Posted by: Aadisht on: May 29, 2006
I have a longstanding hypothesis that Mallus are not actually South Indians, but Bongs who have migrated to South India. Consider the similarities. Both communities make delicious fish. Both have a tendency to elect communists with mind numbing regularity. Both are soccer fanatics. Still not convinced? Both of them speak languages which are completely unintelligible [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: May 25, 2006
A few months ago, a Tehelka reporter was interviewing some of us at IIM Bangalore for a special feature on the perception of leftism on Indian campuses. The interview drifted from perception of the left parties, to the question of who would speak for the poor, and then to the Narmada Bachao Andolan. Someone- I [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: May 23, 2006
I have been thinking about a particular topic, and I have an idea about it. This idea involves financial options. As not everyone will be familiar with these, I’ll first have a post up on the basics of options, and then write the main posts. Let’s start. An option is a contract to buy or [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: May 18, 2006
What do you call a group of nations that squabble with each other, have a terrible rate of economic growth, and nothing much in common except a desire to band together to provide a counterweight to existing global superpowers? And that despite this utter lack of common ground between existing members, they actually want to [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: May 18, 2006
It runs like this: Quantum particles are conscious. Human beings are conscious. Thus, human beings can be treated like quantum particles. No statement of a quantum particle’s position is ever accurate, it it only a probabilistic guess. Therefore, no view held by a human being is ever right or wrong. Everyone is correct to some [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: May 18, 2006
Writing quality stuff won’t cut it. There’s already so much good stuff around, there’s no guarantee your stuff will be the one linked too. No, to get an Uncutlanche you must appeal to Amit Varma’s baser instincts. As I do below.
Posted by: Aadisht on: May 18, 2006
This, dear readers, is where the travel journal ends. As some of you may already know or have realised, I have actually been posting the journal entries from Delhi. Internet access in China was too unreliable to post anything of consequence there, and of course there was the haunting terror that I might post something [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: May 17, 2006
This travel journal is coming to an end. I have described almost everything I have seen and done, and it now remains only to pontificate upon The Meaning Of It All. I have emerged out of China with the realization that the Chinese are not very different from Indians. They too buy fairness creams, watch [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: May 17, 2006
There was an another phenomenon that I almost put into the post about Chinese puzzles: that people were making out all over Shanghai (and Singapore too, but I got used to that in December). You could hardly move without seeing someone or the other being affectionate in an emphatic way. I formed hypotheses about that [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: May 16, 2006
Update: Welcome DesiPundit readers! Do visit my other China travel posts: Home Improvement, Shook Lee Ya, 30 April: A Travelogue, and The Joy of Literal Translations. There were some things in China which were particularly weird or inexplicable. Here are four of the prominent ones. The Mystery of the Missing Jewellery Very few Chinese women [...]