Rumi Nations

A recent survey shows that China is home to nearly half a million millionaires … I don’t know but presume that these folks are dollar millionaires … I wonder how many similar millionaires are there in India … On a different note, lots of folks got married yesterday including an accidental celebrity who goes by the name of Shilpa Shetty. I don’t know how much the rituals and customs that are associated with marriage really mean to these folks … It’s good to see people choosing to live life on their terms like Kareena and Saif Ali Khan. Also, Lara Dutta saying that she’s ‘seeing’ Mahesh Bhupati but not only him … Sushmita Sen has always taken the road less traveled … So also Nandita Das. When you learn about what Amelia Earhart had written when she got married … some 80 odd years ago, you realize how backwardish Indian mentalities are …

Notable sufferers from Parkinson's Disease include: Muhammad Ali, Michael J. Fox, Pope John Paul II, Eugene O'Neill, Salvador Dali, , Billy Graham, Janet Reno, Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Deng Xiaoping, Mao Zedong, and Doborah Kerr. Notable sufferers from Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia include: Kareem Abdul-Jabber. Notable sufferers from Alzheimer's disease include: Ronald Reagan, Iris Murdoch, Charlton Heston, Rita Hayworth, Notable sufferers from AIDS include: Rock Hudson, Freddie Mercury, Arthur Ashe, Magic Johnson, Greg Louganis, and Isaac Asimov. A more exhaustive list of people with AIDS is available here ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HIV-positive_people

As we approach the one year mark of the attacks in Mumbai, quite predictably my prediction that nothing much will happen has come true. I don't blame the government. There is really not much that the government could have done. Pakistan is a semi-failed state and the terrorists who attacked Mumbai might have originated in Pakistan but one can't consider the Pakistan state to be an accomplice in the attacks. Pakistan is suffering copiously from terrorism on its own soil as terrorists mount ever more daring attacks against the Establishment, the ISI, etc. The U.S. continues its drone attacks in the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan which shows how much Pakistan has ceded its sovereignity to that country ...

Well, smoking, it seems, does have some benefits — it helps reduce weight gain. Well, unfortunately, it seems women don't want to quit smoking as they fear that they will gain weight once they quit smoking!!! And so researchers want to reassure them that it ain't so ... Well, things are pretty bad for smokers in the Big Apple. In some aprtment complexes, you are not even allowed to smoke inside your own darned home!!! Things haven't gotten that strident in my own country — they eventually might, but I should be 'old and dying' and dead by then. So, no worries ... This also offers one more reason why I don't want to migrate to the U.S. — just admire them from afar ... also, one is not allowed to hang one's dirty linen outside which one can do perfectly legitimately here in India.

I was wondering what would happen when rice sells for a 100 rupees per kilo. Same goes for floud. We have seen a steep rise in the prices of dal, vegetables, cooking oil, sugar, etc. People can cut back on their consumption of these cooking inputs. But what will happen when food staples become expensive themselves? Will people skimp on rice and rotis? Which is the same as going hungry. I think that is inevitable. The lack of foresight of Indians will come to haunt them.

The United Nations Population Fund has projected that India's population will be overtaking that of China by 2050 and then INDIA WILL BE NUMBER ONE IN THE WORLD in population. Certainly, this calls for celebration!!! Even as other nations struggle with declining birth rates and shrinking populations, India continues to hold the fort on behalf of mankind quite valiantly ... I say: Keep it up guys!!! The current reproductive generation has a challenge to live up to ... as our ancestors and forefathers were far more fecund in making babies than our generation. We must take pledges to raise India's population figure to 200 crores as soon as possible. A hundred years ago, India's population would have been around 20 crores. So, a ten-fold increase would be a nice achievement.

