Day: Wednesday February 20, 2008

Rajesh Jain “On Turning 40”

Atanu Dey

Go read Rajesh’s mini-autobiography “On Turning 40,” which he did last year on August 15th (but posted it only today because he was on break from blogging.) Please to note that the “Atanu Dey” he mentions in there is indeed yours truly 🙂

I will take this opportunity to publicly recognize that it is an honor working with him. The other day when I was bitching and moaning about how I was dissatisfied with what I was accomplishing, a friend asked me why I don’t just get back to California where I was personally a lot happier. I would do that in a heartbeat. The only problem is that I will never get a chance to work with someone with the vision and integrity of Rajesh.

Alan Watts: The Vegetable Root Discourses

Atanu Dey

[Here is a transcript from one of the scores of Alan Watts’ talks I have in mp3 format.]

[Begin transcript of Alan’s talk.]

I’m not really a musician but it just so happens that I have in front of me a fabulous instrument which the Japanese call koto. I suppose it would be best described as a table harp. Long instrument stringed with bridges – horizontal harp.

It was customary among Chinese poets in the old days to read poetry and strum on the lute or table harp at the same time. And I have got here a curious old text called Ts’ai-ken T’an – which means the “Vegetable Root Discourses” – written by Koji Tse (sp?) somewhere around 1624.
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Advani’s Address to FICCI

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Mr L K Advani, the leader of the opposition in the lower house of the parliament (Lok Sabha), addressed the 80th Annual General Meeting of the Federation of the Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in New Delhi on 15 February 2008.

Here are some excerpts:

I can, in all humility, claim that ours is one party that has consistently followed a policy of supporting private enterprise and voicing our opposition to the license-quota-control regime even in those years when there was hardly any debate on economic reforms. Indeed, the Soviet model of government control was the dominant political fashion and intellectual obsession at the time.

He says that the BJP has had a consistent pro-enterprise economic philosophy.
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