Poetry as Socio-proctology

Childish our cult of Gandhi, Ghalib and the Geeta

2012-02-10T19:22:00.001Z

Childish our cult of Gandhi, Ghalib and the Geeta

Our Ardency a Surpanakha they still see is Seeta

Would my garbage & I were thus understood

Love is the Vyasa of all works that are good

The rejected couplets from Ghalib's fourth

2012-02-10T13:57:00.011Z

{4,8x}*

hai kahāñ tamannā kā dūsrā qadam yā rab
ham ne dasht-e imkāñ ko ek naqsh-e pā pāyā

1) where is the second step of longing, oh Lord?

2) we found the desert of possibility [to be] a single/certain/unique/excellent footprint

be-dimāġh-e ḳhajlat hūñ rashk-e imtiḥāñ tā ke

ek be-kasī tujh ko ʿālam-āshnā pāyā

1) I am irritable/impatient/disaffected from/with shame; {whither / to what end} an envy/jealousy of/for testing?
2) a single/sole friendlessness/helplessness/forlornness-- I found you world-{familiar/acquainted}!

{4,10x}

ḳhāk-bāzī-e ummīd kār-xānah-e t̤iflī
yās ko do-ʿālam se lab bah ḳhandah vā pāyā

1) the 'dust-game' of hope-- a workshop/business of childishness/childhood
2) [it/I] found despair [to be] open/cheerful, with a smiling/laughing lip, {like / by means of} the two worlds

{4,11x}

kyūñ nah vaḥshat-e ġhālib bāj-ḳhvāh-e taskīñ ho
kushtah-e taġhāful ko ḳhaṣm-e ḳhūñ-bahā pāyā

1) why wouldn't {prevailing / Ghalib's} wildness/madness be a {tax/toll}-receiver of peace/tranquility?
2) [it/someone] found the one slain by negligence/heedlessness [to be] an enemy of the 'blood-price'

Where, Lord, alights the foot of Ardency's stride?

The Sahara of Becoming is but a sole-print wide

Maddened is my Innocence at the malice of its Test

Privily deflowered as boutonnière to thy chest!

Still, Sand castles anneal Hope & Calf Love, Veal, the Calf

Till, Despair teeth bare the Two Worlds' butcher laugh.

Love-mad I evince, by Indifference murdered to be heard

Peace hath a Prince! Tender weregeld She the Word

How Chesterton made the Mahatma.

2012-02-08T14:43:00.009Z

There's a theory that Gandhi's Hind Swaraj nonsense, composed in November 1909, was inspired by by an article in the Illustrated London News of September 18, 1909

It is this lack of atmosphere that always embarrasses me when my friends come and tell me about the movement of Indian Nationalism. I do not doubt for a moment that the young idealists who ask for Indian independence are very fine fellows; most young idealists are fine fellows. I do not doubt for an instant that many of our Imperial officials are stupid and oppressive; most Imperial officials are stupid and oppressive. But when I am confronted with the actual papers and statements of the Indian Nationalists I feel much more dubious, and, to tell the truth, a little bored. The principal weakness of Indian Nationalism seems to be that it is not very Indian and not very national. It is all about Herbert Spencer and Heaven knows what. What is the good of the Indian national spirit if it cannot protect its people from Herbert Spencer? I am not fond of the philosophy of Buddhism; but it is not so shallow as Spencer's philosophy; it has real ideas of its own. One of the papers, I understand, is called the Indian Sociologist. What are the young men of India doing that they allow such an animal as a sociologist to pollute their ancient villages and poison their kindly homes?

When all is said, there is a national distinction between a people asking for its own ancient life and a people asking for things that have been wholly invented by somebody else. There is a difference between a conquered people demanding its own institutions and the same people demanding the institutions of the conqueror. Suppose an Indian said: "I heartily wish India had always been free from white men and all their works. Every system has its sins: and we prefer our own. There would have been dynastic wars; but I prefer dying in battle to dying in hospital. There would have been despotism; but I prefer one king whom I hardly ever see to a hundred kings regulating my diet and my children. There would have been pestilence; but I would sooner die of the plague than die of toil and vexation in order to avoid the plague. There would have been religious differences dangerous to public peace; but I think religion more important than peace. Life is very short; a man must live somehow and die somewhere; the amount of bodily comfort a peasant gets under your best Republic is not so much more than mine. If you do not like our sort of spiritual comfort, we never asked you to. Go, and leave us with it." Suppose an Indian said that, I should call him an Indian Nationalist, or, at least, an authentic Indian, and I think it would be very hard to answer him. But the Indian Nationalists whose works I have read simply say with ever-increasing excitability, "Give me a ballot-box. Provide me with a Ministerial dispatch-box. Hand me over the Lord Chancellor's wig. I have a natural right to be Prime Minister. I have a heaven-born claim to introduce a Budget. My soul is starved if I am excluded from the Editorship of the Daily Mail," or words to that effect.

Now this, I think, is not so difficult to answer. The most sympathetic person is tempted to cry plaintively, "But, hang it all, my excellent Oriental (may your shadow never grow less), we invented all these things. If they are so very good as you make out, you owe it to us that you have ever heard of them. If they are indeed natural rights, you would never even have thought of your natural rights but for us. If voting is so very absolute and divine (which I am inclined rather to doubt myself), then certainly we have some of the authority that belongs to the founders of a true religion, the bringers of salvation." When the Hindu takes this very haughty tone and demands a vote on the spot as a sacred necessity of man, I can only express my feelings by supposing the situation reversed. It seems to me very much as if I were to go into Tibet and find the Grand Lama or some great spiritual authority, and were to demand to be treated as a Mahatma or something of that kind. The Grand Lama would very reasonably reply: "Our religion is either true or false; it is either worth having or not worth having. If you know better than we do, you do not want our religion. But if you do want our religion, please remember that it is our religion; we discovered it, we studied it, and we know whether a man is a Mahatma or not. If you want one of our peculiar privileges, you must accept our peculiar discipline and pass our peculiar standards, to get it."

Perhaps you think I am opposing Indian Nationalism. That is just where you make a mistake; I am letting my mind play round the subject. This is especially desirable when we are dealing with the deep conflict between two complete civilisations. Nor do I deny the existence of natural rights. The right of a people to express itself, to be itself in arts and action, seems to me a genuine right. If there is such a thing as India, it has a right to be Indian. But Herbert Spencer is not Indian; "Sociology" is not Indian; all this pedantic clatter about culture and science is not Indian. I often wish it were not English either. But this is our first abstract difficulty, that we cannot feel certain that the Indian Nationalist is national.

Fleet Street, of course, is where fuckwits fatten. But who was this 'Indian Nationalist'- the publisher of 'the Indian Sociologist'- infatuated with Herbert Spencer whom the journalist holds up to ridicule? It was Shyamji Krishna Verma who was up at Oxford around the time Spencer's book 'Man versus the State' took off in the mid 1880's. In other words, this Indian Nationalist who was carrying on Spencer's work in London- he gave a 1000 pounds to found a Chair in honour of Spencer at Oxford- and also contributing money to numerous advanced causes- including one's located in the Fleet St. fuckwit's home Borough of Battersea (which had a black man for Mayor)- had more claim to Spencer than the said stupid Fleet St. fuckwit, G.K. Chesterton, who wrote this worthless article.
Compare Chesterton to Guy Aldred, the 'boy preacher of Holloway', who did 12 months hard labour for publishing the Indian Sociologist. Aldred and Varma made the point that Imperialism was bad for Britain. Chesterton himself had opposed the Boer War and endorsed the same general notion. But, on balance, to the British Public, Imperialism still looked a paying proposition. Joseph Chamberlains recantation from Republican Radicalism in favour of Imperial Preference, appeared to have been justified by men like Cecil Rhodes and Lord Milner- it seemed plausible that Britain would enjoy an infinitely prolonged golden afternoon of 'diminishing effort and increasing rewards' by reason of its Empire. No doubt, at the time, Aldred and Varma looked foolish. What business had a little Cockney lad publish the seditious ravings of some Babu barrister? The answer came with the First World War- and, as if that wasn't enough, the Second, till finally shorn of an Empire, Britain was able to do something for its own people- with the unforeseen result that it now itself boasts a larger population (by a factor of about 10) of South Asians than it had ever sent out to that distant subcontinent.

Of course, there is a more charitable interpretation of Chesterton's article- he may have been making light of these seditious Indian nationalists- I mean, how dangerous could they possibly be if they still read Herbert Spencer? We all went through that sort of phase in between playing with marbles and getting interested in cricket. Really, it's too absurd to hang Dhingra, the fellow was not just a Babu he was a hayseed Babu studying Agriculture at Cirencester! I mean it's not as though there's any desperate thinning of ADC's to Colonial Governors noticeable at dinner tables. so Dhingra's efforts at pruning back their luxuriance scarce warrants more than a slap on the wrists. Come on, we all know what those lads up at Cirencester are like. it's the country air that does it. I had an elderly maiden aunt in that neck of the woods who keenly spoke of coming down to London to drown Lord Palmerston, he of the glorious side whiskers, in her virginal and uterine font- she being High Church when of strong waters taken.

However, I am not here to exculpate Chesty-baby (what? he was just a kid in the hood back in the 80's when I first moved to West Ken) but to condemn him.

What is odious about his article is that he assumes that the Indian Nationalist heard about Spencer (whom Chesterton thought out of date coz his Head Master read him) in India which is like thirty years behind the times and so not really Indian at all- it's just passe mid-Victorian is what it is. This wasn't true. Verma was a brilliant Sanskrit orator whom Moneir Williams invited to Oxford. He got a degree from there and qualified as a barrister. Incidentally, Chesterton's Head Master also had advanced degrees in both Sanskrit and the Law- he was one of the most brilliant men of his age. Verma moves from Theism (or at least something like the Arya Samaj doctrine) to Spencer and Revolutionary Politics. Chesterton, who started off as anti-clerical and a fan of the Socialist Blatchford, goes the other way. He ended up as a nasty little Anti Semitic gutter snipe pushing some worthless '3 acres and a cow' Distributivist bullshit.

Chesterton, Fleet St. hack that he was, was simply ignorant, stupid and unable to make a logical argument to save his life. Gandhi, however, knew Verma- knew Verma was the top Sanskrit orator of India before he got the opportunity to go to Oxford, knew Verma had defended Dayanand Sarasvati in the controversy with Blavatsky and Olcott, knew Verma had been a Dewan (the same post Gandhi's dad held) in India, knew Verma had made his own money in Cotton manufacturing, knew Verma was a philanthropist, knew Verma was a barrister...Gandhi knows all these things which Chesterton doesn't, yet Gandhi gets such a raging hard on reading Chesty-baby's shite, he goes into a trance and writes his worthless Hind Swaraj drivel.

Notice, Verma had been a success in India, that's why he is called to England by no less an eminence than Prof. Monier Williams. Gandhi is too stupid to even use Monier Williams dictionary let alone help compile it. Verma is a success in England- he gets a degree, that too from Oxford, while Gandhi struggled to get the equivalent of 'O' levels. Verma is a success in India- he becomes a Dewan, Gandhi can't even get a job as a school teacher. Verma is a successful businessman. He can go back to England as a philanthropist and radical. Gandhi, on the other hand, has just fouled up real bad in South Africa. No Indian or coloured person ever beat Verma- there was no need. Gandhi, on the other hand, had been soundly thrashed by his own people for making a colossal blunder just the previous year.
To summarize, Varma knew India and had succeeded in India. Gandhi didn't know India and had failed there.
Varma started off as the top Sanskrit orator, Gandhi remained a big zero all his days w.r.t Hinduism. Some fuckwit of Fleet St hack publishes some jocular nonsense to the effect that 'Indian Sociologists should be quoting some Snake charmer not Herbert (snigger snigger) Spencer- so that shows they aren't Indian at all! Probably, truth be told, the turbaned little toerag will turn out to be some Welshman from Pontefract look you!' and. for Maha-turd Gandhi, what happens? It's a fucking epiphany! The little bugger gets literary!
But what a fucking fuckwit this fuckwit is! Not just Ruskin, even Chesterton influences this cunt! What's next? The revelation that his Khilafat policy was dictated by his reading of John Buchan's Greenmantle? No. We all know the identity of Gandhi's ultimate guide- Mickey Mouse, just as Sarojini Naidu always maintained.

Yet, Chesterton, fuckwit though he was, wrote better than he knew when he said this- if I were to go into Tibet and find the Grand Lama or some great spiritual authority, and were to demand to be treated as a Mahatma or something of that kind. The Grand Lama would very reasonably reply: "Our religion is either true or false; it is either worth having or not worth having. If you know better than we do, you do not want our religion. But if you do want our religion, please remember that it is our religion; we discovered it, we studied it, and we know whether a man is a Mahatma or not. If you want one of our peculiar privileges, you must accept our peculiar discipline and pass our peculiar standards, to get it."

The odd thing is, Varma, the only non Brahmin- he was the son of a labourer- to get the title of Pandit by the acclamation of the genuine Pandits of Benares- becomes un-Indian for Gandhi because Chesterton says so. But, this means, with British connivance, we end up with an un-Indian little Law Student from West Kensington getting the title of 'Mahatma' for achievements as mythical as those very Hidden Lamas Madam Blavatsky invented and Varma showed to be bogus.

Why? Just so Indian Nationalism could look Indian- y'know beggars, snake-charmers, elephants, that sort of thing.

Chesty-baby, I suppose, might have a reason to hold to the belief that there is no such thing as Universal Reason, or Universal Rights. Perhaps his version of Catholicism was predicated on the notion that Rome alone possessed the Apostolic Succession- the Church of England's Bishops had no more right to ordain a priest than Elinor Glyn to anoint the Dalai Lama. However, an argument of this nature cuts against Christianity itself. This is because Christ was a Jew. Chesty, very generously, was willing to let Jews remain in England provided they wore kaftans but, even under that benevolent dispensation, his logic would militate for an English Christianity strictly confined to those with an ancestral claim to that garment. Chesterton, of course, never set up for a lawyer or a politician. He was merely a vastly entertaining man of letters.
Gandhi, however, claimed to know the law (in 1908 he was telling everyone he alone understood a subtlety in the new legislation- he was wrong. He alone had misunderstood it). He did not claim to be a poet, he claimed to be a man with a peculiar clarity of Thought and remorselessness of Reason. Hind Swaraj reveals him to be nothing of the sort. He makes the absurd claim that Indian greed led them to invite in the East India Company.
The English have not taken India., we have given it to them. They are not in India because of their strength, but because we keep them. Let us now see whether these propositions can be sustained. They came to our country originally for purposes of trade. Recall the Company Bahadur. Who made it Bahadur? They had not the slightest intention at the time of establishing a kingdom. Who assisted the Company's officers'? Who was tempted at the sight of their silver? Who bought their goods? History testifies that we did all this.
Gandhi was a Gujerati Bania. As such, his ancestors may indeed have been connected with the East India Company. Perhaps they were greedy. Perhaps, they handed down- from father to son- a secret shame and an incriminating memory. If so, and this History was known to Gandhi and his reader, then he was being truthful according to his lights. However, such History as other Indians possess contains no such testimony.

