Vantage point

Conflicted

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 21:54:00 +0000

Something happened today that has left me conflicted. If you read this post months or years later, remember that "today" is three days after the Boston Marathon bombings.

I got on the 33rd Street PATH train at Hoboken (the starting point of the train) to head home to the city, and found the compartment mostly empty as usual. There was an old white man at one end and a young black woman at another. I sat down on a seat in the middle of the compartment, opened a magazine, and started reading.

A minute later, some more people walked in. An East Asian woman, two young white women, and a desi (South Asian) looking guy. The desi guy sat across from me about 10 feet away, slipped his backpack off, and pushed it under the seat. He then took a pair of earphones out of his pocket, put them in his ears and sat there listening to music.

I stole a few more glances at him and the backpack. It is not common, at least in my experience, for someone in the NYC area to push their belongings under the seat. On the seat next to them when the train is as empty as this one was, sure. On the floor between their legs, often. That's where my own backpack was. But under the seat, very rare. At least that's what I told myself was the reason for looking at him more than usual.

Soon the train got going. I tried to read the magazine, an article about HBO's new show Vice, but found myself glancing at him and the backpack every so often. The thought "what if the backpack has...." kept looping through my mind without completing itself.

Eight minutes later, the train reached Manhattan and stopped at Christopher Street. I looked at the guy. He was still listening to his music. There was one more stop to go before I got off at 14th Street. I found myself thinking, "I hope he gets off after me". For two completely opposite reasons, which are obvious.

A couple of minutes later, the train stopped at 9th Street. He got up. I dropped any pretense of stealing glances and stared at him. He didn't seem to have noticed. He took a couple of steps towards the door. My throat went dry as I saw that his backpack was still under the seat!

Shrill alarm bells rang in my head and I was about to spring up from my seat. I was just trying to decide if I should scream and tackle him or go press the Emergency Speakerphone button that every train compartment has.

Before I could make up my mind, he stopped mid-stride. He mouthed what seemed like "Oh shit!", quickly retracted his steps, and picked up his backpack from under the seat. He then turned around and sprinted out before the doors closed. The train started moving again.

I sat there, feeling conflicted. And have been conflicted ever since. Was I paranoid or just vigilant? "If you see something, say something!". Was I bigoted against brown people.....which as a brown person myself would make me self-loathing I guess. After all, I didn't look twice at any of the other people in the compartment. Or was I just being rationally cautious? Was it because I once possibly escaped a commuter train bombing because I was feeling lazy and cancelled dinner plans? Or do I harbor the same prejudices based on skin color and race that I usually abhor in others?

I am not sure. Conflicted.

Problem with Seth MacFarlane - He Insists Upon Himself

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 21:08:00 +0000

Last night was Oscar night. For a couple of weeks leading up to it, I was tweeting about how choosing Seth MacFarlane to host the Oscars was a horrible mistake because he was overrated, unfunny, and by and large a talentless hack who just got lucky getting the right breaks when he did. Many people, especially Family Guy fanbois, responded with indignation.

But then, last night was Oscar night. The mainstream press reviews as well as the overall twitter feedback was unanimous - Seth MacFarlane sucked!

And he was bound to suck. Because he is an overrated, unfunny, and a by and large talentless hack who just got lucky getting the right breaks when he did.

Here's the problem with Seth MacFarlane.

Apart from being overrated, unfunny, and a by and large talentless hack who just got lucky getting the right breaks when he did.

His jokes are just a manifestation of his immense self-indulgence and a meta-idea of how funny his jokes are supposed to be seen as.

His jokes aren't funny because of their content or humor quotient. He thinks his jokes are funny BECAUSE he thinks he is being so cool and edgy and counter-cultural by the virtue of the topics he is addressing. So it isn't so much what the joke is saying that is supposed to amused us, but the topic of the joke itself. Seth thinks that we should find any joke he makes about topic X funny only because most straight laced people wouldn't dare joke about topic X, and he was cool enough to do so.

Except, that's not what makes jokes funny. Or that's not all that makes jokes funny. Yes, there is an edgy appeal to tackling subjects that most straight laced people wouldn't dare joke about. But the jokes themselves have to be funny and clever. Let me give you an example from last night.

Talking about Lincoln, Seth said, "”I would argue that the actor who got most inside Lincoln’s head was John Wilkes Booth.”

I yawned. And when he got a lukewarm response from the audience, Seth's reaction was "too soon?"

No, Seth, I don't personally think joking about an assassination that happened almost a century and a half ago is "too soon". The problem isn't that your joke was "too soon". It's that the joke was simply way too lazy, pedestrian, and something you expect to hear in 3rd rate comedy clubs with 2-drink minimums. It's an oh-so-predictable use of the "getting into one's head" metaphor and the fact that Booth was an actor.

When I find something funny, it's because someone made an observation and phrased it in a way I never would have thought of myself. And I wish I had. This joke was just lazy and stupid. If MacFarlane chooses to believe that he got a poor response because the joke was somehow edgy, politically incorrect, or whatever, he is just deluding himself.

And that's the problem with Family Guy too. For the first 3 seasons, Family Guy was a reasonably funny show. It had amusing and reasonably novel storylines supported by quirky characters, and frequent pop-culture references.

Then maybe MacFarlane ran out of story ideas. The show just became consumed by those pop-culture references. So just making a joke about topic X was supposed to be the amusing part, forget what the actual joke was. Family Guy decided that it was somehow the premier voice of wise-ass counter-culture. Which, well, it could have been. If it had written funny jokes. But it didn't.

MacFarlane decided that a joke would be funny just because it used a random topical or pop-culture reference. And 4th season onward, you could see these randomly unfunny jokes coming a mile away. The writing process itself got distinctly lazy. Something that South Park accurately spoofed -

To use Family Guy and Peter Griffin's own poorly phrased words, when it comes to making topical or pop-culture jokes, the show "insists upon itself".

And essentially, that's what MacFarlane did at the Oscars. He insisted upon himself. He insisted that by the virtue of who he was and the topics he was tackling, he should be hailed as a comedic genius. It was as if manatees were picking up random supposedly controversial pop culture references, and adding random nouns and verbs to make it a joke. And if we didn't find his jokes funny, we were just moldy curmudgeons who were too stuck up to get the jokes.

Seth MacFarlane doesn't realize that whether someone finds the selection of topics too risque or not (and I never have), his jokes simply aren't funny anymore. And that's what led to him bombing so badly at the Oscars. He thinks his limited fake voices and accents can inject an illusion of humor into his lazy jokes.

But all he does is, he insists upon himself.

Why I Threw Away My Ferrari Gear

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:34:00 +0000

I used to be an ardent Formula 1 fan. And an ardent Ferrari fan. Over the years, I lost interest in the sport. But occasionally I would still catch portions of a race on TV and in my heart, I was always cheering for a Ferrari win. On a recent trip to Europe, I bought some Ferrari gear to occasionally display my support.

This morning I threw all the Ferrari gear in trash. Because of this.

The background story in a nutshell is this. Two Italian navy sailors killed two innocent Indian fishermen in Indian waters (the Italians dispute the jurisdiction). India arrested and charged the sailors. The Italian government has been supporting these murderers. So has the Italian media. Note that they're not denying that the sailors killed those innocent fishermen. They still want the Indian government to let the sailors go. Why? The reasoning is flimsy and convoluted and in my opinion can be summarized as "Because!". The arrogance and the racist undertones in Italy's stance are obvious to me and many others. To me, the subtext is, "yes, our boys killed two guys by mistake. But they were just a couple of brown fishermen. Let our boys go! Give them back to us and we'll give them a slap on the wrist. You Indians have no right to try someone who killed your citizens". Do you think that if the fishermen had been Americans killed off the coast of America, the Italians would dare be this brazenly arrogant?

And in a sickening display of further arrogance and willful insensitivity, Ferrari decided to inject itself into the situation. The Formula 1 Indian Grand Prix is this weekend. Ferrari has announced it will carry an Italian Navy flag specifically in support of the two murderous sailors. It's not like Ferrari has been carrying the flag throughout the season. They're doing this only in India. They're not even using the pretext of just supporting the Italian navy in general. Their statements specifically mention support for the murderers. To me this is a small scale version of a British team carrying the flag of General Dyer's regiment only in India to express solidarity with his actions in Jalianwala Bag. Or some other European team supporting one of their fellow citizens who has been locked up in Goa for abusing street kids.

Ferrari is wrong for needlessly wading into this debate specifically during the Indian GP. But more importantly, they are absolutely wrong in supporting those two murderers whose crime, I repeat, is not even in doubt.

As an Indian, I find Ferrari's stance reprehensible and I cannot in good conscience support them in the slightest. So I threw away my Ferrari gear. I hope Indian fans who go watch the race on Sunday are not so slavishly beholden to the team and so morally bankrupt and insensitive as to wear caps or t-shirts supporting these proud backers of murderers.

Translating a Raj Thackeray Speech

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 17:06:00 +0000

I don't agree with Raj Thackeray's stance against immigrants from UP and Bihar. I can sort of, kind of, see where he is coming from, but I don't agree with the conclusion. And I find his forcible and occasionally violent methods to have his way (especially against powerless shopkeepers and job applicants) abhorrent.

However, as a Marathi person, I find the gap between what he says in Marathi and what is reported in the national media to be suspiciously wide. There are two problems. First, they wrongly translate a lot of what he says. Second, they seem to pick and choose the most provocative bits that can be spun into an attention-grabbing soundbite. I have written about the dangers of this phenomenon before.

Today Raj Thackeray led a rally to Azad Maidan (without permission from the police top brass) as a protest against the August 11 incident. He gave a speech there. Again, I marveled at the difference between what he was saying and what the national media was reporting he was saying.

So I had an idea. I have translated PuLa Deshpande's work before. Surely I can translate a speech. So here it is, the speech in Marathi, and then, what I think is an objective, unbiased, and direct translation in English. This is not an endorsement of what he said. Just a translation for illustrative purposes. I agree with some parts, and disagree with some. I'll leave you to judge it for yourself.

Note - I am translating it in a bit of a hurry. So please forgive any typos or inadvertent grammatical errors.

When it's an institution from Maharashtra, be it a police department, a media company, or anything else.... even just a person from Maharashtra....we should demonstrate the strength to ensure that no one ever looks askance at them again with the intention of harming them.

For the last two days, this has been going on... police officials come to me and ask, how will you take the rally from Girgaum chaupatty? I told them we'll walk.

(crowd laughs)

Then they're like, you can't go from here, you can't go from there...all these efforts at putting obstacles in our way have been spearheaded by Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik. I found out the other day..... in fact a few police officials told me this...that they'll try to stop our cars, and try other things to stop us. I called the Chief Minister right away, and asked him, what is this? What happens or doesn't happen (at the rally) is something we can deal with later. But can't we express our protest in a democratic way with a rally?

Why stop us at every point? I assured them at our rally will be a peaceful one, and they still refused us permission for it? And they had no problems giving permission for that Raza Academy rally? But here we are, with a rally to protest what happened the other day right here, and they refuse us permission?

Then there's (Home Minister) R.R. Patil who says - we won't spare anyone who threatens the law and order of the city. Really? So what happened that day? Was his tail between his legs?

(crowd laughs)

The other day he calls up (MNS MLA from Mumbai) Bala Nandgaonkar and says, "What could I do? What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to take a big stick and stand there?"

(crowd laughs)

There is this one boundary line....one border....one line that cannot be crossed. I have never crossed that line, and will never cross that line. Never raise your hands against the police.

(crowd applauds and cheers)

If you demoralize the police to such an extent, then where will the common man go with his problems? Where will he go? If this keeps happening, tomorrow even the police will say "we don't want to get involved here, do whatever you want".

Is this how a state is run? And this Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik. The cops caught the guilty people. And what does he say to the DCP who arrested the guilty people? He says, "You bastard, let them go!" He tells him to let the criminals go!

Our policewomen sisters were tormented here... they were pulled aside and beaten up and molested......all these guys, our Marathi police constables, were getting beaten up... and they weren't getting any orders?

Oh, and these (police head honchos) knew everything from the beginning. They knew that there were trains full of these goons coming for the rally. And they had choppers, and rods and everything else... tell me, are there ever any rocks lying around here (in Azad Maidan)? Where did the rocks come from?

These people had advance warning of all these facts, and they still ignored them. And they refuse permission for my peaceful rally? The other day, when some police officials came to meet me, I told them. I told them that the 11th August rally at least had targets. That mob knew that it was supposed to target the police and the media.

Who do we want to target (in this rally)? I have already declared our targets. Arup Patnaik, resign! R.R. Patil, resign! I declared this in the beginning itself.

We have not come here to destroy cars or set something on fire. We don't even wish to do all that. Even if we were to, whose cars would we destroy and whose property would we set on fire? Our own? Those belonging to our citizens from Mumbai and Maharashtra? This rally isn't for such purposes.

But how else are we supposed to express our anger? They won't let us express our anger at whatever happened. And they say, please respect democracy. This is democracy?

Go and look at the track record of Raza Academy and its rallies. A few years ago, this same Raza Academy had a rally in Bhiwandi. This bhadva (translates to 'pimp' but pimp doesn't have the same punch :)) Abu Asim Azmi went to that rally. He gave a speech there, that too an inflammatory speech. And they're sending me notices - "don't make inflammatory speeches". That Abu Azmi went there, made an inflammatory speech in Bhiwandi. You know what happened next?

The mob killed two police constables by bashing their heads in with big rocks. Then they cut off their private parts and threw their corpses into burning buses..... the government had no problems with that. And they refuse me permission for a rally?

Whoever came here (on 11t August) had no connection with Maharashtra. They all came from outside Maharashtra.

(crowd applauds and cheers)

After everything that went down here that day, this passport was found, a Bangladeshi passport...

(shows a Bangladeshi passport to the crowd)

This was found right here. Single entry passport (I assume he meant visa). Needed only to come into India. No intentions of going back, so it was thrown away here...

(throws it away)

There are countless such people coming into Maharashtra... they are all setting up their bases in Maharashtra. Tell me something....they say 'coincidence'....what coincidence?

In 1992 when the Babri Masjid was demolished, where was its retaliation felt instantly? In Mumbai! There was no violence anywhere else in the country (GS: this isn't true...there were riots in many other cities)...only in Mumbai! And when this incident happened during the rally on 11th August, its reaction happened in Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. So something happens in Uttar Pradesh, there's a reaction in Mumbai, and something happens in Mumbai, there's a reaction in Uttar Pradesh. Doesn't India have any other states???

The reason is, all these people are coming here from there. All these Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who have infiltrated and set up bases in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and Jharkhand, they're all coming here by the trainfuls. And the bases that they are setting up here in Mumbai, those are going to create trouble for us in the future.

Otherwise tell me, this Abu Azmi is elected from two different constituencies in Maharashtra. Two different constituencies? Should any politician from Maharashtra get elected from two different constituencies? He gets elected from two constituencies because all the people in those two constituencies have all come from outside, and they vote for him.

That day, it finally came to the police (couldn't understand the word he said here despite re-playing it many times, at 12:20)...then they had to do it. While doing that, the guy who died, Abu Azmi announced 1.5 lakh rupees for him. So why not for our policemen?

(crowd applauds and cheers)

Even the state government hasn't announced anything yet. No announcements from the state government that they are going to provide compensation for those who were hurt or troubled in those events. Nothing. Nope, just get beaten up.

