18 March, 2010

The Curse of Vikram Bhatt

Speaking about his new film Shaapit, Vikram Bhatt says:

I did some research and a very important fact emerged. It was how a curse actually functions. The person who has cursed and the person who has been cursed may no longer be there but the curse remains on their family for generations. [...]

Before starting this film, I did a course of psychic meditation. By psychic meditation we can speak to spirits. With constant meditation you can avoid that too. I have seen spirits.

I hope the dude is just saying this to promote the movie, and doesn’t actually believe in this nonsense. And really, how does one research curses anyway? I can imagine the following scene:

Vikram Bhatt knocks on a door. The door opens. An old man stands there, unkempt and grouchy.

Old Man: Yes?

Vikram Bhatt: Sir, my name is Vikram Bhatt. I am researching curses. I hear that you have been cursed. May I come in so we can talk more about it?

Old Man: Ok. Whatever. Come in.

The old man and Vikram Bhatt walk to a table on which lie six bottles of vodka, two of them empty.

OM: I had just begun my drinking session for the night. Wanna join in?

VB: Sure. (Takes a glass from the old man.) So tell me, what’s your curse?

OM: I have been cursed to talk to spirits every day.

VB: Wow. You can talk to spirits? That’s so cool. I’d love to do that.

OM: It’s very easy. Watch. (Starts talking to a bottle of vodka.) Hello, sweety. How are you today sweety? Can I drink you, sweety? Without any mixer, just you and me.

VB: Neat. I like that. Hey, talking to spirits is easy.

*

What do you mean, that’s not plausible? Have you seen the dude’s films?

(Link via email from Kundan.)

Posted at 3:41 AM by Amit Varma in Arts and entertainment | Dialogue | News | WTF

Every Dog Has Its Bath

The Indian Express informs us of the invention of a washing machine for pets, which “gives pets an automatic drenching with warm water and a blow-dry. The 33-minute process includes a shampoo, a rinse and a dry.”

They should so put Menaka Gandhi in one of those, no? L’that only.

Posted at 3:30 AM by Amit Varma in News

Until Death Etc Etc

The WTF opening sentence of the day comes from a Rediff report:

According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) one married man commits suicide every nine minutes in India.

That sentence makes it sound as if marriage is the cause of these suicides, which is surely unjust to the 57,639 wives whose husbands offed themselves. Causation is often complex and not easy to pin down when it comes to suicide, and the following sentence would make quite as much sense: “According to Cricinfo, 13 married men have made scores of 250+ in Test cricket in the last 10 years.” Huh, no?

Given that life is a fatal disease, it’s not unnatural for some of us to want to get it over with quickly. Marriage, like most of what we seek in life, is a palliative. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it can’t cure nothin’, and it ain’t the cause.

(Link via email from Poornima.)

Update: Here’s the NCRB report (pdf link).

Posted at 2:31 AM by Amit Varma in News | Small thoughts | WTF

17 March, 2010

A Garland for the Queen

Heard about the recent furore over the garland of thousand-rupee notes that was presented to her Royal Majesty, Mayawati, by her party workers? One of her cronies has now come out and said that the media reports got it all wrong, and the value of the garland was “only Rs.21 lakh,” and not the Rs 5 crore that some people reported. (The rally at which it was presented reportedly cost Rs 200 crore, though the crony denied that figure as well.) Since then, the IT department has ordered a probe into Mayawati’s funds, while Her Highness has gotten herself another garland of notes. (Only Rs 18 lakh this time.)

Now, really, as long as it isn’t our taxes being spent, this should not bother me. But this kind of behaviour demonstrates, yet again, how our politicians believe that they are our rulers, and not our servants. This seems to be an attitude shared by most voters as well. Sure, many of them don’t like Mayawati, and would rather have a tribal leader of their choice on the throne, but you get what I’m saying.

Also, I have to say that a garland of currency notes is more honest and apt for the times we live in than one of dead flowers. Such it goes.

(First link via email from Maria Thomas.)

Posted at 1:22 PM by Amit Varma in India | News | Politics | WTF

12 March, 2010

Prodigy

I feel hugely sorry for this kid. In her world, it might be a huge deal to become “the youngest girl to ever write the Intermediate or plus two examination in Andhra Pradesh.” (She’s nine or ten; the article states both.) But the pressure on her must be immense, and such ‘achievements’ are not the stuff of life. She’s obviously enormously smart and talented, but I’m sure there’s much parental expectation pushing her, and that isn’t good. Childhood should be chilled out and as stress-free as possible.

