How to think moral, liberal and progressive: A ready reckoner

Are you worried your friends will ostracize you for your primitive conservative views? Are you concerned that the media may label you as an uneducated immoral bigoted neanderthal lout based on your opinions? Fret not! Your conservatism can be easily cured. Given below are a few short rules that clearly tell you what to think, if you intend to be moral, liberal and progressive. The rules have been filtered from the expressed opinions of liberal thought leaders - Indian media outlets, progressive authors, theater artistes, National Advisory Council members and well-fed guilty Indian liberals. Follow the guide below to evolve into a progressive human, Homo v 2.0.

Generic - Opinions held true by enlightened liberals the world over:

01 - Labor good; Capital bad.

02 - Apple good; Microsoft bad.

04 - Socialism good; Capitalism bad.

03 - Agriculture good; Industry bad.

05 - Homosexuals good; Religious bad.

06 - Immigration good; Border controls bad.

07 - Marxists and Maoists good; Soldiers bad.

08 - Taxes good; Private property rights bad.

09 - Dole and subsidies good; Tax breaks bad.

10 - Big government good; Big corporate bad.

11 - Women (victims) good; Men (perpetrators) bad.

12 - Feminist (feminist) good; Masculist (misogynist) bad.

13 - Promiscuity, adultery, divorce good; (Hetero) Marriage bad.

14 - Human rights for terrorists good; Human rights for their victims bad.

15 - Killing male fetuses good; Killing female fetuses and hardened murderers bad.

16 - Drugs and alcohol (Rave parties, bars, pubs) good; Pharmaceutical companies bad.

17 - Palestine (and its misunderstood rocket-firing youth) good; Israel (and its Jews) bad.

18 - Reservations for 'disadvantaged' (E.g., Rich women) good; Questioning effectiveness of these crutches bad.

19 - Discrimination by and for 'disadvantaged' (empowerment) good; Discrimination upon and against 'disadvantaged' (harassment) bad.

20 - Minority (gods, idols, icons, rights, festivals, customs, traditions, music, languages, places of worship, laws, holy books, beliefs, food, leaders, feelings, opinions, rioters) good; Majority bad.

Specific - Opinions unique to enlightened liberals of India:

21 - Kashmiris and Pakistanis good; Gujaratis bad.

22 - Love marriage good; Arranged marriage bad.

23 - Beef good; Vegetarianism (elitist), cows and jallikattu (bull-taming) bad.

24 - M F Husain (artistic freedom) good; Salman Rushdie (blasphemous provocation) bad.

25 - Secular political parties (including minority communal parties) good; (Majority) Communal political parties bad.

Extra Credit - A few thoughts to commit to memory. Repeat ad nauseum:

Social justice and 'truthiness' trump evidence.

Facts are necessarily politically correct.

Truth is a matter of opinion.

Rules are for other people.

Now, score yourself (out of 25; 1 for each point you agree to, 0 for each you don't) to determine your position in the spectrum between conservative caveman (0) and liberal fairy (25). When you maximize your score, expect the following to happen:

01 - Minstrels will sing songs about you.

02 - You will fart rainbows ala Nyan Cat.

03 - You will be visibly (and audibly) shocked and appalled by anything remotely rightist.

04 - The government will treat your suggestions on how to waste others' money as gospel truth.

05 - You can bring about world peace and universal brotherhood, if only everybody listened to you.

06 - The love child of a female Padmashree (FYI: NOT a Pulitzer Prize equivalent) awardee journalist and a female Booker Prize awardee author will be your groupie.

Relics of a different age

If we can't vote them out, we deserve to be ruled by them

Clairvoyant

In honor of all the equity research analysts who make market predictions that are as reliable as those of the friendly neighborhood weatherman

The circle of time

As the Indian film industry music output for the last two decades has been mediocre, most Indians born before 1990 hark back to the nostalgic 1950s, 60s and 70s. That was the music we've grown up listening to and shaking a leg to. Remember "ye akashvani hai", "rangoli" and "bhoole bisre geet"? The impression quite a few of us have, on the Indian film-music industry is that old is gold, and barring a few exceptions, the recent musicians merely rehash/copy old tunes, or foreign ones they are "inspired" by. Well, to mitigate this confirmation bias, here's something that may have slipped your notice.

Beatles - I wanna hold your hand (1964)

Rafi - Dekho ab to, Janwar (1965)

I see what you did there...

A modern all-Indian fantasy tale

Once upon a time, there was a country named Paradise. It had an ancient history, was once the richest country in the world and was freed from evil oppressors by a revolutionary who channeled ancient principles to unite all citizens to a cohesive non-violent unit that the colonial power had no answer to. 

