Introducing: The Tandem Umbrella! (link via Kingsley on Google Reader).
Rihanna jokes have already been used by almost everything that post links to, so we’ll stick with Daisy, Daisy.
Also, this reminds me that I have to speak to my good friend Boris.
Leave a Comment » | 
Links, Weirder Than Fiction | Tagged: a bicycle built for two, boris bhartriraj pandey, daisy bell, hal 9000, kingsley, rihanna, tandem, umbrella, we will go tandem as man and wife | 
Permalink
Posted by Aadisht
Apparently, Bombay colleges are appealing to their students to refrain from making ethnic jokes, what with the inflamed situation:
Several colleges — probably the city’s most multicultural hubs — have informally cautioned students to go easy on community remarks, which would otherwise mean nothing more than harmless jokes and jibes.
“The students are very young and have no malice. Since we have a huge mix of students, it is important to be careful,” said MB Madlani, principal of Raheja College, Santacruz. “Teachers have informally talked about the issue and our students have responded maturely.”
This is all well and good. Especially because this appears to be a sensible discussion of risks rather than a blanket ban, which is quite surprising for Indian education. But what to make of this quote?
Sociologist Nandini Sardesai said the caution is demographically defined. “Colleges in areas like Parel, Shivaji Park and Dadar should be more cautious. India, including Mumbai, has a tendency to be communal at every level, be it religious or regional.”
I am enraged. How dare this so-called sociologist draw these invidious distinctions between the various regions of Mumbai? Where does this Colaba-prancing, Marine Drive-promenading, Cathedral-types socialite get off claiming that Goregaon types1 are more prone to violence than she is? This is regionalism of the worst sort. Someone should advise her to avoid unnecessary remarks.
1:For the benefit of new readers, IIM-B racism splits Maharashtrians into Cathedral Types (those who live in Bombay south of Mumbai Central), and Goregaon types (everyone else).
2 Comments | Charlatans, Racism, Weirder Than Fiction | Tagged: cathedral types, colaba, dadar, ethnic joke, goregaon types, hindustan times, maharashtra navnirman sena, marine drive, mns, mumbai, mumbai central, nandini sardesai, parel, political correctness, raheja college, raj thackeray, regionalism, santa cruz, shivaji park | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht
Amit has blogged about the Saudi Arabian ban on red roses here:
The decision has been taken by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which sounds like something right out of Kafka.
There’s also a CNN story on this, which contains these priceless quotes:
Ahmed Al-Omran, a university student in Riyadh, told CNN that the government decision will give the international media another reason to make fun of the Saudis “but I think that we got used to that by now.”
…
Because of the ban on red roses, a black market has flowered ahead of Valentine’s Day. Roses that normally go for five Saudi riyal ($1.30) fetch up to 30 riyal ($8) on February 14, the Saudi Gazette said.
“Sometimes we deliver the bouquets in the middle of the night or early morning, to avoid suspicion,” one florist told the paper.
Anyway. As evil organisations which nevertheless have really cool names go, the Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (according to Wikipedia, a more accurate translation is Committee for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice) is right up there on both counts, scoring high on both evil activities and cool names.
Kodhi and me have concluded that the reason the name is so cool is that it contains not only the base objective (i.e., Promotion of Virtue) but also the negation of the opposite (i.e., Prevention of Vice). You could similarly make a fixed deposit sound cool by calling it an Instrument for the Encouragement of Savings and Discouragement of Consumption; or mobile phone silent mode sound cool by calling it the Mode for Preservation of Sanity and Reduction of Stress. We have also decided that our sitcom must contain either an organisation named on this principle, or constant Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice references.
The MPVPV also scores high on the being evil front. In addition to banning all things red, it has also banned cats and dogs, as pets are a Western influence and thus nothing to do with Islam:
“One bad habit spreading among our youths is the acquisition of dogs and showing them off in the streets and malls,” wrote Aleetha al-Jihani in a letter to Al-Madina newspaper. “There’s no doubt that such a matter makes one shudder.”