Why didn't R.R. Patil speak up then? He threatens us.... anyway, what's the point in threatening us? It's almost time for us (and him...a pun) to leave now.

(crowd laughs)

They don't think about anything that has already happened or what may happen. They don't do anything useful. Just get the cops beaten up. Anyone will come, drag our cops away, and beat them up?

The other day when they had that rally in Uttar Pradesh, rioted, destroyed property and all. The ones who did that were also all from outside - Pakistani Muslims and Bangladeshi Muslims. They all poured out into the streets. And what did they do? They defaced a statue of Gautam Buddha. Everyone saw it. Everyone saw pictures, saw it on TV.

Where is Mayawati? Where is that Ramdas Athavale? Where is R.S. Gavai? Where is Prakash Ambedkar? Why are they all silent? All they're obsessed with, as if possessed by a ghost, is Indu Mills Indu Mills Indu Mills Indu Mills. Don't they have anything else to do? What do they want to build in Indu Mills - a bungalow?

Why aren't they talking now? But no one will talk about these things now. They're not ready to utter a word. It's been so many days since the (11th August) incident. But there has been no statement about it from Ramdas Athavale. No statements from R.S. Gavai or Prakash Ambedkar or Mayawati, or anyone else. Nothing. Cat's got everyone's tongues.

This Mumbai Police Comissioner.....he has a "favorite" (that's the word he used) officer Dhoble. The other day, he takes a hockey stick and goes to that...what was that..juice center bar... juice center something...where did he go?

(crowd prompts)

Yes, Amar Juice Center. Is that a place to take a hockey stick to? Take your wife, your kids, I can understand, but a hockey stick? He takes a hockey stick there and beats up innocent people with that hockey stick? And what's his defense? He found drugs there....then why didn't he shut it down?

And this idiot...Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik....what's his explanation? He says Dhoble was on his way to play hockey and stopped over at the juice center. Tomorrow, if someone has gone for his honeymoon. So will he just turn up there naked?

(crowd laughs and cheers)

So Patnaik will go out of his way to protect Dhoble! Because Dhoble is his "favorite". And here (in Azad Maidan) when cops were waiting for orders to tackle the mob.....if not firing, at least give us orders for a lathi charge.... at that time Patnaik had nothing to say. And when our police officers were catching the guilty culprits, Patnaik abuses the officers, calling them "bastards"? He is demoralizing cops to such an extent?

This won't be allowed to happen in Maharashtra anymore. I only want to say one thing to R.R. Patil and Arup Patnaik. Even if you have a little bit of shame left...even a minuscule amount of shame left.... then resign. If you have even the slightest bit of shame left.

For the last two days, some newspapers have been saying - "Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena is now moving towards Hindutva". Whoever raises his hands against a cop, whatever his religion, he should be bashed up wherever he is.

When my own party's MLA was bashed up....Harshavaradhan Jadhav.....is he here? When Harshavardhan was bashed up.... I gave the orders for him to be bashed up... would he have been bashed up otherwise? When I gave a speech at that time, I said the same thing. Harshavaradhan, no matter what happens, you DO NOT raise your hands against a policeman. Never raise your hands against a cop.

This has nothing to do with religion. All the constables who were here, all my policewomen sisters...the female cops... I consider them all my Marathi brothers and Marathi sisters. I have come out on the streets here for them.

The rally that day (11th August) was organized by Muslims and today I have organized a protest rally against it.... so immediately they're jumping to the conclusion that I am "moving towards Hindutva"? I only understand...this Raj Thackeray only understands one religion...and that is Maharashtra religion. I don't understand any religion except that one. No one dare cross this Maharashtra religion. No one dare think of harming it.

And today's rally is only to boost the morale of the police and to provide wholehearted support to the police. Along with them, we have people from the media here. Media vans were attacked, burnt, photographers were beaten up.... this rally is to express support for all of them too.

I thank you all for the tremendous response to this rally. If ever such events reoccur, we must stand together in strength like this.

When you're going back...all of you, when you're going back...keep in mind and make absolutely sure that you don't indulge in any sort of untoward activities. Go back in an orderly and peaceful manner to wherever you came from.

I hope that in the future whenever I call upon you, you will return with the same enthusiasm. And now I take your leave.

Jai Hind! Jai Maharashtra!

---------

The Indian Collective Conscience's Blind Spot for Racism/Discrimination

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Mon, 14 May 2012 16:37:00 +0000

A 2009 issue ~~The latest issue~~ of Outlook has this cringe-inducing article by Diepiriye Kuku, an African American (and presumably gay) PhD student in Delhi. There's nothing new about stories of discrimination faced by Africans or African-Americans or North-East Indians in major Indian cities. These instances are real and shameful. But for me, the most hard-hitting portion was not the one where Kuku describes the specific instances of discrimination he's faced (as shameful as they were), but this

Outside of specific anchors of discourse such as Reservations, there is no consensus that discrimination is a redeemable social ill. This is the real issue with discrimination in India: her own citizens suffer and we are only encouraged to ignore situations that make us all feel powerless. Be it the mute-witnesses seeing racial difference for the first time, kids learning racism from their folks, or the blacks and northeasterners who feel victimised by the public, few operate from a position that believes in change.

Bingo! Kuku has put in words an issue I have been discussing with friends for several years now.

When I tweeted this story, I got a few responses which said "yes, but Indians are also discriminated against in the West" and "Blacks face discrimination even in America, not just India" and "Discrimination is a universal human trait, so why single out India?" That last bit is valid. Discrimination or xenophobia is indeed a universal trait. We have all heard of people discriminating against outsiders or minorities all over the world. India is definitely not unique in that regard.

Where India is unique.....well I shouldn't say unique....but different from societies at least in the West, is the way its collective conscience views racism, or more broadly discrimination against those belonging to groups that aren't part of the "mainstream". We have a major blind spot there.

In the West, yes, everyday there are instances of discrimination on the basis of race and sexuality. But in the West, the collective conscience, or the social discourse recognizes that this is wrong. People use the term "politically correct" like a pejorative. But in the West, it is not considered politically correct by the society to come out and say that some races are inferior. Or that gays are inferior or abominations. Yes, some nutcases say that but in the West, the mainstream collective opinion holds the ideal of equality very dear.

That is largely missing in India. There is no general understanding that saying someone is inferior based on their race or sexuality is wrong. It does exist, in some degree, when it comes to caste. While casteism is still prevalent in India in various forms, the general collective discourse recognizes that saying certain castes are inferior is wrong. The opponents of racism using "merit" is often a code for implied inferiority, but even the use of that code is a "thank heavens for small mercies" byproduct of that Indian collective conscience as least recognizing casteism as wrong.

But when it comes to racism or homophobia, the Indian collective conscience still has a blind spot. Most Indians feel no compunctions in saying that a particular race is inferior or that gays are "unnatural" or "sick" or "disgusting". We humans may never be able to completely rid ourselves of xenophobia and discrimination, the way we may never be able to rid ourselves of murder and rape. But we can take a step in the right direction by at least getting our collective consciences to recognize that xenophobia or discrimination is wrong, just the way murder and rape.

India is yet to take that step. It is lagging behind the West by some decades. The West's conscience wasn't always enlightened. Before the 60s, it was perfectly acceptable to say in public that blacks are inferior and so should be segregated. Even until the 70s and early 80s, it was perfectly acceptable in the West to treat gays as abominations or mutations. But that isn't the case now. The Western conscience has moved and continues to move in the right direction.

I hope India's collective conscience does too. And soon.

Recipe for Egg Salad Sandwich On Toast - Slightly Indian

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:24:00 +0000

When I moved from India to the United States in 2006, I encountered a multitude of food items I had never tasted in India. I could readily understand why I had never tasted most of those items in India, due to Indian conventions, habits, and availability of ingredients, such as ribs or steak tartare. But there was one item whose sheer simplicity astounded me. And which, by rights, should have been really popular in India. That item was the egg salad sandwich. I couldn't figure out why I had never encountered it in India.

The egg salad sandwich is so simple, even minimal. So elegant. So tasty. And so ideal for spicier Indian variations. And yet, almost completely absent from menus in India. Why? I have no idea!

Most chicken sandwiches you get in India are cousins of the egg salad sandwich - shredded chicken mixed with mayonnaise and mustard, served on toasted or untoasted bread. Another popular item in India, the Russian salad (which results in Russian salad sandwich or Rusian salad roll) is also similar. So why is the egg salad sandwich not available in India? I have no idea! But I hope it becomes popular.

Here's the most basic recipe for an egg salad sandwich. Take hard-boiled eggs. Shell them. Mash them. Add mustard, mayo, salt, pepper. Make a sandwich using toasted bread. Enjoy!

Another reason this sandwich should, by rights, be extremely popular in India, is the fact that you can easily add quintessentially Indian spices and make it more flavorful. You can also add different veggies to it, to play around with the texture. That's what I do. I love experimenting with the basic egg salad. I have tried various combinations over the years. Here is my favorite recipe for what is (for me) the perfect Egg Salad Sandwich on Toast:

Recipe (makes 2 sandwiches of 2 toasted bread slices each)

Ingredients:
4 slices of bread
2 eggs hard boiled
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbs mustard (I prefer Dijon, but french mustard works well too)
1 tbsp chopped onion (optional)
1 tbsp chopped bell pepper/capsicum (optional)
Paprika/cayenne/red chili powder (to taste, optional)
Cumin powder (to taste, optional)
Black pepper (to taste)
Salt (to taste)

Directions:

Egg salad is among the easiest sandwiches to make. You don't need to be an expert on cooking by any means. Even the novice-est of novices can get it right.

The first step is to hard boil eggs.

The perfect timing and technique for this varies based on the freshness of your egg (surprising fact - slightly stale eggs when boiled are easier to peel than fresh eggs), its size, and how hard you like your egg boiled.

Peel the egg. Put the peeled eggs in a bowl.

Now we need to mince the eggs. There are different ways of approaching this. You can just crush a whole egg with a spoon or a spatula.

Or you can use an egg slicer to first make elegant slices and then mince the egg.

Eventually, you mince them with a spoon or a spatula. Go to town on 'em. Crush them the way Assad crushes protesters in Syria.

Now whether you want to go as far as Assad or dial it back like Mubarak depends on your taste. I like to leave some pieces of the egg white intact, roughly 1 cm in size. Personally, I prefer slightly chunkier versions to an egg salad where the entire egg is minced like keema. So my ideal minced eggs look like this.

From here on, it's as easy as silencing protesters in Bahrain. Let me tell you about the basic ingredients first. You first add 1 tbsp each of mayonnaise and mustard.

Then you add salt and pepper. Nothing like a pepper grinder to bring out the freshest flavors!

At its most basic, this is egg salad. You can mix the whole shebang, put it between toasts, and you're good to go. But I also like to add onions. And red or green bell pepper (aka capsicum). This time, I added red peppers because that's all I had at home. They tend to be slightly sweet.

I also like to add red chili powder (or paprika or cayenne depending on your taste) because I like a little heat in my egg salad. Not too much. Just a pinch. I also add a pinch of cumin powder because based on all my experiments, I think that's a spice that goes best with egg salad.

Then you mix the whole thing together. Stir it, stir it, stir it, stir it, like a polaroid picture! And this is how it looks.

I know, not very appetizing. But as Shrek said, don't judge me before you taste me.

Next, we toast the bread. You can use a toaster, but I prefer toasting them on a pan, girdle, or as I have done here, a tava. I like 'em nicely browned and crisped!

Done toasting? Now take a toast, and add a generous helping of the egg salad.

And when I say generous, I mean really generous! It's egg salad not butter. Lay it on as thick as Fox News. It should be a thick layer, well thicker than the bread itself. Cover the bread entirely, without letting any salad spill out the edges. Like this. The spartan toast should look overwhelmed by the rich gooey mixture.

But don't worry about the spartan toast. Its Leonidas is on its way (when the heck did the Arab Spring similes turn into Ancient Greek similes!??). Put the other toast on top. And make sure the egg salad layer is thick like this.

Next, you can either pounce on the sandwich like the Persians pounced on the Spartans at Thermopylae. Or you can cut the sandwich in two, like Xerxes wanted done with Leonidas.

There it is. Beautiful, tasty, simple, and nutritious Egg Salad on Toast. Enjoy! I like to position my diagonally cut sandwiches like in the image above and imagine it is the globe from Pacman that I Binky, am attacking. As you can see, all my cooking similes and metaphors have to do with wars and bloodshed. What do to? I am Gandhian that way. Anyway, enjoy the sandwich.

Oh, and if you're like me and savor licking remnants of food off utensils, don't forget the bowl you made the egg salad in. See this?

Don't throw it in the sink. Long after you've polished off the sandwiches, working on the remains of that great civilization in the bowl can bring you greater please than archaeologists relishing Greek ruins.

Why EPL is Soccer and not Football: The Definitive Answer

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:51:00 +0000

I have been in America for 6 years now, and will most likely spend my life here. Like almost all Americans, I refer to what is played in the NFL as football, and what is played in the EPL as soccer.

I don't like soccer. Have never liked soccer. Even as a kid growing up in India, decades before I even heard of the Superbowl or NFL, I found soccer an extremely boring sport. But this post is not about why soccer is so boring. This post isn't about the banality of a "sport" that features 90 minutes of ambling around, kicking around a ball, and scoring on an average just 1-2 times during the whole excruciating period. This post isn't about a sport where it is not considered shameful to feign injuries, where convincing playacting wins games, and where referees seem even more willfully clueless than the fake referees in WWE pro wrestling. This post isn't about the utterly fallacious argument "Soccer is the #1 sport in most countries in the world, so it has to be awesome", that could also be extended to say "denying women rights and dignity is a practice prevalent in most countries in the world, so it has to be awesome".

No, this post is about the name nonsense. You know, what the "real" football is. That what's played in EPL is the only sport that can and should be called football. That churlish notion is what this post is about.

In my academic, professional, and personal life, I have gotten to know about a dozen or so Europeans and a couple of South Americans well enough to call them friends. I have had countless conversations with them, over the course of which, I have referred to Europe and South America's favorite sport as "soccer" and not "football". No eyelids were batted. No corrections were demanded. No moronic "Call it football!!!" suggestions were made. I am sure all of them think of the sport as football. But they were normal people who had better things to do in life than split hairs over the name of a game.

But I have lost count of the number of Indians who have, rather rudely and ignorantly, interrupted me or corrected me with the occasional use of profanity, and demanded that I not call the sport soccer. As they say, the newest converts are the most extremist. And most Indians who follow soccer are the archetypal new convert extremists. India is currently ranked 165 in FIFA rankings. Snowmen have a better chance of surviving months long cruises in hell than India does of qualifying for the FIFA World Cup in this century. India's club soccer landscape is so dismal, that a documentary about it would look like Dystopian science fiction set in sub-Saharan Africa. I'm sure the bottled water budget of the newest IPL cricket team, the Pune Warriors, is more than the overall budget of all soccer tournaments played in India. Forget cricket, which is the king of sports in India. I'm sure that the revenue from the sales of Manchester United jerseys in Bombay is way more than the overall budget of all soccer tournaments played in India.

