Bizarre agenda or meditated bizarre ?
Monday, August 20, 2007
The communists are at it again. Quite expectedly, they are opposed to the nuclear deal between India and US. While most of us have a lot of reverence for their integrity and high standards of moral conduct, the Indian middle class has also come to a state of resignation about their supreme ability to make an utter nuisance of themselves with spectacular precision. Nevertheless, their opposition to the deal in question and the current turn of events has taken even the biggest psychics (those of us who can make a lot of money by predicting leftist antics) among us by surprise.
While I do not know most of the bells and whistles of the just concluded deal, I am confident we could not possibly have bargained a better arrangement. We do not sign any discriminatory treaty (viz. NPT and CTBT), we keep our nukes, we get fuel and technology to satiate our energy requirements; to some extent, if not to entirety. Since the important countries of the world (the ones with the money and the power, I am not talking so-called friends of India like Cuba, Iran, Libya, Palestine and the likes), toe the American line, it all works very well for us, even from a larger perspective of strategic and economic cooperation in the years to come.
The opponents on the Indian side to the deal point to one ambiguous artifact in the deal. What if India tests a bomb? I would imagine, for the Americans it would be practically suicidal to put such a thing, as it would be life-as-usual in writing; for the Indians putting the opposite in writing would be of similar consequence. Hence, the silence of both on the issue. Now is that a big problem ?
I think not. If one looks at it objectively, say India tests a nuclear device. Obviously there would be sanctions, deal or no deal. So, lets face it, India wouldn't risk it. Simply because there's now a lot of money at stake, and our economy is increasingly getting coupled to the rest of the world. Besides, we already have nukes to defend ourselves. We do not have adequate delivery mechanisms to send them to their destination, and that is what the bigger issue should be about. Perhaps there will not be serious repercussions either. If India tests a device in a relevant global context (a major war, say), and there would be jobs in America, Australia, Europe tied to uranium and technology sold to India, there's nothing adverse we would be looking at anyway.
Let us on the other hand look at the Leftist's track record. They thought India's freedom was a bad idea, supported Chinese aggression against India in 1965, former KGB records reveal that they were funded by the USSR. They opposed private banks, they thought private electricity distribution was a bad idea, and ditto for insurance. They opposed computerization based on a premise that it would kill jobs, they opposed foreign investment in telecommunications fearing threats to national security. Today they oppose airport upgradation through privatization, oppose pension reforms, oppose foreign investment.
None of it makes any sense at all. Monk makes an important point in his blog post. Perhaps it is all part of a grand Chinese plan. Fund the Pakistanis, arm them with missiles and nukes. Fund the Indian communists, arm them pick axes and shovels to dig trenches in the Indian road to progress. Perhaps it is a very paranoid take on the state of things, perhaps it is taking sarcasm to another level. Or perhaps not. Logically this is the only explanation using which everything adds up.
posted by Angshuman @ 12:41 AM,
,
Tail wags the dog, but why?
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Two things happened last week. First, my $400 cellphone finally gave up on me. To be precise, that was what it was worth three years ago. Today, its probably worth less than the charger that came with it. Second, the $1000 iPhone was launched. Chances are it's going to meet the same fate. Or probably not. I do secretly wish it does, though.
A year after purchase, my phone decided its time to give me more that my fair share of things to worry about. Turns out that phones these days are supposed to last for about a year anyway, the time that vendors estimate would be required to entice the buyer to upgrade from a pitch fork to a swiss knife; or from a swiss knife to a carpenter's toolkit or from .. anyway you get the idea.
My forced upgrade this weekend led me to brood over two fundamental questions. The salesman at the store completely decided to sell me a phone with a higher megapixel camera, a larger capacity music player, a radio tuner with more channel pre sets. I told him, I couldn't care less for any of that; and how about a phone that lasts, say, 5 years, can pick up the lowest of signals, doesn't hang,has an easy to navigate menu, a screen that doesn't get scratched within a week, with a charging jack that doesn't get busted in a month. "Oh, you just need a phone", says he. "Well, we don't have any of that, but how about this one with twenty preloaded videogames?" My frustration was not so much about his "Hell I couldn't fix the brakes on your car, so made your horn louder" line. It's more about everyone I know finding the oddity in me, rather than in the situation.
