Bobby George Abraham is a friend in the technical writing fraternity based in Trivandrum, Kerala. He is a god-loving (not god-fearing) Christian. As always, as it happens with Bottomline, the Bakrid issue went out without greetings (without the feature itself, in fact). This morning, however, I received Bakrid greetings from Bobby George Abraham. It did not matter that he was a Malayalee Christian and I was a Telugu Hindu. The festival stands for sacrifice, sharing, and charity.
Eid al-Adha (in Arabic) or Bakr Id (in India) is the "Festival of Sacrifice" which is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Isma'il) as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a ram to sacrifice instead. The meat is divided into three parts to be distributed to others. The family retains one third of the share, another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors, and the other third is given to the poor and needy.
Happy Id, Bobby George Abraham.
The Age of entertainment: Creators and consumers
In the age of entertainment, there will be two breeds of people: the creators, who design and produce objects of pleasure and leisure; and the consumers of the products designed by the creators. If you have to rank them, the consumers are the elite: they decide what is good and what is not. The designs created by the proletariat will get automatically produced and distributed by machines. There is no payment associated with the entire process. Everybody has their housing, food, transport and other needs covered. Status symbols such as a big car or a private pool will be eliminated. The rich and the poor dine at the same table.
Some creators have direct access to the entire consumer base; they are the super class among the creators. The other creators have to pass their designs through a corresponding super class of consumers. The consumer elite then forwards selected designs for mass productions. In any system, the guy who seeks approval is a supplicant: in the age of entertainment, the creators submit their work for approval. Of course, some of these creators – after many years of consistent work – get direct access to the entire consumer base, without ‘censors’. These creators are at the top of the heap in the age of entertainment.
By getting into the elite consumer class, you get the satisfaction of being in a position to decide what goes for mass production. The hoi polloi can ask for a particular design – and get a copy; but there will be no mass production without the approval of the elite consumer.
So also, the creators get the satisfaction of getting their work across to as many people as they can. The elite ‘proles’, those creators whose work goes for mass-production without censoring are the top of the pecking order; then come the elite consumers, although as the guys who decide what is good and what is bad, they have already approved some designers’ work as universally acceptable. So they have stepped to the number two slot. The next are regular creators, followed by mass consumers.
Has the time come for a change of guard in AP?
Speculation is rife that someone from Delhi will take over as the Chief Minister at the end of this week. In the Indian National Congress (INC), it is unusual for a minister or a Member of Parliament to be sent to the home state as CM. But we just had a deviation from that good tradition in Maharashtra. So also, people say that Mr S Jaipal Reddy. I beg to differ: Mr Jaipal Reddy is not a true-blue Congressman: he dallied with the Janata party and then the Janata Dal for quite some time. Mrs D Purandhareswari is required in Delhi.
It is going to be a local, very likely a Telangana woman. If Dr J Geetha Reddy is nominated, remember that you have read it in Bottomline – Trust News.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Children’s Day Comes 9 Months After…
There is a joke back in the 1990s about children’s day in India: it comes exactly 9 months after Valentine’s day. You do the math.
Another joke doing the rounds on SMS and email these days is about the similarity between Michael Jackson, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Aurthur Clarke (the author): they all loved children!
Jokes apart, let us get down to the business of the day: no cabinet changes for now – not until January. Big deal, let us wait (and speculate as ever) for another two months. And meantime, remember one of India’s great sons.
The Dharma Bhoomi…
India has been home to saints and scholars, people who made great sacrifice for the uplift of the poor and down-trodden. It is also mother of leaders and statesmen who got recognized the world over as visionaries. Mahatma Gandhi was one: we celebrate his birthday with a dry day! And then there is Jawaharlal Nehru.
The son of a wealthy Indian barrister and politician, Motilal Nehru, Nehru became a leader of the left wing of the Congress Party when still fairly young. Rising to become Congress President, under the mentorship of Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru was a charismatic and radical leader, advocating complete independence from the British Empire. In the long struggle for Indian independence, in which he was a key player, Nehru was eventually recognized as Gandhi's political heir. Throughout his life, Nehru was also an advocate for Fabian socialism and the public sector as the means by which long-standing challenges of economic development could be addressed by poorer nations.
He was heir to Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy of peace and non-violence. As one of the founders of the Non-aligned Movement, he was also an important figure in the international politics of the post-war era. He was instrumental in putting India firmly on the democratic path. Many industrialists of the pre-independence era were influenced by Nehru and his brand of paternalistic socialism, like GD Birla and JRD Tata.
Happy Birthday Chicha Nehru. [That ‘chicha’ was deliberate: that is how Chacha is called in Hyderabadi.]
