Monthly Archives: August 2005

To Forgive is Divine

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Almost two weeks ago, fellow Mutineer Abhi wrote

Really, what kind of a soulless bastard do you have to be to kill someone while they are praying?

when he posted about the tragic murder of Houston-resident Akhil Chopra, which took place on August 11.

What kind of a bastard? Perhaps, this kind? (Thanks, RC.)killer.jpg

This is Howard Dale Bellamy, aka “Peanut”. As in, it takes testicles the size of peanuts to murder a man who is peacefully communing with nature, with his eyes closed. Chopra meditated daily during his lunch break in the park where he was gunned down.

True to his stellar character, Bellamy is not cooperating with authorities. “Peanut”‘s luck ran out when someone else who was using Chopra’s purloined credit card was caught; that person promptly snitched while being interrogated. Six other people who are linked to the robbery-turned-murder are also in custody, under fraud charges.

Houston police, which had earlier announced a award of $10,000 (about Rs 4.5 lakhs) for tip offs leading to Bellamy’s arrest, would soon initiate trial against him for capital murder. If convicted, he might get a death penalty as Texas has provision for this. [link]

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‘Grimus’ and Klingons

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The one-man sound bite missile named Rushdie aims His cross-Atlantic test firing at Time and the Times (thanks, Sapna and Karthik):

There’s a line about Klingons on the very first page of Shalimar. Aren’t you worried that a pop reference like that will date the book?

… A novel, I think, is partly about the contemporary and partly about the eternal, and it’s the balance of that that’s difficult to achieve. I have a suspicion that Klingons might be more enduring than we suspect.

Speaking of Klingons, wasn’t your wife… on an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise?

Yes, she was. She was an alien empress of most of the universe, I think. The episode was all right. Next Generation was the one that I liked best. [Link]

Now that Lakshmi’s been on Star Trek, our nerdy readers have official permission to idolize. I love the uncharacteristically autistic, Trekkie honesty here (whereas in the Times Rushdie gives wuvvy-dovey, team player quotes). His wife was on TV, and it was just ‘eh’? Something tells me he’s going to learn about ‘withholding’ tonight, and I don’t mean taxes

The Times delves into his early career, which is always where the critical lessons of history are found — not how a success expands, but how it struggled from obscurity in the first place:

He was not part of the Barnes-Amis-McEwan lit-lad circle back then and, as someone who was still struggling to find his voice, was keenly aware that they had found their way as writers far earlier on: “There was Martin with The Rachel Papers… and Ian with his first collections of short stories… and I thought, ‘I wish I would be able to write as well as this’, but I was still stumbling around trying to find out what to do. It took me a long time to get going as a writer.”

His debut, Grimus, was both a critical and commercial failure and despite the huge and continued success of Midnight’s Children, all the more remarkable for it being only his second novel, Rushdie could not forgive the casual dismissiveness of those first reviews… he admits that if he sees people reading it, his instinct is to hide behind the furniture. “… it embarrasses me.” [Link]

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Wanted: Wedding Crashers…Will Pay

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shaadi.jpg Michael H. of Chocolate and Gold Coins points us towards an interesting little blurb on Ananova about brown weddings; apparently, people in India and people in Amreeka have totally opposite problems. I mean, the last time I was at this popular venue for desi receptions, I was a mere speck among 800 other guests. The Mother of The Groom, a former classmate of my Mom’s, bemoaned the fact that she had to cut people from her invite list…to get it down to 800. Maybe she should’ve thrown her bash in INDIA:

An Indian firm which rents out wedding guests says business is booming.
The Best Guests Centre, at Jodhpur in Rajasthan, is looking to expand across the state.
The company caters for families who fear they will fall short of guests at weddings.

Fake guests can be attired in your choice of either desi or “smart” vestern clothes, they also dance and use the right salad fork. The most crucial bit of preparation is probably the briefing these employees receive on the story behind the wedding, so that they don’t botch the illusion of perfect guest-ness.

Why on earth is this even necessary?

He told The Statesman: “The breaking up of joint families and lack of affection among relatives also creates a demand for paid guests.
“Such families need to hire guests to make up for the fewer number of relatives available for attending the marriage.”

Are you kidding me? Problems getting desis to show up for free food and gossip fodder? This HAS to be a joke. Right? Continue reading →

No Plastic for You!

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flood.jpg When asked, “Paper or Plastic?” how do YOU answer?

Are you blissfully indifferent to the ramifications of your choice? Angst-ridden because neither option is perfect? Filled with guilt because you are an Alum from the University of California at Santa Cruz or Davis, and thus, you should know better?

While you’re sorting all that out, I’m filling my much-adored Boat and Tote, sans guilt, confusion or consternation. It turns out that if I ever visit Mumbai, I might have to schlep it THERE, too.