I do understand stuff about technology getting cheaper and cheaper and ultimately worthless, or about always having a compulsive need to upgrade. But I am quite sure people would fret and fume if they were told their air conditioner/hi-fi system/camcorder/refrigerator/washing machine/microwave would get busted in a year after purchase. So my first question is, why do our common purchase groundrules and benchmarks get tossed out the window when it comes to buying a cellphone ?
My second question is related to the first. What's it about the phone that's so different from anything else? Why do we chase a phone with a video camera? Especially when it does a pretty bad job of it ? Why would one want to surf the net on a one square inch screen ? One reason I can think of is that it's the ultimate time killing machine. First you had the idiot box in a living room, now you got it in your pocket. But why would one need to kill time, when we got so little of it to spare anyway? Or it could be a basic human trait. We all like things doing more stuff than they are expected to. Like a couple of decades ago those pens with a digital watch were popular. Or the wrist watch with a calculator. Something like that. Whatever it is, its a new brand of economics that's based more on hormones and synapses than sound logic.
posted by Angshuman @ 5:06 PM,
,
Here we go again!
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Had been wondering it has been many months since a major terrorist attack happened in a major city in India. It was probably the heat, I thought. Planning for a strike ought to be complicated and challenging; getting the entire planning and logistics going should require working with clockwork precision. Which is something you couldn't possibly get done in a sub-Saharan temperatures, with your physical and mental faculties working with less than a quarter of their peak efficiency.
Perhaps the heat got to me more than anyone else; yesterday a bomb went off killing five people on the spot in Hyderabad leaving a lot many injured. A score more were killed in eventual rioting and police firing.
Very likely my theory was completely out of whack, also very likely, killing a dozen people and getting away with it in this country doesn't require the services of the smartest stud in town.
Anyway, if one could call what followed 'predictable' , it would be an understatement. I can almost tell exactly the sequence of events everytime there is a blast. A few politicians release statements calling it a 'dastardly' act (they're really stuck on the phrase aren't they), people complaining that police, firemen and paramedics reached the spot many hours late, hospitals unable to cope, vernacular news channels beaming very substandard quality computer graphics trying to recreate what happened, english news channels doing stories with a correspondent shrieking in monotone "behind me .. " as the camera pans "a young boy who had come for his friday prayers, little did he know...".
The next day everyone starts celebrating 'the spirit of 'Mumbai' (or Delhi or now, Hyderabad)', of how resilient the citizens are, join a revelry of a system which simply doesn't bother, rejoicing in a mob that just doesn't care. A week later onwards , its a wait for the next time you're caught by surprise and a hope that it doesn't affect you personally.
Recently I went to a popular market in south Delhi, where a major explosion killed a lot of people a little over a year ago. I can say with a lot of confidence that a repeat can be performed at the same spot over and over again, every year and nothing at all would change.
A terrorist's motivation in killing innocent civilians, I would imagine, would be to shake the foundations of a responsible government and the consciousness of a population. I am sure many demented souls would do it for kicks, but ultimately, everything needs funding, and you spend money when you have an inkling of a return on investment. In our country, we have neither. Our governance is a sham and our public conscience is a parody of the phrase. We need to make these poor fools understand that killing innocents in India isn't going to get them anywhere. Not for the statement's sake, not because we think we've got loins of steel, but more as an urge to them to recognize our apathy.
posted by Angshuman @ 1:56 PM,
,
Awkward Transition
Monday, January 15, 2007
A visit to Delhi's Connaught Place always gives you a somewhat close to real picture of India and its growing up from infancy to youth. The horse-shoe shaped market built in pre-independence India
with its Victorian Architecture, was the habit of the nobility. The white and the brown sahibs frequented the streets in horse drawn carriages and Austin cars, hung out in its distinctly British cafes and bars, and ocaassionally caught up with a movie in Regal theatre. Independence saw the place transform gradually into the city's business district with premium stores, and company offices; and street food, pavement based apparel shops, road side vendors mushroomed.
With the late eighties came the rapid decline, as the architectural masterpieces were defaced with betel and tobacco stains and majestic while pillars where covered with political posters. Thousands of lepers and beggars turned the pedestrian subways into their home, and good old CP became
synonymous with pirated music and sleazy theatres. The erstwhile boulevards turned into permanent traffic snarls, and the heart of Delhi felt, and smelt, like a giant public urinal. In those pessimistic
years, we all concurred that it was the end of CP as we knew it, and middle class delhi abandoned the place.
