Bhrigu's question

What Dravid should have mentioned in that speech

2011-12-16T02:00:00.001-08:00

Former Indian captain Rahul Dravid delivered the Bradman memorial speech in Australia yesterday. For those coming in late, Bradman was an Aussie soldier who died in Gallipoli while fighting for Kemal Pasha’s side and won the Nishan-e-Turkmenistan Cross. This speech has been met with unanimous approval by my Facebook friends. They’ve marveled at Dravid’s knowledge of history, his awareness of the traditions of Indian cricket, his openness, and his erudition. While I’m broadly in agreement with them, I do take issue with the claim that he was intimately aware of Indian cricketing traditions or exhibited a sense of transparency.

While Dravid touched on the superficial aspects of the origins of Indian cricketers, such as their childhood struggles when they read their algebra textbooks under a street lamp, he did not shed light on their close relationships. Perhaps, he wanted to be circumspect and not bring up caste-related matters in front of a foreign audience This is a modest attempt to fill that gap for the historical record.

But first, I must impress upon you the theory of the Ten Degrees of Narayana Murthy. Every Kannada Brahmin is related to Narayana Murthy, the Chairman platypus of Infosys. A recent conversation that my mother had with a friend illustrates this point. I introduced my friend Raghavendra Rao to her.

“Oh, Raghavendra Rao? That’s a Madhwa Brahmin name.”

“Yes, aunty. I am a Madhwa too.”

A few minutes later after my mom waterboarded Raghavendra to get information on his matha (mutt), gotra, and horoscope from him, she declared, “Oooh. Now I get it. You’re Narayana Murthy’s wife’s cousin’s great-aunt’s husband’s sister’s brother-in-law’s grandson’s first cousin. I am Narayana Murthy’s great-grandmother’s second cousin’s father-in-law’s grand-daughter’s sister-in-law only.” {Editor’s note: This sounds overtly long in English, but Kannada, like other Indian languages, has specific words for each relationship which makes the whole thread fit a three second sound bite. Every Madhwa is thus connected to Mr. Murthy, Mr. E.A.S. Prasanna, and Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and therefore is a cousin to every other Madhwa. }

Raghavendra turned to me and said, “Wow, dude. I didn’t know we were that closely related! Awesomeness!”

Get it? Likewise, Rahul Dravid has a Ten Degree relationship with every cricketer who has ever donned an India cap.

Dravid is a long-lost Iyer from his father’s side and a Indori Deshashta Maharashtrian from his mother’s side. Iyer’s are the Tamil version of the Kannada Smarthas. Ergo, Dravid is related to Javagal Srinath and Gundappa Vishwanath from his father’s side since all Iyers/Smarthas are related. It is a matter of conjecture as to why a dvaita philosophy following Vishnu worshipping Deshashta would marry a Shiva worshipping advaita following Iyer. After all, Iyers believe in the dictum ‘aham brahmasmi’ (I am Brahman, the ultimate truth). How can you have marital accord with that kind of belief? The Dravid household must have had its share of imbroglios.

Mrs. Pushpa Dravid (mother of Rahul): “Gavaskar is a superb batsman. He is a true patriot. After all, he is a Marathi manoos.”

Mr. Sharad Dravid (father of Jammy): “Heh. Vishwanath plays all the crucial innings when India needs it. Gavaskar focuses on records only.”

Mrs. Pushpa Dravid: “How can you say that? How can you compare thirty four hundreds with fourteen?”

Mr. Jam-saheb of Indira Nagar: “Aham Brahmasmi!”

Mrs. Pushpa: “Arrey deva, dochki tujhi. Talking to you is like talking to a Wall only.”

Since Vishwanath’s wife is Gavaskar’s sister. Dravid is related to Gavaskar, Tendulkar, Manjrekar, and others of that kind. Gavaskar is married to Marshneil Mehrotra, which provides the crucial bhaiyya link to Dravid. Rahul is thus a distant cousin to the bhaiyya contingent; Sehwag, Kohli, Bhajji, Dhoni, et al.

Are you with me so far? It was easy to establish these simple relationships quickly. But I had great difficulty in tracking down the connection with the other parts of the Indian team that belong to what Doordarshan newsreaders of the 1980s used to call as ‘members of one community’. I had to dig deep and talk to knowledgeable people such as K. N. Prabhu, Rajan Bala, and Raju Bharatan to figure this out. Bharatan was unbelievably helpful with his encyclopedic knowledge.

After he had sung a Lata number composed by C. Ramchandra for an unreleased film, he dug out his famous work ‘Indian cricket, the vital phase’ and thumbed its pages. He found on page 71 something that he liked. “I can’t believe that I wrote this wonderful pun. Check this out. “Abbas Ali Baig’s last claim to fame had been a kiss planted on his bashful Hyderabadi cheek by a bold young lady whose act didn’t quite have the CCI members smacking their lips with approval.””

“Most wonderful,” I responded dryly.

Bharatan continued, “Dravid’s maternal ancestor visited Bombay in the 1903-04 timeframe. He tonga-pooled a ride with a Konkanasta Brahmin called Yeshwant Agarkar from Girgaum to Chickalwadi. When they reached their destination, Shri Agarkar very kindly offered to pay with the words, “Tumhi thamba. Mi deto.” He fished in his pockets but, as is traditionally the case with Kobras, he could not find his wallet. After a few minutes, Dravid’s ancestor paid the tongawallah. Sheepishly, Agarkar invited the other Deshashta fellow home. When they got there, Yeshwant Agarkar’s mother said, “I would have offered you tea but we just finished having it,” and sent the Debra packing. Dravid’s ancestor was so impressed with the joint marshalling of resources that he offered the hand of his sister in marriage – against all opposition – to Agarkar. There you have the connection. It also explains why Ajit Agarkar refused to trouble the scorer down under by being very economical with the bat.”

If Dravid was related to Agarkar, it opened a lot of doors. Ajit Agarkar is married to a Muslim and since everyone knows that Muslims marry their cousins and are related, Ajit Agarkar was just a few degrees away from Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel, Javed Miandad (the son of a former Mumbaikar Gujarati cop) and Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi. It was easy enough for Bharatan and me to connect the dots of Dravid with the Test playing Muslim relatives of Agarkar.

Bharatan continued, “Pataudi was married (when he was alive) to Sharmila Tagore who is a great niece of Rabindranath Tagore.”

I knew that Rabindranath won the Booker prize for his famous neo-realism novel, ‘Gitanjali Express’. This established the crucial Bengali connection. Every Bengali’s great-great-grandmother was a sibling of Saurav Ganguly’s great-great-grandmother. That lady was also a sibling to the ancestor of Kishore Kumar Ganguly. In fact, the entire population of Bengal circa 1911 was comprised of siblings who sadly lost touch with each other after Curzon got naughty.

Bharatan agreed, “The genetic disposition of the single-point father of these siblings explains the virility of Saurav’s cover drive and the tireless natal efforts of that ancestor’s wife explain his fatigue filled deliveries.”

I exclaimed, “So, Dravid is Ganguly’s distant cousin.”

Bharatan nodded, “But wait. That isn’t all. One of the siblings married a Chattopadhyaya, the grandfather of Harindranath and Sarojini Chattopadhyaya. Sarojini, as you know, married a Naidu. That Naidu had an inter-caste marriage with V. V. S. Laxman’s grandfather’s third cousin’s wife’s brother.”

“That clears it.”

“There’s more. The great grand niece of that Adam-like Bengali chap married E. A. S. Prasanna.”

“How cool is that?”

“There’s more juicy Iyer-ish coffee. One distant cousin in the Iyer’s side of Rahul’s family married the Iyengar Krishnamachari Srikkanth.”

I was aware of that connection. Just as Madhwas have a ten degree connection with Narayana Murthy, Bhimsen Joshi and Prasanna, all Iyengars of the world are related to Venkatraghavan and Srikkanth. This is quite a peculiar trait with Iyengar males. They establish kinship very quickly with Venkat and Cheeka, but claim a distant relationship with Hema Malini and Vidya Balan. [I don’t know whether Ms. Balan is an Iyengar. I’m merely speculating since she has the classic Iyengar snout.] A reliable source informed me that young Iyengar men don’t want to be too closely related to Ms. Balan since they can talk to their aunt and plead, “Maami, neengal koncha alliance ponnu.”

Thus, Dravid is also related to that Iyengar, Sadagopan Ramesh. It was rumored that Ramesh lost his spot in the Indian team since he – in his ignorance - made un-parliamentary statements about a film-star who was going around with a married former test cricketer. These statements were allegedly made within earshot of the said cricketer. But that’s not quite true. Ramesh, in fact, did make statements, but different ones, during an in-flight intellectual conversation he had with Dravid on the qualifications of the Bengali and Konkani so-called Brahmin communities. He apparently quoted an uncle who said, “Thooo. These fish and fowl eating useless rascals aren’t Brahmin at all I say,” and added that he didn’t agree with his uncle’s sentiment. Unfortunately, the cricketer heard only a part of that conversation. What followed was a proverbial Ashwathama-is-dead kind of interpretation. And Ramesh was never heard of again.

The next steps get tricky. Orthodox Kannada Madhwa and Smarthas are quietly vary of marrying Iyengars (at least the Kannada speaking type) since they doubt their racial credentials. Apparently, Ramanuja, when he was shunted from TN, came over to the old Mysore kingdom and converted a lot of Jains to Iyengar-ism. So who knows, the person next to you wearing the three-stump & inverted bails mark on his forehead could be a long lost gujju. This tenuous link could potentially establish a link of Dravid’s with Parthiv Patel. But neither Bharatan nor I could find supporting evidence to establish this as fact.

So, there you have it. This thesis establishes a more intricate web of relationships that create camaraderie within the Indian camp. The purpose of this exercise was to merely document the links for the historical record and not rake up casteist sentiments. India is a progressive nation and caste & religion have been effectively eradicated from the midnight hour of 26th January 1950 when the British walked away from India to provide good natured security for the Arab population during the turbulent aftermath of the partition of Palestine.

Next up. How Pakistani cricketers are distant cousins of Osama Bin Laden.

Steve Inskeep - Instant City

2011-11-10T21:35:00.000-08:00

‘Instant City, Life and death in Karachi’ is a non-fiction work by Steve Inskeep, the host of NPR’s All Things Considered. It offers great insights into how this Hindu majority trading port of 400,000 became a bustling Muslim metropolis of 13m and how its transformation offers lessons to other cities around the globe.

Inskeep begins by exploring the secular nature of the city. At the time of Pakistan’s independence, Karachi’s population was 51% Hindu. Most businesses were Hindu owned and the largest shipping company was owned by a Parsi, Dawn columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee’s father. Jinnah’s dogmatic belief that Muslims in India comprised a separate nation led to the formation of Pakistan. The economic reality of a city run by Hindus pushed him towards a more pragmatic compromise. This arguably led him to make the famous speech about his vision of a Pakistan as a secular and not theocratic state. However, Karachi’s minority population was at the mercy of the incoming refugees who were in no mood to heed to, what Inskeep termed in an interview, as the nuances of a lawyer. He quotes from various editorials by Punniah of the Sindh Observer who warned about the city being swamped by the onslaught of incoming refugees. The city was indeed, swamped, and Punniah had to flee to Bangalore. Cowasjee’s father was persuaded to stay.

The city became 90% Muslim overnight, but they newcomers unleashed other divisions to fight over. Whilst the city was relatively liberal during the 1970s, Zia’s policies changed its profile during the ‘80s. Bars and nightclubs were banned. Plans to make Karachi into a Macao for wealthy Arabs were shelved. The Pathan immigration during the ‘80s and ‘90s brought them into conflict with the Mohajirs with each group trying to defend its territory. Millions of illegal settlements were built, and then legalized by succeeding governments that were split along ethnic lines. The land mafia made a killing by capturing public land outside Karachi and settling refugees of their own kind. Public services such as electricity, garbage-removal and water were illegally tapped from government sources or were offered at a premium. Obviously, the poorest of the poor squatted in these to-be-made-pukka settlements. Homes were built on top of each other until they started to sink below the level of the roads. Sewers were blocked, leading to flooding during the monsoons. Interestingly enough, an NGO official is quoted as calling the political mafiosi as ‘land suppliers’. Efficient governance being absent, a bizarre spontaneous order has taken hold in Karachi with multiple parallel administrations that provide basic services to the illegal, semi-legal and newly-legal settlements. NGOs have resigned themselves to working with these ‘land-suppliers’.

Perhaps apocryphally, Jinnah is supposed to have said that every Pakistani government would be worse than its predecessor. Every administration, from Ayub Khan to Zardari, has attempted to solve the problem of Karachi, but have failed. They city was too fluid to govern in any organized manner. A Greek city planner was hired by Ayub Khan to build extensions to Karachi in order to house the poor migrants, but the adminstrators did not follow his plans for low cost housing. Daily wage workers cannot be ‘banished’ to the city’s boundaries since it costs them exorbitant rates in terms of time and money to make it to the center of the city for work. They soon migrate back to the center and prefer to squat.

The affluent have increasingly cordoned themselves off in Defence and Clifton. There are some notable idealists who believe in the city and its people and are trying their best to affect change. Inskeep befriends an affluent couple, idealistic architects who do not have a generator in their home. They prefer to suffer as the city suffers since they believe that their children should not be isolated from the less privileged. The mayor Mustafa Kamal, a MQM member, goes from project to project, country to country, to build infrastructure and attract invesment. A doctor, Shireen Jamali, works countless hours in her public hospital to administer medical aid to people who’ve been wounded in terrorist bombings and shootings. She gets used to the sight of severed heads being brought in ambulances every time a bomb explodes in the city. In fact, on one terrible occasion, a bomb explodes outside the emergency ward while she is receiving Shia patients who were bombed during an Ashura procession and were brought there by the admirable Edhi’s ambulance services. A second bomb that is placed inside a computer monitor outside the ward is diffused by Edhi’s son with a screwdriver. It is a bomb that is constructed with explosives surrounded quite beautifully by hundreds of symmetrically arranged metal nuts that aims to inflict maximum civilian damage. Journalists have to perform a tricky balancing act for fear of violent retribution. Thus, Cowasjee begins a column with the words ‘To digress’ and pummels Zardari for giving a high profile job to a relative, but in the succeeding paragraphs he suggests that a garden be named after Benazir.

Despite the violence, the city offers hope and employment to millions. Buildings are built, and workers are hired. The pathan who fled the violent northwest frontier, or the Mohajir whose grandparents fled India make do. They have ambitions for themselves and for the city. Cities around the world are undergoing such transformation. Cities such as Mexico City, Rio, Mumbai, Delhi, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Seoul have expanded miles beyond the limits that their planners envisaged. Cities burgeon as nations transform from rural economies to industrialized urban ones. No centralized government can hope to cope with the staggering rate of growth. The informal economy often laps the organized sector in providing vital services to the desperate migrants. They also create divisions to stay in power. Inskeep does not offer solutions. He is a journalist and not a policy analyst, and his focus is to highlight the stresses that a mega city undergoes during a few turbulent decades.

‘Instant City’ is a warning to other cities, such as Mumbai and Bangalore which are ethnic tinderboxes even if the divides are not in the same magnitude as those in Karachi. If efficient and firm governance that values law and order is not firmly established in these cities, the administration will surrender its basic responsibilities to parallel forces. If that happens, the very attributes that attracted investment and economic migrants to its bosom, will push them away.

You can listen to an interview with Steve Inskeep here.