I hope she’s doing okay 15 years from now.

Posted at 4:53 PM by Amit Varma in India | News | Small thoughts

Topless Women and the Indian Government

The Times of India reports:

The government has banned Fashion TV for nine days after finding a program it aired offended good taste and decency by showing women partially nude.

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry statement said FTV channel would go off the air later Thursday until March 21. The statement cited an unnamed FTV program aired in September that showed women with nude upper bodies.

It’s immensely WTF that someone should think that topless women offend “good taste and decency.” Women have breasts. Straight men are attracted to them. These are just ho-hum facts of biology. Only massively repressed and resentful men and women would find partial nudity offensive—and one factor in their repression, certainly, would be this attitude against anything sexual. It’s a self-reinforcing feedback loop—the more you repress, the more repressed they get, the more you find reason to repress them further. In the 21st century, its all a bit bizarre.

What is even weirder is that the continuing spread of the internet threatens to make all this moot. Far wilder things than mere toplessness are a Google search away, and its practically impossible to filter all of that out. And why would you want to do that anyway? Sex is healthy, so let’s be open about it, and not whisper while talking about it or blush when the subject comes up. Or censor boobs.

*

Earlier posts on the subject:

‘A Trial Balloon’.
The Ministry of Wet Dreams.

Posted at 3:34 PM by Amit Varma in Arts and entertainment | Freedom | India | News | Politics | WTF

The Hollywood Formula

Forget Robert McKee and Syd Field: If you want to learn how to make a successful Hollywood film, watch this:

Someone should do this for Bollywood films as well. With, like, eight mini-song montages, an interval and a kiss where no mouths are opened. Exciting, eh?

(Link via JSV.)

Posted at 3:09 PM by Amit Varma in Arts and entertainment

11 March, 2010

The Empire Strikes Back

Daniel Pepper of CMS has a worrying story up on how RTI activists in India are increasingly facing a backlash from the people they are trying to expose. He tells us about Ajay Kumar, who questioned “why a local politician had authorized the construction of private houses and shops on public land.” Consequently, Kumar was “attacked by a mob of two dozen” and “beaten in the head repeatedly by an iron rod, leaving him unconscious and bleeding profusely.”

At least he lived. On Valentine’s Day in Bihar, “well-known RTI activist Shashidhar Mishra was shot dead by unidentified gunmen on motorcycles at the entrance of his home.” And in Pune, “another activist, Satish Shetty, was killed while on his morning walk.” I have no doubt that other RTI activists who are trying to expose the rot in the system must also be dealing with immense intimidation.

Shailesh Gandhi, once an RTI activist and now a commissioner with the CIC, hits the nail on the head:

It tells me that the rule of law is almost absent. The truth is that powerful people feel there is no law.

I’ve often argued that the rule of law is effectively absent in India for those without money, power or connections. But there’s more to this than even that. In most scams of the kind that these brave activists are trying to expose, private parties are actually in collusion with government authorities. Most mafias in the country are public-private partnerships, and the incentives of the men in power are obviously tailored to keeping these partnerships going. Thus, not only is the rule of law absent for the hapless RTI worker who chooses to challenge the system, the government is likely to actively work against him. The machinery he turns to for help generally has every reason to thwart him—and to look the other way when he’s beaten on the head with an iron rod.

That said, the RTI is a powerful tool, and it is precisely because of its power that there is such a backlash against those who use it. If the RTI was ineffectual, this backlash would not exist. These attacks, thus, demonstrate how much the RTI is capable of enabling. That leaves me both hopeful and worried. Perhaps a change is gonna come—but there will be a cost.

(Link via email from Gautam John.)

Posted at 11:51 AM by Amit Varma in India | News | Politics

09 March, 2010

When the Marshalls Go Marching In

This sentence says so much about the level of parliamentary debate in India today:

Finally, marshals were called in to remove the unruly MPs.

Who elected these dudes and put them in parliament? We did. I would hang my head in shame if that didn’t mean I’d be staring at my paunch.