Despite the abysmal ranking and the tragic club scene, India has millions and millions of soccer fans! Or, as their hubris would force me to say, "football" fans. Now a non-Indian might wonder, how is it that a billion-strong country with millions of soccer fans is ranked lower than countries that don't even have populations close to a million? Why don't these Indian fans of the game go and watch local club soccer, support their teams, affect change and improve the fate of soccer?

The answer is simple. An overwhelming majority of self-proclaimed soccer fans in India are not really "fans" of the "sport" the way most people elsewhere are fans of sports. Scratch the surface and you'll realize that Indian soccer fans couldn't care less about the actual sport. They're just taken in by the aura surrounding the brands that European soccer has managed to cultivate and export. It's more about basking in the borrowed glory of Manchester United, Barcelona, etc. by paying ridiculous amounts of money to buy their jerseys and hats. Most Indian soccer fans couldn't tell you the difference between a banana kick and a banana split, or explain the offside rule. But they could identify the colors, logos, and brand endorsements of the top European club teams, and could tell you the keyboard shortcut to type Barca (the way any English-speaking person would type it) as Barça with that weird tail under the C to convince themselves they really know their stuff.

Well, they don't. Some do. A very few do. But most moneyed upper middle class Indians are just latching on to clubs from random European cities they couldn't even pinpoint on the map because they don't realize how completely they have been taken in by well-crafted marketing campaigns. These Indians spend more than a slum dweller's annual food budget on overpriced (but usually made in Bangladesh) jerseys, display logos on their facebook and twitter accounts, and go by nicknames like "gooner" as an expression of their utterly shallow new-convert extremism. Little wonder then, that despite dozens of European soccer clubs playing the game, 99% of Indian fans swear by one of 3 mega brands - Manchester United, Barcelona (sorry, Barça), and Arsenal.

And these Indian soccer fans are at the forefront of ignoring civility and rudely telling someone "y u call it soccer da? Call it football no macha!" and "LULWUT? y u watch rugby/NFL/AFL da? Dem no be football ra. Dey be hand-egg ra!" And of course, lazily forwarding this oh-so-cliched hand-egg picture; perfectly representative of Indian soccer fans' sporting ignorance and tendency to bask in borrowed glory - they can't even come up with their own clever rebuttals! But their ego grows a few precious microns as they do all this.

So then, which sport can stake claim to the name football? There's a short answer and a long answer. The short answer - Meh, who cares? A rose by any other name and suchlike. To give you an analogy, at any given moment, I can't tell you if I'll call India's biggest metropolis Bombay or Mumbai. I am Marathi, and in that language, we call it Mumbai. But I also grew up when the city's "official" name was Bombay and that's what we called it when speaking in English. In my mind, the names are synonymous. But there are a bunch of folks as self-important, deluded, and rude as Indian soccer fans who can't abide by that. If they live in Shivaji Park or Goregaon, making someone say Mumbai instead of Bombay is the greatest Maratha achievement since the Battle of Wadgaon. If they live in South Bombay, making someone say Bombay instead of Mumbai is the greatest act of civil disobedience since the Salt Satyagraha. But the real answer, the short answer is - Meh, who cares?

The long answer is this. About soccer/football I mean, not that Bombay/Mumbai boondoggle. Rude soccer fans for some reason think of "soccer" as a word the Americans coined, and "football" as the pure true holy name that the noble Brits gave the sport. The long answer is vastly different. The answer steeped in history and etymology, not fallacious vapid logical shortcuts. Indian soccer fans simplistically say, as that hand-egg cliche denotes, that soccer is a game involving kicking a ball with the foot. NFL/Rugby/AFL involve carrying the ball by hands. Hence, FIFA/EPL is the "real" football. Done. Proved. Settled. QED. Elementary, my dear Watson!

Ah, Watson! Sherlock Holmes! Perfect segue!

Have you read the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter? Not one of my favorites, but useful here. Published in 1904. The captain of the Cambridge rugby team asks Holmes to locate a missing player on the eve of a crucial match against Oxford. In that story, the sport is referred to as just "football", sans any qualifiers on three separate occasions. It is also referred to once....only once as "rugger" (as opposed to.....soccer? But more on that in a while). And as rugby, zero times.

So in the la-di-dah home of the sport, England, as a story written by one of the most famous English writers ever suggests, "football" was a term used to referred to rugby. The fact is, "football" was a generic name for a bunch of different sports, including rugby, gridiron football, soccer etc. Football was not exclusively identified even in England as the sport that is now played in the EPL. And although there isn't complete consensus on this, most scholars agree that the term "football" comes, not from kicking the ball with the foot, but the fact that the sport was played on foot. So rugby was football and soccer was football.

In fact the name soccer also originated in England (not in America!) - soccer originates from Association, because that variant of football was called association football. So soccer is the name the English came up with to explicitly distinguish the EPL/FIFA type from other types of football in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Across the pond in United States, once English colonies, they played mainly English sports in the 18th and 19th century. In fact, cricket was very popular before the civil war, and a team of top cricketers from England toured North America in 1859 and played in front of packed stands in Philadelphia, Hoboken, Rochester, Hamilton, and Montreal. But my cricket-loving mind digresses.

The point is, they played a lot of English sports in America those days. Including football - different types of football. If you look at the history of football, the basic point seems to be tolerance for variations. Why go into history? Even today, rugby union is markedly different from rugby league. So that kind of football, where you are on foot but carry the ball in your hands, got tinkered with in America as well. That tinkering led to what I think makes American Football so awesome - the forward pass. The pioneers were colleges who played each other in the 19th century. Finally in the early 1900s, an innovation on the scale of what IPL seemed in 2007, was made. The first ever Rose Bowl (known then as the East-West Football Game) was played between Stanford University and University of Michigan in Pasadena in 1902. That is, two years before Doyle wrote his story about the missing three-quarter.

So we can see that in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the term "football" was used in America to describe what is now played in the NFL, and by AC Doyle to describe what we know as rugby. I am sure there are also instances of people using "football" back then to refer to what is now played in the EPL. I didn't look it up. Even reading about soccer makes me sleepy. But I am sure people used football to refer to soccer as well. That's the point. It was a generic term.

The 20th century progressed and progressed fast. For socio-cultural reasons I'd rather not go into, the football that became most popular in Europe and elsewhere was the variation that involved kicking the ball around. The football that became the most popular in America and somewhat popular in Europe (under the name Rugby) was the variation where you hold the ball in your hands and run. They're all football.

Except!

Well, the thing is, it's the Europeans who invented a different name for their kicking game - soccer. FIFA governs a sport that has two names, like the Bengali bhalo naam and daak naam if you will. Both names coined by the Brits. In America or in Canada, "gridiron" football was just called football. If you're in America, football is what's played in the NFL and Canadian football is what's played in the CFL. If you're in Canada, football is what's played in the CFL and American football is what's played in the NFL. By rights, Aussies should call AFL football too, but they call it "footy", maybe for the same bizarre reason they call barbecue "Barbie". Americans didn't need a second name for their favorite game the way Europeans needed it for their favorite game. Europeans who were into soccer were probably the ancestors of Indian soccer fans, insecure and unsure, and so came up with two names.

Why do I refer to the game in the EPL by the name soccer? In the immortal words of George Mallory, "because it's there!" The name soccer is out there, put out there by Europeans, and is understood worldwide as referring to the game that involves pretending to be hurt while taking leisurely strolls, once in a while prodding the ball into a disgruntled-looking net.

So why is the sport played in EPL/FIFA soccer and not football? Because if someone says football, it could mean one of several things. But if someone says soccer, it means only one game. The game where the highest trophy shouldn't be called Golden Boot, but Golden Actor Holding His Shin Pretending To Be Hurt.

TextsFromHillary for Mamata Banerjee

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Sun, 06 May 2012 22:32:00 +0000

Today Hillary Clinton is meeting Mamata Banerjee. I imagine these are the texts they are exchanging.
Obviously, inspired by Texts From Hillary whose creators Hillary didn't arrest, but LOL-ed with. Mamata Banerjee on the other hand...

Hari Tatya by P. L. "PuLa" Deshpande

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:48:00 +0000

It's been a couple of years since I translated anything by PuLa. While considering different options about what to translate next, Hari Tatya stood out as a particular appealing candidate. He is so universally identifiable. Hari Tatya - the eccentric but genial family friend with one foot firmly in the distant past that all kids have encountered growing up. Your Hari Tatya might not have been interested in history. Maybe he was into politics, or science, or even astrology. But that does not take away from the HariTatyaness of all Hari Tatyas.

Usual caveats apply - I cannot even pretend to be a good enough translator to keep most of PuLa's magic intact. But even a fraction of the essence of the character sketch should make it readable. And I have changed or omitted some references to make the essay accessible. And used contemporary phrases and expressions.

A couple of days ago, I heard someone use the phrase "irrefutable proof", and I was suddenly reminded of Hari Tatya. I had heard him say "I have irrefutable proof of this!!" hundreds of times during the course of my childhood in Mumbai. So had everyone else who knew him. So much so, that my grandma's nickname for Hari Tatya was "Mr. Irrefutable Proof".

There was nothing surprising about his penchant for that phrase, because he is always making claims that can't be justified without irrefutable proof. The guy refuses to inhabit the present. And describes the past as if he can see it unfolding in front of his eyes. He's been like that for as long as I can remember. Obviously, I can't remember the first time I saw him. But I am sure he remembers it vividly.

"Purushottam! Come on, son! How can you not remember? It was a Saturday. Late in the afternoon. How can you not remember?"

That's how he's sure to chide me for forgetting the details of my birth.

The remarkable thing about Hari Tatya was how informally he addressed everyone, be they younger or older than him. He is the only person I ever knew who spoke to my generally feared and respected grandpa like an old chum. Of course, we knew him as grandpa's friend. But he was obviously several years younger. Because he generally treated grandpa with respect and veneration. In his own way. He never used the respectful pronoun as is the norm when speaking to elders in India. But whenever grandpa entered the room, Hari Tatya would sit up straight. Maybe because grandpa gave him some pocket money to tide him over every month. And often provided him with seed funding for his latest entrepreneurial venture.

No one in the family can remember exactly when this creature named Hari Tatya became a part of our extended household. My grandfather was a very generous man, and a friend to anyone who tried to be his friend. So it was difficult to predict exactly how many people he'd bring home any given evening to have dinner with the family. Of course, in those days of the big joint family, the occasional dinner guest or two didn't really bother those minding the kitchen. In those days, rice, dal, and flour for a meal were measured not by cupfuls, but by fistfuls. The dinner table was populated by not just immediate family, but also uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and cousins once, twice, several times removed. There was also the occasional son or daughter of a family friend studying in the city, in addition to ABC's brother-in-law and XYZ's neighbor's son-in-law. So at pretty much any meal, there were always a few unexpected guests present. I don't recall many evenings when our joint family of 12 had less than 25 plates laid out for dinner.

My grandma seemed to me like Annapoorna (the goddess of nourishment) reincarnated. Her hands were blessed with some magical touch that imparted rich flavor even on a glass of water she served. So you can imagine how tasty and welcoming any dinner table she laid out was. Hari Tatya joined our family by turning up at one such dinner table. After that, he kept turning up. He was there with us at joyous occasions. He was with us at sad moments.

But all those years, even as I grew up and looked different every year, Hari Tatya always looked the same. A simple cotton shirt, modest dhoti, and a rarely-washed Gandhi cap. We kids referred to his style of wearing the cap as "Compass Fashion". If his nose pointed east, then the two ends of his cap seemed to align with the North-South axis, like a compass needle.

I never had any idea what Hari Tatya did for a living. I only knew that grandpa kept helping him start some "promising new business" every few months. Grandpa had always had a dream of owning and running his own business. But his stable and respected position in society, the steady income his job brought him, and the large family depending on that income, made taking any big risks all but impossible. So he lived his entrepreneurial dream vicariously through Hari Tatya by funding Hari Tatya's ambitious albeit modestly scaled business ideas.

I remember one monsoon season when grandpa gave Hari Tatya money to start a business selling umbrellas. For the next couple of years, everyone in the family got a new umbrella for free in the first week of June. But I doubt Hari Tatya's umbrella business was profitable any longer than an umbrella mushroom's lifespan. It seemed like grandpa was more devoted to making the umbrella business succeed. I remember he would come home from work in the evening every day and hand Hari Tatya a sheet of paper,

"Here are orders for some umbrellas. Be sure to deliver them to these addresses right away."

Then we kids would accompany Hari Tatya, brand new umbrellas stacked on our heads, making deliveries to customers that grandpa has managed to canvas during his day job. We kids usually didn't move a muscle for anyone else. We'd disappear if anyone else tried to give us a chore. But for Hari Tatya, we didn't mind looking ridiculous walking the streets with those umbrellas on our heads. We loved his company so much, we'd have walked on coals with umbrellas on our heads if he had asked us to.

Hari Tatya told us absorbing stories and taught us fascinating poems and shlokas as we accompanied him. That too at the top of his voice while walking on the street without any regard to passers by. I remember an anecdote from one of our umbrella sorties. We were all walking with those umbrellas stacked on our heads. Hari Tatya told us to put the umbrellas down, and join him on a stone bench on a street square, and regaled us with the story of Sant Ramdas.

He had a truly unique narrative style. As a result of that narrative style, for many years, we kids were under the impression that Hari Tatya, Sant Ramdas, Moropant, Sant Tukaram, Vaman Pandit, Shivaji Maharaj etc. all once lived together in the same neighborhood. Because no matter how far back in the past the event he was narrating had occurred, he effortlessly injected himself into the proceedings. The way he recounted those stories convinced us that he had seen it all unfold in front of his eyes.

"Kids, I tell you, this Ramdas, even as a kid, was quite the character! He would run away and hide somewhere. We'd keep searching, keep seeking, but couldn't find him! His mother would ask us - have you seen my little Narayan anywhere? We'd say, sorry ma'am, we have no idea. Poor woman, she'd keep looking for him all over the village."

"Once she asked the village chief - have you seen my Narayan anywhere? The village chief had the habit of pouncing on any opportunity to be arrogant. He said - Narayan? Which Narayan? There are hundreds of Narayans in this village! Mother said - Please help me, sir. My Narayan. Narayan Thosar. Have you seen him?"

"Poor lady. There were tears in her eyes. And with good reason. Tell me Purushottam, if you go missing some day. And your mother is looking for you everywhere. Won't she tear up? Tell me, Purushottam! Won't she??"

Hari Tatya would narrate this story with so much pathos, that all our eyes would moisten up as well. Then we'd start walking again to make sure the umbrellas were delivered on time. But as our hands held the umbrellas on our heads, our shirt sleeves would be busy wiping our tearful eyes as Hari Tatya continued with Sant Ramdas a.k.a Narayan Thosar's story.

"Narayan's mother was terrified! Fair good-looking little boy. I tell you guys, this Narayan looked so beautiful as a child. Positively radiant. Plus he'd just had his threading ceremony, and wore a pearl earring. She was aghast - did those Muslim invaders kidnap him to convert him to Islam??? Oh my god!!!"

"And kids, I tell you....those damned Muslim invaders in those days....they weren't decent like Muslims we know today. No! They were just so damn #$%%*&^$#......"

And he'd unleash a barrage of expletives that any other adult would've deemed inappropriate for our supposedly innocent young ears. Maybe it's because of these expletives he let loose so readily, but to our pre-pubescent minds, Hari Tatya seemed like the epitome of valor and courage.