Happily, that was not to be. Visit the place now and you get a feel of the new India. A resurgent, confident, never say die and increasingly wealthy India. A walk down the inner circle might for a few moments, make you feel you could be anywhere else in the world, and everything would look the
same. From the re-done central park, the giant search lights linning the inner circle, the brightly lit stores and restaurants, the bookstores and the pubs. CP is now the heart of the underground
railway, as glass elevators and escalators take you a hundred feet down below into what is to me, an architectural and political miracle: a giant state-of-the-art station with 3 intersecting underground routes at different elevations. The rich and the famous are back, and so is the student, the connoiseur, the foodie and the yuppie. The diapidated theatres have morphed into gleaming multiplexes. You see swanky retail outlets and all the symbols of capitalism Americana (not
that I would call that a sign of progress, but that's a different story). The traffic's still around, but the cars look a lot better.
Now if only there were no flip side. The place still boasts perhaps the largest congregation of people who beg for a living, larger than ever number of hoodlums roam the streets and parks and despite the surprisingly clean public toilets, most people still prefer the roadside wall for answering nature's call.
Most would agree, that if any real development and progress happened in India, it was only in the last decade and a half. Most would also concur that it is this period that has seen exponential increases in urban slums, crime, and rural to urban migrations overall. If you are a resident of Delhi,
today, you probably wonder when was the last time you stopped at a traffic intersection without being approached by a little girl or a young mother clutching an infant, and the occassional amputee knocking at your car window with his half-arm. During the communism inspired times, which went right upto the end-eighties, the often repeated media coinages, 'India' and 'Bharat' were synonymous with same country (both were poor, inefficient, stuck in the well) ; today their stark differences bring them in confrontation with each other.
While socialism/communism despite their stated goals eventually end up spreading poverty equally, the opposite isn't true for a capalistic society. While that cannot be simplistically explained off in terms of a juicy political soundbyte like 'the rich getting richer and poor geting poorer', it is a given that some sections will benefit from economic development before the others. There will never, ever, be an equitable distribution of wealth. From a 'have-not's perspective, this would, justifiably, not sound a fair deal. More importantly there would be pockets of development which the poor gravitate towards. For a criminal or a potential criminal, it also opens new vistas as the spoils get bigger and there are a far greater number of potential victims than ever. The sense of an unfair treatment, could, to a person of meagre social, intellectual, economic and educational development, can potentially justify any crime however heinous it may be. That feeling of an unfair world can motivate many to gate crash into the party, who would want a stake in the consumption of wealth, without having any stake in its creation. The recent clamour for reservations in the private sector, in the elite educational institutions based on caste and religion is a case in point.
India stands at defining moment in its history. Perhaps closer than ever to the real independence that the freedom movement envisaged but could not deliver to entirity. There are many challenges, and depending on how simplistically you wish to look at it, you can call it akin to a Rajiv Chowk or akin to a Connaught Circus, and many of the roads lead to disaster. Our problems are big, but solutions to them exist, and they can be solved. Do we have to will to go forth? Hard to answer,
because somehow 'Bharat' seems to have dropped off the 'We'.
with its Victorian Architecture, was the habit of the nobility. The white and the brown sahibs frequented the streets in horse drawn carriages and Austin cars, hung out in its distinctly British cafes and bars, and ocaassionally caught up with a movie in Regal theatre. Independence saw the place transform gradually into the city's business district with premium stores, and company offices; and street food, pavement based apparel shops, road side vendors mushroomed.
With the late eighties came the rapid decline, as the architectural masterpieces were defaced with betel and tobacco stains and majestic while pillars where covered with political posters. Thousands of lepers and beggars turned the pedestrian subways into their home, and good old CP became
synonymous with pirated music and sleazy theatres. The erstwhile boulevards turned into permanent traffic snarls, and the heart of Delhi felt, and smelt, like a giant public urinal. In those pessimistic
years, we all concurred that it was the end of CP as we knew it, and middle class delhi abandoned the place.
Happily, that was not to be. Visit the place now and you get a feel of the new India. A resurgent, confident, never say die and increasingly wealthy India. A walk down the inner circle might for a few moments, make you feel you could be anywhere else in the world, and everything would look the
same. From the re-done central park, the giant search lights linning the inner circle, the brightly lit stores and restaurants, the bookstores and the pubs. CP is now the heart of the underground
railway, as glass elevators and escalators take you a hundred feet down below into what is to me, an architectural and political miracle: a giant state-of-the-art station with 3 intersecting underground routes at different elevations. The rich and the famous are back, and so is the student, the connoiseur, the foodie and the yuppie. The diapidated theatres have morphed into gleaming multiplexes. You see swanky retail outlets and all the symbols of capitalism Americana (not
that I would call that a sign of progress, but that's a different story). The traffic's still around, but the cars look a lot better.
