Saturday, November 06, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Friday, October 08, 2010
On Why I'm A Marxist-Leninist - Part the First
Sorry, typo. Marxist-Leninist.
On Why I'm A Martinist-Lennonist
John would've turned 70 today. Imagine. [This post was supposed to go out on October 9. At this rate, it will never get done, so splitting and publishing.]
I love the Beatles. I don't know why this is. I do know when it roughly started. In 1995, The Beatles Anthology documentary came out. It was even shown on DD Metro. I didn't know who the hell The Beatles were; the sum total of my exposure to Western pop music up until that point consisted of Jim Reeves (does anyone even remember this guy and how big he was in India), thanks to some LPs my dad had saved, Boney M from Juristic Person knows where, the "Yesterday Once More" song by The Carpenters, and Matilda by Harry Belafonte. The reason I know this so precisely is because that was literally the 4 western pop things I'd ever heard with any level of seriousness.
Then this anthology thing came along and my neighbour, who was from the metropolis of Nellore, kept running off to the common room in the evenings. I tagged along, mainly to find out what sort of band penetrates through SPB and Ghantasala into the very recesses of outer Nellore.
I was spellbound. I think it's the documentary that did me in. Just watching those boys from Liverpool first turn into scarecrows in a Hamburg cellar, and then into musicians, and then stars, and then musicians again, oh it was magic.
The Nellore fellow had a cassette with him that was doing the rounds in those days, a black cover "Top 20" thing. Borrowed the cassette, borrowed a Walkman from a Hyderabad fellow and just guzzled. After this staggering breakthrough, I learned to like The Doors, Deep Purple, Def Leppard, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and some other suchlike bands, mainly because that's what the fellows whose rooms we got drunk in (Venkataramanav vodka in steel tumblers with water from the hostel mess) would play.
Can't say any of that made a lasting impression, some of it is still nice, but it doesn't grab by the collar and shake the way the Beatles did. The Beatles, and oddly enough, Itzhak Perelman playing The Four Seasons, were the only two things that offered any sort of transcendental musical sustenance.
On Why I'm A Martinist-Lennonist
John would've turned 70 today. Imagine. [This post was supposed to go out on October 9. At this rate, it will never get done, so splitting and publishing.]
I love the Beatles. I don't know why this is. I do know when it roughly started. In 1995, The Beatles Anthology documentary came out. It was even shown on DD Metro. I didn't know who the hell The Beatles were; the sum total of my exposure to Western pop music up until that point consisted of Jim Reeves (does anyone even remember this guy and how big he was in India), thanks to some LPs my dad had saved, Boney M from Juristic Person knows where, the "Yesterday Once More" song by The Carpenters, and Matilda by Harry Belafonte. The reason I know this so precisely is because that was literally the 4 western pop things I'd ever heard with any level of seriousness.
Then this anthology thing came along and my neighbour, who was from the metropolis of Nellore, kept running off to the common room in the evenings. I tagged along, mainly to find out what sort of band penetrates through SPB and Ghantasala into the very recesses of outer Nellore.
I was spellbound. I think it's the documentary that did me in. Just watching those boys from Liverpool first turn into scarecrows in a Hamburg cellar, and then into musicians, and then stars, and then musicians again, oh it was magic.
The Nellore fellow had a cassette with him that was doing the rounds in those days, a black cover "Top 20" thing. Borrowed the cassette, borrowed a Walkman from a Hyderabad fellow and just guzzled. After this staggering breakthrough, I learned to like The Doors, Deep Purple, Def Leppard, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and some other suchlike bands, mainly because that's what the fellows whose rooms we got drunk in (Venkataramanav vodka in steel tumblers with water from the hostel mess) would play.
Can't say any of that made a lasting impression, some of it is still nice, but it doesn't grab by the collar and shake the way the Beatles did. The Beatles, and oddly enough, Itzhak Perelman playing The Four Seasons, were the only two things that offered any sort of transcendental musical sustenance.
Friday, August 27, 2010
(Not So) Free Association
(I)
Read this.
Which is as good a time as any to remember that the thespian in question, this leader of a large Middle Eastern country with a finger on the nuclear button, is this (YouTube link) fellow.
Wonders will never cease.
(II)
Large poster at Teynampet signal. Beaming countenance, saffron robes, Afro.
"I am in you. You are in me. Blah blah blah."
Hmm.
Read this.
Which is as good a time as any to remember that the thespian in question, this leader of a large Middle Eastern country with a finger on the nuclear button, is this (YouTube link) fellow.
Wonders will never cease.
(II)
Large poster at Teynampet signal. Beaming countenance, saffron robes, Afro.
"I am in you. You are in me. Blah blah blah."
Hmm.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
On The Economics Of The Madras Autorickshaw
Netizens of Bangalore have apparently gathered under the banner of Meterjam. In their own words:
When the subject is broached with the average Madrasi and the average visitor to Madras from those delightful orderly places ("In Bombay you know, the autowallah will even give back Rs. 0.50 in change, you know."), you will find a small vein near the temple start to throb in an alarming fashion. Invective gushes forth; destinations are suggested for auto drivers that make a Siberian gulag seem like Mylai Karpagambal Mess; summary public punishments are proposed that leave the entire Saudi ruling class gasping in admiration.