*

I have mixed feelings on the larger issue of women’s reservation. If I was a woman, I’d find it offensive. Implying that women can’t rise in politics on their own is terribly condescending, especially when so many counter-examples exist—strong women like Uma Bharti, Sushma Swaraj, Renuka Chowdhury and, um, Pratibha Patil. (And Sonia Gandhi, who may be at the top because of her last name, but then, so are so many male politicians.)

Also, it implies that there are fewer women MPs because women are discriminated against by political parties. I’m sure there is some discrimination, but it is not the sole factor. My hunch is that people enter politics because of their lust for power, and that men are biologically programmed to seek power actively, while women aren’t—at least not to the same extent. Thus, there are fewer women who seek validation in how much control they have over other people, and fewer women who are attracted to politics. (In saying this, by the way, I am dissing men and complimenting women, though Renuka Chowdhury, on an episode of We The People where I stated this opinion, attacked me because she thought I was disrespecting women. Quite the opposite.)

Having said that, I think the bill may have some positive unintended consequences. At the very least, parliamentary decorum is likely to improve, and MPs are likely to behave with somewhat more dignity. There might even be fewer instances of marshalls being called in to control unruly MPs. Who can complain about that?

Posted at 8:06 PM by Amit Varma in India | News | Politics | WTF

A Room in Your Head

The quote of the day comes from a post by Roger Ebert:

Resentment is allowing someone to live rent-free in a room in your head.

You might say that the whole world lives rent-free in our heads—but in the daily-activity room, where we sit everyday, we choose who gets to sit with us. We choose whether it’s sunny or cloudy, whether we’re happy or pissed off. So the next time you’re in a bad mood, look around that room: there’s a guest there you need to eject.

Ebert’s post, by the way, was a reaction to the moving feature on him by Chris Jones in Esquire. (Both links via email from Peter.)

*

And yes, if I get bored of being a novelist, I can always turn to writing self-help books. With the help of an elegant polyster robe, a PR firm, and a few days of not shaving, I could even become a Godman. I can see myself gathering my disciples one day and saying, ‘The day has come, shishyo. The day has come for me to take you, once and for all, to Nirvana!’

‘Yes, guruji, yes,’ they shout, excited. A few of the women start moaning, rapturously remembering the private lessons I have previously imparted. I walk over to the side table. ‘Are you ready?’ I ask. ‘Are you ready for Nirvana?’

‘Yes, Guruji,’ they say. ‘Nirvana! Nirvana!’

I press the ‘play’ button on my iPod. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” starts to play. Happiness flows into the inner room.

*

Update: Arun Simha writes in to point out that Ebert’s quote is a variant of the line in this piece:

Ali has been living rent free in Frazier’s head for more than 25 years…

Nice.

*

Update (March 11): Nilanjana writes in:

That’s not Ebert or even the author of the Ali-Frazier piece; it’s an old classic from the Alcoholics Anonymous lexicon. (Ebert’s written about his drinking and recovery years on his blog.)

Stephen King referenced it in one of his interviews about his sobriety journey, Clapton used the line in some of his post-sobriety interviews and it’s been kicking around The Rooms since the time of Bill W and Dr Bob.

I guess Ebert kept the quote rent-free in his head, then. And why not? It’s a good one to hang on the wall.

Posted at 2:55 PM by Amit Varma in Miscellaneous

04 March, 2010

The Philosophical Cow

Alex Tabarrok writes:

Suppose that you are a cow philosopher contemplating the welfare of cows.  In the world today there are about 1.3 billion of your compatriots.  It would be a fine thing for cows if all cows were well treated and if none were slaughtered for food.  Nevertheless, being a clever cow, you understand that it’s the demand for beef that brings cows to life.  How do you regard such a trade off?

I predict that any philosophical cow will consider its self-interest first. It might be in the interest of the species for cows to continue to be slaughtered, but it would certainly not be in the interest of this particular cow—so it would be against killing cows. Unless, of course, our philosophical cow is guaranteed immunity from slaughter, which its human overlords might well consider given how few cows tend to be philosophers. In that case our bovine thinker, freed from concerns about its own welfare, might well take the broader view.

Doesn’t this happen with humans as well? I know ‘intellectuals’ who rail against urbanisation and romanticise village life, while themselves living comfortably in cities. I know women who condone the way other women are treated in some cultures by resorting to moral relativism, while themselves enjoying their full human rights. (For instance...) It’s easy to pontificate about matters that don’t immediately concern us—and most pontification is exactly like that. Such it goes.