Now if only there were no flip side. The place still boasts perhaps the largest congregation of people who beg for a living, larger than ever number of hoodlums roam the streets and parks and despite the surprisingly clean public toilets, most people still prefer the roadside wall for answering nature's call.
Most would agree, that if any real development and progress happened in India, it was only in the last decade and a half. Most would also concur that it is this period that has seen exponential increases in urban slums, crime, and rural to urban migrations overall. If you are a resident of Delhi,
today, you probably wonder when was the last time you stopped at a traffic intersection without being approached by a little girl or a young mother clutching an infant, and the occassional amputee knocking at your car window with his half-arm. During the communism inspired times, which went right upto the end-eighties, the often repeated media coinages, 'India' and 'Bharat' were synonymous with same country (both were poor, inefficient, stuck in the well) ; today their stark differences bring them in confrontation with each other.
While socialism/communism despite their stated goals eventually end up spreading poverty equally, the opposite isn't true for a capalistic society. While that cannot be simplistically explained off in terms of a juicy political soundbyte like 'the rich getting richer and poor geting poorer', it is a given that some sections will benefit from economic development before the others. There will never, ever, be an equitable distribution of wealth. From a 'have-not's perspective, this would, justifiably, not sound a fair deal. More importantly there would be pockets of development which the poor gravitate towards. For a criminal or a potential criminal, it also opens new vistas as the spoils get bigger and there are a far greater number of potential victims than ever. The sense of an unfair treatment, could, to a person of meagre social, intellectual, economic and educational development, can potentially justify any crime however heinous it may be. That feeling of an unfair world can motivate many to gate crash into the party, who would want a stake in the consumption of wealth, without having any stake in its creation. The recent clamour for reservations in the private sector, in the elite educational institutions based on caste and religion is a case in point.
India stands at defining moment in its history. Perhaps closer than ever to the real independence that the freedom movement envisaged but could not deliver to entirity. There are many challenges, and depending on how simplistically you wish to look at it, you can call it akin to a Rajiv Chowk or akin to a Connaught Circus, and many of the roads lead to disaster. Our problems are big, but solutions to them exist, and they can be solved. Do we have to will to go forth? Hard to answer,
because somehow 'Bharat' seems to have dropped off the 'We'.
posted by Angshuman @ 1:51 PM,
,
Robinson Crusoe Returns
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Probably won't be too bad to pick up from where I left off. A week's ETA eventually turned into a quarter of a year of hibernation. Took me a while to take the 'one week' lie head on. But what the heck, I'm back, me hearties!
About a year ago, when I exited bachelourhood, I was confronted with one of those questions that take me much longer than usual to answer: "So how's married life treating you?". Questions which have only one answer, usually consisting of a positive superlative; the bigger the hyperbole, the better. Situations which unfailingly compell me to search for a soundbyte piece intended to tear to shreds, the raison-de-etre of the question; without completely sounding like a pathological aberration.
Alas, faced with such affected curiousity, my even otherwise miniscule creativity/sense of humor undergoes a spectacular malfunction. Many moments of futile search for an unusual answer later, I usually blurt out a more than subjective 'uh.. pretty good'.
My hypersensitivity was to a large extent based on a post marital 'realization' that a marriage isn't a pain in the neck afterall (many thanks owed to wifey and folks) and life doesn't really change that much if you are an Indian male.
Today, as an answer to the question, I have ten minute speech ready, that almost completely contradicts my thoughts of yore. Right after my last post, I moved out of my parents house and into a rented flat. The result is a realization that big changes in life take a while to sink in, and what changes during that period is the quantum of responsibility. So when I asked a dear friend who became a dad yesterday The Question, I understood completely when he said "Very good, and no idea. Will tell you after a month!".
So life's more about the train ride than the train station, but somehow the stations get talked about more than the journey. Perhaps because there would not be a journey if there hadn't been a destination. Your starting point determines where you are going to, your train, your co-passengers; your destination determines the adjustments you need to make once you get there. Nevertheless, its more of the journey with the scenery, the unscheduled stops, the new friends, the delays, et al.