The Meterjam fellows are definitely entitled to protest, more power to them. There is however, one problem. Why, the anguish?
Most of the people I know who crib about this state of affairs are honest Joes and Janes, strong believers in the glories of such things as Private Enterprise, Free Markets, "easier" Labour Laws, Libertarianism and so on. And yet when faced with this particular example of private enterprise, there seems to be a problem.
After all, what goes on during your typical Madras auto haggle? You quote a ridiculous (to him) price, he quotes a ridiculous (to you) fare, you do the +10/-10 dance for a bit, some emotional appeals to honesty and conscience, and finally either you agree, or both of you move on. Isn't the price of a thing (or service) that magic number which the consumer is willing to pay and the provider is willing to accept? I submit to you that the Chennai auto haggle is the closest thing you will ever see to a scene from "Atlas Shrugged"! Whence cometh the moaning and groaning?
Thinking about it differently, what if all techies were forced by law to work for Rs. 15,000 per month as salary (50% above meter if they put night-outs!)? No more performance based incentives, no more premium for being smarter or knowing more or being willing to do boring and distasteful jobs. Nice, no? So why are you complaining about Manikyam?
One objection I've heard when I've framed the issue in this manner is that it's still not truly a "free market". In a truly free market, anyone would be allowed to operate an auto, there won't be barriers to entry into the business and so on, and this will be a "fair" system and whatever price point results is the "fair" price.
The argument has merit, but I'm not buying it entirely. My feeling (admittedly un-verified/-verifiable) is that even if into that heaven of freedom this city awakes, the cribbers will crib about how auto drivers are colluding to jack up prices etc., as long as they can compare it to the "fixed price" systems in other cities.
To conclude:
1. Madras (and such) are the only places that have truly free and fair autorickshaw service markets. This is closer to the free market utopia that we're all so keen on, than all other "fixed meter" places. You might want to try and remember this the next time you begin to declaim on such matters.
2. Shut the fuck up, pay up, and enjoy the ride.
3. You may perhaps have noticed these other strange long contraptions with numbers etc. on the road. In the alphabet of public transport, if you can't stand 'A for Auto', the next best bet is 'B for the fucking Bus'. Try taking one ever so often.
4. Also, if you stand straight and look straight down towards the floor, right above it, most of you will find 2 columns, banana tree trunk like. They are called "legs". The remainder of this proof is left as an exercise to the discerning reader.
5. That's all.
ecause strikes need a strike back! We're tired of meter that always reads more than it should, drivers who refuse to ply and demand return fare whenever they want. And if all that wasn't enough, now we have to deal with strikes too, any time the 'unions' decide!If the Bangalore fellows can evoke such a reaction, the reputation of the Chennai auto fellows will possibly set off something like the Long March. At least in Bangalore, they'll pretend that the meter is jammed, there won't be a return savaari back from just the place you want to go to and so on. In Madras, there's no pretense. The meter is just an ornament, a pro forma declaration of intent to provide transportation.
Everyone is holding the janta to ransom. How much more will we pay? It's time to turn the tables.
So on 12th August, shake your head and say NO if an auto driver offers a ride!
When the subject is broached with the average Madrasi and the average visitor to Madras from those delightful orderly places ("In Bombay you know, the autowallah will even give back Rs. 0.50 in change, you know."), you will find a small vein near the temple start to throb in an alarming fashion. Invective gushes forth; destinations are suggested for auto drivers that make a Siberian gulag seem like Mylai Karpagambal Mess; summary public punishments are proposed that leave the entire Saudi ruling class gasping in admiration.
The Meterjam fellows are definitely entitled to protest, more power to them. There is however, one problem. Why, the anguish?
Most of the people I know who crib about this state of affairs are honest Joes and Janes, strong believers in the glories of such things as Private Enterprise, Free Markets, "easier" Labour Laws, Libertarianism and so on. And yet when faced with this particular example of private enterprise, there seems to be a problem.
After all, what goes on during your typical Madras auto haggle? You quote a ridiculous (to him) price, he quotes a ridiculous (to you) fare, you do the +10/-10 dance for a bit, some emotional appeals to honesty and conscience, and finally either you agree, or both of you move on. Isn't the price of a thing (or service) that magic number which the consumer is willing to pay and the provider is willing to accept? I submit to you that the Chennai auto haggle is the closest thing you will ever see to a scene from "Atlas Shrugged"! Whence cometh the moaning and groaning?
Thinking about it differently, what if all techies were forced by law to work for Rs. 15,000 per month as salary (50% above meter if they put night-outs!)? No more performance based incentives, no more premium for being smarter or knowing more or being willing to do boring and distasteful jobs. Nice, no? So why are you complaining about Manikyam?
One objection I've heard when I've framed the issue in this manner is that it's still not truly a "free market". In a truly free market, anyone would be allowed to operate an auto, there won't be barriers to entry into the business and so on, and this will be a "fair" system and whatever price point results is the "fair" price.
