre event.

The status of Indian blogs

2006-12-12T14:10:00.000+05:30

OK.. look at this post on Indian blogwatch. it paints a rather upbeat picture of the Indian 'blogsphere'. What do you think is wrong here?

Well for one thing, the writer seems to have thought the 'NUMBER' of blogs seems to be an indication of the popularity of bloging. Is that a correct measure? Isnt that like saying we have the second largest number of people in this world... so we are second greatest country in the world. BUT what do you think about the quality of posts in India ?

Here some gauges to measure the quality

1. Hit index of Indian blogs - Abysmally low. One of the best blogs in the Indian 'blogsphere' makes out only as a 'Large Mammal' in the TTLB ecosystem. That is about 4 degrees lesser than the most popular worldwide.

2. Kind of information available on Indian blogs

a. Technically Proficient?

The hit index says it all. Quality of blogs is sadly lacking within India.

b. Choice of subjects?

Frankly, how many political blogs do you see? How many news analyses blogs do you see? The study has mentioned that 42 percent of Indians blog for entertainment. I will contest this. I feel that there are more than 75 percent of the people who blog for entertainment alone. (Hell later in the source article they even say 53 percent of people start a blog JUST to display personal photos !!!!) If you agree the utility of blogging goes beyond just entertainment, such a skewed percentage for entertaiment points to only one thing. Low quality and inability to make full use of the 'blog sphere'.

c. Repeat blogs ?

You can probably say India has 1 million blogs... but how many of them are from unique people ? Are there 1 million active bloggers ? The keyword is active here.

d. 53 percent of the people started a blog to 'share' their private photos with frineds and family. Oh.. so does India get the idea of blogging at all ? Or does 53 percent of people confuse it with the concept of 'Yahoo Photo Album' or flickr.

e. 50 percent of the blog recieve less than 10 visitors a week. Whoa.. clincher. I rest my case. Indian blog traffic is prettymuch like that in bangalore... conjested... not because of too many cars but because of inenffecient people.

Remember this ?

2006-12-12T00:18:00.000+05:30

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:

JUSTICE, social, economic and political;
LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
EQUALITY of status and of opportunity;
and to promote among them all
FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;

IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

And this 26 November, we are once again talking about reservations based on religion, division of labout 200 years back, colour of skin, choice of breakfast cereal... etc. Ok let us make modiifications to suit the Congres agenda.

WE THE POLITICIANS OF INDIA, have solemnly resolved to constitute India into a MINORITY APPEASING, BIASED, SHORTSIGHTED, FARSICAL, 'democracy' and irritate the majority of its citizens by promising equality in,

JUSTICE : But then the fastest breeding minority obviously can have more wives
LIBERTY : But ofcourse guys named Madhani are more equal...
EQUALITY : huh what ? Oh opportunity... well now now minorities have reservations. A 20 percent minority population will have 40 percent reservation.. why not ? This alc says 150 percent proof... loorarloora rooo.. maybe percentage is divided by 200.
FRATERNITY: Oh thats too big a word... we fraternize amongst ourselves... and well will leave the integrity part to you.

So on this day of 26 November 2006, we solemnly swear on this bottled of Old Monk Rum... that we will try to destroy tha already fragile demography of India by FORGETTING, IGNORING and NEGLECTING the original preamble... and completely forgetting reality.

Manmohan Singh on Minority Appeasement

2006-12-11T13:13:00.000+05:30

"Muslims will have first right over nation's resources", says Manmohan Singh. !!!!!!... but is it surprising ? Isnt that the first thing that comes toyour mind when you talk about Minority Appeasement!!!! CONGRESS in big black bold letters.

Is it surprising? Congress had always shamelessly given more privelges to Muslim imams raising their salaries every time there were elections. They had systematically sidelined Hindu Pujaris from this benefit. The government salary for an imam, currently stands at 10 times that of a hindu Priest.

Every year (this includes BJP), the ruling party has increased HAJ privileges. Nobody writes about that these days, but nowadays it seems like all you have to be is an old muslim and you are automatically taken to Haj and given 10,000 Rs in addition to having a free trip.

Look at the sad plight ofAmarnath victims. Every year more than 300 pilgrims die while taking the trip and there is absolutely nothing the Indian govenemnt, be it BJP or Congress has done about that. The argument most people Muslims put forward to this is that "Hindus get subsidies too.. look at Kumb Mela.. look at Sikh festvals.." Oh CRETINS !!! these festicals take place IN INDIA. Indian government is giving security and food so that people IN India can live peacefully IN INDIA.

This is the second time there has been an MMS scandal in the last coupld of weeks. MMS apparently said "I would fel threatened if Pakistan does not do anything more to curb terrorism". Who writes this guy's speeches? This reminds me of the recent Kim Jong II speeches about him feeling threatened by America. So what is ourman going to do about it ? Is he going to throw a few nukes over the border into Pakistan? What do such statements reek of other than false bravado?

Some cricket stats - part 2

2006-12-04T11:34:00.000+05:30

When we were analyzing the performance of the Indian batsmen over the last 25 matches. Why not the bowlers ? The first thing that is apparent is there there is very limited choice with the bowlers to even get stats about. Munaaf has played 22 matches. Sreesanth 14 matches... They are not worthy of getting stats for.

There is a uniform decline in blowling performance too. The only person who has gained anything significant is Yuvraj who is in the team as an allrounder. The rest of the bowlers are plain pathetic. I remember people saying a few years back that the Indian team on paper looks world beatable. Now that no longer holds.

Yesterday after a long time I was listening to Gavaskar comment about the techniques of Indian players. I watched the final ODI just for Gavaskar. The stuff that he said was very insightful and what was more interesting was that apparently the techniques of every Indian player has slacked. Tendulkar's legs do not follow each other. Pathan's grip has changed. Zaheer's run up has slowed down. His speed is awry. Bhajji does not flight the ball as much. Does not get enough turn. Sehwag lacks application, and VVS laxman is plain stupid. These were among the old timers.

Among newcomers, Dhoni lacks class, Sreesanth has fire but once again lacks application, Mongia is still the same azhukku batsman and Kaif plain doesnt want to win. Overall the team looks in shambles. There is not one single person to blame. This has been a collective effort to come down from being Paki beaters in Pakistan a few years back to losing by 20 overs/9 wickets and over 100 run margins consecutively.

Some cricket stats

2006-12-02T11:50:00.000+05:30

This is a small look up of the current players and the rate of change of their match average over the last 25 matches. It was astounding that every key batsman in th cricket team apart from Laxman and Yuvraj have been losing out on their averages. Every single batsman. What would you attribute this to ? Lack of trying ? Plain apathy ? Lack of 'talent' as Vengsarkar put it ?

Arent we supposed to be one of the better batting teams in the world ? considering such terrible performances, it is remarkable that Indians have notched up a 50 percent win rate in the last 25 matches for which this statistic was compiled.

Sehwag, Sachin and Dravid basically have underperformed to the same extent in the last 25 matches. I know it is tough with over 300 matches under their belt to keep on increasing their averages... but this gives a perfect picture of the downtrend. See the career average includes those 25 matches they have underperformed too. So basically the average was much higher if those 25 games had not been included in this.

"Cricket with a K ?"

2006-12-02T11:22:00.000+05:30

This cricket poltics is truly idiotic. These are the things people are wondering about in cricket nowadays.

1. Sehwag was dropped from VC because, when Ganguly is in the team... he might lead by proxy through Sehwag if Dravid doesnt play. VVS will not let ganguly captain the team even by proxy.

2. Dravid will feel threatened with Ganguly back in the team.. and his game might drop as a result of that.

3. Sehwag once he has been chopped of VC will return to his shell and not become ambitious enough to give his 100 percent.

4. Sehwag has been leaking stories to the press because he feels sidelined and is running through a depression..

Gentlemen.. If this kind of talk goes on KEkta Kapoor and Radan media are goin to latch on to these stories and make a mega serial on the Indian cricket team. Frankly i feel the selection process and Indian dressing room can become a reality show. Why not ? more revenue streams for the BCCI. Anyone from the BCCI readin this ?

So Sehwag it is...

2006-11-30T08:28:00.000+05:30

Sehwag has taken up the responsibility of Dravid.... Nice... so he gets to say what Dravid would have said in press conferences... SO he said... as scripted... "Batting let us down". Interesting insight.

So exactly what went wrong with the Indian team ? They were really good in Pakistan about 18 months back. After that it has been all downhill. Why is that ? It is not talent.. as Vengsarkar put it. He said "India has a dearth of cricketing talent". Lack of talent does not shut out the capability of giving a fight back. Even Kenyans fight their matches they lose and it is virtually unknown among cricketing circles for a team to lose by a 100 run margin three times in a row. Just apathy. Plain apathy.

Now they want Ganguly back. Why ? What is the logic ? Because Chappel is bad ? And Ganguly is against Chappel? Ganguly has never been good with the bat the last couple of years. He has not proven anything wth the bat since he was sacked. All he has done is wear slippers and walk the belachers in a coke ad. (Or was it pepsi?). His average in the last couple of years is worse than VVS laxman who has an average of 39... in the last 25 matches. Career average 31.

But there are a few positives. He can inspire people enought to atleast give a fight. Let us hope it happens. He has a cavalier sttitude with the opposition... and for one, atleast the press conferences will become better if he is the captain.

Open Source vs Proprietery

2006-11-28T12:43:00.000+05:30

The inter tubes are agog with reports that Microsoft slashed the prices of WIndows XP so that the TCO of Windows XP becomes lower than Linux. The debate was either to change 250 machines to open source or to migrate to Windows XP. The budget apparently came out to 2500 pounds per PC for the open source option.

So what constitutes a TCO study ? What are the kinds of parameters used in a TCO study ? The cost of decision making ? The cost of support and maintenance ? The installation of the software ? Does satisfaction level of the software implemented ever come into play when conducting a TCO study ? A TCO is usually just a monetary thing... right?

Open source satisfaction levels are theoretically more... you know why ? It is in the design procedure. When an open source project is decided upon, the awareness level of any project is more than a proprietary project. This is true among the deciders, planners and to a lesser extent the implementers.

Individual open source modules have a higher chance of working better together due to common standards used. In the case of the Birmingham liibrary, the cost of expansion to newer technology could have sky rocketed. These guys alread had an existent Lib. Man. Sys. that worked on Windows. Why they would want ot move their OS to Linux I would never know. SO obviously the cost of migration would be high. But are they geting the same levels of satisfaction as promised by the Open Source People?

Why worry about cricket ?

2006-11-28T09:39:00.000+05:30

All this talk about Indian cricket fans having high expectations is getting on my nerves. India n players cannot cater to high expectations of Indian cricket fans... what kind of a statement is that ? So the pressure is telling on them all the time. I think that is the most contrived staement ever.

