Posted by: Aadisht on: June 30, 2006
Attention all people who are going to go up in arms over the Sabarimala issue: If your belief system is so accomodating that you’re comfortable with a god who was born out of the union of two other gods (one of whom was cross dressing), then how difficult is it to make a further leap [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: June 29, 2006
‘Thank you, sir,’ said the girl. For what she was thanking him, his lordship was not able to gather. Later, as their acquaintance ripened, he was to discover that this strange gratitude was a habit with his new friend. She thanked everybody for everything. (Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend)
Posted by: Aadisht on: June 29, 2006
For this reason, I am going to attempt to explain it. This is going to be rather nerdy. If Transport Blog still existed, it would be a fine post for that blog. However, it does not, so I will do it here. The post linked to above is simply and lucidly written, and comes up [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: June 29, 2006
I saw these three advertisements (for advertisement space- how recursive can you get?) at the Rajiv Chowk Connaught Place station of the Delhi Metro. Basically the funda is that each of the ads shows somebody with their eyes blocked- by cucumbers, hair or a bucket and claims that’s the only way someone will miss that [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: June 26, 2006
This comic strip reminds me of homeopathy: just as homeopathic medicines are supposedly most effective when they’re infinitely diluted, indie bands are most credible when they’re infinitely unknown. While we’re on the two subjects, Questionable Content has become one of my favourite comic strips, and I strongly recommend you go read it right from the [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: June 26, 2006
Thanks to a little experimentation (maximum optical zoom, macro closeup enabled, exposure down to -0.7) and a lot of luck. This one came out all right, but I had to discard ten shots. If you’ve got the bandwidth, do click the photo and then see the original size as well. You’ll get a stunning view [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: June 26, 2006
I have no clue about how football works, beyond a vague idea that you have to kick a ball into a goal, with the annoying restriction that this only counts for one goal. However, I am getting into the spirit of the thing and supporting Ghana. My brother has offered me 10-1 for the Brazil [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: June 16, 2006
I’ve made a long-overdue start on Indian language fiction. I’ve finished three of the five Ponniyin Selvan books (in English translation), read Parineeta (again in translation), and am currently reading Premchand’s Nirmala (in the original). The interesting thing about Parineeta is how different the original book is from the movie. In the book, the hero [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: June 12, 2006
Interesting learning: the import duty on motorcycles is 105%, 135% on cars, but zero on tanks. Damn. Now I want a tank. Fortunately, the internet is a wild and wonderful thing, and it turns out that these people have tanks for sale. But they only have Czech manufactured Soviet tanks. What a shame. I would [...]
Posted by: Aadisht on: June 12, 2006
It seems that people try to evade stamp duty (a tax imposed on the sale or transfer of real estate) by reporting a low price on the invoice and then paying the rest in cash. The Delhi government’s brilliant idea to solve this problem and get all the tax it’s missing out on has been [...]