*

I can imagine a philosophical cow deep in thought near an unsuspecting farmer. Suddenly, the cow starts jumping up and down, shouting ‘Eureka, Eureka!’

‘What happened?’ says the farmer. ‘Why’re you so excited?’

‘I just formulated the Cowtegorical Imperative,’ says our philosophical cow.

‘That’s impossible,’ says the farmer. ‘You’re just a cow. You can’t do something like that. You can’t!’

‘That’s right,’ says the philosophical cow. ‘I Kant. But you can call me Immanuel.’

*

(Link via email from Prachi Parekh. Previous posts on cows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 , 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112.)

Posted at 3:51 AM by Amit Varma in Old memes | Cows | Small thoughts

A Complex and Dynamic Taste

[EWWW POST ALERT]

Reader Deepthi B sends me a link to a book named “Natural Harvest - A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes”. The blurb reads:

Semen is not only nutritious, but it also has a wonderful texture and amazing cooking properties. Like fine wine and cheeses, the taste of semen is complex and dynamic. Semen is inexpensive to produce and is commonly available in many, if not most, homes and restaurants. Despite all of these positive qualities, semen remains neglected as a food.

Deepthi thought I might find this WTF, but having never tasted semen, that is clearly a matter I can’t comment on. It might be an acquired taste for many straight women and gay men, and I certainly wouldn’t want to pass judgement on that. Also, if this turns out to be a semenal moment in culinary history and semen becomes a popular ingredient, it might prove to be a valuable diversion for young men’s energies, and crime rates might dip. The positive externalities of wanking, and all that. The possibilities are endless.

*

Before you sully your mind by thinking of jokes related to semen cuisine, let me get this out of the way. Man sits at home by his phone, tapping his fingers, getting really angry. Finally he picks up the phone and pressed ‘redial’. The phone rings, and someone picks it up.

‘Hello, this is Urban Tadka, how may I help you?’

‘Dude, I ordered a semen biriyani from your restaurant one hour ago. It’s still not here. How long will it take?’

‘Not very long, sir,’ the guy at the other end says. ‘I’m just coming.’

*

Well, I do have an Ewww Alert on top, don’t I?

Posted at 2:56 AM by Amit Varma in Miscellaneous | WTF

28 February, 2010

The Detective and the Criminal Mind

I’m moderating a couple of interesting book discussions in the next few days, and India Uncut readers are invited to both of them. Details:

On Tuesday, March 2, at Landmark, Andheri, I’ll be discussing “The Detective and the Criminal Mind” with China Miéville, Mark Billingham, Denise Mina and Andy Diggle. China’s work spans genres, and his latest book, The City and the City, is a police procedural set in a city (and a city) like no other. It was recently nominated for the Nebulas, and I was blown away by it when I read it recently. Billingham is the creator of Tom Thorne, arguably the most memorable detective created in the last decade. Mina is also an exceptional crime writer, and she’s also written a few issues of Hellblazer. And Diggle is a big name for comics buffs, having written The Losers and a fair amount of Hellblazer.

I’m looking forward to the conversation—and there’ll be extended audience Q&A as well, so do join in. The details are here.

On Friday, March 5, I’ll be in conversation with Krishan Partap Singh at the launch of his book, Delhi Durbar. This event is at Crossword, Kemps Corner; the details are here.

And yeah, it’s a busy week—in a busy month. Watch this space.

Posted at 8:49 PM by Amit Varma in Arts and entertainment | Personal

‘A Solitary, Poverty-Inducing, Soul-Scorching Voyage’

In a superb essay on writing, Dani Shapiro writes:

I have taught in MFA programs for many years now, and I begin my first class of each semester by looking around the workshop table at my students’ eager faces and then telling them they are pursuing a degree that will entitle them to nothing. I don’t do this to be sadistic or because I want to be an unpopular professor; I tell them this because it’s the truth. They are embarking on a life in which apprenticeship doesn’t mean a cushy summer internship in an air-conditioned office but rather a solitary, poverty-inducing, soul-scorching voyage whose destination is unknown and unknowable.

If they were enrolled in medical school, in all likelihood they would wind up doctors. If in law school, better than even odds, they’d become lawyers. But writing school guarantees them little other than debt.