(c) Arun Simha

Fire in Babylon - a review

2011-11-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

I liked 'Fire in Babylon', the documentary on the great West Indian cricket team of the 1980s. It seems to have been made for an audience that comprises of cricket lovers from generations that did not get to see that team first hand. My generation developed an appreciation of the struggles of WI cricketers during the pre 1960 era from C. L. R. James' 'Beyond a boundary'. In that work, he spoke about the intersection of colonialism, racism and marxism and how the understanding of the West Indian experience was necessary to develop an appreciation of WI cricket. In fact, the first words of the book were, "What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?" affirming that events outside the cricket field affected what happened inside in equal measure. 'Fire in Babylon' does an adequate job of book-ending that work by showcasing how the succeeding generation of cricketers took it to the next level.

While Constantine and Worrell were influenced by the Calypso generation, Llyod's cricketers were deeply rooted in the rebellious tradition of reggae, and the socialist/marxist movements of that era. While the documentary does not cover it, the countries that comprise the West Indies had been granted independence and they chose to go in different political directions. Jamaica, was an on again, off again Socialist nation with a white man Michael Manley leading it for
many years. T&T and Guyana, countries with substantial Indian populations went somewhat the same way. But countries like Grenada got violent revolutions. By most appraisals the economic policies of these countries were disastrous and WI cricket stepped in to not only unify a fragmented country, but also provide pride in...something...

And this is where the documentary gets problematic. It covers the macho pride of the cricket team as reflected by the confidence provided by their fast bowlers. Most of the cricketers spoke about black pride and the mandatory references to Rastafarianism were made. The documentary reinforces how these players were heavily guided by black power, but leaves out the inconvenient fact that the cricketers of Indian origin felt alienated in the new atmosphere. Kallicharan, Jumadeen, Bacchus, Shivnarine et al were effectively sidelined during that era.
The film makers should have conferred with Kallicharan who had decided to stay loyal to WI cricket by not joining Packer. He captained the official team and was effectively shunned when the rebels got back. This was what prompted him to go to South Africa. A fall from grace for a person who had effectively won them the '75 world cup through his batting.

Secondly, the footage is inconsistent. A reference to the 77 Packer supertest is shown with footage of a photo shoot of the 1981 tripartite series (Eng, WI in Aus). Gavaskar is showing walking off in Melbourne 1981 when the speakers are talking about the infamous '76 Jamaican test. Plus, there was no introduction to that test. It followed a humiliating defeat at the hands of India. Set a target of 400+, India scored 406-4 in Port of Spain to win. The WI team had three spinners in that test. Llyod decided once and for all that he would never rely on spinners again.

But that's nitpicking. The documentary was good for a layman to understand the astounding talent that the turbulent times created. And if not for anything, the film redeemed itself by showing footage of two incredible feats; Dujon flying to what would effectively be third leg slip to catch a nick, and Viv stepping on his front foot to sweep-pull a short ball from a paceman.

So I give it a 3 star rating (out of 4).

(c) Arun Simha

Friday doggerel: For he is a very sad man

2009-09-18T10:58:00.000-07:00

Sing to the tune of "For he is an Englishman" - Gilbert and Sullivan, HMS Pinafore. The doggerel is based on the current Shashi Tharoor-Twitter brouhaha. For the humour impaired, this is supposed to be sarcastic and is based on this classic quote.

For he is a very sad man
For he is a very sad man

The Congressman has said it
and it calls for many a repeat
when solitude and wine meet
that tweeting is no great feat
For he is a very sad man

And he could be from any nation
rich, poor or the middle station
he could be your distant relation
even indulges in self fornication
For he is a very sad man

Thinks he has no cause for worry
so he writes in a bloody hurry
the high command makes merry
now the news is not so dreary
For he is a very sad man

He always hits the whiskey bar
while he stays at the five star
often behaves like a great czar
doesn’t even drive his own car
For he is a very sad man

Hope the Congress lynch mob
lets him keep his big job
else Vinod Mehta will rob
he’ll write and we’ll all sob
For he is a very sad man

Origin of Nike's "Just Do It"

2009-09-02T14:08:00.000-07:00

Morbid quiz fact of the day: Nike's slogan "Just do it" comes from murderer Gary Gilmore's statement "Let's do it" to the firing squad that executed him. Wow. Here's the creator Dan Wieden talking about it.

Quiz question. Fill in the blanks (Yeats poem, famous film)

2009-02-02T22:18:00.000-08:00

Fill in the 5 blanks. Film related hint below the poem

Sailing to Byzantium
- William Butler Yeats

THAT is __ _____ ____ _____ ____. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

==
Hint: The blanks gave the title to a famous novel published in 2005। This was made into a film that won 4 academy awards in 2007, including Best Picture.

Interview with Danny Boyle

2008-12-12T21:08:00.000-08:00

Interesting interview with Danny Boyle, the director of Slumdog Millionaire:

AVC: Were there places it was difficult to get permission to film?
DB: There's lots of things that can be solved with cash. [Snickers.] And there's occasional things that can't be solved with cash, which become a bureaucratic nightmare for some reason, and there's no distinction between the two. There's no way of reading a situation and saying, "Yes, that'll be a bureaucratic nightmare, but that one we'll be able to buy off." It just depends on the day, apparently. The most extraordinary thing, you'd be given permission for, and then the weirdest, simplest things, you just wouldn't be able to obtain permissions. And it would go on and on and on forever and ever, and there was no way to know. You have to kind of approach it with an open, quite optimistic mind, no matter what's thrown at you, because it will only ever result in damaging the film if you let any kind of despondency get to you. You have to remain optimistic, and that's clearly how people live their lives there. Against all the odds, they retain kind of a spirit which allows them to get through against insufferable odds. The poverty, the traffic, the lack of infrastructure, the flooding during the monsoons—there's just so many things that are coming at you at the whole time that your spirit has to remain, and that's certainly true. It enters the minutia of filming

My ideal job - Women's beach volleyball referee

2008-08-20T17:18:00.000-07:00

My wife and I have been having this ongoing argument about the Olympics. She considers beach volleyball sexist since the men get to wear shorts and tank tops, while the women wear almost nothing. [My counter argument is that women get to see a lot of eye candy in the men's diving competiton, where the women wear one piece suits and the mean wear not much except sweat.]

Anyway, I checked the rules of Beach Volleyball. It appears that there is a rule concerning the *maximum* amount of clothing that women participants can wear.The rule states that "women's uniform bottoms have to be two and a half inches wide on the sides."

I also checked the website of the FIVB for rules concerning the names of the players and found this:

"Sanctions will apply in case the team name of a men player does not appear on his shorts, while it is only recommended, due to the limited space, to feature the same information on the women's bottom during the 2008 season. Therefore, the FIVB will not fine any women athletes for not placing their names on the bottom of their uniforms in 2008,"

My first question is this one: How the heck do they enforce these rules? I can picture a guy going around with a measuring tape and saying; "Now then, young lady" and measuring the clothing around all vital areas below her navel.

My second question is this: "Are they hiring?"

Quiz Question: Name the English equivalent

2008-07-01T09:35:00.001-07:00

Fill in the Blanks: (cut and pasted from Wikipedia)

Fulano, Zutano y Mengano — in Spanish
Hinz und Kunz — in German
Jan en Alleman — in Dutch
Tizio, Caio, Sempronio, Mevio, Filano e Calpurnio — in Italian
Fulano, Beltrano e Sicrano — in Portuguese
Ivanov, Petrov, Sidorov — in Russian
Are, Oore, Shamsi Kooreh — in Persian

_______, _____________ & _____________ in English.

Hint: Think of the 3 tortoises from the Galapagos brought by Charles Darwin in HMS Beagle

Nissim Ezekiel: Irani Restaurant Instructions

2007-10-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday folks! Here's a nice Nissim Ezekiel poem for your enjoyment:

IRANI RESTAURANT INSTRUCTIONS*

Please
Do not spit
Do not sit more
Pay promptly, time is valuable
Do not write letter
without order refreshment
Do not comb,
hair is spoiling floor
Do not make mischiefs in cabin
our waiter is reporting
Come again
All are welcome whatever cast
If not satisfied tell us
otherwise tell others
GOD IS GREAT

------ Nissim Ezekiel, 1972

For more poems by the great Indian poet Nissim Ezekiel, please refer to his works in the Digital South Asia Library.

'Awaara' of Raj Kapoor & its Turkey connection

2007-06-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

Raj Kapoor's Awaara in Turkish

The IMDB entry has this interesting information:
Comment 1: "The movie and the song were quite famous in Turkey during 50s, 60s, 70s and even 80s and it inspired a whole genre of films produced in Turkey"

Comment 2: "yes, it is. it is remade starring Sadri Alisik and Ajda Pekkan in Turkiye. The remake was named "avare" and released in 1964."

[Btw, IMDB lists a 1970 Turkish remake of the same name too.]

Sure enough, here's the Turkish version and the Turkish version of the song.
And yes, hear Raj Kapoor "speak" in Turkiye in the final scene of the dubbed version of Awaara. Beautiful. And other scenes from links.

I found other Turkish sites/youtube videos where there are references to it:
like this tv dance competition, this remixed version (Hindi and Turkiye), and this looks like a wedding celebration dance set to the song.

HBR: Daniel Vasella's inspiring story

2007-06-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

From the Harvard Business Review article (Feb 2007) by Bill George and others. Bill George is a Prof at Harvard, and was the CEO of Medtronics. He has written bestsellers on leadership, including his latest "True North". You can listen to Bill George being interviewed my Michael Krasny on KQED Forum here.

excerpt from his HBR article
==

[..]Novartis chairman and CEO Daniel Vasella,whose life story was one of the most difficult of all the people we interviewed. He emerged from extreme challenges in his youth to reach the pinnacle of the global pharmaceutical industry, a trajectory that illustrates the trials many leaders have to go through on their journeys to authentic leadership.

Vasella was born in 1953 to a modest family in Fribourg, Switzerland. His early years were filled with medicalproblems that stoked his passion to become a physician. His first recollections were of a hospital where he was admitted at age four when he suffered from food poisoning. Falling ill with asthma at age five, he was sent alone to the mountains of eastern Switzerland for two summers.He found the four-month separations from his parents especially difficult because his caretaker had an alcohol problem and was unresponsive to his needs.

At age eight, Vasella had tuberculosis, followed by meningitis, and was sent to a sanatorium for a year. Lonely and homesick, he suffered a great deal that year, as his parents rarely visited him. He still remembers the pain and fear when the nurses held him down during the lumbar punctures so that he would not move. One day, a new physician arrived and took time to explain each step of the procedure. Vasella asked the doctor if he could hold a nurse’s hand rather than being held down. “The amazing thing is that this time the procedure didn’t hurt,” Vasella recalls“Afterward, the doctor asked me, ‘How was that?’ I reached up and gave him a big hug.
These human gestures of forgiveness, caring, and compassion made a deep impression on me and on the kind of person I wanted to become.”

Throughout his early years, Vasella’s life continued to be unsettled.When he was ten, his 18-year-old sister passed away after suffering from cancer for two years. Three years later, his father died in surgery. To support the family, his mother went to work in a distant town and came home only once every three weeks. Left to himself, he and his friends held beer parties and got into frequent fights. This lasted for three years until he met his first girlfriend, whose affection changed his life.

At 20, Vasella entered medical school, later graduating with honors. During medical school, he sought out psychotherapy so he could come to terms with his early experiences and not feel like a victim. Through analysis, he reframed his life story and realized that he wanted to help a wider range of people than he could as an individual practitioner. Upon completion of his residency, he applied to become chief physician at the University of Zurich; however, the search committee considered him too young for the position. Disappointed but not surprised, Vasella decided to use his abilities to increase his impact on medicine. At that time,he had a growing fascination with finance and business.He talked with the head of the pharmaceutical division of Sandoz, who offered him the opportunity to join the company’s U.S. affiliate. In his five years in the United States, Vasella flourished in the stimulating environment, first as a sales representative and later as a product manager,and advanced rapidly through the Sandoz marketing organization.

When Sandoz merged with Ciba-Geigy in 1996, Vasella was named CEO of the combined companies,now called Novartis, despite his young age and limited experience. Once in the CEO’s role, Vasella blossomed as a leader. He envisioned the opportunity to build a great global health care company that could help people through lifesaving new drugs, such as Gleevec, which has proved to be highly effective for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia. Drawing on the physician role models of his youth, he built an entirely new Novartis culture centered on compassion, competence, and competition. These moves established Novartis as a giant in the industry and Vasella as a compassionate leader.

Vasella’s experience is just one of dozens provided by authentic leaders who traced their inspiration directly from their life stories. Asked what empowered them to lead, these leaders consistently replied that they found their strength through transformative experiences. Those experiences enabled them to understand the deeper purpose of their leadership.

===end excerpt==

Origami and a space telescope

2007-06-05T14:30:00.002-07:00

You may wonder what the two have to do with each other.
Short answer: Dr. Robert Lang.

I read an article recently in Smithsonian Magazine about Robert Lang, a laser physicst who has worked in NASA's Jet Propulsion lab, and has authored 40 patents and 80 publications He has been an origami buff since childhood. He has mastered the art of making mind-numbingly complex folds based on complex computation of geometric shapes using math.

Now, how does this connect to the space telescope?

Lang has also consulted with engineers at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on a new generation space-based telescope dubbed Eyeglass. The goal is to put huge telescopes—up to 328 feet in diameter—into orbit for purposes that include the viewing of planets outside our solar system. Getting such a behemoth into space poses a problem because the hold of the space shuttle measures a slim 15 feet in diameter. Lang devised a folding pattern for a 16-foot-diameter prototype that can be folded for transport, then unfurled like a flower coming into bloom once in space.

Also, see a related New Yorker article.

Book Review -Nora Ephron

2007-04-05T16:24:00.000-07:00

I wrote this for Amit's Rave Out.

Navigating the Big Apple

Title: I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman

By: Nora Ephron

Buy from Amazon.com

Nora Ephron, the famous writer of films like, ”When Harry met Sally” and the writer-director of films such as ”You’ve got mail” and ”Sleepless in Seattle” writes about turning sixty. It is often said that there exists a very symbiotic relationship between the music of Gershwin and the New York of Woody Allen. Ephron, on the other hand, navigates around the Big Apple with the ease of Tony Bennett and Billy Joel, what with her joyous takes on what women carry in their purses, dealing with hair dye, bad skin, and nails, to ruminative outpourings on the difficulties of buying an apartment in an area that will eventually become fashionable.

One wishes that there were more than fleeting anecdotes on her troubled relationship with her second ex-husband, the Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein, whose name is never mentioned in the book. She claims that he was in love with the British ambassador’s wife and that the ambassador and Ms Ephron met to weep in each other’s arms, during which time the former dryly remarked; “What is happening to this country?”

While there are no notable quotes or terribly witty statements to take home, this is certainly a cheery book to read on a short flight.

Quiz Question: Identify the town

2006-12-05T19:45:00.000-08:00

It is a town situated in the north-western region of Koderma District in Jharkhand, India. It is one of the only two towns in the Koderma district, the other being Koderma. It is situated in the Damodar River valley. The pin code of this place is 825409.

Which town?

Hint: The website of Koderma district lists the district (and town) as having a very high literacy rate. Clearly, the folks from this place are men and women of letters.