Well, India's FIRST female prez. is going flying in a Sukhoi ... smacks of "me too" after Abdul Kalam did so some years ago. Anyways, good for the 'morale' of the ladies in India, I guess ... Meanwhile, in the 'personal' opinion of a senior Indian Air Force officer, it would be a bad 'investment' to train female fighter pilots as they will inevitably go on their 'maternity' leaves and the Govt. will be left holding the baby!!! Seems quite a reasonable thing to say to me ... but the statement has created some controversy quite expectedly ... plain speaking is not quite appreciated in these politically correct times ...

A U.S. Department of Agriculture report says that 49 million Americans had food insecurity last year. That's about the same number as the number of uninsured Americans. The New York Times has reported about it here ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/us/17hunger.html Of course, one has to be careful about what the report really talks about and the methodology it used to reach its finding. "Food insecurity" in America has got to be vastly different than the kind of endemic, gross undernutrition which is a daily reality for hundreds of millions of people in India and many countries in Africa. The difference is this: it's considered to be an issue in America while in India poverty is a fact of life almost on a par with a rule of nature like the Sun rising every morning from the East. Uncle Sam also has deep pockets and so hands out food stamps to those who are eligible ...

Well, that's disappointing. At least, would be to some people ... people who are in it to reduce weight, look slim, etc. But if people look for short term gains from exercising, they are — as it were — looking to make a quick buck in my opinion. The New York Times has a story about how exercising doesn't necessarily lead to weight loss and why ... http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/phys-ed-why-doesnt-exercise-lead-to-weight-loss/ One has to be able to take into account the numerous other benefits of exercising ... not just weight loss. The human body is fundamentally designed to work!!! It's as simple as that. The muscles that we have are meant to be put to their test and we are definitely not designed through evolution to slouch all day in front of a computer. Those who might feel disheartened when exercising doesn't lead to weight loss would do well to consider what would have been the case if they had not been exercising ... they would have been fatter with ...

Well, that might be self-evident to some folks. But researchers like to find out exactly how the brain works. And with the help of our good old friends, researchers have seen how rodents that exercise are less stressed-out than those that don't. Here's the story from the New York Times ... http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/phys-ed-why-exercise-makes-you-less-anxious/?em Personally, it makes me feel less tired and more active during the day, I guess ... I mean, we all do such sedantary jobs now-a-days ... which primarily involves sitting in front of a computer the whole day. In the old days — and to a certain extent even today — people would spend some time in front of an image of some Hindu deity in the morning and do some chants or something ... that would a regular way of doing worship ... In the modern era, it's as if we have all now decides to 'worship' the computer deity and do so by sitting in front of the 'God' the whole day!!! Ohhhhhhhh!!! Wha...

2012 is when the world is going to end!!! Well, last year, the starting of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN was supposed to bring it all to a close. I would not haved cared too much if it had happened then or if it would happen this time around. But, unfortunately, I am skeptical. Nostradomus of course is the one who's supposed to have forseen all of this ... This time though people are alluding to some Mayan calendar. In our own country, people have their own versions of really old documents ... which are dusted off and folks claim that it was all preordained ... after the fact. Gail Collins has a good article about all this here ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/opinion/14collins.html?_r=1&th&emc=th Dennis Overbye also debunks the doomsday sayers here ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/science/17essay.html?hp

I thought to jot down a few thoughts on some of the folks I admire ... Jawaharlal Nehru — Some people are skeptical about Nehru. They say: “what did Nehru do?” Often, of course, they tend to have minimal knowledge of history. I happen to be truly a ‘student’ of history as I never studied it as part of a curriculum but have tried to read some of it as an adult. As I try to learn a little more about the man, I realize how ignorant I was and my admiration for his increases by leaps and bounds. It’s easy to be skeptical … particularly in the modern Indian context where people in public life are so mired in corruption and all sorts of unethical practices. But one should not take one’s skepticism too far and latch on to some minor human imperfection of a man like Nehru and proceed to pass judgment on him on the basis of that slight imperfection. Well, I don’t know if I ever will get the time to get to read enough about Nehru and by Nehru (remembering that he was a prolific writer as well) t...