"So then, hours ticked by. And soon it was afternoon. Still no sign of Narayan! Mother ran home and spread her arms in front of Lord Ram's idol. Ah, how beautiful that idol was, kids, believe me! So divine...."

And Hari Tatya folded his hands to pay respects to that imaginary idol of Lord Ram floating in the air in front of him. We all were still carrying umbrellas. But still, we did our best to twist our arms and pay our respects to the imaginary idol too.

"She said - Goddess Sita, please find me my Narayan, and I will give you an offering of my best clothes and a coconut! Mother said that, and opened the closet to take out her best clothes to offer to the goddess. And lo! Narayan was sitting in the closet!"

"Mother wailed in delight - NAAARAAYANAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!"

And Hari Tatya yelled so loudly, that everyone around us on the street stopped whatever they were doing and started staring at us.

"Mother took Narayan in her arms and said - My son, I have been looking for you all over the village. What are you doing here? .... Do you know Purushottam, what Narayan's response was?"

I shook my head.

"Yeah, well, it's difficult for you to know. How would you know? An innocent little child like you can't even imagine what the future Sant Ramdas said. Narayan said...get this, kids.... Narayan said - Mother, I was pondering the fate of the world"

"That's what he said - I was pondering the fate of the world."

Hari Tatya finished the story. He blew his nose. Then he wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeves. All us little umbrella carriers, or chhatrapatis, had no idea what to do next. Hari Tatya regained control of his demeanor and said,

"Just think Purushottam.... he was about your age. And what did he say? I was pondering the fate of the world! Unbelievable! Simply divine! Tell me Purushottam, do you have such a boy in your class? A boy who will hide in the closet? And say - I was pondering the fate of the world?? Is there? Tell me!"

I meekly shook my head.

"Yeah! So that was Ramdas! Saintly right from his childhood. I have irrefutable proof of this. He went on to become Ramdas Swami.... Sant Ramdas. But just because he was a Sant, don't think he was a softie. You should've seen him flex his muscles. The way his biceps sprang up, almost jumping out of his skin, I tell you! All he had to do was bend his arm ever so slightly, and his bicep would spring up. If you struck his bicep with an iron bar, the iron bar would bend! But Sant Ramdas would barely notice the blow. Barely...."

Hari Tatya kept staring into nothingness for a couple of minutes as if he had just seen Sant Ramdas in the flesh. He smiled a little and gradually shook his head in admiration.

Then suddenly, as if waking up from a dream, he shook his shoulders. And in a voice completely devoid of the narration-specific baritone, he said,

"Umm....Purushottam....tell me...Nerulkar...Nerulkar is the guy who lives around the corner from the grocery store, right? How many umbrellas has he ordered? Three, right? Let me check..."

Hari Tatya fished out the sheet from his pocket, verified the order, and led our umbrella-bearing procession to the Nerulkar residence.

No one in that procession had yet truly returned to the present, to the real world. One kid was visualizing the full scale and strength of Sant Ramdas' legendary biceps. Another was wondering how a well-built 10 year could fit inside a 17th century closet in a poor Brahmin family's house. Yet another was promising himself that when he grew up, he'd work out so intensely that an iron bar would bend when struck on his biceps. With all these anachronistic thoughts in our minds, dreamy expressions on our faces, and umbrellas on our heads, we were helping Hari Tatya run his business.

It goes without saying that the umbrella business didn't last long. None of Hari Tatya's businesses did. The reason was obvious to me. Hari Tatya aspired to run those businesses. But his passion and dedication towards running them was nothing compared to the passion and dedication grandpa had for those businesses. But grandpa's passion and dedication was moot, since he couldn't practically quit his job. And Hari Tatya, who was supposed to run the business, usually inhabited a completely different reality.

Later, grandpa gave Hari Tatya money to start a business selling agarbattis (incense sticks). So Hari Tatya started walking around with a big bag of agarbattis hanging from his neck. Grandpa and Hari Tatya would discuss the sales of the day every evening. Often, it'd turn out that Hari Tatya had taken 1 rupee from a customer for an agarbatti pack worth 75 paise, and returned 50 paise instead of 25 paise. And on most days, the bag hanging from his neck was as full in the evening as it had been in the morning.

But still, after all these discussions, on his way out, Hari Tatya would open the door and happily yell at us kids,

"Jai Jai Raghuveer Samartha!"

That's a line from the Dasbodh - Sant Ramdas' treatise on spiritual and practical matters. It is particularly known among Marathi people for its guidance on practical matters, a ready reckoner for success, if you will. Hari Tatya was a man who kept quoting that practical treatise at every possible opportunity, but remained utterly and truly impractical. He never reached an appointment on time, never left an appointment on time.

Grandpa and Hari Tatya clearly loved each other, cared for each other. But they also spent several nights arguing with each other. Random corners of various rooms in our house were stacked with unsold inventory from Hari Tatya's failed ventures - from umbrellas to agarbattis to books to backpacks. Once in a while, when we eavesdropped on the arguments, what Hari Tatya said was oddly but somehow appropriately unrelated to the business at hand and more relevant to arcane Maratha history,

"Dude, I have irrefutable proof of this! Come with me to Maval right now! I can literally see where that horse Krishna's hooves landed!"

And truly, Hari Tatya could probably see where those hooves has landed centuries ago. I often wonder if Hari Tatya's default existence was in the distant past, in the golden age of the Maratha empire. The odd occasion when he acknowledged the 20th century was probably like a dream to him.

"So there we all were. Standing in the royal court with Shivaji Maharaj on the throne. And they brought in the daughter-in-law of Kalyan's vanquished governor. Oh wow! She was absolutely gorgeous! A true beauty if I ever saw one! And as the victorious king, Shivaji Maharaj had the right to have his way with her. She was his for the taking. She was so damn beautiful, I tell you guys! And her flawless milky white complexion! She was at least 6 times as fair as this girl Yami everyone thinks is so fair. And I'm not making this up, boys. I have irrefutable proof of this!"

When I was a kid, our neighbor Yami Gokhale was the benchmark of fair complexion. She had the whitest skin we ever saw. The Gokhales were the only Konknastha Brahmin family in our neighborhood, and Konknastha Brahmins are reputed to have fair/white skins. The rest of us were mainly Deshpande-Kulkarni types with wheatish-to-dark skins. Hari Tatya himself was as dark as the iron pillar in Delhi. So when he said "6 times as fair as this girl Yami", we had genuine trouble imagining how fair the daughter-in-law of Kalyan's vanquished governor must have been. But Hari Tatya had no trouble embellishing his story.

"We were all standing there, staring, admiring her beauty. Maharaj himself was stunned by her beauty..... tell me kids.... Maharaj who???"

We had all memorized the answer to this question thanks to several prior lessons from Hari Tatya,

"GoBrahminPratipalakKshatriyaKulavatansaChhatrapatiShivajiMaharaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaj!!!"

We kids yelled out the official complete title for Shivaji as if we were orderlies in the Maratha court of the 1600s. When we said this correctly, Hari Tatya regally looked at us with an expression of pride and humility, as if he were Shivaji himself!

"Well done, boys! So anyway....where was I?"

"6 times as fair as Yami" one of us piped up.

"Okay, you idiot. Who was 6 times as fair as Yami?"

"The wife of Kalyan's vanquished governor."

"WIFE????????" Hari Tatya screeched.

We all took a step back.

"You idiot! Where did his wife come from? There in Kalyan, the vanquished governor is splayed out dying, yelling YA ALLAH! YA ALLAH!"

And Hari Tatya laid down on the ground with his limbs flailing in the air, invoking the Koranic almighty.

"He is dying! His wife is next to him, crying! The one they brought to Shivaji Maharaj's court was his beautiful daughter-in-law!"

"6 times as fair as..."

"YES!" Hari Tatya thundered, "Will you stop obsessing over Yami, for crying out loud?"

The boy looked away and Hari Tatya continued,

"So we were all staring at this exquisite beauty that was the daughter-in-law of Kalyan's vanquished governor. And Maharaj was looking at her too. Oh, and how handsome Maharaj himself looked, I tell you, boys! Eyes like an eagle. Sharp straight nose. Thick flowing beard. Rich well-defined sideburns....."

Whenever Hari Tatya narrated a story about Shivaji Maharaj, this effusive description of his appearance was bound to turn up sooner rather than later. As soon as Hari Tatya mentioned the sideburns, we'd complete the remaining description -

"...the regal crown on his head, the divine Bhavani sword at his waist, a pearl necklace hanging against his chest, a tilak on his forehead....."

When we completed this description, Hari Tatya looked at us all with an expression of genuine bliss and satisfaction.

"Well done, boys!" Hari Tatya nodded and continued, "So Maharaj said to the beauty - betaa, pardaa nikaalo, darney ki koi baat nahin (Child, take off your veil. There is no need to be afraid.)"

All of us had heard the story of the daughter-in-law of Kalyan's vanquished governor dozens of times. But every time, this particular line was delivered in Hindi for some reason.

"So that beauty raised her veil. Maharaj looked at her. And said - Wow! Goddess Bhavani has made you extremely beautiful!"

Because of Hari Tatya's numerous renditions of this story, all us kids grew up assuming that the job of making someone beautiful had been assigned to Goddess Bhavani. In fact, we were so convinced of it, that for many years afterwards, whenever I saw a beautiful woman, I'd think to myself - Goddess Bhavani has done a good job on her!

"Maharaj then said - If my mother had been as good looking as you, then maybe I too would have been good looking! Hearing this, I swear you Purushottam, that lady was so touched, tears started flowing from her eyes. Then Maharaj gave her a sari as a gift, and respectfully sent her back to Kalyan, untouched and unmolested. That's how wise and decent our Maharaj was!"

Just as Hari Tatya finished narrating the story, grandpa showed up. Suddenly, Hari Tatya's demeanor changed, and he earnestly said,

"Listen Purushottam, tomorrow morning, we must leave really early to sell those agarbattis, understand? Later on, the streets get so crowded, that it's difficult to move about!"

Of course, all us kids understood the sudden change in Hari Tatya. In fact, we had an unspoken arrangement with him, in which, if we saw grandpa approaching, we would quietly tell Hari Tatya about it.

This arrangement worked great when we were kids. But kids don't always stay kids. They grow up.

We grew up too. Lost our wide-eyes innocence, and developed a healthy sense of cynicism and sarcasm. We went from revering Hari Tatya to poking fun at Hari Tatya. Once we started making fun of the guy, we realized that grandma had been doing it for ages. If he occasionally turned up late for dinner, grandma would say,

"Oh, you still haven't had dinner, Hari Tatya?? When you didn't show up at the usual time, I thought Shivaji Maharaj insisted you stay over at his palace for dinner!"

Hari Tatya would say nothing.

"Or maybe at Peshwa Bajirao's table tonight.... in a silver plate!"

I don't think the ridicule mattered to Hari Tatya. In fact, I am sure that in his mind, he really had dined with Shivaji Maharaj thousands of times. Once he entered the idyllic world of the past, he completely immersed himself in it.

Once, our entire family went to Pune for a function. Hari Tatya came with us. For him, Pune, steeped in Maratha history, was Valhalla. Not only did he come with us, but he took all us kids for several walks around the city all week, and all but recounted the history associated with every tiny rock we encountered.

When Hari Tatya took us to the bare spartan innards of the historic Peshwa palace Shanivaarvaada, he told us the story of Peshwa Narayanrao's murder. And of course, he ran around the place yelling,

"UNCLE!! SAVE ME!! UNCLE!! SAVE ME!!"

Be it the reign of Shivaji or the reign of Peshwas, this man was always there. 'How was Hari Tatya present at every historic event related to the Maratha empire in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century?' - was a question we never asked ourselves when we were children. And when we grew up, although we poked a little fun at him, we never asked him that uncomfortable question to force him to confront the fact that his fantasy world was just that - a fantasy.

Hari Tatya led us through the streets of Pune, reliving several processions full of elephants and horses. His eyes had apparently seen the first ever public Ganpati, in Kasba. He didn't just know the details of everything that went on at Lal Mahal; he could even identify the window from which Shaistekhan was hanging when he lost his fingers to Shivaji's sword.

"And the bugger went to the Mughal emperor Delhi and greeted him with his chopped up fingers!" Hari Tatya told us with ill-concealed glee, "The emperor said to Shaistekhan - Sir Uncle, where are your fingers? Khan said to the emperor - that bastard Shivaji, that rat of the hills, he cut them off! Imagine that! This no-good Shaistekhan called Maharaj a bastard! That damn #$%%@#$$#@@@..."

Hari Tatya, in the presence of us kids, fired at Shaistekhan a colorful expletive of such unbridled hostility, that if the Khan had heard it, he would've presented his hands to Hari Tatya and said, "if you want, cut off my remaining fingers, but please, stop with the profanity!"

Hari Tatya often turned up when least expected. Similarly, he often disappeared when least expected. On Chaturthi (a holy night for Marathis), if Hari Tatya didn't show up for dinner, even grandma would wonder,

"Where the heck is Hari Tatya? Has he gone to Panipat to wage another ill-advised war?"

Hari Tatya was sorely missed on every holy occasion that he didn't show up, solely for his flair at leading aarti (public prayer). He knew hundreds of of aartis. He seemed to know by heart the aarti for every god and goddess in the Hindu pantheon. When a shirtless Hari Tatya, with tilak on his forehead would start the aarti of the Dashaavtaars in his booming voice, everyone's hands instinctively came together in devotion. And when I say his voice boomed, I mean it! Even the person holding the pooja plate would put it down, probably worried about it vibrating because of the voice.

"AAAARTI SAPREM JAIJAI VITTHAL PARABRAHMAAAA....PHAKTA SANKATI NANAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA...."

When that "AAAAA" started, all us kids would have bets on who could keep going the longest without stopping for breath.

"PAACHAVE AVATAAR PARICHE DAADHI TISTHASI.....SAHAVAA AVATAAAR..."

By the time he was halfway through the 10 avatars, Hari Tatya's own delirious avatar was worth marveling over. We kids would get caught up in the fervor too. Whenever Hari Tatya became engrossed in the aarti, his right eye developed an odd squint. On such occasions, we kids would turn our back on the holy idols and stare at the divine Hari Tatya instead.

"PINDYA PATAKAA...VAISHNAV NAACHATI..."

At this line, he'd spin on the spot a couple of times. We kids would spin too.

"CHANDRABHAAGE MADHYE SNAAN KARITI"

I can still picture the imaginary dip he would take in the imaginary holy river at this line.

Towards the end of the aarti, his voice got even louder at the DEVAAAA.... and of course, all us kids would join in. That was the only moment in the whole year when we had a license to scream as loudly as we wanted. That's what made Hari Tatya so special to us kids - in his company, we could be what we wished we could be all the time.

Today, after remembering Hari Tatya after all these years, I can't help but get a little choked up. Dozens of people of all ages, appearances, and backgrounds came to visit grandpa when I was growing up. I can remember some of them well, can't even picture the faces of many others. But no one was as memorable as Hari Tatya.

When Hari Tatya walked into the compound of our house, he'd first stop and talk to us kids playing in the yard, and only then go greet the adults. He was popular not only among the kids in my family, but also other kids in the neighborhood, who had no compunctions in calling out his name when they saw him,

"Hariii Taatyaaaaaa!"