The argument has merit, but I'm not buying it entirely. My feeling (admittedly un-verified/-verifiable) is that even if into that heaven of freedom this city awakes, the cribbers will crib about how auto drivers are colluding to jack up prices etc., as long as they can compare it to the "fixed price" systems in other cities.
To conclude:
1. Madras (and such) are the only places that have truly free and fair autorickshaw service markets. This is closer to the free market utopia that we're all so keen on, than all other "fixed meter" places. You might want to try and remember this the next time you begin to declaim on such matters.
2. Shut the fuck up, pay up, and enjoy the ride.
3. You may perhaps have noticed these other strange long contraptions with numbers etc. on the road. In the alphabet of public transport, if you can't stand 'A for Auto', the next best bet is 'B for the fucking Bus'. Try taking one ever so often.
4. Also, if you stand straight and look straight down towards the floor, right above it, most of you will find 2 columns, banana tree trunk like. They are called "legs". The remainder of this proof is left as an exercise to the discerning reader.
5. That's all.
Sunday, August 08, 2010
Tony Who?
Tony Judt died. His name had registered very peripherally a few times, but I had never read anything by him. The flurry of obits and other pieces over the last few days made me root around for more information.
Among the highlights from the New York Times obituary:
What a punch in the stomach piece of writing this is! Went into my head like a lance etc. It is worthwhile to put aside whatever you are doing now and reading this one carefully.
[Aside: An eminently readable history of the conflict is to be found in Sowing the Wind.]
Sorry to have missed you when you were alive Mr. Judt, and more power to universalist social democrats.
Among the highlights from the New York Times obituary:
Mr. Judt (pronounced Jutt)...began as a specialist in postwar French intellectual history, and for much of his life he embodied the idea of the French-style engaged intellectual.Strangely (maybe not) there was no hyperlink to the essay in question, but it's easy enough to find.
An impassioned left-wing Zionist as a teenager, he shed his faith in agrarian socialism and Marxism early on and became, as he put it, a "universalist social democrat" with a deep suspicion of left-wing ideologues, identity politics and the emerging role of the United States as the world's sole superpower.
...
His views on Israel made Mr. Judt an increasingly polarizing figure. He placed himself in the midst of a bitter debate when, in 2003, he outlined a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian problem in The New York Review of Books, proposing that Israel accept a future as a secular, bi-national state in which Jews and Arabs enjoyed equal status.
What a punch in the stomach piece of writing this is! Went into my head like a lance etc. It is worthwhile to put aside whatever you are doing now and reading this one carefully.
...an American statesman is going to have to tell the truth to an Israeli prime minister and find a way to make him listen. Israeli liberals and moderate Palestinians have for two decades been thanklessly insisting that the only hope was for Israel to dismantle nearly all the settlements and return to the 1967 borders, in exchange for real Arab recognition of those frontiers and a stable, terrorist-free Palestinian state underwritten (and constrained) by Western and international agencies. This is still the conventional consensus, and it was once a just and possible solution.The Palestinian-Israeli problem is just too depressing to think about, and this article doesn't make it any easier. Nevertheless, it does present future scenarios in stark relief, and a jolt of clarity is definitely in order.
But I suspect that we are already too late for that. There are too many settlements, too many Jewish settlers, and too many Palestinians, and they all live together, albeit separated by barbed wire and pass laws. Whatever the "road map" says, the real map is the one on the ground, and that, as Israelis say, reflects facts. It may be that over a quarter of a million heavily armed and subsidized Jewish settlers would leave Arab Palestine voluntarily; but no one I know believes it will happen. Many of those settlers will die—and kill—rather than move. The last Israeli politician to shoot Jews in pursuit of state policy was David Ben-Gurion, who forcibly disarmed Begin's illegal Irgun militia in 1948 and integrated it into the new Israel Defense Forces. Ariel Sharon is not Ben-Gurion.
[Aside: An eminently readable history of the conflict is to be found in Sowing the Wind.]
Sorry to have missed you when you were alive Mr. Judt, and more power to universalist social democrats.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
On Writing
Have you ever sat alone in front of a blank page or screen trying to coax words out of you, and the ghost of every memorable writer and the shade of every unforgettable piece you've read start showing up somewhere behind your right shoulder, jostling against each other, and start pushing your diffident fingers this way and that?
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Yeh Mera India
Ever so often there will come along a really good reason for liking ye olde maadar-e-watan. They come far and few in between, for example you find reasons to like Sweden more often than you find reasons to like India.
But when they do come, it is bril. I would go so far as to say it is chelpark even. Be that as it may...
There is now a weekly train, 6687/6688 that connects Mangalore and Jammu Tawi, rejoicing in the dry sawdust like name Navyug Express. It plods for 67 hours over 3600 odd kilometres up and down the deathless vistas of the sub-continent etc. The timetable is magical. Thalassery, Tiruppur, Tirupati, Tenali, Sevagram, Faridabad, Tohana, Malerkotla, Phagwara, Tanda Urmar (!!) and Kathua all linked by one pantry car. And if that wasn't enough, one portion of the train actually starts in Tirunelveli and joins the mother ship at Soil Degradation, Tamil Nadu (also called Erode, sometimes).