However, not all was well of late. There was trouble in Paradise. Once the colonial powers left, the government that the Paradisans created was slowly but steadily taken over by evil aliens. The aliens looked, spoke and acted exactly the same as the honest, upright Paradisans. In fact, they were identical to the Paradisans in all aspects but one. They were corrupt!!! However, some aliens purported to be representatives of the paradisans and regularly contested elections against one another, just so people have the illusion of choice.

While the Paradisans lived a life that was a mix of idealism and pragmatism, their honesty was never questionable. They never lied, they never faked expenses to avail tax benefits, they never possessed any black money (they always sold houses without taking any black money), they never overcharged customers or hoarded goods in short supply, they never paid bribes to policemen to be let off with a smaller fine than the just punishment for their traffic violations.

Meanwhile, the aliens had eaten much of the innards of the Paradise public life and had lost all fear of being punished for their actions. The aliens siphoned off huge sums of money to foreign lands, making the Paradisans poor and miserable. The honest Paradisans were distraught and outraged, but there was nothing they could do about the bad aliens that were controlling their life. They felt that the aliens just took over from the departing colonial powers and they had never enjoyed freedom at all. Their hopes and dreams were crushed by aliens (even though the aliens were a microscopic proportion of the numbers of Paradisans). Paradise was unraveling before their very eyes.

Then one fine summer morning, a white knight came riding from the horizon. He was accompanied by a band of decorated knights in rainbow cloaks. All the knights were Paradisans of unquestionable integrity (like all the other Paradisans). In fact, so unquestionable that questioning the integrity of any of them would forever taint the credentials of the person asking the questions. The white knight had with him a sheet of paper. The sheet of paper was the deliverance Paradisans had been waiting for. The sheet of paper was also one of unquestionable intent. Questioning its intent, pointing to logical flaws and logistic impossibilities would turn the questioner into an alien.

The knights and the aliens battled long and hard. The battle reached epic proportions, and every Paradisan was directly backing the knights by burning hydrocarbons to cause illumination and by recording missed calls on communication devices. The knights channeled the energies and ancient principles used by the revolutionary (mentioned before) in letter and spirit. Long story short, Knights 1, Aliens 0. The age of the aliens had passed. It was a new dawn.

After the victory, the knights set about implementing the instructions in the sheet of paper. They recruited the services of 20,000 of the honest incorruptible Paradisans to find the aliens hiding in Parliament and government buildings and hang them. The knights and the legion of 20000 (their pals) also set about to get back the wealth of Paradise that the aliens had looted. Turns out, it was easier than it seemed. All the white knight had to do was skip a few meals for a few days and the dragon hoarding all the wealth got scared and returned all the money to the pals. The pals used all this money to develop Paradise, and also handed out the money back to the honest Paradisans by means of credits to their bank accounts.  The elections were now contested only by honest Paradisans and not aliens.

Also, the air was cleaner, the sun rose from the west and Paradisans lifespans were now doubled. All was well. It's just another day in paradise.

Aarection

So there's this Indian movie "Aarakshan" (reservation), apparently about the reservation system in Indian colleges, that has been raising quite some hackles of late. A few politicians have banned the movie from playing in cinemas in their states, ostensibly to prevent social unrest, but actually to showcase themselves as protectors of the backwards' causes, for obvious electoral reasons. The stage was set for a debate on whether reserving 50% of the seats in higher education (and elite institutions) in favor of socially backward classes would achieve equality of opportunity and correct historic wrongs apparently committed by my ancestors against yours, or if that agenda has been hijacked by populist politicians (reservations were supposed to last for just 10 years post independence) who are willfully destroying the Indian education system by creating an entitlement system, lowering standards, ignoring merit, wasting scarce resources and driving wedges between youth of different sections of society. Aarakshan had an opportunity to look into all aspects of reservation.

But, ‎Aarakshan is not about reservation. It is about Hitler+Anna (Hazard)+Eddard (Stark) fighting against.. errr... coaching centers.

Plot outline

The plot was a refresher course on how most Indian movies have a  meandering incoherent weak plot punctuated with needless songs, hamming and bad-guys-that-look-obviously-evil-thus-preventing-confusion-and-divided-loyalties. So, Amitabh is this superhero in the field of education, principal of a college, with everyone falling at his feet, ruling his kingdom with an iron fist and principles. Then reservation arguments last 10 minutes. Misquoted by media due to a tutorial villain, he loses his job. He loses his house to the same villain, who has opened a coaching center in the very house of our superman, just to spite him. After much victimization, our superman finally fights tutorials by providing free tuitions in a cowshed and destroys the evil coaching center guy. The end. They should've named it "Super Tabela" or "Aaarrrrgh". However, "Aarakshan" will lead to more publicity. Hence the name.