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to take part in a Q&A with the participants of a writing workshop at the Kala Ghoda Lit Fest. I made pretty much the same point there: writing is not a profession. You can take up medicine or engineering or law or management, and you can be a mediocre doctor or engineer or lawyer or manager and earn a perfectly decent living. But if you’re a novelist in India, you have to be among the top five or ten in the country to be able to pay your rent from that. Literary prizes and foreign advances are like a lottery: writing a good book is a necessary condition to get them, but is far from sufficient. And if you don’t hit that lottery, you’d better have another source of income—which, of course, eats into your writing time, and makes it all the more difficult.

So if you want to be a writer, ask yourself what drives you. If it’s anything other than the love of writing—money, success, fame, lit groupies—don’t do it.

*

On that note, here’s Charles Bukowski.

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The Kala Ghoda Lit Fest was a lot of fun, and I always enjoy listening to other writers talk about their work, and the craft of writing. Besides the session I was part of, I got pulled into moderating a couple of other sessions, and had much fun. I can’t understand why the turnouts are so low, though. Are there really so few enthusiastic readers in this city?

On that note, check out this piece by Nilanjana S Roy, “The Lure of the Local Litfest.”

(Shapiro link via Samit Basu‘s Facebook page.)

Posted at 8:19 PM by Amit Varma in Arts and entertainment

26 February, 2010

Mahalaxmi, the Goddess of Wealth

Heh.

Posted at 1:47 AM by Amit Varma in India | Politics

25 February, 2010

A Metric for Hotness

The WTF headline of the day comes from The Times of India:

Sherlyn gets hotter!

Note the exclamation mark. But no, it’s not the enthusiastic reporting of Sherlyn’s increased hotness that makes this headline WTF, but the metric used to measure it. She is hotter, it seems, because her “new management agency is pitching her as the face of the cover for the most read and most popular lifestyle, fashion and health magazines.” In other words, she is hotter because she has better PR.

I suppose given the state of our media, that makes some kind of perverse sense. Such it goes.

Posted at 2:47 PM by Amit Varma in Arts and entertainment | Journalism | Media | WTF

22 February, 2010

The Elegant Hindu

The WTF Q&A of the day comes from a WSJ interview of Sonia Dara, the first model of South Asian descent to make it to the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue:

WSJ: During your shoot in Rajasthan, you posed with some local women who cover their heads, as is local tradition. Did you feel it made them uncomfortable to pose with you in a bikini?

Dara: To be completely honest, I was the one who felt the most uneasy because I thought I was putting the women in a potentially uncomfortable situation. At first glance, the concept of a Hindu girl in Sports Illustrated might seem contradictory. With that in mind, I posed as elegantly as possible, in order to never undermine my Hindu upbringing. I really hope this is made clear in my photos.

Yes, it’s clear. Her pout is Vedic, and her slim figure is surely the result of righteous fasting. Happy now, foreigners?

*

And really, who finds such slimness attractive? At best I’d imagine it’s a niche taste. If I was ever to spend quality time with someone so slim, I’d want to feed her, not do naughty-naughty. This is one fad that totally befuddles me.

*

On the off chance that you were wondering, this is how she looks without makeup on.

(Links via email from Arun and Madhu.)

Posted at 11:08 AM by Amit Varma in India | Journalism | Media | WTF

20 February, 2010

The Exploding Donkey

In his brilliant book, The Forever War, Dexter Filkins informs us that DBIED can stand for either Dog-Borne Improvised Explosive Device or Donkey-Borne Improvised Explosive Device. In a passage that I feel provides a perfect metaphor for the War on Terror, he writes:

In the fall of 2005 some marines discovered a donkey walking around Ramadi [in Iraq] with a suicide belt on. They didn’t want to kill it, of course, but every time they tried to get close enough to remove the suicide belt, the donkey scampered away. They they tried using a robot, one of those bomb-disposal things, which tried to waddle up to the donkey and defuse the payload, but the robot, too, kept scaring the donkey away. Finally the marines shot the donkey. It exploded.