Quiz Question: Identify the author

2006-11-30T14:51:00.000-08:00

Quote from an article that will be linked after I receive some responses:

"The ______ attained a certain degree of popularity, which, though pleasant in itself, brought in its wake involvements that turned out to be ludicrous and even tragic." It was made into a film which mutilated the original storyline much to the author's chagrin. A planned Broadway edition was as reckless in its treatment. The author had to withhold his permission to present it on stage, even as the adaptation was done by an old friend of his, a former literary editor of the New York Times. As an example of the outrage, The author mentions, "For instance, his version managed to abolish the heroine. I objected to his omission and to two irrelevant characters of his own; above all I objected to the hero's turning around and urinating on the stage."

Matters became rather acrimonious over this script and the author had to leave New York at a very short notice to avoid being summoned for a subpoena; he found asylum in his country's consulate before boarding a flight out of the United States. However the script was later revised and “The _______” opened in Broadway in March 1968. It closed in less than a week.

If you fill in the blank with the name of the book, you can easily identify the author. Another hint, he was rumoured to be in contention for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, but did not win. He explained what the deliberation of the Nobel Prize committee must've been like:

"...His writing is too simple, and too readable, requiring no effort on the part of the reader. ...He has created a new map called X in which his characters live and die. Story after story is set in the same place, which is not progressive, a rather stagnant background..... We hope some day {the author} will develop into a full-fledged writer deserving our serious consideration."

Ans. R. K. Narayan and Guide. Ravikiran got it right. The article can be found here.

Kabir translated by Rabindranath Tagore

2006-10-17T16:22:00.000-07:00

Project Gutenberg has Songs of Kabir translated by Nobel laurete Rabindranath Tagore.

No 68
=====
Bai koi satguru sant kahawai

He is the real Sadhu, who can reveal the form of the Formless to the vision of these eyes:
Who teaches the simple way of attaining Him, that is other than rites or ceremonies:
Who does not make you close the doors, and hold the breath, and renounce the world:
Who makes you perceive the Supreme Spirit wherever the mind attaches itself:
Who teaches you to be still in the midst of all your activities.
Ever immersed in bliss, having no fear in his mind, he keeps the spirit of union in the midst of all enjoyments.
The infinite dwelling of the Infinite Being is everywhere: in earth, water, sky, and air:
Firm as the thunderbolt, the seat of the seeker is established above the void.
He who is within is without: I see Him and none else.
==

Azam Ali and other things Persian

2006-10-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

Azam Ali is an interesting person. She was born in Tehran, did her schooling in India and then migrated to the US, where she began a career in World Music. She is part of two groups, Vas and Niyaz. Check out three interesting music videos here, here and here.

She has got a song with Laxmi Shankar. Also, she was the vocalist whose song we heard in the recent ABC miniseries '9/11 - Path to War'.

I like her sound.

But Googoosh, Iran's legendary singer will always remain my perennial favorite. She had a gap of 21 years in her singing after the 1979 revolution resulted in a ban. While she could've easily emigrated and formed a new career among expats, whilst exploiting the large overseas market for her music (her songs are famous in Iran's neighborhood as well), she did not leave her country. It was only in the 2000s that she went overseas to give concerts. Her voice hasn't lost its edge. She has now settled in Southern California.

What a tragic loss for many years though. For some examples of her singing prowess & soothing voice, do visit this and this.

Reading recommendations while you listen to the above music:
1. Let me tell you where I've been, New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora by Persis M. Karim . Simply the most amazing collection of poems/short stories, I've read in 10 years or more.

2. Strange Times, My Dear. The Pen Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature by Nahid Mozaffari (Editor), Ahmad Karimi Hakkak (Editor). Ironical that it was almost banned in the US!

3. Lipstick Jihad, A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America And American in Iran (Paperback)by Azadeh Moaveni. Btw, Moaveni has written a book with Shirin Abadi recently.

4. Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas

5. All books by Marjane Satrapi.

Protecting women

2006-09-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

Apropos to the post by Amit:

An Assurance To Womankind

Rest assured and have no fear.
So long as you do not lift your head,
you will find men all around you,
guarding.

If a Ravana was to abduct you
or a Dushyasana was to pull your robe,
there are many a Rama and Krishna around
who will shroud you with cloth infinitely long,
and pass you through the test of fire,
and make it all nice and flawless and sound.

Kannada Poem by D. Vijaya, Translation C.P. Ravikumar

Pundita Ramabai - Article in the New York Times

2006-09-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

Mar 7, 1886 New York Times

Women’s education in

India

What has been done by the Brahmin lady now in this country.

Pundita Ramabai, the distinguished Brahmin lady, who with her little daughter, 5 years of age, arrived here yesterday in the British Princess to witness the graduation in medicine (at the women’s medical college, Philadelphia) of her relative, Mrs. Anadeebai Joshee, is a remarkable character. She is the daughter of the famous pundit of Poona, Bombay Presidency, India, who sacrificed his wordly prospects and eventually his life to the cause of emancipating the women of India. He gave his daughter the same education that he gave his only son, and both the sister and brother became famed for their learning and traveled together throughout India. The brother dying suddenly, the sister married (as few Hindu ladies are permitted to marry), the man of her choice, a graduate of Calcutta University, a Sanskrit scholar and a pleader at law. About a year and a half of this marriage, which was a happy one, the husband died of Asiatic cholera.

Stricken to the earth by this bereavement, parents and brother also dead, darkness for a time encompassed the widow. Then, she rallied, to devote her life to improve the degraded condition of her countrywomen. For this purpose, she returned to her native city, Poona, and formed a society of ladies known as the Arya Mehila Sabba (sic), whose object was the establishment of native schools for girls. She then went from city to city throughout Bombay Presidency, establishing branch societies, and arousing the people through her eloquent appeals.

She is chiefly known in the United States through a remarkable scene in which, she was a prominent actor, in Poona, in September, 1882. At this time the English Education Commission visited this conservative and wealthy city to inspect the educational institutions, whereupon the leading Brahmin ladies, members of this newly formed society and others, to the number of about 300, notwithstanding a heavy rainstorm, assembled with their children in the Town Hall to welcome the education commission to show them that although the municipality had not encouraged girls schools, a real movement was being made by the best families of the Maharatta country. This was quite an unparalleled occasion among Brahmin women who are kept in such strict seclusion.

Pundita Ramabai Sancrita was the orator of the occasion. She read a leter in English to the commission, and made an eloquent speech in Merathi (sic). She dwelt upon the difficulties which, as women of good family, they had to encounter from the absence of trained female teachers and the absence of school books fit to be placed in girls’ hands. “We want” she said “education for our girls as much as for our boys, but the English government has supplied trustworthy teachers and suitable books for the boys and none for the girls.” The President of the Commission, Dr. W.W. Hunter, in replying to the address, expressed his pleasure at meeting such an assemblage, which was altogether a new experience for him in India. “If the women of India” he said “have really made up their minds that their girls ought to be educated all minor difficulties will quickly disappear.”

As an immediate consequence members of the Poona municipality intimated to the commission the next day their willingness to take up the cause of the girls schools and to provide the necessary funds. Now, four years later, not only are there elementary schools, but a native high school for girls is in successful operation in Poona. IN 1883 Pundita Ramabai went to England to acquaint herself more fully with their methods of teaching, and in educational work in general. Her scholarship was tested by Prof. Max Mueller and others, both in Cambridge and Oxford, and pronounced sound, and on the recommendations of these distinguished friends she was appointed Professor of Sanscrit in a women’s college in Cheltenham. This position she has held for two years, in the meantime, improving the rich opportunities on every hand for special courses of study.

Her purpose in England accomplished, she is now about to return to India to resume her educational work. But the great event so fraught with significance to India, about to occur in Philadelphia, led her to decide to visit the United States, “that holy land called America” as she styles it in a recent letter, to witness the graduation as a doctor of medicine of Mrs Joshee, a Hindu Brahmin lady.

Quiz Question: Identify the actor

2006-09-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

This is a quote from an article in the New York Times.

"Where Dawn comes up like thunder - Also Talkies in Urdu and Hindustani, Myths, Blurb-writers and a Child star" - New York Times, May 31, 1936.

The annual issue of India's chief film magazine, however, floats a full-page advertisement in tri-color announcing in the international monotone of the blurb writer, "Bravo India, thy sons and daughters deserve unlimited admiration. Heaven be praised! Shirley Temple, Hollywood's child star is now excelled by Baby Rani, 5 years old, India's youngest child star who has done wonders in Bai Jaddan-bai's "Talash-e-Hag" or "The Search for Truth", a Sangeet production, remarkably wonderful, now being lavishly produced.

Question. How do we know Baby Rani better?

Mom and Pop stores

2006-08-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

A different perspective from Matt Yglesias:

Mom and pop may be admirable, hard-working, decent people, but their store probably sucks.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

2006-07-25T16:18:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Yardley writes in the Washington Post:

[..]Rum is essentially an accident. On 17th-century sugar plantations in the Caribbean, "sugar wastes were considerable," chief among them molasses. Eventually, someone figured out that molasses combined with other ingredients could produce a potent if rather vile alcoholic drink that came to be called rum, perhaps as "a truncated version of rumbullion or rumbustion ," both of which "were British slang for 'tumult' or 'uproar,' " which, as Curtis puts it, conjures up images of "fractious islanders cracking one another over the head in rumbustious entanglements at island tippling houses."[..]

Read the entire article.

Badwater began this morning

2006-07-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

The webcast can be accessed here. Everyone of them is a hero. But Indian eyes will be on Nattu Natraj.

A champion's heart

2006-07-20T22:45:00.000-07:00

Never mess around with an American, Aussie or German with his back to the wall. Here is today's champion. What an amazing ride today! No superlatives can be adequate . More here & here.

Upholding freedom

2006-07-20T13:34:00.000-07:00

This is the image of the so-called directive from the Indian government ordering a ban on some websites (from Sepia Mutiny).

The process by which the blocking and unblocking of sites have occurred in the past two days bears scrutiny. The order on the left seems to have been signed by a Asst. Dir General of the LR cell of the Department of Telecom. That, a lowly bureaucrat had the gall to send a directive to major ISPs is amazing. What was his locus standi in this matter? Why did he not give an explanation in his letter? What is the position of Indian law on these matters?

More importantly, why did the ISPs act so hastily on receiving this order? Didn't they even consider, for a minute, the consequences of their actions in inhibiting freedom of speech, in actively participating as state-sponsored machinery in curtailing the freedom of expression? Did they even consider taking a legal opinion on this important issue? Did they even suggest to the powers that be that there needs to be a public debate before such blanket bans are enforced.

The role of ISPs in transgressing some of the basic elements of the Indian constitution is worrying, if not downright frightening. Do the very same ISPs and telecom service providers provide website-traffic data, telephone-call data, and details of other private transactions to nameless government bureaucrats on merely being asked to do so?

Be afraid. Very afraid.

Track Etiquette - a story

2006-07-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

I had a great track workout today. I had not done one since 2004. I did a set of:
1 mile warm-up at 10.10,
800 at 3.46,
1 mile at 7.48,
800 m at 3.56,
followed by a 1 mile cool down run.

The story however, does not relate to my run which, by the way, was terrific. I was running with my buddy, when I noticed two ladies walking ahead of us. I yelled "track", but they did not budge.I asked politely, "Ma'am, could you please move to that track" {pointing to the track closest to the fence}. No response. As I passed them, I pointed to the track and made a "move there, please" gesture.

We carried on. Soon we encountered them again, and the same story was repeated. When the 800 m run was completed, they passed us. I walked up to the ladies and informed them politely where they ought to do their walking. One lady gently said, " We typically walk on different numbers after every round." The other one looked at me sternly and said: "We'll walk where we WANT to!".

Taken aback, I told her, "No ma'am. There are rules for running/walking on the track. You must not walk on the middle tracks when runners are out there." She ignored me and continued walking.

Now, these two ladies were immigrants (probably from mainland China) and perhaps, my Indian accented English confused them! However, I was aghast that one of the ladies was rude inspite of my polite request. The other lady was quite accommodative.

It is quite disappointing to see many people use the tracks as paths for walking. While we do track workouts, we are targeting a particular pace. Sometimes, runners are zoned out and are not aware of a walker until the last moment. Therefore, it is not only distracting, but quite hazardous to walk on the tracks. Some runners do their warm up runs anti-clockwise in lane 2 or 3! I do realise that not everyone is aware of track etiquette. But, when someone tries to inform you of it, you ought to listen.

See these links 1, 2, 3, that contain info on track etiquette.

Quiz Question: Name the footballer

2006-07-04T18:05:00.000-07:00

He lives in Huntington beach California with his Chinese-American wife Debbie Chin and their two children. He comes from a family of bakers from a town called Goppingen, and is, in fact, a trained baker himself. His tendency to dive in the penalty box earned him the nickname ''Submarine Commander'. He took that in his stride when he played for Tottenham Hotspur, by celebrating his goals with a diving action. Under the pseudonym Jay Goppingen, he made a comeback as a player in 2003 for Orange County Blue Star in the American Premier Development League . The 39-year-old was able to score five goals in eight appearances, helping his team to reach the playoffs.

Who?

Ogden Nash's poem

2006-06-30T14:55:00.000-07:00

From today's Minstrels post:

"Reflection on the Fallibility of Nemesis"

He who is ridden by a conscience
Worries about a lot of nonscience;
He without benefit of scruples
Has fun and income soon quadruples.

-- Ogden Nash

The Indian in Badwater

2006-06-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

For the first time, an Indian has gained entry into the toughest foot race on earth, the Badwater Ultramarathon. See Wikipedia article here. Congratulations and good luck to Nattu Natraj. It is great to see the Indian flag in the roster.

The Badwater marathon is 135 miles of hell in 140F temperatures. From Death Valley to Mt. Whitney. It gets so hot that shoes melt on asphalt. Therefore, the runners often seek solace on the white strips on the side of the road, where it is relatively less hot. People take anywhere from 24.x (Scott Jurek) to 58 hours to finish the brutal race. The runners have to be equipped with their own crews for support. The runners have to wear special outfits to fight the heat. They are constantly doused with water and ice to keep their core temperatures cool.

More pictures here. Way to go Nattu. Keep the flag flying! Best of luck and make us proud.

Sir Paul McCartney

2006-06-16T19:21:00.000-07:00

Paul McCartney, born June 18th, 1942, turns 64 on Sunday. Thirty-seven years ago, he wrote this song. Well, we have the answer to the questions he had posed. Heather Mills has declined to send him a valentine. There will be no birthday greetings or bottles of wine from her. But he's still got his hair!

When I get older losing my hair,
Many years from now.
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine.
If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four.
You'll be older too,
And if you say the word,
I could stay with you.
I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone.
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride,
Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more.
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four.
Every summer we can rent a cottage,
In the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera Chuck & Dave
Send me a postcard, drop me a line,
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away
Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four.

Dalyrmple reviews a book

2006-06-16T13:43:00.000-07:00

Theodore Dalrymple reviews 'Islamic Imperialism - a history' by Efraim Kersh.

The originality of Karsh’s interpretation is its underlying assumption that Islam was, from the very beginning, a pretext for personal and dynastic political ambition, from the razzias against the Meccan caravans and the expulsion of Jewish tribes from Medina, to the siege of Vienna a millennium later in 1529, and Hamas today.

and

Karsh argues [..] Islam has never succeeded in eliminating political power struggles within the Muslim world, where, on the contrary, such struggles have always been murderous. Islamic regimes, many espousing in the beginning the ascetic principles of what one might call desert Islam, invariably degenerate (if it be degeneration) into luxury- and privilege-loving dynasties. Like all other political entities, Islamic regimes seek to preserve and, if possible, extend their power.