Comic relief

Sudden song-dance routines in the first half, some random love story (so that we can have the aforementioned songs), a phone call from Cornell with a number starting +9122 (the dialing code for Mumbai in India), very clean slums, a hotel that doubles up as a residence presumably having very low tariffs ... errrr.... etc

Climax

A 30 minute Tian'anmen square meets 300 (Battle of thermopylae) standoff .... The coaching center villain (who teaches like millions of students and has investments of like 12 lac crore INR but is threatened by a one-man free operation) has used his influence to get the government to repossess its own land which was being used for the free tuition center. They break open the gate with heavy machinery to find all cowshed school students (all brave 800 of them) and Amitabh's ragtag bunch of educators (Superman, a dalit, a rich boy, a brahmin and a woman, but no muslim #OUTRAGE). Then the guy with the demolition machinery leaves his vehicle to join the 800, creating an instant hero. The scene brought a tear to many an eye. Mainly because of the ten dollar ticket price...

Product placement

So this Indian Plywood manufacturer gets a word in as a special mention. The transformation of a cowshed into an open air gurukul was apparently helped by them. They also get screen time in the climax shots as a big advertisement hoarding in the background.

Final word

I'd rate the movie a 3 on 10. All 3 points for the unintentional humor. Watch it if you can get a decent torrented version. :-P

Silver lining

Reservation enters public discourse. It is blasphemy to suggest that undeserved handouts should be up for debate. The entire Indian political system is based on handing out unmonitored ineffective placebo handouts to the idiot classes in return for their votes.

Note

I am strongly against reservation. The solution of the claimed historic wrongs to weaker sections of society is better primary education and increased number of quality seats and infrastructure in higher education. It is not easy, but we've been sleeping for 60+ years while the system rotted. The fix has to be long term, and would probably take a couple of decades if we work in full earnest. Helicoptering in disadvantaged classes into higher education is painful for the teachers, for the weaker students themselves and for the other students. However, it is the way to fake short term progress, and given the Indian IQ of 80, can easily distract crowds till the next circus starts. The proponents of reservation want the benefits in perpetuity - children and grandchildren of the no-longer-oppressed are also entitled to the benefits. Well, if even an advantageous playing field cannot "uplift" the backward castes, the reservation system does not address the original intent, 'innit? All this could've been debated in the movie.

But Aarection is not about reservation.

The world we live in

Here's a few charts that represent the sorry state of debate in the Indian media. Yes, I'm no expert in such matters. But, when any bitch with a microphone and a camera pointed at her feels qualified enough to point out why we need India-Pakistan talks, I might as well get my 2 paise in. After all, this post IS about precisely that.

If India was a sane country open to rational debate, with responsible media, people with an average IQ of 100, shrewd and realistic officials and a mature leadership/polity that has the country's best interests at heart, the breakup of our mindspace (and media time allocation) with respect to foreign policy would be as below: 

However, India is a stupid nation with an average IQ of 80. Public debates (Elections, media, etc) have no logic. Our media is downright retarded (or appearing so to mirror the public with the objective of gaining eyeballs) and our leadership is not much better. We cannot defend ourselves from repeated attacks from terrorists proudly sponsored by our western neighbours for the past 20 years when the solution for it is so simple (beef up security, make the armed forces and police lucrative careers, provide adequate arms, ammunition and infrastructure to defend and attack, act upon perceived threats instead of hesitating just because the perpetrators belong to a particular minority community). India may be home to an unbroken civilization for the past 10,000 years. However, we display the maturity and excitability of a 2 year old that believes its mother can pop in and out of existence in seconds. We cannot defend ourselves even though our lives are at stake, focus on the trivial and neglect the pressing if it is not right in front of us. Much like the Indian media, which seems to be perfectly in sync with our mental state. Consequently, the breakup of our collective mindspace (and of media time allocation) is as below. 

The Australian focus is because a few Punjabi "students" got beat up in Australia as they are staying in crime-infested areas, working at night and getting illegal wages paid in cash. This is a temporary spike and will die out sooner than an African kid born with aids.

A stabler long term examination of our mindspace over the past 60 years would yield a pie more like the chart below than the chart above.

The chart below represents the perception of India and Pakistan when viewed through the eyes of:

• Indian media
• Pakistan (General Public as well as the media)
• North India
• The U.S of A under Democrats

And the graph below shows the relative sizes of India and Pakistan through the eye sockets of:

• South India
• The U.S of A under Republicans
• Reality

C'est la vie!

A tale of three presidents

The USA has a president who plays basketball

Russia has a president (now PM) who goes fishing and knows Judo

India has a president that can "fly" jets and board aircraft carriers.

Of course, our president is known for symbolic gestures. This is a symbolic gesture to show women can fly combat aircraft. Sure, a 75 year old woman sat in the back-seat of a subsonic flight for half an hour. This directly implies women are capable of overcoming high G forces and taking on hostiles in the event of a landing in enemy territory.

