End of Year Resolutions

There is a frightening possibility that all the bad things I say tend to come true. I always thought that it happened, but I took it as an amusing coincidence. But last week, just to irritate my sister, I predicted that her end of year vacations would get cancelled. I didn't even mean it. Turns out that I was accurate in even how it would all play out. And given how flippantly I talk of gruesome deaths and world annihilation, I have decided it is time to stop being so negative. Well I can still think it, but I won't say it.

PS: I also tried to think back to something good I had said that came true. Turns out I can't remember the last time I had been positive about the future.

PPS: To think of it, I had said that from the trailer, Fantastic Beasts seemed to be better than the Potter movies. Of course I was right.

"You know, today's nut may be tomorrow's prophet. The essence of free speech is to preserve the opportunity for nuts to turn into prophets."

                                                                           -  Milton Friedman

Random

• Does Janmashtami mean anything to anyone anymore besides dp changes and inspirational Watsapp forwards?
• My colony, which has a surfeit of little children on other days, had a grand total of one tiny jhanki made by a little girl, right outside the gate to her home.
• People outside my colony were more enthusiastic. One group of people had hired trucks to ferry children screaming devotional slogans, in turn drowned by devotional music blaring out of speakers. There was also a chariot with two children dressed as Radha-Krishna. (I have a feeling that both of them were girls). And of course they blocked traffic.
• As is my yearly ritual on this day, I pined for my childhood when my friends (and enemies) and I, struck the right balance between religious fervour and maintaining public decorum.
• I don't think I celebrate any festival anymore. I have always hated Diwali, have lacked the safe space to play Holi for many years now, Janmashtami ended with my Board year (as far as I remember), Christmas and New Years were/ are generally followed by exams, I have no taste for sewai, or Kumar Sanu-Alka Yagnik Bollywood Nights and Durga Puja has become this thing where I mark mandatory attendance every year, to promptly avoid other Bengalis my age by staring at my phone.
• I would also like to open up about how I mark the three national holidays but am really afraid I will be called anti-national, so I will refrain.
• I would have called this post something festive had I not wanted to add a few other pointless observations and conclusions about random things.
• People should marry much younger people. Then these much younger spouses are in a better position to tend to you in your sickness than spouses who are closer to you in age. Of course, not everyone can marry people much younger to them. But since the readership of this blog is rather limited, you are in luck.
• People should have children late in life. Then when they are old and sick, they can have relatively young, fit people to tend to them.
• I think I am as grown up now, as I am likely to ever be. All the floundering, indecisive adults around me make me feel so.

Educational Rant (Promise)

• I deeply want to be South Indian. Or at least know the four languages there. Because otherwise it is impossible to remember that Therukoothu is a dance form in TN, Pavakoothu a form of rod puppetry in Kerala, Kudiyattam, a theatre form in Kerala and but Kavadiattam a dance in Tamil Nadu. Why can’t you at least use different sounding words so that stupid-exam givers (the exam being stupid, not the givers) can devise mnemonics to remember what infernal dance/ puppetry/ theatre form belongs to which state?
• It is worth noting how many people say they want to clear the UPSC/ CSE exam, versus the numbers who say they want to be in the IAS/ IPS/ IFS etc. What does UPSC aspirant even mean? UPSC is the recruitment agency! Do you want to be the recruiting agency?
• If you say you are an IAS/ Civil Service aspirant, you are only linguistically correct. Because you have to be a dumbass to aspire to a generic administrative designation.
• Bomalattam is string puppetry from Tamil Nadu but Tholu Bommalata is shadow puppetry in Andhra Pradesh. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
• India is the seventh largest country in the world by area, second largest by population. Azerbaijan is 119^th by area, 89^th by population. The latter has a Kashmir too-Nagorno Karabakh. Of course I am simplifying, but the point is that we will be hard-pressed to find a country where a certain section does not want to ‘leave’.
• I don’t want Kashmir to leave India. Now that I have learnt that the Kashmiri New Year is called Navreh, that their dances are called Rouff and Dhumal, that they practice a form of folk theatre called Bhand Pather and their folk music is called Gulraj. Or it may be it is the little Sanghi inside me. In my defence, if I were British, I would oppose Brexit too.
• I know feelings are not facts, except when you have fever. Then, what you feel is far more important than the 99.4 temperature that the thermometer insists on showing.
• There is a theatre form called Maach. That’s one of three Bengali phrases every non Bengali knows (maach khabo, jol khabo, and Kemon acho, said in a very weird sheepish tone). But is this theatre form from Bengal? No, it’s from MP, which is not even coastal! Matlab even Odisha or Andhra or Maharashtra would be easy to remember!
• Though come to think of it, why would you call a puppetry form from any state, as generic a term as Fish?
• Lest we think that a Qandeel Baloch would not happen in India-at least the Twitter folks would lay off celebrating an honour killing-we should remember that India does worse than Pakistan on the Gender Development Index as well as the Gender Inequality Index.
• Bhavai is a dance form in Rajasthan as well as a theatre form in Gujarat.
• According to an OECD Survey in 2014, India has the second highest proportion of people surveyed who said they trusted the national government. Switzerland holds the top rank [which means that the Scandinavian countries rank behind us]. In case you think this is a jabra-fans driven exercise, note that the proportion of people who trusted the government in 2014 was actually a decrease over the proportion recorded in the previous version of the survey in 2007. I guess the idiot media is to blame.
• I know I have it on the blog about how Hinduism is diverse and allows space for hedonism/ atheism. But it’s also true that this may be the case for other religions, and we are simply not aware. For example, Islam had the Mutazila school that believed in monism-essentially there being no difference between the creators and the created. Sure it faced opposition from the orthodox, but then that’s pretty much their job description.

