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Vacations are about being, not about doing. Work is about doing. Play is about doing.
Shashi Tharoor is no scam artist. He doesn't look like a scam artist, doesn't talk like a scam artist and doesn't walk like a scam artist. Scam artists are people like the boorishly crude Madhu Koda and the unctuously cunning Ramalinga Raju to name a few scamsters from recent times, and opportunistic stock market fraudsters like Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh from yesteryears. All from different walks of life, but hey -- you can never suppress true art in any sphere. The only thing Tharoor did that went horribly wrong was to try and help a friend of his get a sweet deal as a stock-holder in a business venture he was mentoring. Compare that with Raju, the founder of the IT giant he named Satyam, after the Sanskrit word for Truth, who overnight made it a one-word oxymoron by revealing the truth (or part of it) behind its financial position. A five thousand crore scam is a scam that people would consider to be of a respectable order of magnitude. Seventy something crores, that too in the form of 'paper money', and that too accruing over several years, is peanuts, even assuming that Tharoor was after the money (which I seriously doubt -- he is too much of what Bengalis call a 'bhadralok').
I came across an interesting quote from Alfred North Whitehead a few days ago:
If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.
At the time of writing this post, it seems unlikely that the Women's Bill will be passed into Law today, on International Women's Day. I have mixed feelings about this Bill, as I do about anything that involves social reform through the creation of quotas. This usually applies to the historically underprivileged / exploited / abused / oppressed sections of society, and we try and make it good by reversing the discrimination against them through discrimination for them, by law.
First of all, a big thank you to all who've had the patience to read and comment on my previous post over the weekend. As promised, here's my answer to the teaser:
No, because (A) implies acceptance of what is perceived to be a perpetual truism while (B) challenges the status-quo, questions what seems to have been taken as fact so far, and implies that it is time for change.
A question of the form "Why did (something) have to be (this way)?" is semantically equivalent to the statement "Granted, (something) has to be (this way)" followed by "But why?" which may either represent genuine curiosity regarding causation or a rhetorical question that makes (A) sound like an anguished lament on the state of things (as in "Why, Oh Why?")
A question of the form "Why does (something) have to be (this way)?" is semantically equivalent to the statement "Sorry, I reject the proposition that (something) has to be (this way)" followed by "And even if it is, or has been, are there any compelling reasons that require that it continues to remain (this way)?"
Here's a bantamweight teaser, for bright minds that are very bored on a Saturday afternoon.
These days one hears a lot of talk about innovation and social entrepreneurship. A passing glance at recent activity in this sector brings out several interesting models that combine creative ingenuity with the spirit of enterprise. But I would never have imagined that something like stone pelting can be a serious business. Surprise Surprise. According to some sources, stone pelting is already fast becoming an industry. (Since social enterprise doesn't seem appropriate, though it qualifies on several grounds, let's call it antisocial enterprise.)
My gut reaction to the Pune blast last night was a sense that it was somehow linked with the Shiv Sena protests against the release of Shah Rukh Khan's latest film. I first got the news through a couple of concerned messages from friends I am connected with on social media, checking on people they knew in Pune. I was a bit preoccupied with the blog post I was just finishing (which, uncannily, was about love and hate, among other things) at that time. I vaguely remembered catching the news earlier in the day that most cinema halls in Pune had chosen not to screen the controversial movie, out of fear of incurring the Sena's wrath, notwithstanding the security arrangements and the strong police deployment by the local authorities. But I did not expect things to get so bad so fast. So I hastily put my blog post aside and began investigating this breaking news story.
Is it so difficult to figure out whether there is a racial dimension to what appears to be a sudden surge in the attacks on Indians in Australia over the last year or so?
Quizzers compulsively obsessing over data in a world of facts and figures
Over the last week or so, much has been said and written about Tiger Woods and his recent 'transgressions'. The morally conservative have expressed outrage and disappointment over his infidelity. The more open-minded liberals, like my friend in his blog post, have taken a more tolerant view, drawing distinctions between his private / personal life and his sense of professionalism and commitment to the game, and questioning the sanctimoniousness of his critics. As for me, I do believe in the morality of not hurting people, but do not believe in the morality of sexual conservatism. I think it is OK to do pretty much whatever you like as long as you don't hurt people you care about by reneging on commitments that you've made to them. What that actually translates to in terms of degrees of sexual freedom (or constraints) is for you to work out with the said people in your life, whoever they may be.