And so it goes…

Posted at 12:13 AM by Amit Varma in Arts and entertainment | Excerpts | Small thoughts

19 February, 2010

The Three Kinds of Passion

Peter Griffin points me to an interesting post that begins:

The world seems to be split into roughly three different types of people: Those who have a passion for nothing, those who have a passion for one thing and those who have a passion for everything. This way of categorizing is not to cast a value judgement onto any particular group. My informal observation is that aspects such as intelligence, courage, moral fibre and wisdom seem roughly evenly distributed across all three of these groups although it may initially not seem that way. It’s always difficult trying to describe a group with an insider’s perspective if you’re not an insider but I’m going to give it a try… [link]

I think I fall in the second category: I have a passion for “multiple ‘one things’”. Two of them are story-telling and poker, and my passion for both could be considered, quite simply, a passion for understanding human nature. And that is so all-encompassing that maybe I fall in the third category. Whatever.

What about you?

Posted at 8:59 AM by Amit Varma in Miscellaneous | Personal

Scheming Brides and Underhand Tactics

The WTF news report of the day surely has to be this one:

Six in ten scheming brides force men to go down on their knees by resorting to underhand tactics, suggests a survey.

[...]

While 32 per cent bullied their partner into proposing by threatening to leave him, 17 per cent sent themselves flowers from a fake admirer to stir up their lover’s jealousy.

It seems this survey was conducted by a British TV channel called Really. See the fun.

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I can’t say why, but I suddenly remembered “The Gift”, the Velvet Underground song. Check it out.

Posted at 12:38 AM by Amit Varma in News | WTF

18 February, 2010

The Lady With the Handbag

Revelation of the day: All of Mayawati’s statues in UP have a handbag included.

This via my friend Anand, who loves making up stuff but insists this is true. And I believe him. It’s too far out to be made up.

Update: This one cracks me up.

Posted at 12:32 PM by Amit Varma in India | Politics | WTF

15 February, 2010

Sisters in the Kitchen

The Times of India reports:

Most young people may have got all romantic this Valentine’s Day, but for this technical institute it was all about brotherly and sisterly love. In what can probably be described as a celebration of V-Day in the spirit of Bhai Dooj, the Ishan Institute of Management and Technology asked its girl students to prepare food for the boys to mark the day.

The underlying motto, as institute chairman DK Garg told the media, was to promote “a culture of knowledge where brothers and sisters could stay together’’. Students said the institute, which believes in strict discipline, had warned them not to get ``carried away’’ on Valentine’s Day.

Well, full marks for being WTF in multiple ways. This is an institute of “management and technology” implying that a woman’s place is in the kitchen. Welcome to the 21st century, and all that.

On another note, given the wisdom of the old adage that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, this plan of promoting “brotherly and sisterly love” might well have backfired. I can imagine one of the boys, Romeo, eating the best mutter-paneer of his life and asking the girl who served him, Juliet, if she made it. ‘Yes,’ she admits, and blushes. He asks her out; they get married; and on the first night after they’re back from the honeymoon, he asks for mutter-paneer. She makes mutter-paneer. He tastes it, and his expression changes. ‘But this is crap,’ he says. ‘You had made it so well on that Valentine’s Day in college.’ And she says, ‘Mutter-paneer? Me? There must be a misunderstanding, I made the palak-paneer. It was Maya who made the mutter-paneer. The pretty girl with the big boobs.’

Anyway, I hope you had a good time yesterday.

(Link via email from Aparna.)

Posted at 2:54 PM by Amit Varma in Dialogue | India | News | WTF

12 February, 2010

How to Seduce an Indian Aunty

There is much fun to be had on Yahoo Answers—and this is as good as it gets. Gender and Women’s Studies indeed!

Posted at 1:28 AM by Amit Varma in Miscellaneous

11 February, 2010

Waving to Nobody

The wonderful excerpt below from “Trail Fever” by Michael Lewis illustrates beautifully the nature of politics and public life. In it, Lewis recounts his experience of travelling with then-vice president Dan Quayle during the election campaign of 1992:

It wasn’t so much what Quayle had said that hooked me. It was what he had done—what the conventions of the campaign trail required him to do. Every few hours of every day, to take a tiny example, the vice president’s campaign plane, Air Force Two, came to rest on the tarmac of a military base on the outskirts of some medium-sized city, and Quayle appeared in the open door. He waved. It was not a natural gesture of greeting but a painfully enthusiastic window-washing motion. Like everyone else in America I had watched politicians do this on the evening news a thousand times. But I had always assumed there must be someone down below to wave at. Not so! Every few hours our vice president stood there at the top of the steps of Air Force Two waving to… nobody; waving, in fact, to a field in the middle distance over the heads of the cameramen, so that the people back home in their living rooms remained comfortably assured that a crowd had turned up to celebrate his arrival.