And who can forget her most symbolic gesture, the loud "Fuck you, India".

Well, we have to thank Sonia madam for establishing new standards in the process of evaluation of a candidate to the post. Pranab Mukherjee was not nominated as he was "too important". Probably a better part of the president's day includes watering the plants of Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Corolla and the art of car maintenance

I like the statement "Don't blame the car for the fault of the driver."

This always sets me thinking, and a lot of questions spring up in my mind. Lets consider a stock car, a Toyota Corolla for the sake of illustration. Here's a few thoughts pertaining to the statement.

Is it still the driver's fault if Toyota installed a faulty gearbox? If a disproportionate amount of accidents involve people driving the Toyota Corolla, is it still the fault of the drivers? I'm guessing that's because when people drink, their cars automatically turn into Corollas. That'd probably explain why cars parked outside bars are almost exclusively Corollas, I guess.

And then there are car recalls. When the manufacturer notices something dangerously wrong in the car, usually due to user feedback, he sends out a recall notice. The driver then turns in the car for a replacement or for repairs. This is for his safety, and for the safety of others.

However, things get messy if the car driver firmly believes that his car is perfect for the only reason that the manual says so. How can one convince someone whose manual states that the car is perfect and should NOT be changed under any circumstances? What if the manual explicitly states in its first page that the car should not be changed even in the event of Toyota declaring a car recall? What if the manual denies the utility of car services? Doesn't it become downright dangerous to let the car stay on the road? Well, that would shift the blame back to the driver, I guess...

What if the standards and laws change? In some places, vehicles older than a set age or failing to meet certain emission norms are forced off the roads. If however, the man believes all this is a conspiracy to wreck his car, how would one reason with him? What if our driver wants only Corollas on the road, and is willing to go to any lengths to achieve it? What if he goes on a suicide mission to push non-Corollas off the road? Well, if you beg for a silver lining, he may become a liberal. He may decide to tolerate "people who bought the Toyota", but the rest should go.

What if he publicly declares his intention to kill anyone who dares commenting on the state of his car (Dirty, got a flat, loose fanbelt, broken windshield, etc)? 'The manual said it is perfect right? So what do these guys know?"

The fault for all this would probably squarely rest on the manual and the bigot who wrote it after having a little too much to drink.

Mulayam, humanity's last hope in the war against machines

It happens only in India. We have people asking for votes promising that they will take us back to the stone age. 

From the manifesto of the Samajwadi Party: "The use of computers in offices is creating unemployment problems. Our party feels that if work can be done by a person using hands there is no need to deploy machines."

While perfectly logical, this gives rise to a few questions.

Can we get rid of animals too? Oxen are driving the men out of business in the field of cart-pulling. Why have one oxen pulling 400 kilo-loads when the same work can be done by four men and for a much longer time? Can we get rid of the cows providing milk for the Indian populace? Looking at the rate with which we are multiplying, there would definitely be enough lactating mothers to fill those posts. Surely, it would be environmentally friendly too, as we won't have the cow farts which spew tons of methane into the air everyday.

Can we get rid of those vibrators too? I'm guessing the same work can be done by a person using hands, and there is no need to deploy machines for the same. Destroy all sex toys, and provide human substitutes. I'm sure not many would have problems with that.

What about calculators? After all, they are just computers stripped down to the most basic function. Would we see a situation where you have to run to the nearby cycle shop to get the bhaiyyas there to compute the cube root of 60? Because, it can be done by hand and does not need too much brains if you know how to calculate cube roots. Even a bhaiyya could do it. But he would probably need a pen and paper for that, and the logical next step after fighting against computers would be to fight the industrial revolution, mass production and any sort of "western" influence on our farmers. For their benefit. He has already opened that front in his war for ignorance. Take that, agricultural revolution! Take that, civilization!

Our brave Yadav warrior Mulayam opens a new front in the war against the machines. Next up, we could have his close friend's close friend Amitabh Bachchan starring as Mulayam Singh in a desi version of the Matrix. Or Terminator.

"A harvesting season brings employment for the labour class for at least six months but these harvesters (agricultural machines) will snatch their earnings.

The salaries provided by private firms should be in sync with the minimum wages that have been set by the government.

Previous governments have promoted forward trading, share trading and mall culture. Any government formed with our support will either reduce or stop it completely."

How dare the farmers in Punjab use tractors and machines to grow and harvest wheat, when they can grow much less by paying OBC, SC and ST bhaiyyas from India's most populous and backward states up north to perform the role of the oxen mentioned before and the harvesters? We seem to be having too much food already. Mulayam sincerely believes we need to produce less and less food for ourselves.