Nevertheless, one begins to see why the proponents of Pakistan cited Bania greed as an existential threat to the Muslims of the sub-continent.

However, having mentioned Islam, it is now de rigueur for me to conclude this post by pointing out that neither Hindus nor Muslims must be blamed for the Madness, not of Partition, but Gandhism. Clearly that canker in the rose garden only arose by reason of that odious Englishman- G.K Chesterton. As a Brown skinned man, Gandhi naturally thought the Father Brown stories were a hint that he should become the Father of his Nation.

Not that Chesterton bears the entire burden of guilt. Personally, I blame David Cameron.

That boy aint right.

An Atheist's Gandhi.

2012-02-07T21:58:00.007Z

I'm reading this charming little booklet featuring conversations between an Atheist and Gandhi.
Initially, the Atheist seems to be getting the better of the exchange. Surely, Untouchability is better attacked from a stridently Atheist platform? Indeed, was it not Theism- that of the Bhagvad Gita in particular- which created the whole mischief of Caste and Untouchability in the first place?
Gandhi, at least by 1944, appears to be listening.
Interestingly, Gandhi grants the Atheist permission to dissect a frog as part of his Science lesson for the health workers at the Ashram.
It appears that Gandhi is prepared to go quite a distance to conciliate this Atheist because he feels his approach is bearing results.
The Atheist decides to marry off his daughter to an 'Untouchable'. Gandhi agrees not only to host the marriage but to substitute the word 'Truth' for 'God' in the wedding service.
All this strikes us as quite commendable.

Then, the Atheist reveals the cloven hoof- we should have seen it coming, but it still comes as a surprise-

'Once he asked me for my programme to remove untouchability.

I: Regular cosmopolitan dinners on a mass scale like the foreign cloth bonfires of 1920.

Gandhiji: Would cosmopolitan dinners be sufficient to catch the imagination of the people?

I: Then, inter-marriages. Now that we have nationalists and Congressmen in the interim Government, arrangements may be made to announce every inter-marriage by a Government notification. Also every inter-marriage should be granted a present of Rs. 500 by the Government. Every child up to the third-born of such wedlock should be paid a quarterly subsidy of Rs. 50 for two years.

G: Why do you propose the money-subsidy? Will not the publicity be sufficient?

I: At present the ostracism of inter-marriages often takes the shape of economic sanctions by the society. People who appreciated the principle of inter-marriages are often unable to put the principle into practice, because they are afraid to face the economic pressures that follow close on the heels of inter-marriages. As long as the economic system remains what it is today, such pressure is a real hardship. So while the law and the Government notification protect the couple from social harassment, the money subsidy saves the inter-marriages from economic sabotage. This policy of the Government may be necessary only for a term of five or ten years during which period the movement will take root and will grow on popular support later on.

G: That is well. But it does not preserve the sanctity of marriage. It reduces marriage to prostitution, and alliance for the consideration of money.

I: Today marriages confined to the limits of caste and the practice of dowry are no better. The system of Government subsidy to inter-marriages will at least serve the purpose of removing social isolations, even though it may not be free from the other evils of pecuniary considerations attaching to the existing system. Money considerations cannot be removed until there is a change in the economic order. We may look at the marriage alliance now from the social point of view. Did not the totalitarian States subsidize large families and compel even nuns to get married when those States required increase in population? Those States subsidized marriages as a part of the war effort. We will subsidize inter-marriages for the removal of social isolations. The sanctity of marriage lies in its contribution to social welfare.

G: You are an atheist! (Bapuji said significantly.)

Gandhi's Theism consisted of spending time with cranks, nut-jobs and illiterate villagers. The only reward he asked in return was that everybody spin yarn- though the yarn was crap- and the Govt. spend money on stupid and wasteful things while preventing people from doing useful and productive other things.

The Atheist's Atheism consisted of getting ignorant villagers of different castes to eat together on full moon nights. Now he was marrying off his daughter out of caste. The only reward he asked in return was that everybody attend such dinners- though the food was crap- and the Govt. spend money on stupid and wasteful programs.

In both cases, getting people to do something stupid and wasteful- in Gandhi's case, destroy the economic value of raw cotton by turning it into crap yarn which the weavers refused to use, in the Atheist's case, get people to pay to attend dinners where crap food was served- was the first step, the foundation, for blackmailing the Govt. into spending money on stupid and wasteful things.
Providing Leadership, for these high caste men- who gained status by claiming to be 'uplifting' Untouchables, though their approach was explicitly rejected by the one intelligent 'Untouchable' who had studied the topic- meant getting people to do stupid and wasteful things on the grounds that the real problem India faced was that the people were even stupider than themselves rather than exhibiting 'preference falsification' merely.

Gandhi's Theism and this Atheist's Theism were the mirror image of each other. What both cash out as is the claim that voluntary association with people quite possibly stupider than oneself, makes one morally more upright but also smarter than people who raise or pay taxes. Thus one is entitled to tell the Govt. how and upon whom it should lavish its ill-gotten gains.

Gandhi's 'Nai Talim' Basic Education Schools are a case in point. Government grants-in-aid come from the tax on alcohol. This is immoral. Students should be able to pay for their own education by spinning yarn. But, the fucking Govt. won't buy the yarn that the Students spin simply because it is worthless! Thus, the Government does not permit Basic Education to stand on its own two feet, instead using the excuse of financing it to permit the liquor industry to flourish!
An Englishwoman involved in Basic Education describes the situation-

One problem was the disposal of the yarn spun by the children. The government should take responsibility, said the Basic Education workers, quoting Gandhiji. But the yarn was not in itself a marketable commodity and governments, faced with what to officialdom was an unheard-of demand, were very unwilling to cope with it. The teachers, themselves beginners, usually lacked the skills which came later and did not think of turning the beginners' yarn into knitted garments, or asans. or skipping ropes, or blackboard dusters. Many of them also, familiar with the part played by spinning in the movement for national independence, saw it as a satisfying symbolic activity in itself They were blind to its limitations, if it is isolated from the textile craft of which it is a part, and without which its meaning and purpose is lost.

Closely related to this was the question of qualifications and training of teachers. At the 1941 conference there were voices raised to ask whether the practice of appointing separate "craft" and "subject" teachers in the training schools was really in the spirit of Basic Education. The answer was clearly No. What then? Should the schools cease to demand "matric" as a qualification for admission to training and require instead that a candidate should have earned his or her own living, for at least two or three years, by the practice of a craft? The craftsman might of course have little conception of the scientific basis or cultural links of his own craft, but at ]east he would have reached a good standard of skill and craftsmanship. He would need to be helped to develop a broader general knowledge. The assumption behind the requirement that candidates should be matriculates was that they would possess this general knowledge - an assumption which was very seldom justified. The dichotomy went on; in Sevagram as elsewhere there were specialist craft teachers and other teachers who had some knowledge of a craft, but not enough to be able to support themselves by its practice. Yet their pupils were expected, by the end of their course, to be able to do just that!

No wonder Dr. Zakir Hussain was finally forced to concede- 'Basic Education as practised is a fraud'.

The same English woman, by now joined by another Englishwoman, a Quaker nurse, gives us a delightful vignette of the Untouchable bhangi of Sevagram
The question of toilets in houses has already been mentioned, but a great deal more work was needed in this field. The people of the village were in the habit of using the approach roads as public latrines, so the entrances to the village were fouled and sticking. This was the reason why the Ashram had appointed, a bhangi. Shanta found that: he was very discontented, and complained that he was over-worked. She suggested that he might lighten his work by building trench latrines at each entrance to the village, and getting the people to use them. Very unwillingly he agreed, and he and she got the trenches dug and provided with palm-leaf screens for privacy, five compartments to each trench. The total cost of four such latrines including the split palm trunks used for squatting plates, was only twelve rupees. Little by little the people began to use them, and under Shanta's direction they learned how to collect weed and under- growth from the roadsides to cover the excreta and eliminate bad odour. The roads became much cleaner, but the bhangi left in disgust. Shanta rejoiced in his departure; it was degrading that the community should become dependent on a bhangi; it was a part of self-respect that everyone should share in the needful scavenging.

I recall a neighbour of ours who used to lecture his elderly, Gandhian and greatly incontinent parents on this aspect of Basic Education. The old couple, who had enjoyed a conventional education, were not happy that our neighbour- who resented not having been sent to a posh School, like other men of his class and profession (he was a Doctor)- recalled with much precision the one lesson his own Gandhian 'Nai Talim' had instilled in him- viz. don't shit on the floor, don't shit everywhere you go.
They elderly couple would complain to me- I spoke no Hindi at the time and thus could not pretend to have been favoured with 'Basic Education'- and I would explain to them, based on my reading of Kipling and Cobbett and so on, that shitting all over the place is a good thing- it keeps wild animals away. Indeed, the first thing you should do when you spot a Tiger is shit yourself. In fact, this is pretty much genetically programmed. If the Tiger doesn't want to eat you, the smell drives it away. If it does want to eat you, the stench confutes its ability to track you by smell. Mutatis mutandis, what applies to Tigers holds true equally, at least in my experience, for sententiously Gandhian Hindi tutors such as those my parents employed for me. Unless, of course they also happen to be bhangis. In which case you are fucked.

The real story of Gandhi and the Atheist is as follows- Gandhi has finally come to understand that his spinning wheel nonsense is fucked. The weavers refuse to use his shitty thread and won't read or listen to his crap articles for love nor money. Gandhi's own people have failed him- though maybe Vinobha Bhave has invented a way to spin thread of acceptable quality but he's just one man- so the Maha-crank is casting around for a different breed of productive 'workers' to push that worthless cotton yarn he's been spinning all these years. Gandhi doesn't care if these 'workers' (that's how these fuckwits describe themselves when they aren't busy being Spiritual Scientists 'experimenting with Truth') are Atheists or Vivesectionists or Votaries of Cthulhu. What matters is that they are 'effective'- i.e. can brainwash people into sticking with a failed program for a little while longer.

What is heartening for Gandhi is the sincere fuckwittedness of the Atheist- Govt. grants for inter-caste marriages!
That is as stupid as the Weimar Germans paying non-cooperators in the Ruhr. Don't pay them and, for purely Economic reasons, the French will have to make concessions to Germany, quite simply because the people of the Ruhr are German Nationalists. Pay the people of the Ruhr not to co-operate with the French and their patriotism counts for nothing- the French simply take what they want while the result for Germany is hyperinflation and the first step down the grim road to Nuremberg.

Gandhi himself had seen with his own eyes that paying people not to practice law or to go to jail did the INC no good. It created a class of credentialist 'Freedom Fighters' who didn't really fight anything but still thought it worthwhile to put in some jail time so as to qualify for sinecures and padded contracts and pensions once Congress Ministries were formed.

The Atheist's proposal of bribes for inter-caste bridegrooms wasn't actually new. Leading barristers- like Sharat Chandra Bose- were continually getting letters from young men willing to marry anything on two legs for a few Rupees down. Indeed, since these young men were probably writing to every big shot of advanced opinions demanding money for their own inter-caste marriage, for all I know the result may have been a sort of reverse Kulinism.
But why did the Atheist's demand stop at a Govt grants for getting young people laid? What explains his truly un-Atheistic neglect of wanking? World Peace could have been easily secured if only the League of Nations had instituted generous stipends for kids who jerked off only to pictures of the Pope giving Stalin a reach-around.

The great and lasting tragedy, from which India has never recovered, is that Gandhi was killed off too early to finally see the light. At least that appears to be conclusion of our Author.
Richard Dawkins should be told. That fuckwit thinks Gandhi had a gene for super-niceness. For which, I personally blame David Cameron.
That boy aint right.

Anthony Parel's theory of Gandhi

2012-02-06T12:54:00.007Z

Prof Parel's book 'Gandhi's philosophy and the quest for harmony' makes two startling claims- firstly that Gandhi believed 'purushartha'-the proper goals of human endeavour can be harmonized in a Socially productive and meaningful manner and secondly that Gandhi's fellow Indians found it difficult to accept this notion.

Two questions naturally arise in connection to Prof. Parel's extraordinary claims

1) Was Gandhi asserting that a natural harmony had previously existed, between moksha and artha, but ceased to operate under the special circumstances of British rule? If so, Gandhi's claim cashes out as 'Previously, other purveyors of Moksha were legitimate but now, at this moment in time for all Indians, it is a case of my way, or the highway.' In other words, Gandhi was making a bid for a position of synoecist supremacy within the 'Sadhu-Sangh' and using a Historicist argument to do so.

If not, was Gandhi saying that all true purveryors of Moksha in the Past had been Social Workers in the main? This is compatible with the current view that Jesus was actually running a creche for unwed mothers in Nazareth and had just started up a Vegan collective which challenged the vested interests of the Big Meat Cartel which controlled the Temple. He also campaigned for a 'Don't ask, don't tell' Law to protect Gays in the Roman Army and that's why he was crucified by Pontius Pilate whose Gubernatorial campaign was financed by the Tea Party. In other words, Gandhi's true heir is his great-grand daughter Prof. Leela Gandhi and his message to us now is 'Occupy Wall Street in drag while off your head on drugs.'

2) Did Indians, at that time, really think moksha and artha were incompatible? If so, why? The Vyadha Gita (butcher's Gita) depicts a meat vendor who 'has it all' so to speak. His business makes him so rich, he lives like a Prince. He worships his parents as his Gods and fulfils all his family and social responsibilities in a manner more than Princely- indeed, not the immortal Gods possess greater felicity. Yet, this butcher is also a fully self-realized and liberated soul with supernatural powers greatly exceeding that of the Brahmin ascetic who has come to him for tuition.

Perhaps, Desai and Tilak were ignorant of the Vyadha Gita. However, the option of becoming a religious ascetic had a particular meaning at that time which it did not have previously or later. The trappings of the Sadhu-Mahatma were a way for Revolutionists to signal a change of heart to the British. It became the basis for the granting a sort of parole or of being put on probation. Many Ashrams were pretty comfortable places. Life was good at the Theosophist's centre. Even Sri Aurobindo had his brandy and cigars till 'Divine Mother' persuaded him to give up these indulgences. It is noteworthy, that when details of Gandhi's diet first appeared in the Surat newspapers, what struck the reader was its variety and appetising nature- in contrast the the lenten fare of the Jain Sadhu or, indeed, the usual diet of the impoverished lower middle class.

