The right of the powerful to break the law

When someone famous broke the queue as though it was their right, the polling officer did not accept it as the way things should be. Instead he followed the due process, and asked the people in the queue: "Does anyone oppose this?". Instead of being afraid of authority, the famous actress' fame and power, the mob and the police who generally discourage lone dissenting voices , someone was brave enough to raise one. Instead of playing the killjoy with some lame rubbish, he justified his opposition by saying grand principles about democracy. Instead of mob justice : the mob labeling him with an epithet - 'jobless' is typical - and asking him to shut up - and then supporting the actress and the right of the powerful to break due process-, and on-the-spot-police-justice : the police asking the rebel voice to "shut up and not create any problem, otherwise you will be in lockup"-, the mob was silent, and the police enforced the due process. That is: because there's someone challenging it, the book says : the famous actress cannot break the queue. This, while not being violent or aggressive, but placating the actress, suggesting that she can come later when the queue is less, and not saying anything bad to the rebel guy, just accepting his dissent.

This perfect, Utopian narrative, about law being enforced, due process followed, is something we can be proud of. I am happy about this.

The pessimist in me wants to bring in the role of Asianet camera in this Utopian drama - in due process being followed, and the police not yelling at the rebel guy - then that would be a forced Utopia, a kitsch. My own experience says this is the correct version. But let's be optimists for now, perhaps we cannot generalize, perhaps things have changed...

Now, back to what happened:

A fan is allowed to do that gesture, of vacating your place in the queue for your favorite actress, yes.

An actress assuming that she deserves to vote ahead of all others: No.

If she wanted to not stand in the queue, she could have done what other famous people do: come and vote in the morning, or in the evening (which she eventually did), when the queue will be very less.

Whether or not the guy was sober, what he did was perfectly sober.

I am forced to write this clarification, because several people in facebook, youtube and even in media: Mathrubhumi etc - support the actress' right to break the law, and finds that the problem was with "only" one guy.

Muslim kids in Modiland

"Pakistan SHALL pursue this policy and do all it can to create a sense of security and confidence in the Non-Muslim minorities of Pakistan. We do not prescribe any school boy tests for their loyalty. We shall not say to any Hindu citizen of Pakistan ‘if there was war would you shoot a Hindu?"

--Mohammad Ali Jinnah

Think.

The India Against Corruption Farce

Recently I decided that the momentary rant blogposts should give way to more thoughtful analysis, and hence I should not publish anything here without sitting on it for a few weeks, rethinking, editing and rewriting. But the anger makes me feel like breaking this decision. Something has to be said.

A bunch of social activists draft the conditions of a law that appears to be impossible, autocratic and even childish(1).

Some of these activists go on hunger strike, demanding that the law be enacted by the government.

The media goes to a frenzy, like they do everyday, saying that the activists are The Right fighting against the corrupt government, The Wrong. They show a 300 people crowd and say, the protests are at the scale never seen before. Pictures of Mahatma Gandhi - who is not allowed to be a bisexual - are shown. The main activist is a Gandhian. He's also a former army man, says the campaign website but of course they will not tell the whole truth - that he was a driver in the army - because that will make his credentials appear a lot inferior for the audience: the urban middle class.

The urban middle class of the country, fresh from an ego boost and sudden synchronization of nationalism from the country's recent "World cup" victory - in a game played only by around 10 countries, with its regulator's headquarters shifted from London to Dubai, whose largest source of money easily happens to be India itself - , and yet manages to be the mass pill / safety valve for frustration, hears some slogans like "India Against Corruption", and decides to join the "movement" - mostly in Facebook. They do not read the draft law, or its conditions, but they think that is the solution for the problems in the country, and should be enacted, but the government is playing the obvious villain, so à la Rang de Basanti, à la Youth for Equality, à la candlelight vigils after 26/11 Mumbai attack, voila, let's support the Gandhian against the biggest problem: Corruption.

The media runs a live coverage of a journalist, who, while gasping for air due to the excitement, tells us that the protests are spreading.

