FDI in everything. 100% FDI. In all sectors. With no voting right caps. In fact insist that foreign investors have more voting rights than Indian ones. The CEO should be a foreigner too.
These Western buggers are mad about diversity and inclusion. They’ll put special hiring schemes for all minorities, downtrodden or not, without Parliament ever having to make it compulsory.
Sometimes I am overawed at my own intelligence.
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It occured to me that Betty Cooper was probably the most superfluous member of The Archies. Guitars? Check. Drums? Check. Keyboard? Um, not essential, but they can add something. But what unique rock-and-roll-music sound depends on a tambourine? The damn thing just goes shshshshshshshsnnnnding.
For that matter, I also wonder what I ever saw in Archie Comics. There was a time when I’d borrow two double digests a day from the neighbourhood lending library. These days, I wonder what I ever found funny about stories that didn’t even match up to the none-too-sophisticated humour level of the Kushwant Singh Joke Books.
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The Times of India’s circulation will plummet this year, once people begin to realise that they can get better quality of news and editorial, and as many scantily clad chicks in Maxim.
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I finished reading Lucifer today. It isn’t comparable in sheer artistic style to Transmetropolitan, in conceptual mindfuckery to Y: The Last Man or Preacher, or in scope and scale to Sandman or Fables. But of all the comics I’ve been reading lately, this is the one which best explores the emotions of its characters. In that respect, the ‘real author’ it reminded me most of was Nevil Shute.
There are wars between the host of angels and various different factions of demons and the damned. There are supernatural killers and entirely new Creations. But the theme that resonated with me the most was Lucifer’s values and motivations, and how they brought him into conflict with his father and brother (Yahweh and the archangel Michael respectively). This is not so much run-of-the-mill fantasy as it is soap opera with a supernatural setting. A family drama where the patriarch is not just godlike, but is God. Tremendous.
And the theme of familial conflict is repeated with minor characters as well. Jill Presto’s anatagonistic relationship to the baby she concieves after being raped by the Basanos Tarot Deck (you read that right, she actually is raped by a deck of tarot cards), the demoness Mazikeen’s defiance of her mother Lilith (the first wife of Adam), and Ellaine Belloc’s loss of three fathers (read it, explaining is too complicated).
On now to Ultimate Spider-Man. It doesn’t even compare to any of the stuff I mentioned above when it comes to storytelling. It rehashes old characters, Brian Michael Bendis stretches stories to three times their ideal length, and there is no mindfuckery at all. On the other hand, Mark Bagley is behind only Jim Lee and Mark Buckingham when it comes to drawing hot women. Ultimate Shadowcat. Yow wow.
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What the fuck is wrong people who spend a Sunday in Bangalore going to a Virat Hindu Samaj Utsav of all things. This, when they could be shopping. Or going to Lalbagh. Or even staying at home wanking. Eejits.
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When I read that Odyssey had opened a store in Bangalore, I was wildly enthusiastic. I hoped that the competition would make Landmark Bangalore pull up its socks and bring its graphic novel section to the level of the Landmark Bombay store.
But it looks like there’s no chance of that. The book selection at Odyssey is even worse than the one at Crossword Indiranagar. And for this I went all the way to Jayanagar? Feh. I could have got the same selection at that mockery of a bookshop at Bangalore Central.
On the other hand, the graphic novel section at Landmark has improved, though only mildly. It now has Buddha, and Promethea, and a couple of Fables TPBs. And Death: The High Cost of Living. Which makes it very Alanis-Morissette-ironic that Gaurav is couriering it to me from the US.
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It’s just twenty days into 2007, and already the I&B ministry has banned AXN, riots have broken out in Bangalore over Saddam Hussein’s hanging, and people are protesting about perceived racist insults to Shilpa Shetty. Why did I even bother writing this post? It just can’t compare to real life.
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I have often wondered why AIDS NGOs constantly harp on the need to treat HIV positive people with respect and love, and make a big deal about them being ostracised and pushed to the margins of society.
Because to my mind, if you’re so stupid that you have unprotected sex with multiple partners, or share IV needles, or don’t bother to ensure clean blood for yourself, you damn well deserve to be ostracised. It’s hardly surprising that people don’t want to deal with someone who behaves irresponsibly.
I now realise, though, that this approach is not feasible for society at large for one simple reason: stupid people.
You see, I have enough basic intelligence and discriminative power to distinguish between a truck driver who contracted HIV through sleeping with every prostitute between Phagwara and Agra, and his wife who got it because she wasn’t exactly in a position to refuse sex. The truck driver should be ostracised and the wife should be accepted.
I can draw that distinction. But people by and large cannot. Seriously, they can’t. I mean, they’re so bloody stupid that they make a diplomatic incident out of Big Brother, for Eris’ sake. Rather than go through the frustrating effort of getting them to think for a change, it’s simpler to just indoctrinate them with the idea that it’s wrong to discriminate against HIV positive people.
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Sneha introduced me to Aaha Thamizhamma this week. It is now my Most Catchy Song Ever.
Saying that this song gets into your head is putting it mildly. Kitne Armaan-maan-maan gets into your head. A Quick One While He’s Away walks in uninvited. But Aaha Thamizhamma beats you unconscious, punches a hole through your skull, rips out your brain and takes up residence where your medulla oblongata used to be.
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