Gandhi's appearance on the Indian political scene coincided with the crushing, by main force, of the Indian Revolutionists. Vinobha Bhave, at 20, symbolises the plight of Indian youth. He feels irresistibly drawn in 2 directions. One is to the Himalayas and the harsh life of an ascetic. The other is to Bengal and the life of a bomb throwing Revolutionary. Bhave obeys neither call but comes to Gandhi's Ashram instead. From the point of view of artha (hedonic calculus) this was his best option and he certainly repaid with interest any benefit he received from Gandhi, his Ashrams, and his financiers.

Similarly, Ghanshyamdas Birla- who as a young man had given financial assistance to the Jugantar Revolutionaries thus putting himself at hazard of blackmail, extortion and Police harassment- finds a safe harbour in Gandhi.

Some Industrialists- like Dalmia, who financed the Dandi March silliness- found support for Gandhi perfectly compatible with living large and 'having it all'. Dalmia had numerous mistresses, posed as a visionary of World Peace to the American TIME magazine, and engaged in all sorts of shady practices- finally coming a cropper at the hands of Feroze Gandhi. On the other hand there was Jamnalal Bajaj, and his no less extraordinary wife whom Gandhi persuaded not to commit Suttee, who fully embraced a life of privation and sacrifice without, strangely enough, destroying the ethos of their own family in the process because Kamalnayan Bajaj and Rahul Bajaj were well educated and had great entrepreneurial drive. Indeed, when we compare Gandhi's impact on his wealthy backers with that of some other Godmen, he get's a clean chit.

It is difficult to believe that men like Tilak and Mahadev Desai- who well knew the harsh punishment for Sedition- were mere 'traditionalists' who failed to understand some marvellous Spiritual innovation or discovery of Gandhi's. It is easier to believe that Gandhi himself believed he had made such a discovery because, sub-consciously, we all think of Gandhi as being a sort of shrivelled and toothless granny muttering senile nonsense while swathed in cotton robes like an Egyptian Mummy.

But, this is to miss the truly interesting thing about Gandhi's speeches and writings. They aren't 'first order' but 'second order' in Collingwood's sense. They do not refer to a 'state of the world' which can be empirically verified. They are a discourse about discourse. They make 'distinctions without a difference'. In the jargon of Philosophy of Mind- Gandhian discourse is not supervenient on states of the world. Nor, oddly, does it supervene even on intentionalites within states of the world. However, Gandhian discourse looks like a supervenience thesis. Prof. Parel thinks there is some 'Emergent' level at which Gandhi really does harmonize things like artha and moksha which are antithetical in their definition only for two types of men- rulers and monks. Butchers or carters can 'have it all' provided they continually tell Brahmins and Barons to go fuck themselves and don't themselves hanker to set up as fraudsters or sociopaths of the same brand. This is a common sense view of dharma. So long as you aren't using dharma to make out you're better than other people, there's no problem with harmonizing Eros and Economics, Spiritual liberation and Practical Freedom, etc, etc, coz let's face in these big words mean shit and are the stock in trade of gobshites, fuckwits and cunt-queefs.

Still, in the context of widespread, wholly mischievous, preference falsification based availability cascades, Gandhian gobshitism is an effective jiu jitsu technique which fucks up stupid programs faster than they can fuck themselves up, that too in a manner which yields a credentialist rent.

To see why let us suppose you say the following to Gandhi- 'My dear Mahatma, the root of our disagreement is that I think Indians are stupid, lazy, effeminate, and incapable of ruling themselves. I have brought along some incontrovertible evidence for my proposition for you to examine.'

Gandhi replies- 'My dear Sir, I fully accept every piece of evidence you have cited and can, indeed, give you countless other pieces of evidence which are even more striking. Indeed, it is precisely because I have fully accepted and thought through the implications of this damning evidence of yours that I must follow my inner voice and act as I do. Furthermore, I ask you to reflect on this empirical fact- 'An Englishman who lives in India soon loses his character. An Indian who mixes with Englishmen soon becomes effeminate'. Save yourselves, get out of India. Contact with us is sowing the seeds of your own Race Suicide. Recall the fate of virile races like the Aryans, the Turanians and so on. Contact with India sealed their fate. Quit India for your own good'.

Gandhianism satirises stupid Racist fuckwittery by proving itself to be it's reductio ad absurdum.

Similarly, if the Marxist says- 'Look here, barrister Gandhi, you are nothing but a paid agent of the bourgeoisie administering opium to the people.'

Gandhi has his reply pat- 'My dear Comrade, I have said the day will come when the peasants will take the lands for themselves without paying compensation to the landlords. Creditors will not repay debts to the Moneylender. Workers will not be prepared to take the dole that is dignified by the name of wages, they will seize the factory for themselves and run it to their own benefit. I say they will do these things because such things are perfectly moral. I believe that which is morally right will inevitably prevail over that which is immoral even if immorality has Might on its side.'

Marxist- You really said that?

Gandhi- That too, to an American reporter- not a Soviet one.

Marxist- So how come you're not a Marxist?

Gandhi- I'm much further along the same road and, what is more, the masses are with me and are beginning to see what I see.

No matter what first order discourse you subscribe to (i.e. no matter what you think are the facts about the world) Gandhian discourse can sit on top of it, so to speak, because it is a second order discourse which makes 'distinctions without a difference' in a manner which asymmetrically increases the speaker's auctoritas and 'obligatory passage point' synoecism. The only way to baffle Gandhian bullshit is to be more Gandhian yet.The British learned this lesson very quickly. They painted Gandhi as a dangerous man capable of unleashing mass violence. In other words he was a threat- therefore manly- because he wasn't a threat at all. But, since Gandhi was a Caste Hindu, this meant that the British were the selfless Satyagrahis non-violently protecting India's minorities by doing nothing substantive for them at all. But this, of course, is the official legitimating ideology of the modern Indian Nation State. It is an interessement mechanism which excuses its moronic brutality as a search for interlocutors.

In Game Theory, a distinction is made between competitive equilibria and co-operative equilibria. C0-operative eqbms are better for everybody but the danger that one party may renege of grab an unfair share means that competitive eqbms are more robust.

Gandhi's 'Non-Violence' looks like the sort of thing that makes him the ideal interlocutor for everybody to work with to find Co-operative equilibria. However, Gandhi's Ahimsa actually means Non-Cooperation of an extreme sort. In Game theory, we use 'backward induction' to analyse decisions. If there is an end state which represents a catastrophic loss to an agent then we say with confidence that he won't go down that path. Gandhi turns backward induction on its head and asks us to look at an end state where a catastrophic loss has already been incurred. There, where Violence is no longer an option, Non-Violence comes into its own. The catastrophe is now the best option because here Non-Violent resistance reigns supreme. This means, following every node in the decision tree backwards, that one should always make the stupidest, most mutually-assured-destructive, move possible.

Gandhi's genius for making bad decisions does not make him unique. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler- most so called Great Men make bad decisions. However, Gandhian discourse alone justifies, indeed glories in, making bad decisions. This means it suffers less 'Cognitive Dissonance' and thus has less need to massacre its own true believers.

Which, I think, is its fatal flaw.

Team Anna, Tin Tin & the theory of Policy Actor Interessement

2012-02-03T14:59:00.018Z

Is Michel Callon, author of this essay, the Funniest French Sociologist ever? Or is he actually Tin Tin? Callon observes 3 'Researchers' who claim to have visited Japan where some mysterious method of farming scallops has been invented. The 3 'Researchers'- who wear fake beards and goggles and whom Snowy the dog growls at- hire a more than usually inebriated Captain Haddock to take them out to sea on his boat. Then, once Captain Haddock collapses into a drunken stupor, the 3 'Researchers' conduct 'experiments' which enable them to draw 'graphs' which they take to Paris to show to Prof. Calculus. Soon, they even manage to enrol some thuggish and moronic 'local fishermen' to support their initiative to re-stock the the Bay by 'anchoring' Scallop larvae.
Everybody else is fooled. Tin Tin alone smells a rat- or rotten scallop- and discusses the matter with Snowy the dog over a bottle of absinthe.

Tin Tin- Merde! Ze solution is obvious n'est-ce pas? Japan- as Barthes has proved- is just an empty signifier! Zinister doings are a foot, my faithful doggy chum!'
Snowy- Arf, Arf.
Tin Tin- & ze Scientists- they are all fucked, n'est-ce pas- like what Feyerabend proved, so that's what makes things even more zinister. What say you, my sage canine counsellor?
Snowy- Arf, Arf.
Tin Tin- & ze 'representatives' of ze Fishermen- zey can't 'represent' anybody coz zey are 'subaltern' like wot Gayatri Spicy Curry has shown, n'est-ce pas- mon cher canine catamite?
Snowy- (Alarmed) Arf?!
Tin Tin- & ze call moi a poodle packing pervert! Say my name bitch!
Snowy- (whimpering) Barf, barf.

How does all this relate to Anna Hazare? After all, he's a bit younger and not half as racist and paranoid as Tin Tin at 80. Similarly, Kiran Bedi is not quite as violent and drunken as Captain Haddock- though she does look and talk like him. The Bhushans, however, don't even resemble each other let alone the equally I.Q challenged Thomson twins. As for Kejriwal- who voluntarily quit an Engineering job with the Tatas to go become, of all things, an Income Tax babu!- his thinking may be as screwy as Prof. Calculus but his head is shaped quite differently. Finally, we come to Snowy the dog- but Kapil Sabil screwed that pooch long ago.

So, you may ask, is there, in fact any connection between Team Anna and Tin Tin?
The answer, as so often happens on this blog, comes down to a theory of Policy Actor Interessement, which I believe to be necessary to supplement existing theories of Rent Seeking and Tranformative Potential w.r.t tackling the issue of Corruption, not to mention ever more corrupt anti-corruption initiatives.

Callon shows how 'problematization' - i.e. saying there's a problem and putting forward a methodology for a solution- hinges on creating Obligatory Passage Points- 'choke points' easily assimilated to Rent Seeking theory

1.2 The definition of obligatory passage points (OPP)
The three researchers do not limit themselves simply to identifying a few actors. They also show
that the interests of these actors lie in admitting the proposed research programme. The argument
which they develop in their paper is constantly repeated: if the scallops want to survive (no
matter what mechanisms explain this impulse), if their scientific colleagues hope to advance
knowledge on this subject (whatever their motivations may be), if the fishermen hope to preserve
their long term economic interests (whatever their reasons) then they must: 1) know the answer to
the question: how do scallops anchor?, and 2) recognize that their alliance around this question
can benefit each of them.

As a matter of fact- the 3 researchers were wrong. Knowing how scallop larvae anchor wasn't important at all except to themselves. Still, for a while, they got to parade around like big-shots.
Similarly with Team Anna- you have a probelmatization which creates an obligatory passage point- viz the office of Lok Pal. The claim is made- why is there is corruption? Because there is no Lok Pal. Why isn't there a Lok Pal? Because of Corruption. Now, the Senior Bhushan- the fuckwit who cancelled the fundamental Right to Property when he was Law Minister- had already mooted this Lok Pal shite back in the late 70's when even Westminster was buying into that Scandinavian pile of Crap. Remember how Whitehall quaked at the cry- The Ombudsman cometh?- except it didn't at all. Ombudsmen are what happens the more delegated legislation you have and the more delegated legislation you have the more corruption, incompetence, injustice and everything turning into an endlessly shitestorm coz you just said good bye to Accountability, Transparency, Subsidiarity- all the good stuff.

Still, what Team Anna got right was to do the 'problematization' in a manner which did indeed make them the Obligatory Passage Point from which they derived a Rent. But that was just the start. What they needed to do next was to fix and make predictable the responses of other policy actors towards themselves such that they remained the focal point- in the jargon of Actor-Network theory, they needed to create a robust interresment mechanism

Actor Interessement

Interessement is the group of actions by which an entity (here the three researchers) attempts to
impose and stabilize the identity of the other actors it defines through its problematization.
Different devices are used to implement these actions.
Why talk of interessement? The etymology of this word justifies its choice. To be interested is to
be in between (inter-esse), to be interposed. But between what? Let us return to the three
researchers. During their problematization they join forces with the scallops, the fishermen, and
their colleagues in order to attain a certain goal. In so doing they carefully define the identity,
goals or the inclinations of their allies. But these allies are tentatively implicated in the
problematizations of other actors. Their identities are consequently defined in other competitive
ways. It is in this sense that one should understand interessement. To interest other actors is to
build devices which can be placed between them and all other entities who want to define their
identities otherwise. A interests B by cutting or weakening all the links between B and the
invisible (or at times quite visible) group of other entities C, D, E, etc. who may want to link
themselves to B.
The properties and identity of B (whether it is a matter of scallops, scientific colleagues, or
fishermen) are consolidated and/or redefined during the process of interessement. B is a ‘result’
of the association which links it to A. This link disassociates B from all the C, D, and E’s (if they
exist) that attempt to give it another definition. We call this elementary relationship which begins
to shape and consolidate the social link the triangle of interessement.
The range of possible strategies and mechanisms that are adopted to bring about these
interruptions is unlimited. As Feyerabend says about the scientific method: anything goes.

From an Economist's point of view- Interessement looks like a sort of animist version of Schelling focal point theory- which by itself has notoriously poor predictive power. However, if brains have evolved, then a lot of our cognitive life is going to devoted to 'interessement detection' (on an analogy with Agency detection modularity) rather than Schelling focal points. (This is because 'interessement detection' is small, cheap and out of control, whereas Schelling focal points are top-down, substantive rationality, are expensive to compute) and thus the likely waste of resources arising from Interessement performativity (i.e. doing stuff which makes you look like you ought to be the natural focal point, or node, or 'interposition' given the problematization) can be more usefully studied and modelled, because it is likely to have some in-built Evolutionarily Stable structure, and thus the concept of Interessement might be a useful addition to the Contested Rent Seeking research program. Indeed, parenthetically, Policy Actor Hazard (as distinguished from Agent/Principal Hazard) seems to require some such concept. In fields where (dis-interested) Policy Actors have more resources than interested parties, in other words where alterity is subaltern, we would expect to see mischievous Availability Cascades entrenching themselves, like guerilla groups, and using the resources of the Centre to strike back at it.

Team Anna, I take it, did well at problematization but failed at Interessement design. They weren't able to fix the Govt. into one mode- viz. turning a deaf ear while silently sucking the marrow out of the bones of democracy- and all the other actors into the opposite mode- viz. mindlessly barking support till the Govt drops the bone in its mouth and they can dart in to snatch it away.
Clearly getting shot of Agnivesh- though salutary on hygienic grounds- was a bad move because his back-channel to the Govt. had the useful side-effect of increasing their willingness to stone wall. The other point is, people who piss upon Agnivesh and chase him away with their chappal, get taken seriously. But if the Govt. caves then it internalizes the Interessement process. Team Anna are out in the cold. True, they could still have tried playing the RSS card to stiffen the Centre's resistance but it was probably too late. The Gandhi dynasty might now see the Lok Pal as their ultimate sanction against an over-mighty subject. Sab kuch sub judice hona chahiye. And if not sub judice than sub my pal, not your pal, the Lok Pal.