Indeed. While, the portrayal by Edward Said and others of a colonised Arabia reflects history of a recent vintage. For too long, Asia and Africa were under the yoke of Arabic imperialism. The victims of this imperialism, most notably, India, Persia and Egypt have had lasting damage done to them. The collapse of it has left a legacy of craving in much of the elite living in Arabic nations. They practice what Kanan Makiya labelled as 'the politics of rejection - reject, reject, reject'.

Basil Fawlty can't be wrong

2006-06-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

The Germans have enlisted Basil Fawlty to ensure that the Brits do not mention the war.

Now, 31 years after the television series was made, Cleese is again advising the British "not to mention the war", only this time at the behest of Germany.
The 66-year-old actor is endorsing an essay competition - called "But don't mention the war" - organised by the German embassy in London, which encourages British students to write 3,000 words about modern Germany

Medical tourism in India

2006-05-27T12:52:00.000-07:00

Time has a photo essay.

What's your excuse?

2006-05-23T12:05:00.000-07:00

Linda Down
Linda Down is a girl born with cerebral palsy. She completed the 26.2 mile 1982 New York Marathon on crutches, because of her lack of motor coordination as well as muscle spasticity. President Reagan invited her to the White House. She completed her first marathon in under 11 hours. Since that time she has done many more marathons.

Daniella Zahner
World class skier who was hoping to represent Switzerland in the Olympics. She had a car accident that left her legs seriously injured. She then began to run with crutches, and with the aid of them completed the 1991 NY city marathon in 4:13.

Jeffrey Dutton

Jeffrey Dutton, '86, '91, chief psychiatry resident at UW Medical Ctr, died Dec. 24, 1994. He was 39. Dutton was profiled in the December 1991 Columns in an article titled "Marathon Man." At age 19, he suffered from a chronic obstruction in his digestive system that halted his body's ability to absorb food. He had 20 feet of his intestines removed surgically. He never ate food for nutrition again. Instead, he obtained all his nutrition from fluid that was pumped into his body through a shunt—an "artificial gut" that was invented elsewhere but refined at the UW for home use. Despite his condition, Dutton ran in the 1985 New York Marathon and later in races in Poland and Russia. He said "If I can run the NY city marathon, I can get through medical school". He applied to medical school and in June 1991 completed his medical studies.

Michael Keohane
He was born with a congenital disability; he has no left forearm or hand. Nevertheless, he says "I played any sport I could ifnd," and he took up golf after meeting a one-armed golfer. He played soccer for nine years and in high school began running. Keohane ran his first marathon at age 22, recording a time of 2:30. Three years later, he ran 2:16:20.

Source: "The New York Runners Club:The Complete Guide to Running, Fred Lebow, Gloria Averbuch, and friends."

First ultra run coming up

2006-05-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

I'll be running a 50 km (31.5 miles) race on Saturday. My friends informed me that the trail ultras are quite different from marathons, especially if you do not "race". My friends are I plan to walk all the hills and run the flat/rolling portions. This is quite a tough course, with plenty of elevation. It will be an experience to eat potatoes during a run. I have eaten dried mangoes, pineapples, ginger and peaches during long runs before. This is quite a tough course, with plenty of elevation.

Usually, older folks run ultras; often people in 30-70 age group.

I am quite excited! I am running with a couple of friends who are planning to run the 50 mile race that day. One of these friends ran a 100K race last Saturday and the Big Sur marathon the week before. He is training for the Western States 100 mile race later this year, if he gets selected in the lottery.

Update: It was tough. The course was hilly throughout. It took me 8 hours and 30 minutes. I twisted my ankle at mile 12, kept running, but twisted it again at mile 14. I walked (and ran a bit) from mile 14 to 26 and then ran to mile 29. I hit the wall at mile 29, it was 85F by then. But I kept going. I knew that if I stopped for rest, I would not be able to move again. I slipped twice on steep descents, cramped both legs and walked the last mile in sheer agony. Glad to see my wife and child at the finish line! I've never quit a race or a long run ever and didn't want to start now. I'm not bragging, but I felt really proud of myself for finishing.

Thanks to iPod for sustaining me throughout the eight and a half hours. I began by listening to the Beethoven symphonies that were made available by the BBC, moved to rock, some hindi film stuff and so on. When I was feeling really down, the playlist had by a strange quirk, moved to Joni Mitchell's California, an apposite ending to the long journey.

California I'm coming home
I'm going to see the folks I dig
I'll even kiss a Sunset pig
California I'm coming home

Manufactured fame and its aftermath

2006-05-02T23:23:00.000-07:00

Kaavya Vishwanathan is in trouble. The hype was not caused by the media. It was the result of a campaign by Little, Brown and co to make the magnitude of the deal public. 'Opal Mehta' was very famous due to that reason alone. We are given to correlate quality with cost and most of us naively presumed that the surprisingly large advance for her work was indicative of the quality of her writing.

Valuing an artistic output

There are any number of genuinely good writers out there. The blog world has given a spotlight to literati to broadcast their talent. Unfortunately, it takes much more than talent to be successful. V. S. Naipaul has spoken rather eloquently on this subject.

But books are not created just in the mind. Books are physical objects. To write them, you need a certain kind of sensibility; you need a language, and a certain gift of language; and you need to possess a particular literary form. To get your name on the spine of the created physical object, you need a vast apparatus outside yourself. You need publishers, editors, designers, printers, binder; booksellers, critics, newspapers and magazines and television where the critics can say what they think of the book; and, of course, buyers and readers.

I want to stress this mundane side of things, because it is easy to take it for granted; it is easy to think of writing only in its personal, romantic aspect. Writing is a private act; but the published book, when it starts to live, speaks of the cooperation of a particular kind of society. The society has a certain degree of commercial organization. It also has certain cultural or imaginative needs. It doesn't believe that all poetry has already been written. It needs new stimuli, new writing; and it has the means of judging the new things that are offered.

In other words, it is the commercial value that publishers attach to a work of art, that determines the market that it will find. Ergo, if the very same people do not attach a value to it, it may not find a market. Thus, commercial considerations alone dictate the exposure given to an individual.

Why should critics pillory Kaavya?

Is this commercialization that I spoke about, bad? Not at all. In a free world, checks and balances are provided by critics and laymen. People who evaluate published works (or films, music) and give an opinion, however biased, about that work. Purchasers evaluate such critiques and then make up their mind whether to open their wallets or not. Consequently, critics have a great responsibility on their shoulders. They must speak up.

On why it matters

For a while now, it has not been easy for talent to succeed on its own merit. Mediocrity and crassness have been rewarded far too often. Kaavya did not so much write the book, as it was packaged by a bevy of professionals. The same ones who package boy/girl bands who cannot sing/play instruments, write lyrics or compose music, and materialise them into multi-million dollar successes.

Mediocrity should not be rewarded. Mediocrity that is backed by felony should be actively punished. Mediocrity & felony that is backed by nepotism and raw money power should be sought out and shamed.

Don't the folks who express sympathy with Kaavya worry about the double standards that send small time hungry thieves to jail while not doing a thing to touch white collar criminals? A well-healed private schooled, Harvard going child of wealthy doctors cannot plead ignorance about not knowing the difference between right and wrong. One should treat her the same way as one treats a inner city kid who steals change from a soda machine.

At least the kids of the friends of Kaavya's parents will be glad. Till this scandal came to light, they must've had their parents breathing down their collective necks with "Yennadi? Why can't you be more like Vishu maama's daughter?" Now these kids must be grinning from ear to ear.

Jhumpa Lahiri's short story

2006-05-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

She writes a short story in the New Yorker. God. How can she make such wonderful, difficult writing, so accessible? What talent!

Marathon Day tomorrow

2006-04-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

Off to the marathon. The bus ride from Monterey to Big Sur is an hour long. The last bus leaves at 4.30 a.m. on Sunday. The race begins at 6.45 a.m. I hope the ibuprofen helped to reduce the ITB. Let's roll. Weather forecast here. It'll be cool. Woohoo.

Three cheers for Tunku

2006-04-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

Tunku Vardarajan skewers Amartya Sen. Delicious!

Loss of neighbourhood

2006-04-24T21:07:00.000-07:00

This post is a response to this one, in the superb Churumuri joint blog.

I have also lived in Shankarapuram, in fact, a stone's throw away from Ranga Rao road. At least four generations of my family have lived there. A 100 year old coconut tree planted by my great-grandfather stands testimony to that fact. Recently, my neighbour a 105 year old gentleman, who played soccer with my grandpa in the 1920s on the National college grounds, passed away.

And I bring that up because it is on topic.

I disagree that it was the IT boom that changed Shankarapuram. Old gents like my neighbour and others, who owned (what in today's terms) are vast plots in Shankarapuram, have unfortunately passed on. Their children, grandchildren, who no longer subscribe to the joint-family system, for practical reasons, have had to sell those homes. Well, given the prices of such central properties, the only people who can afford them are builders. They buy them, demolish the ancient homes and build flats.

My Shankarapuram, a pristine area of bungalows, carnatic music, madhwa sangha meetings in nearby Chamarajapet, kacheris during Ramanavmi, still exists for those who want to live that life.

But the bliss of the quiet, civil life is no longer available. It has become a hustling, bustling neighbourhood, and for that I blame greedy local authorities, who have given permits to these builders to build flats in a neighbourhood where trees and bungalows flourished. I do not dislike growth- or as they call it in the US, urban sprawl. However, this sort of unplanned growth is disquieting. I had invoked Joni Mitchell when I had faced such a shift here, in the Bay Area.

I do not think Mr. Murthy is to blame for this. Au contraire, it is the inept administration, that milks us of our hard-earned money which, has to own up to the majority of the blame. And you and me, for not protesting enough.

Tarahumara runners

2006-04-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

Article in Runner's world:

[..]They chain-smoked fierce black tobacco, ate a ton of carbs and barely any meat, and chugged so much cactus moonshine that they were either drunk or hungover an estimated one-third of each year (one day on their backs, that is, for every two on their feet). "Drunkenness is a matter of pride, not of shame," Dick and Mary Lutz wrote in their book The Running Indians. And yet, the Lutzes insist, "There is no doubt they are the best runners in the world."

Aside, I will run one of the most beautiful marathons in the world, the Big Sur International Marathon on April 30. This will be my second Big Sur marathon. The race begins at Big Sur and winds up 26.2 miles north, in Carmel-by-the-sea. Most of the race is run on Hwy 1. Visit the Big Sur marathon website and click on virtual tour.

My best in any marathon is 4.32. I did a miserable 5.24 in Big Sur in 2004. I had done 20 miles in 3.20. The next six took me 2 hours. I had muscle cramps. I hope to do better this time, even though I've been struck with ITB lately.

Naipaul interview

2006-04-05T11:15:00.000-07:00

Read the full thing.
==

Which writers would you say particularly fall into this Englishness?

Hardy. An unbearable writer.

Why?

He can't write. He doesn't know how to compose a paragraph, no gift of narrative. I would say that the Romantic feminine fiction has that quality.

Even the great ones? Jane Austen?

What trouble I have with Jane Austen! Jane Austen is for those people who wish to be educated in English manners. If that isn't part of your mission, you don't know what to do with this material.
There was a conference at Bath a few years ago and I was invited. I was a very bad conference guest - I didn't say a word. But they gave me a copy of Jane Austen's novel set in Bath - Northanger Abbey. In my recent illness I've been looking at books I haven't read before so I picked it up.

I thought halfway through the book, Here am I, a grown man reading about this terrible vapid woman and her so-called love life - she calls it 'love', having seen this fellow once. I said to myself, What am I doing with this material? This is for somebody else, really. It's for someone down the road, not for me.

Quiz: The language of numbers

2006-03-30T07:52:00.000-08:00

We've heard of the origins of algebra (Kitab al jabr wa'al muqabalah) and algorithm (Algorism, Al-Khowarizmi).

1. Unlike Greeks (and Indians) who thought of philosophy based on numbers, Romans used them for military purposes. They divided their army by numbers; for example, a section was a group of ten soldiers, a century comprised of ten sections. Discipline was very strong. If a section humiliated itself in battle, they were in for a terrible punishment. Each member of the section chose from lots. The one person on whom the lot fell was clubbed and stoned to death by the other 9 members of his section. What word in the English language comes from this cruel practice?

2. The Italians were famous for trading. Trading was done in public places and money was exchanged by the bankers on benches. Unfortunately, some of these bankers lost their liquidity and could not trade anymore. When this happened, they had to break the benches. What word in the English language comes from this practice?

3. Fibonacci encountered the Indian numerical system while he was a child in Algeria. He brought it back to Italy after he grew up. Quite obviously, he brought the mysterious zero with him. He referred to the number by its Arabic name. The Italians were (a) resistant to changing their numeral system (b) very confused about the usage of zero and were rather suspicious. Hence, a modification of the Arabic name for zero made it into the language of Catholic opponents as a synonym for "dark secret". This word has the same meaning in the English language today. What word?

Gangubai Hangal interview

2006-03-09T11:19:00.000-08:00

Interview in Frontline.

[..]
Gangubai once told film-maker Vijaya Mulay, in the initial years of television: "If a male musician is a Muslim, he becomes an Ustad. If he is a Hindu, he becomes a Pandit. But women like Kesarbai and Mogubai just remain Bais." I expected Gangubai to belt out feminist discourses: on the cruelty of the Devadasi tradition into which she was born, the brutality of the caste system, a decadent society, the struggles of a woman who has to straddle more than one world, the discriminating world of music which sets different standards for man and woman, and more. But she is not to take any of those confrontational stances. [..]

Inspiring story. Read the full thing.

Hero

2006-03-07T14:34:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite bloggers has done a very good deed. See this and this.

Why India still loves Wodehouse

2006-03-02T07:42:00.000-08:00

Article in The Times, UK.

Wodehouse never wrote about India, but sells better on the subcontinent than in Britain, with pirated copies in common circulation. He is one of the most heavily requested authors at the British Library in Delhi and there are clubs and internet chatrooms devoted to him.

Proud Kannadiga

2006-02-27T20:28:00.000-08:00

One reason I'm proud to be a Kannadiga. Bah, other Indians - try and top this.

Khumar Barabankvi

2006-02-10T11:23:00.000-08:00

Video of Khumar Barabankvi reading his ghazal (in Aligarh) "ek pal meN ek sadii kaa mazaa hamse puuchhiye." Also, see the audios in that link. Thanks to Mohib sahib for the link through ALUP.

Enjoy.

Kamlesh Pandey - dunce of the month

2006-02-10T10:42:00.000-08:00

Kamlesh Pandey says in an interview:

Rang De Basanti may have a cynical point of view but I think it is the wake up call or today's youth, who seem to have compromised with the two monoliths- the corporate and the family, who shape your, who actually shape your mind and make you believe what they want you to believe", he states Kamlesh is happy that Aamir Khan has loved only two subjects in the last ten years- Sarfarosh and Rang De Basanti. "The way Aamir has accommodated himself so beautifully and dissolved himself in the group is to be seen to be believed.", Kamlesh chips in

Here he is, sermonizing on what the youth of India should or should not do. And he uses the engine of corporates to do so, and therein lies the irony. He gets an actor - Aamir Khan - a model who endorses Coca Cola, the product that is anathema to people who hate multinationals. His film is promoted in all channels, endorsements and runs well in America. But wait, guess who attempts to hinder his freedom of expression? Who attempts to "make you believe what they want to?"