What do Indian fans expect ? India to win every game... so which fan does not expect that ? But what do we get in return ?

Last 20 games. Won 6. Lost 12. NR 2
The games they won.. they won by the skin of their teeth. The games they lost.. they have got a thulping. Sound thulping. I am still wondering whether the majority of Indian players are really as good as some of their records state, or are they just a few hacks masquerading as sportsmen.

Is Richard Stallman right?

2006-11-27T14:14:00.000+05:30

This post by Richard Stallman shows completely how Free Software foundation intends to work. They are calling DRM inherently evit. I continue to wonder hwo they are going to make money out of things that are completely free.

FSF is somewhat like the movie "Pay it forward". Each person takes what the previous person has achieved, adds value to it and pays it forward. So musicians will only make money out of the services they offer. (ie). Beyonce makes money only out of stage performances. If somehow Shakira gets to perform a Beyonce song and make it sound better, Beyonce would have to invent another song for her stage performance?

Is that ethical ?

Maybe that encourages creativity. Maybe it encourages new channels of appreciation. Maybe both Beyonce and Shakira would benefit out of that. Is that the fair way of looking at it ?

So will dravid do it yet again ?

2006-11-26T21:16:00.000+05:30

I am wrting this before teh Dravid press conference. See this is what he is going to say.

"Our bowlers faltered in the final overs and out batting collapsed again. We would have ot do some seriosu rethikning of our game plan"

Ok... let us analyse this match. Was it different from any other of the previous matches ? So this time Kaif came 2 down instead of one down. Sehwag once again went for a duck. Sachin as usual faltered in the early overs. The only difference was the way he got out. Pulled and got out to a catch at square leg.

Dravid and Dhoni as usual playing well in a losing match... just to keep up the list of scores, the last time Dhoni was among the runs was against the west Indies in October. He scored 51 of 80 odd balls and India lost that match. ANd before that was his 59 against a depleted Pakistan in April 2006. Everyone scored in that match in Abu Dhabi. We won that match qite comfortably.

Well see i do not have a problem with India losing the match. Most guys who follow the indian team get pissed off by the sheer amount of money these guys get and their inability to even give a fight. THat is what irks me. SO is there a collective way in which we can make sure those idiots get paid lesser if they lose ?

I wish there was such an apprisal system where de decide their pays. I wish I wish I wish.

YES.. Rahul strikes again!!!

2006-11-23T08:19:00.000+05:30

I do not remember even one incident when India tries out something new and it works. Yesterday Kaif came one down. APparently he is the ebst batsman in the Indian line-up (for him to come one down...) but he hasnt been playing the last few years for India. Interesting way to build a team... bring in someone who you dont know if is in form, and ask him to play the most responsible innings in the match. Plus you have gotten a huge drubbing in your opening trial match and you know you have a weak batting line up.

And ofcourse my pet peeve. Rahul Dravid's press conferences. I wish he says something more than "Our batting failed"... we all know that. We also know that you guys are still learning to play cricket. So atleast you can try to entertain us otherwise. So here are some gems from his latest press conference yesterday.

"We will have to play better. After going through how we got out, we will have to learn. I must say that the South Africans bowled well, and we did not have a good day."

Correct. Maybe next time they schedule a match please consult your astrologers. You know what could have been better ? If you had said..."Gentlemen... stop watching cricket for now. We will wake you up when we start atleast giving a fight while playing cricket. Now don't bother me"

"We will be definitely looking to perform much better with the bat. We have to improve from here and put in some better performances if we want to competitive in the series."

Correct. Having said that, why dont you go ahead and say things like... We have to eat if we are hungry. We have to drink when we are thirsty. We have to breathe if we want to live... You knwow hat would have been better when someone asks you a question about future plans ? Just say something like...

"I am plannign to have a steak for dinner.. how about you?"

We are not interested in your cricketing plans. We know you dont have any. Atleast this 'juicy' piece of news would interest magazines like Society and Debonair.

I am already licking my lips thinking about the next press conference. Did you read the title of the article ?

"Ability and character will be tested - Dravid"
You know what ? the only thing being tested is our patience :-).

People forget that people forget

2006-09-24T11:22:00.000+05:30

They hate our freedom
Threat to our way of life
"Al Quaeda types"
Axis of evil
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Evil doers
Mission Accomplished
200 unmarked graves
War criminal
"Transitional Civil War"
Clash of Civilizations

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

- Guess who?

WHAT MORE ????

America waited 13 years for the first president... so we gracefully withdraw to let Iraq figure it out for itself?

One more "Mission Accomplished" banner with Americans withdrawing from Iraq?

Sanjay Dutt and the Spirit of the Mumbaiker

2006-09-03T21:03:00.000+05:30

When 7/11 happenned... everyone came up on TV and started talkign about the "Spitit of the Mumbaiker", and about how everyon in the city pulled together at times of crisis, about how everyoen helped each other, spent money... and similar tripe.

I have a few questions to ask the mumbaiker. I mean is your city really great? How great are you as a city if you are able to support a guy who was clearly involved and conspired against your own city? What kidn of a community are you if you shamelessly support a known miscreant? What message are you sendign the rest of those guys ? Ok.. go ahead, do what you want in your young life.. kill a fwe of us.. we will still forgive you because you are a film star?

I cannot understand this mixture of apathy and involvement in the Mumbaiker. You cry for people killed in a blast and at teh same time suport htte very guy who was part of the planning... who shamelessly sues a portrait of Ghandhiji to promote his movie.

Shame on you Mumbai.

Absurd Trivialities

2006-09-01T00:05:00.000+05:30

Ok India is becoming rich... 'evidence' is not IT... Indians just seem to have so much more time. They argue about Khushboo, her comments, about girls kissing each other in dance clubs, about jobless Muslim kids refusing to sing Vande Mataram, about some idiot ODing on uppers and downers at the same time... and then getting married to some flight instructor...

Only two kinds of countries have he luxury to make a big issue abotu trivialities. Look at Rwanda... people do not have anythign more to lose... so they go about shooting mud huts with brang new AK-47s over the shape of one's nose.

The other type is India and America... where trivialities like homosexuality is being made into an election issue.. gratifyiing and at the same time disturbing :-).

Hey Sachin "Seems to be fit" whats with this guy ? I mean he is acting like he has a dozen unidentified illnesses plaguing him for 3 years... what does he do at home to be permanently unfit ??? he does still drink Boost doesnt he?

Why am I paying taxes?

2006-07-28T12:53:00.000+05:30

So that people living in slums will stop going to tamil movies and start watching mega serials in the afternoons at home
So that these old hags don't even have to pay their electricity bills not buy TV sets to indulge in their fantasie... http//www.screenindia.com/fullstory.php%3Fcontent_id%3D12976&cid=0
So that Sri Lankan refugee camps which are pseudonyms for terrorist camps can get free electricity and free ration cards
So that the DMK government can turn the jail into a SPA for Mahdani who is accused in the Coimbatore serial blasts...http://www.indianexpress.com/story/9187.html

I am not going to from next year onwards.. and it is the same for every democracy... I mean no country has enough people who care...

Senseless....

2006-07-14T10:19:00.000+05:30

Javed Akhtar was on TV the other day trying to talk about the kind of people who would bomb a train. He could not actually say anything because he, just like any one of us was unable to fathom what could motivate people to actually plant a bomb in a train and take the lives of people... "The person would have seen the people in the compartment when he placed the bomb? So how could he have done it even after that ?" That was all Akhtar could say.

Senseless... Senseless... WHY ?

Trying to understand this, there could be a few motives for people to have done this,

1. Money ? yeah and if you want to be Freudian... sex...

Well yes and politics.. could be the cause... but if that was the case, then the Mumbaiker's reaction to this incident has not been encouraging to the 'evil doers'. They have not given any motivation for any more such acts by running amuck and riotin on the streets... or I don't know... toppling the government?

2. Fanaticsm?
But then who in their right mind... (Fanatics are never in one... but still it requires a brain to logically reason... hoW killing multi-religious people in a congested train could further their cause...)

3. Spite?
They must have so much hate in their heart... some kind of inexplicable frustration... some deep insecurity with a violent outlet... I don't know... but how can so many people get together and coordinate such a thing? It is almost as if thier 'organization' is a bully... and has to do something to draw attention to themselves.
"Whats your major malfunction numbnuts? Din't mommy and daddy give you enough attention as a child?" - Sgt Hartman before being riddled with bullets by Gomer Pyle... in FMJ

Who is the person who gains? How can we stop such things if we cannot even find out who and how anybody gained from this incident? It IS as Tom Brokaw would have said 'Senseless'

Yes... so I have an opinion about 7/11 too

2006-07-13T09:20:00.001+05:30

The second worst attack by terrorists on Indian soil... took 194 lives so far officially... how did the news channels react ?

One said there were 7 blasts
The other said there were 8 blasts
Cues of melancholic music were ready and there were montages of bloody faces and torn compartments
There were SMSs on TV from anxious relatives. If people can SMS the TV station why cannot they SMS their relatives ? What is the point ? Am I missing something here ?

Then there were streams of interviews of wet angry people screaming about the police, management system, railways...

But how did DD react ? As far as I could see there was no field reporting... there was no blood and gore... there was just one person trying to keep people calm, by giving only the most important information... numbers to call and the hospitals people are taken to. They did not try to opinionize. Neither did they try to increase their TRP ratings by focussing on the macabre.

I agree private media is important to 'expose' defeciencies in the system and all similar tripe.... but there must be some sort of moral policing when such news channels milk revenues streams that exploit a weakness of humanity... to focus on the macabre when there are more important things at hand.

Televisions... with flush attached.

2006-06-30T07:03:00.000+05:30

This free colour TV thing is such a stupid idea. Well on one hand, there are people who are fighting for 1 - 2 % reservation, and on the other hand there are students from the purported backward classes who are going to watch TV at home and get even lesser marks. I am seriosuly thinking about whether I should pay taxes this year. (Not like it is my choice or anything... :-) )

Who is going to pay for the TV ? Is it Civic amenity to have a television in every home? So the priorities of the government is not to get better schools nor is it about getting better roadsand fly overs, but to watch stupid serials ?

Take a look at this graphic... This is the state of the SCs who are goign to get free televisions very soon. Well, if this plan actually fructifies, then there would be 3 million households with TV sets but no toilet facilities... But if the serials go on this way, I guess the TV set and toilet seats can be interchanged :-).

Dravid - King MagnanIMUS

2006-06-27T09:41:00.000+05:30

Reuters say "Dravid leads India to a draw". I say...