Regarding the valid point about limiting salaries to the minimum wage, I believe he thinks is correct. After all, why would India need to pay the best of industry more than two dollars a day? After all, when there are no malls, and nobody has any money, we would probably not need more than two dollars a day. We would also probably not need jobs, because when our Yadav warrior comes to power, there will be plenty of fields waiting to be tilled by B.Techs, MBAs and PhDs.

But wait. Our Mulayam has one more ace up his sleeve. He also has a solution to solve the problem of islamic terror faced by India. Terror occurs because of unequal development, so we should dissolve borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh.

I'm off to the Taliban office in M.G.Road. Anybody else convinced yet? 

Why Congress is the opposite of Progress

Some people fervently believe the Congress party (and especially the Gandhi family) has sacrificed for terrorism? M.K.Gandhi wanted the Congress to be disbanded after independence. The Congress party has systematically polluted the minds of the populace by naming every street, lake, airport, park, government initiative and institution after the Nehru family. The honorable Gandhi name has been usurped by Priyadarshini Nehru's bloodline for political ends. The Congress has made Gandhi-worship a religion of its own, rather than making the national flag first priority. Any election victory by the Congress is supposedly because of the family, while any defeat is because the congress workers could not convert the groundswell of support into votes. The first family has been kept squeaky clean by the sycophants in every rung of the Congress party.

The Congress plays the caste/religion divide up much more than the BJP has done. Arjun Singh belongs to the Indian National Congress. YSR, who brought about a reservation system for the muslims, is a member of the Indian National Congress. The Congress indulges in shameless fear-mongering among the minority community and gets fatwas to its benefit. Is that not communalism? Manmohan has demanded that Muslims be allowed "first use of resources" in a resource-starved country. If that is not blatant unconstitutional communalism, then what is?

The Congress has systematically destroyed institutes, put India on permanent life-support, and bred sycophancy at all levels. The "foreign-returned" members of the "Gandhi" family, namely Rajiv Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, have not passed out with degrees. They are hardly the kind of educated decision-makers who deserve to be deciding important policy matters. They are not worthy to comment on the IITs and IIMs, much less destroy it. The mockery the Congress has made of the offices of the President and the CEC has not gone unnoticed. Pratibha Patil's only qualification is how faithful she has been to the "family", which is not the way to go while selecting capable leaders. She was holidaying in Bali when the Mumbai attacks happened last year. That is shameful to say the least. And let us not even talk about Shivraj Patil and his dress sense during the time of crisis. The Golden quadrilateral initiative taken by the NDA was the best example of how the government could facilitate growth and development of the nation by enabling farmers and industrialists to progress. The Congress approach of reservations in the guise of affirmative action is definitely not conducive to a dream of India becoming a developed nation, even by 2500 AD.

The Congress has rushed through an opaque nuclear deal with a US administration that was in its last days. There was absolutely no debate carried out on the issue. Admittedly the BJP and the Left were not acting maturely in this aspect, but the Congress has been instrumental in ending our nuclear freedom and handing over the reins to the americans.

Manmohan has been one of the most ineffectual prime ministers in our history. His absence for three months in such a crucial juncture (economic slowdown, terror) has not even been noticed, showing everybody how irrelevant he actually is in the scheme of things. He has kept the seat warm for Rahul Gandhi to ascend sometime when he decides he is ready. His rule has seen the escalation of terrorist attacks in a large part caused due to wilful negligence for the sake of votes of the extremists within the minority community. The Congress harping on ONE Kandahar incident does not cut much ice with the educated people of India, who have seen blasts caused in every major city of the country under Congress rule. The Congress's refusal to recognize the threat posed by the political philosophy of totalitarian Islam that is ravaging the whole world today has been the prime reason for the increasing audacity of the terrorists from across the border. If intelligence was acted upon, we would never have seen the likes of what happened on 26/11 in Mumbai AND what happened in every major city in the past four-five years. But the Congress was focussed on "Hindu terrorism", through selective media leaks and highly suspect investigations. This blind-eye policy toward the actual terrorists is criminal, anti-national and unforgivable. The fear-mongering of the Congress about "Hindu terrorism" and "Talibanisation" displays both an astounding ignorance of the actual meanings of the terms "Terror" and "Taliban" and a cynical attempt to manipulate the voters of the minority community who should be offended by the perception the Congress has of the minorities as gullible, retarded and anti-national.

The Congress has manipulated every available loophole, taken the electorate for retarded gullible fools (to be fair, most of the electorate DOES consist of the aforementioned demographic) and set India on a backward path for its own ends. It is okay for India to be backward. What is not acceptable is to be moving in a backward direction, which the Congress is hell-bent on doing for the sake of perpetuating its votebank.

