The India Uncut Blog

My Friend the Fanatic

Amit Varma — 2009-11-27T06:15:01+04:30

I’ll be at Crossword bookstore at Kemps Corner this evening, in conversation with Sadanand Dhume at the launch of his book, My Friend the Fanatic. India Uncut readers are invited to attend. Here’s the Facebook event page. The details:

What: Launch of My Friend the Fanatic by Sadanand Dhume. The author will read from the book, followed by a conversation with Amit Varma, and then a session of audience Q&A.

Where: Crossword Bookstore, Kemps Corner, Mumbai.

When: 7pm, November 27, 2009.

Dhume is a former WSJ and FEER writer who left journalism a few years ago to write a nonfiction book tracing the rise of Islamism in Indonesia. I loved the book, and will write about it again later. The subjects I’ll chat with him about this evening will include the nature of belief, the rise of Islamism in Indonesia, what it has in common with radicalism elsewhere, the dilemmas and challenges a nonfiction writer confronts while writing a book of this sort, and the growing popularity of Savita Bhabhi in Java. Try and come if you’re in the area.

And do check the book out. It sounds very serious and all, and it is, but it’s also very funny and light in its own way. You’ll enjoy reading it.

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Casinos and Temples

Amit Varma — 2009-11-26T07:25:00+04:30

PTI reports on an interesting little controversy in Goa, where some police officers visited an offshore casino. This drew criticism, and Goa’s police chief BS Bassi duly defended his men:

Offshore casinos are not illegal here. What is the problem with police officers going to offshore casinos when they are not on duty? Many people go to temples, churches, on fishing trips…

As you’d expect, the religious loons jumped on Bassi, whose statement “drew strong criticism from officials of churches, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the main opposition BJP.”

“I was very much shocked to see the statement coming from a person who is supposed to be the guardian of law and order,” Father Francisco Caldeira, director of the Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media of the archdiocese of Goa and Daman, said. “It is a blasphemous statement to compare casino with temples and churches.” He said that Bassi does not understand what religion is and what casino is.

I agree with Caldeira that comparing a casino to a temple or a church is pointless. But I come to that view from a different perspective.

Consider this: In a casino, a gambler looks at the odds available to him, figures out the amount of risk he is willing to take, and makes his investments accordingly. He takes his chances; and takes responsibility for the consequences. That is the stuff of life itself.

In a temple or a church or any other place of worship, on the other hand, the worshipper engages in an escapist fantasy, that there is a greater power out there that can solve his problems. He nurtures delusion and often avoids responsibility. He tries to evade the inescapable truths of the human condition: especially our mortality and ultimate helplessness. He is living a fantasy.

Which man would I trust more: the gambling man or the religious man? (FSM forbid they are the same man, for then he is truly fucked.) You know my answer.

On a tangent, not every game in a casino is a game of chance. Poker, for example, is a magnificent game of skill—even more so, in my opinion, than bridge. It requires not just a mathematical ability to work out odds and suchlike, but also the ability to read human nature. I was a competitive chess player in my youth, but I consider poker a far greater game. In chess, there is always a right answer, and it is always on the board in front of you. In poker, the variables that determine the right way to act are the people in the game with you, and not just the cards on the table. This makes it a far richer game than any I have played.

On another tangent, every decision we make in our lives is essentially a gamble. There is some risk involved, a subconscious weighing of odds, a decision taken. From an investment at the stock market to a real estate purchase to the decision to ask someone out on a date to taking the stairs instead of the elevator. There are different levels of risk attached to each of these, but fundamentally, whenever we make a choice, we are gambling. The world is a casino.

The India Uncut Blog © 2007 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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Where Your Taxes Go: 44

Amit Varma — 2009-11-25T19:55:00+04:30

On paying the salaries of 22,800 fake employees of the Delhi municipality.

That’s right: it’s been discovered that 22,800 of the 127,094 employees on the rolls of the municipal corporation of Delhi do not exist. These non-existent employees get a salary of Rs 17 crore per month. Guess who pays their salary.

There’s an ecosystem of ghosts out there that you and I are funding. At night, while the city sleeps, they get to work. They deliver mail that was never sent, sweep streets that were never paved, file applications that will never be read. When morning comes they’re gone, giving way to a government that is not much better.

(For more on how our government loots us, click here.)

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Complicity—and a Bond

Amit Varma — 2009-11-21T04:09:00+04:30

Yesterday, sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, I read a short story by Julian Barnes on my e71 in which I rather liked the following paragraph:

I used the word “complicity” a bit ago. I like the word. To me, it indicates an unspoken understanding between two people, a kind of pre-sense, if you like. The first hint that you may be suited, before the nervous trudgery of finding out whether you “share the same interests,” or have the same metabolism, or are sexually compatible, or both want children, or however it is that we argue consciously about our unconscious decisions. Later, looking back, we will fetishize and celebrate the first date, the first kiss, the first holiday together, but what really counts is what happened before this public story: that moment, more of pulse than of thought, which goes, Yes, perhaps her, and Yes, perhaps him.

As I read, an incoming SMS made my phone beep. I ignored it till I finished the story, and then I opened the SMS that I reproduce for you here:

From VM 53131

Will your Friendship turn into Love? To know the answer Sms BOND (Ur Friends Name) to 53131 e.g. BOND RANI. Rs.3/Sms

Isn’t it just horrible that more people read VM 53131 than Barnes?