It is my case that most politics consists of waving to nobody. Someday, as the waving is going on, I’d love to see the cameras turn around and show the empty field. But nah, that won’t happen.

Posted at 10:59 PM by Amit Varma in Arts and entertainment | Excerpts | Politics | Small thoughts

Boredom

A friend’s status message on Facebook leads me to wonder: If you are bored, does that not mean that you are boring?

Posted at 10:53 PM by Amit Varma in Small thoughts

Priorities

Mohit sent me an SMS a couple of hours ago informing me that this year’s edition of Gladrags Mrs India is sponsored by Unwanted 72. Isn’t that just delicious?

Posted at 10:47 PM by Amit Varma in India | Miscellaneous

05 February, 2010

Welcome to the 19th Century

Ah, modern times. Check out these two amazing news headlines:

Community ostracises woman touched by outsider
Muslims on social networks are sinners

Such stories they contain. It’s bewildering to be a writer of fiction sometimes, when the real world is so very far out and strange. 

Posted at 4:45 PM by Amit Varma in Arts and entertainment | India | News | WTF

Hachette on the Rise

Just back from the Galle Lit Fest, rested, and all set to resume blogging. Let me begin with the good news that my publisher, Hachette India, just a year old in this country, has already become the second-biggest publisher in India, ahead of Harper Collins and Random House, and behind Penguin. Here’s the full story: I’m most pleased that My Friend Sancho has been described as one of their flagship sellers here. Authors are supposed to have uneasy relationships with their publishers, but I get along really well with these guys, and their success is well deserved.

Also, in the UK, Hachette consolidates its No 1 position, which it has held for a while now. More power to them.

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In other book related news, I’ll be part of a panel at the Kala Ghoda Festival discussing “City Stories”. Anjum Hasan will moderate, and my fellow panelists are Chandrahas Choudhury and Lata Jagtiani. It’s on Monday, at 8pm; the full Kala Ghoda schedule is here. There’s also a panel on food writing at 6.30 pm featuring my friends (and India’s best writers on food) Vikram Doctor and Nilanjana Roy, and I’m looking forward to being in the audience for that. Hop over if you have time.

Posted at 2:46 PM by Amit Varma in Arts and entertainment | My Friend Sancho | Personal

27 January, 2010

Off to Galle

In a few hours, I’m off to the Galle Literary Festival. Blogging will be light till I’m back in town, and I don’t expect to be online much. But who knows, I may tweet salacious (and made-up) literary gossip if the fancy strikes me. Watch out for that.

If you’re at the festival, both the events that I’m part of take place on Sunday, January 31. At 10am, I will be in conversation with Shehan Karunatilaka, a Sri Lankan novelist who will be talking about his forthcoming novel, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew. It’s a book set in the world of cricket, and we’ll talk about Sri Lankan literature, Sri Lankan cricket and Shehan’s own writing.

At 2.15pm, I will have a session to myself in which I will talk about My Friend Sancho, read out bits of it, and chat with the audience. If there is time, I may also read from an Abir Ganguly short story that I finished writing a few hours ago, and that will be part of an anthology of Indian writing that you’ll see on the stands later this year.

And ah, I promise at least one orgasm. So if you come, you’ll see me come. Promise.

Posted at 10:14 PM by Amit Varma in Arts and entertainment | My Friend Sancho | Personal

Why Australia? Why Not Dubai?

Reader Ruchir Khare writes in to point me to this passage from the Johann Hari piece on Dubai that I linked to in my last post:

A Human Rights Watch study found there is a “cover-up of the true extent” of deaths from heat exhaustion, overwork and suicide, but the Indian consulate registered 971 deaths of their nationals in 2005 alone. After this figure was leaked, the consulates were told to stop counting.

Ruchir’s questions: What has the Indian government done about this? What has the media done about this? These figures, after all, are greater than those coming out of Australia.

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Oh, and my buddy Madhu pointed me this morning to the WTF headline of the day: “Aussies celebrate R-Day by racially assaulting 2 Indians.”

This is not on some random blog somewhere, it’s from The Economic Times. Some editor actually approved this. Such it goes.

Posted at 10:02 PM by Amit Varma in News | WTF