I happen to be reading Nehru's biography by M. J. Nehru at the moment ... at least, I try to. And my respect and admiration for him grows. I wish Indians would imbibe more of the character and characteristics of Jawaharlal Nehru. Today is his birthday. When you compare the amount of media coverage provided to Sachin's 'anniversary' vis-a-vis that provided to Nehru's birthday, one would think that Sachin has contributed more to building modern India than Chacha Nehru. Of course, one guy is dead while the other is a contemporary. But having some sense of history helps when one is taking steps into the future.

The hero-worshipping continues ... The "Little Master" of India has completed 20 years on the international cricket stage and the media is tripping over itself devoting tons of newprint covering this 'milestone.' Sachin is described as somone who is a nice human being, a gentleman, humble, great friend, husband, father, son, brother, mentor, teacher, student, etc. etc. I am rather tired of all this. What does Sachin have to complain about?

Gina Kolata talks about the less than expected rates of success of some medicines that might help 'deter' some forms of cancer here ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/health/research/13prevent.html?_r=1&em Cancer is a strange beast ... there is still an enormous amount of misinformation and fear in the public's mind about the disease and what it is. Some people have an irrational amount of fear of the disease and think that it's a sort of a death sentence. That's far from the truth. 80 percent of patients suffering from childhood leukemia are cured. Enormous strides have been made in the treatment of other forms of cancer such as Chronic Myelogeous Leukemia (CML) and prostate cancer and breast cancer. It remains a difficult challenge nevertheless for medical science. Our increasing insights into the structure of the human genome will help tame a few more types of cancer over the years. But ultimately cancer will win. It's simply a basic premise of the des...

Pilot was Louis Bleriot ... or, so it would seem. He was the first person to get a pilot's license. Of course, the Wright Brothers were the guys who invented the whole apparatus of flying!!! This Wikipedia page has some interesting info about aviators including pilots' pay in the United States at present ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviator The first Indian to acquire a pilot's license was of course J. R. D. Tata.

... not Shot. He is dead alright but not shot dead. It would perhaps have been just punishment for the guy to have been shot dead rather than be killed by lethal injection. I was a bit surprised that those shootings in the Washington, D.C. area that terrorised the residents there occurred such a long time back ... some seven years. Time flies ...

Researchers have come up with definitive findings that babies cry differently depending on their mother tongue!!! And I thought all babies cry the same way ... The logic behind this, according to the scientists who spent hours listening to French and German babies crying, is that babies listen to their moms' voices while in the womb and the baby brains are smart enough to adjust themselves accordingly so that when the time comes, the babies will be able to learn their mother tongue rather efficiently. The human brain certainly is one heck of a smart device!!!

It is quite telling that Manu Sharma is enjoying the good life doing the rounds of 5-star lounges in New Delhi while out on parole for having committed murder. The shameless CM of Delhi doesn't mind defending his parole ... for "good conduct." This sure shows what a farce the legal system truly is. There's surely a divide in India: a class of people of India who are law-abiding and are "under" the law and another class of Indians who are clearly above the law. Politicians definitely belong to that "upper" class. Some businessmen and other rich people also belong there as well. Once a person becomes rich, of course, all his sins are forgiven ... whatever means he might have adopted to acquire his wealth become irrelevancies ... I have knowingly adopted a "male" tone in writing the above paras as there are hardly any females who would qualify as being someone who has made a lot of money using underhand means. India definitely needs a "...

Should an "icon" write a book where he reveals how imperfect he is? I think it shows courage on Agassi's part that he chose to reveal the many cupboards in his skeleton ... or, rather, the many skeletons in his cupboard. Agassi was a boyhood hero for me and many people of my generation. I have grown up watching the likes of Agassi and Sampras and Becker and others of that generation. Now, they are retired and married and settled and we are busy with our mundane lives. It's good to hark back to those "golden" days when we were all younger and the world seemed so full of possibilities ...