Hari Tatya would acknowledge the kid who had called out his name and do his best to entertain. He'd pretend to jump up and down like a monkey, make funny faces, march around like a drummer boy until everyone was laughing. He'd stop whatever he was doing to entertain kids.

Sometimes he'd do this when he was walking with grandpa, engaged in some serious discussion about their latest business venture. Grandpa would discover that he was talking to fresh air, and Hari Tatya had stopped several steps back to make faces at some kid. On such occasions, grandpa scolded him in public, asked him to behave like a grown-up.

But grandpa did love Hari Tatya a lot, like a brother. I never fully understood why the bond between them was so strong, because you couldn't find two men more unlike each other. But the bond was strong. If grandma made some special dessert, grandpa would always remind her to set some aside for Hari Tatya. Not that grandma needed any reminders. She cared about him too. Often she'd tell other women in the kitchen to make sure there's enough food set aside for "that old crow Hari Tatya" in case he dropped by.

Hari Tatya resembled a crow in many ways. When he moved his gaze, he moved not just his eyes, but even his neck, like a crow does. His eyes had a slight squint, like crow's eyes. But his squinted gaze had seen a lot of things that others with a normal gaze missed. He had seen Shivaji's coronation, the third battle of Panipat, the Buradi Ghat skirmish...

"Even if we die, we'll keep fighting on!" Hari Tatya, down on the ground in our front yard with limbs flailing, hollered Dattaji Shinde's dying words.

Even today when I read Dattaji's tragic death, I see him as Hari Tatya in my front yard. Over the years Hari Tatya got me intimately acquainted with Shivaji, Tanaji, Tukaram, and everyone of any importance in Maratha history.

I never really liked history lessons at school, nor did I fully understand them. School history was infested with dates that had to be memorized. Hari Tatya's history wasn't tangled in the cobwebs of distant dates; it was as alive as he was. And he brought it to life for me.

As a child when I made my first trip to Pune, I was surprised not to see Shivaji or Sambhaji Maharaj there. When the train passed through the Sahyadris, I hoped to catch the glimpse of the Marathi army crossing the hills in full battle gear. Hari Tatya's refusal to think of history in past tense had rubbed of on me. His tendency to inject himself into any event and narrate in first person made it seem like all those events had occurred just before Hari Tatya came to our house.

People often personify History when they say things like "History will remember", "History will note", "History tell us", and so on. Today I realize that the "I" in Hari Tatya's stories was never meant to be Hari Tatya himself, but that personification of History.

"All us soldiers on Sinhagad were terrified by the enemy's swollen ranks, and started running away from battle, when Suryaji stood in our way. WAIT, he shouted at us, I HAVE CUT OFF THE ROPES THAT WE USED TO CLIMB UP. Well, what could we do? There was no way to run. So we turned around and joined the battle again. A sword through an enemy's throat, a spear through another's stomach, we kept going!"

"Tanaji had already been martyred. Shelarmama was wounded, but still fighting. I tell you, Purushottam, I have never seen a man bleed as much as Shelarmama did that night. His clothes were completely red. But oh, when he finally landed a blow on that Udaybhaan.... that was all it tok. Udaybhaan was flat on his back. Soon the tide turned, and we had won. We lit up the signal torches. Shivaji Maharaj saw our signal and reached Sinhagad in an hour."

"When he learned that Tanaji had died, Maharaj started bawling like a baby! Like a baby, I tell you! He said in a broken voice - "I got my gad (fort) back, but I lost my sinha (lion)". Oh, the plaintive voice when he said it, I swear to you Purushottam, I couldn't bear to hear it. I had never and have never since heard Maharaj sound like that. And I have irrefutable proof of this. Not making it up. Even the stones on Sinhagad melted at the intensity of Maharaj's sorrow. That's how Maharaj was. Which Maharaj?"

"GoBrahminPratipalak........" we'd break into our well-rehearsed chant.

As time went by, my childhood too became history. Most of the elders in the family passed away. The house also aged. Maintaining the yard became too much of a hassle, so it was tiled. The little flower garden was gone, as were grandpa, grandma, and dad. I lost touch with most other members of the family as well. There was no way to always keep in touch with Hari Tatya.

Once in a while, the clock turns back, and in the broken glasses of the old house's windows, I see countless reflections from my childhood. Occasionally the scent of an agarbatti, or the first drop of rain on a new umbrella makes me think of Hari Tatya. And his voice starts echoing in my head.

That man, no relation of mine, gave me more than most of my close relatives ever did. He'd take us kids high in the open skies of fantasy on his wings of history. Bring to life everyone from history. He made sure that the roots of the tiny saplings that were our childhoods were buried deep in a glorious past. Hari Tatya never gave us snacks or candy that money could buy, but instilled in us a sense of pride for our heritage that no treasure in the world can.

He strengthened our tiny wrists with the character of the past. I never realized it then, but can see the true value of his efforts now. Those wrists don't always turn the way they are supposed to. But Hari Tatya instilled in us the confidence that if need be, they can turn the course of history.

Now Hari Tatya himself is part of history. Old age made him a shadow of his former self. It was much later, during his last and eventually fatal bout of illness, that I learned Hari Tatya had a grown-up son. He worked in some trading firm in East Africa.

In those final days, when I went to meet him, I couldn't bear to look at what old age had done to him. He was almost fully blind. As he laid there looking weak, his shriveled body didn't even cover half the bed. I sat next to him.

"Hari Tatya, it's me Purushottam."

"Oh Purushotam! Great!" he smiled in the direction of my voice, "As you can see, I am now Surdas! So how have you been? You're in Delhi these days, right?"

"Yes."

"Ah, never got to see Delhi."

"Why don't you come with me?"

"There's no use now. I may be able to visit Delhi, but won't be able to see it, which is the whole point. No, I'll just admire it in my mind."

Hari Tatya felt silent. I felt tempted to gather all my childhood friends, including the 1/6th fair Yami Gokhale, and holler,

"GoBrahminPratipalakKshatriyaKulavatansaChhatrapatiShivajiMaharaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaj!!!"

Maybe it would have brought life back to his eyes, put some meat on his bones, and maybe he'd have said,

"I tell you, Purushottam! We were all standing there dumbfounded in the court at Delhi. And Sadashivrao Bhau was chipping away at the golden throne! With his bare hands! Pieces of gold flying all around, as the rest of us watched, unable to move!"

Come to think of it, Hari Tatya didn't need to see Delhi for all this. Whatever he had seen of history, he hadn't seen with the eyes he lost to old age. I spent several hours with him and left, aware that this might be the last time I get to meet him.

A few days later, Hari Tatya's obituary appeared in the newspaper with the cliched salutations and praises - affectionate, kind, loved by all, etc etc. As I read the obituary, I realized it didn't even come close to capturing the essence of the man. It was the first and last printed record my old childhood friend, who usually lived in the distant past, having any contact with the present. All it did was offer "irrefutable proof" that a man called Hari Tatya had existed in our times.

On Ad Hominem and Relative Morality

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:25:00 +0000

A few hours back, @riffraaf whom I follow on twitter and have great regard for, and I had a disagreement over the aftermath of the Rosen-Romney episode. We exchanged a couple of emails. She wrote this post.

This is my response

Very well put. I agree mostly.

Here's where I am coming from: Rosen made a stupid comment. Faux outrage about how Ann Romney is such a victim ensued. (never mind our FLOTUS is bashed in ugly ways every day but that's probably the partisan in me talking, you might say).

Oh, Michelle is definitely bashed in the ugliest ways. It is bizarre to me that someone can make combating obesity into some evil plot!

Some of the people I follow on the right started labeling it as #waronmoms. This was a completely cynical response to left's #waronwomen. Now they wanted to beat the left at their own game. I get it.

Yup, they're just being cynical. But being helped by the left propagating articles like the rude pundit's.

But there was more to #waronwomen (though I personally loathe to use this slogan): Most women I know who are not into partisanship in general (because they're too busy raising kids and handling jobs unlike me :) ) got really riled up with a series of events that hurt women's rights: starting from planned parenthood defunding by Komen to birth control access issues to Sandra fluke (and Rush Limbaugh harassing Fluke for 3 entire days calling her a slut, prostitute, how she should put her porn videos online so he can watch it and so on) to ultra sound bills to new arizona laws infringing rights further.

Agree. That's how my wife (Indian-born American-raised) wife is. She is not as much into politics. She does follow it more than others. She is, like me, a fiscal conservative. But for her, this #waronwomen trumps anything else. Anything related to planned parenthood (which she loves) and birth control gets her riled up. So even if Obama raises taxes by gazillion percent (she hates tax raises even on rich folks), the social aspect of it against women's rights will always make her vote democrat.

So it irritates me to no end that suddenly Risen is somehow equivalent of Limbaugh and all the incivilities shown against women in the last year are equivalent to one insensitive remark made by a Rosen who was a nobody until now (even w/ her hillary support in 2008 and apparently having contributed to Obama campaign in 2008).

I don't think Rosen is equivalent of the much much viler and nastier and just plain-worse-human-being Limbaugh. I am not drawing the equivalence, so I am not going to defend the equivalence.

However, on its own, what Rosen said is definitely insensitive and stupid. And undoubtedly ad hominem. That's all that matters to me, as someone who doesn't count himself on the left or the right when it comes to identifying with movements. By saying what she did, Rosen attacked who Ann Romney, not what Ann or Mitt Romney were saying, making it a classic ad hominem attack.

It's politically damaging I agree. But it's a huge fake outrage and no where near what's really happening to women all over the country (whether w/ healthcare, minimum wages, equal pay, infringing on woman's body, unemployment and so on that affect women in REAL ways).

So I know Obama was doing what any Dem politician would do, but I'm still turned off by this whole latest, what I call Faux outrage.

Granted that some of those outraging are just fake-outraging. Just taking the chance to score points against their political opponents. Granted that many of those outraging on the right have possibly said much worse and more misogynist stuff against women.

But what Rosen said was still stupid and insensitive. And IMO, the Obama campaign by denouncing what Rosen said, is doing not just the politically expedient thing, but the right thing. And elements of the left by digging in and writing posts/articles undermining the worth of Ann Romney's life, are doing the WRONG thing, be it politically or morally.

Australia - Walkin' on Sunshine in Barbados

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:56:00 +0000

Every once in a while, test cricket says to other sports "Who's your daddy? I am!" Today is one such time.

Five days ago, if you had said to me, "Australia will win the Barbados test", I'd have responded, yeah, probably...for sure... so?

The beauty of test cricket is its ability to engineer the most bizarre dramas, replete with unexpected reversals, and above all, often making the the audience switch their loyalties.

Five days ago, I was sure that Australia, the side that whitewashed the kinda-mighty Indians, would make mincemeat of West Indies. It didn't even seem like a test series worth following on Cricinfo. But follow it I did. Once you love test cricket, you can't help but follow test cricket, no matter how foregone the conclusion might seem.

Then came the first major twist in the tail. The Windies, marshaled by that old fox Chanderpaul, posted a 400+ score. It's not often that a team loses after scoring 400+ in the first innings. Even better, the Windies bowlers got rid of the Aussie top and middle order fairly soon.

Holy crap! The Windies were set to get a substantial first innings lead. And even win the test! Go West Indies, I thought. Yessss! Schadenfreude is a cool-sounding word, but it truly finds its meaning when the Australian cricket team is losing. Go Windies!

And then test cricket showed why it's everyone's daddy. The Aussies, reverting to a sickening old habit, fought back. Their tail wagged, chipping away at the deficit. Their 10th wicket partnership was going strong, reducing the deficit to a mathematical factoid. Heck, they might even wipe off the deficit.

And then.... huh! Clarke decalred! What!??! He declared, with his 10 wicket pair going strong and the deficit still 43! He declared to, ostensibly and obviously, have enough time to actually win the test.

I have generally disliked the Aussie team. And I don't like Michael Clarke. But this decision won me over. What a declaration! True, his 10th wicket was at the crease, so to posterity, it might not seem like much. But in the context of the match, it was quite a doozy.

Turns out Clarke shocked not just us fans, but the Windies batsmen too. They promptly collapsed in a heap. And suddenly, it seemed like Australia might win this. It wasn't easy. Sure, it seemed easy - 192 in 60-odd overs. But the fading April light meant there was no chance to get more than 50 overs. On a 5th day pitch.

Then came the inevitable sad flashback. India at Dominica last year. The #1 test team in the world. Set 180 in 47 overs. And India decided to play it safe and accepted a draw after a half-hearted attempt. As an Indian, the whitewashes in England and Australia hurt, but didn;t come close to the shame and outrage I felt for the Dominica cop-out.

Surely Clarke with his brave declaration wouldn't pull a Dhoni and play it sickeningly safe? He better not. Aussies better win this.

And that's the weird journey I made in a handful of days. From "Oh, Aussies will definitely win" to "Wow, WI are batting well." to "WI may get the lead! Wow! WI can win this!" to "Oh no! Oh damn! Aussies might save the test" to the final leap "Please please please Australia, win this!"

For that is the beauty of test cricket. It can shake your convictions and loyalties. The action in the middle can make you forget your prejudices and switch sides to support the side playing truly in line with the game's true character. If you've seen Rocky 4, you might remember how the Russian spectators stop cheering for Ivan Drago and start cheering for Rocky, going against all their loyalties and convictions. Well, that was a (rather badly) scripted movie. This is the reality of test cricket.

By the 3rd session on day 5, I found myself, for the first time in well over a decade, cheering for an Australian win. It may seem like an odd, even fickle reversal to cheer the side that I was so dead set against just 5 days ago.

But that's what test cricket does. And did. To me. My heart raced as I groaned at every Australian wicket and cheered every big hit from the Aussies. I kept trying to calculate how long sunshine would last before the umpires closed the proceedings for bad light. And I kept hoping the Aussies would make it.

Aussies - the pre-match favorites, and Windies the underdogs. But test cricket when it is in its element, can make you cheer for the favorites as if they're the underdogs.

Finally, Australia won. They walked on sunshine. And have most likely ushered in another era of self-belief and dominance that will be the bane of other teams in the next decade.

Bob

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 19:38:00 +0000

"That song.... is that by Meatloaf?"

"His name is Robert Paulson!"

"No dude, it's Marvin something."

"You are Jack's ignorance of quality film references."

The New York City SBS Receipt Social Contract

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:23:00 +0000

Living in New York is a continuous assault on the senses - in a good way. You get to see, hear, and experience so many things unique to the city, that it becomes commonplace in a while. But every few days, I have a new experience that makes me love this city even more. This is one such experience.

This semester I have been teaching in the Bronx 3 days a week. The commute is long, and involves something I have never had to resort to in Manhattan - riding the bus! I take a subway train from Manhattan to the Fordham Rd station. And from there, take a bus to the Fordham campus, about a mile away.

This is an SBS (Select Bus Service) bus. Unlike normal buses, where you pay the fare when entering from the front door, the SBS buses require you to swipe your metrocard at the bus stop, take a receipt, and keep it in your pocket. The driver assumes that everyone has a receipt. Most of the times, no one checks if you actually have the receipt. But once in a while, when you get off the bus, an MTA employee is waiting to check your receipt. If you don't have it, you pay a fine. Doesn't happen too often (I've encountered receipt checkers only 3 times in the last 3 months), but acts as a deterrent against free riders.