Hope springs eternal. I can always hope that the voter realizes the harm the Congress has caused to India in the past, is currently causing and will continue to cause in the foreseeable future. But I know better. I know evolution does not move fast enough to ensure the voter grows intelligent from one poll to the next. India desires better, but it does not deserve better. We are deluded in the belief that we will one day become one of the greatest nations in the world. But the only greatness we are ever going to achieve in the current scenario is in terms of population size.

Screw you guys, I'm going home.

Mohan lal as Flash Gordon

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/mohan-lals-latest-bhagavan-shot-in-12-hrs/80175-8.html

A movie shot in 12 hours. Looks like the superstar doesn't give a shit anymore. He probably knows by now that his fans will watch the movie and whistle till their lungs fly out of their mouths and onto the screen.

Shoddy journalism - Verbatim copy

Appalling journalism. Absolute blasphemy! As I watch the news from home, I am dumbfounded to see Barkha Dutt of NDTV break every rule of ethical journalism in reporting the Mumbai mayhem. Take a couple of instances for example:

• In one instance she asks a husband about his wife being stuck, or held as a hostage. The poor guy adds in the end about where she was last hiding. Aired! My dear friends with AK-47s, our national news is helping you. Go get those still in. And be sure to thank NDTV for not censoring this bit of information.
• In another instance, a General sort of suggests that there were no hostages in Oberoi Trident. (Clever.) Then, our heroine of revelations calls the head of Oberoi, and the idiot confirms a possibility of 100 or more people still in the building. Hello! Guys with guns, you’ve got more goats to slay. But before you do, you’ve got to love NDTV and more precisely Ms. Dutt. She’s your official intelligence from Ground zero.

You do not need to be a journalist to understand the basic premise of ethics, which starts with protecting victims first; and that is done by avoiding key information from being aired publicly—such as but not limited to revealing the number of possible people still in, the hideouts of hostages and people stuck in buildings.

Imagine you’re one of those sorry souls holed-up in one of those bathrooms, or kitchens. A journalist pulls your kin outside and asks about your last contact on national television, and other prying details. In a bout of emotion, if they happen to reveal more details, you are sure going to hell. Remember these are hotels, where in all likelihood, every room has a television. All a terrorist needs to do is listen to Ms. Barkha Dutt’s latest achievement of extracting information from your relative, based on your last phone-call or SMS. And you’re shafted—courtesy NDTV.¹

If the terrorists don’t manage to shove you in to your private hell, the journalists on national television will certainly help you get there. One of the criticisms about Barkha Dutt on Wikipedia reads thus:

During the Kargil conflict, Indian Army sources repeatedly complained to her channel that she was giving away locations in her broadcasts, thus causing Indian casualties.

Looks like the idiot journalist has not learnt anything since then. I join a number of bloggers pleading her to shut the f⋅⋅⋅ up.

Update: In fact, I am willing to believe that Hemant Karkare died because these channels showed him prepare (wear helmet, wear bullet-proof vest.) in excruciating detail live on television. And they in turn targeted him where he was unprotected. The brave officer succumbed to bullets in the neck.

Update 2 [28.Nov.2300hrs]: Better sense appears to have prevailed in the latter half of today—either willfully, or by Government coercion², and Live broadcasts are now being limited to non-action zones. Telecast of action troops and strategy is now not being aired live. Thank goodness for that.

Update 3 [30.Nov.1900hrs]: DNA India reports about a UK couple ask media to report carefully:

The terrorists were watching CNN and they came down from where they were in a lift after hearing about us on TV.

— Lynne Shaw in an interview.

1. Oh, they have a lame excuse pronouncing that the television connections in the hotel has been cut, and therefore it is okay to broadcast. Like hell!
2. I’m thinking coercion, since Government has just denied renewing CNN’s rights to air video today; must’ve have surely worked as a rude warning to the Indian domestic channels.”

... and you thought you were the master of your destiny?

"In a way, in our contemporary world view, it's easy to think that science has come to take the place of God. But some philosophical problems remain as troubling as ever. Take the problem of free will. This problem has been around for a long time, since before Aristotle in 350 B.C. St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, these guys all worried about how we can be free if God already knows in advance everything you're gonna do. Nowadays we know that the world operates according to some fundamental physical laws, and these laws govern the behavior of every object in the world. Now, these laws, because they're so trustworthy, they enable incredible technological achievements. But look at yourself. We're just physical systems too, right? We're just complex arrangements of carbon molecules. We're mostly water, and our behavior isn't gonna be an exception to these basic physical laws. So it starts to look like whether its God setting things up in advance and knowing everything you're gonna do or whether it's these basic physical laws governing everything, there's not a lot of room left for freedom.