Bill Gates and His Evil Foundation
The foundation of Microsoft is foul. It meant producing software and stuff at a low production cost, and extracting maximum profit from it. Thereon, you donate a part of the earnings, score browny points, get tax exemption, and some merit points in St Peter’s register at the Pearly Gates. Whereas Dhirubhai told his sons – Mukesh and Anil Ambani – to make phone calls cheaper than post cards. They have done one better: they made communication (between reliance and reliance phones) FREE. Can you beat it?
India’s unemployed and underemployed
The unemployed and under-employed in India have a great time. In the western countries, if you don’t have a job, it is a social stigma. You are cut off from a lot of things: but here, we have large famblies, various celebrations and rituals, and one can keep oneself busy through out the year.
One of my brothers is a real estate dealer. There is no business for the past three years or so (ever since he entered the field)! But he cares not. He goes to the shivalaya on Mondays, Hanuman temple on Tuesdays, Ayyappa temple on Wednesdays, Sai temple on Thursdays, and so on. He is a busy man, earning not a ‘dammidi’ (the old copper coin).
In the west, people work with extra vigor until they retire, and then don’t know what to do with their free time. In India, ‘retirees’ have a lot of fun. As do the unemployed. So which part of the world is best suited for the age of entertainment? Like when all jobs are done by machines and all that humans have to do is to find means of keeping themselves busy? The answer is India: this is where the most number of movies are produced, and viewed (on the basis of ticket sales).
Another joke doing the rounds on SMS and email these days is about the similarity between Michael Jackson, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Aurthur Clarke (the author): they all loved children!
Jokes apart, let us get down to the business of the day: no cabinet changes for now – not until January. Big deal, let us wait (and speculate as ever) for another two months. And meantime, remember one of India’s great sons.
The Dharma Bhoomi…
India has been home to saints and scholars, people who made great sacrifice for the uplift of the poor and down-trodden. It is also mother of leaders and statesmen who got recognized the world over as visionaries. Mahatma Gandhi was one: we celebrate his birthday with a dry day! And then there is Jawaharlal Nehru.
The son of a wealthy Indian barrister and politician, Motilal Nehru, Nehru became a leader of the left wing of the Congress Party when still fairly young. Rising to become Congress President, under the mentorship of Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru was a charismatic and radical leader, advocating complete independence from the British Empire. In the long struggle for Indian independence, in which he was a key player, Nehru was eventually recognized as Gandhi's political heir. Throughout his life, Nehru was also an advocate for Fabian socialism and the public sector as the means by which long-standing challenges of economic development could be addressed by poorer nations.
He was heir to Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy of peace and non-violence. As one of the founders of the Non-aligned Movement, he was also an important figure in the international politics of the post-war era. He was instrumental in putting India firmly on the democratic path. Many industrialists of the pre-independence era were influenced by Nehru and his brand of paternalistic socialism, like GD Birla and JRD Tata.
Happy Birthday Chicha Nehru. [That ‘chicha’ was deliberate: that is how Chacha is called in Hyderabadi.]
Bill Gates and His Evil Foundation
The foundation of Microsoft is foul. It meant producing software and stuff at a low production cost, and extracting maximum profit from it. Thereon, you donate a part of the earnings, score browny points, get tax exemption, and some merit points in St Peter’s register at the Pearly Gates. Whereas Dhirubhai told his sons – Mukesh and Anil Ambani – to make phone calls cheaper than post cards. They have done one better: they made communication (between reliance and reliance phones) FREE. Can you beat it?
India’s unemployed and underemployed
The unemployed and under-employed in India have a great time. In the western countries, if you don’t have a job, it is a social stigma. You are cut off from a lot of things: but here, we have large famblies, various celebrations and rituals, and one can keep oneself busy through out the year.
One of my brothers is a real estate dealer. There is no business for the past three years or so (ever since he entered the field)! But he cares not. He goes to the shivalaya on Mondays, Hanuman temple on Tuesdays, Ayyappa temple on Wednesdays, Sai temple on Thursdays, and so on. He is a busy man, earning not a ‘dammidi’ (the old copper coin).
In the west, people work with extra vigor until they retire, and then don’t know what to do with their free time. In India, ‘retirees’ have a lot of fun. As do the unemployed. So which part of the world is best suited for the age of entertainment? Like when all jobs are done by machines and all that humans have to do is to find means of keeping themselves busy? The answer is India: this is where the most number of movies are produced, and viewed (on the basis of ticket sales).