 Latest edition of how things never change:

• The Vernacular Press Act sought to impose pre-censorship on the Vernacular Newspapers that were considerably bolder in their criticism of the British government than the English newspapers. It empowered the police to also confiscate the printing materials of the newspapers, if they were found to be publishing seditious things.
• An educational committee led by Hunter in 1882 suggested that there be a two track education system-the more deserving students get to have a higher secondary and University education, while the not-as-good students get to choose a vocation and have a commercial career.
• A Raleigh Commission of 1904 also suggested that more time be spent on academics and research in our universities, otherwise known as ‘dens of political activity’.           

In which we establish my Sanghiness

• There is much wrong with the Mohenjodaro poster, and the movie may be worse (or better). But the worst part is that there is nobody to represent them. I am not trying to defend the cottage industry of ‘hurt sentiments’ but when it came to Jodha Akbar, there WERE people from Rajasthan at least registering protest. The Barber community protested against Billu Barber and the Mochi community against Aaja Nachle. Sikhs were upset at Jo Bole So Nihal, Muslims at Vishwaroopam and Hindus at PK. But there is literally no one to take up the cudgels, file random FIRs, burn posters or block screenings, on behalf of the Harappans.
• Okay my feelings just turned from outrage to grudging admiration. Well played Ashutosh Gowariker.
• My second favourite Indian empire after the Mughals (because I have those now) is the Mauryas. Emperor Ashoka, who I have rhapsodised about before, is not the only reason. They also had India’s favourite economist-policy maker, Chanakya. Even Subramaniam Swamy loves him, I suspect, because apart from being suitably ‘mentally Indian’, he was three-quarters Raghuram Rajan, one-quarter Amit Shah with a dash of Arun Jaitley.
• A recent scientific study (using DNA samples, no less) pointed to the Guptas as being the period when endogamy within a caste began to be followed (though the caste system as such preceded the Guptas). It was also the period when the Vaishyas and Shudras rebelled against the slavery imposed on them. This was the precise point when the wise Brahmanas declared the beginning of the Kali-yug, i.e., the period of most depraved human values. We just call them anti-national now.
• The obsession with #Ease-of-Doing-Business did not start with 2014. That happened in 1608 when Jahangir started handing out rights to the British to set up ‘factories’ first along the West coast and then all over India.
• If you go to the Gaekwad’s palace in Baroda, you get to hear the audio recording of one of the princes whining about how their house was so big that the coffee would go cold before the servant could lug it up to his room. #Upping-the-ante-on-urban-poverty.
• Turns out such a sense of entitlement will also make you intensely unpopular among your subjects. The revolt of the Wagheras of Baroda, was a rare case of opposition to the own ruler (Gaekwads) that took place in the pre-1857 period. In contrast, in most cases people supported their rulers (despots they may be) in revolting against the British.
• Did you know that Hinduism (or Brahmanism more precisely) derived its practice of idol worship from Buddhism? Till the point I read about it, I was quite sure that Buddhism did not sanction idol worship. This could be reflective of how badly we were taught anything in school but also of how little attention I paid, while there. [Let me know if you thought so too, then we will know who to blame].
• Hinduism is a most interesting religion. In fact I am inclined to believe that it’s not a religion at all. At the risk of sounding Sanghi, it does seem like a way of life. How else do you explain schools of thought within Hinduism that tell you to not believe all the balderdash about karma or rituals and enjoy life (even if you have to borrow ghee to do so)?
• We have been discussing marital rape for more than a century now, and the terms of the debate are not radically different. In 1891 the Parliament introduced legislation to increase the age of consent from 10 years to 12 years for women female children. (Of course as long as she was older than 12 and married, her consent or lack thereof did not matter). This was after the reported death of an 11 year old when her husband forced himself on her. Tilak opposed the law. Clearly Swarajya was a birth-right only for a few.