Seymour Hersh has an enviable knack for generating controversy with everything that he writes. May be, he has what might be called the 'Hersh Touch', a latter day version of the Midas Touch. His New Yorker article about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal has predictably generated strong reactions from Pakistan. Well, what can one expect if Hersh is basically saying that there's a secret argument between the Pentagon and the Pakistan Army whereby if things get out of hand in Pakistan and the Taliban are on the verge of getting hold of nukes, then Special Forces from the United States will swoop in and "secure" the assets. It would be quite something for one nation to share the exact locations (Bunker No. 9) where each component of a discombobulated nuclear device is located with another nation no matter how friendly that nation might be. On a related note, I recently read some scholarly piece about the history of India's nuclear posture ... how it slowly evolved f...

It never occured to me before today to think of the phrase "crude oil." When you think about it, "'crude' oil" has an interesting ring to it ... just think. I remember Helen Hunt wondering in the movie As Good As It Gets if conscience was really spelled that way: 'con'-science!!! Bill Safire would be the master of this game ... and I do not claim to be his heir.

And I am not talking Arthur C. Clarke kind of science fiction. "A start-up company from the Seattle area won $900,000 on Friday in a NASA contest to build a miniature prototype of a machine that could one day climb from Earth to outer space," according to a New York Times article here ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/science/space/08nasa.html?hpw Arthur Clarke has of course envisioned high-rise buildings going all the way up to geostationary orbit at 36,000 kms. Well, I would not be around to witness any of that ... Which is just as well because I don't have the brains either to develop something like that ... As each generation gives way to the next smarter generation, humans will eventually acquire the smarts to realize what might seem today to be crazy dreams. But then the cellphones that we find to be so commonplace today would have seemed quite magical one century ago ... same goes for airplanes. There's no reason why people won't go to Mars for their ho...

a Merc S400 Bluehybrid costs about $90,000 according to the article here ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/automobiles/autoreviews/08mercedes.html?hpw And the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport costs about $2.1 million according to another article here ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/automobiles/autoreviews/08bugatti.html?_r=1&hpw So, how many S400s can one buy for the same money as a Bugatti Veyron? Well, it seems one can comfortably buy 20 of them but perhaps one won't be able to buy a couple dozen ... Well, you win some and you lose some as they say ...

I mean, being a "rich" girl. I mean it. I was thinking of N. R. Narayan Murthy's daughter who used to work at Siderian Ventures before her recent marriage. She is apparently worth about 1,600 crores on account of her holding in Infosys. Narayan Murthy, being the good guy that he is, has given himself the least amount of wealth in his family — doling out more to his wife and son and daughter. As I was saying though, I think it's a tough spot to be in — being the daughter of a rich dad. I mean, they must be having to make some difficult choices in life, I believe ... For example, when it comes to choosing a life partner, they must be weighing their options ... on the one hand, they might like to hitch up with a rich guy who, being rich himself, would not drool over her net worth. On the other hand, she might choose to opt for a non-so-rich guy ... but John Galts and Howard Roarks only exist in the realm of fiction... Last but not the least, if you are already worth a th...

This is not a question but a statement. I was just thinking about Nehru's famous last will and testament where he poetically talks about wanting some of his ashes to be mixed with the Ganga river at Allahbad — something a traditional, ritualistic Hindu would dearly love to do. And this was the "agnostic visionary of modern India" who expressed this wish. And of course he opted for a typical Hindu cremation and nothing else. When I think of myself, I too find that cremating a dead body is a logical thing to do rather than burying it like Christians. And I am supposed to be a staunch atheist. I am wondering how much of my thinking is ultimately colored by the fact that I was born a 'Hindu' and how much by pure logic. The only logic that I can see to burning a dead body rather than burying it is this: when you bury a dead body, you are basically occupying a piece of ground for ever ... and to think that our time on this planet began when we were born ... we didn'...