Obviously, you need to get the receipt from the fare machine BEFORE the bus gets there. Which is what I usually do. I get off the subway, walk to the bus stop which is a block away, swipe my card, take the receipt, and wait for the bus. That receipt is free, because transfer from an MTA subway to an MTA bus is free. So I'm not paying the city of New York another $2.25, just getting a proof of the fact that I have a right to be on the bus.

A couple of days ago, I got off the subway, and saw that the bus was already at the stop. Instinctively, I ran. I wasn't in a hurry or anything. I could just as easily have taken the next bus and been well in time for my class. But the human urge to run after the earliest bus is as irresistible as the canine urge to chase cars. So I ran.

As I ran, I started wondering if I really could catch the bus. I would have to go to the fare machine, swipe my card and get the receipt (a process than takes 10-15 seconds), and then get on the bus. New York City bus drivers, quite understandably, don't hang around waiting for tardy passengers. Time, tide, and MTA buses wait for no one. It seemed like I would probably miss the bus. I still kept running.

As I approached the bus, before I could head to the fare machine, a man getting down from the rear door thrust his hand out in my direction. In New York, if a stranger makes a strange gesture, you ignore it. So I did. Another man did the same thing, trying to hand me something. I assumed he was handing out fliers like someone at every street block in the city seems to be doing, ignored him, and kept running. Although I was in no particular hurry, I kept hoping I could get to the fare machine, get the receipt, and hop aboard before the bus left.

When I was about to run past the middle door towards the fare machine, a big black guy about 2 metres tall and almost as wide stood halfway in my path. With a swift motion of his arm, he thrust something in my hand and grunted,

"The f**k's wrong withchoo man? Get on the damn bus!"

I stopped dead in my tracks. Not like I had a choice, given that he was blocking my way. I looked at my hand. It held an SBS receipt. I looked up and saw the big lug had already started lumbering away. He looked back at me and said,

"You gonna miss the bus."

With the receipt in my hand, I hopped aboard, and stood there, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. It took several seconds for me to grasp the concept. And I finally understood that the other guys thrusting their hands at me had been trying to do the same thing - hand me their receipts.

I had been the beneficiary of a benevolent social contract that seemed to have come about among those who travel on SBS buses. When you're getting off the bus, if you see someone running to catch it, you give them your receipt. The receipt is no good to you anyway after you've gotten off. The poor running sap will have to go to the fare machine, and will probably miss the bus. So an elegant solution to help others out - give them your receipt.

The simplicity and elegance of this implicit social contract almost made me go "AWWWWWWWW". There's no way to know how this norm started or when. But it's another example of how human beings thrown together in a tough situation develop mechanisms to help each other out. Often, when it's a tough situation brought on by "the man" or the government. It's a bit like how drivers on the interstate highways, when they see a cop hiding in the bushes to catch speeders, flash their lights to oncoming drivers to warn them.

The next time I get off the SBS and see someone sprinting towards the bus, I am going to hold out my receipt for them too. That really is the essence of "pay it forward".

The Biggest Dravid Myth

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:25:00 +0000

Rahul Dravid has retired. The end of an era. A lot is being written about him, and will be written about him. I am not interested in writing a comprehensive tribute to his illustrious career. I want to address the biggest Dravid myth that keeps cropping up in most tributes.

In an otherwise well-written article on Dravid at The Guardian, Rob Smyth writes

Though Dravid was technically beautiful, his often weary face
betrayed the fact that batting rarely came easy to him. He did not
have the brutal audacity of Virender Sehwag, the poetic elegance of
Laxman, the unfathomable, enduring genius of Tendulkar or the sublime
cover drive of Ganguly.

I could not disagree more. Dravid had loads of natural flair, and all this talk of his technique trumping all else, making him out to be a dour but determined grifter is the result of cricket fans wanting to neatly pigeonhole batsmen into pre-conceived slots. Lazy cricket fans think of those slots as Richards or Boycott, and put Dravid quite unfairly in the Boycott slot. I also think his "technique" was vastly exaggerated, and is the result of people forgetting what the copybook actually says and equating a slow scoring rate and a solid defense with textbook technique.

I am not saying he was a technique maverick and mostly freakish natural ability like Laxman or Sehwag. But his success wasn't all technique or even mostly technique. He had a few shots, especially in the 90s, that would have made an orthodox coach cringe, but looked absolutely beautiful. His drives square of the wicket on the off side were essentially similar to Sehwag's - no foot movement, and taking a chance against balls in or just outside the corridor of uncertainty, and relying mainly on balance and hand-eye co-ordination. Most other batsmen most of the times would have nicked those to slips or scooped them to gully. He got away with those shots, with a few lives during his 148 in SA and 190 in NZ in his early years. But he batted pretty much the same way in Aus in 99 and failed miserably, because luck wasn't on his side. His swivel pull shots looked beautiful too, but he very often fetched balls way outside the off stump line, something a technical coach would have been aghast at. I even remember him losing his wicket, when very close to a century, to Greg Blewett of all people, to such a pull shot. He often played almost compulsively against the spin, something that got him into trouble against Shane Warne for a while, because Warne's line was often so far away from the stumps. But helped him attack other spinners with relative ease.

And his timing was phenomenal! That was sheer natural talent. I remember watching him once against Pakistan, when he had let his hair down by his standards and was going for his shot. Orgasmic batting that was! I remember texting Amit Varma that this was the most beautiful attacking innings I had ever seen him play. It was his 110 in the 1st innings against Pakistan at Eden Gardens in 2005. He truly must have been at the top of his game, because he followed it up with a vital century in the 2nd innings. But that 110 was REALLY enthralling to watch! Dravid playing purely on instinct, without inordinate fear of losing his wicket,

The thing is, Dravid curbed his natural flair more than the average natural flair Indian batsman. He defended and played it safe more often than he needed to. Not that there's anything wrong with that. That helped him convert several possible 75 off 110 balls into 125 off 250 balls. And his "technique" evolved through the years, like any quality batsman's technique should. He consciously became more solid in defense as the years went by. Often exactly when the team needed him to, but also occasionally when him playing with gay abandon would've given us a better result. So the only reason Dravid is seen as this guy to whom "batting didn't come easy", is that he consciously cut down on his easy shots in the 2000s, when he was at his peak. I know he himself has said that batting didn't come easy to him. But that might have to do with his own lofty standards of ease and strict quality control when it came to shots, than anything else. And it made perfect sense, given that he was in the same team as Sehwag, Tendulkar, and Laxman for those years. With all those aggressive stroke makers in the team, it made sense for him to be the circumspect one.

But batting did come easily to him. He just chose, almost always, to not give in to his natural instincts, and instead relied on his judgment. But the rare occasion when he did give in to his instincts could be brutal. I remember watching with awe an ODI against New Zealand back during my MBA days (2003 or so) when he came out to bat in the slog overs after centuries by Sachin and Sehwag. He absolutely mauled the Kiwi bowling line-up and got to a half-century in 24 balls or so. The friends I was watching the match with kept saying "Who is this guy? this isn't Dravid!" And my response was, "this IS the real Dravid. He just chooses not to be that most of the time."

To sum it up, I think "Though Dravid was technically beautiful, his often weary face betrayed the fact that batting rarely came easy to him." is IMHO the worst and most inaccurate insult you can heap on Dravid on the day of his retirement.

Shashi Tharoor and Free Speech Restrictions

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:15:00 +0000

Yesterday, Shashi Tharoor pointed me to a Deccan Chronicle article where he lays out his rationale in detail. Let me address some of the examples, analogies, and references in the article. These rhetorical tools Tharoor used are frequently used by others who support some curtailment of free speech, so it's important to analyze them.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in the US, put it memorably when he said that freedom of speech does not extend to the right to shout “fire!” in a crowded theatre.

This quote has been misused so often in free speech arguments, that it is like the also-misused Einstein quote "God does not play dice" frequently employed by religious people against atheists. There are a couple of brilliant dissections of the Holmes quote, along with the context in which it was said here (scroll down) and here.

But in short,

a. Tharoor, like most people misquoting the line, has conveniently left out the falsely in the falsely shouting fire part.
b. The judgment restricting free speech where Holmes wrote it was overturned by the US Supreme Court in 1969.
c. Holmes himself changed his mind and when a similar case came to the bench, voted against curtailing free speech.

The irony here is that Tharoor has misused the quote in much the same way that Justice Holmes did in the original context. The Supreme Court case wasn't about whether to prosecute a man shouting fire in a crowded theater. It was about whether a couple of people distributing fliers criticizing the US government's draft order for World War 1 were right. Holmes wrongly used the analogy in a context where the government wanted to stop an individual from criticizing the government.

Mr Sibal’s main concern was not with politics, but with scurrilous material about certain religions that could have incited retaliatory violence.

And Tharoor is using it in a context where, despite all this talk about wanting to curb vile incitements, the fact remains that 2/3rds of the postings that the Indian government asked Google to remove were criticisms of the Government. Tharoor keeps insisting in his column and on twitter that Sibal's concern is not politics. But he refuses to explain why most postings sought to be removed criticized the government, and had no overt or covert scurrility about religion, or anything that could incite retaliatory violence.

Free speech absolutists tend to say that freedom is a universal right that must not be abridged.

This is a mischaracterization. Free speech supporters actually say that GOVERNMENTS should not abridge this right. Which brings us to....

But in practice such abridgement often takes place, if not by law then by convention. No American editor would allow the “n” word to be used to describe black Americans, not because it’s against the law, but because it would cause great offence.

And most free speech absolutists, including me, have no problems with abridgment by convention or social pressure, as long as it is not by law. Yes, the American society has placed a high cost on using the n-word. But it has not, will not, and thanks to a solid constitution and a generally rigorous legal system, cannot legally penalize someone for saying the n-word.

I don't know of anyone who insists that free speech means the editor should have no say in what his publication publishes. It's his publication. He gets to decide what goes in there. Similarly, I don't have a problem with Google or Facebook or Twitter voluntarily deciding to delete content that they don't like. Their servers, their decision.

The problem is with the government placing restrictions or handing down convictions in case some editor does decide to publish the n-word. Or Facebook has no problems with someone publishing a post critical of Sonia Gandhi.

As for the general points regarding free speech, and using the excuses of its possible consequences to restrict it, they have been wonderfully made by Greatbong and Amit Varma. And in response to Tharoor's points in an earlier context, by Christopher Hitchens here (do watch the video!). I will not repeat them here.

But will end with one last question for Shashi Tharoor. If a group of people band together and decide that The Great Indian Novel is insulting enough to the Hindu epic Mahabharat and the Indian freedom movement to go on a riot, would you ask for a ban on it? After all, riots in India have been sparked (engineered?) by text much tamer than referring to the father of the nation as Public Enema Number One.

Open Letter to Shashi Tharoor

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:19:00 +0000

Dear Shashi

First up, let me admit that I find the whole idea of "open letters" a bit grandiose and moronic. An exercise in conscience massaging more than anything useful. Kinda like..... I don't know.....maybe the United Nations? But still, I was annoyed enough by your craven volte face on the Indian government's proposed censorship measure to write this damned thing.

So here are a few tweets you posted about Kapil Sibal's proposal to censor the social media.

Spoke to KapilSibal. He assured me he opposes political censorship. Concern is re communally inflammatory images&language which he described.

As I said in my debate w/Hitchens that many of u have cited,all societies observe certain restraints re language&images acceptable in public

I understand Facebook is indeed taking down some pages that KapilSibal showed them. Pretty vile stuff. Sadly public didn't object2them 1st

I reject censorship. Art,literature&political opinion are sacrosanct. But inflammatory communal incitement is like a match at a petrol pump.

@KanchanGupta Kanchan, come on. Nowhere have I supported political censorship. I have a pretty long record of standing up for press freedom

You then tweeted that we should wait for some Deccan Chronicle and/or Asian Age article from you so you can expound at length on what the heck it is you mean.

So what the heck do you mean, Shashi? Do you support censorship or don't you? Because from what I read in your tweets, you are not opposed to censorship per se, only to "political" censorship.

What is "political" censorship? Censoring your political opponents? So if party A which is in the opposition says something and party B, which is in power censors it, that is wrong, and you're against it? Great! So you don't really support the "freedom" of speech. You support the "privilege" of speech, a privilege which is only extended to politicians, not to common voters.

So if I, as a common voter, say, something on my Facebook wall questioning the great place that Chhatrapati Shivaji holds in Maharashtra politics. And if the Sena or NCP decide to censor me, that is fine, because it is "pretty vile" or "communally inflammatory". But if I first enroll in some political party, file papers for a legislative seat, and say the same thing, then it is "political censorship" that you oppose?

So if I say something about Shivaji and am censored, whether it is wrong or not will depend on whether I am a politician or not? Do you realize how utterly ridiculous that sounds?

Oh oh oh.... I am sorry. Of course! It depends on what I exactly say, doesn't it? The speech has to be "vile" enough to be "inflammatory communal incitement is like a match at a petrol pump". So if I say something that in your or Sibal's (or according to Sibal, Zuckerberg's) infinite wisdom is just a mature critique of Shivaji's place in Maharashtra, then I have the right to free speech. If what I say is "vile" or "inflammatory" then it should be censored, huh?

And who makes that call?

Let me take a short detour here. And bring in an uncle. This uncle and I, over the years, shared a lot of conversations about literature. We recommended books to each other, and discussed them at length. We grew to trust each other's judgment on books, and took each other's opinions seriously.

Until one day in 1999. I recommended a book to him. He told me he was going to buy it. He read it. The next time I met him, he was more upset at me than when I had accidentally broken a rare vase he bought from Hong Kong.

"What crap are you reading, Gaurav?" he thundered.

"Huh???"

"Is this how little you respect you country and your culture?"

"What?"

"Public ENEMA number one? Is that how you'd talk about Gandhiji?"

"Ohhh....."

"You would read a book that jokes about Gandhiji shoving something up his own butt?"

"Uncle...."

"What offensive nonsense is this? Using our glorious and heroic freedom struggle and the most venerated Mahabharat for toilet humor and disgusting innuendos? This is some vile stuff!"

(I swear he used the word 'vile'!)

"Uncle, come on!" I protested and tried to reason with him.

And so the conversation went.

The book that he got so offended and inflamed by....well Shashi, I don't need to tell you what book it was. But in case someone eavesdropping on this open letter is wondering, it was The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor which jokes about things much more irreverent than Gandhiji getting an enema.

Obviously, I don't think the book is inflammatory. But my uncle did. I also know people who think the great Indian cult comedy Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron should be banned, because it insults the Mahabharat.

And in case you think these are just some fringe loonies, here's a sobering thought. I knew a guy a decade ago or so who though the Marathi play Yadakadachit (which used the Mahabharat as a satirical setting, not dissimilar to The Great Indian Novel and Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron) was offensive. The guy later entered local politics, and worked with right wing parties in Maharashtra to actually get that play banned!

That's the thing, Shashi. Anything and everything that even tangentially touches upon religion can be branded by someone out there as "vile" or "inflammatory". Who draws the line? And once someone draws a line, what stops it from being redrawn and redrawn until it has a chilling effect on any kind of speech that is critical of religion or community beliefs? Don't even think of bandying that old Potter Stewart quote here - "I know it when I see it", because no, you don't, and neither do I. No one does. Which is why speech should be FREE, not hostage to the opinion of the knowledgeable or even the majority. Some principles of democracy are too important to be left to the mercy of the majority's opinion.