Friday, November 12, 2010
Happiness Now… the Great Indian Joint Family
There is this story of a guy resting under a tree along a motorway. A businessman, going by that way, stops his car – just to take a short break and look at the countryside – and approaches the lazy guy. He asks: “why don’t you do something productive and profitable?”
The lazy guy says: “What will happen if I indulge in industry, tirelessly, like you? The rich man tells him that he can earn a lot of money. “What happens then? says the lazy guy. The rich man says: “You can save a lot of money, and build a house, etc.” The lazy guy quips: “Then what?” The rich man is upset, but chooses to proceed with the conversation, because it is intriguing to him that someone doesn’t understand the meaning of earning and saving, which is all he thought of so far. He says: “Well, you can rest for the rest of your life and enjoy the leisure…”
“That is what I was doing over there before you came and started this whole pointless conversation…” said the lazy man. Humans are known for delayed pleasure, and working their heads off to get there. No longer. We want happiness now. And happiness happens in the head.
Man, machine and the dog
Some sociologist (or futurologist), one of my students at the world school would know – that there will be only two employees in future industries: a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to see to it that the man does not go anywhere near the equipment. That was in essence what the author of “The Age of Entertainment” wrote about. We are not anywhere near that scene right now, but it looks like robots and other technologies will lead to such an eventuality.
Then what would we do, as humans, with all our leisure? My mother has the answer: she gets up at 9, has coffee, looks at the paper. [So in the age of entertainment, we should have newspapers and new channels] Then she goes for a wash, does a bit of puja, and has breakfast. Then begins her tryst with day-television. [Forget about night, or even evening, day-television is going to be big in the age of entertainment.] She goes on watching, actually listening to, the sounds of her favourite language – in fact the only language she knows (Telugu).
She is not very sure what is the difference between the box out there now (a television set) and the box in the olden times (a radio receiver). This goes on until 9 in the night, with lunch, evening coffee, and a dinner happening with the idiot box on all of the time. She briefly exercises her limbs around 6 p.m. for a few minutes and she really lives the life of a person belonging to the ‘leisure’ class.
I would like a life style like hers, with a minor variation: she writes the name of Srirama in a book, maybe fills a half page per day; I would write an occasional article about what the young people wear today. [Like the ‘piece’ Bertie Wooster wrote for his aunt’s magazine, Milady’s Boudoir.] My style is grunge, but I see guys spending an arm and a leg literally to get the grunge tag! I wish to ‘disambiguate’ that scenario.
We have bigger houses and smaller families
Germaine Greer visited India twenty years ago, and wrote about the great Indian joint family – which is like an MNC operating in multiple locations. I belong to a big family: one of my brothers is in my home town, I am in Hyderabad, another brother of mine too is in the same street. Two brothers are peripatetic. When my sister visits Hyderabad, she parks herself at my place but spends a lot of time at my brothers. We are almost a joint family – without living under one roof. I consult my brother in Mumbai about a television set I need to buy for mom. My bank statement goes to my brother’s flat down the street. I am not married, and all my siblings take decisions on my behalf.
I don’t know what intrigued Germaine Greer about the great Indian family. It intrigues me, too, what Julia Roberts found intriguing about Hinduism. Is it that the bigger-houses, smaller-families thingie triggers this passion for India?
The lazy guy says: “What will happen if I indulge in industry, tirelessly, like you? The rich man tells him that he can earn a lot of money. “What happens then? says the lazy guy. The rich man says: “You can save a lot of money, and build a house, etc.” The lazy guy quips: “Then what?” The rich man is upset, but chooses to proceed with the conversation, because it is intriguing to him that someone doesn’t understand the meaning of earning and saving, which is all he thought of so far. He says: “Well, you can rest for the rest of your life and enjoy the leisure…”
“That is what I was doing over there before you came and started this whole pointless conversation…” said the lazy man. Humans are known for delayed pleasure, and working their heads off to get there. No longer. We want happiness now. And happiness happens in the head.
Man, machine and the dog
Some sociologist (or futurologist), one of my students at the world school would know – that there will be only two employees in future industries: a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog, and the dog is there to see to it that the man does not go anywhere near the equipment. That was in essence what the author of “The Age of Entertainment” wrote about. We are not anywhere near that scene right now, but it looks like robots and other technologies will lead to such an eventuality.
Then what would we do, as humans, with all our leisure? My mother has the answer: she gets up at 9, has coffee, looks at the paper. [So in the age of entertainment, we should have newspapers and new channels] Then she goes for a wash, does a bit of puja, and has breakfast. Then begins her tryst with day-television. [Forget about night, or even evening, day-television is going to be big in the age of entertainment.] She goes on watching, actually listening to, the sounds of her favourite language – in fact the only language she knows (Telugu).