The Affordable Healthcare for America Act has been narrowly passed by the House of Representatives. A milestone moment in the history of healthcare legislation in the United States. The Bill is of course famously 1990 pages long and I am wondering if I can go through the entirety of it. I don't think I will find the time to do that ... may be I am unaware of some secret formula which would allow me to digest the bill in its entirety in a fraction of the time period which I would ordinarily require. After all, there is a lady who is reading a book a day in the United States and documenting her exploits on a blog here ... http://readallday.org/ The denoument of this Bill is not yet clear. The healthcare system is too vast and too complex and the interested parties are too numerous and the numerous lobbyists would have spread their tentacles too deeply into the law making process to allow Obama to make a clean break from the status quo. People of course have their ideological moorings...

The Japanese Space Agency is planning to put prisms up in space by 2030 that will help to concentrate sun light and then the generated solar power will be beamed back to Earth. This is futuristic thinking typical of the Japanese but very much a viable plan. What the implications of this might be on the global environment is for scientists to study and understand. The Japanese are of course very poor when it comes to natural resources, but they have more than made up for that poverty with their abundant human and intellectual resources. One can only wish God Speed to the Japanese!!!

The story of Jawaharlal Nehru's relations with Edwina Mountbatten continues to be an issue in contemporary India. This is of course reflective of how primitive a society India is. People tend to be morons when it comes to issues of sex or anything that even seems to suggest any "physical relations." I think this is because most people lead very unfillfiled lives sexually and they are envious of those who get such "opportunites" in life. I wish Indians would grow up. It would be so childish to pass judgment on Nehru on the basis of whatever relations he might or might not have had with Edwina and Padmaja Naidu and anyone else for that matter. One has to look at the broad sweep of his life and the vastness of his influences on the course of modern India and find fault, if any, with the policy decisions that he took. People tend to blame Nehru for the partition of India and that's of course a fair debate to have. People blame Nehru for the festering Kashmir iss...

Indians need to be more self-critical. Indians who belong to the middle and upper classes are all too happy at the way things are. They are happy with the situation where there are really only a very few people who are wealthy in this country and the rest are in wretched poverty. This, of course, serves the wealthy as they can employ the poor to take care of their numerous needs ... there's someone to drive the car, someone to babysit, someone to wash the clothes, someone else to do the dishes, someone to wash the car, someone to do the gardening, someone else to do the cooking, and may be someone to bring the vegetables from the market as well ... Rich Indians live a royal life in many ways. And they go outside of India for holidays and come back and talk about how nice and wonderful things are abroad and how wrteched things are in India. Then there are others like Arundhati Roy who like to point out the wretchedness of life that is the reality for many Indians. People like her wa...

It's interesting that a 4,000-crore scam involving former chief ministers doesn't cause too much heartburn in the public's imagination. It's perhaps only the media that starts creating a flutter as it smells something to increase TRPs. These scams have unfortunately become all too common. This particular one comes so soon after the one involving telecom licenses. People have become jaded with these all-too-numerous scams. People don't see that much can be done about these and so have come to expect these as the natural order of things. Indians, as it is, are rather fatalistic and like to leave things to a "higer power." So, I guess one can say: "even this shall pass." And the Koda affairs would not be even a footnote in the history of modern India when historians write it. I guess one can still feel happy about this broken state of governance and a less-than-perfect form of democracy.

I saw No Country for Old Men today. The cop played by Tommy Lee Jones in this movie is almost poetically verbose compared to the cop played by Frances McDormand in Fargo. Both movies are full of violence and show the meaningless of life to a certain extent. Both movies have as a central theme somebody getting hold of a lot of money and then getting chased and killed. Both movies have characters that are ruthless killers. I wonder if Bollywood can make such movies. I think real life is so bleak in India that people want to go to the movies precisely because the movies offer somr sort of a respite from the bleakness of real life. So, if movies depicted the bleakness of life as well, people would not appreciate that as they would react ... "so, what's the big deal about it?" People mostly live somewhat meaningless lives and death mostly visits without announcing and of course always wins. But of course people want to pretend otherwise.