“Then what’s the point of dragging a dog behind you?” he added. “This is blind emulation of the infidels.”
It also beats up Catholic priests, junta who put daaru, and women found talking to men.
However, it’s greatest hit ever was in 2004, when it stopped firefighters from pulling girls out of a burning school building because – wait for this – they were not in burkhas and pulling them out would have incited lust in the firefighters. 14 girls died. The ‘BBC’ says:
According to the al-Eqtisadiah daily, firemen confronted police after they tried to keep the girls inside because they were not wearing the headscarves and abayas (black robes) required by the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Islam.
One witness said he saw three policemen “beating young girls to prevent them from leaving the school because they were not wearing the abaya”.
The Saudi Gazette quoted witnesses as saying that the police – known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice – had stopped men who tried to help the girls and warned “it is a sinful to approach them”.
Depressing as it is that in India we have to deal with nutjobs like the Hindu Makkal Katchi and Syed Imam Bukahri, we can at least take solace in the fact that we don’t have a Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Holding Saudi Arabia as a benchmark is slightly unambitious, but it’s a start.
2 Comments | Language, Religion, Society, Weirder Than Fiction | Tagged: abaya, black market, cat, committee for propagation of virtue and prevention of v, dog, freedom, hindu makkal katchi, jeddah, liberty, mecca, ministry for promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, mutaween, rash driving, religious police, repression, saudi arabia, saudi gazette, shabana azmi, syed imam bukhari, valentine's day, veil, western influence | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht
Three days after I write about Star Dial Karein, the concept actually makes it into real life:
The Indian subsidiary of Endemol Group, the creator of programmes such as Big Brother and Fear Factor, is introducing Call TV.
Under this, viewers will end up paying for the entire cost of production and airing through paying for participating in quizzes, game shows and prize shows, through phone calls or SMS text messages. Such calls and messages cost significantly more than normal messages and calls, thus generating significant revenues for the producer and broadcaster.
“We plan to launch the Call TV format in India soon,” says Marco Bassetti, chief operating officer, Endemol Group. “Such shows will be of immense interest to broadcasters because they don’t have to pay for the content, yet they generate revenue out of it. Call TV is going to be big area for us in the coming years.”
Endemol already has several Call TV shows outside India, including Participation TV in Holland, where viewers pay for interacting with the channel and funded nearly 15 hours of programming each day. Endemol claims Participation TV generates around 100,000 call minutes a day.
(link)
Rakhi Sawant, however, has not commented on this yet.
Leave a Comment » | MSM, Weirder Than Fiction | Tagged: call tv, endemol, premium sms, prophesy, rakhi sawant, sms, star dial karein, value added service, vas | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht
She calls herself Street Hero, says she is a former prostitute, knows martial arts and takes to the city’s underbelly to protect women who work the streets. Her uniform includes a black eye mask, a black bustier and black knee-high boots.
Then there is Red Justice, a substitute teacher from Queens, who wears red boxer briefs over jeans, a red cape and a sock with eyeholes to mask his identity. He trolls the subways encouraging young people to give their seats to those who need them more.
These were just a couple of the 13 or so do-gooders who gathered near Times Square Sunday for what was billed as the first meeting of Superheroes Anonymous.
There were locals and out-of-towners. Most were in uniform and all said they were serious about helping make their communities cleaner, safer and kinder places.
…
“We’re not these crazy people,” said one man, Geist, who traveled from Minnesota. “We just have an unorthodox approach to doing good.”
This is awesome. The disappointing thing here is that these are very Robin-ish or Huntress-ish superheroes, with no superpowers, but you’ve got to make a start somewhere. Hopefully, we will see technology enabled superheroes of the Batman/ Iron Man variety soon. I am pessimistic about real superpowered superheroes coming up any time soon, but one can always hope.
Meanwhile, where are Bangalore’s superheroes? We could do with a masked man who fills in potholes and destroys speedbreakers.