She is not very sure what is the difference between the box out there now (a television set) and the box in the olden times (a radio receiver). This goes on until 9 in the night, with lunch, evening coffee, and a dinner happening with the idiot box on all of the time. She briefly exercises her limbs around 6 p.m. for a few minutes and she really lives the life of a person belonging to the ‘leisure’ class.
I would like a life style like hers, with a minor variation: she writes the name of Srirama in a book, maybe fills a half page per day; I would write an occasional article about what the young people wear today. [Like the ‘piece’ Bertie Wooster wrote for his aunt’s magazine, Milady’s Boudoir.] My style is grunge, but I see guys spending an arm and a leg literally to get the grunge tag! I wish to ‘disambiguate’ that scenario.
We have bigger houses and smaller families
Germaine Greer visited India twenty years ago, and wrote about the great Indian joint family – which is like an MNC operating in multiple locations. I belong to a big family: one of my brothers is in my home town, I am in Hyderabad, another brother of mine too is in the same street. Two brothers are peripatetic. When my sister visits Hyderabad, she parks herself at my place but spends a lot of time at my brothers. We are almost a joint family – without living under one roof. I consult my brother in Mumbai about a television set I need to buy for mom. My bank statement goes to my brother’s flat down the street. I am not married, and all my siblings take decisions on my behalf.
I don’t know what intrigued Germaine Greer about the great Indian family. It intrigues me, too, what Julia Roberts found intriguing about Hinduism. Is it that the bigger-houses, smaller-families thingie triggers this passion for India?
Because you don’t know to be drunk on moonlight…
Because you can’t say, Shri Shri, between darkness and light
Between Big Brother and and the Heavens above
Because You did not care, not I, Nor care now
Or ever, if you get the drift of it now…
Because, you did not know to be wise and honest,
Did neither cherish the thrills of leisure nor care,
Because you did not know that happiness happens in the head,
Not in the Netherlands…
Because you did not care to dream
Beyond the realm of doubt – into certainty
Because you did no think beyond
The obvious and the trivial
Because you did not see beyond
The obvious and the trivial…
Because you did not build upon your dream
Into the realm of the possible
Because you did not care less what the nasty dynasties
Of yore and now, and the English Devis,
Of yore and now, and the trinity of language, caste, religion
What nasty dynasties play upon, from English to Devis
Because you did know what moonlight meant,
Mac or Bill, or whatever you are; Not I…
Because you did not know what it took to be
Resolute, erudite, sophisticated, and above all, Avonte Garde
Because I was the first to get there
Not you…
Between Big Brother and and the Heavens above
Because You did not care, not I, Nor care now
Or ever, if you get the drift of it now…
Because, you did not know to be wise and honest,
Did neither cherish the thrills of leisure nor care,
Because you did not know that happiness happens in the head,
Not in the Netherlands…
Because you did not care to dream
Beyond the realm of doubt – into certainty
Because you did no think beyond
The obvious and the trivial
Because you did not see beyond
The obvious and the trivial…
Because you did not build upon your dream
Into the realm of the possible
Because you did not care less what the nasty dynasties
Of yore and now, and the English Devis,
Of yore and now, and the trinity of language, caste, religion
What nasty dynasties play upon, from English to Devis
Because you did know what moonlight meant,
Mac or Bill, or whatever you are; Not I…
Because you did not know what it took to be
Resolute, erudite, sophisticated, and above all, Avonte Garde
Because I was the first to get there
Not you…
Ratan Tata and Dhirubhai Ambani, and the ‘aam admi’
When Mukesh and Anil Ambani mooted the idea of a wireless network company (which eventually took shape as Reliance Mobile), the old man who was in bed then asked them how much a post card cost. Perhaps he did not use a post card in some decades by then; anyway, the brother told him that it was 15 paise. It has been 15 paise since I was a child (my father was a prolific post card writer, who at best wrote an occasional in-land letter card.) The story goes that the legendary Dhirubhai told his sons that they should go ahead with the project (of the wireless network) if they could make it cheaper for the ‘aam janta’ to communicate over their network than to send a post card.
Forget about instant communication, the old man wanted them to make it cheaper than a post card which could take more than a week to get to the remote villages. And did the brothers do it! Not only Reliance, but other networks now offer SMS for 1 paisa per message. If you need to convey some information – critical in some cases – without taking recourse to text messaging (making sure that the other guy is ‘online’), you could do it in 10 seconds and pay 10 paise – over the network I subscribe to. There are cheaper options too, but I am happy with what I got. I am not too good at math now (not as sharp as I was in my school days).
