Published by Viky May 14th, 2008
in Business and Sports.
Sanjay Subramanyan asks some relevant questions following the sacking of Charu Sharma from the Bangalore Royal Challengers and the release of five players from the Kolkata Knight Riders.
… these stories highlight the thing that BCCI never did. How many times have the BCCI pulled up its players for non performance? How many times have team selection blunders been ignored? How many times have prejudices and biases dominated team selection without anyone questioning or raising the issue?
If a team can send players home because they may never get a piece of the action, why can’t the BCCI stop sending huge contingents of officials on paid holidays?
Published by Viky May 14th, 2008
in Humour and Sports.
Gowri laments how IPL turned her family topsy-turvy.
Her daughter goes
‘I support Uthappa at all times. So I’ll always cheer for his team. Except’ she pauses significantly, ‘except when his team plays against Chennai Super Kings - because Chennai is my birth place! When Chennai and Uthappa’s team are not playing against Royal Challengers, I’ll always support the Royal Challengers, because I am loyal to Rahul Dravid! When the Deccan Chargers play any team other than these three, they have my support.’
while her husband goes … if I posted that too, would you even go and check???
Published by Viky May 14th, 2008
in India, Photoblog and Travel.
Madras Wanderer visits Melghat and brings back spellbinding photographs.
Published by kuffir May 13th, 2008
in Caste, Geopolitics, Policy and Politics.
Atin Basu presents a novel argument against the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal- a short but very stimulating post. And his argument, in my view, is perhaps the most convincing i’ve read until now.
So who will it make more powerful? The ruling elites. Who are these ruling elites? The ritualistic brahminical upper castes — irrespective of political hue — still rule India. These oppressors lord it over the lower castes (simplistic but generally true). So a nuclear deal that lets India retain a nuclear arsenal without any repurcussion strengthens the hand of these elites. This evil oppressive minority thus can continue to lord it over the rest of Indians. You may think that this is an argment that the left ought to be making — but they are not.
Published by kuffir May 13th, 2008
in Humour and Personal.
Sudipta’s fan club in the chat rooms is large, and largely composed of members of the wrong sex:
The fun with having a name that spells like that of a girl is that a lot of people also assume that you’re a girl when they haven’t met you. This includes email groups, mailing lists, potential employers, pen-pals… the list goes on. Some people are heartbroken when they come to know about this: one dude from Bangalore even added me on his IM, called me via Google Talk, and then upon hearing my voice decided to commit suicide (well, almost). :D On the other hand, when girls interact with me, they assume that I’m a girl. And then they come to know the truth, they are very surprised (and I always pray to God that they should be ‘pleasantly’ surprised). But I don’t know whether that adjective applies.
[Tip: Thanks, Manasa]
Published by sudipta May 13th, 2008
in India and Science & Technology.
N. P. Nappinai gives a rundown of
how much the Laws in India:
- Assist in Data Protection; and / or
- Provide sufficient deterrents for violations; and / or
- Enforce such deterrents against such violators;
It is interesting to note how far we are in this department with respect to other countries in the world.
Published by sudipta May 13th, 2008
in Economy and Women.
Rashmi at Youthcurry is not at all pleased with the latest Lounge edition from livemint, which is trying to sell beachwear to the Indian public for Rs. 50,000 a piece (yeah you read that right):
But here is what REALLY took the cake. The black and white striped beach dress by Chanel for… Rs 50,000.
Tell me dear writers and editors @ Mint, would YOU ever pay up this kind of money for a beach dress? And if not, why are you recommending it to your readers??
I bet every single person on the Mint team would go buy a beach dress/ sarong from a Janpath or Colaba Causeway for Rs 150.
I bet you guys use Lakme, Lotus and Garnier sunscreen (or at best Banana Boat) - not Vichy costing Rs 1090.
I bet you guys would be terribly embarassed if you were asked to wear any of the swimsuits modelled on that yacht…
I guess this isn’t going to be “Every Girl’s Beach Basics” this summer. :)
Published by Jo May 12th, 2008
in Music.
Bharath V has posted a fusion piece of music, titled Dance Fuser in his blog. Go check it out.
Published by Jo May 12th, 2008
in India and Travel.
Alok visits a village in Orissa, 40 KMs away from his hometown, and brings in some photos of the place.
What I have explored in those two days will remain forever with me. As someone rightly said –“You can never step into the same river; for new waters are always flowing on to you”. I am so glad now because I was able to make it to that place ‘where my roots are buried’.
