rantlust

Posted by tafkap on March 24th 2007 in Celebrity, Developing Nations, Rants, Sports
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Shashi Tharoor had an opinion piece in the NY Times about cricket and American apathy towards it. I must say that it cannot be one of his stronger attempts at writing (actually the only Tharoor I have read is bits and pieces of ‘India from Midnight to the Millenium’). The bottom line of the piece is - Americans are too brutish to get cricket.

Besides being humorless and filled with bromides, (”And the notion that anyone would watch a game that, in its highest form, could take five days and still end in a draw provokes widespread disbelief among results-oriented Americans.”), the piece also demonstrates a blissful ignorance about baseball while making a facile attempt at comparing it with cricket.

In describing the futility of interesting Americans with cricket, he states:

Why try to sell Kiri Te Kanawa to people who prefer Anna Nicole Smith?

Pray tell, which ‘people’ prefer Kiri Te Kanawa to Anna Nicole Smith? Being too much of boor to have heard of Kiri Te Kanawa before this piece, I’d rather not make the acquaintance of these splendid people myself.

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Posted by anupcs on December 10th 2006 in Developing Nations, Humor, India, Rants, Sex
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That cat’s out of the bag. A study has found that Indian men have small penises. Measurements were made across the board and were taken down to the last millimeter. The BBC article linked to above has the following comment from a Sunil Mehra:

It’s not size, it’s what you do with it that matters

You go Sunil.

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Posted by anupcs on November 29th 2006 in Developing Nations, Movies, Rants, World
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“Bloody Americans,” says a North Korean woman when the lights go out in her apartment. Everything from food shortage to lack of power is blamed on American Imperialism in this isolated country. The propaganda machines run at full strength glorifying the virtues of the Great Leader (the late Kim Il Sung) and his buffoonish son, the Dear Leader or the General (Kim Jong Il). We get a rare inside look into the country that very few people visit (I once looked into going here but it requires a lot of paperwork and a guide has to accompany you the entire time) in an interesting, if not captivating, documentary by the BBC called “A State of Mind” (2003).

The documentary follows two young female gymnasts as they prepare for the Mass Games. The Mass Games is a massive performance with thousands of gymnasts, musicians and dancers to show off the communist and patriotic zeal of the country’s hapless citizens. The goal for the performers is to please the General if he bothers to show up. The daily lives and training regimen of these two girls and their families are shown in this film. The people are fed daily propaganda in the form of a single TV channel and a radio which is installed in every dwelling. The radio cannot even be turned off though the volume can be lowered. The Mass Games has to be seen to be believed shaming the massive productions of most Olympic Games opening ceremonies. Even the children believe that their goal in life is to please the General and that every thing that ails their country is due to the Americans.

[tags]north korea, kim jong-il[/tags]

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Posted by crewcut on August 03rd 2006 in Developing Nations, Disasters, India, Rants, Roads
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Till last weekend, I have never seen any place in India with roads that are consistently good everywhere. At best, you will find a few highway stretches on the Golden Quadrilateral that are of international quality. [Great NYT article on the Golden Quadrilateral.]

Over a 3-day sojourn in Goa, I was amazed by the consistent quality of the road surface everywhere I went. There were small things that together made a big difference. A smooth and even pothole-free surface, clear white lines down the middle and on both sides, and lastly small but very clear and standardised signboards at every junction.

Such a simple formula seemed to transform narrow 2-lane roads into a driver’s paradise. Bangalore roads are a nightmare at best. Most roads, even though they are 4-lanes wide, have pockmarked surfaces and unnerving undulations. The lines drawn down the middle look like they were done by Pablo Picasso.

I gave up looking at Bangalore signboards after I saw one that had three arrows pointing to K R Circle, K H Circle, and K G Road. In addition to the information being useless, the signs at each junction are of different sizes, colours, and formats making the process of finding a road sign among the sea of billboards, ads, and shop signs impossible when you have 5 seconds remaining to catch the green signal.

This is all of course if the roads exist after being dug up by various telephone companies running fibre optic cables, works department building sewers, water authorities installing pipes, electric companies laying cables, and locals tapping new water connections. Normally all this activity happens after a new road has been laid.

I travelled around quite a bit and didn’t see a single instance of road damage anywhere in Goa.

The government always blames the poor condition of Kerala’s roads on the monsoon. The monsoon rains in Goa are of no less intensity but the roads look straight out of America. So much for excuses.

When will our other states learn from Goa?

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Posted by anupcs on May 17th 2006 in Developing Nations, India, Society
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Sad. If you believe what the Economist says in one of its recent print editions. While reading the article, I was surprised by the fact that Goa is India’s richest state. (Mental note to self: be nicer to fellow blogger bab.) Less surprising is the fact that Keralites are at the top in alcohol consumption (though every Keralite rantluster would [and should] disagree).

The left wants to unionize the software programmers. As fellow blogger kinnum might say: “Okay, then.”

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Posted by bab on March 30th 2006 in Cars, Developing Nations
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Thanks to good old sugarcane, Brazil is all set to achieve gasoline independence this year. Most of the new cars sold in Brazil are flex cars which are able to run on ethanol, gasoline and blended mixture of the two. Moreover sugarcane ethanol is cheaper to produce than corn ethanol which is used in United States. Brazil also requires all gas stations to provide atleast one ethanol pump. According to NBC news, sugarcane ethanol will remain cheaper than gasoline as long as gasoline stays over $45 a barrel. More here.

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Posted by anupcs on March 01st 2006 in Developing Nations, India, Politics
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Newsweek has a cover story on India due to Dubya’s visit. The main article is written by Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International. I found the following snippets interesting (in no particular order):

• India ranks 124 out of 177 in the Human Development Index, by which the UN gauges countries by income, health, poverty, literacy, etc. This is behind countries such as Sri Lanka, Syria, Vietnam, and (you must be kidding me!) Dominican Republic.
• Female literacy is at 54%.
• Praise for Jawaharlal Nehru: “Men like Nehru may not have understood economics, but they deeply understood political freedom.”
• Praise for Manmohan Singh: “His breadth, depth and decency are unmatched by any Indian prime minister since Nehru.”

(Read more…)

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Posted by dharpe guje on February 28th 2006 in Developing Nations, Humor, India, Rants
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So as part of hanging out in India a few weeks back, I indulged in something that I had not done in a long time, no I didn’t pull (pun intended) a George Michael, travelling in a public bus. Travelling by city buses is a typical and widely used form of transportation in all major Indian states. Usually the state governments manage the service and barring a few exceptions, most end up running into huge losses, thanks to gross mismanagement and corruption. But the service itself is a primary means of transportation for a significant number of intra and inter state travellers.

Growing up I travelled exclusively on these city buses, which is a typical means of travel for most Indian lower and middle class families. It’s major advantages were that it was cheap and generally a reliable means of transportation over other options that were non-existent. I travelled about 10 kilometers to get to my school (for about 4 years) and likewise about 20 kilometers to the college (for about 4 years). The distance of 10 kilometers was typically covered in about 50 minutes to an hour and the distance of 20 kilometers was covered anywhere between 90 minutes and 2 hours. So in short a lot of growing up happened on buses.
(Read more…)

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