Does Bill Gates make software ‘accessible’ to the ‘aam admi’? No, he makes us pay through our noses. And then donates a wee bit of his ‘fortune’ for charity. He gets on world trips exhorting other people to donate. Can there be a bigger joke than that?
Gandhi, Nehru, and the Tatas
J R D was a staunch nationalist. He built companies to build India. He actually flew the first ever plane by an Indian. When time came, he happily conceded ‘his’ company to the government. In case some of you don’t know, Indian air lines and Air India are Tata businesses that were nationalized. Not that J R D had an option, but what is important is that he ceded his business willingly.
Ratan Tata, now, started the biggest revolution in transportation – the Nano car. Read all about it in Small Wonder…
My date with the dentist
This was two months ago. I had excruciating tooth ache. I went to the dentist and he suggested some antibiotics, and told me to come back if the pain doesn’t go away. Well, the pain was gone for a few days but returned with rejuvenated vigor in three days. Back I went up the steps of the dentists surgery, well before he commenced his practice in the evening, and waited. He took a look, and said we need to do a root canal. Having heard terrible tales of woe of people who underwent a root canal and had it haunting them for years to come, I meekly asked him: Can’t you just pull it out?
Dr Kiran Kumar, the dentist, laughed and said: Pulling the tooth out is going to cause you the same pain as doing a root canal. (A root-canal treatment is more expensive, but I recommend that we open it up, and see if we can save it through root-canal treatment.) Initially, I told him to start the good work. But then, in a while I said, let me start the procedure later in the week. I was not mentally prepared. (Dentist dentist let me go; I’ll come again another day…)
He prescribed another course of antibiotics for the three days to come and set me free. Three days later the pain was back, and this time I mustered enough courage to mount the dentist’s chair. He is an excellent dentist: the procedure got over in two weeks (four sittings) and I am able to use that tooth as well as I use the others. It has been two months, as I said, and I am extremely happy with the results.
Bottomline recommends: Dr K Kiran Kumar (MDS) of Kirans Multispeciality Dental Hospital in Vidya Nagar, on the road from RTC X Roads to Hindi Maha Vidyalaya.
Forget about instant communication, the old man wanted them to make it cheaper than a post card which could take more than a week to get to the remote villages. And did the brothers do it! Not only Reliance, but other networks now offer SMS for 1 paisa per message. If you need to convey some information – critical in some cases – without taking recourse to text messaging (making sure that the other guy is ‘online’), you could do it in 10 seconds and pay 10 paise – over the network I subscribe to. There are cheaper options too, but I am happy with what I got. I am not too good at math now (not as sharp as I was in my school days).
Does Bill Gates make software ‘accessible’ to the ‘aam admi’? No, he makes us pay through our noses. And then donates a wee bit of his ‘fortune’ for charity. He gets on world trips exhorting other people to donate. Can there be a bigger joke than that?
Gandhi, Nehru, and the Tatas
J R D was a staunch nationalist. He built companies to build India. He actually flew the first ever plane by an Indian. When time came, he happily conceded ‘his’ company to the government. In case some of you don’t know, Indian air lines and Air India are Tata businesses that were nationalized. Not that J R D had an option, but what is important is that he ceded his business willingly.
Ratan Tata, now, started the biggest revolution in transportation – the Nano car. Read all about it in Small Wonder…
My date with the dentist
This was two months ago. I had excruciating tooth ache. I went to the dentist and he suggested some antibiotics, and told me to come back if the pain doesn’t go away. Well, the pain was gone for a few days but returned with rejuvenated vigor in three days. Back I went up the steps of the dentists surgery, well before he commenced his practice in the evening, and waited. He took a look, and said we need to do a root canal. Having heard terrible tales of woe of people who underwent a root canal and had it haunting them for years to come, I meekly asked him: Can’t you just pull it out?
Dr Kiran Kumar, the dentist, laughed and said: Pulling the tooth out is going to cause you the same pain as doing a root canal. (A root-canal treatment is more expensive, but I recommend that we open it up, and see if we can save it through root-canal treatment.) Initially, I told him to start the good work. But then, in a while I said, let me start the procedure later in the week. I was not mentally prepared. (Dentist dentist let me go; I’ll come again another day…)
He prescribed another course of antibiotics for the three days to come and set me free. Three days later the pain was back, and this time I mustered enough courage to mount the dentist’s chair. He is an excellent dentist: the procedure got over in two weeks (four sittings) and I am able to use that tooth as well as I use the others. It has been two months, as I said, and I am extremely happy with the results.