Heck, I know people who insist that even atheists like me who say "there is no god....this whole god idea makes no sense" should be censored...because apparently listening to people like us could "confuse religious children who are unsure about their beliefs."

And as I said before, I know people who believe The Great Indian Novel is "vile", offensive to Hindus and to the freedom movement, and should be banned.

So my question to you, Shashi Tharoor, one-time nominee for the United Nations Secretary General, and member of the Indian Parliament, is, what the heck, dude?

Yours in Utter Revulsion
Gaurav

Re-Appreciating Sherlock

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:20:00 +0000

Like most of you, I read Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books in my teens. Loved them. Sherlock Holmes became an elusive nerdy ideal I dreamed of copying. His mysteries were as spine-tingling as they were educational (my first exposure to the Ku-Klux-Klan was through Sherlock Holmes). Then, like all of you, I grew up. Moved on to other literary heroes, and other practical considerations in life.

Then a couple of years back, I heard that there were two different Sherlock Holmes "interpretations" in the works. Both being conceived by creators I was a fan of - Guy Ritchie of Snatch Fame and Steven Moffat of Coupling fame. Hmm, I said to myself, reinterpreting Sherlock Holmes while keeping his "soul" intact was no easy job. I had sen Granada Television's TV series, and as faithful as it was to the original, I still had issues with it. Translating Doyle's work into something you can put on the screen seems tough. But if I had to choose 2 guys to do it, Ritchie and Moffat would be in my list.

Furthermore, Ritchie's interpretation would feature Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes. I am a BIIIIG fan of Downey's. And Watson would be played by Jude Law whom I have a healthy regard for. I also heard that Irene Adler would be played by Rachel McAdams, whom I consider one of the most talented actresses around. So all in all, I was positively predisposed toward's Guy Ritchie's Sherlock.

Then the movie came out5. I went to watch it, "first day first show". And it left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't have any major problems with how Downey played Holmes or Law played Watson. I just plain didn't like the movie. Didn't like the underlying "mystery" which I found too Dan-Brown-ish for my taste.

That blunted my enthusiasm for Steven Moffat's BBC TV series. As a tempered Sherlck Holmes fan, I had already been disillusioned by Guy Ritchie. Did I want to give another Brit the opportunity to disappoint me? No thanks! Plus I knew that Moffat's interpretation placed Sherlock Holmes in the 21st century, a tough ask. Yup, definitely NO THANKS! I steered clear of watching the show.

But then, a bunch of my friends got the better of me. "Give it a shot, just one shot!", they said. BBC's series Sherlock, although it is set in present times, is wayyyyy more true to the original than Ritchie's abomination, they said. So I thought, fine, let me give it a shot.

The result astounded me. I loved it, no I LOVED it! Steven Moffat's Sherlock, set in the 21st century, resonated wayyyyyyy more with me than Ritchie's Sherlock, set in Victorian times. The 3 episodes, all "movie length" (i.e., 90 minutes each)felt more genuine than anything Guy Ritchie served up. I didn't know why! How could Sherlock Holmes set in 2010, with text messaging, websites, and GPS, resonate with me more than Guy Ritchie's decidedly Victorian interpretation? I had no idea! But it did!

Then recently, I moved to New York City. Started spending a long time in suubways. So I downloaded the Kindle app on my phone. Looked for free books. Found a lot of Sherlock Holmes books. Started (re) reading them during my subway rides.

And I got why I loved BBC's Moffat series! Over the years, my mind retained the "essence" of Sherlock Holmes, but had forgotten the specifics. When I watched Moffat's series, I felt he had captured the "essence". Re-reading the books told me why I felt that way. Because despite throwing Holmes and Watson into 2011, Moffat retained their basic appeal, with some amazing attention to detail that, my mind forgot, but my subconscious mind appreciated!

For example, the way Holmes asks Watson "Afghanistan or Iraq" when they first meet. It's a clear reference to the way Doyle's Holmes guessed Watson's military background in Afghanistan. How he guesses....I am sorry....deduces several facts about Watson's sibling based on his cellphone (clear and direct reference to how Holmes deduced facts about Watson's brother in the original books).

But these are blatant references. The series is full of references to facts that the generic Holmes fan, who read the books years ago, is likely to forget. For instance, in the series, Sherlock randomly shoots at the wall because he is bored. Seemed gratuitous to me. But after reading the books, I realized it was faithful to the original, in which Doyle writes that Holmes does that!

Or the cipher in the 2nd episode. Such a clear reference to the cipher in the Valley of Fear! The series is studded with loyal references like that. Which makes it, despite being set in present times, the most loyal interpretation of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes ever!

Watch it!

Rickshawwallahs

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:07:00 +0000

Do you remember that pretty bungalow in your neighborhood owned by a rickshaw driver? Do you remember those groups of rickshawwallahs that sit in Barista or Cafe Coffee Day sipping lattes and mochas as they take a break from their shifts? Do you remember how the expensive box seats at IPL matches are mostly taken up by rickshawwallahs? Do you remember all those rickshaw drivers, with their wives and kids buying up all the designer clothing and shoes in malls?

No?

Me neither!

The IC 814 Fallacy

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:49:00 +0000

I am opposed to the death penalty. In all circumstances and situations, no matter how evil the perpetrator. This draws me into occasional debates (the latest triggered by the Troy Davis execution) with my friends who support the death penalty, at least in the rarest of rare cases.

This post is not about why I believe the death penalty is wrong. Rather, it is to address a fallacious argument that pops into death penalty debates among Indians with predictable regularity - the IC 814 argument. This argument typically unfolds as follows. A supporter of the death penalty says that executing the rarest of rare cold blooded murderers protects society from likely repeat offenses. To which my answer is, lifelong incarceration in a secure prison could protect society from the murderer just as well. The counter-point then is, ah, but what about an IC 814 type situation?

For those who came late, IC 814 was an Indian Airlines plane hijacked by Pakistani terrorists in 1999, demanding the release of three dangerous Pakistani terrorists in Indian custody. The hijackers killed one passenger, and threatened to kill all others unless the three terrorists were released. The Indian government gave in to pressure from the hijacked passengers' families, and released the terrorists. So the IC 814 argument in support of the death penalty, at least for terrorists, is that if we incarcerate terrorists without executing them, their supporters may threaten or kill more people to secure their release. That's why convicted terrorists like Ajmal Kasab should be executed.

I find this argument deeply fallacious, perhaps the most flawed argument that a supporter of the death penalty can make.

The first and biggest flaw in this logic is the assumption that terrorists' supporters will only carry out an act of terrorism to negotiate their release, not to seek revenge for the execution. In fact, a follow-up act of terrorism is much more likely to be motivated by revenge, considering that the stated objective of almost all terrorist acts is retribution.

Another flaw is that when you provide prevention of possible murder by someone else as grounds for killing the convicted, the whole logic about the validity of the death penalty goes for a toss. Because you're implicitly saying that the convict's own acts or potential to himself kill again is secondary to what someone else may do. The argument is thus very utilitarian, driven by convenience or precaution against something the convict himself possibly cannot do. Utilitarian or convenience based arguments are rather hollow in justifying execution, don't you think?

If preventing the headache of hijacks or hostage-takings is such a strong motivation, why can't it be utilized against people who haven't committed murders? In the 70s, when the Janata government arrested Indira Gandhi, two men hijacked a plane and threatened to blow it up unless she was immediately released from prison. The aforementioned argument implies that Indira Gandhi should have been executed to prevent such hijackings by her fanatical supporters. There have been other hijackings demanding the release of jailed individuals who had never killed anyone. Should these individuals be executed because their supporters are crazy enough to threaten others for their release?

I am sure any reasonable person's reply is, no, they shouldn't. Because it is absurd to kill someone as a precautionary measure against something someone else might do. The same is then true regardless of what the jailed individual's crime is - fraud or corruption in the case of Indira Gandhi, or cold blooded mass murder in case of Ajmal Kasab. Argue the merits of executing someone on the basis of what THEY have done, not what someone else MIGHT do.

There are many cogent and respectable arguments in favor of the death penalty that I may not agree with, but understand where they are coming from. The IC 814 argument however, is just fallacious and wrong.

Public Servants - America vs India

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 02:14:00 +0000

I usually don't partake in the "XYZ is so cool in America, but the same XYZ in India sucks!" talk. But a recent observation drove me to think that way.

In New York City, I got into a subway train at its first stop at evening rush hour after a day spent on my feet. The compartment had only a dozen or so people - an exhausted me, 6-7 exhausted looking young uniformed guys, and a few others. We all sat on the easily empty seats, as anyone getting on at the first stop of a commuter train would. I looked at the uniforms. They all said "New York City Police Academy". So the guys were all new recruits in training to join the New York Police Department. They all were drenched in sweat and looked tired. It was clear that they'd spent a day in training or drills so demanding that my own day seemed luxurious in comparison.

The next stop was one situated in a busy office zone, and where a lot of subway lines intersect. So as the train pulled into the station at rush hour, there were heavy crowds waiting to get on. It was obvious that the remaining seats would be filled in a matter of seconds, AND there'd be dozens of people standing.

Just as the train was about to stop, ALL the police academy guys got up from their seats, without a word. I assumed they were going to get off at the stop. But no! They got up. And they stood, clutching the bars. The door opened, the crowds came in. the quick ones took the seats, the rest stood. And the police academy guys, who had rightfully earned the seats by the universal public transport law of "first come first serve", voluntarily stood with them.

In the grand scheme of things, a minor incident. But I couldn't help stare at them all in admiration. These young men, still in training, had the sense to think - it's the public we serve, and it's not fair that we sit while the public stands. There's no law requiring that cops give up their seats for civilians. yet they did it, without comment or provocation, in tandem, indicating that all of them thought it was the most obvious thing to do.

I could not help but contrast it with the hundreds of occasions in Indian buses or trains that I have seen Indian cops claim scarce seats as if they were royalty. Indian "public servants" take the phrase to mean that the public are their servants. In the US, it is clearly the other way around.

IIPM and Caravan Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:03:00 +0000

As is usually the case, whenever something noteworthy related to IIPM happens, I get a surge of emails, IMs and tweets from people asking about it. So yesterday when Caravan made it public that they had been sued by IIPM, I saw the incoming communication surge. Rather than individually answer everyone who asked my opinion on it, I thought of making this post, summarizing it.

Firstly, I have been aware of IIPM serving Caravan a legal notice for a couple of weeks now. The Director of Delhi Press and Managing Editor of Caravan, Anant Nath is a friend (we were in the same batch at IIM Lucknow). He told me about the lawsuit and his intention to fight it. Anant is a great guy, with outstanding vision that has made Caravan one of the best magazines in India in recent years. He also has a great sense of morality, personal conviction, and courage, which is why I am happy but not surprised by his decision to take on IIPM.

As for the lawsuit itself, it is a painful reminder of how someone can manipulate the legal system in India. Just like JAM magazine, Caravan has been sued in a court in remote Silchar, although neither or JAM, Caravan, or IIPM are based in Silchar. In both cases, the court in Silchar ordered an "ex-parte injuction" asking both magazines to take down the posts without ever hearing from them. And the court has asked the magazines to keep the posts down until the case has decided. Apparently, the legal system in India allows for this.

However you can still access both articles, not on the magazine sites, but on private blogs. Here is the JAM article and here is the Caravan article.

Will IIPM manage to win the cases against JAM and Caravan? Based on what lawyer friends tell me, unlikely. The Indian libel laws give a decent amount of leeway under freedom of speech, and the plaintiff has quite a challenge in proving libel.

But it is my guess/opinion that IIPM is not interested in actually "winning" these cases. Now that the court injunctions have taken the articles offline, their purpose is served. As we know, court cases in India can drag on for years, and as long as the cases drag on, the injunction will forbid the two brave magazines to publish the articles.

Well, what can I say? My opinions about IIPM are well known. I can only extend my full support and any help possible to my friends at Caravan (and JAM). I hope they can somehow manage to get the cases thrown out or decided in their favor soon.

The Culinary Underdogs - "Simple" Indian Dishes

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:09:00 +0000

This week, Floyd Cardoz, a New York-based Bombay-born-and-raised chef won Top Chef Masters. In the finale, the first course was supposed to be a dish that was associated with an early memory. Cardoz made the humble upma, by elevating it with subtle variations, like using chicken stock and adding mushrooms. In the third course, along with an Indonesian braised beef dish, he served a side of what he called "tapioca pilaf", but which essentially looked like good ole sabudana khichdi.

My twitter timeline and facebook newsfeed are full of Indians marvelling at, confused at, and even laughing at an Indian chef winning a prize of $100,000 after serving *snicker* upma and sabudana khichdi. And that triggered a post I have been composing in my head for a while now - simple Indian dishes, the culinary underdogs.

Indian cuisine's foremost ambassadors have been Punjabi restaurateurs. So what the rest of the world thinks of as "Indian" cuisine is essentially Punjabi (plus some mughlai). These dishes are elaborate, requiring a dozen or more spices and ingredients, including but not limited to the standard pantheon of turmeric-chili-cumin-coriander-ginger-garlic-onion. Then there's garam masala, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, poppy, dry fruits, and much more. The main ingredient, whether meat or veggies or dairy, needs to be cooked thoroughly. So the cooking time is at least half an hour.

The end result is usually yummy. I have spent a couple of hours on biryani, nihari, haleem, murgh musallam, and always found the food worth the time and effort.

But.

The elaborate cooking is just one facet of Indian cuisine. Not that this is news to any Indians out there. We have all grown up eating the simplest of dishes that our moms could whip up in no time. And we love eating them. But for some reason, most of these dishes have not made it to fancy restaurant menus, and the few that have, like upma, are treated like stepkids. Subsequently, they have not been the subject of experimentation and enhancements with a few exceptions like Floyd Cardoz and Jehangir Mehta in New York. If an Indian dish is simple, it is considered infra-dig.

Why?

Some of the most fancied dishes in the world are refreshingly simple. But they are fancied because their proponents have, without any sense of shame or inferiority, held them up as special dishes. So if you think "upma", you think, oh, this simple lame dish I have had a million times. But take the same concept, apply it to a different grain - corn, give it a fancy name like "polenta", and suddenly people are willing to pay big bucks to eat it at a posh restaurant. Or, take yet another dish based on the same idea - "grits", and people will wax eloquent about the magic of soul food, southern American cuisine, and so on.

In a Frasier episode, Frasier and his brother Niles, who considered themselves refined gourmands, realize that the fancy French and Italian dishes they swoon over are essentially "peasant food", so why should they look down upon American "peasant food" like burgers and sandwiches? They get rid of their snooty attitude and enjoy pleasant meals.

Similarly, my dear Indians, most of the non-Indian dishes we eat are simple, yet delicious. So why not share with the world our own simple dishes? And why not take pride in them?

I have enjoyed cooking and eating all sorts of dishes from different cuisines. I love a good risotto, but don't see why bisibelebaath or dahibutti or tempered-curd-rice shouldn't be considered in the same league. Why are savory crepes so la-di-dah but dhirde/ghavan (served as "veg tomato omelet" in Indian udipi joints) infra-dig? Why is couscous such a posh choice, but sabudana khichdi sold only in tiny college canteens? Why is Neapolitan Eggplant Parmesan so eclectic but simple vaangyaache kaap are not even seen on a menu? Et cetera et cetera...