What was Dravid thikning ? THat Briana Lara would bow down and kiss his feet for his magnanimity ? Does he want to be called the Ghandi of Indian cricket ? YOu show something before him.. and he does not want to take it because he has taken a vow of abstinance ? Dravid... I did not have buddies sleep face down on the floor to see you squander a match like this.

I will not be surprised if someone from today's team comes up and says in 3 years that this match had been fixed. I mean look at it. A stiff target agreed. On a very good 5th day pitch, weak bowling attack, and a team that boasts of 3 big hitters and 3 stable batsmen with a very decent tail. ASking rate of 4.4 and 88 overs to be bowled.

India were 102/0 before lunch and 200 odd/2 before tea. At one stage we needed 130 odd in 20 overs with 7 wickets remaining.. and the west Indians not even LOOKING to win the match.

Ok stage set... what do indians do now ??? They score 11 of the next 7 overs !!! I dont think with this kind of attitude, they can even get to work there... So stupid.

Well frankly if I was Sehwag, I would have quit the Indian team and joined the Sri Lankan team, atleast they seem to be thirsty for a win these days...

Am I Kevin Bacon, NO I think I am just an Asshole

2006-06-26T01:43:00.000+05:30

I recently joined this thing called orkut... OK ? I added some 20 people overnight. I was initially connected to 21,489,644 through just one person. As people started adding me on... all my friends are idiots who stay awake all night lookig up orkut profiles... the creeps :-).. Just kidding most of them are married... hehehe.. .well I got some 12 - 13 acceptances over-night. That number 21,489,644 did NOT change even as more and more guys added me on as their friends... that can mean oly one of two things,

1. Orkut has only 21,489,644 members... this is something i cannot believe in :-).
2. My friends' interests are so narrow... Just like mine... hehe... I thought it was funny... :-).

I know I am not Kevin Bacon.. or dont even know Kevin bacn... but still !!! i found it intriguing.

What is 42?

2006-06-18T16:24:00.000+05:30

The Pope John Paul had once apparently asked Stephen Hawkins to stop research on how the universe started. This is an interesting development in the already boiling feud between creationists and evolutionists. What the Pope has said was that a few things in this world are better to be assumed rather than known. Possibly true I feel. But once you start assuming something, there has to be unanimity in assumption. Well but I do not think people can stop 'research' into finding the answer to the 'existential question'...

So what is the existential question? Can we undertand why we are on earth because we know how the universe started? I feel it is more important for people to understand why they personally are on earth, rather than wonder why in general everyone is. Or assume something really dumb like George Carlin once said... we are on this earth because of plastics. Once the earth has enough of it, we are out. The earth will kill us. That is a nice reason to assume. It gives use enough reason to stop manufacturing non biodegradable material...

Anyway I know why I am on earth. I have to watch Snakes on a Plane. Very important.

The blog of the Mylapore MLA

2006-06-17T14:23:00.000+05:30

This is a blog about the activities of the MLA of Mylapore. This a commendable effort by Mylapore TImes to make governance transparent. Something that is lacking in India. We never know what is happening to the memos and complaints that are being passed. A public forum where such things can be addressed is a dire necessity.

I have a business idea... why not have a separate website with sponsored ads... and mylapore citizens can generate revenue for their own constituency by clicking on those ads. This can be used to provide civil amenities.

Also, having a website just in English would be debilitating. IT would be great to post in Thamizh too.

Anyway this looks encouraging. Hope it does not die a slow and painful death.

Triplicane Partha and Thiruppathi Partha. Same difference?

2006-06-17T04:23:00.000+05:30

Yes this is one more post about Francois Gautier lamenting about the poor salaries of Hindu Priests and the high level of employee satisfaction among muslim clerics. Tihs as always been an election issue with the Congress and everytime there was an election, and the Congress won, the Imam salary went up. Infact apparently they are eing paid 2500 p/m. It was 1500 a few yeas back when I checked. The Hindu priest salary was 300/= and some rice.

This Thirpathi temple is earning about 800 crores a year. Donations and other revenue streams.. hotels, devasthanams, educational institutions, hospitals... the entire gamut of services that goes with selling God. And apparently they have an overhead of 400 - 500 crores a year.. understandable, they do not have product development costs... nor do they have to market. They are infact sitting on a cash cow.

I dont mean to blaspheme, but I feel it to be incredulous that a temple, which is NOT really a capitalistic organization, could sit on so much wealth and let the rest of their priest brethen wallow in penury. I just dont get it. I mean it is OK if Reliance does not pay some trvial company like Indus Valley Telecom money... to uplift themselves... but a temple? an organization that survives on the philanthropy of others... being so selfish as to not worry about the 300/= salary paid to the archakar in Parthasarathy Kovil triplicane. Same God right? Just a branch office. Why the discrimination?

Affirmative Action?

2006-06-17T03:43:00.000+05:30

Francois Gautier (though I have long hated him), had written a very informative article on the sad state of affairs of Brahmins in India. About average Brahmin income being much lesser than the average Christian or Muslim or other Hindu income and that55 percent of Brahmins live below poverty line as opposed to mmuch lesser percentage of other Hindus, Christians and Muslims.

This brings us to the topic of reservations. People have been using terms like equal opportunity and affirmative action with respect to India and have hence justified the cause for reservations. I am not sure if they are correct in saying that. Infact I feel affirmative action and equal opportunity are terms used to confuse people. See this is how it goes.

When there is a class that had been discriminated against (A) by the superior class (B), and when people want to set right that thing, what do they do ? Do they give more rights to A and keep pushing B down till at a later stage they try to uplift B? Is that a viable solution?

Or would it be better to actually erase those lines of distinction and just say everyone is equal now, so why don't you just start out on a level playing field? Lyndon B Johnson had a view on this. He said "You just cannot bring someone who had spent 1000 years in chains, bring him to the starting line and say OK you are free to compete with others. You have to open a few gates for him". But then what had been practiced in America was aparthied. It was not even close to that in India. Also AA in America is on a voluntary basis and is not enforced.

The third beautiful option is to give everyone tools to succeed. Do not reserve seats for people. It is like giving extra marks to some one just because he is an ST. That is just 'stinky thinking'. Why doesnt the government actually uplift the poor by giving them more concentrated education? I am all for FC boys teaaching SC/ST kids to read write and work on engineering problems. Give SC Sts lights fans and textboooks. Give them chairs and tables instead of COLOUR TVs (so stupid no skill involved at all)... Utopian? I dont know... but it is much more 'progressive' than reservations.

In India, we already have voluntary AA. It is only the government sector that enforces reservations. Everywhere else people discriminate neither FOR nor AGAINST. So we do not need the re-opening of AA. Infact it is a non-issue. Why did Congress re-start it? I think we need a list of things that can be politicized and things that cannot.

Of Southpark and Indian media

2006-06-17T01:13:00.000+05:30

Abdul Kalam on Indian Media

This Abdul Kalam has said something about how negative we are. He has plainly accused the media of breeding this negative attitude. When i read this article, I was reminded of the episode on Southpark - "Child Abduction is not Funny". They had this segment to explain how news channels have the propensity to sensationalize news and trivialize issues.

The town of Southpark is suddenly ht with the news that children are not safe and there are abducters on the prowl. Everyone starts buying child tracking devices and feel safe.
Then news channels start out saying that children are not safe in their school, outside and EVEN in their own home.
Parents freak out and chidren start defecating in fear (well it is southpark.. what else do you expect).
Next TV channels start talking about how parents themselves are the people who are abducting their own children.... and it goes on from their...
Well the point is, there is this "Ghost of Human Kindness" who comes up and says... We have lost faith in humanity mainly because we seem to believe in the world conjured by the news channel? He goes on to explain about a few guys who ARE doing great work but are almost never mentioned in the newspapers nor other media. He then says such things must be given more importance than negative happenings.

Even yesterday, the evening had all the news channels concentrating on one thing and only one thing. The death of some lady officer. It had interviews with everyone even remotely connected to the case... even the friendly neighborhood tea seller. This is not to decry that piece of news, but is it truly so hard to get some positive story in India to concentrate.

The obscenity of news

2006-04-17T14:05:00.000+05:30

I wrote a couple of months back about how obscene some of the ads for a news channel had been. It seemed as though the news channel wanted to reduce news to the intellectual level of the mega serials. It almost seems as though news is watched by housewives during the afternoons to be later discussed at length during late evenings over the telephone.

I was reminded of how my grandmother reacted to the death of Navarasu... the medical student ... she had read about it in Ananda Vikatan and derived some kind of pleasure in narrrating the macabre incident at length... to anyone in sight. I felt it was some kind of expression of her inability to do anything about it... just lament about it to someone in a vain attempt to release some frustration.

The current day news channels seem to do the same thing. They feed the society's innate propensity to talk about a macabre incident around water-coolers and bus stands. The current presentation of the Meerut tragedy seems to exemplify this phenomenon to perfection. Someone wrote abotu this in the Indian Express, my mother pointed it out to me... and that person seemed to think Doordarshan had so much class in infomring us of the tragedy without over emphasising the gory details. I am becoming increasingly dissilusioned by the state of reporting in India. We are soon going to a stage similar to that of America where media's role in society is more of advocacy and less of reporting.

A faar Ambiga

2006-04-11T12:04:00.000+05:30

Male Chorus:
A faar Ambigaa
B faar Banumadhi
C faar Siththira doi

D faar Devagee
E faar Yelisabeth
Yuf faar Paathima doi
doi doi

Female chorus:
G faar Govindan
Ech faar Ariharan
I faar Indiran daan doi

J faar Jaani daan (I am not sure how they said Janardhan in the time allocated)
K faar Kaalidas
Yel for Loghu daan doi
Doi Doi

Does anyone want the mp3 of the song with such lyrics ?
Please contact me.

The Whys of WHY

2006-04-03T16:03:00.000+05:30

"As if that blind rage has washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, I that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much life myself - so like a brother, really - I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate."

Well on the way to becoming an absurd hero... Or as Vijayakanth might have said, "Enakku Engleesh la pidikkadha orey varthai.. "WHY" ?

How the GOP fucked GDP..

2006-03-21T10:32:00.000+05:30

Hi.. Bush... lol.. one more.. hahahahah ye ye... what can I say ?

Not mine...

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

------Lord Alexander Tyler on the fall of the Athenian republic

Do we need infotainment?

2006-03-14T13:15:00.001+05:30

There is a shot of a lady crying... she says "I just died in a plane crash"
There is a shot of a man reclining on a sofa.. tired.. he says "I am walking on teh moon"
There is a shot of a woman in a wheelchair... "I just climbed mount Everest"

Remember the ad? thats the ad for "Times Now"... the new news channel.. Have we already reached a stage where news chanels have to be advertised like soap operas? What is haeepning here? Am i missing something here?