Ans. The government! The representatives of the people. [The MiG21 episode. The Animal Welfare Board.]

Delicious irony there. Ha!

Maybe we should not take movies or movie makers very seriously.

Goodbye Wingco

2006-02-07T21:55:00.000-08:00

Mythic Society will be that much poorer without you

Harvard sucks!

2006-02-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

Outrageously funny video. How Yale students conned a Harvard crowd.

M.K. Gandhi quote

2006-02-06T22:46:00.000-08:00

Quote from today's AWAD. One that the so-called followers of his philosophy (especially socialists) should take note of:

As the State is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence.
-Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

Wing Cdr Mulky - R.I. P

2006-02-04T14:10:00.000-08:00

Forwarding a very sad mail.

==
Wing Commander G.R. Mulky, 'Wingco' to all Bangalore quizzers, passed away early this morning. He was 82.

He had had a bad fall in December, suffering several rib-fractures. Complications brought on by his age kept him bedridden for the last few weeks, a cruel restriction for someone of his energy and independence. He slipped into a coma earlier this week and was granted rest today.

Those familiar with the quizzing scene in Bangalore will remember that Wingco had founded the Karnataka Quiz Association in 1983 in partnership with other enthusiasts and ran its affairs with great determination till the year 2000. He was similarly involved with the founding of Sursagar, a society devoted to promoting Indian Classical Music. Wingco was also actively involved in counselling activities for the old in association with the voluntary organisation Vishwas.

Wingco gave quizzing in this city the character that defines it to this day. We will miss him in more ways than are possible to name. When Ochintya and I visited him last, he managed enough lucidity in the midst of terrible pain to utter the words "Wherever we are, we
will be together." That moment, as well as several others, go today into the making of an evergreen memory.

Wingco's funeral will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m. The quizzes announced for tomorrow will be held as originally scheduled. The first question will be asked at 10 a.m -- we can think
of no tribute more fitting.

Regards
Arul Mani
==

Quiz - Mahabharata

2006-02-02T13:07:00.000-08:00

I had helped a friend with his preparation for Mastermind India in the late 1990s. I have given hints here to make it simpler than it was for him.

1. Who were Jaya, Jayesha, Vijaya, Jayatsena and Jayabala.? [Hint: Think exile, Virata, disguise]

2. Abhimanyu was killed by a blow on his head delivered by Dushasana's son.However, he killed Duryodhana's son before this happened. What was Duryodhana's son's name? [Hint: Same name as a major character in Ramayana.]

3. Complete the series -Hiranyaksha & Hiranyakashipu. Ravana and Kumbhakarna. ____& ____? [Hint: One was forgiven 100 times by Krishna.]

4. Name the only Kaurava (among the 100 brothers) to have survived the war. [Hint: Name begins with the second last letter of the English alphabet]

5. Connect the Manhattan project to the Mahabharata

6. Shashi Tharoor based his "Great Indian Novel" after the Mahabharata. Who was modelled after Karna? [Hint: Karna was born with the mark of a crescent moon and star on his forehead. Think Indian independence movement.]

7. Everyone recalls that Hanuman adorned the flag of Arjuna. What adorned the flag of Karna {Hint: Same object as in the title of a Tintin comic set in the Far East.]

8. 1. What was the significance in Indian chronology of the day Abhimanyu's son Parikshit was anointed king? {Hint: Start of a time period in which we live today.]

9. Vikarna was one of the Kauravas. He did something unusual in court. He actually sided with the 'other side'. This was much before the war, in which he fought on the side of the Kauravas. What did he do in court? [Hint: Think last few scenes of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron scene with Satish Shah.]

10. Yayati and Sharmistha had three sons, Druhyu, Anudruhyu and _____ [Hint: Ancestor of the Pandavas and Kauravas]

Quiz for Kids - Identify the theme

2006-01-28T08:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a quiz for children. They are allowed to google. Adults can try 'em too. Please post your replies in the comments section.

1. Someone who does not eat meat. (10)
Ans. Vegetarian

2. This primate has an exposed butt and is often found near lions in Africa. It stays on the ground and does not reside in trees. The name of this primate rhymes with the rocky animal in the famous Beatle song. (6)
Ans. Baboon

3. In US Congress, it is an attempt to obstruct a particular decision from being taken by using up the time available, typically through an extremely long speech. The first four letters of this word sounds like a female racing horse that is less than five years old. (10)
Ans. Filibuster

4. This term defines a rude, obnoxious car driver who does not give way. Quite a street swine, huh? (4-3)
Ans. Road-hog

5. This is a arthropod (like crabs and lobsters) that keeps latching on to ships and whales. You must’ve seen these whitish things and assumed that they were rotten blisters on the whale. The first four letters is also the word for a place where grain is stored. (8)
Ans. Barnacle

6. This is a tropical cyclone whose name originates from the Arab-Urdu-Hindi word for storm. It is the name given to the storms in the Taiwan-Japan area. (7)
Ans. Typhoon from Tufan

7. In Turkish, it means “without a leader”. It was a disparaging term used for freelance Soldiers. The word is in two parts (5-6). The first four letters of the first word means “to hit” and rhymes with the famous TV serial set during the Korean War. The first three letters of the second word is the first name of the director of the film ‘Moulin Rouge’.
Ans. Bashi-Bazouk

8. This nine (9) letter word is a form of Islamic art. The first four letters stand for the generic name for a people of North Africa and the Persian Gulf. The next three letters are the short form written as a suffix to a gentleman’s name – especially one who owns a country estate.
Ans. Arabesque

9. Name of a small arthropod. The first five letters could describe a scale of length in the metric system, slightly less than an inch! (9)
Ans. Centipede

10. The original term referred to a person who damaged sacred figures, idols and paintings. Now, it means, a person who does not respect authority. The first four letters of this word is a synonym for statue and also the name of a (differently spelt) Ford car. (10)
Ans. Iconoclast

The 10 answers above comprise a theme from a much loved work of fiction. What theme?
Ans. All are swear words of Captain Haddock in Tintin comics.

Shanta Apte and Longfellow

2006-01-25T13:48:00.000-08:00

This is an excerpt from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's (1807-1882) poem. The entire poem can be read here.

A Psalm of Life

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle !
Be a hero in the strife !

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way ;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Let us, then, be up ........(repeat)

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up ........(repeat)

Longfellow's poem is sung as a song in the Marathi film Kunku (Hindi: Duniya Na Mane) made by V. Shantaram in 1937. The singer is the actress Shanta Apte, a fiery woman in real life, she acted as Neera in Kunku.

Neera is trapped into marrying an old widower Kakasaheb. He is a progressive lawyer with a son and daughter of Neera's age. Neera refuses to consummate the union claiming that while suffering can be borne, injustice cannot. Neera faces many hurdles including her mother-in-law and a lascivious stepson Pandit. Finally the widower realizing the unfairness of the situation commits suicide thus freeing Neera.

It is reckoned to be a landmark film. It required a lot of guts from V. Shantaram. This Prabhat film was the film version of a Marathi novel 'Na Patnari Ghosta" written by Hari Narayan Apte ['Na Patnari Ghosta' - literally: stuff/stories you will not understand].

The film also starred social worker/feminist Shakuntala Paranjpye as the daughter of the old man. She's the one who brings about the change in the young bride and her father. Just as Nora in Henrik Ibsen's 'A Doll's House' undergoes radical change during the course of a particular event. Read more about the film here.

I thought the song was quite interesting since Longfellow's poem was prominently featured, sung in a defiant albeit poignant tone! Remember, this was 1937. I recently got an mp3 of this song from a generous collector. The film is available from the Prabhat website. [Or if you are in the US, from the Neelam website]

Quiz Question: Name the author

2006-01-24T15:28:00.000-08:00

Who wrote "Health and Fitness, A Repair Manual - A book for men" and "Family Health and Fitness Manual". This author is a vegan and a spokesperson for PETA.

Update: The correct answer is Greg Chappell. See this

Quiz Question: Famous painting

2006-01-19T21:57:00.000-08:00

X was born in Bristol in Gloucester, England in 1884 and so named because of his tendency to nip the backs of visitors' legs. When his first master Mark Barraud died destitute in Bristol in 1887, X was taken to Liverpool in Lancashire, England by Mark's younger brother Francis, a painter.

In Liverpool X discovered the Phonograph, a cylinder recording and playing machine and Francis Barraud "often noticed how puzzled he was to make out where the voice came from". This scene must have been indelibly printed in Barraud's brain, for it was three years after X died that he committed it to canvas.

X died in September 1895, having returned from Liverpool to live with Mark Barraud's widow in Kingston-upon-Thames in Surrey, England. Though not a thoroughbred, X had plenty of bull terrier in him; he never hesitated to take on another dog in a fight, loved chasing rats and had a fondness for the pheasants in Richmond Park!

In 1898 Barraud completed the painting and registered it on 11 February 1899. This painting is very famous.

Questions: (1) Name X (2) Why is the painting famous i.e. where can you find it today?

Update, The correct answers are (1) Nipper, (2) the HMV Logo. More info here. The info in the question was from here.

My favorite columnist

2006-01-19T16:35:00.000-08:00

My favorite columnist in the world is Mumtaz Hamid Rao. He was formerly a director in PTV, was a columnist in the Pak Observer and is now editor-in-chief of Pakistan Times. I mean, who else could write such a marvellous 'About Us' section? For instance, how can one not admire this passage?

While elucidating our vision, I reiterate my swear that; ‘the key target of my colossal objective is to take the Cyber Media to the zeniths of flashy victorious magnitude with a singular gusto—to portray in entirety—the events-of-the-day plus to rip all types of misdemeanors and felonies—wherever the vile exists—with a warmth to notify to the germane muscles—via dissemination of ground realities in the shape of news pieces as well as the in-depth psychoanalysis on the up to date issues, engulfing the societal—explicitly—those dwelling in the East and the West—around the world—today.

Parikshit Sahni learns life's lessons

2006-01-19T11:48:00.000-08:00

Very nice article by him.

How old are you, Sir?”
He laughed out loud again. "God knows! But three of my grandchildren are married and have children of their own! So I must be pretty old."

Astrologer blues

2006-01-18T08:59:00.000-08:00

Article in Mumbai Mirror, Jan 17th 2006 in which an astrologer writes:

[..]According to numerology Himani Kapoor and Vinit Singh have the greatest probability of winning.[..]In fact, I fear for Debojit.

Another one chips in:

[..]Debojit Saha's stars are not favourable. He will be out for sure.

Headline in Mumbai Mirror, Jan 18th 2006:

Himani ousted!

QED.

CSM: India's girl deficit deepest among educated women

2006-01-17T23:00:00.000-08:00

The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article. I was quite surprised by the revelation.

The practice is common among all religious groups - Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Muslims, and Christians - but appears to be most common among educated women, a fact that befuddles public health officials and women's rights activists alike.

"More educated women have more access to technology, they are more privileged, and most educated families have the least number of children," says Sabu George, a researcher with the Center for Women's Development Studies in New Delhi, who did not participate in the study. "This is not just India. Everywhere in the world, smaller families come at the expense of girls."

There may be an explanation

Karuna Bishnoi, spokeswoman for UNICEF in Delhi, says it shouldn't come as a surprise that educated women are among the most likely to use prenatal sex determination.

"I personally believe this as a failure of society, not a failure of women," says Ms. Bishnoi. "Women who choose this technique may be victims of discrimination themselves, and they may not be the decisionmakers. Nobody can deny that the status of women is very low in India. There is no quick fix to this."

The Japanese have gone potty

2006-01-17T09:09:00.000-08:00

Article on toilet wars in Japan.

Japan's toilet wars started in February, when Matsushita engineers here unveiled a toilet seat equipped with electrodes that send a mild electric charge through the user's buttocks, yielding a digital measurement of body-fat ratio.

Unimpressed, engineers from a rival company, Inax, counterattacked in April with a toilet that glows in the dark and whirs up its lid after an infrared sensor detects
a human being. When in use, the toilet plays any of six soundtracks, including chirping birds, rushing water, tinkling wind chimes, or the strumming of a traditional
Japanese harp.

Civil liberty proponents are worried.

But some civil libertarians are having nightmares about "smart toilets" running amok, e-mailing highly personal information hither and yon. There are also Big Brother nightmares about master computers monitoring millions of bowel movements, checking around the clock to see who is constipated, who is not eating his peas and who is drinking too much.

"I assume the records that come out of my toilet will have the same degree of protection as records that are generated when I take a medical exam," said Lawrence Repeta, a director of the Japan Civil Liberties Union.

Read the whole thing.

Lead runner in the Mumbai marathon

2006-01-15T09:51:00.000-08:00

Google video - Pyar Kiya to Nibhana

2006-01-08T19:51:00.000-08:00

Hilarious

Quiz Question; Speech

2006-01-03T14:34:00.000-08:00

Who said or in what context were these lines spoken?

"My friends, each of you is a single cell in the great body of the State. And today, that great body has purged itself of parasites. We have triumphed over the unprincipled dissemination of facts. The thugs and wreckers have been cast out. And the poisonous weeds of disinformation have been consigned to the dustbin of history. Let each and every cell rejoice! For today we celebrate the first, glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directive! We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thought is a more powerful weapon than any fleet or army on Earth! We are one people. With one will. One resolve. One cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death. And we will bury them with their own confusion! We shall prevail!"

Update: The correct answer is: The Apple Commercial shown during Superbowl 1984. You can see the commercial here.

New year resolution

2005-12-26T21:13:00.000-08:00

Young At Heart. Words & Music by Carolyn Leight & Johnny Richards
sung by Frank Sinatra

Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you
If you’re young at heart
For it’s hard, you will find, to be narrow of mind
If you’re young at heart

You can go to extremes with impossible schemes
You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams
And life gets more exciting with each passing day
And love is either in your heart or on it’s way

Don’t you know that it’s worth every treasure on earth
To be young at heart
For as rich as you are it’s much better by far
To be young at heart

And if you should survive to 105
Look at all you’ll derive out of being alive
Then here is the best part
You have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart

And if you should survive to 105
Look at all you’ll derive out of being alive
Then here is the best part
You have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart
==

Happy Holidays. Have a great 2006

Gaurav Sabnis is not a Libertarian

2005-12-22T10:20:00.000-08:00

Confirmed. Gaurav Sabnis is a faux libertarian. He wrote this piece. Quote:

Today there is a similar debate going on about Microsoft. It is being portrayed as this giant evil corporation whose domination can never be shaken off by the world. And that government regulation is the best way to "protect" us from these anti-competitive measures of the the company.

I don't think so. I believe Microsoft deserves its success, and that Anti-Trust laws are unfair, anti-merit and extremely Orwellian. I also believe that Microsoft will meet its match unless it keeps satisfying its customers

Perhaps, he hasn't read OSS guru/hacker Eric Raymond's articles. Perhaps, this is a good time to begin. He should start by reading this article by Raymond and critique it on his blog. The title of the article is "Why Libertarians should not love Bill Gates." [Btw, one of the authors of the Halloween documents mentioned in that article was Sepia Mutineer, Vinod.]

More essays by Raymond are here. "Why am I an anarchist" is a must-read.

Company - a review

2005-12-20T10:44:00.000-08:00

I wrote this when Company was released. This is re-posted in response to Jabberwock's review.

Company - a review

Yogi Berra, known for his malapropisms once said, "It's deja vu all over again". I'm just back from the theatre after watching Company a film directed by Ram Gopal Varma and the statement by Mr. Berra seems to resound with meaning!