Team Anna members, those that remain, have for their part taken a nice little capitalized rent- Credentialized or otherwise- and, I believe, are happy enough to be sidelined until the Elections- and other such proofs of their own political irrelevance- fade from Public Memory.

Why did Gandhi succeed where Team Anna fail?
1) Unlike Team Anna, which had a plausible sounding problematization- viz. an Anti Corruption body which might actually weed out somebody's (but not Varun's) Aunty's Corruption- Gandhi's problematization was totally and ludicrously fucked in the head from the get go. He starts his speech to the Nagpur Congress (where he promises Swaraj in one year) by mentioning two things- one Khilafat (abolition of the Caliphate, a good stick to beat Shiahs with and to put pressure on Mullahs to dance to a seditionist tune) as an unforgivable insult to Muslims, and second, not Jallianwallah Bagh but 'the crawling order' as an insult to all Indians. In other words, Khilafat was as important as the right not to be massacred. Everybody- including Ismaili Muslims whose co-religionists were massacred by the Turkish Caliph- must stand by the Khilafati nut-jobs, because ..urm...Spirtuality? Ahimsa? no... turns out
2) Gandhi has his own interessement theory. He sees that the Brits have an interessement mechanism that gains focality by tackling various problems facing the country- including the communal problem- but he denounces that interessement mechanism as the enemy because it makes India more governable and since the British are the Govt. this is really really bad because 'it is a matter of common experience that if a Britisher lives in India, he loses his character, and if an Indian mixes with British people, he loses his manliness' (presumably because the Britisher and the Indian start bumming each other and sucking each other off and dressing up like High Court Judges) . Gandhi says at Nagpur- ' I hold a real substantial unity between Hindus and Musalmans infinitely superior to the British connection and if I had to make a choice between that unity and the British connection, I would have the first and reject the other. ' This sounds high-minded. However, Gandhi insists that Khilafat is the only bridge between Hindus and Muslims whereas, logically, it represented a parting off the ways. By telling the Indian masses, that loyalty to a distant Caliph out weighs a Muslim's every other obligation- familial, civic, or merely national- Gandhi, not Jinnah, sowed the seeds of a theocratic trajectory for a future Muslim state on Indian Soil. Nor did the deal with the Khilafatis make strategic sense for Congress. The British could always square the Guardian of the Two Holy cities- indeed they signed a treaty with Ibn Saud in 1927- and thus a tactical alliance with the Khilafatis was a but paper umbrella for Congress. However, what Gandhi achieved was the replacement of the British interessment mechanism for communal harmony by an interessement mechanism which maximized his own obligatory passage point status which is why, he remains and will always remain a name to conjure with when Team Anna are but as the roses of yesteryear..
3) Because Gandhi's every problematization- not just w.r.t to Hindus and Muslims but also Labour and Capital, Dalits and Casteist Dicks, etc, etc- was so totally and radically fucked in the head and because he was also utter shit as a negotiator- everybody ended up frozen w.r.t him. But, since they were frozen w.r.t him, he became the Schelling focal point, under conditions of Djikstra Concurrency dead-lock, for everybody because everybody's behaviour became predictable in his ambit. Interestingly all Policy Actors (as opposed to Agents) got a pay-out from Gandhi's Interessement mechanism - he truly was all things to all men- but only because his problematizatons were madly and magnificently fucked.

This shouldn't surprise us. Policy Acting has better pay-off than Principal Agency when a very very fucking stupid problematization prevents fruitful interaction and horse-trading by reason of frozen Interessement roles.

Gandhi was a March Hare claiming to be a greyhound (Race you to Swaraj, Annie Beasant, you fat old Irish peasant!) who nevertheless paid out big for, not John Q Punter, but canny book-makers. The Capitalists got Tarrif protection and a corrupt deal with Manchester. The Manuvadi nutjobs got praise for the fucking Caste System. The Congress Dalits got to see the book-smart Ambedkar, whose program would be good for all Indians- not some particular patronage nexus- bypassed and corralled.
In Gandhi, the Indian Marxists have their Tolstoy, of whom Lenin said, he more than any other paved the way for the 1905 Revolution which is why Stalin didn't kill Chertkov (Tolstoy's chamcha) but kept him in comfort during the hungry Thirties. Gandhi shows again and again that the bourgeoisie are fucking worthless shitholes who betray any mass-movement they themselves set in motion. Not just Gandhi- Vinobha with his bogus Boodhan and 'Bihardhan' and my-boot-up-your-arse-dhan (Bhave supported the Emergency)- and J.P's stupid sampoorna kranti and so on, every fucking Gandhian initiative is manna from Heaven to the Marxists.

What should Team Anna have done differently?

Die. Hunger strike and fucking die already. Come back to life by all means- like India needs more zombie politicians- but please, for God's sake, give Death a chance. You know you want to. Also could somebody please please just murli Manohar Joshi and, like take a video of him being murli'd and put it up on You Tube?

Kaushik's Basu's 'Crossings at Benares Junction'

2012-02-01T10:36:00.000Z

Funniest line ever in an Indglish play-
Mr. Gosh- 'National bard of India is not Rabindranath Tagore. Peacock is the correct answer."

Prof Kaushik Basu, the contriver of the 'Traveler's dilemma' as a critique of 'backwards induction' in Game theory has also written a hilarious little play - Crossings at Benares Junction' which combines old fashioned romanticism with game theoretic insights into intentionality and ethics.

Basu’s protagonist is a 39 year old bachelor, Siddharta, a professor of philosophy, who has just won an International prize and, as such, for complex socio-biological reasons, has suddenly become the ultimate matrimonial trophy for brainy women on the prowl for- I will not say Bengali beefcake, as that would be culturally insensitive- but a slippery, cerebral, hilsa like husband from the right side of the Hoogly.

In the first scene, the improbably named Melba Iyengar- an ambitious philosophy lecturer/documentary film-maker, who combines the emotional crassness of her generation (she is in her late 20’s) with the cultural illiteracy and naked careerism of the bien pensant N.G.O do-goodniks- makes indelicate advances to our blushing Bengali boy.
(En passant- I may note the curious attribution of sexual aggression to Iyengar females in Indglish fiction- vide Shoba De, Mukul Kesavan but not, I hasten to add, my own 'Samlee's daughter')

Miss Iyengar presses her suit on Siddhart using two powerful arguments. Firstly, the fact that if he proposes she is sure to say yes- thus greatly increasing the expected value of proposing. Secondly, three other people are competing for her hand. By delaying proposing, Siddharta keeps three others waiting in limbo.

Hence, altruism would dictate proposing sooner rather than later so that three other men can get on with their lives.

Siddharta has till now played a stoic’s part- as indicated by his choice of Hindi song to play on the stereo.

Mai.N Zi.Ndagii Kaa Saath Nibhaataa Chalaa Gayaa
Har Fikr Ko Dhu.Ne.N Me.N U.Daataa Chalaa Gayaa

Barabaadiyo.N Kaa Soz Manaanaa Fizuul Thaa \- 2
Barabaadiyo.N Kaa Jashn Manaataa Chalaa Gayaa
Mai.N Zi.Ndagii...

Jo Mil Gayaa Usii Ko Muqaddar Samajh Liyaa \- 2
Jo Kho Gayaa Mai.N Usako Bhulaataa Chalaa Gayaa
Mai.N Zi.Ndagii...

Gam Aur Khushii Me.N Fark Na Mahasuus Ho Jahaa.N \- 2
Mai.N Dil Ko Us Muqaam Pe Laataa Chalaa Gayaa
Mai.N Zi.Ndagii...

I went on my way keeping faith with Life

Blowing away anxieties like smoke from a cigarette

Grief over disasters is a futile thing

I celebrated my calamities along life’s way

Whatever I received, I considered my fated portion

Whatever I lost, I resolved to forget and move on

I move my heart towards that (mystic) station where sorrow and joy are indistinguishable

He parries Melba’s crass attempt at seduction by claiming, firstly, that he is not at all sure that she will not reject him if he proposes and, secondly, that her mention of three other suitors is 'double counting' since only one of them could have her. This is a disingenuous argument, since Melba's point was about a duty to minimize the total waiting time of the other suitors- that being the only opportunity cost that arises where a woman is determined to marry a particular man and the fellow is dragging his heels.
Siddharta, clearly, is either really stupid or clever enough to appear so when his happiness is at stake- in other words, the man is a born philosopher.

Fortunately, the arrival of other guests prevents Melba from raping the hero, thus ‘ruining’ him and leaving him no option but marriage to his assailant- so backward is Bharat, such things happening all the time, I yam telling you- simply to save his family’s izzat.

In the next Act, we meet Siddharta’s lost love- June. Or so we conclude from Siddharta’s choice of song.

June points out, she was almost ten years older than him and did the right thing in marrying a pompous ass of an academic closer to herself in age. She counsels Siddharta to marry, to trust in God, and keep promises.

‘Nibhana’- to abide by a commitment- is a key value expressed in the two songs- from the Dev Anand vehicle ‘Hum Donon’- Siddharta has played so far. Since the lyricist was Sahir Ludhianvi we see that both faithfulness in love and integrity in political engagement are meant. In this case, resistance to Right Wing Hindutva hooliganism is the righteous path.

Siddharta had promised God that he would give thanks in a temple if he gets the prize, but he is agnostic not only about God but also about the value of Prizes and- more to the point- the incentive compatibility of Marriage as an institution. Yet he is lonely. He has to ‘go out into the dark night’ not from fear of God but because fear is the biggest sin.

Here the text is a little unclear- is there a temple in ‘Plaza gardens’ or is there to be a political demonstration there, or is it a place to meet girls?- so we can’t be sure exactly what June is counseling Siddharta to do.

Siddharta announces that he is not a coward. He will walk out into the dark night. He is prepared to take the risk.

Siddharta’s dilemma is the classic Romantic dilemma- most fully realized in Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa- whereby ‘a boy loves with his full heart, a man loves with a full stomach’ (Kipling). However, the boy with the full heart can’t feed the beloved. She marries the fat older guy. But what happens when, a few years down the line, the boy wins a big prize and becomes an attractive prospect? How can he get a bride after his own heart rather than the full wallet that nestles against it?

The problematic that where meaning is gamed, where emotions are strategic, where the subject matter of both epistemology and Aristotelian ethics- in other words both Knowledge and ‘Character’- are in flux for defined, as it were, by backward induction from the reference point of a mercenary, memoryless, game- then it is not only the fraudulent ‘businessman’ but also the scholar, the lover, the spouse, everybody in every relationship, who keeps going only by introducing more and more chaos into the system- but that system itself a Ponzi scheme that feeds off its own ever widening circle of ruination to make itself the only game in town…

The one rather artificial assumption in the above is that modern life is a memoryless- i.e hysteresis free- game. Siddharta is worried by what happens if things suddenly stop- how can the world suddenly start up again.

Siddharth: I have not thought it through well enough to know the answer myself. But see, if everything stops, the earth, you, the protons and atoms inside you and inside me… everything. It does seem obvious, right? That things cannot re-start again?

One way to reason is that whatever happens at any time is caused by the state of the world just before that. Now, if the world is motionless for some time, no matter how brief, there is a time when the world is motionless and just before that the world was motionless. Hence, motionlessness causes motionlessness. Hence, once there is no motion, there cannot be any motion.

This has lots of interesting implications. It means that we can never invent a TV set that can switch itself on. If it does, it is because we have programmed that in and there are small actions occurring inside it all the time. (Pause) What I wonder is, are we reaching this conclusion purely by deduction, or is this just a fact of life — that motion cannot come out of motionlessness.

Kavita: The fact that you reach this conclusion without ever having experienced the stoppage of everything suggests, doesn’t it, that you come to this conclusion by deduction.

Siddharth stares at her in disbelief.

Siddharth: Are you a philosopher? I am sorry to inflict this trivia on you…

Kavita: No, but I was taught philosophy. In fact, by you — at NDU.

Siddharth: Really?

More generally, from chemical clocks & Conway's game of life and so on, we are thoroughly familiar with the notion that 'everything can stop'- or more precisely 'nothing happening' occurs for any given number of time periods before novelty starts to appear or things to start up again. In other words, for any given specifiable world state there is a cellular automata model such that everything stops at time t and everything starts up again at time t+i.

Thus, Siddharta's puzzling over this is either the author justifying an implausible assumption- viz. the trope of a memoryless game- or else it is a pointer to the protagonist's emotional state. Well, d'uh, it is both- so that's okay.

Basu’s delightful, Shavian, jeu d’esprit has a happy ending and will be appreciated by all who read it. Except, of course, it would be even more fun to watch in an auditorium. And if anyone asks-
'Enjoying?'
'Simply!"
- will be my reply.

Gier on Matilal on Virtue Ethics

2012-01-30T11:47:00.012Z

This is Gier on Matilal's 'Epic and Ethics'-

'Matilal finds a caricature of Kantianism in R¹ma, whose inflexibility with regard to duty leads to absurd and/or harsh decisions. As Matilal quips: "Rama's dharma was rigid; Kant's was flaccid."[35] Even though he was encouraged to do so by the sage Jabali, Rama was not going to break a promise, even if it meant that he could regain his kingdom and avoid 14 years of exile. One of Rama's lame excuses for shooting Valin in the back was that a person has no duties to animals, Valin being a member of Hanuman's monkey army. (Kant held that mistreatment of animals was blameworthy at least as a reflection of the person's character.) Rama's extreme interpretation of a wife's duty to her husband has led generations of Indian women to conform to an impossible ideal. Following Sati's example, Indian women are required to stay with their husbands no matter what they ask of them and no matter how much they are abused.'