Bottomline recommends: Dr K Kiran Kumar (MDS) of Kirans Multispeciality Dental Hospital in Vidya Nagar, on the road from RTC X Roads to Hindi Maha Vidyalaya.
How Could We Forget Balagopal?
Bottomline doesn’t claim to get there first (or anywhere near it before the whole world knows about it). Our fame to claim is to bring another perspective, a bit ‘hatke’ from the usual stories. What I usually do is to go through the top stories of the day, breaking in from online sources and choose two or three interesting ones and put a different spin on them.
It has been more than ten days since the death anniversary of the late professor L Balagopal, who was the leading light in the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Council early in his career and broke away from them to form the Andhra Pradesh Human Rights Commission – decrying the violence let loose by the naxalites, sometimes targeted at the common people.
I did see the story but kind of sat on it: thousand apologies. Not that the big blunder I committed can be attenuated by a million apologies even. It would have been a fit occasion to remind people of the blog I wrote earlier, on Professor L Balagopal, and to compare Balagopal’s polemics with those of Arundhati Roy.
I also missed an opportunity to join the few people who organized a meeting on the occasion. When I learn to use the cell-phone organizer to remind me, more than birthdays and things, I am going to set up a reminder of L Balagopal’s death anniversary.
Talking of reminders of death anniversaries, there is a ‘dharma satram’ in Varanasi, where you pay a certain amount; the trust which overseas the ‘satram’ puts that in a fund, and year after year, they give free food to people who come by. Those who sponsor the meal get a post card every year that on such and such day (the death anniversary of the person in whose name you made the donation), meals were provided (or will be provided). And because it comes from the cultural and religious capital of India – as my friend Sanjeev Pandey refers to his home town – the date on it authentic: sometimes there is confusion about the ‘thithi’ (date) and this post card often comes in to clarify on the dispute.
The real assets of IT companies
I had always suspected it, that the IT companies’ shares soar so high because of their land holdings, not so much for the profits they make. Of course N R Narayana Murthy wants us to believe that shareholders’ value is in the people they have (a school drop out like Bill Gates could founded the biggest software empire) and their customer base.
But here is the Infosys annual report said: “Creating land banks was a key challenge. We persuaded state governments to allot us land.” At throw-away prices, he did not say. Following these statements, Sugata Srinivasaraju did a story in the Outlook (7 November, 2005). The devil must be given its due (and so must be Vinod Mehta and his crew).
Kudos, Outlook.
Sidharth Shankar Ray’s demise
Bottomline caught up with this rather quick, considering the usual response time. An interesting thing about this gentleman is that he won an election as an independent support by the left! Johar
Engish Devi: Temples of the new age
Nehru said that big dams and industrial installations are the temples of the new age: Arundhati Roy damns them unconditionally but that is beside the point. Now the dalit bahujans in U.P. are building a temple for the English language. Lord Mecaulay would have loved to unveil the reification and deification of his scheme for India and the Indian middle class.
Hyderabadi tongue
I promised once that I will introduce peculiar Hyderabadi expression which would pose a challenge to a Hindi speaker from the north. Consider: kapda marna; kapda means cloth and marna means beat. Put together, what sense could an outsider make? It means, “Clean the table by beating the cloth on it”.
Now how about this one? ‘anjan marna…’ Stranger hit? It means ‘to behave like a stranger, show no recognition of the other person’. This is said in a light-hearted banter, when the other person hasn’t seen you or heard you in the first place.
It has been more than ten days since the death anniversary of the late professor L Balagopal, who was the leading light in the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Council early in his career and broke away from them to form the Andhra Pradesh Human Rights Commission – decrying the violence let loose by the naxalites, sometimes targeted at the common people.
I did see the story but kind of sat on it: thousand apologies. Not that the big blunder I committed can be attenuated by a million apologies even. It would have been a fit occasion to remind people of the blog I wrote earlier, on Professor L Balagopal, and to compare Balagopal’s polemics with those of Arundhati Roy.
I also missed an opportunity to join the few people who organized a meeting on the occasion. When I learn to use the cell-phone organizer to remind me, more than birthdays and things, I am going to set up a reminder of L Balagopal’s death anniversary.
Talking of reminders of death anniversaries, there is a ‘dharma satram’ in Varanasi, where you pay a certain amount; the trust which overseas the ‘satram’ puts that in a fund, and year after year, they give free food to people who come by. Those who sponsor the meal get a post card every year that on such and such day (the death anniversary of the person in whose name you made the donation), meals were provided (or will be provided). And because it comes from the cultural and religious capital of India – as my friend Sanjeev Pandey refers to his home town – the date on it authentic: sometimes there is confusion about the ‘thithi’ (date) and this post card often comes in to clarify on the dispute.