Growing up, I have eaten dozens of simple Indian dishes at home (or at friends' homes) that have given me as much pleasure as elaborate dishes. On the few occasions that I made and shared such simple dishes with non-Indian friends in the US, I got a great response, with them wondering why Indian restaurants don't serve these dishes. I am convinced that if Indian foodies and cooks go forth and boldly serve a different kind of Indian cuisine - simple low-on-ingredients dishes, it will be just as successful as the spice-and-effort-heavy food that everyone now thinks of as Indian food abroad.

Do your part!

As for me, I can't wait to try making upma with chicken or beef stock!

Why Outsourced Failed

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Sat, 14 May 2011 19:06:00 +0000

In an expected move, NBC has canceled Outsourced, thus ending the experiment with a sitcom based in India. The show debuted at 9:30 on Thursday nights, which means it got the strongest lead-in* an NBC sitcom could get - The Office. The early ratings were decent, and the show got picked up for an entire season. However, after a promising start in ratings, the viewership declined, and by the end of the season, it was obvious that the show wouldn't survive. Let's see why Outsourced failed.

Like all Indians, I tuned in to watch the early episodes, and like most Indians, I was underwhelmed. Despite the heavy dose of cliches (jokes about cows, traffic, arranged marriage, diarrhea, pronouncing Manmeet as man-Meat), I didn't really find the show offensive like several commentators did. I just found it lazy. This was an opinion shared by my non-Indian friends as well.

As an Indian, I also found it a bit jarring that all the Indian characters on the show, played by Indian immigrants from UK or US, had horrible accents. Except for Rizwan Manji's Rajiv Gidwani, all other actors sounded like poor imitations of Apu from The Simpsons. The worst by far was Rebecca Hazlewood, who played Asha. After a few episodes, she seemed to have stopped even trying to sound Indian, and everything she said was in a mild British accent. But these are minor points. The biggest problem was writing.

After a few episodes, I still continued to watch the show (mainly because it aired between two shows I usually watch). And I was pleased to see that the show improved. The improvement wasn't vast, but the jokes were at least going beyond the cliches. Some of the characters, especially Rajiv and Charlie, were actually starting to seem funny. I know others like Gupta, but I always hated that character. Very badly written and clumsily portrayed, I thought.

As the season went on, the show became watchable. Not something you would heartily recommend to your friends, but not something you'd necessarily hate either. The scope of jokes and humorous situations widened, and in fact trained guns more on the white folks than the Indians. The India-centric jokes were also funnier and not cliched - like the huge line of people (including an actual grandma) applying for a call center job, the scenes involving haggling with shopkeepers, and so on.

Throughout Fall, ratings stayed decent. Then came the Christmas break. And when the Spring schedule started, NBC pushed Outsourced to 1030 PM, giving the 9:30 slot instead to Parks & Recreation's 2nd season. Personally, I welcomed the decision. I think Parks&Rec is one of the best comedies on TV right now, light years ahead of Outsourced or any other comedy on network TV. But this demotion meant that Outsourced would get a smaller captive audience to begin with.

And that's when ratings faltered. It meant that the show didn't have enough dedicated fans who would tune in to watch it no matter when it was aired. Its respectable Fall ratings had more to do with The Office lead-in than any inherent fan base.

Through the spring, the episodes were decent. I didn't watch most of them when they aired, but caught it later on Hulu or ONDemand. And it's losing viewers like me that eventually spelled doom for Outsourced.

Even though I thought the show improved vastly compared to its first 3 episodes, I found nothing in the show that really grabbed me. The plots for the most part were just rehashed from standard sitcom fare - misunderstandings, silly pranks, will-they-wont-they romance, and so on. There isn't a single episode that stands out as really good.

But the biggest problem with the show, that I think made its cancellation inevitable - the lukewarm lead character/actor. Todd Dempsy, the American executive forced to go to India just did not strike a chord with me or anyone else. He was just a unidimensional bemused/amused smiler who didn't really speak to the audience. Ask any Outsourced viewer who their favorite character is, and all of them will say Gupta or Manmeet or Charlie or Madhuri. I don't think anyone would say Todd. Ben Rappaport didn't do a great job portraying him either. I don't think he had the range. In contrast, the Todd from the movie from which the sitcom was spun off was portrayed very well by Josh Hamilton.

Most sitcoms, especially on NBC, need the lead character to do most of the heavy lifting at least in the first season. 30Rock would've been nowhere without Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. Parks&Rec was carried by Amy Poehler in the first season, as was The Office by Steve Carell. And even Community, with a much stronger ensemble cast, needed Joel McHale's Jeff Winger to resonate with the audience first. With Outsourced, Todd had nothing for you. I cannot think of a single hilarious scene carried by Rappaport, although i can think of many with Manji and Bader.

Another problem was, I don't think the creators or writers knew exactly what they were setting out to create. In marketing lingo, the positioning of Outsourced was very muddled. Was it going to be a fairly formulaic, easy-to-laugh-at, simple sitcom with fairly predictable plots and arcs, but in a different setting (e.g., The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men)? In which case, it would get panned by reviewers but have a large, mostly "simple" audience who prefer their sitcoms straightforward. Or was it going to be an intelligent and bold show, subversive, charting new territory hoping to find a niche but loyal audience (e.g., Community, Parks&Rec, Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia)? In which case its ratings would never go through the roof, but good reviews and a loyal following from the coveted educated demographic would keep it on air.

Outsourced fell somewhere between the two. It was heavy on formula for sure. But it also used things from Indian culture as the premise, which made the LCD audience think too much. It had some slapstick humor, but did not go all the way with it. It introduced some complex humor based on Indian realities, but did not jump into it either. It ended up being neither here nor there. So as the season came to a close, it didn't have the masses-who-love-easy-laughs on its side. And it didn't have the reviewers or the niche intelligent audience base on its side.

And it was canceled. Not because the premise was bad. But because the execution was not up to par.

* - Lead-in is an advantage a show gets from TV viewers' inertia. Research shows that more than half the viewers don't switch the channel after a show. So if a new show airs after a very popular show, it gets a larger captive audience to start with.

India-US Relationship Parallels with Angsty College Non-Romances

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Fri, 06 May 2011 15:33:00 +0000

I have been amused at the self-righteous outrage in the Indian media over the US supposedly "refraining from drawing a parallel between 9/11 and 26/11". So what did we expect? That the US will say - "yes, yes, you absolutely have the right to go after LeT guys in Pakistan. In fact, allow us to do that for you! How many navy SEALs would you like?"

On one hand, the Indian government, most of the Indian media, and a large chuck of the laregly-lefty intellectual class want India to maintain an arm's length distance from the US. They cheer and support steps like snubbing US firms in the $10bn fighter jet deal. They want us to be pro-Iran. They find nothing wrong with India's protectionist measures against the US.

Which is fine. Not something I agree with, but these positions, stressing independence from the US, are fair ones to take.

But on the other hand, they also want the US to go out of its way in supporting India. They want explicit blessings for our "hot pursuit" dreams (And dreams is what they are. Are we really capable of taking out anyone inside Pakistan? Get real!"). They want the US to increase the number of H1B visas and are opposed to hikes in visa fees. They want the US to carry us into the UN Security Council and execute the nuclear deal according to our wishes.

India's general attitude towards the US reminds me of a species of girls that are all too common in colleges in India and among Indian grad students in the US - the "chaste good friend" species.

You all know the "chaste good friend"! She is very friendly with a couple of guys in college. She proudly says "I find guys easier to be friends with than girls". These guys will fix her ailing laptop, give her rides to class or for some work, help her with her homework, do her share in a group project, and generally be her unofficial handymen. They do all this because they generally have the hots for her.

But remember, she is "chaste"! So when one such guy's feelings come out in the open, she either "thinks of you only as a friend" or "hasn't thought about him THAT way" or "feels this is the time for her to focus on her studies/career" or "doesn't think her parents, whom she respects too much would approve". But but but, "your friendship still means a lot to her, we should stay friends". So the guy continues to be her handyman/driver because they are such good friends! And of course, he is optimistic that some day, she will upgrade their friendship.

That is India's general attitude towards the US. India wants the US to go out of its way because "we are such good friends". But India doesn't want to go that extra mile (or "put out" if you will), because it doesn't think of the US "that" way.

The thing is, America is not a socially awkward grad student with limited prospects. If India won't "put out", America isn't giving India a ride anywhere. America has other options, several girls who will put out. Heck, they even have a dysfunctional relationship with this superhot but schizophrenic chick that they can just visit late at night and do anything they wish, as long as they keep paying for her meals on dates. They don't need to keep carrying the water for India hoping that one night, India might invite them up for a cup of chai.

So Indian media, the next time you feel like outraging about the US not exhorting India to attack Pakistan or raising visa fees or suchlike, remember the "chaste good friend". And calm down.

On Anna Hazare and Fasting

noreply@blogger.com (Gaurav) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:04:00 +0000

I am surprised at the degree to which Anna Hazare's fast-unto-death for the Lokpal bill has caught the entire Indian middle class' imagination. The internates and the blogosphares and twittervarses are abuzz with posts that either support Hazare's idealistic cause, or cynically dismiss it as something futile and/or a publicity stunt.

As someone who grew up in Maharashtra in the 90s and early 2000s, the headline "Anna Hazare declares fast unto death" is not a new one. No un-elected official, not even Bal Thackeray, has had as much impact on Maharashtra politics in the last two decades as Anna Hazare. Obviously, most non-Maharashtrians have little idea about Hazare, his track record, and so on. So I thought of writing a post to address the problems with what I have been hearing from both sides - the Anna-doubters as well as the Anna-cheerleaders.

Let's first look at what the Anna-doubters say. The talk of this being a publicity stunt is so outrageously wrong, it doesn't even deserve a rebuttal. The man has dedicated his life to social work and activisim, with a reasonable level of success, without gaining anything for himself. He doesn't need publicity. There is nothing in it for him. Even if Anna Hazare ended his fast today, and retired from his activism to spend his time gardening and watching TV, he will still be remembered as a moral and utilitarian colossus in the fight against corruption.

The other point raised by Anna-doubters merits rebuttal - that fasting or protesting against corruption doesn't really serve any purpose or solve any problems. That his heart is in the right place, but all his agitations do is give the media and the middle class something to talk about sanctimoniously for a few days, and then everything goes back to the way it was.

While Anna Hazare never has and never could "root out corruption", the record shows that his agitations and/or fasts have hardly been futile. Anna Hazare's anti-corruption agitation in 1994 or so (combined with the whistleblowing by BMC official Khairnar) played a big role in turning the public opinion against Sharad Pawar's Maharashtra government. They lost the election, bringing the BJP-Shiv Sena combine to power.

Hazare's crusade against corruption continued despite the change in guard in the Vidhan Sabha. Throughout the SS-BJP rule, Hazare exposed corruption, occasionally going on fasts to demand action. I can recall at least a half a dozen Ministers (including Shashikant Sutar, then MLA for my own constituency in Pune) having to resign or being forced out because of Hazare's agitation.

In one instance, the accused minister...I think his name was Gholap, filed a defamation case against Hazare. Our great court system found Hazare guilty and sentenced him to a few months in prison. He was sent to jail, but the public outcry was so large that Thackeray himself ordered the government to commute his sentence and let him go. Gholap's right hand man was arrested for corruption, and Gholap himself was eased out of the party. Nevertheless, Hazare's continued agitation demonstrated to the Maharashtra voters the extent of corruption even in the (then perceived as) clean Shiv Sena party. The SS-BJP lost the next election in 1999 and haven't been able to return to power since.

Who replaced the SS-BJP? Obviously, Congress-NCP, i.e. Pawar and co, against whom Hazare had first started his agitation. Anna-doubters will point to this regression-to-mean as an example of the futility of his fasts. Well, it's hardly his fault that there is no viable alternative in the Indian polity, is it? The fact remains that his agitations have caught public imagination, made heads roll, and played a big role in toppling governments.

Until about 2000, Hazare's agitation was focused on corrupt individuals. After that, he focused more on systemic problems. He started demanding, among other things, a Right to Information Act for Maharashtra. In the first half of the last decade, he went on a couple of fasts, first to demand that the Maharashtra government pass the Right to Information Act, and then to ask that it be implemented, not just kept on the books.

I remember one particular agitation in 2002 or 2003. The Maharashtra government had passed the RTI, but was not implementing it yet, citing flimsy procedural excuses. Hazare declared...no, not a fast-unto-death, but a maun vrat! A vow of silence! he refused to speak until the government acted on his demands, the chief among them, to implement the RTI.

I remember thinking that the old man had lost it. Fasts carry the weight of the "what if he dies?" question that can spur the powers that be into action. Who the heck is going to care if this dude sitting in Ralegan-Siddhi talks or not. But it worked!

The public response even to the maun vrat was so powerful that the Maharashtra government immediately passed an ordinance implementing the RTI law. Hazare broke his vow of silence only after the government took that step. And over the next couple of years, Hazare kept tabs on the RTI implementation, threatening hunger strikes, until it was fully operational to his satisfaction.

Although other states had their own RTIs several years before, it was the much-more-powerful Maharashtra RTI and the activism surrounding it that played a big role in getting the RTI passed at the Union government level too. If I recall correctly, the national RTI law was almost identifcal to the Maharashtra law.

So Hazare's impact has gone beyond just getting a few corrupt Ministers early (or temporary) exits and replacing one corrupt Maharashtra government with another. The RTI movement owes a lot to him and his fasts.

Now on to the Anna-cheerleaders. Yes, his integrity and devotion is impeccable. His zeal for fighting corruption is more intense than any on-screen Bollywood vigilante's. But his tactic of fasting worries me. As a libertarian, I believe everyone has a right to do whatever they want with their body, and that includes fasting unto death. But the tactic is fraught with ethical issues.

It is "do as I say, or I will kill myself", so is fundamentally no different from someone standing on the ledge of a tall building and threatening to jump unless their demands are met. In Anna's hands, the weapon of fasting unto death has mostly been used for the right reasons. But do you know that nation-wide prohibition of alcohol is (or at least used to be until a few years back) one of his causes? If you like your occasional drink, how will you feel if his next fast is for prohibition?

I am not saying it will be. Hazare has so far used the fasting tactic only for important issues. But imagining your own response to someone fasting unto death or killing himself demanding prohibition, or a Ram temple, or a book ban will demonstrate the ethical problems with the tactic itself. It amounts to blackmail. Blackmail in a just cause is still blackmail.

Then there is this specific Lokpal bill issue that he is fasting for. I agree with Hazare's broad sentiment about the need for checks and balances against widespread corruption, but I am not sure the Lokpal bill, or the way he demands it, is the way forward. My thoughts on the perils of such a bill closely mirror those of Pratap Bhanu Mehta so I will point you to his superb article.

To summarize, Anna-doubters and Anna-cheerleaders both have some of it right and some of it wrong. Whether you agree or disagree with me on the efficacy of his hunger strikes in the past, depends on where you set the bar for efficacy in a country as rife with corruption and a lack of accountability as India. Whether you agree or disagree with me on the ethical issues with hunger strikes depends on your moral compass and the ends-v-means debate.

One thing we can all agree on - Anna Hazare is a strong, motivated, and morally gigantic individual, whose self-control and passion for a cause is something few of us could even dream of emulating. Agree or disagree with him, you have to doff your hat to him.