I recently read this piece from the movie "Good Night and Good Luck"
To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

Do you think that the telivision these days has become a weapon of indifference, ingnorance and intolerance?

Bwahahaha

2006-03-08T10:07:00.000+05:30

Looogadtheees

http://media.putfile.com/ultimateshowdown#start
The saddest part as one of the comments puts it is that Vin Diesel was not featured.. oh what would it be if Vin Diesel was in the SOAP movie??? Wudnt that be fun.. Vin Diesel screaming "get oudda muh face... " to the snakes.

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2701810?htv=12&htv=12
The follow-up to the SOAP saga... this movie whatever else it will achieve has already become an internet phenomenon. Amazing title even better cast and people raving about it already.... 7 months from release.
This trailer I think would be better than the movie.. but the movie ofcourse will be an internet meme... SNAKES on a M&^&^*& F&*^* plane!!!!!! man.

About absolving 'Brownie'

2006-03-04T10:24:00.000+05:30

New 'Katrina' tapes have revealed one of the three or all or none....
1.) Bush was pre-warned bu FEMA director Brown (Brownie.. for the unitiated) that Katrina was 'the big one... bigger than even Andrew'... and YET Bush decided to NOT do anything and ask 0 questions. This had happenned four days before Katrina? Hence Bush was to blame.
(Washington Post)

2.) Bush was not warned of the levies being breached by the governor of Louisiana had mentioned that the levies 'might or might not breach' after Katrina hits the shores. Hence Bush was blameless.
(Forbes)

3.) Neither is true. No1 is to blame but the terrorists. POTUS hence needs more money to fund his war on terror in Iraq and possibly invade Syria and Iran while he is at it.

You are 'free' to believe whatever you want in the land of the free... after all real freedom would be freedom from the opinions of others... probably from the opinions about yourself too. Atleast that is what seems to keep Bush from biting the dust everytime.

What is even more interesting what White House's dismissal of the entire issue as inconsequential since the transcripts og the VDO had already hit the stands a long time back... It is pathetic what kind of losers the White House takes other Americans to be...

To connect Sanjay Dutt with venus fly traps

2006-03-02T14:30:00.000+05:30

Sanjay Dutt has now been accused as a co-conspirator in the Mumbai blasts... there is an immediete flash to the Munnabhai - 2 promos... with Sanjay and Arshad wanting statues of themselves in Mumbai... I am thinking... are we large hearted enough to forgive him for knowingly hoarding ammunition in his house before the Mumbai blasts? I can rest assured that Sanjay Dutt can NEVER act in another movie if India was America.

The biggest difference between India and America is that people here lack civic sense. They seem to like living in squalor as long as the squalor does not come within 10 mts of them. We need to educate them. No longer should we think about getting better politicians. We should think of getting better people. You kow... if we get beter people automatically we get better politicians.

Ok today's thought is this... what is the best solution for the problem of people defecating on the streets ? What say we have something like a venus fly trap.. or one of those poison Ivy varieties that sting exposed flesh... and grow them along the sides of the road.. do you think anyone would bother to fertilize them with Ammonia? I don't know butit would be an interesting experiment, dont you think? I think I will just scatter a few seeds of poison IVY in one of those dark corners and see what happens.

Winds of Change

2006-02-28T11:32:00.000+05:30

I do not know why America is crying over such a non-issue as "gays in the Army".... if at all gays must be discriminated.. they must be discriminated FOR... hell they must be preferred in any army....

Just imagine you are some turbanned 'terrorist.. terror monger' and you get threatened by a country that has a HUGE gay army.... Would you even go on with your terror mongering? Or would you just STFU and go about your own sweet business....

You know.. they take prisoners too!!!

I dare you.. i double DARE you !!!!

2006-02-22T16:39:00.000+05:30

The path of the flight attendant is beset on all sides by the fangs of the black mamba, and the venom of spitting cobra. Blessed is he, who with the help of guns and mongooses shepherds the insanely frightened through the aisles of poison, for he is truly better than the crocodile hunter and the executioner of inscenced kraits which can strike down upon thee with copious poison and furious anger, those who attempt to ship and airlift its brothers on a plane, and you will know thy name is the Bad M^#&$ F&^%#&, when you lay my fangs upon me.

Confused? Samuel L.J is on a movie titled "Snakes on a Plane".. It is about.. ofcourse.. M$%#$ F%^##ing snakes on a M@#$@ F$#%%# plane!!!! do you need anymore motivation to watch it and worship the movie ????

Smart Talk with the Smart Sardhar

2006-02-08T16:17:00.000+05:30

Sonali : Welcome everyone to this segment of What Does Sidhu Say. Here with me are Sidhu, our resident comedian, Mr Dean Jones joining us from Peshawar, Cricknext editor Sandeep Jha and 70 people from Jalandhar who will cheer every single one of Sidhu's vocal excursions...

Sonali: We will all be discussing about whether Chappel's ways of controlling the team are too high handed...

Sidhu : No let us first talk about how it was horrible that Saurav was dropped. Saurav was a one day batsman... so why when he was included he should be included in the test day squad and then dropped form the one day side ?
(Crowd Cheering)
Also let me start a separate argument about whether Sachin must be treated on par with Saurav.. Something that me and the Vedas have personal views about and then will close it myself.
(More crowd cheering)

Dean Jones: I dont have an answer to that one... but... you need good bowlers on flat pitches and

Sidhu : But I have to ask you why is it that Saurav who has 23 one day hundreds against teams like Namibia and Botswana in Irunda Aaaprica not be included in a one day side against Sri Lanka and Pakistan ?
(Crowd in raptures)

Sandeep Jha: His performance...

Sidhu : But let me interject and say that class is constand but form varies. Sachin Tendulkar has class and he cannot be removed from a team without explicit permission from Osama Bin lAden.. as the saying goes Class is permanent but Form is varying..
(Crowd does the mexican wave)

Sonali: Sidhu saab I dont think we should use cliches as pass it off as Sidhuisms...

Sidhu : Ofcourse it was not a cliche.. what did I say ? I said Form is as ephemeral as the morning dew... but class is permanent.. that is not a cliche but actually a line from the Vedas...
(Crowd throws bottles at Sonali and one peron runs around naked in the sets)

Dean : Chappel has...

Sidhu : Ofcourse... have patience.. let the man have his go for a few more months. how can you judge someone so quickly ? Why dont we even have patience to let someone express himself?
(Crowd slightly quiet.. )

Sandeep : Then why dont you be patient and let others...

Sidhu : I want to reaffirm that Tendulkar is a class batsman. Anybody who talks about dropping Tendulkar should be admitted in the Amritsar mental institution where I will join him... and Chappel needs more time to prove his mettle as they say in the Vedas "strike the iron when it is hot and the iron will become hotter"... and ofcourse Saurav Ganguly was treated badly.
(Crowd once again in raptures as it notices one more line from the Vedas)

Sonali : Dean jones ??

Jones : What can I say ? I give up.

Sonali : Sandeep ?

Sandeep : Pending a sanity check on Sidhu.. whatever...

Sonali : We have come to the end of this episode of what will Sidhu say...

Sidhu : As the line from the vedas Go..

Sonali : Oh thank you Sidhu we will break for the day and all the best with your admission into the mental institution.
(Crowd by now in a frenzy want to nominate Sidhu for presidentship of USA where he will definitely make better decisions than Bush)

What will Brian Boitano do?

2006-02-01T17:31:00.000+05:30

Who will start talkign first about Sachin stepping down ?

Prem Panicker
Kris Srikanth
Bishen Bedi
Gavaskar
Imran Khan

When ?

In the next 2 minutes?
In the next 2 days?
In the next 2 months?

Who will be in the test squad against England?

Kaif
Gambhir
Kartik instead of Dhoni

What will Saurav Da do ?

Go HOME...(like losers always do... according to Charles Barkley)
Go into cricket commentary and start commenting for TimesNow.TV
Write an autobiography quickly

What will Sachin do ?

Get faint symptoms of possible tennis elbow and go off to seep interior mozambique for treatment
Play a few more test matches and one day matches scoring less than 10 runs
Start applying his genius

Is Chennai the most conservative city ever?

2006-01-30T11:35:00.000+05:30

This was the topic of discussion on NDTV last night... some of the most important people in the discussion were

Moderator : Bharka - Named after the traditional Muslim attire that makes women resemble mobile wigwams.
Anita Ratnam - Dancer (danseusse ?).. What was she doing here ?
Khushboo - (obviously)
Mirchi Suchi - she was used as a model to portray conservative and non-conservative clothes
Dr Nirmala Prasad - Principal, MOP Vaishnav.. one of the hippest colleges in the city. or should it be 'hippiest' ?
Yugi Sethu - TV personality and all in all Nakkal Raja
RK Raghavan - CBI director
AO - Arbit onlooker

Ok.. here goes the discussion

Bharka : Mrs Jayanthi Narajan... do you think Chennai is a very conservative city?
JN : No I think we are very progressive.
(Crowd applause. Me: WTF ? whats the connection?)

Bharka : So Dr Nirmala Prasad, what do you think are indecent clothes?
Dr NP : Tight T shirt and sleeveless.
(Crowd applause.. some old guys even nod their heads in understanding)

Bharka : So Mrs Tamil.. whatever BJP person.. do you agree ?
TJP T..: I am a doctor... and you see women's structure is different from that of a man's....
Bharka : Oh wait a minute wait a minute.. we are stopping here and we have to cut to a break and we are NOT discussing about all that here.
(Crowd beginning to applaud.. but cut short because of break.. we can see a few evil grins)

(We return to see bharka standing beside Khusboo and Mirchi Suchi)
Bharka : Hey lady in yellow sleeveless whatever (Mirchi Suchi)... nodding knowingly to whatever I say... by Dr. ND's standards you are obscenely dressed... stand up on the bench !!!
ND : I wont allow you inside my college if you are dressed this way...
Bharka (to MS) : I think you are sweetly dressed... you can sit down now.
(Crowd applause, Me: I change channels... cannot stand any more gushing.. already am gushing vomit)

Bharka : So Mr Yugi Sethu... do you think Chennai is conservative?
YS : When I was in Hawaii... there were a few dogs that were trained to catch frisbees in their mouths.. it is beautiful...
Bharka : So what are you saying ? Is a Chennaiite conservative or not?
YS :Oh that !! well that is an individualistic opinion that has to be debated in the living room with family... a few people outside a cathedral cannot decide if a city is conservative or not, and about how conservative one person has to be... whats more idiotic is that we are arguing based on media representations. So you can all go to hell.
(Crowd silent.... they do not know how to identify satire... they voted his nice program out of air...)