This Wall Street Journal article by a journalist with a seemingly Indian name lists the myriads of misfortunes Detroit is in ... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704013004574517700766354972.html?mod=djemEditorialPage I remember Lee Iaccoca's autobiography where he he remembers landing at the train station and asking for the direction to Detroit and someone telling him: "Go West young man." Times have changed drastically since those days when the automobile industry was the throbbing heart of a vibrant manufacturing economy. Today, we live in a world and the services sector dominates and the knowledge economy is where everyone wants to be. Old fashioned factory townships with assembly lines manufacturing goods that everyone wants to have ... that has pretty much shifted out of advanced economies like the United States to developing economies like China and India. To a large extent, that's a positive development for these countries as basically manufacturin...

It is not so funny to see the messy happenings in the Supreme Court where two justices have a financial interest in the case they are hearing pertaining to the Ambanis. Even the judges' family members work for companies that have links to the Ambanis. It would appear that the Ambanis have spread their tentacles to every vein of India, as it were. This is sad. In the U.S., there are strict ethical standards which judges have to maintain. The President's wealth is of course managed by a blind trust for the duration of his presidency so that he is not tempted to take decisions that would benefit him personally. India is a long distance away from formulating the required rules and regulations and practicing them.

A Wall Street Journal journalist named Amol Sharma has written an article called My Seven Wonders of India here ... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125722422411624519.html This talks about the usual suspects. This is a newcomer to India and he finds the peculiarities of living in India to be rather funny and describes them with a typical American patronising tone. But I think no country is perfect and you have to adapt yourself to the peculiarities of that particular country. I am sure Amol would be familiar - far more so than me - with the parts of New York City or Harlem that he should avoid going to at night since he would be mugged at gunpoint otherwise. I am sure there are many cities in America where lawlessless is a problem: Chicago, Atlanta, etc.

The U.S. Unemployment rate at last hit double digits. This is certainly interesting to see for a non-economist that the economy has started growing again but companies are still shedding employees and the unemployment rate is growing. In fact, a story in today's New York Times states that the broader measure of unemployment stands at 17.5% ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/business/economy/07econ.html?_r=1&hp In a country as fiercely individualistic as the United States, one can only imagine the effect this must be having on the people there. Remaining unemployed for prolonged periods of time will tend to diminish one's sense of self-worth and self-confidence. I can say that from personal experience.

Well, not quite. But the opinion piece columns in the New York Times as well as the Wall Street Journal were analyzing the results of the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia and a few Congressional elections and it was interesting to see the contrasting conclusions that they drew from the same results. While Obama supporters like Gail Collins and Maurren Dowd described the results as being not connected to Obama's presidency and local in nature and therefore having no bearing at all on Obama's performance or lack of it, WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan describes these results as a wake up call for the Obama White House. It seems to me that the results might be described using that rather ungainly phrase: "anti-incumbency" factor. That's a very popular phrase during elections in India when the voters find an outlet to show their anger at the government and throw out whoever is in power. I think it might be the same in the U.S. as well where lobbyists have ...

Who should be the one-down batsman? Questions of such grave import!!! I say, what about Amisha Patel as first-down? I think Rakhi Sawant would do a terrific job as opener!!! What a waste!!! I can't understand for the life of me how can anyone watch this non-sensical waste of time called Cricket ... I myself of course have spent enough minutes and hours and days and months and years passionately following this most idyllic of sports. But there's a time for everything in life. There's a time for cricket even. But I can't imagine how middle-aged people can waste their time watching cricket and not regret it ... I wish I could do so much more in the short life that I have been given on this Earth ... I wish I could better my guitar skills. I wish I could improve my Oracle and Java skills. I wish I could read more books ... novels and biographies, etc. I wish I could write more ... for fun and for money. There is just SO MUCH to learn in this short life. I hope to become an ...

