The India Uncut Blog

Why Cricketers Should Wear Cargo Pants

Amit Varma — 2009-07-14T01:12:00+04:30

(Link via email from Balaji.)

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It’s Just The Motion

Amit Varma — 2009-07-13T21:46:00+04:30

Check out this fine performance of one of my favourite songs, “Just The Motion”, by the great Richard Thompson:

I love Thompson’s guitaring in this, understated but expressive. You can also listen to Linda Thompson sing it here—the song is from their 1982 album, Shoot Out the Lights. Another version I like is by David Byrne in the tribute album Beat The Retreat.

Back to work now. It’s just the motion.

The India Uncut Blog © 2007 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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Chaudhry Saab, Haazir Ho

Amit Varma — 2009-07-13T21:19:01+04:30

Having blogged about Dr K Chaudhry’s inspired tribute to MJ a few days ago, I forgot all about it until Gaurav drew my attention to a comment Mr Chaudhry left on the YouTube page of that song, presumably addressing the commenters there. I reproduce it as is:

I am deeply indebted to you and Amit Varma on such a multievent day for me :-
1. First meeting witth a music teacher just postponed due to rain.
2. Interview at Fever 104 FM after 5 PM today.
3. Contacted by AajTak/HeadlinesToday for possible coverage soon.
4. Telephone interview with Poh Si Teng for Agence France-Presse and the Wall Street Journal.

More power to Doctorsaab. I wish I could have just a fraction of his courage and self belief.

The India Uncut Blog © 2007 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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‘Some Say I Am Sweety’

Amit Varma — 2009-07-11T21:08:01+04:30

This is stunning:

I will never again look at a woman in tights the same way.

(Link via email from Devangshu.)

The India Uncut Blog © 2007 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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‘Aggressive By Nature’

Amit Varma — 2009-07-10T02:52:00+04:30

Via Dilip, I come across this astonishing statement made by Shiney Ahuja’s lawyer, Shrikant Shivde, about the girl he is alleged to have raped:

She belongs to a lower caste, which is aggressive by nature, and she wouldn’t have submitted herself so easily. They are known for being aggressive.

You know, I don’t care now whether Ahuja is guilty or he’s being framed. A side that makes an argument like this deserves to get its ass kicked. They should lock Ahuja up and throw away the key—and if he feels horny all alone in his cell, throw in Shivde.

The India Uncut Blog © 2007 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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The Ideology Of Wanking

Amit Varma — 2009-07-10T01:51:00+04:30

William Saletan lays out a pro-life case for masturbation.

I can make a pro-choice argument for it as well. So all bases are covered. Go forth and wankcreate.

(Link via email from Subash Kalbarga.)

The India Uncut Blog © 2007 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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‘We Keep Marrying Other Species’

Amit Varma — 2009-07-09T03:39:00+04:30

The American TV show Fox and Friends is often funnier than Saturday Night Live—unintentionally. Check out Brian Kilmeade expounding on America’s marital habits:

And here’s another classic ramble from Kilmeade a few days ago on the Iran crisis. ‘This guy does not get along with that guy’ is the most coherent it gets—it’s spectacularly downhill after that.

And moving to Indian television, I’m hooked to that incredible trainwreck of a show, Rakhi Ka Swayamwar. So much WTFness abounds that I’m craving normalcy by the end of it. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out on YouTube, most of the episodes so far seem to be available there

This is going to be one reality show where I’m going to feel sorry for the winner—even though he’ll at least be marrying into the same species.

The India Uncut Blog © 2007 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
Visit: India Uncut * The IU Blog * Rave Out * Extrowords * Workoutable * Linkastic

A Slowdown This July

Amit Varma — 2009-07-08T19:37:00+04:30

Blogging has been rather slow here over the last few weeks, and it’s going to continue that way for a bit. For the first couple of years of India Uncut, I’d blog an average of five posts a day, and I don’t think a day went by in that time without at least one post. Then I started easing up on weekends, when traffic would dip anyway. And this year I’ve slowed down even more: it’s not unusual now for three or four days to go by without a single post, even if my average is still more than most bloggers I follow.

This month is going to be particularly slow. I’m writing something I’d like to finish within a few weeks, and want to devote all my mindspace to it, without attendant tensions of Oh, I haven’t blogged in two days, I need to put up a post, and suchlike. So I shall take it easy till August, with maybe a handful of posts every week. But then, I promise, I’ll be back to my old prolific self.

If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to my RSS feed. And I won’t stop completely, and there should be new posts every now and then.

Be good. ;)

Yoga’s Greatest Challenge

Amit Varma — 2009-07-08T11:27:00+04:30

Can it cure Baba Ramdev?

(Link via email from Mahendra Shikaripur.)

Indians Are Human Too

Amit Varma — 2009-07-08T10:31:00+04:30

Aakar Patel writes in Mint:

Some characteristics unite Indians. The most visible is our opportunism. One good way to judge a society is to see it in motion. On the road, we observe the opportunism in the behaviour of the Indian driver. Where traffic halts on one side of the road in India, motorists will encroach the oncoming side because there is space available there. If that leads to both sides being blocked, that is fine, as long as we maintain our advantage over people behind us or next to us. This is because the other man cannot be trusted to stay in his place.

But the point is, when these same Indians go abroad, they’re following the traffic rules, not cutting lanes and so on. The behaviour isn’t ingrained into us—it’s contextual. Break rule in India, where sab chalta hai; be a model citizen in Singapore, where you’ll get into trouble otherwise.

Equally, everyone’s opportunistic. It’s a human characteristic, not an Indian one. How much we follow rules depends on the incentives offered. Abroad, as in Singapore, the laws of littering may be strict; or your peers may frown upon loutish behaviour, which is disincentive enough. In India, laws, where they exist, aren’t implemented; and littering and jumping lanes in traffic is normal, not deviant, behaviour.

Aakar speculates that many of the aspects in our culture might have come from our religion. For example, he says that “the Hindu gets his world view—which is zero-sum,” from Hinduism’s recognition that “the world is irredeemable.” In my view, you’d find that kind of zero-sumness in every developing society, where most people are poor, and accessible resources are relatively scarce. It has more to do with economics than religion. (And some might argue, biology, as our genes were shaped in pre-historic times when life must have seemed zero-sum, in addition to nasty, brutish and short.) But as societies progress, they grow more and more aware of the non-zero-sumness of life, and cultural change happens. So give it a couple of decades and then see.

(Link via email from Rohan D’Sa.)