It is the retelling of a story that every male kid in Mumbai is familiar with, probably as familiar as they are with the characters in the Mahabharata and their filial battles thereof. It is the saga of Dawood Ibrahim and Chota Rajan, close associates who turned against each other and turned Mumbai into their bloody battleground.

The narrative begins with the promotion of Chandrakant Nagre, aka Chandu played by newcomer Vivek Oberoi, from a small time hoodlum to lieutenant of an up and coming don, Mallik, played by Ajay Devgun. The first half of the film covers the ascent of the duo. Ram Gopal Varma has chosen two vehicles to cover this period. One, a sleek editing style which is like watching a documentary in fast forward, a mind whirling changing of frames that cover business deals and murder in one breath interspersed with a few dialogues that cover the growing awareness of Chandu. The other vehicle is an ominous sounding background score by Sandeep Chowta that seems to tell the audience that disaster is just round the corner, but while they're waiting, they could tap their feet!

This part of the film is used to make brief forays into various relationships between Chandu and his mother, played by Seema Biswas and his wife, Kanu, played by Antara Mali. Her transformation from a demure lower class girl to a fashionable woman under the unstated influence of Saroja, Mallik's girlfriend, is quite staggering. Saroja (Manisha Koirala), is a character that could've been well developed. This lady seems to be fighting some inner battles while exhibiting a semblance of a conscience, a rarity in the 'dark side'. The ensemble is complete when Srinivasan, a diligent assistant Police Commissioner played by Mohanlal chases the protagonists to Hong Kong.

The second half of the film covers the ongoing schism between Chandu and Mallik and its aftermath. The hot pursuit of Chandu by Mallik which leads to Kenya is once again sleekly edited and the narrative moves from frame to frame. The end of the film is quite surprising and kudos must be given to Ram Gopal Varma for not falling for the trap of sermonizing or eulogizing. It is exactly as it would happen in the underworld – at a time and place when one least expects it.

The entire cast has done a remarkable job in bringing the limited shades of their characters to the fore. Unfortunately, Varma could've developed most of the main roles much better than he has done. Manisha Koirala not only looks stunningly beautiful but underplays her part with gusto. While that may seem like a contradiction in terms, you have to realize this is the same woman who cried through an eminently forgettable film called Mann just a few years back. Her role, probably the most important in the film, since she causes the schism in the first place had such potential that you're left wondering why Varma did not develop it further. This is an Ajay Devgun whom we've admired for his work in Thakshak, Zakhm and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and he doesn't disappoint. Seema Biswas as Chandu's mother is brilliant and her character is rather well thought out. She doesn't instill any values in her son and her main job as a mother, seems to be to provide ample encouragement to his misguided endeavors.

Anyone who has seen Mohanlal in Malayalam films before are well aware of his potential to fit so precisely into the character that he is playing, that one tends to forget that he's acting! But it is Vivek Oberoi who carries the heavy burden of taking the entire weight of the film on his rookie shoulders and does an admirable job of it. While he is no Manoj Bajpai, this lad has potential.

So how do I rate this film? Well, it did not disappoint me, since my expectation of Hindi films post Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham is abysmally low. However, I did expect more from Ram Gopal Varma since I rated his 'Satya' very high. While he did a great job in showing us the top rung of the underworld without sugar coating it or justifying why they are the way they are, the protagonists seemed to be far tied up with the inertia of their actions to have multiple facets to their selves. The role of a minister, Raote, played by Ad man & playwright Bharat Dabholkar is irredeemably badly crafted. There is also too much of Satya in the film to be ignored and that brings the feeling of déjà vu to the fore.

However, it is not your run of the mill Hindi film. It is far better than the usual fare dished out by the Johars and the Chopras. In fact, Varma takes a dig at Karan Johar and does not hold any punches while depicting Salman Khan's underworld connections. The downside of the film is that it will not be appreciated or even understood by a cross cultural audience, who do not have background information on Dawood Ibrahim and Chotta Rajan.

Rating: *** 1/2

Missing link

2005-12-18T17:05:00.000-08:00

1. Is the cartel running a regulated blogosphere that prevents leftists from creating their own blogs or group blogs?
2. Are jackbooted, leather jacketed staats polizei forcing people to read those blogs?
3. Does Amit Varma have no right to restrict comments in the blog and prefer emails to cut down on the comment-abuse?

If the answer is no to the three questions, the longest comment is a waste of space.

P.S. I am not in the cartel.

CS Monitor: India's costly love affair with gold

2005-12-09T11:05:00.000-08:00

The CS Monitor writes:

In India, nearly all that glitters is, in fact, gold. With a stockpile already worth $200 billion, Indian gold purchases jumped nearly 40 percent this year, making the country the world's leading consumer of the precious metal.
Gold may seem like a savvy investment as its value hits a 22-year high. But experts say it may actually be weighing down one of Asia's fastest rising economies. It would be better if the money locked up in the glistening yellow metal went instead to finance new start-ups or better roads, boosting the Indian economy over the long term, economists contend.

Read the full thing.

The article gets it spot-on with regard to the distrust of Indians with the financial markets. The markets are very speculative and prone to indiser-trading and fixing. Therefore, there is very little faith in such institutions and consequently, a whole conservative ethos around gold has taken root. Also, gold being personal propertyand a good, there is practically no document trail, making it attractive to tax-evaders.

The way to reduce this obsession is to not simply to make more financial institutions, but to make the civil justice system more effective and far-reaching. Strengthen existing laws, institute broader prison terms for financial fraud, and get the government's various Ponzi schemes out of the financial sector.

Related article in the Economist: The Little Yellow God.

The loss of culture

2005-12-07T13:18:00.000-08:00

The makers of SaReGaMaPa have sold the programme down the river.

With the elimination of good singers and the "green light" to at least a couple of undeserving ones [Paresh and Ujjaini], Gajendra Singh may regret public voting, the MDs may regret it, but the marketing folks in Zee must be opening champagne bottles. It is after all a ratings & revenues game. Once rotten programmes like Indian Idol and Gurukul opened the bottle and let out the genie of ratings/public voting, I bet Zee had no option but to follow suit, either by creating a programme to compete with them or by using an existing programme. Since SaReGaMaPa was readily available, they may have simply used that as a vehicle. In any case, the programme had steadily lost its high-quality output since Sonu Nigam's departure and this seems to have brought back the programme on page 3s and other fora. 3.5 million votes is a big deal. I would hazard a guess that the number of people who watch the programme but do not vote is much greater than 3.5 million. But 3.5 million SMS mesages at Rs. 6/- per message (as mentioned bya friend in a usenet newsgroup) means a lot of revenues for the telecom companies as well as the tv channel.

The name "SaReGaMaPa" is a misnomer. It bears no relation to the earlier programme of the same name. This one is a reality show. Filmi dialogue, crying buckets of tears, clips of participants romping around, participants acting out "roles", choreography, use of participants to promote malls/charity stuff and so on, ad nauseum.

Oh, its gotten me hooked. So much for my good taste!

All this was written for introducing new laws. Quizman's laws

1. All popular culture is dictated by the lowest common denominator.
2. Simplistic, mass-oriented output (tv, books) will always generate more revenue than high-quality, long-lasting good output.
3. The marketing folks will always dictate the creative content, regardless of supposed "no-interference" policies.

Now, all this begs for a niche of tv channels/magazines that provide material for people with triple digit IQs. In the United States, the govt is one such vehicle. NPR & PBS exist to develop and broadcast programmes that stimulate the intellect. The public library system exists to spread higher culture through books and events. Not only that, it actually spreads liberty, by broadening mass-awareness. These outlets spare us from the crass garbage generated by the popular commercial channels, kitschy books, and magazines.

Alas, in India, DD seems to be leading the rush towards cultural suicide. Why can't DD follow the PBS model?

Marathon blues - The Week

2005-11-30T14:37:00.000-08:00

Jon Stock's article in The Week on the postponement of the Delhi marathon is a must-read.

Two days later, as I was hobbling around the office feeling sorry for myself, I got a call from an Indian friend. "Are you sitting down?" he asked, preparing me for bad news. "The marathon has been postponed by two months." I know that this piece of information, in itself, might not warrant much sympathy. Nobody forced me to sign up for the race and all the hard training that it involves. But let me just recall what I wrote in this column at the beginning of October: "This event will be a good opportunity for Delhi to lay some of the more ignorant stereotypes to rest and show the world that it can organise an international event which is both efficient and infused with India’s unique atmosphere."

Oh dear. More than 5,000 international athletes (including amateurs like me) had made their travel arrangements, booking flights and hotels, to be there for the event. Now, we have all to cancel those plans, at considerable expense, and reconvene for February 12 next year.

If I hadn’t been called by my friend, I might not have been any the wiser. As I write, the race Web site (www.delhimarathon.com) still has a clock counting down the days and hours before the December date. It’s only when you read a small window at the top of the page that you see the words, "Due to some unavoidable circumstances, Delhi International Marathon has now moved to February 12, 2006."

I have trained and run three marathons. People who do not run long distances simply may not understand that the schedule is very important. The whole training programme is coordinated in a ramp-up and ramp-down schedule. See this schedule for an example of a training program. You simply cannot postpone a program on a whim. Moreover, people have logistical issues. It is not easy to book tickets, make travel arrangements, take vacation from work and so on.

This is not a one-off issue with marathon organizers in India. A similar thing happened in the Bangalore marathon last year. At this rate, no self-respecting runner will sign up for a marathon in India.

Update. My friend Dhananjay emails:

“I agree. In fact, having reviewed the terms and conditions on the basis of which the organizers have invited participation and collected fees from the runners, I believe there might be a good case to sue the organisers for the losses suffered by the runners. If nothing else, such legal action would send out a signal to all concerned that organising an event of this nature is not child's play. A parallel to this unfortunate event is the cancellation of the third India South Africa ODI at Chennai, which has, now, prompted a livid fan to file a suit at a Court in Chennai to restrain the Ind-SL test match from being held at Chennai so long as the risk of cancellation remains a valid concern.”

Classic poets voices online

2005-11-30T10:37:00.000-08:00

Hat tip from a BBC article. Classic poets voices are now online. Excellent.

Two different standards: Dr. Sandeep Pandey's experience

2005-11-10T11:22:00.000-08:00

In addition to some of the links in this open letter, and this superb article by an Asha volunteer, many people have opposed certain non-Asha related views of Magsaysay award winner Dr. Sandeep Pandey, whose pronouncements are increasingly embarrassing. It speaks of the greatness of strong foundation of democratic principles prevalent within the United States of America that he has been able to make his controversial viewpoints freely here. As he himself writes:

A senior officer started the interrogation all over again. Just as we were finishing and I was told that I would be let out soon, the officer came across a press clipping from Manila wherein during the trip to receive Magsaysay award I had stated in a press conference that ‘US was the biggest terrorist state’. The officer asked me why I had made that statement. I told him that when I can protest against the nuclear weapons of my country and US possessing the biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons was a bigger culprit and when without providing evidence as to who was behind the Sept. 11 incidents it went and attacked Afghanistan for no reason, why could I not question the US military policy? To my pleasant surprise he said he could appreciate my position and thanked me for my cooperation in the interrogation. I was let out of the airport where Netika and friends were waiting and were now beginning to get anxious.

Contrast that with the fact that Pakistan has not allowed him into POK for delivering earthquake aid. This excerpt from a letter by Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy:

Visibility makes relief choppers terrific propaganda, for good or for worse. This is undoubtedly why the Pakistani government refused an Indian offer to send in helicopters for relief work in and around Muzzafarabad, the flattened capital of Pakistani administered Kashmir. In spite of a much celebrated peace process, Pakistan has also not issued visas to Indian peace groups and activists that seek participation in the relief effort. Sandeep Pandey and other Indian activists are very frustrated.

As a volunteer for Asha, who opposes Dr. Pandey's personal views and actions, I find it amusing that a country that he has criticised with ad-hominems has acted far more charitably than a country to which he has extended an arm of friendship.

Running for a living

2005-11-09T15:53:00.000-08:00

An article in the BBC about the marathoner Budhia has this revelation:

Budhia had been sold by his poverty-stricken mother to a man for 800 rupees. Mr Das summoned the man who had bought Budhia and paid him his money back.

Clearly, poverty drives people to desperation. But a society that allows this to happen, that a person actually pays money to buy a human being, in the 21st century speaks volumes about its moral bankruptcy.

Christopher Meyer's DC Confidential

2005-11-08T14:31:00.000-08:00

The excerpts of his book are here. It appears that former PM John Major was staying with the ambassador on 9/11. I was intrigued by this:

John Major was due to head off to a meeting of the Carlyle Group, one of the most powerful private equity firms in the US, whose European arm he chaired.Catherine urged him not to go downtown, but he did.

He returned at lunch to say there had been a brief meeting of the Carlyle Group people, who had then gone their separate ways. "I met Mr Bin Laden this morning," he reported. This was, it transpired, one of Osama's many siblings, a major Carlyle investor.

The end of secularism

2005-11-08T12:55:00.000-08:00

As we have seen here, here and here, the term secularism has been so redefined in Indian polity that it has lost its original meaning. There was no intent of disassociating religion with the state . In fact, the state, under the Congress, actively perpetuated a myth of secularism - only this time it actively contributed to communalism's step-child; minorityism.

Minorityism is the framing of laws and social mores that contribute to identifying Indians as separate communities through civil codes, reservations and other state sponsored acts. Such differentiation is often accompanied by victimisation.

For example, in essays such as these {and the subsequent comments thereafter}, while ostensibly referring to secularism, only identifies the minorities as victims and the majority community as the perpetrators of crimes. Thus, there is no mention of the ethnic cleansing in Kashmir. Neither to that in Bangladesh - which affects India since so many refugees come into India on a constant basis. There is no mention of the hundreds of Hindus killed in Punjab in the 80s. Hindus don't count at all as victims. If they do, they are referred to in passing, as in the case of the bomb blasts in Bombay . There is a distinct differentiation applied to such acts. They are called terrorist acts. In spite of being perpetrated by minorities, they are not recognized as patently communal acts.

Thus, there isn't any moral equivalence between acts of terror. To be truly secular, one needs to create that moral equivalence. To be truly secular, one needs to shed the baggage of minorityism and victimisation.

Secularism in India needs to be rethought.

Corruption Perception Index (2005)

2005-11-01T14:36:00.000-08:00

India is at #88 in Transperancy International's Corruption Perception Index along with Gabon, Iran, Mali, Moldova, Tanzania, Bosnia, Benin, and Armenia. We're more than a point below the global average and around 2 points below the regional average.

IIPM-gate and a quiet revolution

2005-10-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

A bigger picture emerges from the IIPM-gate affair. My reading may be overtly optimistic, but I want to get it off my chest.

IIPM-gate - and I use that cliched suffix carefully - is an important landmark in Indian democracy. The voluntary efforts of unaffected individuals to better the lives of their fellow citizens is creditable. Even if one student drops IIPM from his/her list of prospective colleges, it will have bettered his/her life.

The spoken word has been quite powerful in India. But never has the power of the written word been utilised more effectively, so rapidly, and with such little effort.

This movement symbolizes a change in perspective with regard to how complete strangers bound by similar moral antennae can collude without a central coordinating authority to affect change. It also continues to bring to attention two glaring facts, viz; news related to urban areas get more prominence primarily due to the ease of access. Ergo, change will occur principally in those areas. Two, where change is not directed centrally, people will adapt.