More people see the news, join the facebook group. Many people see their friends talking about this and they too join the facebook group. Some are even going to protest. There's even a protest planned in my town - a student city in France - and their event plan says: "We are organizing this in an open public space, inviting the local media and informing the Indian Consulate in France about our reasons and efforts". Several people says this is our Tahrir square revolution. Most of them still dont know much about the law, except that it is against corruption, and must be good. Bollywood actors starts announcing their support. Some call for the cricket team - the current national heroes - to support.

Media creates a "positive feedback loop". Something great is happening. More people join.

The opposition parties also supports the protest, and says the government should give in. Just like how they normally oppose government policies even though they dont really oppose the policy itself.

The media broadcasts this too. But no one really talks about the prospective law itself. Everyone is quite sure this law is The Solution. An austere Gandhian cannot be wrong.

Finally, forced into a corner by the images of protests and the shrill voices of news anchors in 24x7 media, the government yields, and decides to implement the law.

The last step hasn't happened yet, but is that how this farce going to end?

(1): The darn salient features ZIP file (If the site is down, try this)

Update: NDTV's coverage of the protests:

As the government tries to hold its ground, Mr Hazare is being urged by lakhs of Indians across the world not to cede. Mr Hazare has long used hunger strikes as his tool of protest. But a younger audience of Indians has made his acquaintance through his India Against Corruption campaign. In colleges across the country, students are fasting in solidarity with him. In cities across the country, housewives, executives and schoolchildren are taking the time to join rallies that have a singular agenda - zero-tolerance for corruption.

Rashomon

And like a trained handler of large audiences, Pamuk bit into each one of them, cutting them short, rephrasing their questions impatiently, hurrying on to the next. One somewhat long-winded but patently sincere questioner was waved disdainfully into stammering silence. Perhaps Pamuk did not intend to be rude at all and I am certainly not suggesting that there was a touch of Ottoman arrogance about it. Perhaps it was only a combination of his somewhat didactic manner, his heavily deliberated sentences and a quicksilver intellect, eager to get on with things. In any case, the spell was broken and I found myself wishing that at least I should have been seated. - Navtaj Sarna in The Hindu

Mr. Pamuk is very funny in person.[..] We also liked the masterful way he guided the audience during the question-and-answer session, since the people who ask questions often seem to be completely unconstrained by any sense of the passage of time and only vaguely aware of the distinction between question and soliloquy.[..] To the relief of the audience, he cut off one man, who made sundry remarks—including the fact that he had read the novel in three days—before beginning to share his thoughts on the quality of the translation. - Report in Wall Street Journal

One involved this old gentleman who gushed on about Pamuk’s novel My Name is Red and wondered aloud about how good the translator was to have captured the essence and beauty of Pamuk’s storytelling. I’m not sure if the question was posed in the right way, but Pamuk’s dismissal of the point/question and person was a bit of a sad comment, more so after the topics that he spoke at length on and will do so in later events. - Bookchums.com

“Let’s move on to the next question before I am deported,” he added hastily, much to the amusement of the audience and Chandrahas Choudhury, who was interviewing him. The Telegraph

But in Rashomon they did not video tape what happened in the forest. These humans: subjectivity, etc, even for simple things! Ottoman arrogance or an intelligent, smart man's humour? Who talked about deportation, Chandrahas or Pamuk?

But, thanks to modern technology, the subjective can be made a lot less one. The questions start at ~ t=10 minutes.



Also, it can be reasonably concluded that the cameraman went for a cup of tea during the shooting of this session. A photographer's head come into the view in the video, it gets auto-focused, then Pamuk is back in focus, and then the photographer's head again, until he moves out. May be the cameraman didnt like Ottoman arrogance :-)

King's speech

A boring movie. Who says its a great movie? Yawn, yawn! Everything predictable and simplistic, same old drama & cliches, and yes, a story about how a White king got rid of his stammer with a good trainer... Yea, might like if you like the king and things 'royal' :)

Heroes

Egypt has been thrilling. Just like Tunisia. And Jordan. Seems even Saudi Arabia is going the same way.

