Oh No! India Shinging Again

From the “Don’t Know What’s the Point Department,” the new release is I am India on Google Video. A collage of images–a field of wind power generators, a soaring jet in the blue skies above a lush green field, the majestic fall of water from a dam–introduce words of ersatz wisdom: “A man’s karma is to forever turn the wheel of life towards a better future for all.”

Wow. How absolutely majestically profound-sounding. Of course, I paused the video to ponder it for a bit and gave up after the screen saver kicked in after the usual 10 minutes of inactivity. Time to move on.
Continue reading “Oh No! India Shinging Again”

Fragments — 12 (Favorite Lines)

On Saturday afternoons in Berkeley, California, I would to listen to Michael Feldsman’s show What Do You Know? on KALW 91.7 which starts off with the question “What do you know?” and the audience responds “Not much! And you?”

I like that sort of stuff. Opening lines and closing lines, I mean.

For instance, on Garrison Keillor’s radio show A Prairie Home Companion , he always ends his monologue with “That’s all the news from Lake Woebegone — where the women are strong, the men are good looking and all the children are above average.”

Many years ago I used to be a big fan of Dave Allen, a British commentator on TV commentator on British TV with a show called “Dave Allen at Large.” He had a unique style. The setting was simple. He would sit on a high stool dressed in a suit. He delivered a monologue on all sorts of topics. He would smoke and drink scotch whisky during his monologue. And he would always end his show with the line, “Thank you, good night, and may your god go with you.”

Movies provide great lines as well. Sholay was a mine for great lines such as ”Tera kya hoga, kalya?”. One of my all-time favorites is from the movie The Sixth Sense where the boy confides that “I see dead people!” You have to say it in a tiny hoarse whisper. When I say it, it just cracks me up.

Indian Reservations

George Bernard Shaw with characteristic cynicism noted that a government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. Regardless of their specific stripes, all Indian governments, because they are “democratically” elected, naturally solve the problem of identifying the Peters and the Pauls by a numbers game: Pauls must outnumber the Peters. So it should come as no surprise that yet another idiotic scheme is hatched by the party in power to gain the support of a large underclass by promising them something that will not in any substantial way be of any use to them but gives the appearance of providing relief. Continue reading “Indian Reservations”

India’s Panama Canal

Indian Prime Minister That’s an AP photo with the caption: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and guests at the start of construction of the canal: “I’m more than happy.”

Since a picture speaks a thousand words, I will not have to comment. Continue reading “India’s Panama Canal”

Box, Happy 50th Birthday

containershipI think that globalization could as well be called “Americanization.” Too many components that go to make up the modern globalized world are labeled “Invented in America,” from the Internet to the shipping container. Chances are that you have not heard of Malcolm McLean. Yet, his innovation has profoundly shaped the globalized world we live in. A trucker by profession, his insight was that the truck trailer is a container that would reduce the cost of shipping. That was more than 50 years ago. Continue reading “Box, Happy 50th Birthday”

Journey to Kanpur — Part 2

Gates of IITK

It takes nearly two hours by road to get from the Lucknow airport (Kanpur does not have an airport) to the IIT campus in Kalyanpur outside Kanpur city limits. The road is fairly good by Indian standards and just before entering Kanpur city, it crosses the wide expanse of the river Ganga.

It was just a little before midnight when the car turned towards the IIT main gate. I felt a sense of nostalgia and sadness.
Continue reading “Journey to Kanpur — Part 2”

Jagdish Bhagwati on RadioEconomics

Prof James Reese recently interviewed Jagdish Bhagwati, listed as one of “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals,” on RadioEconomics. Continue reading “Jagdish Bhagwati on RadioEconomics”

Fragments — 11 (Tom Friedman edition)

Not that I am being lazy, but I think that you should read The Datsun and the Shoe Tree, a “Florid Affairs” column by Thomas L Freetrademan. Continue reading “Fragments — 11 (Tom Friedman edition)”

Journey to Kanpur — Part 1

There are places I remember all my life,
Though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain. . .

IIT Kanpur

In case you have been wondering about the break in blogging, wonder no more. I have been on the road. Last week, I was first in Mumbai and then I was in IIT Kanpur.

Visiting IIT Kanpur was a bittersweet experience. The place was at once both familiar and totally unfamiliar. The place had not changed all that much since I was a computer science student there a lifetime ago, but I had changed. What had changed was not in front of my eyes, but rather behind my eyes.

There were ghosts there as I wandered Hall V, where I lived. “Misty watercolor memories, for the way we were …”
Continue reading “Journey to Kanpur — Part 1”

Shubho Nobo-borsho

Subho Nobo-borsho, as we say in Bengali, which is the greetings on the “Auspicious New Year” since today is the Bengali New Year!

New year, new resolve. What else to quote but Guru Robindranath Thakur’s (aka Robindranath Tagore) prayer from Gitanjali, a collection of song offerings:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.