Why is this fucked?
The Ramayana is a widely available text- you might try reading it if you're going to write about it. What was 'Ram's extreme idea of a wife's duty to her husband?'- The answer is that she is free to leave him and then marry anyone or simply fornicate with anyone who takes her fancy. Ram actually tells Seeta she is free to marry his own brother, Laxman, or the demon King, Vibishina, or the Vanar King, Sugriva (this forecloses the possibility of their appealing against Sita's decision to commit Suttee, because they will immediately be upbraided by that wrathful lady- who, consistent with Universal Dharma- gets the last word and upstages everybody) or that she may just go off on her own wherever she might please, even though Ram had just expended a lot of blood and treasure to get her back.
Rama is saying a woman whose husband is living can, if he abandons her, marry whom she wills- even his own brother or someone of an enemy race or different status. There is absolutely no evidence that Ram held that a woman's duty is to stay with a husband who mistreats her. Gier, whose personal Virtue Ethic does not include being truthful, says ' , Indian women are required to stay with their husbands no matter what they ask of them and no matter how much they are abused.' I am Indian and though not a woman have a sharp temper and often sing 'main maike chali jaunge, tu dekhte rahiyo' while in the shower to hint at my displeasure with my domestic arrangements. Women are not required to stay with their husbands if they feel someone or other has insulted them or put their nose out of joint or failed to lavish compliments etc. and are constantly traipsing off to their 'maike' for a nice holiday. I recall reading a book by Wendy O'Doniger Flaherty in which she wrote 'The South Indian Brahmin female bites off the penis of her husband before beheading him' - which was the basis of my own refusal to marry within my caste, which was just as well because, ever since the invention of contact lenses, even the vainest of our myopic Iyer girls have been turning up their noses at me. However, Gier's statement that Indian women will stay with their husbands even if they are mistreated is even more misleading- indeed, it is potentially fatal! The husband of that heroine of Hindutva, Rajini Narayan, must have been reading Gier when he called his wife a 'fat, dumb, bitch' when she purified his penis with fire, according to an ancient Hindu custom (invented, presumably, by Wendy O'Doniger) and burnt the fellow to death.
No doubt, Gier will blame Ram for this and amend his statement to read 'Indian women are required to stay with their husbands no matter how much they are abused because Lord Ram said they have a duty to purify their husband's penis with fire and burn the fellow to ashes- unless, of course, they are South Indian Brahmin females, in which case as Prof. Wendy O'Doniger has pointed out their duty is to bite off their consort's penis before neatly beheading the fellow. This is because Rama had a 'rigid' Virtue Ethics whereas Kant had a 'flaccid' one.'
Gier and Matilal fail to spot that, according to the Ramayana, Rama was God. There was some stuff he had ordained for himself to do, but ordained that he do all unawares, e.g. kill such and such devotee so that devotee might gain immediate union with the Godhead and so on. There is a perfectly coherent philosophical position- Occassionalism- which fully describes the universe of the Ramayana. As for the dramatic portions pertaining to Dharma- this arises from what we may call not just Agency Hazard but Policy Actor Hazard.
But, Matilal and Gier- being philosophers and therefore under occultation w.r.t the text (in Matilal's case) they have read in the original- ignore facts like this and write worthless shite.

Gier is much taken with this 'insight' of his-

The Buddha once said that "they who know causation know the dharma,"[44] a great example of how dharma, as J. N. Mohanty observes, connects "what one ought and what in fact is."[45] This happy violation of the Humean prohibition of deriving an Ought from an Is demonstrates how virtues are derived from the facts of our personal histories and how this contextualizes all moral decision-making. The famous "mirror of dharma" is not a common one in which individual identities are dissolved, as some later Buddhist believed, but it is actually a myriad of mirrors reflecting individual histories. The truths they discover in their mirrors will be very personal truths, moral and spiritual truths that are, as Aristotle says of moral virtues, "relative to us."

Why is this fucked?
Dharma aint a happy violation of a Humean prohibition on deriving deontics from alethics. Maybe the Professor was thinking of Jack Kerouac's 'Dharma Bums' or something. It does not concern itself with 'the facts of our personal histories' at all. No statement re. dharma or vyavahara takes the form 'reflection on my personal history leads me to hold that such and such is enjoined on me'. On the contrary, we have statements of the order 'the seers have laid down x, y, z' or 'Scripture says x, y, z' or, as in the story of Yuddishtra and the demon of the pool, a particular question- viz which of the Pandavas is to be brought back to life- is answered by applying a Universal maxim re. 'paro dharma' (the higher duty) such that the King chooses a half-brother rather than a full brother to be brought back to life.

Buddhism is a one period universe- kshanika vada- there isn't any time to discover anything and, no matter how many mirrors are all busy reflecting away, not time to look at them. There's only time enough for an intention to exist-Chetana ham bhikkhave kamam vadami. Chetyitva kammam karoti kaena vacha manasa- nothing else.

Neither an occassionalist not a momentary universe permits the drawing of the sort of conclusions Gier and Matilal arrive at.

The truth is talk of Morality and Ethics is worthless shite and has always been recognised as worthless shite. People who talk it are immediately recognized as fuckwits, frauds or murderous fanatics. The only categorical imperative that isn't fucked is to repay cunt pi-jaw gobshites in their own coin.

Gier says- Matilal's insights now allows me to do something that I thought that I could not do in my own comparative virtue ethics--namely, to add Krishna to the Buddha, Confucius, and Aristotle. The problem of course is that Krishna appears to be the least virtuous person in this list and can hardly be seen as practitioner of the Middle Way. Nonetheless, Matilal declares that his "dark Lord" as a "paradigmatic person . . . in the moral field," who "becomes a perspectivist and understands the contingency of the human situation,"[49] both necessary elements of virtue ethics. He also describes him, as opposed to the rigid Rama or Yudhishtra, as an "imaginative poet" in the moral realm: "He is the poet who accepts the constraints of metres, verses, and metaphors. But he is also the strong poet who has absolute control over them. . . . He governs from above but does not dictate." This guarantees that Krishna 's "flexibility never means the 'anything goes' kind of morality."[50]

Why is this fucked?

Krishna spends a lot of time telling us that he is the only efficient cause. His Creation is an Occassionalist Universe but he isn't its 'strong poet'. Rather, as he declares,
muninam apy aham vyasah
kavinam usana kavih
he is the sort of muni-kavi whose Shukra seeds Shuka who, having gone beyond that other Krishna, Vyasa, already leaves him behind, though at the morning of the world, mourning and bereft.

What actually happens in the Bhagvad Gita, is a discussion of Agency Hazard because, to preserve symmetry and 'balance the Game', both Krishna and Arjuna are Agents not Principals. Ultimately, Krishna offers himself up as sacrifice. He slays himself. The Mahabharata shows that even if a work is so constructed as to conserve karma and dharma as symmetries of the system, that system can't be purely relationist and must cash out as a substantivalism.

Gier proposes a sort of aesthetic autonomy in which virtue ethics has a domain and therefore some content. The problem here is that it really isn't true that any aesthetic degree of freedom is good or bad by itself. Auerbach, in his Mimesis, shows that the opposite is the case. Rasabhasa- the use of low style for high matter or the reverse- drives precisely the same process that Gier valorizes- viz. self-discovery within a relationist field of interacting reals.

the fine arts, I believe, give us a very rich analogue for the development and performance of the virtues. Most significantly, this analogy allows us to confirm both normativity and creative individuality at the same time. Even within the most duty bound roles one can easily conceive of a unique "making one's own." Even though the Confucians must have had a set choreography for their dances, one can imagine each of them having their own distinctive style. The score for a violin concerto is the same for all who perform it, but each virtuoso will play it in a unique way. The best judges have the same law before them and yet one can detect the creative marks of judicial craft excellence. Even the younger brother who defers to his elder brother will have his own style of performing this duty, his own dharma (svadharma).

Yes, but the point about playing the fucking violin is that, sooner or later, you evolve into a coke-head Nigel Kennedy type and get jiggy with like Spice Girls or summat. For all Art aspires to the condition of Music and Music aspires to banging groupies in your limo while off your head on coke.

As opposed to a rule based ethics, where the most that we can know is that we always fall short of the norm, virtue ethics is truly a voyage of personal discovery.

So true! Virtue ethics is about Harry Potter discovering his wand really is magic if he rubs it. However, this voyage of personal discovery has to end when he finally works out where to put it so it will do most good (I believe it was in Ron Beezley's sister- yuck-eee!) and engender future generations of young wizards who go off to Hogwarts to play with their wands.
Gier, whose oeuvre, like Simmel, is a manic protestation against the universal ontological dysphoria his own project virtuously discloses, ends on this lapidary note-
'Virtue ethics is emulative--using the sage or savior as a model for virtue--whereas rule ethics involves conformity and obedience. The emulative approach engages the imagination and personalizes and thoroughly grounds individual moral action and responsibility. Such an ethics naturally lends itself to Matilal's moral poets and a virtue aesthetics: the crafting of a good and beautiful soul, a unique gem among other gems.'
This reminds me of a T-shirt I saw in the gym the other day- Idaho? No u da Ho!
Says it all really.

Zhdanov & Aurangazeb

2012-01-29T23:40:00.001Z

So Armenian clay enrich Kremlin earth

Zdhnanov seconds Sarmad's birth

& a Gayane ballet to Aurangzeb

The Holy Quran in Abu Ghraib

Violence is a Virtue Ethics II- tale of the Tiger cub

2012-01-27T17:27:00.000Z

This is from Prof. Gier's silly book 'The virtue of non-violence'

Prof Gier aint an Indologist so, fair play to him, his error here isn't what damns his book. Gandhi, like me, knows the story of the tiger (or lion) not from the Pancatantra but from the Jain

As I explain, in my book Samlee's daughter, Jainism which, unlike Buddhism, does actually have a relationist dynamic (parinami dravya)- that too one featuring discrete selves unable to directly participate or operate on other selves- uses the parable of the tiger cub to show that our instinct to show reverence to the Arhat arises not from his/her manifest superiority, or the hope of blessings or magical help from him or her, but- rather- from the feeling that we too belong to the same species as the Arhat. The tiger cub, instinctively showing affection to the Tiger he has scented but never before seen, sets in motion by that 'innate releasing mechanism' the process of learning how to be a Tiger. Thus, though visiting the Jain Ashram, this worthless Iyer too went around prostrating himself at the feet of the slower moving Sadhavis, the fact is there was nothing hypocritical or self-seeking or superstitious about such behaviour.

Prof. Gier thinks Tiger means 'Violent person' and sheep means 'non-violent person'. This is not the case. Amongst human beings, there is one class known as 'Tigers-amongst-men'. In Sanskrit they are called Kshatriyas. They don't go round killing for the sake of it, but they never refuse a fair fight- i.e. one where there is an at least 50-50 chance of being killed. That's why this class whose duty is Violence, developed a Virtue Ethic of Violence whose dynamic result (parninami dravya) is called Ahimsa or Anurashamsya. Notice, every Jain Tirthankar- except Mahavir- began life in a Kshatriya womb. Mahavir, too was born from a Kshatriya womb, but he started life in a Brahmin womb till somebody upstairs realized that it would never do for a Tirthankar- a, by definition, Tiger-among-sheep- to be born from the same sort of womb as, albeit black sheepishly, yours truly.

(Incidentally, I may mention a homology with Nund Reshi's (Hazrat Noorudin Wali) nativity story such as who runs may read.)

Gandhiji- a good guy, a loving guy, NOT a fucking stick to beat us Indians with if we want the same toys other kids have- had the great good fortune to meet and know Raichandbhai Mehta (Srimad Rajachandra) and thus Gier should be referencing His Holiness's view of samyaktva rather than some crap faux Buddhist shite. My point is, Jains only insist on proper Monastic habilitation because of the hubris related risk of pursuing austerities on one's own. This is different from the faux Buddhist notion- like Steven Segal being a fucking Tulku- that becoming a Monk means you're better than other people. Jain laymen (shravaks), like H.H. Rajachandra or Banarsidas etc, have, I believe, become perfected such that sallekhana for them, once they had out-worn their body, is not distasteful or horrifying.

The Buddha is supposed to have said about Jainism 'a frightful (ghora) religion is born!' But compare Jainism's death by 'Sallekhana' -self-starvation to halt the ingress of karma binding particles- to Japanese Buddhism's Sokushinbutsu, a truly horrendous process drawn out over many years of self-mummification by starvation, arsenic poisoning and being buried alive in a sepulchre.

There's a free book on the internet called 'Stripping the Gurus' which has plenty to say about Buddhist and Hindu and (thankfully, just the one!) Sikh charlatans. There is a Jain in it too. Rajneesh. But that cunt was never fucking Jain- though he was bright enough- and ended his life calling himself 'Osho' which is Japanese for 'fuck you very much and gimme a Rolls Royce already.'

I'm not saying Buddhism aint just as good as any other religion. To be frank, I am emotionally closer to Tibetan Buddhism than any other tradition. I recall I had gone to take the blessing of a Seer of my community and completely forgot to touch his feet or do anything other than receive hug and avuncular kindness and invitation to sit and eat plentiful mor'r corrumbe and katrika curry and applam and so on. Anyway, only because I am tolerant of all Religions, I ate up everything in sight and even forgot to demand beef steak and tumbler of whiskey-soda.

Still, my aggressive instinct (such as black sheep harbour against nice Tigers) and malevolence towards Spiritual Religion had not been appeased so, by the Grace of Kali Marx, just as I came onto the tube platform for my journey home, I saw in the distance a Tibetan Lama! I ran towards him because a train was approaching. The old Monk was accompanied by a younger Tibetan gentleman in a business suit. He was not large and may have become frightened that I was a black 'mugger' or 'nutjob' or something. Anyway, I prostrated to the Monk and got into Tube with them in a breathless condition. The old monk looked at me with eyes like grandmother's. I suppose, all these so-called Holy Men are just our old granny in an accessible form who are too shy to ask if you are eating enough and become perfectly happy when they see you are actually rather fat and, far from having become Sophisticated, have remained 'unspoilt' by the West and are actually stupider and more naive than when you left home.

Truth is, I came to Sikkim when I was about six or seven months old and stayed there till about the age of three. Thus my first religion is Tibetan Buddhism. My connection to my ancestral deity (Parani Appa- i.e. Muruga/ Kartikeya) would only begin with my head shaving ceremony when I was about four years old.

As you may know, the criticism of my sect (Advaita) is that we are 'crypto-Buddhist'. This is like saying Father is Crypto-Mamma because, in Mum's absence, suddenly Daddy is taking pleasure in cooking and cleaning and kissing away any boo-boo that might arise in the course of rambunctious play. No doubt, on Mum's return, Dad will resume his hearty male characteristics. I would certainly refuse to take food, or good night kiss, from Dad if Mum is available. Similarly, though Mum is welcome to correct my English- only Dad is permitted to intervene in 'male' subjects like Maths and Hindi (it was believed that Tamil boys could never learn good Hindi- which was the Army language and hence Male) unless Dad is out of station in which case Mum would assume an 'Indira Gandhi' expression and come and supervise such studies.

I like you am descended from 'crypto-Mum' males. Yet, these men knew that their beloved wife could only give birth at the risk of her own life. The act of love worked a horrible violence. Better, ours should be a 'white marriage'. You enter a Nunnery, I will become a Monk.

But that non-violence is a violence against the unborn.

So, because the Love whereby our species propagates itself is a symmetric, balanced game, violent agon, 'tis fair that, by wedding, we imperil our All Fair.

Violence is a Virtue Ethics.