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Soft Power

Amit Varma — 2009-11-21T04:04:00+04:30

While researching Japanese bidets, I found that Wikipedia has an entry for ‘Lota’. This clearly means that India has arrived.

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‘Nokia Hum Aapko Denge’

Amit Varma — 2009-11-19T06:31:00+04:30

Via @saba_imtiaz, here’s a speech that’s surely going to become a YouTube classic: Bilawal Bhutto Zardari giving a speech to (presumably) his party workers in accented Urdu:

At the end of his speech, he’s like Rohit Verma and Vindu Dara Singh from Bigg Boss combined: Rohit’s hysteria, Vindu’s raw aggro. My advice to young Bilawal: try decaf. He sounds like he had 17 risterttos before breakfast, no?

The India Uncut Blog © 2007 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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A Bad Name For The Family

Amit Varma — 2009-11-19T03:31:00+04:30

The Times of India has a news report up about a 12-year-old-girl raped in a moving car. This happened in Palam, near the IGI airport in Delhi, where this seventh-standard girl was taken for a drive by her neighbours. “The car had tinted dark windows and I couldn’t see anything,” the girl said. She was raped by both men. A senior cop has been quoted as saying, “The accused threatened the girl not to report the matter to the police.”

And then:

The girl, however, recounted her ordeal to her parents who landed up at the Palam Village police station to lodge a case. The police initially refused to treat the complaint seriously as “that would bring a bad name to the family”, said the girl’s father, who works as a clerk in a private firm. [...]

It was not until the media intervened and senior officials were sounded that the arrests were carried out.

In an earlier post on a similar subject, I wrote that “our cops are generally an apathetic lot” and that they weren’t too responsive to people who weren’t “well heeled or well connected.” I then received disapproving emails from people, presumably connected to the internet, obviously writing in English, who insisted that from their personal experience, this was not so. The police had always helped them out. Well, duh.

Let me reiterate: for the vast majority of people in this country, the rule of law is notional. If you live in a slum and your rights are infringed by some local gangster, you’d have to be damn lucky to get any kind of justice. This is especially true for women. Indeed, out of the context of this particular case, imagine how hard it would be to be a single mother in a slum bringing up a couple of daughters. Think of the daily stress.

And think of the bad name your family could get.

The India Uncut Blog © 2007 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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Solid Waste Management

Amit Varma — 2009-11-14T15:12:00+04:30

This is quite the quote of the day:

The accidents are not my responsibility as I am not in charge of solid waste management.

Here’s the context.

I’m not trying to make a point here—the quote, by itself, just seems to capture something of our zeitgeist. Doesn’t it?

The Ministry of Masturbation

Amit Varma — 2009-11-14T08:48:00+04:30

The Guardian reports:

It is a subject that would make most governments blush, but officials in the Spanish region of Extremadura have launched a major programme to encourage what could be described as a more hands-on approach to sexuality.

The region’s socialist government has launched a €14,000 (£12,600) campaign aimed at teaching young people how best to set about “sexual self-exploration and the discovery of self-pleasure” – or to put it less delicately: masturbation.

“Pleasure is in your own hands” is the slogan of a campaign that has sparked political controversy and challenges traditional Roman Catholic views on people having sex, even on their own, for non-reproductive reasons.

The logical next step, of course, is to give licenses for masturbation to those who trained by the government in it, and arrest anyone found masturbating without that license. Indeed, there could be masturbation inspectors authorised to peek into bathrooms and suchlike to catch offenders, with the aid of government-installed cameras. For those of a certain orientation, the act of watching potential offenders could itself lead to the offence being committed.

But leave aside the satire. We can all express outrage at taxpayers’ money being spent like this, and go WTF at the thought of the government getting involved in such a private act—but consider for a moment the principle behind our going WTF: that the government has no business bothering about what we do with ourselves. Our own government might not attempt to teach us how to masturbate—but it interferes in our private lives in hazaar different ways that we accept and take for granted. It punishes various victimless crimes, and even treats attempted suicide as a crime, which is silly if you accept the right to self-ownership. It treats us as subjects, not as citizens—and in countless different ways, is no less outrageous than the regional government in Spain that teaches wanking.

So why is that WTF and not this?

Okay, so if the Indian government was actually to start a Ministry of Masturbation, who would be the first masturbation minister?

Why, Mahinder Watsa, of course!

(Link via email from Manish Vij.)

Where Your Taxes Go: 43

Amit Varma — 2009-11-12T20:22:00+04:30

On doing up BS Yeddyurappa’s home. The Times of India reports:

An RTI reply has revealed that Yeddyurappa has [...] spent a staggering Rs 1.7 crore to renovate his bungalow, Rs 35 lakh of which went into redoing his bedroom. [...] Renovation and fittings of the master bedroom cost Rs 34.55 lakh. This includes toilet works and interiors at Rs 10 lakh, marble flooring at Rs 10 lakh, a false ceiling and wall designs at Rs 4.40 lakh and Rs 10.15 lakh for gypsum board and wall panelling.

Since that’s our money, that’s our bedroom, and we should all be allowed access. How would you like to spend a night in Yeddyurappa’s bed? I’m sure he has silk sheets.

Somewhere, though, Mayawati is snortling.

(Link via email from Dev. For more on how our government loots us, click here.)