(From K R Narayan's Republic Day Speech - 2000)
"It seems, in the social realm, some kind of a counter revolution is taking place in India ... as a society, we are becoming increasingly insensitive and callous."

"The unabashed vulgar indulgence in conspicuous consumption by the noveau riche has left the underclass seething in frustration. One half of our society guzzles aerated beverages, while the other has to make do with palmfuls of muddied water."

***
I'm taking to this theme with resurgent hunger because it visited me a few weeks back and since then ive been walking through and meeting the issues in urgency. Ive seen its NO LONGER FASHIONABLE TO BE POOR, and it really was once as choice in our own history, the history of India. Dress poor yes thats mockingly 'it', but you're expected to have the money to be heard, respected, just nodded at by neighbours, freinds, and other fools. Wear the torn T, old jeans - but where's your blackberry. You don't have a car? Your own house? Whose giving everything away anymore - this is worth saving.

Everybody loves a good drought

I'm going to be picking up P Sainath's 'Everybody loves a good drought' and dont doubt its place and by instinct i'm onto his background and biases already. The nobility and worth of pleading from the other side is something that beerily but clearily came up last night in WP. In this case, P Sainath is loudly, because even wikipedia knows (somehow these things have a way of being let out)pedigreed "born into a distinguished Brahmin family of Andhra Pradesh (he is the grandson of former President of India, V. V. Giri)". His current project is 'dalits'. Must we think -"he had everything and he took this. there must be so much to it". Well at least it works for the spin before the incontestable worth.



To take away nothing at all from the weighty work. The book itself will take a month to be reviewed. Viji had one ages back.

When my mother broke my toe and then laughed from the tips of her lungs,
I saw: this was NO ORDINARY cloven-hoofed goat.
[Silence.][Looking hauntedly from side to side.]

O Buoy

all the week's incompetent swimming
has made me feel suddenlyyyy
buoyant at work.
I wade to the water cooler and
bubble in my cup,
goggle at the screen
and burp brup brrup.

O V Vijayan

With all the love and wist in the air - i remember a great man i still dont know much about. His words spoke as i feel right now. translated.



... Long before the lizards, before the dinosaurs, two spores set out on
an incredible journey. They came to a valley bathed in the placid glow
of sunset.
My elder sister, said the little spore to the bigger spore, let us see
what lies beyond.
This valley is green, replied the bigger spore, I shall
journey no farther.
I want to journey, said the little spore, I want to discover. She
gazed in wonder at the path before her.
Will you forget your sister ? asked the bigger spore.
Never, said the little spore.
You will little one, for this is the loveless tale of karma; in it
there is only parting and sorrow.
The little spore journeyed on. The bigger spore stayed back in the
valley. Her root pierced the damp earth and sought the nutrients of death
and memory. She sprouted over the earth, green and contended.
... A girl with silver anklets and eyes prettied with surma came to
Chetali's valley to gather flowers. The Chempaka tree stood alone-
efflorescent, serene. The flower gatherer reached out and held down a soft
twig to pluck the flowers. As the twig broke the Chempaka said, My little
sister you have forgotten me !

- O.V.Vijayan "Legends of Khasak"

my absolute love and total joy go to PS - you're amazing. And I'll do my best to make it for your big day nxt month. i need to properly hug you *sniff*

This week is the most spectral ever. But what I'm going to do with a private Hindustani Classical recital from the A&A bros with whisky this friday is beyond me. All i know is that I can walk over to the club for a swim the next morning.
Hey - and tommorow it's the day of the uber Kannadiga flagwavers coming together (with me watching)- if all happens. Yay Anyway. Big fun.

Susan Blackmore

Had mentioned The Meme Machine as wanted book some post back. Had read it already at BL but I need the bk bought cos i need it for peeps. Jellicles mentioned the exciting author Blackmore's dyed her hair pink. its been many shades. This reminds me ive been dragging my prehensiles over getting my grey highlights. Hey - all of you go to the bookshop and ask for? The Meme Machine.

Take this - all language jingists

The Pirahã people have no history, no descriptive words and no subordinate clauses. That makes their language one of the strangest in the world -- and also one of the most hotly debated by linguists.

The Economist

The Economist is worth the extreme price. Can the Big Mac index be applied to it? Read about its legendary style, no accident my friends. And a glossary that is the definitive fruit of enlightenment. Terms I latched to:
autarky
credence goods
catch up effect - game theory
ceteris paribus
comparitive advantage
diseconmies of scale
deadweight cost/loss
disintermediation

Meanwhile
Mags wished for free subscription:
The New Scientist
Mags given into subscribing:
The Economist
Book wanted:
The Meme Machine

Iguana of Eggs lost her mojo since that* time.
And No one can help her find it.
I lost my fucking mojo guys.
For faff writing, faff working, faf pulling off anything, even somewuns pants and the bull over your eyes.
Jerk off to all commercial sucksexes
who make ur munnypack month after month.
Saying the right thing to the right
people, and fuck fit.
My pants are falling and I'm wolfing
at false intertext**
because i dont have a language
they should have taught me.
But I'm laughing like this :D :D :D
(see I can spell laugh, i can use smilies)
cos you didnt even know
this one atleast wasnt mine.

*examples of smart local usage - see i know this i know this. I fit in at last machcha. but where da? it stops at that. what posturing this is.

**this is smart professional knowledge - now i fit with smart ppl. They will say - How much she knows da! How much she must be reading in the side (with the thorn). Decpetor recpetor she is.

Bonny baby dislodged

It' strange, cos I do like kids and their perspectives, that when a bonny baby was dislodged onto me 2 nights back, it bawled in 0.7 minutes. I don't know what it wanted but I was interested in knowing and taking the time to know. My only conclusion is that it was besotted and feindish and wanted a jig under its sexless bottom as my folks had obliged it with in the preceding time. Ultimately, it saw iggy as competition. Babies brook no competition, they see the spirit of inquiry as their perog entirely, the intrpeid-toe-down-your-chute thing. But the rejection doesnt worry me, since I should be an aunt in 3 months and I'll set the bud straight.