Its truly extraordinary how our brains serves up such illogical yet compelling dreams ... I recently had a dream where I refused to follow some stupid ritual which occurs when somebody dies ... in my case, my father had died. And imagine what! I refused to follow the herd and said 'No' to everyone including my father !!! Even my father failed to persuade me that I should follow the stupid rituals which were taking place when he died ... and then the news of my ritual reached the PM who sort of belonged to an area nearby and so he came and tried to persuade me as well but I refused him as well. As far as I can understand about the sudden appearance of the PM, I think that happened because I had just seen a discussion on NDTV about the legacy of Indira Gandhi. This was an episode of We The People hosted by Barkha Dutt ... who happens to be a competitor of mine ...

It's a bit perplexing to see so much coverage being provided to stars' birthdays ... not to mention other aspects of their lives such as their love affairs, marriages, divorces and what not! This is the kind of brainless entertainment that people prefer and enjoy instead of "serious" stuff. Who wants to understand the complexities of space exploration when one can simply enjoy some gossip about the latest twists and turns in some star's love life? Who bothers about the complexities of biological sciences and the complex nature of the battles that scientists are fighting with diseases such as cancer and AIDS? Better to just listen to the sacharine sweet advice of some God man who advises that all is well with the world and there's an Almighty and benevolent and watchful God watching over all our actions. I wish of course that people would tire of inanities some day and focus on the real issues and realize that our destiny is shaped by the actions we take and is...

So, it's one year now since Obama won a historic election. We — not to mention the media — tend to overuse the 'historic' word all too often and thereby have devalued it quite a bit. I think Obama's win was one of those occasions that truly deserves this epithet. We humans are at a stage in our evolution when our ethnic, national, racial, etc. identities mean a lot to us. We have not yet learnt to transcend these narrow definitions of who we are. In India, of course, we still continue to cling — like our lives depended on this — to our religions, our caste, and sub-castes and what not. And so the media will predictably spend hours discussing Obama's successes and failures in these past 365 days. Perhaps in a set-up as complex as that prevailing in the United States, it's not much that a President can do. Crises of course present opportunities. FDR was a "war President" who rose to the multiple challenges that he was presented with. Lincoln of course sh...

Tom Friedman writes about how the U.S. Govt. has basically outsourced the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to outside contractors and what the implications of that might be ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/opinion/04friedman.html Maureen Dowd describes the horror named Rush Limbaugh. It's astounding to hear that he has got a contract for $400 million for doing his radio hosting ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/opinion/04dowd.html?_r=1

India is becoming rich. At least, the Government of India is. It's out buying gold from the IMF. 200 tonnes might seem like a lot of gold. Now, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has 700 tonnes of the yellow metal in its possession. But if you try to put that into perspective by taking into account the total population of India, you realize that it's not that much. Assuming a population figure of one billion, 700 tonnes equates to 0.7 grams for every Indian. Similarly, a population figure of 1.1 billion means some 0.63 grams of gold for every Indian. Also, a population figure of 1.2 billion translates to 0.58 grams of gold for every Indian. Well, you can check that out yourself. My arithmetic might be wrong.

Another instance of security overkill. What is the price of the life of an Indian? Not much, it would seem. This day brings news of another man dying because of the security bandobast surrounding the visit of the Indian PM. I had the opportunity to see this first hand in my home town once when the then PM was there for an election rally ... may be in 1996 ... I don't quite remember now. The PM was of course the chanakya of Indian politics P. V. Narasimha Rao. The reality on the ground might have been more complex than the facts reported in the papers. In New Delhi, of course, residents are used to it. Even I have on occasion had to suffer because the PM's cavalcade happened to be passing by ... It seems like an enjoyable tamasha when that happens ... you just have to cool your heels for a while ... assuming of course that the Sun is not in full blaze and you weren't going anywhere in a hurry. In India, of course, appointments are 'flexible.' Everyone would understa...