2012-01-26T17:10:00.011Z

Dipping into this book by Nicholas Gier got me thinking- you heard me right folks, I said thinking not drinking- has there ever been a philosopher or prophet or politician or any other sort of fuckwit whatsoever who has actually advocated Violence?
Hilter? No he denounced violent opposition to himself in very vehement terms. Genghis Khan? No, he greatly disapproved of violent opposition to himself and delivered great masses of people from this detestable vice.
Hitler never used violent means to secure his aim- viz. the end of violent opposition to himself. He never actually shot anybody or slapped anybody or even knifed them a little bit. Those who were already violent removed others- violent or not- whose counsel, example, or sanctity derived by mere continued existence, might have led them to violently oppose Hitler. In other words Violence used itself as the means to come to the particular state of absolute and eternal non-violence that Hitler enjoined.
It may be true that a good end can not be achieved by bad means. But, nothing enjoins an officious striving to prevent a bad end frustrating itself by bad means such that a good end is achieved, albeit with little or no assistance from good means.
We can turn any historical figure, no matter how brutal or blood-soaked, into a champion of non-violence by positing him or her to be a mere Kagemusha, or shadow warrior, to the true protagonist, occulted by the chronicles, who wills that non-violent end state which violence aims at.

Assuming brain modularity, Agency hazard (of the sort mentioned above) arises in even a one person, one time period, model. Any argument against what I'm saying here is going to have to admit that it assumes, and thus only has relevance to, a world where brains didn't evolve and look nothing our own. But, even so, such arguments are wasted words coz of the Thomas Nagel Bat problem.
What about a theory of Violence as a Virtue Ethics? What would a philosopher of violence look like? No, not Nietzche- give the guy a break, he was a syphilitic lunatic, not to say German philologist, and thus mentally incompetent to impose a poset on what he valorized- but maybe Merlin's King Arthur or some such mythical beast who insists every moral or non alethic issue or question be settled only by violence. This would need to be a violent agon, otherwise there is no partial ordering of states of the world signified by the word Violence. To see why consider the following case- I cut your throat after you have stuck your head under a guillotine and let fall the blade. If you did this to escape my knife, I still am credited with a lot of violence. If however you did it for some other reason and neither knew or cared about my plan to cut your throat- the amount of violence I have actually perpetrated is considerably diminished. Essentially, the more causal chains having bearing on us both, the more difficult it will be to establish a partial ordering of states of the world such that Violence can be measured or states of the world ranked with respect to its criteria. In practise, the only tractable way to establish a Violence metric is to recast every interaction as a 2 person violence agon- even if it is both multi-agent as well as diachronous- with some ad hoc formula for working out the contribution of each agent at different times. (This is Newtonian substantivism as opposed to the mirage of Leibnizian relationism.)
But even with a pure two person violent agon the problem arises that I won't fight unless I get a positive Expected value for the Outcome- so there has to be a reward and a threshold probability of winning that reward. You may say, well, I'll kill you if you don't fight. But, all that then happens is, I choose the option that minimizes my own pain and suffering, not the one that maximizes the amount of violence I do and/or provoke. So, if Violence- as opposed to a utilitarian calculus of costs and benefits arising out of perceived tastes and potentials for violence- is going to be in a position to actually to decide anything of moral or non alethic import- i.e. if it is to be a virtue ethics- it has to ensure two things
1) Symmetry and 'Balanced Gaming' ( Notice Non-Violence does not demand Symmetry for its practice- thus it throws away information and is dissipative) Formally this means all violent conflicts must have random outcomes- assuming all agents are risk neutral.
However, suppose Iyers are more cowardly than Iyengars- this is empirically true of Iyer males when matched against Iyengar females- then Iyengars must be suitably handicapped (I suggest they not be allowed to pull my hair or punch me in the fatty portion of my arm) and Iyers properly armed and armoured. (I am a strict upholder of the Feminist principle that it is sexist to treat women with Chivalry as opposed to Artillery)

2) Impredicative Pareto efficiency- the setting up of the conflict situation must involve an outward shift in the production possibility frontier such that both parties to the violence can, at least theoretically, be made better off. In other words the purse for the prize fight must always exceed the sum of losses on both sides. Suppose, the reverse were the case- e.g. I say you and your sister must fight each other to the death to decide who gets the hush money you are extorting from me for not telling your Mum and Dad that I let you stay up with me to watch 'Frightnight' even though they'd specifically said I wasn't allowed to watch it coz it makes me pee the bed and what sort of babysitters are they sending us nowadays anyway?
The problem is, to make sure you and your sister actually fight each other to the death, I have to import extra violence into the scenario. There has to be a credible threat that you will both die more painful and lingering deaths by refusing combat. But, from the first principle (viz Symmetry) this extra violence can't arise. Thus, unlike Non-Violence or Justice as Fairness or other such pi jaw, Violence as Virtue Ethics is impredicatively Pareto efficient.

But, if these two conditions are satisfied then- for the first time in its life- Ethics would actually yield something Ethical. Thus, not only is Violence (as opposed to non-violence) a Virtue Ethics- it is the only Virtue Ethics which don't fuck things up big time.

This is a snippet from Gier's book which invokes the always hilarious Raghavan Iyer-

This sort of psilosophy- funny though it is- only works by ignoring the obvious, context specific, FACTS- to wit, Buddhism is fucked in the head coz it says being a Buddhist monk is a good thing and everybody should want to be re-born as a Buddhist monk so as to then get to be not re-born at all.

Prof. Gier ignores this, the kerygmatic kernel of Buddhism. Instead he substitutes this fantasy of his own -The Buddha's famous statement "a person who sees causation, sees the Dharma" implies that we know how to act, not because of abstract rules, but because of our causal past and circumstances. The "mirror of dharma" is not a common one that we all look into together, but it is actually a myriad of mirrors reflecting individual histories. Maintaining the essential link between fact and value, just as Greek virtue ethics did, the Buddha demonstrated that the truth about our causal relations dictates the good that we ought to do.'

Buddhism subscribes to kshanika vada- the doctrine of momentariness. What Buddha saw in Causation and what he pronounced as Dharma is that there is no past, no future, there is just this bare and empty moment briefly illumined by the thunderbolt of the intention. It is this bizarre feature of Buddhist ontology which permits its relationism. But this is a sham relationism because it is excused not being able to found a dynamic because it is always a one period Universe. You can have relationism in a multi period Universe- like that of Malebranche or Leibniz- but then you have pure Occassionalism. God does everything. I don't know if Gier gets why a tractable relationist dynamic is a pie in the sky we'd all dearly love to eat coz it would solve every computing or physics or whatever problem- but, sure, if Buddhism or Gandhism or some such shit actually has solved this problem then yes we all need to study it and that really would be a non-shite Ethics. But it's a pipe dream is all it is. Gandhi's contemporaries knew Gandhi was a fuckwit, just as I know Maharishi Mahesh Yogi or the hilarious weight-lifting Chinmoy and so on were either mad or bad or both. Gier is saying Buddhism has solved the concurrency problem for a relational dynamics. But this is no different from saying Maharishi actually discovered how to levitate and also how to make Yogic levitation help end War. I can't prove it isn't true, its just that if it is true than the Buddhists are mean spirited bastards coz they could totally revolutionize physics and medical science and Econ and computing and so on instead of just passing round the begging bowl all the time.

The more charitable explanation, of course, is that all these so called Virtue ethics isms are just plain deluded, degenerate or disingenuous .

Certainly there is a bunch of lies one can tell at this moment, if one is a well intentioned little Buddha, which paint a picture, ad captum vulgi, of like how being nice and anger management and being sure to give lots of money to Buddhist monks is the way you'll get to be re-born as one and take it from me that's actually a good thing coz then you get a shot at an all expenses paid one way ticket to Nirvana-land! Yey!

Reality check, Prof Gier! Buddhist monks aint necessarily nice guys- they boast their share of arrogant fuckwits who get off on genocide same as Croatian Franciscans or Cambodian Khmer Rouge nutjobs or those Lord's Army loonytoons in Uganda.

Buddhism is fucked coz it disingenuously markets itself as Transmigration based though Transmigration is just a fairy tale; I really wasn't Queen Cleopatra in my last life. I just made that up so as to get out of doing the washing up is all. Buddhism, like every other Religion, Ideology or faked Mental Illness is a bunch of stupid lies strung together by parasitical cunts who get off on feeling superior to everybody else. To say Gandhi- a narcissistic fuckwit who believed crap, talked crap, and was a massive turd- was more of a Buddhist fuckwit turd than a Hindu fuckwit turd is silly.

Shit is shit. We all produce it. None of us, at the margin, are obliged to consume it. At least, not once we understand Violence is Virtue Ethics.

Remember the peasants of Wardha? When Gandhi's Ashramites tried fucking with them, they told them to fuck off. This is Violence as Virtue ethics- you don't pull a gun in a knife fight, you don't shoot Gandhi unless he's drawn his pistol and has taken aim and so the outcome isn't a foregone conclusion. When these fuckwits start telling lies and pretending what they are doing is philosophy, tell lies and pretend you're a philosopher- true, the stupider one will win, but, with all humility, admit to yourself- it mightn't be you.

Valentine's Day is anti Hindu.

2012-01-23T16:06:00.001Z

Valentine's Day is nothing but a Christian Conspiracy aimed at destroying Hindutva by encouraging lechery, promiscuity and Carbon Dating. When I was young man- no Carbon Dating Shating- just Carbon was getting monogamously hitched to Oxygen and staying home to poison the childrens.

Personally, I blame Sumit Sarkar

That boy aint right.

Sokushinbutsu.

2012-01-19T18:53:00.008Z

Sokushinbutsu

To her whose mode of Being was Beauty

Whose charm of life, but Charm

Death is derelict to its Duty

& Hestia hapless to harm.

So Momus carp at Hephaistos' Art

No window has Man to the heart

Yet I, my Mum's mere gestate

Thus am marred & defenestrate.

Tear born Tara suckles all Thus Gone
To self-mummify Mum was I thus born?
Her love, milk- more!- the river of stars
Mine, arsenic, drunk dial'd from bars

Tara

a Sokushinbutsu

Anti-Auerbach

2012-01-17T12:18:00.030Z

Slaves wait on Suitors who, Zoilist, on a Shroud bare wait

& Ulysses burns heartsick, return'd in beggar's disguise

ad modum Momus, if Helen, Hestial Mammaries fenestrate

Not Eurycleia can, as scar, its Adonis recognise

Just coz 2 major fuckwits, Goethe and Schiller, exchanged letters on a related topic- Auerbach, bad Jew, Homeric Xenophile of a but Zoilist Zion, have-a-fucking-doner-kebab-and-chill-already-Auerbach tells us the following in the first chapter of his 'Mimesis'- re. the supposed 'retardation'- i.e. the absence of suspense, of drama- in the detailed, pixel for pixel, manner Homer stages stuff.

'Homer does not omit to tell the reader that it is with his right hand that Odysseus takes the old woman by the throat to keep her from speaking, at the same time that he draws her closer to him with his left. Clearly outlined, brightly and uniformly illuminated, men and things stand out in a realm where everything is visible; and not less clear- wholly expressed, orderly even in their ardour- are the feelings and thoughts of the persons involved.'

Why is this fuckwitted?

Odysseus had two Moms. One, heartbroken & dead, whose name means 'Anti-fame' and the other, 'Broad-fame' whom Daddy Laertes never fucked for fear of 'Anti-fame' but retained as Odysseus's ayah or mothering Mom.

Adonis too had two Moms and died in a boar hunt- Odysseus's scar was received in a boar hunt- both have been to Hades- Adonis's foster Mom was the Queen of the Underworld and she liked him so much she wanted to keep him...fuck you! Goethe, Schiller, Auerbach et al- there's no retardation in Homer, it's you who are fucking retarded. Mimesis indeed!

Speaking for myself, I'm a genuine retard and crap poetaster but all who return home to where, so to speak, a shroud is being woven- however lovingly- by homely Penelopes- but that shroud for one's dear dear dad and one has returned- tho' from Bilayat with British pounds overspilling one's pockets- only as a beggar, that too in disguise, and though yet Adonis to any Mom's eyes- with my right hand I will grip her throat and with my left hand draw her close- coz Death aint binary and Dads mustn't die.

Laertes don't fucking die in the Odyssey. Those who waited for his death- they do!

Homer aint a book for a Zoilus or (still Zoilist)fuckwit Vico to shit upon.
Homer is our heart and let me tell you,Homer dun bin good people mate. In the old days, 'fore there were camera phones and Skype and so on- when you left home you took a picture of your loved ones- it was a generic picture, everybody had just the one picture- but looking it at you saw your own people yaar. Black peeps could be looking at Whitey's family- instead of your hut it could be Buckfuckingham Palace- but that didn't matter, what mattered was the details in the picture- its pixel for pixel hi def versimilitude and fractal, white hole, reverse mereology.

'Course, I'm not saying Auerbach was totally stupid. After all, he was writing only about 'Western' shitheads. How he supposed to know lots of us Black dudes were gonna start getting born in Europe- in my case, Bonn?

Forgive and forget is what I say. Auerbach, mate, get a subscription to Zee TV.

Arre, if Homer had been able to sign up our Helen, instead of some great moustachioed bleach job like Melina Mercouri (pictured below) - not that faltu Ili-illi-bad or Odd-who-will-see- bhaiyya, I yam telling yu, he would have given Publik something proper- like Amar Akbar Anthony or John Jani Janardhan or Ghalib, Gandhi, Godse..

Still, that simplest of the Simpson was, after all, White. When first Indians arrived in America- like Swami Vivekananda- the Whites took them for Gods. True fact.

Hadrian at Antinopolis

2012-01-17T10:46:00.010Z

Anima vagula wherefore hast thou flown?

'To suck the cock of a greater unknown!'
Is Death darker than its decidendi ratio?
'I am the Osiris of my own fellatio!'

My experiment with raw food veganism.

2012-01-16T11:36:00.003Z

I've been vegan for many years but it is only recently that I've switched to a pure raw food diet. As with my veganism, my motivation is partly ideological and partly based on health concerns.
I am not a religious fanatic or a 'Green Nazi' or anything like that as is shown by my pragmatic recourse to meat and fish products at least three times a day.
So, how am I doing? Have I developed rickets or kwashiorkor or an insufferable sense of moral superiority?
No, no and yes- otherwise what would be the point?

P.S- I keep getting these ungovernable impulses to gas all the Jews. Is this normal or am I doing this wrong?

Justice as Fairness requires you to cut your foot off and sew it to your neck

2012-01-15T00:06:00.001Z

Like Utilitarianism, Contractarian Theories of Justice suffer from the flaw that they all require you, personally, to cut your foot off and sew it to your neck- or shoulder, if- like many ageing Social Choice theorists- you no longer have a neck.