The thought that someone from Kovilpatti may be booking a ticket to Kathua is giving me goosebumps this fine Saturday afternoon.
But when they do come, it is bril. I would go so far as to say it is chelpark even. Be that as it may...
There is now a weekly train, 6687/6688 that connects Mangalore and Jammu Tawi, rejoicing in the dry sawdust like name Navyug Express. It plods for 67 hours over 3600 odd kilometres up and down the deathless vistas of the sub-continent etc. The timetable is magical. Thalassery, Tiruppur, Tirupati, Tenali, Sevagram, Faridabad, Tohana, Malerkotla, Phagwara, Tanda Urmar (!!) and Kathua all linked by one pantry car. And if that wasn't enough, one portion of the train actually starts in Tirunelveli and joins the mother ship at Soil Degradation, Tamil Nadu (also called Erode, sometimes).
The thought that someone from Kovilpatti may be booking a ticket to Kathua is giving me goosebumps this fine Saturday afternoon.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Dance Baby, Dance
For those who want to know, this is how I dance (when sober):
When not, however, this is how I dance. More accurately, this is how I think I dance:
When not, however, this is how I dance. More accurately, this is how I think I dance:
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
With A Little Help From My Friends
It's apparently Ringo's birthday today. He's been interviewed.
I do hope Panzerdivision Mannschaft runs roughshod over the cephalopod ("Paul is dead!") tonight.
A few weeks ago the Vatican finally gave its approval to the Beatles. How did you feel about that?Priceless. Man, I wish that band was still around. Peace and love. Happy birthday, Ringo. Seeing as it is the season of soothsaying octopi,
It didn't affect me in any way, but I do believe that the Vatican have better things to deal with than forgiving the Beatles. I don't remember what it actually said — it had some weird piece in it, too. That they've forgiven us for being, what, satanic? Whoever wrote it was thinking about the Stones.
I do hope Panzerdivision Mannschaft runs roughshod over the cephalopod ("Paul is dead!") tonight.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Rukaavat Ke Liye...
...not too much khed. Regular transmission may or may not resume in a while. Meanwhile, transmission of a sort continues here.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Best Football Match Ever
It's that time again. I present to you, the most thrilling and entertaining football match ever played (Germany v. Greece, Munich).
It's good to watch football, because it's so boring and languorous most of the time, with flurries of excitement ever so often. More than anything else, it is a chance to hang out with friends and/or chemists and drink and eat pizza and idiappam and shoot the breeze.
Meanwhile, certain other team of interest is doing rather well, more power to them. Boston is everything Los Angeles is not: small, pretty, smart, negotiable via public transport, livable. Here's to the Celtics slitting eviscerating until the floor is slick with the Lakers' blood.
It's good to watch football, because it's so boring and languorous most of the time, with flurries of excitement ever so often. More than anything else, it is a chance to hang out with friends and/or chemists and drink and eat pizza and idiappam and shoot the breeze.
Meanwhile, certain other team of interest is doing rather well, more power to them. Boston is everything Los Angeles is not: small, pretty, smart, negotiable via public transport, livable. Here's to the Celtics slitting eviscerating until the floor is slick with the Lakers' blood.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Lynx Lynx
No blogging has happened in ages. Here, anyway. Nowadays time and energy are consumed here, with the occasional update here.
Nevertheless, lots and lots of links and "thoughts" have been piling up. So here we disgorge.
0
Is there an age after which Sergeant Pepper's starts to become more appealing than Abbey Road? If so, it has happened, I think. Not that I like Abbey Road any less now than before, but Sgt. Pepper seems to have aged better. Oh well.
I
The Economist carried a lovely article on "re-drawing" the map of Europe (to accommodate Syldavia, Borduria etc.) Priceless comments like so
II
Gobbledygook. The original source (PDF) of said g. It would've been funny, if it were not for the fact that there are millions (hundreds of millions!) of "educated" Hindus who will swallow this sort of stuff hook, line and sinker.
III
There is a very interesting but fairly heavy duty argument going on in the "blogosphere", essentially about whether you can derive "ought" from "is". This is a good starting point, but you will have to unravel the thread yourself. In a nutshell, it began like so:
"Militant" atheist, neuroscientist Sam Harris (at a TED talk): Science can answer moral questions.
Physicist Sean Carroll: No it can't. It will tell you what is, but not what ought to be. But that's OK.
Enjoy.
And that will be all for now.
(One fairly interesting and important thought has occurred and escaped. Maybe it will come back.)
Nevertheless, lots and lots of links and "thoughts" have been piling up. So here we disgorge.
0
Is there an age after which Sergeant Pepper's starts to become more appealing than Abbey Road? If so, it has happened, I think. Not that I like Abbey Road any less now than before, but Sgt. Pepper seems to have aged better. Oh well.