So now you might be tempted to just ignore the question, ignore the mystery of free will. Say "Oh, well, it's just an historical anecdote. It's sophomoric. It's a question with no answer. Just forget about it." But the question keeps staring you right in the face. You think about individuality for example, who you are. Who you are is mostly a matter of the free choices that you make. Or take responsibility. You can only be held responsible, you can only be found guilty, or you can only be admired or respected for things you did of your own free will. So the question keeps coming back, and we don't really have a solution to it. It starts to look like all our decisions are really just a charade.

Think about how it happens. There's some electrical activity in your brain. Your neurons fire. They send a signal down into your nervous system. It passes along down into your muscle fibers. They twitch. You might, say, reach out your arm. It looks like it's a free action on your part, but every one of those - every part of that process is actually governed by physical law, chemical laws, electrical laws, and so on.

So now it just looks like the big bang set up the initial conditions, and the whole rest of human history, and even before, is really just the playing out of subatomic particles according to these basic fundamental physical laws. We think we're special. We think we have some kind of special dignity, but that now comes under threat. I mean, that's really challenged by this picture.

So you might be saying, "Well, wait a minute. What about quantum mechanics? I know enough contemporary physical theory to know it's not really like that. It's really a probabilistic theory. There's room. It's loose. It's not deterministic." And that's going to enable us to understand free will. But if you look at the details, it's not really going to help because what happens is you have some very small quantum particles, and their behavior is apparently a bit random. They swerve. Their behavior is absurd in the sense that its unpredictable and we can't understand it based on anything that came before. It just does something out of the blue, according to a probabilistic framework. But is that going to help with freedom? I mean, should our freedom be just a matter of probabilities, just some random swerving in a chaotic system? That starts to seem like it's worse. I'd rather be a gear in a big deterministic physical machine than just some random swerving.

So we can't just ignore the problem. We have to find room in our contemporary world view for persons with all that that entails; not just bodies, but persons. And that means trying to solve the problem of freedom, finding room for choice and responsibility, and trying to understand individuality."

Minus = Plus

Ever wondered how things are not what they seem?

Bush supposedly warned Musharraf that they would bomb Pakistan to the Stone Age if they did not cooperate with the US post 9/11. Wouldn't that count as progress?

A solution to the Pakistani BoP crisis

So Pakistan has been facing a balance-of-payments crisis of late, and has been forced to go to the IMF with a begging bowl. Any fool would realize they are facing this problem because they need dollars to buy (mainly) oil, and they are not getting dollars to splurge on oil because nobody buys anything that has the "Made in Pakistan" stamp fearing that it may explode. This is predominantly because successive Pakistani governments have invested in guns, bombs and suicide bombers instead of education, manufacturing facilities or agriculture because of their firm belief that their core competence is producing "freedom fighters" who can be very effective even without food to eat.

A few days ago, Manmohan Singh's government was obsessed with probing 'Hindu Terror". Regular media leaks ensured it occupied prime time TV space for an inordinately lengthy period of time. In fact, the great Congress party actually suggested that the Sangh Parivar (Hindu nationalist group) may have outsourced terror ops to SIMI (the other extreme), ensuring that they could blame the Sangh for every bombing activity the SIMI ever conducted.

A few days after the blasts, Pakistani media has already begun whispering awesome conspiracy theories, suggesting that the terrorists may have been Hindu terrorists who gave their life to defame Pakistan (or probably so that the BJP couldwin the Delhi elections). Lets take a look at what they are suggesting..... Here goes...

"What if the terrorists were proved to be Pakistanis and Muslims. That doesn't prove anything. They might have won an outsourcing contract and doing it on behalf of Abhinav Bharat. Or worse. The Hindu terrorists might have dressed up like Islamist terrorists, gotten Paki sim cards, learnt the Paki-Punjabi accent to throw NSG off guard, gotten training in an indian army base, gone from Gujarat to Karachi and from there to Mumbai to give the impression that it was Pakistan that was causing this mayhem."

Seems very plausible I guess....

Now is it just me or does anybody else smell the golden opportunity for Pakistan to solve its balance of payment crisis here? Let me explain...

The only export of Pakistan is terror these days. And they have not been able to monetize it properly. Due to the amazing economies of scale, "Companies" in Pakistan like the Lashkar-e-Toiba can now afford to sell terrorists for half the price it would take for, say, the IRA to build one. So, LeT can offer its services for a fee... And they can customize the offering too. You want a team of three Hindu terrorists (with one manager and two associates), we can handle that. Shave three products of the Institute of Islamic Militancy, put sacred threads on them, give them audio tapes of the local language. IRA wants a team of seven Catholic terrorists, we can handle that too. Shave seven products of the Institute of Islamic Militancy, put on a few catholic crosses, give them audio tapes of the local language and arrange for bleaching sessions to blend in with the Caucasians... LTTE, same case except that you replace bleaching with tanning. We could end up with a monopoly here in this field... And Pakistan will be recognized as a leader in outsourcing services, providing skilled manpower talent for clients all over the world, from the US to Chechnya. From Darfur to the Basque region. After all, they've killed competition, literally speaking... There won't be any balance of payments crisis anymore. We will have a stable rich Pakistan in our neighborhood, so the world will feel safer than it does today...