Why? Well, there is some offer you would accept in return for undergoing this procedure. I make you that offer and throw in a 0.000001 pennies to every other member of your society. So kindly get busy sawing off your leg and sewing it to your shoulder.
What? You don't believe me? You don't think I'll make good on my promise to compensate you? But, if you don't believe me why should I believe any undertaking you give? Even if you have an unimpeachable reputation and have never cheated the million people you have dealt with so far- still, maybe you believed them and thus acted in a manner which caused them to continue to believe you. Me, I know you don't believe. How am I supposed to gain certainty that you won't betray my trust?
You may say- well that wasn't what I had in mind- the rules as I frame them forbid it. But, I reply, your rules as I frame them don't. Why should I accept you as an umpire when you won't accept me as an umpire?
You might then appeal to 'strains of commitment' and say well- Econ 101 and Psychology 101 and Biology 101 (all of which we're assumed to know behind the veil of ignorance) condemn what you suggest as an argument made in bad faith. The trouble here is that if Evolution is true, then it is the fitness landscape which decides what is or isn't an E.S.S of good faith/bad faith mixes. Think of Kavka's toxin- good faith may disguise its own bad faith because that's what made it adaptive- i.e. it wouldn't have evolved otherwise. Indeed, even assuming identical preferences, my forecast of a future fitness landscape may motivate my offer- you have no apodictic way of ruling it out a priori.
In any case, on the evidence of the last forty years, Justice as Fairness can't give us an answer to any problem we face in real life- but, happily, it can tell you- you personally- to get busy cutting off your foot and sewing it to your neck. (Your cheque is in the post- and always will be.)

Mataji's Shakti.

2012-01-13T22:03:00.002Z

MATAJI’S SHAKTI

“Yatra naryastu Pujyante, tatra ramayante Devata

Yatra Naryasthu na pujyante, tatra sarva kriya vifalah.”

Pundit Sharma masticated the Sanskrit shloka with evident pleasure. Then he turned to me.

“Translate!” he said brusquely.

“Where woman is worshipped,” I quavered, “There the Gods delight. Where Woman is not worshipped, there good deeds are without fruit!”

“Haaaaanh!” - the Pundit’s head wobbled on its pneumatic cushioning of chins- “See what Scripture is saying? You should worship Woman. And Woman is Mother. “Ten times more worthy of worship than the Father is the Guru, but a thousand times more worthy than the Guru is the Mother!””

Again his head wobbled.

“In truth, Panditji,” I said humbly, “It is only since I returned to India that I have come understand Mataji’s Shakti- Mother’s Power.”

“No!”

The Pundit’s shout shook me. His face had puckered and turned puce. His eyes rolled horribly at the bottom of frighteningly deep furrows. “No! Nonononononononono! No!”

“What I said wrong?” I asked tearfully.

“You have said that you understand.” Panditji said, “That is a terrible blasphemy against the Mother! Who can understand what is beyond all understanding? Could even the great Adi Sankara? To unriddle the riddle of the Vedas was child’s play to him. While yet a child he taught the cows to recite the Vedas! But the riddle of the Mother- in the face of that he remained as but a babe and suckling!”

I peeped up at the Pundit through dewy lashes.

“Adi Sankara drank up the ocean of knowledge as easily as one sips water from the palm of one’s hand. The essence of that knowledge is found in the elegant syllogisms of the “Vivekachauramani”- the crest jewel of Metaphysical discrimination. But, of the riddle of the Mother, what could Sankara rhyme? “Saundaryalahari”- the beautiful waves of the Cosmic Ocean- what is that work but a mere onomatopoeic invocation of the breakers of Her breaking waters? You, who are named Vivek, had better call yourself Viviktha or Vikshepa- desolate or mad- so far have you strayed from the one path of true knowledge!”

“But Punditji... !”

“No! The Pundit overbore my protests, “Nononononono! No! Neglecting to worship your own Mother as a God- God having granted you so God-like a mother- what fruit can you hope for who have sown but wild oats?”

---------------II-------------------

“Don’t tell any one about your marriage.”

Her far away eyes were busy with the blue shadows of the champa flowers.

“But Amma!”

She looked up from the vase.

“Is it really too much to ask?” she said in a low, bitter, voice.

I was silent.

“That is, if you still feel you owe us anything. That is, if the West has not corrupted you completely.”

“I never meant to hurt you!”

“You have no idea, have you?” my mother continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “You really have no idea of what you have done.”

“What have I done?”

“Don’t you dare take that tone with me!

“No, go ahead! Swear at me! Beat me! It’s my fate!”- her brief flare up of rage was made more dreadful by its so quickly giving way to this defeated monotone.

“When you were but a child you stood by me. Do you remember how you tried to take the cricket bat out of your father’s hand in Kirkuk? He broke your collar bone. You remained silent then. You told nobody at the Hospital. If, at five years old, you could have been so mindful of the family honour, why not now when you are twenty one and come of age?”

I was silent. This was precisely the turn I had feared the conversation would take.

“But, it is a foolish question.” she continued, looking down with disgust at her woman’s body, seeing only the shame it had imposed, “Then you were a child. Now you are a man. You no longer need the fiction of “family honour” to shelter behind. You can take what you want from the world without making any apology. It is the women of the house who will have to pay the price. It is we who will have to lower our gaze in the temple. And, if anything happens to us in the market-place- if we are insulted in the market-place- who will speak up for us? The son of the house has given himself up to pleasure- imported whiskey and an imported wife- why should the mohallah-wallahs speak up for us? If the men of the big house are having their fun why shouldn’t the goondas of the bazaar have their fun too? They don’t have the opportunity to get themselves imported wives. At least, they can despoil the virtue of some chaste Brahmin girls. You have given up your caste by marrying this Mleccha. But you are a man. No one dares insult you to your face. But, what about your sister and mother, who have also lost caste? What is to prevent their being raped like any other untouchable woman?”

“Mummy, I hate it when you talk like this.”

“Of course!” she said scornfully, “You hate your old mother! I don’t talk about parties and fashion and sex- yes sex!- like your European wife. I can talk only about my fears- what hope have I ever been allowed, but hope for my son?- and now that hope, too, has been snatched away, what is there left but fear?- fear for an unmarried daughter, fear for the honour of this house- this house in which I have known nothing but blows and insults- but, this house which I am also obliged to protect- even at the expense of losing what little influence I have left with my son- my son!- do you still admit that title or have you got yourself a European mother along with your European wife?”

I stirred uneasily, remembering my mother-in-law’s hospitality. My mother noticed my discomfiture.

“Go!” she cried, “Go to your European wife, your European mother- why are you still harassing us? All of our money, we have already spent on your education- that Western education which has taught you only to despise us- so why have you come back? Is it to take the last of my jewellery- even my Mangal-sutram- is it for this that you have returned? Take it and be gone!”

My mother had placed her finger unerringly on my weak spot. I had returned to India at the urging of my wife who was finishing her education in England. In the meanwhile, I was penniless and a burden on my parents.

“No wait!” my mother cried, “ why should I give you my Mangal-sutram? have I not a daughter- an unmarried daughter, who is now fated to remain unmarried for ever, because her sex-crazed brother has gone and married a vile seductress? Do I owe my daughter nothing? What does she know of the wicked wiles of the West with which to pick up a husband? Is she to have no trousseau at all- not even her own mother’s Mangal sutram?

“All her life, she has gone without. Why? So that her brother could have the best of everything- this brother she adores- this brother whom she still believes will take care of her- you should hear our quarrels- we fight like cat and dog because she won’t hear a word said against you- poor child!- I have had to open her eyes. She can’t go on living in a fool’s paradise for ever!”

“Mother, aren’t you over re-acting?”

She began to weep.

And then, as if to twist the dagger of guilt, Kamala Aunty walked through the door.

---------------III------------

Kamala had been a class-mate of my mother’s at College. Though not directly related, both belonged to the same sub-caste. Whereas, my mother married a diplomat and spent most of the intervening years abroad, Kamala, who married an Income Tax officer, could console herself that she had never lost caste by crossing the boundaries of Jambudvipa- the golden Isle that is India. All the worthier, then, her offerings to Mataji- the god-woman who was all the rage in Delhi that season.

Like my mother, Kamala, too, had but one son. He was called Laxman. My feelings of guilt at seeing her arose out of the fact that I had already confided the secret of my marriage to Laxman. That had been during the first week off my stay with my parents when I hadn’t realised my marriage was supposed to be a secret. Indeed, the letters I’d received, while in Europe, promised a grand Wedding reception in Delhi and a Honeymoon in Kashmir- inducements which, predictably, failed to materialise once my parents realised my penurious condition.

As things were, in the immediate aftermath of my return, I could not but be sensible of the steep fall in temperature every time I mentioned my wife. Clearly, I was committing a terrible faux pas. Yet, by the same token, it seemed impossible, in those first few days of my sojourn in India, to impute anything so definite as a desire to break up my marriage to these vague and gracious people- my parents. Indeed, I began to doubt my sanity. Perhaps, I wasn’t really married. Perhaps, I had imagined it all.

It was at this juncture that Laxman showed up.

“Talk to Laxman,” my mother admonished me, introducing us, “Such a good boy. Real Brahmin. Learn from him, if not how to succour then at least how not to smash the agued hearts of your aging parents!”

Laxman regarded me bleakly.

I quailed beneath the extreme magnification of his bespectacled eyes. My mother had not lied, in truth, he was god-like. If Shiva had caught Ganga’s raging torrent up in is hair, Laxman had gone one better. The river he held prisoner in his locks was pure Brent crude. Nor did his resemblance to the Gods of orthodox Hindu iconography end there. His eyes recalled Airavata- Shiva’s sacred elephant. His voice was as that of Hamsa- Brahma’s sacred swan. His belly was as of Ganesh, his stature that of Vamana- how could I, mere mortal that I was, God having granted me so god-like a confessor, hold back from confessing everything to Laxman?

“India is shit,” he said, interrupting me abruptly. “You must be mad, returning here.”

Since all this happened a good ten years before Manmohan Singh’s liberalization took place, it was the latter part of his statement that overbore any protests I might otherwise have made.

Laxman regarded me with an austerely Brahminical gaze.

“Complete shit, India is,” Laxman continued in his ex-cathedra style, “Returning here mad you are.”

My mother entered my room with a plate of samosas.

“Listen to Laxman,” she said again, “Such a good boy. Real Indian.”

Laxman turned his god-like face upon my mother in order to express a preference for patties rather than these incorrigibly Indian samosas.

“Shit (munch, swallow) India is.” said Laxman, who could never be accused of conversational uninventiveness, “Madness (munch, swallow) your returning why?”

And so, goaded beyond all endurance, I blurted it all out. How my wife wanted to live with me in India. Participate in the Nation building process as the wife of a district officer. Help conserve the folk traditions while continuing to disseminate Sanskrit High Culture.

“Rubbish!” said Laxman, “Get out while you can. You can, can’t you?”

“Of course!” I said, lying through my teeth. Somehow, it had never occurred to me that returning to India would mean having to justify myself to the likes of Laxman. I suppose, it was just another example of the deracination, the lamentable lapse from Brahminism, that the stigma of my extra-Indian birth and upbringing carried in its train.

As things were, I had committed a great crime. A crime against my parents. Yet another crime. I had told Laxman about my marriage. And, I dared not confess this to my mother. Perhaps, by Mataji’s Shakti, my crime would remain undiscovered. But what can Mataji’s Shakti, itself, avail when Nemesis is in a hurry to squeeze you in between appointments at the Home Ministry and the Planning Commission? As now happened. There was a knock on the front door and, next moment, Kamala Aunty walked in, carrying a tray of kum-kum and other consecrated offerings. She had just returned from Mataji’s darshan and had stopped off on her way home out of a sense of religious obligation to her back-sliding elder sister.

“Kamalaaaaaa!” my mother screamed out, glimpsing her face, “Sweet younger sister, why do you torture me, why do you taunt me, waving in front of my face these sacred agarbathis blessed by the divine hand of Mataji Herself? Know you not that we are acharabrashta- fallen ones, outcasts? I who harboured such hopes of one day having a daughter-in-law of my own who would sweetly offer me kum-kum- that I should have lived to see such a day! A day when the issue of my own unspotted womb has saddled me with a leprous prostitute of a daughter-in-law! Not even an honest Hindu untouchable, but a godless European whore! Oh God, what were my sins in former lives that I should give birth to this sex-maniac, this drug addict, this pimp, this child molester, this syphilitic onanist- this wretched boy here! What calamity has come over me and mine! Only you, Kamala, sweet younger sister, can counsel me in my despair!”

Kamala cast an envenomed glance at me.

“Vasantha!” she admonished my mother, “Get a grip on yourself! Go and wash away these hysterical tears. You have laughed at me in the past, but not for nothing have I been a devotee of Mataji all these long months. Go, I say to you, go! Let nothing untoward be said in the presence of the sacred kum-kum which Mataji has blessed with her own sweet hands!”

Obedient to this apostolic decree, my mother quit the room in deep shame and anguish of heart. I was left to bear the brunt alone.

“See here, Vivek,” Kamala said to me sternly, “I have always regarded Vasantha as my elder sister. Every time your parents have returned from a foreign posting, have I not come to your house? Even if it meant a journey of a thousand miles- for, you know, only recently has your Uncle’s incorruptibility been rewarded with a posting to Delhi- no matter what the discomfort, no matter what the inconvenience, have I not always, made the trip?

“What is more, if your mother has said that the Heavy Luggage has not yet arrived- an excuse she has given me many times- have I not always been careful to return and see her when all the Heavy Luggage is unpacked? God only knows how many sacrifices I have made just to do this. Yet, how does your mother treat me? She acts all high and mighty! If I ask her anything regarding the model number of the refrigerator, or the provenance of the curtain fabrics- she returns off hand answers. You don’t know how much time and money it has cost us- how many trips your Uncle has had to make to Hong Kong and Kathmandu- just to ensure that we were getting a newer model, a better brand. I ask you, is this any way to treat a younger sister? But, one thing I will tell you Vivek. You will laugh at me, You will scorn me, but one thing you must know. All these weeks I have never lost faith in Mataji. All these months I have been sedulous in my devotion to that Goddess in human form.

“But, Vivek, even I lost faith! Yes, even I wavered! When Laxman came weeping to me , revealing that Vasantha had gone and got an imported daughter-in-law, I despaired! Yes, I despaired! No, don’t stop me from saying it, I turned my face to the wall, Vivek!- such was my agony, such the wound in my heart!

“Shall I tell you something, Vivek? Let me tell you something. You know who it was who came and dried my tears? You know who it was who came to me and restored my faith in Mataji? It was your own Uncle! Yes, that god-like man saw the wife of his bosom given over to such black despair and what did he do? What, I ask you, did he do? “He ordered coffee.

“Bringing him his coffee, could I fail to lay bare the secret of my sorrow to him? Could I fail to bewail the fate of my poor Laxman doomed to marrying a black faced Desi?

“And how did your Uncle react? What did he say? How can I explain to you the joy in my heart when he soothed all my fears with just one sentence?

“Is Mataji dead that you need fear a Desi daughter-in-law?”