Bharka : So Mr Arbit Onlooker sitting in the last row... do you think Chennai is conservative?
AO : SMS joke.. India vs America... India only country where you can piss on the streets but cannot kiss on the streets...
(Crowd applause. Me : Hey... you have an SMS joke for your opinion? You sick duck !!!...)

Bharka : So Mr Raghava.. or is it Dr Raghavan... Oh you are a doctor.. you see I was too busy dressing up conservatively to otherwise prepare for this show... , Do you think the police was right in conducting a raid in a hotel where there were a few people kissing each other ?
Rags : No wait wait.. you are mistaken. I dont think the police knew people were kissing each other in the hotel. The police went in only because the hotel did not have the permit to sell liquor.
Khush jumping in rudely : Then what were the photographers doing there ? Didnt the police take them there ? And Bharka.. you did not even know I was not Tamilian and we had a 30 minute discussion with me on Tamil values? How much do you get paid?
Rags : Oh wait.. who told you the police took the photographers there ? What do you think the police are? When police stop journalists then you call it 'police attrocity'.. and when they allow journalists in you are calling them publicists ???
Secondly, I think the police have every right to clamp down on someplace where they might be some sort of misbehaviour going on. What makes you think that a few ladies who had paid good money to revel for a night, felt uncomfortable in such surroundings, and fearing some calamity, might not have called the police? So basically, you shut your gob.
(Crowd applauds not knowing what else to do)

Bharka : Oh well finally we have to ask Anita Ratnam what she thinks about this entire issue?
AR : Uh oh.. Yes I think we need cleaner roads... that will solve everything.
Bharka : And yes that beautiful thought sums it all up!!! and since we have enough SMSs to pay for our return trips to Delhi.... we will stop now. We all know Chennai is a lovely city and I would love to come back to this place... Bye everyone... and keep your thumbs busy !!!

There concludes one more episode of "We the people" one of the most irritating programs hosted by an overpaid host who does not bother to do any research on anything she is supposed to know about and generally babbles away trying to impress people.

India vs USA on Kyoto

2006-01-16T15:42:00.000+05:30

Indian logic is "Basically each Indian can have 2 other indians in a box... and so one person alone can emit for the three ... since these 2 other guys dont emit. This is Manmohan Singh's idea for India.... it is OK to emit black gases from the mufussil buses as long as each bus carries 2000 people... thus reducing the per capita emission"

American logic is, "I will continue to emit more per person because my population is lesser... and let those Indians and Chinese reduce their populations (thus inreasig their per capita emission)... and then we can think about reduction." Equally irresponsible.

So whats the deal with Iran? USA basically says it does not have to concern itself with the rest of the world when it does not attend the Kyoto meet which is warning the world against rising pollution level concerns. Now it is attacking Iran saying it will do something in 2030 what USA would have already done in 2020 ?

What would happen do you think if Iran is 'freed'? USA gets more oil and burns it faster and hence destroys the world faster than Iran can ? Well I think by then we would all be 'freed' off the oppressive dictator named 'life'. We wont even notice it.

And what does India plan ? Does it plan on reducing the population and the pollution levels? Or does it plan on shamelessly feasting on the foreign investments that will flood India once the developed nations sign the Kyoto protocol ?

Of Maangas and malingas

2005-12-21T13:57:00.000+05:30

"Malinga has a different action", said Ranjit Fernando... Is that all you could say? If a fast bowler delivers the ball, side arm.... from about the level of the umpire's navel... well ofcourse he has a different action.

Ranjit goes on to explain the reason behind the biological oddity - an obvious star in the Srilankan team (makes you wonder if they have a team or a travelling freak show...). Malinga i believe grew up near Galle.. where there was a river. So as a kid.. our dear Malinga swam a lot and hence developed that now famous side-arm action. (clearly in the picture the arm is just below the shoulder parallel he becomes legal because he shifts his torso to make it look allright). Makes you wonder if he would have bowled underarm if he had been born near the Cooum.

So we now we have Sri Lanka which is a touring freakshow. They have all kinds of attractions.. people with biological oddities.. of the arm, of the shoulder, of the mind (Ranjit Fernando), of the tongue... (Atapattu who cannot string two words without repeating the first word 20 times...)... And they are getting a sound beating by an Indian team...

Ahem....

2005-12-19T19:07:00.000+05:30

There is a law that has been passed that makes it mandatory for bars, nightclubs and movie theatres. The article says that men cannot stand the sight of transvestites and women dont feel comfortable either using those restrooms.

Now the question arises... wo would there be two kinds of restrooms for women who later became men... and the second for men who later became women? Will there then be restrooms for people who have different sexual orientation? As it is some male footballers have requested for separate restrooms for homosexuals in the team. So people are requesting restrooms based on their sexual preferences?

Also.. have you ever wondered why straight men hated gays much MORE than straight women hated lesbians? Does it have something to do with the intrusive nature of the act of copulation among guys for men to fel so much aversion?

So what are you thinking?

2005-12-19T12:34:00.000+05:30

I am totally freaking out... MAN

So what is your perception of ART?Do you plainly admire the occasional beauty? Do you usually analyse what art means to you?

Look at these two news clippings...
Mona Lisa demystified
Chimp Painting

Do you really need art experts to tell you what art means to them and what it should mean to you? For example when you are looking at the Mona Lisa, you can feel anything from plain fascination to.. "Oh great I am at the Louvre..." Mona Lisa might just signify France to you while for others it might signify... as in the first case.. 83% happiness, 9% disgust, 6% fear and 2% anger...

So my conclusion is that art is 83% for the sake of art, 15% idiotic and 2% inspirational.... and all art experts and people who talk about how 'classical and timeless' art is... are 100% bogus

The art of.....seeing things as they are...

2005-12-18T17:36:00.000+05:30

In an argument, when you are giving a point of view that is in general contrary to popular opinion, has the other person automatically assumed you are justifying something that is completely wrong? Did you ever feel irritated that the other person feels he/she has proved the point when you just sit stupefied by their stupidity?

For eg: when you say, never judge someone based on your beliefs, has the person ever told you then you are saying Shankaracharya is a good man because according to his beliefs what he did was right?

It happened to me. And I am seething. We were talking about Rowdy Shankar's statement about that there were 2 things that are important in life... and how it applies to his own life.

"To have the capacity to be satisfied"
"And to have the capacity to do what you consider is morally right"

The first part obviously Rowdy Shankar had. He was extremely satisfied with what he had done and had done it not out of of compulsion or any momentary laspse of reason. He had carefully calculated that what he was going to do would be completely against his creed but had still gone on with it.

The second part is subjective. How do you judge what is morally correct? Can you judge someone based on your own beliefs and capabilities? If you extend that kind of blind judgement based on already narrow beliefs, could that be extended to judging someone to be a bad worker because has only one leg? Maybe he is just Incapable to suit your needs, but is he necessarily bad?

Heavy heavy fuel....

2005-12-16T21:22:00.000+05:30

Far out .... MAN

The more I read about it the more I am convinced we all have to run on heavy fuel. Just look at this man. He is convinced that alcohol is the practical alternative to fossil fuels. It came as a surprise to me that methanol has been used in running the INDY500 cars for over 20 years. The practical difficulty is that the mileage obtained is around 2 mpg which compares to around 4 mpg for normal F1 cars.

190 proof alcohol running our cars in the near future is certainly a viable solution for the energy crisis and whats more the process does not cause as much CO emission as do the fossil fuels. The biggest plus is that we could brew 190 proof alcohol at home and claim that we are actually doing it for the environment :-). Far out man....

Kallasaarayam... 100 proof :-)

2005-12-14T01:34:00.000+05:30

Arrack is the most common Asian country liqour. Carbs in the form of rice or other cereals are boiled along with sugar or jaggery and left to ferment. The mixture is left to ferment resulting in an alcoholic beverage with 50-60% alcohol content.

There has always been an argument over which is superior... Rice based liquor or potato based liquors and I would strongly vouch for grain (rice) based liquors having a much better and smoother taste.

Toddy which is the other South ASian country liquor is basically got from fermenting (and NOT distilling) palm sap. Well made toddy (without adding yeast to aid fermenting) has an alcohol percentage of aruon 5 - 10%.

There has been a ban on toddy tapping by the Kerala Government.

So what would this God drink?

Kallasaarayam.. percentage alcohol?

2005-12-13T14:28:00.000+05:30

Kallasaarayathla percentage alcohol evlo irukkum? I had a serious doubt and did some googling on it... and wonder of wonders I came up with a few rantings....

I had known that Moonshine, Everclear have somewhere close to or above 95%... Was wondering if I could find some home brewn liquour with the highest alcohol percent. This technology of increasing the percentage alcohol for beverages made for consumption purposes was perfected during the late 17nth century which saw the advent of 95% alc (180 proof) liquors.

Technically liquor cannot have more than 95% alcohol because the process of distilling after fermentation to make 'clear' alcohol. The idea is based on teh fact that alcohol and water form an azeotrope that is 95% alc. and 5% water. This has a lower boiling point than either alcohol or water, thus making it the first solution that is distilled. Hence 190 proof Everclear(95% alc.) is the purest and most potent consumable alcohol. (Anything close to 100 % alcohol is potentially dangerous to your eyesight).

More in next....

S.J. Suryah

2005-11-23T12:35:00.000+05:30

How many of you like S.J. Suryah movies ? How many of you think he is'nt worth
the publicity he is getting ? How many think he looks like a cancer patient ? How many of you think he is a cheap broker pimping sub standard and obscene stuff on screen ? How many think that he should be burnt and his ashes put on a space shuttle and sent to Mars ? How many even want to watch him on TV ? How many of you guys think he is not an actor but a gimmick trying to imitate Rajni in his comedy scenes and MGR all other scenes ? How does that make him an actor ?

Why do we have to watch his movies? Is it because we are all sexual perverts who get tittilated by obscenely obese actresses such as Kiran and Mumtaj in little or no clothes? Is it because we accept that Tamil audiences are so extremely perverse that they they only want to watch bawdy acts on screen? Does he disrespect the average tamilian so much?

Is it because he makes a movie about a young boy getting an an adult body overnight and focusses mainly on the sexual aspects of it? Is it because he makes extremely lewd movies about college students touching each other's body parts? Is it because he is very very dumb in writing a story but extremely intelligent in marketing it? Is it because he is so insecure about himself that attempts at creating a controversy in almost everything he does including naming his movies?

If at all there is one person whom I can kill... I would definitely choose S J Suryah.

Unnecessary Controversy.

2005-11-23T11:47:00.000+05:30

There are two things that the recent Khusbhoo episode has taught us. First, people down south are still extremely tight assed about what they consider humiliation of their culture and what is not. Secondly, most of the film stars are infact slaves themselves to the media and the masses.