Hear you say "No sh**, Sherlock?". Okay so you heard this before, but I relate a lot more now!
posted by Angshuman @ 4:34 PM,
,
Post card from 'busy'-land
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Its amazing how really important people take out time to do things they like. Blogging, for instance.And the stereotypical answer to the riddle: you don't find time, you make time. And you always make time for something you are really passionate about. I would also add, discipline should be second nature to you, if you wish to create time.
I sometimes wonder what I am really passionate about. Ashamed as I am to admit, nothing. I do care a lot about a few things, but being passionate about them would be stretching it too far.
As for discipline, the available real estate on my blog speaks for itself.
So admittedly, 'been too busy to write' is perhaps not a worthwhile excuse, but it is the darned truth!
See you in a week!
posted by Angshuman @ 11:35 AM,
,
Hips don't talk either
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
My growing up years were easy. In fact life, a quarter of a century ago, was simple for everybody. A socialistic polity ensured a frugal lifestyle, a sinking economy took the burden off your decision making faculties. So all cream was Boroline, all scooters were Bajaj, all babyfood was Farex, and all ointment was Iodex. Society in general lived by the rules, life was painted in black and white, good and evil couldn't possibly coexist. Love marriages always attracted scorn, losers always attracted sympathy, knowledge always attracted respect. There was hardly any electronics and only the geekiest of all had heard of software. And of course, there was one television channel. Translated into English, it was called 'Television'.
By the time I graduated from high school, things were beginning to feel a lot different. I now belonged to a generation that (perhaps) invented new connotations of the word 'cool; and our favourite expressions became 'start expressing yourself', 'follow your heart', 'do what your inner voice tells you' and their likes. Out-of-the-box thought and action became the in-thing. Pink Floyd ruled and 'We don't need no education' became anthem.
I think human perception of the world around gets frozen forever by the time you are 20 years old. Change, till then is acceptable; most things that mutate afterwards are not. And that is what has been my problem. So I fully understand what thinking and doing out-of-the-box and a questioning spririt is all about, but it does take me a lot of effort to comprehend how one loses sight of the box in the first place.
During my adolescent years, my father forced me the read the papers everyday. The aversion turned into addiction soon as I greedily undid the rubberband every morning, intially for the comic strips and a few years later for the editorial page. My morning joy has been long gone; my tipping point came a few years back when I was aghast to see a screaming frontpage headline: "12 pups die in stormwater drain". Since then I have felt I do not really belong to a society for which the single biggest talking point is the extra-marital affair, or 500 hours of live TV is dedicated to a boy's falling into a tubewell.
I really cannot figure out how an attention span can be less than 10 seconds, the time you need to be bored before you grope for your cellphone. Especially after your school teacher considered throwing a blackboard duster at you a legitimate process for making students listen. Or how so many academically average children from middle class families use BPO jobs for instant gratification, be it alcohol, smokes, sex or drugs. Or minuscule-talent nasal voiced prentenders become icons on the music scene. Or how students finish assignments by looking up answers on the internet, when using a calculator used to be sacrilege once upon a time. Or how a half a billion people consider mind numbingly inane rants in a so called laughter show funny.
Something I have seen common to most elderly people is their tendency to pontificate about how good things used to be in their 'during our times' and 'in those days' speeches. I sometimes wonder how I got there so quick. Perhaps life hasn't really transformed into a celebration of the trivial in a blinding aura of stupidity. Perhaps I am missing the whole point here. Perhaps there isn't any point at all.
But seriously, how can so many people actually relate to a song called 'Hips don't lie' ?
posted by Angshuman @ 8:56 PM,
,
These Romans are Crazy!
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
To the rest of the world, its tough to figure India out. As the cliche goes, no other place on the planet is as diverse, discordant, contradictory, surprising and complex a canvas as this. Most of the world, for all its diversity and multi-ethnicity, is quite vanilla if you think about it. All cities look the same, the countryside's the same, all airports look the same, the roads, the restaurants and bars, the apparel, human attitudes,behaviour and mindset; most things that come to mind are essentially homogenous (regardess superficial notions of colour, race, language, cuisine, religion).
The idea of India, for most people outside it, is therefore prone to stereotyping that borders on the extreme. From the Discovery Channel doing a feature on Kerala proclaiming, "Elephants are very important to the Indian people" to news articles describing India as a nation of knowledge workers, to people who think India is a mystic land of palaces and Maharajas to international think tanks describing India as a nation of starving millions who ought to put their money to better use than test firing missiles, we are also the most misunderstood country on earth.
