The Maanga

More generally, the ill-researched piece brings to light the reasons people with real day jobs tend to dismiss the views and opinions held by most freelance econo-journos (Sauvik Chakraverti of ToI comes to mind immediately). Loads of armchair theorising, a reluctance to get some real data and scrutinise it before forming opinions and passing judgements, the tendency to interpret facts so as to suit long-held theories rather than allowing one’s ideologies to be moulded by facts, the tendency to make this-solution-will-end-all-woes kind of pronouncements, a ridiculous lack of awareness about the government and its bodies, and a compulsive desire to pronounce every single govt functionary as corrupt, conniving with the criminals. Mint claims to be fighting for the cause of “freedom”, economic and social. It would do itself a great favour by ensuring its opinion pieces are tighter and less shallow. Of course, irrespective of whether they make sense or not, Amit will root for them.

Also, the reason for general decline in standards is the non-exclusivity of education. Amit Varma will not be writing idiotic pieces if the non-brahmins did not learn how to read.

Wealth, like other segments of the evolutionary construct, is still largely a function of chance.  Not change.

Reading idiotic opinion on the American primaries fueled one’s interest in other countries’ politics. The Russian elections were the ideal antidote. The Putin Project, which was aired on BBC’s SW service provided a reasonably lame and yet much better coverage that helped one beat Madras’ traffic and the Americanisation of stupidity[1].

Russia always makes me wonder: did not the Soviet Union supposedly achieve great results in education? Weren’t we always told that through NCERT text books? Whatever happened to all those well educated people? Surely, a country with a smart population can’t falter this long and so clumsily.

[1] — Think Amit Varma. A person who neither lives in America nor is he a citizen of that country. I don’t even think he has lived in America for a reasonable length of time in the past. And, he pretends to be obsessed with that nation’s primaries — not even the actual elections. There was an election in Meghalaya, just in case one needs perspective.

Does this Amit boy get paid to make a fool of himself?

And Gasquet Fan, what happened to that widget? I want to use it to have a poll that asks whether Amit has read even one word of this boring document.

A blogger comes with a shelf life. And, when the said blogger’s chosen topic is either humor or shock, that shelf life only becomes shorter. With more serious consequences beyond.

In other words, stop reading.

Who coined the phrase (or used it first with respect to India) ‘demographic dividend’?

In two years’ time, when we are fighting for half a meal, we should know whom to blame.

Varma boy and his ilk may give several reasons which mean nothing.

The real reason is — if one has to make a cost analysis of marriage over a reasonably long period of time, one needs to know how much a woman will cost, for one night; or day. For sex, that is. If you want love, the answer lies in sexuality — not necessarily sex.

The problem with it being illegal is, there is no set price and we can’t have healthy competition decide the rate. Prostitution being illegal, I am sure, is one of the reasons why Hedge Fund Managers make horrendous mistakes and why we have a credit crunch. Greed is, after all, a result of insecurity.

LAST October Aishwarya Bachchan grappled with a tough choice. The Bollywood star could either stay in Los Angeles to pursue a lead role in Will Smith’s new film, “Seven Pounds,” or she could return home to Mumbai to celebrate Karva Chauth, a daylong ceremonial fast that some married Hindu women observe as a prayer for their husband’s health and long life. (The observance is a new one for Ms. Bachchan; in April she married Abhishek Bachchan, an actor and the son of the Indian film star Amitabh Bachchan, a union that prompted Time magazine to describe the three as “Bollywood’s Father, Son and Holy Babe.”)

Ultimately Ms. Bachchan chose to return to Mumbai and starve with a smile. National television channels covered her first Karva Chauth as headline news. Two months later she shrugged off her loss in an interview. “You do what you have to do,” she said. “Feeling torn and thereby unhappy, confused or guilty is not something I want to feel. So you make your choices and go with it. You get some and some you don’t.”

This month Ms. Bachchan brings some of that clarity and traditionalism to a role she was born to play: that of Queen Jodhaa in the sumptuous-looking historical drama “Jodhaa Akbar.”

Thus, Amit is pardoned.