And what of Bangladesh?

Bangladesh has more cheaper lives, and of a darker hues than the Pakis. Also, they are almost as receptive to the mind-controlling techniques that form the core competence of the LeT and its business partners. So, LeT could in turn outsource lower quality jobs to Bangladesh's indigenous companies. Or the dark skin could be an advantage in certain markets. For example, a Bangla terrorist can be used for the Sri Lankan market, and the Pakistani can be used for Eastern-european markets. This is like probably India outsourcing IT work to China because it is cheaper there. Quality may be a bit less, but the lower prices make the terrorists affordable to a whole new class of buyers who were not able to afford high quality LeT products.

Or dare we say, LeT could face competition from Bangladeshi companies, like IBM faces off versus Infy... So this gets precious foreign exchange to Bangladesh too, if they gain managerial expertise of their own. The Banglas can make some payments to the CPI-M government in West Bengal, as they have been helping Bangladeshis sneak in through a porus border and providing them with ration cards and voter-ID cards so that they can vote for the communists in the state and national elections. So, this tie-up with the left parties can ensure a reduction in the costs for operations in India.

Neat, eh?

Have a blast in Mumbai

Pun intended. Now for some funeral humor.

We've all heard about the spirit of Mumbai, and about how indomitable it is. After all, it's been a convenient totem pole for CNN-IBN and NDTV to lift their hind leg and piss on, every time there's a blast in Mumbai. When a Bangalorean gives another Bangalorean water or food because they've been stuck in some traffic jam for a day, it's just humanity on display. But when a Mumbaikar does the same, he is a showcase of the "Spirit of Mumbai". Luckily, Bengaluru does not have day-long traffic jams, so I guess that compensates our not having a city spirit to some extent...


When the stock market goes up the day trading reopens after a blast, it's because the spirit of mumbai guides it up, in response to terrorism. I guess the traders milling around in the trading floor of the Bombay Stock Exchange hear some aakashwani the morning after every blast "Thou shalt not be spooked by the bombs in your home. Main hoon na..". This leads to a feeding frenzy among the traders, like sharks who sense blood. So they go on a rampage buying up every stock they can spot. Well, apparently, the spirit of Mumbai went bust over the year, with the stock market falling from 21000 to 9000 in 10 months of 2008. So when the blasts happened and the markets opened, the aakashwani just went "Okay, I've got no money to gamble, and I've got 13 million mouths to feed... I got nothing to say to you guys...", which was why the sensex grazed around aimlessly and randomly ended up higher than the previous close. Not much they can do when the spirit is out of the money, eh?

The day after the first night of attacks, Mumbai was shut, and its spirit laid back at home, resting, watching shitty coverage by CNN-IBN and NDTV... and tweeting in the #mumbai channel. However, the day after that, it got fully aroused as the terrorists were no longer roaming the streets and were confined to Taj, Oberoi and Nariman House. Then it decided that as it can afford only vada-pav, it won't be going to those two hotels for lunch and declared that it will go to work. To show the terrorists that it will not be cowed down by hollow(?) threats. So our spirited Mumbaikar goes to office to do its world-changing job of pushing a pen against paper for seven hours with an hours break in between. On the way, theres rumors of firings at CST. This causes the spirit to drop everything and run. All of Mumbai was on the streets in a hurry to get back. Doesn't that contradict the official version of the spirit? Should it not have gone to the station to get blown up anyway? I'm confused.... How is it an indomitable spirit if a rumor of some firings can turn its legs to jelly?

Now there's a bunch of Mumbaikars that want to get tipsy drinking (and drinking to) the spirit of Mumbai in the very same cafe that was attacked by the terrorists not more than a few hours ago. Cafe Leopold that was attacked by the terrorists denies stag entry. So maybe the terrorists were just a bunch of pissed-off moose who were denied a fun night-out and decided to get in anyways.... How's that for a twist in investigations?

Again, back to the spirit... Don't you dare show sympathy to the Mumbaikar. He doesn't need your sympathy. All he demands is your applause when, two days after he broke both of his legs in a fall, he gets up and walks, to show you how manly he is. Maybe you should go "Salaam Bombay. I slow clap in your general direction"

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Hopefully that should make him proud of what he is... And inspire him to run a marathon two days after the next incident (the one where both his legs get chopped off by a meat cleaver). Bravo... A logical extension of this ad, perhaps?

Introduction

I don't believe in introductions. I'm not here to make friends, or to find "ideal matches" on the internet. I ain't that desperate. ;-)