Leave a Comment » | Books Movies and Music, Links, Weirder Than Fiction | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht
Homo (of Homo Fighter, Fighter Homo fame) is currently working as a wage slave for the Slimes of India. Which, considering the stuff it splashes all over its webpage (and print pages), has a rather bizarre firewall policy. As shown by the GTalk excerpt below:
Homo: so what have you done so far to help out a person in dire need?
11:40 AM me: Nothing. I am a heartless bastard who kicks kittens
11:41 AM Homo: very well, but remember that god will one day punish you for your sins, disbelieving blasphemist
11:43 AM and, oh, i realised last week that three weeks is all it’ll take for me to lose my nickname.
11:44 AM me: And why is that?
11:45 AM Homo: courtesy pastor ted haggart.
11:46 AM me: ??
Homo: who sleeps with gay hookers for three years, doped on meth, and then goes in for three weeks of rehab and therapy before proclaiming to the world, “I’m heterosexual now!”
oh you haven’t heard of him? fun story
me: Whatta guy
11:47 AM But your nickname is eternal and independent of sexual orientation
Homo: i’d google it, but my office bans any mention of “sex” in the link, so my search on google news for “ted haggart” +heterosexual will be blocked.
me: Let me get this straight
11:48 AM The Times Of India office bans any searches on sex?
Bwahahhahahahahahahhahahahah!
Homo: yes.
ultimate irony, innit?
me: I am so blogging this
Homo: i’d blog about it, but, ah well, i work for them.
sure!
(In case your firewall isn’t as restrictive, and you do go Googling, it’s Ted Haggard and not Haggart. Here’s the wiki article)
Leave a Comment » | MSM, Weirder Than Fiction | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht
Aishwarya has discovered the video for March of the Sinister Ducks, and asks if these ducks are left-wing.
She doesn’t know the half of it. Left-wingers at least pretend to be all about the compassion. When Naxals kill people, they do it in the name of class war. But ducks are openly criminal and vile.
Check out this flickr thread, about rapist ducks:
today i witnessed a very disturbing incident at a duck pond in duke gardens. a group of male mallards, roughly about 9-11 of them were stocking/pestering this female duck. they surrounded her and began stacking themselves on top of her. she was completely underneath the water. she was drowning. they were pecking at her head. the first thing that came to my head was gang rape. they were very violent with her. her head was bleeding. this went on for over a half hour. they were just taking their turns, it looked like 2 at a time.
Gangrape is not the only crime these webfooted villains indulge in. They commit interspecies extortion also:
bread is to ducks like “crack” is to people. I’ve seen them go absolutely wild and attack kids at ponds for bread.
And interspecies gang wars:
Not only do they attack the children, they also attack each other in their fight for bread. If all that wasn’t bad enough, you reminded me of something else. Feeding wild ducks encourages them to live on the same ponds as swans, which ordinarily they would not do. This causes the swans to defend their territory, which they achieve in the breeding season by drowning ducklings.
I’m going to end this post here, before I succumb to the temptation of making a ‘foul/ fowl’ pun.
Leave a Comment » | Arbit Fundaes, Links, Weirder Than Fiction | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht
Weird: Seeing a Nihang Sikh in Singapore.
Truly Weird: Seeing an ethnic Chinese Nihang Sikh in Singapore.
There are no pictures, for the simple reason that it is not wise to take chances invading the privacy of a member of a martial race who is carrying a three foot long kirpan.
Leave a Comment » | Travel, Weirder Than Fiction | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht
Rival lawmakers exchanged punches, climbed on each other’s shoulders and jostled violently for position around the speaker’s dais Tuesday, as Taiwan’s legislature dissolved into chaos over an electoral reform bill…
via Simon World.
Leave a Comment » | Public Policy and Politics, Weirder Than Fiction | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht
Hey, I think I know some of the members!
Leave a Comment » | Humour, Photography, Weirder Than Fiction | Permalink
Posted by Aadisht