Published by Jo May 12th, 2008
in Advertisement, Humour, India and Sports.
Kiran Dhanwada explores advertisement options for IPL. A fun read.
Let’s take this a bit far – how about a ‘Britannia single’, ‘MRF two’ and a ‘Cheetos three’. How about naming some of the bowling/batting ends as ‘Reliance end’ and ‘Birla Sun Life end’? A sample of the commentary would flow something like this –
Daredevils Sehwag has nudged Royals Warne towards the Reliance end - is it going to be a Britannia single, ohh…it is going to be a MRF two…ohh noo, the fielder has misplaced it, probably a Cheetos three…the ball has finally reached the boundary…it is a Citibank four.
Published by Viky May 12th, 2008
in India and Personal.
It was the time of freedom, and everything seemed to be at a standstill. We caught what we thought were fishes (but were actually tadpoles) in a nearby pond, played hide and seek, buried our feet in the warm sand from a construction site next door, or searched for small conches and did craftwork. As the evening drew closer, we exchanged horror stories and waited for our dads to arrive home.
…
The day would end with a simple dinner. If we had our cousins over, it was always “Kayyi Tuthu“—an elder sitting the kids in a circle and handing morsels of food to each by turns. Curd rice with nimbekayi uppinakayi (lime pickle) on a moonlit terrace with a faint, scented breeze.
Heavenly.
If mangoes were for dessert, a tussle would ensue for the vaate (pit) while it was split up amongst the kids. Good times.
As we went to bed reminiscing the day, a cool breeze from the Gulmohars would flow in thru’ the open windows. Luckier teenage guys would take their roll-up beds to the terrace and sleep in the open beneath a star-lit sky.
As the day ended, a sense of contentment would wrap us like a blanket and a promise of another beautiful summer day tomorrow would fill our dreams.
Ranjana Rao reminisces her summer holidays in Mysore.
Published by kuffir May 11th, 2008
in Humour and Media.
What is news to the Hindu? Karunanidhi keeping a promise:
This promise to the people of Tamilnadu to anoint his son to the throne, the Emperor has given more responsibilites to the Prince and Hindu is all glee for the emperor has kept his promise- how noble- mere subjects we are supposed to celebrate this “Pattabhishekam”. Not satisfied with making it the front page news, it interviews Kanimozhi, another jewel in the crown of the Emperor on the performance of her brother and a great poet and a judge that she is, she rightly judged his performance to be “exceptionally well”.
And this:
While IBN reports it as clash between the Governor and the State, for the Hindu Governor just “opts” for power cut, the city has been “suffering from sporadic power cuts over the past few days that the local authorities attribute largely to cable and transformer faults”- it is not any body’s fault- what can the Government do if the cable and transformers are faulty? Government dont have any control on those inanimate objects- if they are at fault, can Government put them behind bars or drag them to court? And ofcourse, taking a leaf out of MK, WB Chief Secretary says, West Bengal is better off than other states.
Swarnasrikrishnan offers some sharp insights.
Published by kuffir May 11th, 2008
in Activism, Cinema, Health and Human Rights.
I came across this piece of news in Struggle News:
To mark the first anniversary of the arrest of Dr Sen, on 14 May 2008 and to call for his immediate release the Free Binayak Sen Film Festival is being organised by concerned citizens and groups around the country. The package of 10 documentaries, presented in this Festival, highlight the issues of human rights and public health and deal with themes ranging from nutrition, greed of drug companies, environmental pollution and state atrocities.
Some of the films that’d be screened are K.P. Sasi’s In the name of medicine, Vani Subramaniam’s It’s a Boy. it’s going to be a boy!, Michael Moore’s Sicko etc., Check the linked article for details.
Published by kuffir May 11th, 2008
in Caste, Culture, Society, Women and sexuality.
K.M.Venugopalan says the institution of the hetero-sexual family plays a pivotal role in ’selectively sanctifying certain kinds of economic, social and cultural activities of people‘:
The politics of claiming autonomy over bodies cannot perhaps wait, until all the fears associated with morals and culture are settled forever. It is imperative to talk about how deeply the gendered individuals in a hetero-normative society would love to assert their freedoms as others would.We seem to have reached a point that no political movement can inch ahead, unless the conspiracy of silence about sexuality is broken. Sexuality is an important arena of struggle, where everybody would perhaps need to fight at least for the legally enforceable rights against those privileges and deprivations perpetuated by the ill founded morality regime, based solely on gender.