I had exchanged a mail with Amit Varma after the Mumbai flood and labeled it 'Apres Deluge, Vox Populi'. I'm 38 years old, arguably one of the oldest-farts in the Indian blogosphere. One of the more pleasing aspects of the evolution of Indian blogdom has been the complete, unhindered, optimistic can-do attitude of younger members. For those of us who were raised in the 1970s on a baggage of apathy caused by central planning, nothing could be more wonderful to us than this ability to witness what I can only term a revolution.

Quite surprisingly, Indians have been leading the charge in some fields. Yes, we may not have had a Dan Rather like scandal, but we've had our victories in voluntary efforts, especially in post-disaster scenarios.

From people running marathons to raise funds in order to educate underprivileged children in India, to working actively during the Tsunami, or covering their neighbourhood during the floods, Indians have, without much fuss, without many slogans, without taking to the streets, succeeded in creating a quiet revolution.

The genesis of secularism III

2005-10-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

After the schism, it was only a matter of time, before religion and governance got intermingled. In fact, a constituent assembly debate centred around the preamble of the constitution, during which, Mr. M. V. Kamath moved to add a sentence to the preamble:

‘In the name of God, We, the people of India, Having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign democratic republic, and to secure to all her citizens [..]'

This move and others like them were rejected. But the notion of religion as an inherent part of a non-theocratic state stood. As a writ petition to the Supreme Court of India noted as recently as 2002, reproduced here verbatim since it is very insightful:

===relevant excerpt begins====

Article 30 and Secularism

The word 'secular' is commonly understood in contradistinction to the word 'religious'. The political philosophy of a secular Government has been developed in the west in the historical context of the pre-eminence of the established church and the exercise of power by it over society and its institutions. With the burgeoning presence of diverse religious groups and the growth of liberal and democratic ideas, religious intolerance and the attendant violence and persecution of "non-believers" was replaced by a growing awareness of the right of the individual to profession of faith, or non-profession of any faith. The democratic State gradually replaced and marginalised the influence of the church. But the meaning of the word 'secular State' in its political context can and has assumed different meanings in different countries, depending broadly on historical and social circumstances, the political philosophy and the felt needs of a particular country. In one country, secularism may mean an actively negative attitude to all religions and religious institutions; in another it may mean a strict "wall of separation" between the State and religion and religious institutions. In India the State is secular in that there is no official religion. India is not a theocratic State. However the Constitution does envisage the involvement of the State in matters associated with religion and religious institutions, and even indeed with the practice, profession and propagation of religion in its most limited and distilled meaning.

Although the idea of secularism may have been borrowed in the Indian Constitution from the west, It has adopted its own unique brand of secularism based on its particular history and exigencies which are far removed in many ways from secularism as it is defined and followed in European countries, the United States of America and Australia.

The First Amendment to the American Constitution is as follows:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State'. 'Reynolds v. United States', (1878) 98 U S 145 at p.164. The Australian Constitution has adopted the First Amendment in S.116 which is based on that Amendment. It reads: "The Commonwealth shall not make any laws for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth".

Under the Indian Constitution there is no such "wall of separation" between the State and religious institutions. Article 16 (5) recognises the validity of laws relating to management of religious and denominational institutions. Art. 28 (2) contemplates the State itself managing educational institutions wherein religious instructions are to be imparted. And among the subjects over which both the Union and the States have legislative competence as set out in List No. III of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution Entry No.28 are:

"Charitable and charitable institutions, charitable and religious endowments and religious institutions".

Although like other secular Governments, the Indian Constitution in Article 25(1) provides for freedom of conscience and the individual's right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion, the right is expressly subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions in Part III of the Constitution. The involvement of the State with even the individual's right under Article 25(1) is exemplified by Article 25(2) by which the State is empowered to make any law.

"a) regulating or restricting any economic, financial, political or other secular activity which may be associated with religious practice;

(b) providing for social welfare and reform or the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus.

As a result the courts have upheld laws which may regulate or restrict matters associated with religious practices if such practice does not form an integral part of the particular religion .
Freedom of religious groups or collective religious rights are provided for under Article 26 which says that: "Subject to public order, morality and health, every religious denomination or any section thereof shall have the right

(a) to establish and maintain institutions for religious and charitable purposes.
(b) To manage its own affairs in matters of religion;
(c) To own and acquire movable and immovable property; and
(d) To administer such property in accordance with law.

The phrase "matters of religion" has been strictly construed so that matters not falling strictly within that phrase may be subject to control and regulation by the State. The phrase 'subject to public order, morality and health' and "in accordance with law" also envisages extensive State control over religious institutions. Article 26 (a) allows all persons of any religious denomination to set up an institution for a charitable purpose, and undisputedly the advancement of education is a charitable purpose. Further, the right to practise, profess and propagate religion under Article 25 if read with Article 26(a) would allow all citizens to exercise such rights through an educational institution. These rights are not limited to minorities and are available to 'all persons'. Therefore, the Constitution does not consider the setting up of educational institutions by religious denominations or sects to impart the theology of that particular denomination as anti- secular. Having regard to the structure of the Constitution and its approach to 'Secularism', the observation in St. Stephens noted earlier is clearly not in keeping with 'Secularism' as provided under the Indian Constitution. The Constitution as it stands does not proceed on the 'melting pot' theory. The Indian Constitution, rather represents a 'salad bowl' where there is homogeneity without an obliteration of identity.

The ostensible separation of religion and the State in the field of the States' revenue provided by Article 27 (which prohibits compulsion of an individual to pay any taxes which are specifically appropriated for the expenses for promoting or maintaining any particular religious or religious denomination) does not, however, in terms prevent the State from making payment out of the proceeds of taxes generally collected towards the promotion or maintenance of any particular religious or religious denomination. Indeed, Article 290(A) of the Constitution provides for annual payment to certain Devaswom funds in the following terms: "A sum of forty-six lakhs and fifty thousand rupees shall be charged on, and paid out of the Consolidated Fund of the State of Kerala every year to the Travancore Devaswom fund; and a sum of thirteen lakhs and fifty thousand rupees shall be charged on, and paid out of the Consolidated Fund of the State of Tamil Nadu every year to the Devaswom Fund established in that State for the maintenance of Hindu temples and shrines in the territories transferred to that State on the 1st day of November, 1956, from the State of Travancore- Cochin." This may be compared with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Everson V. Board of Education (330 IUS 1) where it was held that the State could not reimburse transportation charges of children attending a Roman Catholic School.

Article 28 in fact brings to the fore the nature of the word 'secular' used in the preamble to the Constitution and indicates clearly that there is no wall of separation between the State and religious institutions under the Indian Constitution. No doubt Article 28(1) provides that if the institution is an educational one and it is wholly maintained by the State funds, religious instruction cannot be provided in such institution. However, Article 28(1) does not forbid the setting up of an institution for charitable purposes by any religious denomination nor does it prohibit the running of such institution even though it may be wholly maintained by the State. What it prohibits is the giving of religious instruction. Even, this prohibition is not absolute. It is subject to the extent of sub-Article (2) of Article 28 which provides that if the educational institution has been established under any endowment or trust which requires that religious instruction shall be imparted in such institution, then despite the prohibition in Article 28(1) and despite the fact that the education institution is in fact administered by the State, religious instruction can be imparted in such institution. Article 28(2) thus in no uncertain terms envisages that an educational institution administered by the State and wholly maintained by the State can impart religious instruction. It recognises in Article 28(3) that there may be educational institutions imparting religious instruction according to whichever faith and conducting religious worship which can be recognised by the State and which can also receive aid out of State funds. Similarly, Article 28(3) provides that no individual attending any educational institution which may have been recognised by the State or is receiving State aid can be compelled to take part in any religious instruction that may be imparted in such institution or to attend any religious worship that may be conducted in such institution without such person's consent. Implicit in this prohibition is the acknowledgement that the State can recognize and aid an educational institution giving religious instruction or conducting religious worship. In the United States, on the other hand it has been held that State maintained institutions cannot give religious instruction even if such instruction is not compulsory. (See. Tllinois V. Board of Education 1947 (82) Law Ed.649).

In the ultimate analysis the Indian Constitution does not unlike the United States, subscribe to the principle of non- interference of the State in religious organisations but it remains secular in that it strives to respect all religions equally, the equality being understood in its substantive sense as is discussed in the subsequent paragraphs.

==excerpt concluded====

The genesis of secularism - II

2005-10-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

The constituent assembly decided upon a civil code based on religions. I will comment on more of this later. My original intention was to write on this aspect and then write on the reactions thereof. However, I would like to preempt the debate on secularism in the constituent assembly by presenting the viewpoint of a great intellectual once again, a liberal Indian who was appalled by the onset of a faith based state.

==
Many years ago, I read Mr. Mohammedali Carim Chagla's autobiography, 'Roses in December' Mr. M.C.Chagla was an eminent lawyer who worked for Jinnah and the Muslim League (Bombay) before it became separatist. He became the Chief Justice of the Bombay High court, Ambassador to the USA, Mexico, Cuba, Vice- chancellor University of Bombay, High Commissioner to England, Minister of Education (UGC pay scales etc. were his creation) and so on. This book was written in 1973-74. and published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay. This is an excerpt from Roses in December, one of the truly great autobiographies written by an eminent Indian.

Excerpt begins
p84-88
The Congress government has also often followed what I can only call the old British policy of communalism. In my view, if it is communalism to pass over and ignore a man with merit simply because he happens to be a Muslim or a Christian or a Parsi, it is also communalism to appoint a person merely because he happens to be a Muslim or a member of some other minority community. It is injurious to the interests of the minorities themselves to have posts and offices filled by men who have no merit, merely because they want representation in high offices. The minorities come to expect that they will get certain posts whether the men deserve to get them or not. It is much better that they learnt to work hard and deserve the post.

When I'm told that there is no minority representation in any particular post, I often ask the question; Is there any deserving person who has been passed over? If so, it is injustice, and we must fight against it. But if there is no deserving person, then to clamor for a post is really to be communal. And to yield to that clamour is also to betray a communal spirit. It amounts to a reproduction to the bad old days of discredited British policies. Such policies result in bitterness between majority and minority communities, and lead to a sense of frustration on the part of a member of the majority community, where legitimate claims were overlooked in favor of a less deserving member of a minority community.

Consider the attitude of the government to the question of a Uniform Civil Code. Although the Directive Principles of the State enjoins such a code, Government has refused to do anything about it on the plea that the minorities will resent any attempt at imposition. Unless they are agreeable it would not be fair and proper to make the law applicable to them. I wholly and emphatically disagree with this view. The Constitution is binding on everyone, majority and minority; and if the Constitution contains a directive that directive must be accepted and implemented. Jawaharlal showed great strength and courage in getting the Hindu Reform Bill passed, but he accepted the policy of *laissez-faire* where the Muslims and other minorities were concerned. I am horrified to find that in my country, while monogamy has been made the law for the Hindus, Muslims can still indulge in the luxury of polygamy. It is an insult to womanhood; and Muslim women, I know, resent this discrimination between Muslim women and Hindu women.

I believe in democracy as an article of faith. To me, it is much more than the general elections, adult franchise, parliamentary forms of government, cabinet responsibility, and so on. These are all very important, and they have to be maintained, but more than that, one must have an outlook on life and an attitude which is democratic. I believe in democracy because democracy means freedom, not unbridled freedom but freedom consistent with order and security of the State. It also means respect for the individual and his right to think his own thoughts, to express his thoughts freely and to experiment with his own life in a way that does no harm to others.

Read the whole thing.
===

The genesis of secularism in India -1

2005-10-11T10:31:00.000-07:00

This essay is my effort to understand the roots of secularism in India. It was inspired by Uma's prize-winning essay. I believe that in order to 'rethink secularism', one must understand how it came to be originally defined.

Secular adj. 1 not concerned with religion; not sacred; worldly (secular education, secular music). 2 (of clerics) not monastic. [Oxford English Dictionary]

This, the original meaning of secularism bears little resemblance to the secularism as practiced by the Indian state today. The state in fact, is the primary driver that concerns itself with all matters relating to religion. From college admissions to the rule of law, the state has based its decisions purely on religious motivations. To understand how these things came to pass, one must turn the clock back to the early decades of the previous century and examine the thought-process that preoccupied the philosophical patriarch of Pakistan, Muhammad Iqbal.

Iqbal, a descendant of a Kashmiri Brahmin, was a notable example of the conversion process that Naipaul refers to in ‘Beyond Belief’. His writings bear witness to the success of Arabic imperialism. In Shikwa, Iqbal wrote (1):

But sanamKhaanoan mein kehte hain musalmaan gaye
hai khushi unki ki Kaabe ke nigahbaan gaye
manzil-daher se untoan ke hudekhvan gaye
apni bagloan me dabayehue Quran gaye
khan jan kufr hai, ehsaas tujhe hai ki nahin?
apni tauheed ka kuch paas tujhe hai ki nahin?

In the temples of idolatory, the idols say, ‘The Muslims are gone!’
They rejoice that the guardians of the Kaaba have withdrawn.
From the world’s caravanserais singing camel-drivers have vanished;
The Koran tucked under their arms they have departed.
These infidels smirk and snigger at us, are You aware?
For the message of Your oneness, do You anymore care?

And

Mushkilein ummate marhum ki aasaan kar de
mur bemaya ko hum-desho-suleman kar de
jis-nayaab muhabba ko phir arjaan kar de
hind ke dair-nasheenoan ko musalmaan kar de
jue-khoon me-cakad aj hasrate-daireen-e-ma
me tapad naal: ba nashtarkda seen-e-ma

A people You had blessed, lighten the burdens they bear,
Raise the poor down-trodden and make it Solomon’s peer.
Make abundant that rare commodity love, so that all may buy and sell,
Convert to Islam India’s millions who still in temples dwell.
Long have we suffered, see how grief’s blood flows down the drain,
From a heart pierced by the scalpel, hear this cry of pain.

Iqbal’s lament was governed by failure – one real and one imagined. Firstly, he saw the existence of Hinduism as an affront to the faith that his forefathers had adopted. Clearly, this caused him consternation. Secondly, in spite of Arab/Turk/Mughal rule in

India

lasting over eight centuries, he imagines that it is they (the Muslims) who have suffered. In other words, it is the cry of one who believes that the right to rule over non-believers is an Islamic birthright.

Iqbal’s beliefs soon turned into a genuine movement among the intelligentsia to prevent majority rule. Living under Hindu rule, however democratic, was unthinkable. They were kufr – infidels, hence impure. Ergo, the new state that they wanted to establish was the pure one, Pak-istan. Of course, the presiding dieties of the new states ignored the linguistic and cultural commonality of Indian muslims with their regional counterparts belonging to other religions. And they ignored liberal muslims altogether.

Thus India was defined by religion right at the outset. The schism was accompanied by bloodlust. And how the poets lamented! They, who were quite responsible for the romantic notions of a homeland based on sectarian considerations, expressed dismay at the course of events. Faiz’s lament was akin to Pablo Neruda’s who stands perplexed on hearing the death of Mario Ruoppolo in ‘Il postino’ - one for which he is responsible:

ye daaG daaG ujaalaa, ye shab_gaziidaa sahar
wo intazaar thaa jis kaa, ye wo sahar to nahii.n

This stained stained dawn, this biting hurtful night
This is not the dawn that we envisaged.

But then, what was the surprise here? Dr. Ambedkar had questioned whether the Hindus and Muslims were united in the first place, by detailing the atrocities committed by the invading hordes, thus giving it a historical context [2].