I
The Economist carried a lovely article on "re-drawing" the map of Europe (to accommodate Syldavia, Borduria etc.) Priceless comments like so
In Britain’s place should come Poland, which has suffered quite enough in its location between Russia and Germany and deserves a chance to enjoy the bracing winds of the North Atlantic and the security of sea water between it and any potential invaders.And
The Ukrainian shift would allow Russia to move west and south too, thus vacating Siberia for the Chinese, who will take it sooner or later anyway.And finally
The rest of Italy, from Rome downwards, would separate and join with Sicily to form a new country, officially called the Kingdom of Two Sicilies (but nicknamed Bordello).
II
Gobbledygook. The original source (PDF) of said g. It would've been funny, if it were not for the fact that there are millions (hundreds of millions!) of "educated" Hindus who will swallow this sort of stuff hook, line and sinker.
III
There is a very interesting but fairly heavy duty argument going on in the "blogosphere", essentially about whether you can derive "ought" from "is". This is a good starting point, but you will have to unravel the thread yourself. In a nutshell, it began like so:
"Militant" atheist, neuroscientist Sam Harris (at a TED talk): Science can answer moral questions.
Physicist Sean Carroll: No it can't. It will tell you what is, but not what ought to be. But that's OK.
Enjoy.
And that will be all for now.
(One fairly interesting and important thought has occurred and escaped. Maybe it will come back.)
Friday, May 14, 2010
Phase Forward ACE 2010 Corporate Quiz
Edition #6 happeneth in short order.
Date: June 12, 2010
Venue: Indian School of Business, Gachi Bowli, Hyderabad
Details on the website.
Date: June 12, 2010
Venue: Indian School of Business, Gachi Bowli, Hyderabad
Details on the website.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
My IPL Support Algorithm (Redux)
Last year, I was jobless enough to present a programming version with suitable cultural and historical references thrown in. This time, it's a bit sooner, and it's more like the laws of robotics.
Hereby presenting:
Law I: Deccan Chargers (DC) win all their games.
Law II: Mumbai Indians (MI) win all their games (except when it conflicts with Law I)
Law III: Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) win all their games (except when it conflicts with Laws I & II)
Law IV: The team with the lower net run rate wins its game (except when it conflicts with Laws I, II and III)
Very tidy.
Forthcoming Results
KKR wins CSK v KKR (IV)
RR wins RR v RCB (IV)
CSK wins CSK v DD (IV)
DC wins KXIP v DC (I)
MI wins RCB v MI (II)
KKR wins KKR v RR (IV)
KXIP wins KXIP v CSK (III)
DC wins DD v DC (I)
MI wins KKR v MI (II)
Points Table
Semifinalists
MI - 14 - 11 - 22
DC - 14 - 8 - 16
RR & KKR - 14 - 7 - 14
Sad, sorry, losers
RCB - 14 - 6 - 12
DD - 14 - 6 - 12
CSK - 14 - 6 - 12
Fair Play Award, hugs from Preity
KXIP - 14 - 5 - 10
Thank you, thank you.
P.S. Forgot the Zeroeth Law
DC will (do you hear that, Adam? WILLLLLLLLL) play VOLCANO VENU!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hereby presenting:
Law I: Deccan Chargers (DC) win all their games.
Law II: Mumbai Indians (MI) win all their games (except when it conflicts with Law I)
Law III: Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) win all their games (except when it conflicts with Laws I & II)
Law IV: The team with the lower net run rate wins its game (except when it conflicts with Laws I, II and III)
Very tidy.
Forthcoming Results
KKR wins CSK v KKR (IV)
RR wins RR v RCB (IV)
CSK wins CSK v DD (IV)
DC wins KXIP v DC (I)
MI wins RCB v MI (II)
KKR wins KKR v RR (IV)
KXIP wins KXIP v CSK (III)
DC wins DD v DC (I)
MI wins KKR v MI (II)
Points Table
Semifinalists
MI - 14 - 11 - 22
DC - 14 - 8 - 16
RR & KKR - 14 - 7 - 14
Sad, sorry, losers
RCB - 14 - 6 - 12
DD - 14 - 6 - 12
CSK - 14 - 6 - 12
Fair Play Award, hugs from Preity
KXIP - 14 - 5 - 10
Thank you, thank you.
P.S. Forgot the Zeroeth Law
DC will (do you hear that, Adam? WILLLLLLLLL) play VOLCANO VENU!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
On Bathrooms, And Trains
toilets; aesthetics of
Thanks to a winged friend who shall remain nameless, I have recently come into possession of one book by name of In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki. It is fairly short, more a long essay than anything else. I first heard about it in the preface of What is Good? and the couple of paragraphs that Grayling quotes was enough to whet the appetite and shamelessly ask said winged personage to lug one copy across the Atlantic and the Eurasian landmass.
The whole thing immediately whisked me back to holidays at the grandparents' house in Marx's own country. Some of the toilets there were outside the house, you had to walk through the garden/grove/plantation (vaLappu for the Mallu unchallenged) to get to it. In June and in the winter, the ground is wet and squelchy all the time, and every nook and cranny is just crawling with life in every form imaginable on 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10++ legs (and sometimes slithering greenly over the undergrowth on its belly). A trip to the loo was a minor expedition, and once safely ensconced and enthroned inside, you could watch a patch of blue sky, framed by the tiles of the eaves and by coconut fronds and betel nut leaves. Or watch the rain come down in a din, sousing all of existence.