The government in the western Indian state of Maharashtra has banned the sale and use of plastic bags.
“Mumbai and various other areas have suffered from the misuse of plastic bags,” state chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said in Mumbai. [BBC]

Perhaps you are asking yourself, “What misuse?” No, you pervs. Not that kind.

“These tend to choke the drainage and sewage systems.” [BBC]

Who’s brilliant enough to guess where I’m going with this?

Mr Deshmukh said plastic bags had added to the problems of the recent floods across the state, which claimed more than 1,000 lives. [BBC]

Exactly. w00t smart environmental choices! 😀 Continue reading →

The rise of pseudoscience

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I am a Deist.  That means that I believe in God whole-heartedly but reject all religious dogma.  My beliefs are a combination of certain elements from Hinduism, Sufism, and Buddhism and I try to pray and meditate daily and abide by a belief in karma.  During the day I am a Fellow at the Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life.  I study the oldest life on Earth (dating back to ~4 billion years) in order to unlock the secrets of life, how it began, and how it evolved until the present.  I am an example of how one can embrace God and still believe at the same time that scientific explanations should always trump religious ones.

Over the last two days Deepak Chopra has been making arguments that basically support “Intelligent Design” on the liberal Huffington Post blog (which is an excellent website).  Such an embarrassing event can occur when you have too many bloggers in one space and can’t keep track of it all.  I am not a Deepak Chopra reader.  I find his writings too…elementary.  I don’t begrudge anyone that does enjoy his writing though.  We all have different tastes is all.  Chopra however has a lot of people that listen to him and take his words as “gospel.”  That is why I was pained greatly to read his post.  Here are some “scientific questions” he poses in order to demonstrate an openness to divine intervention:

1. How does nature take creative leaps? In the fossil record there are repeated gaps that no “missing link” can fill.

Wrong.  It is the rock record that is incomplete.  Tectonic activity is continually resurfacing the Earth and destroying the rocks containing fossils.  Nature does not take “creative leaps.”  The biggest such “leap” occurred around 535 Ma at the Cambrian boundary and over the last 40+ years the “gap” has been slowly filled in with solid fossil evidence showing gradual evolution.

2. If mutations are random, why does the fossil record demonstrate so many positive mutations — those that lead to new species — and so few negative ones?

Because organisms with negative mutations die out sooner making their preservation potential less.  Only a tiny fraction of dead life survives the fossilization process without being destroyed.  That’s why you don’t find dinosaur bones in your backyard.

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80% of India’s Children Lead SUCKY Lives

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streetkids.jpg

Plan, the ChildrenÂ’s aid organization, issued a report with the following sobering statistics (Thanks, Al Mujahid):

  • Nearly half of Asia’s 1.3bn children live in poverty, denied basic needs, says a new report.
  • India has the largest number of poor children in Asia, with 80% of its 400m young severely deprived, it says.
  • 600m Asian children under the age of 18 lack access to either food, safe drinking water, health or shelter.
  • Of those, 350m were described as "absolutely poor", meaning they do not have access to two or more of a child’s essential necessities.
    • [BBC]

Though Africa (especially lately) is the continent many of us associate with poverty and desperation, Asia has double the number of “severely deprived” children.  IÂ’m ashamed of my ignorance of this fact.  ItÂ’s so easy to focus on Bangalore and Gurgaon, on starbucks-esque “third places”, on “desirable” India.  I heard so much about IndiaÂ’s fabulous new middle class, I forgot that

Despite high growth rates in countries like India and China, millions of families were being left behind, according to the report.

Among the causes, the report said, were the pressure of rapid population growth on scarce resources, lack of access to education, health care, clean water or sanitation, caste discrimination, and weak governance and corruption.[BBC]

Around half of IndiaÂ’s children who are age five or younger are malnourished; additionally, India has more children working than any other country. Sixty percent of IndiaÂ’s youngest citizens are “absolutely poor”.  In contrast, only 13 million or ChinaÂ’s 380 million children are considered “deprived”.

China, the report said, had made "great strides in poverty reduction in recent years".[BBC]

WhatÂ’s being done?

Child aid organisation, Plan, author of the report, has pledged to spend $1bn on poverty reduction in 12 Asian countries over the next decade.

It also wants rich nations to reduce subsidies given to their own farmers and to cancel Third World debt. [BBC]

Sigh. Continue reading →

Stylin’ at IKEA

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Remember that ongoing battle between Sikh employees and the NY Metropolitan Transport Authority [see 1,2 ]?  Basically the MTA wanted Sikhs to wear a logo on their turban identifying them as MTA employees so that no passenger would think the train/bus was being highjacked.  Anyways, I thought of that story when I saw this on the DNSI blog:

IKEA’s new Edmonton branch contacted TheHijabShop.com to design and produce a ‘hijab’ – a Muslim headscarf – that would fit in with their current uniform.

When IKEA first approached TheHijabShop.com, their excited team was impressed that an internationally-acclaimed company like IKEA was making so much effort to accommodate Muslims in its workforce.