The average Tamilian would see and accept the average loser making love before and instead of marriage. He would even make the movie (7G Rainbow Colony) a great hit. He would vociferously applaud SJ Surya's movies replete with sexual connotations. SUN TV would play extremely obscene songs that feature unwed men and women singing songs with lyrics not even fit for the bedroom. The very same TV channel would then play a news item on how morally degrading Khushbhoo had been to the Tamil women when she said any educated man would not expect his wife to be a virgin when talking about how most women get AIDS only from their husbands.

The reluctance of any major league star who made his/her money cultivating the cheap tastes of the tamil audiences to actually come forward and defend a seemingly innocuous statement made by Khushboo is also worth talking about. THere was not one person apart from Suhasini to actually come out in the open and against the unfair allegations of the Dalit panthers and SUN TV. I would really like to know what

Suhasini came out against the allegations while advertising her 'ladies Junction' which is basically a program where she goes and talks to jobless housewives in remote villages. Suhasini later regretted supporting Khushboo asking everyone to treat her comments as a 'bad dream'. This came immedietely after Sarath Kumar who is the Gen Sec of one of the actor associations demanded an explanation for her statements.

I wish Khiushboo has spin doctors such as Robert De Niro in "Wag teh Dog" to maximise her mileage from this incident. If she has plans of launching a political career, this would be the ideal time to do that.

Moi Nathuram Ghodse Boltoi - Play Review

2005-08-14T22:59:00.000+05:30

I read the English translation of this play available on numerous websites. The play itself was not exceptionally good. I guess the beauty of it was lost in the translation. The reasons cited by Ghodse for the assassination of Gandhi were also equally unimpressive.

The playwright’s, intention of portraying Ghodse as a completely sane person fully in control of the situation and his deeds has been achieved in the play. There has been amazing controversy over this play from both sides of the, especially since Dalvi claims his play is historically accurate, and that he had been very fair in dealing with both the characters.

The play starts with Ghodse’s perspective where he laments about how his childhood has never been talked about and how he had been branded as a fanatic. These were the reasons Ghodse has cited in the play for his decision to kill Gandhi.....the Indian Government’s decision to give 55 crores to Pakistan.
This fueled Ghodse to write an editorial asking all Indians to go on a warpath and kill all the Muslims on that auspicious day. (A Hindu festival observed along with Shankaranti. I forget which...)
To me this is a childish reason to kill someone and if Nathuram had made up his mind on the 13nth Jan to cap Gandhi, for this reason alone, he could be classified as a Hindu fanatic.

He vehemently opposed the ’Gandhian’ way of non violence. He calls Ahimsa a principle that denies self interest and says it can only lead to self destruction.
To me this is a very valid point made by him, but still not enough reason to kill a leader who had been one of the instruments (Gandhi by no means is the SOLE earner of Indian Independence. Human instruments could as diverse as Subash Chandra Bose to Mohammad Ali Jinnah to Adolf Hitler) in getting India its Independence. Gandhi by no means should have adopted the same kind of attitude with equals.

He says since Gandhi does not know what he is doing and is literally holding a nation to ransom every time there are protests against the blatant Muslim pleasing ways of the INC.
To me this is his main reason for having killed Gandhi. It was extremely unfair on Gandhi’s part to have resorted to Sathyagraha and emotional blackmail only with the Hindus and not with the Muslims. What is the idea in asking the Hindu majority to calmly forgive the sins of the Muslim brothers with an indulgent eye? This is one more offshoot of the twisted application of the Ahimsa law to the Hindu–Muslim conflict. It was the ultimate catch 22 situation. In order to actually follow the path of Ahimsa, a little bit of ’himsa’ HAD to be done.

In the play, Gandhi’s viewpoint is almost trite in the way it is being depicted. It is kind of incredible to think a great man would not care about him being murdered by some of the people he is trying to work for. This portrays a complete lack of understanding, and almost arrogant way of saying,

’I know more about what you want than you do.’

This was the point Dalvi had tried to put across in his play and I feel he has succeeded to an extent. The frustration felt by Ghodse has been excellently portrayed in his arguments.

There were some really good arguments and touching narrations in the play. I was especially moved by the portrayal of the famous Om Puri scene from the Hollywood movie Ghandi, where a Hindu man who has lost a son comes to Gandhi’s bedside to urge him to break his fast, so that he would not have Gandhi’s death also on his conscience. Dalvi narrates the story of a similar man who, after desisting from violence for Gandhi’s sake, only has his other daughter also killed.

Another poignant part is when Nathuram reasons out the repercussions of his actions. He does not want to run away from his deed, he does not want anyone else implicated along with him, He does not want any kind of sympathy to be shown to him. He only wants people to start thinking about what the government and Gandhi had been doing.

“It is a question of principle. I am not immortal. I have to die one day. If my blood is going to cool down their anger, if it is going to stop riots and arson, if it is going to satisfy them that they have penalized a criminal named Mohandas Gandhi. I am prepared to give them my blood.’’
Those were the words spoken by the Mahatma. I am not sure I see logic in that. I am not sure if Gandhi wanted the Hindus to NOT get angry while Muslims have all the right to get vent their fury and murder Hindus by the bushels. Gandhi says he does not mind his murder since he was very old. That to me is flawed logic. If that was one of the reasons, I don’t think that day could be called Martyr’s day. To me a martyr is a person who believes his death could change the course of his country for the better, and does not have any other additional strings like age attached to it.

Gandhi wanted every single man in India to behave like him. He wanted Indian Hindus alone to turn the clichéd other cheek. Such behavior can only lead to frustration among the Hindu ranks. it is humanly impossible to behave like Gandhi did. He was seriously a uniquely great person, and he failed to realize that. He paid the ultimate price for that albeit at a ripe old age.

Hinduism - an open minded way of life

2005-08-13T22:02:00.000+05:30

Hinduism was that people accepted they did not know a few things. The Rig Veda has the following caption : (not in English though)

"then even nothingness was not, nor existence
there was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it
Who covered it? Where was it? In Whose keeping?
Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?
But afterall, who knows, and who can say,
when it all came, and how creation happened?
the Gods themeselves are later than creation,
so who knows truely whence it has arisen ...."

So the people are not cheated into blving that GOD created the universe out of nothing. The great rishis admit their lack of knowledge. I think that is something great. This makes these people ALWAYS open for new ideas and discoveries. I might even go to the extent of saying Hinduism is a totally scientific religion if you can get the hang...

Women in Hinduism, and the stagnancy of Islam.

2005-08-12T10:37:00.000+05:30

These are excerpts from the Rig and the Atharvana Vedas... that describes the treatment of women. What is interesting is that even though the Bible (which was written 2500 years after the Vedas) gives a lot of unpleasant attributes to the women, and clearly outlines ways to subjugate them, apart from a few cliques, there are no places where such treatment is meted out. Hinduism had been ovolved by a highly cultured society that does not have its roots in violence or oppression. Hence the clarity in thought in the ancient Hindu literature which is clearly noted in these passages.

Remain awake
As intelligent and alert woman
Enjoying full life of a hundred years.
Enter the house as its ideal mistress,
May the Creator bestow on thee Long life
- Atharv Ved 14/2/75

I am what thou art
Thou art what I am,
I am the psalm
And thou art the verse,
I am the heaven
And thou art the earth,
May we live together
To produce progeny.
- Atharv Ved 14/2/71

I am the banner
I am the head
I possess excellent eloquence;
My husband co-operates with me
And follows my will.
- Rig Ved 10/159/2

Islam on the other hand, was created by the Prophet, to keep unruly hordes unedr control and the root of the religion had been violence. Hence the immaturity in thought and the inherent violence among the ancient Islamic literature which is also present in some of the Christian literature as given in the previous post.

Though, it is nice to note that Christianity has evolved over a period of 2000 years into a very acceptable form. A form which does not estrange itself from other religions or groups of people in any way as does Islam. Islam except for pockets like in Malaysia has NOT changed its face from that of an oppresive way of life initially created to keep hordes (etym: URDU) of people under firm control.

Women according to the bible

2005-08-11T18:20:00.000+05:30

Probably oft repeated post. But it certainly makes sense to me how closely Christianity and Islam are tied together. They were created by the same kind of people and for the same kind of people. It is remarkable how most Christians have changed their values to suit the modern day needs. Why isnt it possible with the Muslims ?

Excerpts from the Bible

"16. Unto the woman he (God) said, 1 will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." - Genesis, 3/16

"The second century St. Clement of Alexandria wrote:
Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman."49 - St Clement

"8. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man." - I Corinthians, 11/8

"9. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man."- I Corinthians, 11/9

In 1977, Pope Paul VI explained:
"Women were barred from the priesthood because our Lord was a man."51

"3. But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God."
- I Corinthians, 11/3

"11. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." - I Timothy, 2/11

"12. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to he in silence."
- I Timothy, 2/12

"14. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." - I Timothy, 2/14

"24. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing."
- Ephesians, 5/24

"34. Let your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law." - I Corinthians 14/34

"35. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." - I Corinthians. 14/35

"5. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head; for that is even all one as if she were shaven." - I Corinthians, 11/5

Wag the dog !!!!

2005-08-04T12:20:00.001+05:30

The ass licking of Muslims has started among the 'Democratic' countries. What irritates me further is that the leaders are either being complete dunces or hypocrites. They are either targeting 'terrorist nations' and bombing the bejesus out of them, and at the same time, asking their kinsmen people to consider 'Islam' as a peaceful religion and not taking any precautionary measures, apart from victimizing people who are yet to get the visas stamped.

Neither of their actions are correct. If they are trying to control terrorism, it is better that they do it ONLY within their country. Dont you think Britain would have been a better country now if it had deployed a chunk of the resources it spent on Iraq and Afghanistan trying to 'curb terrorism', within their own country. Probably they could have even prevented the London bombings?

Har har har har

2005-07-22T14:45:00.000+05:30

"You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out. When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay all out the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been given out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is theend of the game!"

Friends - A social evil

2005-07-20T11:33:00.000+05:30

This article has statistical findings (by a student of the AIIMS, India) and has extracts from a report written by me in 2003. The mentioned research paper was reproduced in part in reputed Indian magazines. What follows is the startling truth about the declining moral standards in urban Indian society.

Meghna Sharma* is 15 years old. She studies in a well recognized school from South Delhi. She is the only child to two successful doctors. Meghna had lived a very normal life going to school, being part of the school handball team and watching soap operas on TV. She was also excessively obsessive about Rachel a character from the popular tele-serial ?Friends? and wanted to be ?just like her? when she grew up. Little did her parents know that Meghna had already started all the groundwork to be just like her tele-idol.