The real assets of IT companies
I had always suspected it, that the IT companies’ shares soar so high because of their land holdings, not so much for the profits they make. Of course N R Narayana Murthy wants us to believe that shareholders’ value is in the people they have (a school drop out like Bill Gates could founded the biggest software empire) and their customer base.
But here is the Infosys annual report said: “Creating land banks was a key challenge. We persuaded state governments to allot us land.” At throw-away prices, he did not say. Following these statements, Sugata Srinivasaraju did a story in the Outlook (7 November, 2005). The devil must be given its due (and so must be Vinod Mehta and his crew).
Kudos, Outlook.
Sidharth Shankar Ray’s demise
Bottomline caught up with this rather quick, considering the usual response time. An interesting thing about this gentleman is that he won an election as an independent support by the left! Johar
Engish Devi: Temples of the new age
Nehru said that big dams and industrial installations are the temples of the new age: Arundhati Roy damns them unconditionally but that is beside the point. Now the dalit bahujans in U.P. are building a temple for the English language. Lord Mecaulay would have loved to unveil the reification and deification of his scheme for India and the Indian middle class.
Hyderabadi tongue
I promised once that I will introduce peculiar Hyderabadi expression which would pose a challenge to a Hindi speaker from the north. Consider: kapda marna; kapda means cloth and marna means beat. Put together, what sense could an outsider make? It means, “Clean the table by beating the cloth on it”.
Now how about this one? ‘anjan marna…’ Stranger hit? It means ‘to behave like a stranger, show no recognition of the other person’. This is said in a light-hearted banter, when the other person hasn’t seen you or heard you in the first place.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Which Side Are You On: Good Or Evil?
Kancha Ilaiah, of whom I spoke earlier in this column, had a meeting yesterday to celebrate Narakasura Vardhanti. His logic was that upper caste Hindus – led by Brahmins – have oppressed the dalit bahujans (maybe Dravidians) of this country, to the extent that even the dalit gods have been represented as evil. Naraka is just one of them: so let us now celebrate his ascent to the ‘other world’.
OK, I do agree that history, and myth created out of history, has a slant favoring the victor; in this case, it is the upper caste Hindus. Why then wage a war against Hindu gods and goddesses? Like B R Ambedkar, why not convert to Buddhism (or, Christianity). Why remain a ‘Hindu’ on paper, and then cry aloud that one is not a Hindu. On another occasion, I had said that there is no ritual associated with converting oneself to Hinduism (so, I advised Julia Roberts to take it easy). So also, there is no need to ‘prove’ that one is not a Hindu: you just say so, and you are relieved of the burden of centuries of oppression.
Then again, all Hindus, upper-caste or dalit bahujan (and even some Christians) celebrate Onam, Which is the largest festival in Kerala. It marks the homecoming of the legendary King Mahabali. The festival lasts for ten days and is linked to many elements of Kerala's culture and tradition. Intricate flower carpets, elaborate banquet lunch, snake boat races, and kaikottikkali dance all play a part in the festival.
The Asura Dynasty of Prgjyothisha
Narakasura and his kingdom, Pragjyotisha, find mention in both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, in the sections which were written not before the first century. His son, Bhagadatta, is said to have fought for the Kauravas in the Mahabharata battle. (Interestingly, the Andhra tribe which migrated to current Andhra Pradesh also fought with Karna: many people have names like Karan in the Telangana region.) The Naraka myth gets the most extensive elaboration in the Upapurana called Kalika Purana (10th century), which was composed in Assam itself. Here the legend of Janaka of Videha, the father of Sita, is embellished and added to the legend of Naraka. There are conflicting and entangled tales associated with Naraka. The word ‘naraka’ itself means the nether world in Sanskrit.
The legend of Narakasura is important in the history of Assam since Narakasura is cited as the progenitor of many dynasties that ruled Kamarupa in historical times. A hill, to the south of Guwahati is named after him. He is also associated with the myth of the shakta goddess and place of worship Kamakhya. My colleague Mr Talukdar (who hails from Assam) says that the mongoloid kings were the so-called asuras Thus, according to him Narakasura is not mentioned in relation to Diwali; it is celebrated as the day Ram returned to Ayodhya after killing Ravana; this is the myth prevalent in northern India.
The festival of lights
I overheard someone from the front office asking a colleague how he celebrated Diwali. He said that he was a Christian. So what, the lady quipped, it is just a festival of lights! (Why do so many of us celebrate Christmas – mainly at pubs and night clubs :) Indeed, in neighboring China, there is the lantern festival (which, curiously, is celebrated more in Singapore than in Mainland China) around the onset of winter.