Once the idea of this schism was in place, there was no stopping it. The Congress itself was an active promoter of division. Its idea of division was based not on religion, but on linguistic differences. Dr. Ambedkar wrote:

Be that as it may, the fact remains that separation on linguistic basis is now an accepted principle with the Congress. It is no use saying that the separation of Karnatak and Andhra is based on a linguistic difference and that the claim to separation of Pakistan is based on a cultural difference. This is a distinction without difference. Linguistic difference is simply another name for cultural difference.

If there is nothing shocking in the separation of Karnatak and Andhra, what is there to shock in the demand for the separation of Pakistan? If it is disruptive in its effect, it is no more disruptive than the separation of Hindu provinces such as Karnatak from Maharashtra or Andhra from Madras. Pakistan is merely another manifestation of a cultural unit demanding freedom for the growth of its own distinctive culture.

Once the basis for division was set, the cat was truly among the pigeons.

[to be continued. Next part on the constitution, defining secularism, and its effect on liberal Indian muslims]

1. Shikwa and Jawab-i-Shikwa - translated by Khushwant Singh.
2. The Partition of India - Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.

Akhtar dearest

2005-10-03T15:06:00.000-07:00

The current edition of the Annual of Urdu Studies has translations of intimate letters written by Safiya Akhtar to her husband Jan Nisar in the period 1952-53. The link to the PDF file is here.

These letters refer to the period when he moved from Bhopal to Mumbai to try his luck as a film lyricist. She suffered arthritis and an unknown disease (probably cancer) during this period and died in 1953. Although she is known as "the wife of Jan Nisar, sister of Majaz and mother of Javed Akhtar", she had a Master's degree in Education, had progressive views and was a woman of independent means.

The letters made me admire her more than JNA. She seems to come across as very strong-willed and single minded, who undertook may sacrifices for his sake as well as for their children. It is quite clear that she forsook an opportunity to continue her studies in the US. Clearly, she consistently asks him to be strong - not the other way around. It is rather apparent that he had to submit to indignities in the Mumbai film world in order to gain employment. She comes across as a much better person than him.

While I tend to believe that personal letters should remain personal, letters written by/to famous personalities are often published in the west for reasons that have much to do with historical documentation. We often get a glimpse of the real person behind the printed/televised-persona that we have easy access to. Hence, for the sake of history these letters are interesting. [Not that JNA was a towering historical figure.]

Quote of the day 9/30/05

2005-09-30T14:31:00.000-07:00

Max Reger to a critic, after a scathing review:

"I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. Your review is before me. Soon it will be behind me."

A saintly lady

2005-09-27T22:10:00.000-07:00

Rabi'a -al- Adawiyya, often called Rabia Basri, since she was from Basra, Iraq was probably the first female saint of Islam. She lived a few decades after the passing of Prophet Muhammad. She was firmly against rituals, and believed in cleansing oneself of egoistic thought. She was also a vegetarian.

Said she:

I carry a torch in one hand
And a bucket of water in the other:
With these things I am going to set fire to Heaven
And put out the flames of Hell
So that voyagers to God can rip the veils
And see the real goal.

She was very Meera-like in her absolute love for the creator.

O my Lord,
if I worship you
from fear of hell, burn me in hell.
If I worship you
from hope of Paradise, bar me from its gates.
But if I worship you
for yourself alone, grant me then the beauty of your Face.

Also see 1, 2 and 3. There's also a book on her on Amazon, and a much cheaper version in Overstock.

Incidentally, while digging up info on Rabia Basri, I came across a site for Muslim vegetarians.

Francis Xavier - bigot

2005-09-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

This is an excerpt from "The letter from India, to the society of Jesus at Rome, 1543". The author is Francis Xavier. The indoctrination and bigotry exhibited by this gent reminds one of the Taliban.

These children, I trust heartily, by the grace of God, will be much better than their fathers. They show an ardent love for the Divine law, and an extraordinary zeal for learning our holy religion and imparting it to others. Their hatred for idolatry is marvellous. They get into feuds with the heathen about it, and whenever their own parents practise it, they reproach them and come off to tell me at once. Whenever I hear of any act of idolatrous worship, I go to the place with a large band of these children, who very soon load the devil with a greater amount of insult and abuse than he has lately received of honor and worship from their parents, relations, and acquaintances. The children run at the idols, upset them, dash them down, break them to pieces, spit on them, trample on them, kick them about, and in short heap on them every possible outrage.

And there's more

The heathen inhabitants of the country are commonly ignorant of letters, but by no means ignorant of wickedness.

[...]

And again, whether God was black or white? For as there is so great a variety of color among men, and the Indians being black themselves, consider their own color the best, they believe that their gods are black. On this account the great majority of their idols are as black as black can be, and moreover are generally so rubbed over with oil as to smell detestably, and seem to be as dirty as they are ugly and horrible to look at.

A spiritual ghazal

2005-09-26T10:45:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to a very spiritual ghazal by Hasrat Mohani. You can listen to Abida Parveen's excellent version here (music by Muzaffar Ali), Mehdi Hassan's (very famous) version here, and Jagjit Singh's version here

Raushan jamaal-e-yaar se hai anjuman tamaam
by Hasrat Mohani

raushan jamaal-e-yaar se hai anjuman tamaam
dahakaa huaa hai aatish-e-gul se chaman tamaam

hairat Guruur-e-husn se shoKhii se iztaraab
dil ne bhii tere siikh liye hai.n chalan tamaam

allaah re jism-e-yaar kii Khuubii ke Khud-ba-Khud
ra.ngiiniyo.n me.n Duub gayaa pairahan tamaam

dekho to chasm-e-yaar kii jaaduu nigaahiyaa.N ++
behosh ik nazar me.n hu_ii anjuman tamaam

Shirini-e-Naseem hai soz-o-gudaz-e-Meer **
Hasrat tere sukhan pe hai lutf-e-sukhan tamaam

++ Mehdi Hasan sings it as "husn-e-yaar". I've transcribed Abida's version above.
** Thanks to Sepoy for his comments

Translations of words (from Platts)
===============
raushan = Light, lighted up, alight, illuminated; bright, shining, splendid, luminous
jamaal = Beauty, comeliness
anjuman = Assembly, meeting, company
tamaam = Complete, finished; perfect, entire, whole, full
dahakna = To burn, to blaze; to be burnt;
aatish = Fire, flame; anger, passion, rage
chaman = A bed (in a garden), flower-bed, a flower-garden

Gurur = pride, haughtiness, vanity, vainglory
husn = Goodness, goodliness; comeliness, beauty, pleasingness
shoKhii = Playfulness, fun, mischief; pertness, sauciness; coquetry, wantonness
iztarab = Agitation, perturbation, restlessness, distraction, anxiety

pairahan = Covering, mantle; a long robe; a kind of loose vest
chasm = The eye -- hope, expectation

Shirin = sweetness
Naseem = Naseem Dehlvi, poet, Hasrat Mohani's ustad [Apparently, Abida's CD cover translates the word 'Naseem' literally. I was told by my Urdu teacher that the misra refers to Mohani's ustad]
soz-gudâz= Burning and melting
Meer = Meer Taqi Mir
Hasrat = Hasrat Mohani - takhallus
lutf = delicacy; refinement; elegance, grace, beauty; the beauty or best
sukhan = Speech, language, discourse, word, words

Hinduism and liberalism?

2005-09-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

Manushi takes an interesting look into the birth of Bhagiratha.

Religious intolerance in Iraq

2005-09-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting discussion on the Iraqi Constitution at WaPo. The participants were, Preeta Bansal , attorney and a commissioner of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and Robert Blitt , international law specialist and senior policy adviser for Iraq at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The situation in Iraq is quite troubling. I've cut and pasted some highlights of the discussion, below.

Bansal
[..] The drafts have Islamic law principles pervade numerous aspects of the Bill of Rights, and even make the individual rights guarantees in the constitution subject to (and able to be superseded by) Islamic law -- and so the rights guarantees for non-Muslims and non-believers (and even for Muslim believers who do not subscribe to the majority sect or the state-imposed version of Islam) could be impaired by official interpretations of Islam. This is contrary to the requirements of international law, and certainly would undermine a successful democracy in Iraq by chilling rights of expression, political debate and dissent, individual thought, and full participation in political and public life by all Iraqis.

[..] I think it's a decent sign both of the security issues plaguing Iraqis in general, as well as a sign that religious tension and conflict indeed have exacerbated. We such rising religious tension also in the flight of the non-Muslim communities from Iraq (e.g., Chaldo Assyrians, Mandaeans, and others), the bombing of ancient Christian churches in Iraq, and the ever-widening chasm and violence between Sunni and Shi'a Muslim communities.

Blitt
[..]I would just add to Preeta's comments that the warning signs of religious intolerance run deeper than the shuttering of liquor stores: there have been numerous reports that women - Muslim as well as non-Muslim -- are being compelled to wear the veil against their will, some university campuses are being forced to use separate entrances for men and women, non-Muslims are being forced to renounce their faith, and even barbers are being targeted for assassination as a consequence of offering to shave beards or give "western" haircuts.

Bansal
The drafts of the constitution currently circulating reject religious freedom in a number of ways: (1) they make Islam not only "a source" of law, but the "basic source of legislation" -- and do not mention other possible sources, such as international human rights obligations (as do many other Muslim countries' constitutions), or the bill of rights guarantees in the constitution itself; (2) they provide that several members of the constitutional court may be shari'a jurists, with no training in civil law -- thus putting the Iraqi judiciary in the company of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan; (3) they provide that no law may be enacted which opposes the principles and rules of Islam, thus putting in the hands of the constitutional court (shari'a) jurists the final authority of determining whether legislation may be enacted; and(4) they provide that most of the bill of rights guarantees -- such as the freedom of religion or the freedom of speech -- may be curtailed by ordinary law.

Read the whole thing here or here.

Organized Chaos

2005-09-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

From a desi Dr's blog.:

we recieved patients from hospitals, schools, homes, the entire remaining population of new orleans funneled through our doors. our little civilian team along with a couple of other dmat teams set up and ran THE biggest evacuation this country has ever seen

Salman Rushdie interview

2005-09-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

Interview in WaPo.

Montreal, Canada: What are your thoughts on the current inter-faith relations in India and on the usage of Sharia courts instead of constitutional courts in a secular country?

Salman Rushdie: I think the Canadian idea of allowing in the Sharia is very, very dumb indeed. India has been plagued by the existence of a parallel civil code for Muslims, which essentially delivers women into the power of the mullahs.

Master Madan 1927-1942

2005-09-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

Master Madan was a young singer who, in his all too brief life, left us some semi-classical gems. A short bio is here. You can listen to Master Madan's songs here.

He died at the age of 14.

Plagiarism Inc

2005-09-06T17:36:00.000-07:00

Mr. Ardheshir Cowasjee, of Dawn, lifts an article on Zheng He from a Wikipedia entry, which took major parts from the National Geographic. Shocking that it comes from such a senior and respected journo.

Race, class and natural disasters

2005-09-01T14:24:00.000-07:00

Slate finally gives voice to what I have been thinking about.

To be sure, some reporters sidled up to the race and class issue. I heard them ask the storm's New Orleans victims why they hadn't left town when the evacuation call came. Many said they were broke—"I live from paycheck to paycheck," explained one woman. Others said they didn't own a car with which to escape and that they hadn't understood the importance of evacuation.

Storm trivia

2005-09-01T09:27:00.000-07:00

In the aftermath of Katrina, trivia buffs may be asking themselves a lot of questions regarding storms. - for example, why and how are storms named? The information below, is cut and pasted from various sources.

The answers to most of these questions can be found in the National Hurricane Center website. First, their reason for naming hurricanes:

Why are hurricanes named after people?
The use of easily remembered names greatly reduces confusion when two or more tropical storms occur at the same time. For example, one hurricane can be moving slowly westward in the Gulf of Mexico , while at exactly the same time anothe hurricane can be moving rapidly Northward along the Atlantic coast. In the past, confusion and false rumors have arisen when storm advisories broadcast from radio statio were mistaken for warning concerning an entirely different storm located hundreds of miles away.

How are hurricanes named?
For several hundred years many hurricanes in the West Indies were named after the particular saint's day on which the hurricane occurred. [..] Tannehill also tells of Clement Wragge, an Australian meteorologist who began giving women's names to tropical storms before the end of the l9th century. An early example of the use of a woman's name for a storm was in the novel "Storm" by George R . Stewart, published by Random House in 1941, and since filmed by Walt Disney. During World War II this practice became widespread in weather map discussions among forecasters, especially Air Force and Navy meteorologists who plotted the movements of storms over the wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean.In 1953, the United States abandoned as confusing a two-year old plan to name storms by a phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie) when a new, international phonetic alphabet was introduced. That year, this Nation's weather services began using female names for storms.

The practice of naming hurricanes solely after women came to an end in 1978 when men's and women's names were included in the Eastern North Pacific storm lists. In 1979, male and female names were included in lists for the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.

When are hurricane names retired?
Whenever a hurricane has had a major impact, any country affected by the storm can request that the name of the hurricane be “retired” by agreement of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Where can I find the names of storms occurring across the world?
Here. The ones to follow Katrina are : Lee, Maria, Nate, Ophelia, Philippe, Rita, Stan, Tammy
Vince, Wilma.

Only the Fijian storms have Hindu-sounding names: Meena, Nisha, Mona, and Gita.

Related site: Hurricane Hunters.

Sarabjit Singh case

2005-08-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

The Daily Times, Pakistan reports on the RAW spy who is facing a death sentence.

Pakistan on Friday allowed consular access to Sarabjit Singh, facing execution in Pakistan for spying for India’s intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), and involvement in several bombings.

“The Government of Pakistan has intimated us that it has allowed consular access to Sarabjit Singh. The permission is for the Indian High Commission officials to meet Sarabjit Singh,” Indian Press Counsellor Dr Ramesh Chandra told Daily Times.

Dalibr Kaur, sister of Sarabjit Singh appealing to the Wagah border guards. Also see 1, 2

The catch up game

2005-08-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

Sad to see Instapundit become a biased hack. While he writes reasonably well on social issues, his foreign policy stuff is sadly ignorant. I liked Chapati Mystery's excellent take on David Brooks' column. [a must read] He hit the nail on the head, and identified the problem that afflicts the far-right, Instapundit included. Note how a vast majority of the "good news from Iraq" is always by Americans (including the armed forces) and hardly by Iraqi bloggers.

Andrew Sullivan is much more smart. He has done a nice CYA job on both sides of the aisle and takes pot shots which are relatively safe. For instance, Abu Ghraib (everyone condemns it), Maureen Dowd (easy target for anyone but, the far left), Rick Santorum (easy target for anyone but, the far right) and so on.

All this means is that you end up reading more and more sources to give you a balanced view. For example, I read many more American and Iraqi blogs to get a better perspective on the stories behind the framing of the awful Constitution. And as these blogs become mainstream they in turn become easy prey to partisan viewpoints.

Then you have to begin the process all over again.

We castigate MSM, but we forget that MSB (Mainstream Blogs) often have agenda that are more partisan. In other words, for readers of blogs, it becomes a catch-up game - identify the sources which seem authentic, balance it out with other sources but keep moving. Reliable sources become less reliable when they begin to get credibility from many bloggers.

It is tiring and time consuming. Quite Rashomon like.

Souad Massi - stunning singer

2005-08-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

Tip from Salam Pax's blog about a hot - in all senses of the term - Algerian born Arabic singer, now residing in France. He has linked to an mp3. She is very good.

Her website is here.