The evening of 13nth February 2001 was eventless enough. Meghna had left home at around 7 pm since the local division of the Friends Fan Club (the innocent name given by the children to their own club that let them exhibit the creativity and fantasy about the Friends characters), was organizing a Viva forever!!! Friends Party, on the eve of Valentine?s Day. It was very normal for 13 year old Meghna to attend such parties. After all it was just a Friends party. But, little did they know that Meghna was to play Rachel to Bunty's* Ross during the sleep-over in the friends house that followed the party.

The Sharmas were slightly surprised at Meghna's high spirits the next morning and put it down to the after-effects of the party. Meghna had kept saying she is becoming more and more like Rachel and she was so happy about it, and that Ross was simply great at the party. It all dawned on the Sharmas only later but by then it was too late to stop the damage.

Soon Meghna was complaining of nausea in the mornings and the Sharmas as dutiful parents and doctors immediately took matters in their own hands. What the found out shocked them beyond belief and they are yet to come out of the shock to this day. What?s more shocking is that little Meghna could not understand the gravity of the situation and that she thought what had ensued between her and Bunty was completely natural! After all, if Ross and Rachel can do it and they were ?just friends? why can?t she and Bunty?

What caused this kind of declining sense of morality among our kids? Are people who say 'yes this is the direct effect of what is being fed on TV day after day', really bonkers? Or could they really be right to some extent. A student from the Psychiatry Department in AIIMS seems to have the answer for it.

Srivatsan Bharghava* has been doing his intern training in the psychology department of AIIMS was startled by the remarkable number of Meghna-like situations that he comes across in AIIMS. He proceeded to investigate. He used the resources of all his friends across most of the leading hospitals from the major cities to unearth these startling statistics. He has always thought that teenage pregnancies were higher among the villagers in India since there was a higher incidence of teen marriages in those areas. What he found out startled him? and us.

Number of recorded teenage pregnancy cases in,

..................1990 ? 1995.....................1995 ? 2000................2001 - 2003
Delhi.................235...........................2,435..........................2,621
Bombay.............192...........................1,623...........................2,289
Calcutta.............210...........................1,895...........................1,524
Chennai.............46...........................756...........................632
Bangalore..........28...........................692...........................727

Contrary to our opinion, there has been a multifold increase in the number of teenage pregnancies in India. ?At last we have something to defeat the west in? says Srivatsan with a wry chuckle. A trifle tasteless but the harsh reality of the truth is carried across. The increase in the number of metropolitan teenage pregnancies cannot be solely attributed to the population increase. If the current trends of immoral conduct among our nation?s young continues we would soon have a very big problem in out hands. The reason propounded is startling but is quite believable.

Cable Television ? the influence of the Western Media
Some might say it is preposterous but the increase of cable television and serials like the aforementioned ?Friends? have a remarkable effect on the psyche of the urban teenager. Not only does he enjoy the jokes in the serial, but also the blatant sexuality that is being presented. Mainly because of conflicting surroundings and out of sheer curiosity, falls victim to the inappropriate and unguided exposure to un-Indian practices.

?Sex in India is sacred. Has always been since the days of Vyatsyayana? says noted psychologist Ajit Mehta*. ?It is inappropriate to present it in such a flippant way as shown by the western serials. Indians in India do not have the mental structure to handle blatant sexual freedom as shown in these western serials. Such exposure to serials like ?Friends? and ?Will & Grace? that feature indiscriminate relationships between the characters is harmful and is sure to corrupt the target audience? the teenage Indian mind?.

?The teenager sees no-one like the characters in ?Friends? among grown adults around him (because of the seclusion of Sex in the Indian society) and does not know what is on-screen is not the case even in America. He is hence confused and resorts to what comes naturally to him. Try it out!?

?Considering the growing environments in India, it is infinitely better to telecast pornographic acts and present it as wrong, rather than show such gross justifications of immoral acts by grown individuals on primetime television? Mehta justifies.

What is the solution to this problem? Is it banning of such serials in India? Is it censorship? Or is it active participation by parents to teach their children that what is being justified in the west is wrong by Indian standards? Mehta says a judicious application of all three.

Children should understand that what is West IS West and is CANNOT be Indian. Serials such as ?Friends? should be banned or severely censored. People must be taught that Rachel and Ross can never really live and be respected in an Indian society.

Also, Mehta says Encouragement of serials such as Friends would increase the risk of similar serials from the Indian entertainment industry that would further increase the risk of such indecent activities spreading into every nook and cranny of India.

’’In-fact he suggests children who watch Friends should spend twice the amount of time with the Bhagavat Gita or the Manu Smriti. Probably then they would learn what is truly Indian from those great books and realize their true culture rather than just jump from tree to tree trying to ape the west. Instead of just following what they did, we should try to teach them the glory that is India by taking every step to popularize our very own serials there. Sage-like words from an Indian settled abroad indeed!!

Reactions to the attack on the Makeshift temple

2005-07-07T17:41:00.000+05:30

Foreign newspapers are having a field day with reports that try to fuel the spark. CNN, BBC, Guardian, Fox News, Daily Times Pakistan, New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Al Jazeera have all reported that India is up in flames and mobs are running amuck derailing trains, storming airports and delaying trains by breaking potted plants.

In other news, the Indian markets refuse to react to the purported turmoil. The SENSEX fell as much as 0.8 points following the attack on the Ayodhya temple. Family feuds affected the markets more than the attempted bombing did. It shows a level of maturity among the investors in India.

I hope the foreign media/forces realize that it would be very hard to disrupt communal harmony in India. India is definitely not 'Shining' so to speak but still is much better off than what it was 12 years back, when religion could be trivialized to be represented by a temple.

There is a big deal that is made out of the BJP's demand for the resignation of Shivraj Patil, and Manmohan Singh's repartee' to that claim. Manmohan Singh had made a remark that amounted to saying BJP had displayed the same amount of negligence during the Parliamentary attack, and the attack at the Akshardham temple. The remark is unfounded because in neither of those cases, the local police and the State government were warned by the Home Ministry of an impending attack. This was not the case with the attack on Ayodhya which is a clear case of negligence and lack of control since the Home Ministry was fully aware of the threat and was apathetic towards any sort of attempts at beefing up security at the already disputed site.

All about a makeshift shrine

2005-07-06T16:52:00.000+05:30

It has been confirmed that the organized attack was conducted by the Lashkar E Taiba on the "makeshift temple" as the edifice was very eloquently called by a few leading newspapers. BB Raman says that LET and in particular the squad that came over had been trained by the HUM - Harkat-ul-Mujahideen a.k.a Harkat-ul-Ansar - HUA) which had been a home project of the ISI. All this has happend while our pranab Mukherjee has been regularly releasing reports that say inspite of the bonhmie, Pakistan is not doing enough to curb terrorism.

Here are some interesting versions of the news

Muslim American Society blames Hindus to have attacked their own temple to incite religious violence against Muslims in India. They also say the demolition was the only factor that propelled the BJP into power. I wonder if anyone can ask them to prove that.

The UP Governer had been generous enough to accept that his police department had been warned of an impending attack by the Intelligence Bureau AND the Home Secretary but had been disregarded as one of the regular warnings that arrive along with the daily mail.

The RSS as usual took to the streets in protest against the attack by causing more damage than has already been done. Indore airport was attacked and a few potted plants destroyed. One flight was also delayed.

The New York Times seems to think that "Ayodhya, a small provincial town of winding alleys, monkeys and dreadlocked Hindu monks, has become synonymous with the rise of Hindu hard-line politics."
Interesting way of putting it. Wonder what we can call Bush and American policies...

"Texas, a huge wasteland with almost dry oil wells and rednecks delivering "hard country justice" ,has become synonymous with American hard-line politics"

The Christian Science Monitor has immedietely assumed that the BJP will be using this to raise religious fervour. They also accuse Advani of saying "The reaction to this attack should be proportionate." which clearly seems to indicates to those who monitor Christian Science as a war cry.
Al Jazeera also quotes Advani as the incitor of the violence that they predict will surely follow the attack.

Lal Krishna Markinson

2005-07-06T12:03:00.000+05:30

Is the attack on the Ayodhya Shrine supposed to be a chance for Advani to go back into the Hindutva fold? Advani had mentioned that the day the mosque was destroyed was probably the saddest day of his life. Such hypocricy is not hard to fathom... but it would be interesting what he will have to say about this latest attack on the 'makeshift temple' at Ayodhya.

To quote Lt. Col. Matthew Andrew Markinson in a few good men, this is probably what Advani would say if ever he has a hearing.

I knew about the problem vaguely, which is to say that I knew that the Kar Sevaks were going to demolish the mosque, and that they had been practicing in New Delhi on Dec 4th and 5th, and that there had also been a violent attempt 6 months earlier to bring the mosque down by the same people. I also knew that our party had close affiliations with the organization and it would be extremely difficult for me to disown the organization's beliefs because our party was founded mainly on those principles.

In a matter of time, the question of the demolition and my comments about the day in a foreign country will be forgotten, and the entire nation that does have an idea about what precipitated the event, would start concentrating on something completely different and equally idiotic. Those who care would never be able to offer one single true explanation as to why it was demolished and how in the suceeding years that event alone was supposed to have given our party enough mileage to win the Lok Sabha elections. They would continue to wonder about whether it was the incompetency of Congress or the intelligent spin doctoring of the BJP bigwigs like me who could divert the attention of an entire nation. They will also never understand how the entire blame of destroying the mosque could come on my shoulders to the extent of having my photo next to that if Hitler (As a Hindu fanatic) and having the other party bigwig absolved of the negligence.

For my part, I've done as much as I can to bring the truth to light. And the truth is this: the mosque was demolished only for one reason. I wasn't strong enough to stop it.

Always,
Lal Krishna Advani, RSS guy and BJP party president.

The effect of Media(serials... ) on Indian Society

2005-05-06T11:03:00.000+05:30

The question was asked because I started thinking along these lines. Do media have an effect on present society? Is it the other way around? Is it both ways? If so is there some kind of lead? Do media affect our moralities? If so, is there a catalyst? Is media a catalyst?

These are the sequence of questions that I came up with. I tried to answer them objectively and came up with an answer for the questions. You derive your own answers. If you want to justify your answer using exceptions please do… you would reach some kind of different conclusion yourself. I am not even going to use percentages. What I think is happening is a very slow shift in levels of acceptability and I am trying to find out why it is happening.

Basically I asked these questions since I felt that the generation gap is very small these days. When I was a kid, it used to be 20 years. Right now I think it is somewhat like 6 years. So here goes.

1. When a serial/movie screen play writer writes something, does he concentrate on the present society or does he think up something that is usually different? What makes people watch? Banality or Uniqueness?