Of course, this is all a 20-20 hindsight thing. As kids I think we mostly hated this whole business of having to go outside the house, and having to put up with assorted insects and amphibians while abluting (yes, it's a new word). Why couldn't we just have vitrified tiles and a flush and all that city stuff, we wailed. Going to the loo at night was an endeavour that scared the bejesus out of us. It was bad enough that you had a decent probability of copping it from snakebite, but when assorted relatives had filled you with stories of the brahma rakshas (The Ghost Formerly Known As Strapping-Young-Namboothiri) in the temple peepal, you were, so to speak, emitting bricks, as opposed to what you wanted to in the first place.
Photos of ye olde countryside house are appended for your kind information.
toilets; cleaning of
There is only one secret to cleaning a toilet (or any bathroom, in general).
YOU HAVE TO WANT TO CLEAN IT
You must desire it deeply, uncompromisingly. With the sort of steadfastness that only an Ekalavya type can possess. When you have decided to clean a bathroom one morning, it must seep into every pore, and take over your being. A whole morning, nay a whole day is nothing. You are willing to give up the brunch with friends, the afternoon snooze, the curling up with the book, the checking email, the cup of filter coffee, the long run, or whatever it is that is floating your nautical vehicle at the present time.
You have it in you, or you don't.
I have it.
Note carefully that this is very different from a general desire to keep bathrooms clean on a regular basis, which boatloads of people have. Even I have it, in a very general and non-obsessive way. We are speaking here of a primeval urge to clean. Scrub. On hands and knees. The mildew. Off every fucking tile.
This doesn't happen often. In my case it approximately coincides with return trips of Halley's comet. Nevertheless, the point is to DO IT. And DO IT SUPREMELY WELL. No amount of chemical help is enough. It's a mind game, it's a marathon. And the wall is really a goddamn wall that is laughing in your face.
My autobiography will be called It's Not About The Bathroom Cleaning Chemical Thing.
Indian Railways; obsessions hereto and thereunder
It is impossible to praise IRFCA too much. Pure treasure trove of information. I recently hopped onto their hyper-active mailing list. And I thought I was train obsessed. These guys take it to the next level. For example, here is the story of one thread that I followed. A couple of days back, a new train from Vizag to Kurla (more properly VSKP-LTT) was started.
Several days before this historic event, people on the list had begun to conjecture on
(i) What will be the composition of the train?
(ii) How will it get to Kurla, i.e. which locos from which loco shed will haul it on which stretches?
(iii) Mother of God, is it possible that the thing will be pulled by a diesel engine all the way from VSKP to LTT?!!!!!!
(iv) Taking point # (iii) further, is it true, oh-please-Lord-Laupathgamineshwara-make-it-so, that the same VSKP shed WDM loco will be used all the way to Kurla? I mean, will we have a darshan of diesel in Dombivili? That too an ECoR, VSKP diesel?
et cetera
And sure enough, when the train was flagged off, railfans showed up at stations along the way to gaze lovingly upon this miracle (this is just an ordinary superfast train, mind you) whizzing over the permanent way, past the platform.
In BZA (Vijayawada to you rail challenged), Jayakar took a photograph. In BMT (Begumpet to you all !$#@!%), Vrij actually filmed the train.
And from Kurla came a breathless email, the VSKP diesel was used all the way to Bombay!!!!
Regular readers will be aware that I am the sort of person who will die of joy upon seeing a VSKP locomotive in far off places, but what a joy to find a kindred gang. I love these guys.
Thanks to a winged friend who shall remain nameless, I have recently come into possession of one book by name of In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki. It is fairly short, more a long essay than anything else. I first heard about it in the preface of What is Good? and the couple of paragraphs that Grayling quotes was enough to whet the appetite and shamelessly ask said winged personage to lug one copy across the Atlantic and the Eurasian landmass.
The essay consists of 16 sections that discuss traditional Japanese aesthetics in contrast with change. Comparisons of light with darkness are used to contrast Western and Asian cultures. The West, in its striving for progress, is presented as continuously searching for light and clarity, while the subtle and subdued forms of oriental art and literature are seen by Tanizaki to represent an appreciation of shadow and subtlety.I have finished reading about half of it, and so far so good. Tanizaki does tend to get a little too hi-falutin' about the Japanese way of life, a mildly annoying undercurrent of "Oh it was all so nice in the good 'ol traditional days..." permeates the thing. And he is a little too critical of "Western progress", but beyond that no major cribs. Some parts are just lovely. And when he gets into the aesthetics of toilets I am, of course, spellbound.
The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose. It always stands apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss. No words can describe the sensation as one sits in the dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden. The novelist Natsume Soseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, "a physiological delight", he called it. And surely there could be no better place to savor this pleasure than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks out upon blue skies and green leaves.And so on he goes, for a good 2-3 pages.