Published by mridula May 11th, 2008
in Photoblog and Travel.
Pooja visits the Mirror Lake at Yesomite and posts what else but great reflections!
Burma, says anonandon, is disappearing:
A friend of mine has a favourite joke about Indian media. He says, the country of Japan could cease to exist but our newspapers would be far more concerned about the pretty young Bollywood starlet who stares out of the page with mascara heavy eyes, pouting next to a headline that says, “I do not expose.” Well, the country of Burma is actually ceasing to exist and yesterday, NDTV 24×7 had a program asking whether there is pressure on women today to be sexy. In this program, Shefalee Vasudev, editor of Marie Claire, urged us to consider “how the word sexy is being vocabularised.” The ticker below informed me that 25% in a NDTV survey said lap-dancing is a good profession. The word Burma didn’t crop up even once.
Space Bar thinks it’s as if it has dropped off the face of the earth:
But in general, there’s no hand-wringing, life-changing angst on behalf of Burma as there was with the tsunami, or the Bombay rains, or the bomb blasts on the trains is there? It’s as if the country had dropped off the face of the earth.
Niven Charvet tells his Indian friends why he prefers China to India:
My belief in humanism, my love of my own language, a certain libertarian cast of mind – none of these could really explain why I am more comfortable in China than in India.
To me India is a land of separation, China a land of integration.
Although there is still a preference for male children in China, once a child is born, the girls and boys are near equals. This has not come about for particularly nice reasons but from the realization by the Chinese that they could not feed an ever-growing population and their implementation of their one child policy. The Chinese family invests heavily in this one child, whether male or female, urban or rural; an investment of love but also of money particularly for education. So the Chinese are, overall, far better educated than the Indians and the sexes are far less separate. In China, women are mostly strong individuals; in India, they are second class citizens.
Published by sudipta May 10th, 2008
in Culture and Fiction.
Manjula translates the poem, SotPatro by Sukumar Roy into English. It is basically about a very nice groom someone has found for his daughter:
Academics next…… Oh! Par excellence!
No,no,not his degree,but perseverance!
Nineteen attempts at a stretch……..
Matriculation degree is yet to fetch!
Yep… Sukumar Roy is the father of Satyajit Roy. For those who want to see the actual Bengali version, she has quoted that below the translation as well
Published by space bar May 9th, 2008
in India.
Vinod Ekbote watches parents making fools of themselves at the poolside as they watch their children learn to swim. If only it stopped at them flailing their hands, though…
the day before yesterday I saw a young mother slap her 9-10 year old daughter who was afraid to venture into the pool. It was something that made me very sad. Beating your kid in front of others is something a parent should never do. It is the worst sort of humiliation one can mete out to your kid. It filled me with horror, shame and embarrassment, watching the poor kid plead with her mother not to force her to enter the pool.
Published by sudipta May 9th, 2008
in Economy, Food and Recommended Links.
Switchblade has found this awesome website called Freerice which promises to donate 20 grains of rice for every vocabulary question you answer correctly.
All you have to do is guess a few synonyms, and for each correct answer you give, 10 grains of rice are donated through the United Nations World Food Program (WPF) to feed a hungry soul.
The money that pays for the rice comes from advertisements on the page.
Not only are they out to reduce the hunger thats there in the world, they are also increasing people’s vocabulary…which translates into some cool office timepass for me :)
To this day that has summed up to 580 million grains. See if you can help!
Published by Viky May 9th, 2008
in Humour, Indiaspora and Personal.
Maddy recalls a hilarious experience of one of his friends, when they first came to Istanbul.
Soon the house was set, the stove was up and running and the ‘sadam’ preparation was in full steam…Turkish yoghurt was a perfect accompaniment and curd rice came along famously. However our Mallu boy had his personal share of problems, without some eggs & chicken, he felt stifled, so he too took turns making the ‘asaivam’ varieties for himself, food that (thankfully) only he could eat & enjoy. I do not remember if the two Swami’s took dubba’s to the office, but that is not important in context. I heard that they had no choice but to eat the rice if served, some Turkish Ayran (buttermilk) and the sweets for lunch. They had a good home cooked dinner everyday, though. The Prestige cooker stood in good stead, even though Turkish Pirinc (rice) is more like sticky Chinese or Thai jasmine rice.
