So when I read this email exchange between a certain Professor Ashley Tellis and Nitin earlier this evening, I merely smiled. I attributed the Professor’s venomous tirade to either of these: uncontrollable blood pressure that blasted through his keyboard, or a naive assumption that Nitin is his student. And such venom on a really trivial issue: publishing a photograph.
National Integration: Slimes Style
Wednesday, 27. January 2010 - 6:57 PM | 22 comments »
Slimes Productions proudly presents! Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara. This 16-minute digital affront from the Slimes of India group singlehandedly eclipses the candle-lit darkness of the eminent dolts who were awarded various Lotus Awards for Family Loyalty on Republic Day. The Slimes of India is on an urgent mission to show ‘em who’s the worst. And so it descended upon the original Mile Sur Mera Tumhara and sodomized it so thoroughly that this version resembles an ugly tableau of cropped, trimmed, permed, sprayed, waxed-and-dyed Page 3 celebrity dumbos. See, the Slimes’ feat? Henceforth even in casual conversation, we’ll need to clarify: “the original” and the gutter version. This feat is comparable to the Slimes introducing one of its pioneering lows: introducing soft porn in mainstream media.
Strength of Sanatana Dharma
Thursday, 14. January 2010 - 9:12 PM | 77 comments »
Today is Makara Sankranti, celebrated across India to both herald the beginning of longer days, and reap the harvest of months of backbreaking work in the fields. But the greater significance of Makara Sankranti like most Hindu festivals, is to highlight another living instance of the amazing cultural unity of India. People in Karnataka exchange a mixture comprising sugarcane blocks–artistically moulded into various forms and figures and shapes of Gods, Goddesses, flowers, fruits, animals–white sesame seeds, jaggery, and a piece of sugarcane. In Andhra Pradesh, sugarcane is replaced by the jujube fruit (Regi Pandulu) and sweets and delicacies are prepared and offered to God. Assamese are more creative: they have on offer at least 10 different varieties of Pitha, a kind of rice cake. Gujaratis wait for this to zestfully fly kites all over and make Undhiyu and Chikkis (sweetmeat made of sesame, jaggery and peanuts). Maharashtra feasts on tilgul (sweetmeat made from sesame) and Gulpolis, and wish each other peace and prosperity. Tamil Nadu gorges on varieties of pongal–thai pongal, mattu pongal and kannum pongal, each variety of pongal as a way of offering gratitude to the Sun, cattle, and friends and relatives. Every state and place–Bundelkhand, Rajasthan, Punjab, Bengal, Goa, Kerala, and Orissa–has its unique way of celebrating Makara Sankranti but contains a subterranean thread that ties all of them with India. The hand that spins this thread till today is the same hand that enabled India to withstand the most barbaric attacks in history. Festivals like this provide a clue to the reason behind this incredible strength of the hand of Sanatana Dharma.
A Brief Lowdown on Deve Gowda
Tuesday, 12. January 2010 - 5:36 PM | 6 comments »
A person’s true culture often emerges involuntarily in two circumstances. One when he is drunk and the other, when he is senile. We’ve never seen Deve Gowda speaking when he was inebriated so it’s both logical and safe to assume that his senility wrenched out his true culture.
The political mudslinging over the NICE project plunged to an unprecedented low with former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda calling Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa and state Advocate General Ashok Harnahalli ‘bastards’ on Sunday. …“Who is he?…who is he?… bloody bastard… I am a born fighter and I need not learn from these people…
If you understand Kannada and are interested to listen to Gowda’s 2-minute role in Inglorious Basterds, head here. The video is actually funny. An old man hollering incoherent invectives hoping to scare the object of his ire but ending up earning derisive laughter and inviting public outrage. Which is exactly what happened. But to those familiar with Karnataka’s politics with a certain degree of intimacy, Deve Gowda’s latest antics are unsurprising.
This is What UCLA Teaches About India
Tuesday, 12. January 2010 - 2:49 AM | 35 comments »
Preface
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has consistently earned high rankings in the world as the 12th best public university and inside the US, as the 2nd best, and boasts of being affiliated with several Nobel lauretes. Its noble motto, “let there be light” has echoes from the Vedic Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya. A University that boasts of such credentials usually means that it adheres to the highest academic standards in both teaching, course material, textbook prescriptions, recommended and additional reading, faculty-selection…well, at the least, it implies that when you enroll for a course there, you can reasonably guarantee that you will be taught accurate stuff. Especially history and subjects dealing with other cultures and religions.