The challenge for the team was to create a hijab that had the IKEA branding; that was easy to put on without the need for pins – so avoiding any health and safety hazards; and that was something employees would feel comfortable wearing in a working environment, whether in the showroom or in the warehouse. It also had to be compact, without excess material flowing around, and meanwhile sticking to Islamic requirements. [Link]

Obviously I don’t see any similarity between the motivations of the NY MTA and that of IKEA.  I mean nobody could be worried about terrorism at IKEA…right?  No, I just think this is a clever marketing ploy.  IKEA has stores in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E.  I wonder if the hijabs will be for employess worldwide or only in those countries.  Are there other companies that make personalized “religious clothing” for their employees that anyone knows about?  I bet you Abercrummy & Fitch will design some stylish hijabs for their employees next season.  Not.

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Our Parents Shrugged

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Between the Ayn Rand discussion Manish’s post kicked off a few days ago and the fisking of Dr. Patnaik cited on IndianEconomy.org, I figured I oughta finally commit to a post that’s been rattling in my head for a few months – the startling parallels between the fictional, dystopian economic world Ayn Rand outlined in Atlas Shrugged and real life Indian history.

Now although I’m one of those Desi dudes who cites Atlas Shrugged as an all-time favorite, I’m far from a Randroid. I readily recognize that getting too literal runs headlong into a more, uh, empirical assessment of the human condition. But, I’m also more than willing to give Rand credit – especially writing in the 1940s and 1950s – for being more right than wrong about some of the biggest issues of the day. Doubly so because, given the intellectual zeitgeist of the time, Rand was decidedly a contrarian. The example of the License Raj – India’s economic regime “progressively” enacted a scant few years after Atlas Shrugged was published (1957), and to some degree of Intellectual fanfare, gives us the latest, almost depressing example of how Indian fact can be more extreme than Western fiction.

In the novel, a key milestone as the world plummets into dysfunction and chaos is the passage of the innocuously titled Directive 10-289 by the government. It opens with a rather lofty goal –

“In the name of the general welfare to protect the people’s security, to achieve full equality and total stability…

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Hold that Tiger

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Ananthan recently penned this fascinating post on the Tamil Tigers’ cemeteries (see photos):

The LTTE is a secular organization but up until the early 90s it seems that dead cadres… were all cremated according to Hindu practice. In the early 90s this was changed to burial…

… the use of these graveyards, similar in style to those used by militaries in the west, helps to confer legitimacy to the LTTE. The Tigers are often dismissed or denounced as unthinking, purposeless terrorists; established memorials help to combat that view… Cremation doesn’t leave any tangible, visible evidence of those who have passed, burial does…

The Maaveerar are celebrated on November 27th, officially remembered as the day in which the first Tiger died… in Sri Lanka the ceremonies take place in the Tuillum Illam. [LTTE Leader] Prabhakaran’s yearly speech is delivered and broadcast through loudspeakers in all Tuillum Illam.

… the practice of burial is rationalized with the opposing beliefs of Hinduism…

Read the whole thing.

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When Indophiles mate

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The daughter of a big-time Silicon Valley VC wed last weekend. In these troubled times, it warms my heart to see that the ultra-wealthy are still meeting and mating over that shared hobby called Indophilia

… each had traveled to India, Ms. Kramlich to ride horses across the desert in Rajasthan and Dr. Bowie to Dharmsala, “to meet the Dalai Lama…” [Link]

Wealthy Westerners… a dusty desert… heaving bodices… it’s The Far Pavilions! For that level of Indophilia, their kids better be wearing turbans. I’m thinkin’ Poon-jab as the child of Daddy Warbucks.

As Ms. Kramlich’s father doubtless has access to a private jet, it may be the last time she and her husband find themselves on horseback out of necessity  The wedding writeup is a peek into the lifestyle of Sand Hill Brahmins:

In 2001 she had abandoned a career in business and product development with start-up technology companies to study acting… They were married in typical California wine-country style on Aug. 13. Chief Justice Ronald M. George of the California Supreme Court, a friend of the bride’s family, led the ceremony under a canopy of oaks and a Wedgwood-blue sky on the grounds of the 21-acre Oakville, Calif., weekend house and vineyard owned by the bride’s father, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and her stepmother, Pamela Kramlich, a trustee of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The bride looked serene in a form-fitting creamy-white Vera Wang gown as a string quartet, tucked into the greenery, played sweetly. A reception and sit-down dinner for 234 guests followed on the grassy lawns surrounding the votive-lit family pool.

After the couple’s honeymoon, at an eco-resort in Nicaragua, that is part nature preserve and part reforestation project, the bride and the bridegroom, who has no pets of his own, will return to their new horse farm in the Oakland Hills of California with her animal entourage: three Arabian horses and one very happy and healthy poodle. [Link]

All joking aside, congratulations to the newlyweds.

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