As I have said there are certain prerequisites: a degree of dimness, absolute cleanliness, and quiet so complete one can hear the hum of a mosquito. I love to listen from such a toilet to the sound of softly falling rain, especially if it is a toilet of the Kanto region, with its long, narrow windows at floor level; there one can listen with a sense of intimacy to the raindrops falling from the eaves and trees, seeping into the earth as they wash over the base of a stone lantern and freshen the moss about the stepping stones.
The whole thing immediately whisked me back to holidays at the grandparents' house in Marx's own country. Some of the toilets there were outside the house, you had to walk through the garden/grove/plantation (vaLappu for the Mallu unchallenged) to get to it. In June and in the winter, the ground is wet and squelchy all the time, and every nook and cranny is just crawling with life in every form imaginable on 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10++ legs (and sometimes slithering greenly over the undergrowth on its belly). A trip to the loo was a minor expedition, and once safely ensconced and enthroned inside, you could watch a patch of blue sky, framed by the tiles of the eaves and by coconut fronds and betel nut leaves. Or watch the rain come down in a din, sousing all of existence.
Of course, this is all a 20-20 hindsight thing. As kids I think we mostly hated this whole business of having to go outside the house, and having to put up with assorted insects and amphibians while abluting (yes, it's a new word). Why couldn't we just have vitrified tiles and a flush and all that city stuff, we wailed. Going to the loo at night was an endeavour that scared the bejesus out of us. It was bad enough that you had a decent probability of copping it from snakebite, but when assorted relatives had filled you with stories of the brahma rakshas (The Ghost Formerly Known As Strapping-Young-Namboothiri) in the temple peepal, you were, so to speak, emitting bricks, as opposed to what you wanted to in the first place.
Photos of ye olde countryside house are appended for your kind information.
toilets; cleaning of
There is only one secret to cleaning a toilet (or any bathroom, in general).
YOU HAVE TO WANT TO CLEAN IT
You must desire it deeply, uncompromisingly. With the sort of steadfastness that only an Ekalavya type can possess. When you have decided to clean a bathroom one morning, it must seep into every pore, and take over your being. A whole morning, nay a whole day is nothing. You are willing to give up the brunch with friends, the afternoon snooze, the curling up with the book, the checking email, the cup of filter coffee, the long run, or whatever it is that is floating your nautical vehicle at the present time.
You have it in you, or you don't.
I have it.
Note carefully that this is very different from a general desire to keep bathrooms clean on a regular basis, which boatloads of people have. Even I have it, in a very general and non-obsessive way. We are speaking here of a primeval urge to clean. Scrub. On hands and knees. The mildew. Off every fucking tile.
This doesn't happen often. In my case it approximately coincides with return trips of Halley's comet. Nevertheless, the point is to DO IT. And DO IT SUPREMELY WELL. No amount of chemical help is enough. It's a mind game, it's a marathon. And the wall is really a goddamn wall that is laughing in your face.
My autobiography will be called It's Not About The Bathroom Cleaning Chemical Thing.
Indian Railways; obsessions hereto and thereunder
It is impossible to praise IRFCA too much. Pure treasure trove of information. I recently hopped onto their hyper-active mailing list. And I thought I was train obsessed. These guys take it to the next level. For example, here is the story of one thread that I followed. A couple of days back, a new train from Vizag to Kurla (more properly VSKP-LTT) was started.
Several days before this historic event, people on the list had begun to conjecture on
(i) What will be the composition of the train?
(ii) How will it get to Kurla, i.e. which locos from which loco shed will haul it on which stretches?
(iii) Mother of God, is it possible that the thing will be pulled by a diesel engine all the way from VSKP to LTT?!!!!!!
(iv) Taking point # (iii) further, is it true, oh-please-Lord-Laupathgamineshwara-make-it-so, that the same VSKP shed WDM loco will be used all the way to Kurla? I mean, will we have a darshan of diesel in Dombivili? That too an ECoR, VSKP diesel?
et cetera
And sure enough, when the train was flagged off, railfans showed up at stations along the way to gaze lovingly upon this miracle (this is just an ordinary superfast train, mind you) whizzing over the permanent way, past the platform.
In BZA (Vijayawada to you rail challenged), Jayakar took a photograph. In BMT (Begumpet to you all !$#@!%), Vrij actually filmed the train.
And from Kurla came a breathless email, the VSKP diesel was used all the way to Bombay!!!!
Regular readers will be aware that I am the sort of person who will die of joy upon seeing a VSKP locomotive in far off places, but what a joy to find a kindred gang. I love these guys.
Monday, March 08, 2010
WTF, Hon. SC of India?
In which we may have invited judicial retribution...
Prelude:
In 2003/2004 Sushma Tiwari, a Brahmin from UP married Prabhu Nochil, an Ezhava from Kerala. They were in love. 7 months after they got married, to erase the insult to their caste and recover their honour etc. her brother Dilip and some accomplices murdered Prabhu, his father and 2 children in their Mumbai home, and left 2 others injured. A pregnant Sushma escaped because she was visiting a relative.