I was initially amused when the desi blogworld’s excellent historian, JK pointed me to this. Under the course entitled Introduction to Asian Civilizations: History of India, the official textbook recommendations include works of such luminaries as Romila Thapar, Jawaharlal Nehru (Discovery of India), AK Ramanujan, and a host of Western scholars who’ve written on and about the Ramayana and Mahabharata. But what really prompted this post was this lecture (downloadable MP3, about 22 MB) by one, Professor Vinay Lal.
Note: The words in quotes are quoted verbatim from Vinay Lal’s lecture.
How Hindus are bled by a 1000 cuts
Monday, 4. January 2010 - 8:20 PM | 14 comments »
A brief pictorial representation showing the links between the weapons and how they’re connected.
Legend: The ones in large font in Red show the biggest threats.
Click here to view the full size of the image.
Shah Bano Ver 2.0
Tuesday, 22. December 2009 - 12:58 AM | 9 comments »
Every application by a divorced woman under section 125… of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, pending before a magistrate on the commencement of this Act shall, notwithstanding anything contained in that code… be disposed of by such magistrate in accordance with the provisions of this Act.
This quote is from that spectacular, Congress party-created monster called The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986. That it was one of the chief factors leading to Rajiv Gandhi’s downfall is purely incidental, and depending on which side of the fence you are on, equally led to the rise of “Hindu fundamentalism.” Also, that the entire Red Spectrum rue till date that this Act was the undoing of about forty years’ of their “hard work” is also incidental. But all these are incidental because we see subtle portents that this phenomenon is eminently capable of self-renewal. All it needs is a simple perpetuation of the current political climate.
Most Loathsome People of India 2009
Wednesday, 16. December 2009 - 2:24 AM | 45 comments »
It’s that time of the year again. You might want to check where and how it all started or simply scan the awardees that made it to the 2008 list. Presenting the Most Loathsome People of India circa 2009. Truth be told, the folks who made it this year fiercely vied with each other in loathsomeness and except in very few cases, it was hard to award a rightful place to those who made to the list.
Another pain point was there were just too many contenders, each outclassing the other. To avoid the risk of expanding the list beyond managable proportions, I’ve restricted it to just 12. There was so much loathsomeness this year that lots of people ranked pretty much equally on all parameters of loathsomeness. I had to use a new parameter: uniqueness, or that one factor that put a certain person over and above his/her contender. From this perspective, it is unsurprising that this year’s list of the Most Loathsome People of India consists almost entirely of new people.
Here you go.
December 8, Vir Sanghvi for Dummies
Tuesday, 8. December 2009 - 10:14 PM | 69 comments »
Vir Sanghvi takes an (un)welcome break from his culinary columns and embarks on a noble mission of educating fellow Indians about the virtues of secularism in the tenor we are familiar with. The occasion is rather fitting: December 6, the 17th anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition. His heartwarming approach actually melted my heart. Really. For all your characterization of this blog as full of hate-spewing “right-wing” writing, I must confess that this singular piece by Vir Sanghvi converted me. December 6, Ayodhya for dummies, made me realize what a dummy I have been all these years.
Vir Sanghvi is the Guru I have been looking for. And in the true spirit of the Indian tradition, I must present my Guru Dakshina, my debt of gratitude to Vir Sanghvi.
Thursday, 28. January 2010 - 9:34 PM | 31 comments »
Two fine posts, the first, a well-crafted crafted response to Vir Sanghvi’s mention of a mysterious Blogging Elite and the other, a gentle but firm rap on the media’s superiority complex represented again by Vir Sanghvi and Sagarika Ghose (whose choice of words in her tweet is quite heartwarming).
So here’s an FAQ of sorts that (hopefully) addresses Vir Sanghvi’s concerns. But before that, it helps to keep Offstumped’s words as a backgrounder.
Read the rest »
Categories: Commentary, Indian Politics, Media Watch