2. Does the author usually get inspired by a single happening or society in general?

3. Does the single happening portray the “Uniqueness” mentioned in the first question?

4. Do you think there is intent in the author to try and sell his newly created ‘society’? By selling society I mean, for example, does he almost always justify the ‘hero’s actions?
(Clarification. That need not be his/her ONLY intent)

5. Do normal people get influenced by movies and/or serials?
(Clarification: Do you think people would like to be like For Eg… the lead character? For example do policemen want to dress/behave like Nana Patekar in ATC)?

6. Do you perceive yourself to be a very normal person?

7. Do you think that people get more influenced by pleasurable activities depicted the than by non-pleasurable activities? (by pleasurable I meant regular worldly pleasures, drinking, driving a car, eating, having sex (with or without legal partner)).

8. Do people get influenced more by generally normal people whose actions sometimes do not conform to ‘generally normal society’? See I have to classify the word normal with the word ‘general’ mainly because normalcy is once again very subjective. I had to give a layer of abstraction to the word.

9. Do you once again answer the above question with a sentence that has the word ‘perspective’ or a synonym? (If YES, there is no point in you reading further).

10. Do you see sense in any of the following questions? And are you able to relate these to the present context?

Does evil mean ‘not conforming to regular society and hence destructive to ‘generally normal’ environment’? For eg. Something as trivial as live in relationships could be evil to a few people. They might perceive it to be evil because it alters the perceived moralities.

Do you classify the above statement with a sentence that has the word ‘context’ even after I have qualified some of the nouns used? If so there is no point in you reading further.

Do you want to by and large keep society and acceptability limits the same way for your children as you see it?

Do you have your own set of ‘personal laws’ that are similar to what your parents believed in? If they are different, how different is it?

How comfortable are you in doing something your parents will not approve of?

How comfortable are you with it if your son/daughter does something that you don’t approve of? (‘Perspective’ and its synonyms are allowed to answer the questions)

Back to movies/serials

11. Do you think generally there are more pleasurable activities in some movies that are ‘evil’ as defined above?

12. Does all this mean that if you are a normal person you tend to get more influenced by the evil activities depicted in the serial/movie? (by questions 1,2, 8, 10, 11, 13)

Slight change in track.

13. Do you think that the world changes faster because there is an increase in communication?

14. Do you think that the television by and large is an effective mass medium?

15. Do you think Indian levels of acceptability are EXTREMELY DISSIMILAR to Western levels of acceptability?

16. Do you conclude due to favourable answers to questions 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17 that some western serials shown in television and inspired Indian serials/movies, have to be censored/ banned/ warned?

17. Do you think that since education is a far better way of giving perspective to society, the above mentioned points are moot and should be vehemently disregarded without at-least a thought?

18. Or do you think we would have it easier to educate the susceptible if it were not for irresponsible serials/movies that promote seemingly normal characters promote slightly unnatural actions that could be the cause of ‘evil’ in society?

19. Can you conclude that media has been ever so slightly changing society by constantly ‘pushing the limits’ enforced in normal society? (due to favourable answers to questions 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 14, 15, 16, 17?

20. Or do you vehemently say that media just mirrors/shadows/fringes on society and has no effect on the course of change?

21. Do you think that the SUDDEN influence of Western Media could affect the moral balance in India? (By answering question 20 favorably)

22. Would you answer any of the questions differently if you were in America? (the reality shows are a whole new ball game).

HomoPater

2005-04-06T11:16:00.000+05:30

"Homopater"

Children in Bogata are going wild with excitement with the new addition to their comic book shelves... welcome "Incredible Popeman". For a change, this time the Pope is a cartoon hero who fights evil with his holy yellow cape and green chastity pants (NSFW), wields a faith staff with a cross on top and carries holy water and communion wine. Any ideas for remodelling of the New Pope Mobile for the homopater?

This comes after a long line of Pope inspired cartoon characters that have been desecrated by reputed newspapers such as the Daily Catholic for being unethical. One of the most famous pope inspired charaters had been one that was considered by BBC with plot lines like,
1. Page 9 the Bible : 'God does exist' should read 'God does not exist.'
2. A refrigerator from Chernobyl brought to the Vatican, where it fills the crypt with snow for a ski slope and brings dozens of Popes back from the dead with its radioactivity.

The pope says...

Nothing sexual about it

2005-04-05T16:27:00.000+05:30

Americans are training to become presidents even from their teens. Bill Clinton would not approve of it since he does not consider it sex anyway. Others consider it Moral Sex. At any rate I would say this is one other great legacy to pass onto the next generation of Americans. There is one small improvement though... atleast the teens dont lie about it. But Borat does not approve!!!!!

"Blowjobs are for dirty jews"

Well what did you think of when you saw the headline.... Clinton? or Clerks?

Adadadadadadadaaaaa

2005-04-05T04:11:00.000+05:30

Brothers... one politically twisted and the other scientifically benevolent. One works for a dangerous monkey, the other in a premier educational institution. One trains contras in a backward country to push it further into turmoil, the other provides education to the downtrodden... sounds like the plot of a bad thamizh movie with a humungous budget? Well no.. this is a true life story... of John D Negroponte... corrupt dimplomat known for his excesses in Nicaragua and Honduras and Nicholas Negroponte the chief of the MIT media lab who is distributing 100$ computers to kids in Cambodia.

P Vasu.. where are you?

Of Minority Appeasement and Majority Oppression

2005-04-04T17:36:00.000+05:30

The Indian government has declared today three days of mourning for Pope John Paul II... something not even Chandrashekara Saraswathi was accorded. The Indian flag at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan is flying at half mast for a pontiff from a minority religion who was not a citizen of India and who served mainly non-Indians for 26 years while it sort - of disregarded the services of a pontiff of the majority religion for over 100 years and who also happens to be a citizen of India.

I think even Goundamani would tskk tskk the sad state of affairs and the gross injustice done to the majority community. "Enna State Gavarment Enna Central Gavarment?"...

Bush and "intelligence"

2005-04-02T21:54:00.000+05:30

Now that the buck has been passed over to the "Intelligence Agencies" for their lack of intelligence prior to the Iraq War. The fresh released reports clearly say that political pressure had warped the intelligence reports of WMDs and chemical weapons in Iraq and had made America conduct a full scale war on Iraq. The fact that the American war crimes in Iraq seem even worse than the chargesheet against Saddam, makes me wonder if Clinton getting his nether regions blown and lying about it is worse than this severe lack of integrity by the person in command. Probably this is how the average american thinks about the entire episode... otherwise I will not be able to xplain myself their apathy and why Bush was re-elected.

Now WWGHTSAT ????
"Arasiyal la idhellam Sagajamappa".... or would he just be Confooshed and give Bush one week tayoum to prove himself right?

6 reasons why Muslims should leave India

2003-09-24T20:30:00.000+05:30

1. They want a different law.
Muslims feel they need a separate law code because they worship a different God. This attitude has been amply demonstrated by them in India and outside.
a.) Shah Bano, who was entitled to get alimony from her erstwhile spouse as long she did not have the means to suport herself. This was reversed by the Muslim appeasing Congress eunuch Rajiv Ghandhi (amidst major campaign by Muslim extremists), and made a new law making it easier for Muslim men to throw their wives away.
b.) Sultana Freeman who wanted her face to be covered in her Photo ID since it is against her religious principles to NOT wear a burqha.

2. They resort to separatist activities.
Indians and Americans have always taken pride in being Democratic and Secular. The presence of Muslims and their instinct to have different social laws for themselves is in direct conflict with the basic tennets of Secularism and Democracy which state that all men are equal before law. America had the good sense to NOT uphold the Sultana Freeman case and the judge ruled against the plaintiff ordering the lady to have her face appear on the photo ID. Indian Hindus might not be so fortunate, due to Muslim appeasing political parties and the weight the Muslim population carries in the electoral process. The democratic process assumes the person puts his country before religion. NO true muslim who follows the Quran could do that, thus making him naturally loyal to a muslim country than to India.

3. The Quran.
The average Muslim follows the book called the Quran which is in actuality, a thinly veiled terrorist manual written by an insane megalomaniac. The Profit Mohammad wrote the Quran to keep the muslim hordes in check(incidentally 'horde' is a corruption of 'Urdu' which is the word for 'camp' in Persian, making you wonder what those Muslim camps looked like). The Quran in any form is not suited for people living in a secular country, making any true muslim a misfit in the Indian social structure.

4. Al Taqueeyah.
This is an original Muslim terrorist strategy, where a Muslim becomes an upstanding citizen in a community which he ultimately wants to topple, making any true muslim a big liability during sensitive times.

5. Population Explosion.
Muslim 'families' are infact baby producing factories, and have grossly altering the demography of India. Muslim population in India has more than quadrupled since the time of Independence while the Hindu population has merely doubled. At the present rate, the Muslim population would overtake Hindu population in a few decades.

6. Make India look poorer.
The average Muslims family is huge and has since it has fewer earning members, the per-capita income reduces drastically making Muslim dominated states some of the poorest. Bihar and Uttar pradesh having some of the highest Muslim population percentages have the lowest literacy rates too, making the average Muslim a natural impediment to economic and intellectual growth.

Why conversion from Hinduism is easy

2002-01-22T18:35:00.000+05:30

The average Muslim knows more about Islam than what an average Hindu does about Hinduism. There is so much to know about Hinduism, there are so many cultures, so many practices, the same festival is celebrated for 2 different reasons in two different parts of the country. this is not a sign of disorganization. it is only a sign of organization. People speak different languages, follow different books, written by different people, So it is impossible for an average hindu to know more.

On the other hand, Islam is a pretty new religion, the thoughts are shallow, nothing much to say. They have myths and moths, which are all in one single book. So, it is easy for the Muslim to know why he does what he does, and almost impossible for a Hindu to do likewise.

Hindus living in other countries is also a sign of organization among Hindus. Hindus do not have to regularly go to the temple and read scriptures to remain Hindus. Hinduism is a way of life that believes in the philosophy of the whole world being one family. If those people convert it is their quintessential hinduism in them to do that. A hindu is anyone living at peace with himself and his surroundings.

About conversions in India, there are quite a few reasons, none of them related to knowledge of Hinduism.
1. There are more Hindus to convert.
2. Hindus ===> Muslims -->mostly for venal reasons.
3. Hindus ===> Christianity -->Bribery, Blackmail, false propaganda,
(akin to the western Jehova's witness organization )
4. Caste system. All Hindus are not treated on same status. so the lower caste feel alienated.

So if you say lack of knowledge is the reason, then a mass educational drive in Hinduism should stop the conversion. But it wont. the abovementioned reasons remain the same. The Hindu society is still going to divided along caste lines. Hindusim can NEVER give people false promises like the Jehova's witnesses do. The people who tried, like Bhagwan Kalki in the south, had so many loopholes, that even the ardent hindus saw through his facade.