Of Mostly Other Stuff

• Every time I hear the turuturututuru chorus from the Dil toh Paagal Hai music album, I visualise, not Madhuri Dixit and Shah Rukh Khan, but Govinda and Aruna Irani from Haseena Maan Jayegi.
• The reason I love the Jabra fan song so much is because even though the words sound nonsensical, they perfectly sum up everything about fandom.
• For example, if you have been a fan of anyone (jabra or not) you would know how ‘tujhe dekhte hi dil mein dhan te nan ho gaya’ has deep meaning.
• Once a friend thought Benedict Cumberbatch looked like a 16 year old school girl. You bet I got touch-y.
• Also yes, uski aankhon ki garmi mein sar se paon tak tan hona is a thing.
• Epiphany of the week: Marketers have a very high capacity to bullshit. How else do you explain a razor brand calling itself Mach 3 when some of our satellite launch vehicles are unable to (and are not required to) reach those supersonic speeds?
• On VK Singh’s proposal to rename Akbar road to Maharana Pratap Road, I feel like an 80s Bollywood heroine who has been separated from her boyfriend by her parents because he is poor/ off-spring of sworn enemies/a creep who sexually harassed her into dating him. Uska naam signage se toh mita doge, dil se kaise mitaoge?
• Oh wait, the text-book editing may help.
• The Economic Survey says,

Decline in enrolment in government schools and some shift to private schools might be largely related to the poor quality of education offered in government schools, since it is free or offered for a nominal fee [bold italics mine]. 

• I know it’s only half a line of idiocy (in a government document, no less), and I know this is probably a result of poor editing than an insidious intent to privatise all education (since the author mentions the poor learning outcomes in private schools as well), but if I were idealistic and had an active twitter account, I would outrage about it.

Of News and Other Stuff 13

• Taking their philosophy of will-do-anything-for-a-fun-acronym further, the Power ministry has recently rehashed a barely year-old scheme to distribute LED bulbs to the poor. The scheme is called Unnat Jyoti Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA).
• I think allegations that the current PM micro-manages everything are false. Because then he would know that he had just launched the PM Ujjwal Yojana to provide LPG connections to poor women, besides an Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) last year. 
• Giving credit where it’s due, this bureaucratic (or prime ministerial) doggedness in naming schemes has led to a really pretty (for lack of a better word) name for India’s version of GPS--NAVIC or Navigation with Indian Constellation.
• Pratap Bhanu Mehta puts the visadenial issue in perspective. While others have been talking about how it shows up our weaknesses to deny the visa on technical grounds, after first having granted it, he asks whether we should use our visa granting policy as a tool of foreign policy at all. Especially since a visa for a conference is essentially a ‘visa for ideas’ and all ideas should be welcome in a liberal democracy.
• There is sometimes an odd joy in knowing trivia. The word ‘meander’ has become more lyrical to me since I registered that its etymology has to do with the erosional/ depositional action of rivers.
• I know that doesn’t sound too lyrical.
• I am ditching the use of the word ‘bhakt’. I will henceforth call them ‘jabra fan’. Just because.
• I realised recently, how these days we are doing a stellar job of sticking to the fundamental duties given in the Constitution. I wish I could say these were the sole preserve of Jabra fans but political leanings don't determine IQ.

Fundamental Duty	How we see it
Abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions	Demand beef ban, as per the DPSP
Respect the national flag and the national anthem	First heckle and abuse people who don’t stand up during the anthem that plays out before movies. Then initiate Twitter discussions on whether Vande Mataram would not have been a more appropriate choice for the anthem.
Follow the ideals that inspired the freedom struggle	Call for a ban on Bipan Chandra’s India’s Struggle for Independence for #Insultingourfreedomfighters without knowing who Surya Sen was.
Uphold the national sovereignty and integrity of the country	Hate people from JNU/ JU/ HCU
Defend the country and perform national service when called upon to do so	Uninstall the Snapdeal app because Aamir Khan voiced an opinion
Inculcate a spirit of enquiry, scientific temper and humanism	‘I failed because she mixed menstrual blood in my food.’
Promote harmony and spirit of common brotherhood among all people of India disregarding religious, linguistic and regional differences. Preserve India’s composite culture.	LoLz
Renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women	Oppose criminalising marital rape because #marriageisasacrament #whathappensinthebedroomstaysin thebedroom #youthinkwomenhaverightshaha
Protect the environment	Call out the anti-Hindu conspiracy behind people opposing a private party being held on a precarious river-bank
Abjure violence and destruction of public property	Much Lolz
Ensure provision of opportunities for education for 6-14 year olds	Wants RTE to be repealed because “those madrassas” are exempt
Strive towards excellence in individual and collective activity	Yeah, I should probably get back to studying