The average Indian therefore, tirelessly expresses his dissent to such culturual, sociological and economic profiling. "They just don't get it, do they ?" Its frustrating to see the world's inability to understand India and Indians in general, when our contradictions are completely understandable to ourselves.
Or are they? The fact is sometimes our contradictions are so bizarre, its hard for even Indians to find a logical justification to Indian behaviour. Take the recent controversy about pesticides in Colas for example. So we are perhaps a really health consious country with a very high life expectancy rate, fantastic medical care for all, who eat really hiegeinic food in clean restaurants. Of course not! If anything we're at the bottom of the pile as far as healthcare goes. Anyway, forget that for a moment. So there is this rumour that in Mumbai, the sea water's gone sweet (as a result of some divine miracle by the gods). Wait, there's more. People actually start drinking that water in hordes, arguably the filthiest sea water on earth. And collect that water in empty bottles of, you guessed it, the banned colas. It doesn't stop there either. The next day, the nation comes to a halt as rumours spread about idols of Gods in temples drinking milk, telecast live on national television; as the miniscule thinking population watches helplessly.
The unfortunate reality is, it is this thinking population that is India's interface to the world; and it is this population has to answer curious questions like "So why Indians drink sea water from dirty beaches?". How do you defend a populace that you do not relate to at all ? The best thing to do is perhaps to take a leaf off the Obelix line: "These Romans are crazy!"
posted by Angshuman @ 5:09 PM,
,
The book
Sunday, August 20, 2006
A sizeable portion of human thought process is about comparative analysis, usually subconscious. This essentially happens when there is a change in state, for example, a new city, a new job, a new diet; and this brings in an automatic tendency to compare the present situation with the past. The outcome of such brooding is usually predictable. The present seems much better when there is an assured and early return to the previous situation; the past is beautiful otherwise.
After graduating from College, I moved to a different city in Southern India, Bangalore. I started hating it a week after I reached there. For the next three years, I continued to hate it. I kept comparing it to the city I grew up in, Delhi. I developed a deeper appreciation of the qualities of Delhi that I was oblivious to when I stayed there. A few years later, I relocated back to Delhi again. The three years in Bangalore had changed everything about the way I looked at the city now. Back in my confort zone, Bangalore didn't seem so bad anymore. An occassional short visit to the city today makes me truly feel there are quite a few areas in which Bangalore is a lot better than Delhi. And I am quite sure I would relapse into my utter distaste for Bangalore if I were to relocate to that city again.
Last week I was on holiday in Jaipur, a short 5 hour drive from Delhi. I was mildly taken aback during the stay there. Living in Delhi can lead you to believing that an overwhelming majority of us Indians are a bunch of rude, ill-mannered, selfish boors with lots of money and little by way of education. In Jaipur I practically found just the opposite. I found people smiling at strangers, shopkeepers giving you lesser denomination currency even when you didn't buy from them, drivers waiting patiently behind you if your car stalls in the middle of the road.
This also flew in the face of all explanations of 'Dilliwaale' being, well 'Dilliwaale'. It obviously wasn't anything to do with the straightforward ones like adverse climate, or the diet, or the terrain. It didn't have much to do with some of the more interesting reasons either, like north indians being genetially programmed to be 'aggressive' after millenia of invasions from the middle east.
Back in Delhi and back among the earthy populace here, I am calm. It would have been different had I not travelled other places earlier in my life. The bottomline, most places suck one way or other. You just make your peace with it, the catch being to imagine some of the things you would miss if you weren't where you are right now. Meanwhile I attempt to celebrate modern Delhi's gift to modern India: the infamous book of Hindi expletives.
posted by Angshuman @ 12:48 AM,
,
My Kodak moment!
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Whew! Half a decade after I first thought about it, I finally created a blog. Funny how sometimes an incredibly small thing can hold up something much bigger. As it happened, I couldn't think of a name for the darned thing.
A lot of mud has flown down the yamuna (and a lot many cars have remained stuck in the great Delhi-Gurgaon traffic jam) since then. A blog isn't a big deal in an age when its more common to have a blogspot address than have an email address. For me the big push came when the rascals shut down blog access from India for a few days, and well intentioned people advised me to use pkblogs.com to access my (nonexistent) address.
Anyway, enough of what led me to it. Right now I can almost share the feeling Galileo had when he invented the telescope, or when Newton finished the last chapter of his Principia Mathematica.
I savour this moment.
posted by Angshuman @ 11:19 PM,
,