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely…
The epics Ramayana and Mahabharata were written and rewritten over centuries and various digressions got added to it, so the coherence of these stories is in peril. Other texts also have undergone changes over a period of time. Essentially, in most cases, we see that the epics and other texts talk about the victory of good over evil. Very often, we see that the ‘evil’ is nothing but a great person who gets powers from the Gods (like Ravana, Naraka, Hiranya Kashipa), and starts abusing his power: that is, the power gets into their head.
Often, it is written by the victor, and the victor paints the loser as evil. The point is, let us do reexamine these myths and legends: but let us not promote hatred for one another. It is the strength of India that a Malayali from Kerala, who believes that their King Mahabali visits them once every year and an Asomi who believes that Naraka was their deity, and a north Indian who believes that Vishnu killed both Bali and Naraka and that he was a part of the trinity – can share a table, at a restaurant, or the dais on the eve of diwali.
Three cheers to Narakasura!
OK, I do agree that history, and myth created out of history, has a slant favoring the victor; in this case, it is the upper caste Hindus. Why then wage a war against Hindu gods and goddesses? Like B R Ambedkar, why not convert to Buddhism (or, Christianity). Why remain a ‘Hindu’ on paper, and then cry aloud that one is not a Hindu. On another occasion, I had said that there is no ritual associated with converting oneself to Hinduism (so, I advised Julia Roberts to take it easy). So also, there is no need to ‘prove’ that one is not a Hindu: you just say so, and you are relieved of the burden of centuries of oppression.
Then again, all Hindus, upper-caste or dalit bahujan (and even some Christians) celebrate Onam, Which is the largest festival in Kerala. It marks the homecoming of the legendary King Mahabali. The festival lasts for ten days and is linked to many elements of Kerala's culture and tradition. Intricate flower carpets, elaborate banquet lunch, snake boat races, and kaikottikkali dance all play a part in the festival.
The Asura Dynasty of Prgjyothisha
Narakasura and his kingdom, Pragjyotisha, find mention in both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, in the sections which were written not before the first century. His son, Bhagadatta, is said to have fought for the Kauravas in the Mahabharata battle. (Interestingly, the Andhra tribe which migrated to current Andhra Pradesh also fought with Karna: many people have names like Karan in the Telangana region.) The Naraka myth gets the most extensive elaboration in the Upapurana called Kalika Purana (10th century), which was composed in Assam itself. Here the legend of Janaka of Videha, the father of Sita, is embellished and added to the legend of Naraka. There are conflicting and entangled tales associated with Naraka. The word ‘naraka’ itself means the nether world in Sanskrit.
The legend of Narakasura is important in the history of Assam since Narakasura is cited as the progenitor of many dynasties that ruled Kamarupa in historical times. A hill, to the south of Guwahati is named after him. He is also associated with the myth of the shakta goddess and place of worship Kamakhya. My colleague Mr Talukdar (who hails from Assam) says that the mongoloid kings were the so-called asuras Thus, according to him Narakasura is not mentioned in relation to Diwali; it is celebrated as the day Ram returned to Ayodhya after killing Ravana; this is the myth prevalent in northern India.
The festival of lights
I overheard someone from the front office asking a colleague how he celebrated Diwali. He said that he was a Christian. So what, the lady quipped, it is just a festival of lights! (Why do so many of us celebrate Christmas – mainly at pubs and night clubs :) Indeed, in neighboring China, there is the lantern festival (which, curiously, is celebrated more in Singapore than in Mainland China) around the onset of winter.
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely…
The epics Ramayana and Mahabharata were written and rewritten over centuries and various digressions got added to it, so the coherence of these stories is in peril. Other texts also have undergone changes over a period of time. Essentially, in most cases, we see that the epics and other texts talk about the victory of good over evil. Very often, we see that the ‘evil’ is nothing but a great person who gets powers from the Gods (like Ravana, Naraka, Hiranya Kashipa), and starts abusing his power: that is, the power gets into their head.
Often, it is written by the victor, and the victor paints the loser as evil. The point is, let us do reexamine these myths and legends: but let us not promote hatred for one another. It is the strength of India that a Malayali from Kerala, who believes that their King Mahabali visits them once every year and an Asomi who believes that Naraka was their deity, and a north Indian who believes that Vishnu killed both Bali and Naraka and that he was a part of the trinity – can share a table, at a restaurant, or the dais on the eve of diwali.
Three cheers to Narakasura!
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