People can be amazing heroes. Who would have predicted?

Heroes.

For no shitty ideology behind it, no religious crap behind it, only things that can be justified universally - food, jobs, freedom, justice, democracy. Its amazing.

Why is there an al-Jazeera doing what it is doing? Why is the Guardian doing what is it doing? Why there was a Wikileaks doing what it did? Why did everything happen in concert, in almost perfect symphony?

Amazing, thrilling, unbelievable. That people can rise up for such simple yet great ideals, and work together in such huge masses, with no demagogue inspiring them with sensational speeches, with no mass leader spewing venom and hatred, no ensuing chaos where women are raped and houses are burnt, nothing. Just anger and the want of justice and peaceful protests.

And its not just the men. There are enough women on the streets.

Who would have thought that the people can be this great?

A modification of a deviation of the average Indian curry

The average Indian male is 25 years old, lives up to 67 years, can read and write his name and is a bad cook, but even the worst cook among them can cook potato, egg and chicken - overcooked, over-oiled, over-masalad and over-chillied as it is.

One that can spoil the making of a potato, egg or chicken curry must be a fool.

Just like the statements A picture is worth thousand words, Ayyappantamma Neyyappam Chuttu and Saare Jahaan Se Acha Hindoostaan Hamaara, these ones too need not be necessarily true. However, a small but growing subset of the Indian male - “The Indian males who have to cook for themselves” - on average, cooks the average potato/egg/chicken curry, and like in every statistic , there are many standard deviations from it which are not represented by the mean (sample: Mukesh Ambani’s income vs India’s per capita income). This article is about one such deviation: the Aloo-Egg curry. Or rather, a proposed deviation from the deviation itself: the Butter-Aloo-Egg curry.

Aloo Egg curry is often hailed as the National Eggitarian Curry of West Bengal (The National Non-Vegitarian one is, of course, Hilsa/Ilish). This specie - unlike Communism, Rice, Art films and Football - is absent in Kerala - except in the case of some rare mutant curries and cases when some cook turns rebel -, so its origins are considered to be after the Proletarian migration from Bengal to Kerala (which, bye the way, brought along with it the above mentioned similarities). The fact of the matter is - an average Bengali male - or at least the ones found outside India - can be seen cooking an Aloo-Egg curry, than any other combination of {Aloo, Egg, Chicken}.

Background: The average Aloo-Egg curry is cooked just like any average curry. Oil is heated, ginger-garlic cut/pasted is thrown in, with some chilli and a lot of onion, and are sautéed together till the colour starts changing, to which tomato is added and sautéed again, proceeded by some masala. This stuff is cooked till oil rises up, after which cut potatoes are added along with some water and is cooked till cooked. Add boiled eggs to this mixture of compounds, and heat more. Serve hot with Rice.

The Deviation proposed is: 1) The use of butter instead of oil 2) A change in steps of how the potatoes and eggs are cooked.

The final algorithm is: Heat some butter. Add chopped potatoes and sauté well. Add boiled eggs and fry them too, till all sides are nicely fried. Take the stuff out and keep aside. Repeat the steps of the average curry, i.e, the garlic-ginger-chilli-onion-tomato-masala part, but this time with butter. Add the fried potato-egg and turn and mix well, add water and simmer till the gravy becomes thick. You are welcome to add spluttered mustard seeds (or splutter them in the beginning), and replace tomato with tomato sauce/ketchup. Two trials of the later gave excellent results, and this means: 1) you dont need to cut the tomatoes 2) you dont need to buy the tomatoes 3) you dont need to throw the rotten tomatoes away from the fridge. The Malayali improvement on every single curry in the world - addition of Coconut milk - may be considered as a future work.

Note: 1) Boring criterion like average case calorific value etc are not considered in the algorithm. 2) The quantity of ingredients are left to the taste of the implementer and environmental conditions (weekend or weekday, availability of toilets etc). 3) Universe-{Bengali,Keralite} is welcome to try out this curry with non rice items.