Till one fine day they heard a loud rattle on the door just as they were about to get ready for dinner. Their neighbor from the lower flat was at the door and he was gesticulating wildly and sounding abusive. He hollered, but nobody understood anything, he gesticulated, but with no effect and so he went back. The three roommates looked at each other asking what this was all about. Next day around the same time, i.e. 8PM the man came and again did all the above. He mimicked better this day, he showed signs of a child, sleeping and he started whistling with his fingers in his mouth. Again, the three boys looked at each other, aghast, wondering if their neighbor was indeed off his rockers. He seemed so anyway, making strange signs and noises. After a while, the neighbor left again, in a huff.
Do go and read what happened on the fifth day. A slightly longish post, but is fun. What with lines like these - “The Indian Consulate in Istanbul is strategically located next door to the only strip joint in town.” and “They were put up in a first floor apartment and quickly geared themselves up for hard bachelor life ahead (you will realize how hard only after you see them beauties of Turkey!).”
Published by Viky May 9th, 2008
in Cinema.
Mashed Musings finds it quite entertaining -
This is one of the most believable and relevant superhero movies of recent times, something which comes very close to what Spider-Man was. A cast which melt into their roles, dazzling special effects and terse dialogues make this movie worth a watch. The special effects look surprisingly believable. We are getting quite good at them now a days. Robert Downey Jr. is the surprise package of the movie. His performance is quite a mix of everything, humor included, which is quite rare in superhero movies. The movie keeps you engrossed and there is not a moment of boredom, even when Tony and Pepper are having their awkward moment together on the terrace.
Idlidosa is head-over-heels after seeing Downey -
Downey is such a natural…he potrays the role of Iron Man with such ease. From being the head of a weapons manufacturing company (Tony Stark) to Iron Man…resovled to end violence his weapons are creating in Afghanistan and from going into the wrong hands….he blends into both the roles effortlessly. His sense of humour…his quick & intelligent single liners….the way he flirts with women…..he is being himself and not trying to put on an act for the camera! No..I am not exaggerating…you have to go watch the movie.
Malvika, however, finds it average -
If you watch this movie as an element of entertainment, then its good fun! No slapstick comedy or overly romantic dialogues, but if you try to make sense of it, then good luck trying to preserve your sanity! Some scenes of how he is trying to improve the mechanics of the armour and the experiments in the basement were cute.
The movie I guess can be worth a watch if you have nothing else to do or simply because you don’t want to burn yourself to a crisp in this summer heat! No phenomenal acting as such, but good fun nonetheless!
Published by Viky May 9th, 2008
in Humour, Misc and Personal.
Ageless Bonding turns 50, and wonders why 50 can’t be just that, instead of being the new 40.
• At 40 it comes as a shock when a 25 year old calls you “aunty”; at 50 nothing affects you – not even when the 40 year old neighbour calls you aunty.
• People’s expectations from you are a lot less when you are fifty than when you are forty. I can forget birthdays, names of people and excuse myself from functions and parties without appearing rude. I can be that crazy but harmless 50 year old.
• And I can look at those grappling with their forties – career, ambition, goals, competition, success etc - from my comfortable deck on the other side!
• Forties all over again? Are you joking? I have just been through a few harrowing years of pre menopausal problems. Who wants to repeat it?
Published by Viky May 9th, 2008
in Education, Humour and Misc.
In a post that starts off with a humorous analogy, Plus Ultra quotes Dr. Atul Gawande, in what seems to be the toughest part of being a doctor - the knowledge that the slightest mistake will be fatal, and irreversible.
In surgery, as in anything else, skill and confidence are learned through experience- haltingly and humiliatingly. Like the tennis player and the oboist, we need practice to get good at what we do. There is one difference though in medicine: it is people we practice on.
… We find it hard in medicine to talk about this with patients. The moral burden of practicing on people is always with us, but for the most part unspoken. …There is always that conflict between the imperative to give patients the best possible care and the need to provide novices with experience.
On a lighter note, is that why people call the pursuit of the medical profession, a ‘practice’?
Published by Viky May 9th, 2008
in Humour, India and Language.
For the ’sms generation’ which feels anything more than four lines is a lecture, Sayesha has what she calls executive summaries of Kabir’s two-liners.
Kaal karey so aaj kar, aaj karey so ab
Pal mein pralaya hoyegi, bahuri karega kab?
Rough translation: Do today what’s due tomorrow. Do now what’s due today. If the moment is lost, when will you do it?
Executive summary: Just do it.
Aisi vaani boliye, mann ka aapa khoye
Apna tan seetal karey, auran ko sukh hoye
Translation: Say your words sans your ego. You will stay composed and others will be happy too.
Executive summary: Say it in your head first.
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