Bob Herbert talks about President Obama promoting solar energy in his New York Times column here ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/opinion/03herbert.html?_r=1&hp Meanwhile, David Brooks of the New York Times has written an interestingly argued article about the chaging nature of relationships in the age of texting and cellphones here ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/opinion/03brooks.html?hp Roger Cohen of the New York Times both reminisces about the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall as well as pines for a different outcome to the recent semi-uprising/revolt in Iran here ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/opinion/03iht-edcohen.html?hp What more do you want? Enough nutritious intellectual fodder for a day?

That's how I would describe the phenomenal capacity of Indians to have babies. I wonder if Indians are just stupid or there is more to it than meets the eye ... something like that saying ... "the meek shall inherit the Earth." I think there are ways in which India's strength in numbers might her well. But, mostly I think India's burgeoning population is India's biggest problem rather than its biggest strength. Fast breeding nations of the third world such as India and China are plaining helping bring the standard of living down for the whole world. The key to world prosperity and the progress of human civilization lies not in being a leadeing breeder ... because then we would need to compete with other animals and they might in fact beat us hands down. The decisive advantage humans enjoy is not even brute, muscle strength which other species possess in far more abundance than us. What provides humans our unique survival advantage is our brain power and that h...

I am wondering about what shopping does for us. People in affluent societies and rich people in poor countries indulge in this. This is even considered a sort of therapy. I think therapy is close to the truth. People who need to go shopping are definitely not happy with the life that they have to lead otherwise. People are probably trying to escape the drudgery that their life/job otherwise is. When someone buys a new shirt/trouser or shoes or watch or some other gear, they are looking for something new to have a little sense of excitement in their boring lives. It is interesting to see the emergence of this shopping culture in the New India and the New Generation of Indians take to it with gusto. This is old hat in the West of course and people there are more or less tired of or jaded with this form of therapy and looking for something else in its place ... I guess Indians in turn will tire of this in another 40 or 50 years.

I am wondering about this "relevant" issue as an Indian. For Indians, life is basically doing things as per predefined "rules" instituted by "sages" and "wise men" from time immemorial. Baiscally, it's a load of crap of course. What is truly saddening is to observe the young generation that thinks it's so "modern" and "hip" behave in the same old asinine ways as their ancestors. I pity this pseudo-modern young generation ... it's of course frustrating as well to see these young chaps so unquestioningly accept such half baked ideas. "Tradition" is this catch-all phrase that is used to include everything including religion and marriage rituals and birth rituals and death rituals and everything in between. I would be truly amazed if youngsters really think that all these hand-me-down stuff must be correct just because everybody else is doing the same thing ... Einstein did not propose his theories of relativ...

At last, the Government has chosen to adopt the easy route of banning pre-paid mobile services in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. This is such an asinine decision that it boggles ones mind. Are we living in a democracy or what! Just because a few individuals are using mobile phones to plan their anti-India activities, the Govt. thought it fit to issue a dictat that will inconvenience hundreds of thousands of innocent people going about their daily lives. What do the ordinary people of J&K use their pre-paid connections for? I imagine they would use it for the same purposes as people anywhere else in the country would ... to enable families to stay closer and stay connected, to share the family gossip, youngsters of course would be using these connections to pursue their illicit love affairs, or secret love affairs, I should say, traders and small businessmen would be using phone connections to keep their ears close to the ground and be one up on the competition, the owner of an app...

One year is an age in politics. As President Obama nears one year since his historic win, I wonder if anyone is still hopeful of revolutionary change in Washington. The New York Times article that looked at the Obamas' marriage provides instructive insights as to who they are as individuals. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/magazine/01Obama-t.html As far as the issue of bringing revolutionary change to Washington is concerned, that's a different issue ... We live in this media saturated world where every little issue is maginfied out of all proportions. So, if anything truly revolutionary were to take place, people who are affected would react so vociferously to it that the media would project that as if Armageddon was at hand. For example, I believe that "Wall Street" should be a backwater of America and the industrial heartland of Detroit and Flint and the many factory townships across Pennsylvania and the Mid-West should be the true prioneers and leaders. Everyone...