Cut to Now:
Today's Hindu carries a brief story. It says:
While capital punishment is demonstrably wrong, even if the SC had reduced some non-capital punishment in this case [added 2010-03-08 11:50 a.m. IST]for the reasons it lists[added ends], it would have been just a mega WTF.
I hope someone is doing him a favour and sending Ajmal Kasab this vital piece of information. Here is a sentence to get him started:
"If I became the victim of my wrong but genuine religious and patriotic considerations, it would not justify the death sentence... The vicious grip of religion and nationalism, though totally unjustified, is a stark reality." etc.
If only somehow the Delhi High Court of IPC Section 377 fame was promoted en masse into the upper echelons of the country's judiciary...
Can this blog post be construed as contempt of court? Nevertheless WTF ya.
Prelude:
In 2003/2004 Sushma Tiwari, a Brahmin from UP married Prabhu Nochil, an Ezhava from Kerala. They were in love. 7 months after they got married, to erase the insult to their caste and recover their honour etc. her brother Dilip and some accomplices murdered Prabhu, his father and 2 children in their Mumbai home, and left 2 others injured. A pregnant Sushma escaped because she was visiting a relative.
Cut to Now:
Today's Hindu carries a brief story. It says:
Although the fast track sessions court in Maharashtra, and later the Bombay High Court, awarded the death penalty to Sushma's brother Dilip Tiwari and his accomplices, the Supreme Court in December 2009 reduced the sentence to 25-year imprisonment.And why did the Supreme Court reduce the sentence? Lo and behold...
The Supreme Court, explaining its decision to revoke the death sentence, said: "It is a common experience that when the younger sister commits something unusual and in this case it was an inter-caste, intercommunity marriage out of [a] secret love affair, then in society it is the elder brother who justifiably or otherwise is held responsible for not stopping such [an] affair."clap clap clap clap.... WTF! WTF WTF WTF?!! Is there some jurisprudential nuance I'm missing here?
It added: "If he became the victim of his wrong but genuine caste considerations, it would not justify the death sentence... The vicious grip of the caste, community, religion, though totally unjustified, is a stark reality."
While capital punishment is demonstrably wrong, even if the SC had reduced some non-capital punishment in this case [added 2010-03-08 11:50 a.m. IST]for the reasons it lists[added ends], it would have been just a mega WTF.
I hope someone is doing him a favour and sending Ajmal Kasab this vital piece of information. Here is a sentence to get him started:
"If I became the victim of my wrong but genuine religious and patriotic considerations, it would not justify the death sentence... The vicious grip of religion and nationalism, though totally unjustified, is a stark reality." etc.
If only somehow the Delhi High Court of IPC Section 377 fame was promoted en masse into the upper echelons of the country's judiciary...
Can this blog post be construed as contempt of court? Nevertheless WTF ya.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Random Juvenile Humour
The below might be construed as poking fun at short people, disabled people, gay people and poets. It may disgust or offend you, to varying degrees. You have been warned.
Last week, That Man Keynes And His Homosexual Intrigues, self and S were lounging in TMKAHHI's house in Bangalore. Two somewhat dissimilar threads of conversation interleaved. On the one hand, all of us had lived in Amherst, MA at some point in our lives, and so we were therefore talking about Robert Frost. On the other hand, TMKAHHI was, in the way he does, telling us about the time a deformed midget (a flipper for one arm or something, his words) of some sort had accosted him while he was waiting at a Bangalore traffic signal and attempted to fondle him.
In the usual manner, we attempted a synthesis so that we could braid the two threads into one and save us the trouble of surreal context switching. Of course, the following resulted:
Stopping By An Autorickshaw At A Noisy Signal
-- Lewd Short Person
Whose wood this is I think I know.
Isn't his auto going rather slow?
He will not mind me stopping here
To watch his wood grow and grow.
...
And so on. At the time it seemed very clever and we nearly died of ROFLMAO. Perhaps only the fact that TMKAHHI had cremated his mother that morning kept things in check.
Last week, That Man Keynes And His Homosexual Intrigues, self and S were lounging in TMKAHHI's house in Bangalore. Two somewhat dissimilar threads of conversation interleaved. On the one hand, all of us had lived in Amherst, MA at some point in our lives, and so we were therefore talking about Robert Frost. On the other hand, TMKAHHI was, in the way he does, telling us about the time a deformed midget (a flipper for one arm or something, his words) of some sort had accosted him while he was waiting at a Bangalore traffic signal and attempted to fondle him.
In the usual manner, we attempted a synthesis so that we could braid the two threads into one and save us the trouble of surreal context switching. Of course, the following resulted:
Stopping By An Autorickshaw At A Noisy Signal
-- Lewd Short Person
Whose wood this is I think I know.
Isn't his auto going rather slow?
He will not mind me stopping here
To watch his wood grow and grow.
...
And so on. At the time it seemed very clever and we nearly died of ROFLMAO. Perhaps only the fact that TMKAHHI had cremated his mother that morning kept things in check.
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