“Just that one sentence. That was all he needed to say. Immediately such a surge of devotion, such a fountain of faith, overwhelmed my heart- I was struck dumb, Vivek, dumb! Weak woman that I am, & frail faith’d and faltering though my footsteps to the L ord, still, Vivek, still, I was able to recognise that God speaks through the voice of the husband of the pativrata!

“Just at that second, Laxman came running out of his bed-room. “I am going to swallow dettol and kill myself!” he carolled out to us in his sweet boyish way, “You are all conspiring to marry me off to a black ogress of an Indian woman! All right, if that is my unalterable destiny, then go ahead, get it over with, but know that it will be to my corpse that you shackle the great greasy Desi you are set on having as your daughter-in-law! Hai! Woe is me! What can even Mataji’s Shakti avail against the dark humours I absorbed in your witch’s womb? ”

“That was enough for your Uncle. Immediately he picked up the telephone receiver and dialled the number of Mataji’s Ashram.

“Put me through to God,” he said brusquely- you know, he prides himself on speaking only pure English- “Arré, badava-rascal, this is Income Tax Commissioner speaking- you, bloody, put God on the line, fut-a-fut, otherwise I will bloody raid your premises tonight itself!

“Hanh, God?! Everything teek-tak? Good. Tax Commissioner speaking. Hanh, do one thing, my boy wants phoren wife- pucca virgin, all right? Blonde? Ya, blonde, better I am thinking- beautiful, good family, educated and no hippie nonsense, get me? Good English speaking, OK? And make sure is vegetarian. I see- all your devotees are vegetarian. Well, I knew I could rely. OK, nice talking. God bless, God.”

----------------------IV-------------------

“The water nymph Liriope,” Father Thomas said, “The water nymph Liriope, having given birth to a son, goes, like any desi Amma, to consult a soothsayer. It is the blind seer- Eliot’s ‘old man with wrinkled dugs’- anomalous, androgynous, Tiresias.

His prediction? A long life and a happy one, provided the child, himself, never know. How curiously un-Greek! How chillingly modern! But, ask the name of the child.”

“I suppose I ought to know.” I mumbled shame faced.

“Narcissus!”

Father Thomas regarded me tolerantly. After all, I now had a London degree. He would have slapped me for my ignorance had I had still been in his Eng Lit class at St. Erigena’s.

“Narcissus!” Father Thomas repeated, his Malyalee accent reasserting itself as his confidence returned.

“How Freud misunderstood the Greeks! To say Oedipus when you mean Orestes is a mere slip of the tongue, but to say Oedipus when you mean Narcissus is more than Parapraxis- it is Irony as Theodicy, nothing less! Our own desi poet, John Mahalingam Thomas, rustic though he be, untutored though he be, yet ‘warbling his wood-notes wild’ in his Cochin backwater, has, surely, hit nearer the mark-

“As Venus rose from the brine, so Liriope’s son from the Lake

To break a water sprite, God bade her waters break

“Long life!” the oracles opine, “if he, himself, never know!”

All eyes yearn the sight, slain by what they show.”

“Wilde,” I said, remembering that Oscar Wilde died a Catholic, “Wilde has the pine shadowed pool, pine not for Narcissus but for that vanished reflection of its own limpidity.”

“Blue Heaven to Mother’s eye is”

With donnish quaver, Father Thomas quoted Coleridge

“Blue Heaven to Mother’s eye is

“Infant’s eye- reciprocal bliss!”

Queen Olga's anima naturaliter christiana

2012-01-12T20:43:00.010Z

That our Sainted Queen was humbly born is suggested by two facts
From villagers, who widowed her, mild vengeance she exacts

A hut tax, on each thatch, of a mere three sparrows and a pigeon.
She sets homing ablaze, Souls Mir to raze, Soviet Religion

A Zebra Crossing is Christ-the-Tiger's camouflage

2012-01-11T13:54:00.019Z

A Zebra Crossing is Christ-the-Tiger's camouflage
& Stalled Traffic, Passschendaele's Trench foot persiflage

The bus lane is merely a mental module misapplied

Who thus yet live fain had died.

So young, an already defeated Man

2012-01-10T11:29:00.005Z

So young, an already defeated Man

Love made tho no Siren sang
A son; mirror, or Caliban
River Ganga's Reaver Gang

Landsburg getting it wrong about public debt.

2012-01-09T12:48:00.010Z

Steve Landsburg says 'When the U.S. government borrows from Chinese investors, it’s exactly as if U.S. taxpayers had borrowed from the U.S. government. (That is, the effect on Americans is the same either way.) Since the assets of the U.S. government are, ultimately, the assets of the taxpayers, it’s exactly as if the U.s. taxpayers had borrowed from themselves.'

Landsburg is assuming there is no principal-agent problem. Taxpayers are the principal and the Govt is a perfect agent which has no agenda of its own and which does what is in the best interests of its boss- the taxpayer.

Landsburg says- ‘debt, by itself, is not a terribly compelling reason either to cut entitlements or to raise taxes’.

Even assuming zero agency dilemma, I think this statement is misleading. A Govt. debt level which is foreseen and budgeted for and universally accepted would not, in any meaningful sense, be Govt. debt any more than Shareholder Equity is considered debt in a limited Company. Indeed, the Govt can get such debts off its books simply by selling off the rights to its future income streams immediately. Under perfect information, no uncertainty or agency hazard,zero transaction costs etc. the Govt is always just one instantaneous market transaction away from having a balanced budget. It can't meaningfully be said to carry debt at any time.

However, where debt levels diverge from what they were predicted to be (which can only happen if some risk was overlooked or some information not properly discounted) then a compelling reason arises to cut entitlements and raise taxes just the same as transpires when Balance Sheet weakness compels a Business to cut dividends or restructure or issue a call on partly paid up Equity.

Landsburg concludes by saying- ‘As Krugman point out, this is not to say that all government debt is harmless. It is to say that if it’s harmful, it’s harmful for different reasons, and probably to a much lesser extent, than is commonly believed.’

I am curious to learn more of that transcendentally mystic state in which even Landsburg begins to find Govt. Debt to be harmful.
I believe, he will then have to invoke either uncertainty, or agency hazard or both. IN other words, he first banishes reality so as to say one silly and counter-intuitive thing but then, so as not to appear a complete nut-job- has to bring back that bogeyman to justify saying the reverse. Landsburg is a reverse Talmud Golem. He won't print my objections on his website- well, he did a couple coz he thought I didn't know from OLM- but when the going got tough he just shut me down and carried on regardless.

Meanwhile, this is Landsburg being misguided by Ricardian Equivalence to come to the conclusion that Public debt isn't really a serious 'burden on our grand-kids'.

'Murphy objects to formulations along the lines of “government debt is not a burden because we owe it to ourselves” and offers a parable that he thinks illustrates all the key issues. I agree that his parable illustrates all the key issues, so let’s review it — and see what it really illustrates.

In Year One, Abraham (who is old) owns an old apple tree and Isaac (who is young) owns a young apple tree. Each tree delivers 100 apples to its owner. Shortly thereafter, Abraham’s tree dies and Abraham follows suit. In Year Two, Isaac’s tree delivers him another 100 apples, and then both the tree and Isaac die.

Now in Year One, Abraham’s government decides to give him a present of 10 extra apples, which it borrows from Isaac. As a result, Abraham gets to eat 110 apples and Isaac eats only 90. In Year Two, the government owes Isaac 11 apples (including interest). It gets these apples the only way it can, by taxing Isaac. Therefore Isaac pays 11 apples tax, receives an 11 apple bond payment, and eats 100 apples. Bottom line: The government policy has increased Abraham’s lifetime apple consumption at the expense of Isaac’s. Therefore, says Bob, it’s clear that the government’s debt constitutes a burden to Isaac.

Fine. Here’s my counter-parable. In Year One, Abraham’s government decides to give him a present of 10 apples, which it gets by taxing Isaac. In Year Two, the government does nothing. The government policy has increased Abraham’s lifetime apple consumption at the expense of Isaac’s exactly as in Bob’s story. The Landsburg-Isaac feels exactly the same burden as the Murphy-Isaac, even though there is no debt in the Landsburg world. Therefore debt cannot be the source of Isaac’s burden.

Indeed, the source of Isaac’s burden, plain and simple, is that his government decided to transfer resources from him to Abraham. Whether they do this via debt or via taxation is as irrelevant as whether they deliver the apples to Abraham by truck or by train.

If the apples are delivered to Abraham in a wheelbarrow, one could, I suppose, blame everything on the wheelbarrow and talk about the “burden of the wheelbarrow”. And in some very contorted sense, one could defend that position. But why would you want to?

Why is this silly? Well, we have a story about a guy who goes and buys Govt bonds which can only be retired by a lump-sum tax upon him self! In other words, buying bonds today is what determines how much tax you're going to pay tomorrow! Who would do that? Certainly not someone with Rational Expectations. But Ricardian Equivalence (which is what has misled Landsburg into buying into Murphy's parable) is crucially dependent on people having Rational Expectations and being free to costlessly enter into financial transactions.

Ask yourself this question- suppose your kid comes to you and asks you to lend him 1000000 pounds. You ask how he is going to repay it. He shrugs his shoulders and suggests you just raise his allowance and deduct from that. Would you lend your kid the money?

In real life, the Govt isn't your 5 year old kid, nor is it a perfect servant. Murphy is assuming that the Govt. can levy a lump-sum tax at any time. He further assumes that people only know the lumpsum tax in the current time period, not what it will be in the next time period and also not that the lump-sum tax is dependent on how many bonds the Govt has to retire. But Murphy's assumptions violate Rational Expectations. His parable is simply silly. He doesn't have a subsistence lower bound nor a satiation upper-bound- very silly in economies (like ours) where zero Marginal Cost commodities exist.
More ludicrously yet, he doesn't understand that if bonds are tradeable then no borrow/tax mix can hit a specific redistribution target - i.e. the Govt would have to be irrational to be using this policy instrument. In so far as, under his assumptions, present transfers are funded by tax payers hundreds of years in the future- this only happens because the Govt has created a new Econ good- viz. a hedge (not perfect) against starvation in the future, or method of saving- Still, Murphy is a happy camper coz his ludicrous model lets him have think he's proved something- even though it's the opposite of what he needs to show.

Murphy aint stupid, but, assuming people are stupid in a pre-specified way in your model lets you show anything you like. And that's stupid. Landsburg doesn't point this out. No, because he has a wheelbarrow to bring in. The Govt takes Isaac's apples to give to Abraham in a wheelbarrow. Notice, if Isaac was stupid enough to have bought bonds with apples, he has only himself to blame. Not the malevolence of the wheelbarrow, but his own stupidity in lending to the Govt has harmed him. If Isaac learns to 'just say no' there is no lump-sum tax for him to pay in future years. He no longer suffers from 'fiscal illusion' because he now has Rational Expectations. True, the Govt can just take stuff from one guy and give it to another but, if agents are risk averse there will be a coalition which hedges against lump-sum tax/entitlement uncertainty such that within that coalition Govt. actions are immediately cancelled out. Under plausible assumptions, this coalition will dominate and crowd out the Govt by making an equal or better offer to anyone with whom the Govt wishes to interact.

Landsburg really has no answer to points like this. He feels that, because certain sorts of assumptions are standard in 'over lapping generations' models of Murphy's sort, there is no need to use one's common sense. True, common sense isn't common, but consistency should be second nature to a Math maven. Landsburg isn't applying Rational Expectations consistently- incidentally, Rational Choice theory with Schutzian ideal types get round his objection that people in an identity class, in Murphy's OLG model, don't know what proportion of their bond purchases will be clawed back. This doesn't matter, so long as they have enough cognitive capacity to achieve a Rational Choice Verstehen- similar to my not buying into a pyramid scheme though not being sure whether I mightn't be one of the lucky ones who get rich off it.

Landsburg says- 'deficit finance does not allow an entire generation to increase the burden on its descendants beyond what it could have done anyway (and in that sense is nothing like a time machine). It only allows some families to increase the burden on their descendants. The greatest damage one generation can inflict on the next is to consume everything in sight, and this is always possible without deficit finance.'

This is not true. Deficit finance can lead to hyperinflation, the collapse of the market for Govt bonds, collapse of confidence in the regime, the rise of extremist political parties, War, Genocide, Slavery.

Lansburg thinks the only way we can fuck up our grand-kids is if we eat up all the non renewable resources and let all capital goods depreciate away to nothingness. But, countries which have been invaded and denuded of all productive capacity and natural resources can still bounce back if they inherit Institutions with a reputation for, or even new found dedication to, thrift, transparency, zero agency hazard etc.

Indeed, under plausible assumptions and assuming factor mobility, they may well stand taller than the rest- as happened to West Germany and Japan- within a relatively short time.

To misread Ricardian Equivalence as justifying Landsburg's indifference to the level (especially in that it was unforeseen) of Public debt is to succumb to a particularly witless pedagogic, rather than truly academic, availability cascade.

Not in Time's tessitura is the Surah al Yaseen

2012-01-08T15:58:00.007Z

More unmeaning than the Ghazal's use of tazmin

& less musical than the muezzin's new Tannoy

Not in Time's tessitura is the Surah al Yaseen

What is Death that you yet so annoy?

India was invented by Rimsky Korsakov

2012-01-08T15:38:00.003Z

It's official. India was invented by Rimsky Korsakov and populated by Kipling.

I found Johnny Mercer's lyrics here
And still the snowy Himalayas rise,
In ancient majesty before our eyes,
Beyond the plains, above the pines.
While through the ever never changing land,
As silently as any native band,
That moves at night, the Ganges shines.

Then I hear the song that only India can sing,
Softer than the plumage on a black raven's wing.
High upon a minaret I stand
And gaze across the desert sand,
Upon an old enchanted land
There the Maharajah's caravan,
Unfolding like a painted fan,
How small the little race of man.
See them all parade across the ages,
Armies, kings and slaves from history's pages,
Played on one of nature's vastest stages.

The turbaned Sikhs and beggars line the streets,
While holy men in shadow town retreats,
Pray through the night and watch the stars,
A lonely plane flies off to meet the dawn,
While down below the busy life goes on,
And women crowd the old bazaars.
All are in the song that only India can sing,
India, the jewel of the East!

Outsourced, alas, is Ind, the Nysiads abode

2012-01-08T14:59:00.016Z

Outsourced, alas!, is Ind, the Nysiads' abode

Now, who wrought God write only code

& to Philomel, its thorn, if Winter yet displays

All pipe forlorn in growth of riper days.

Dvorak's 'Song to the Moon'.

2012-01-07T21:13:00.010Z

My Eyes set famished Skies to your forehead's moon
& you, chanson de l'adieu to my every tune

What betides your yet loosening hair?

Ptolemy of Tides- I'm unaware.

Surely the loveliest video ever aired on the late lamented Sky Classical Music channel?

This is in Anna Netrebko's own voice (the previous video features the voice of Renee Fleming.)

I am the breaker of your Babri, Godse to Thy Ram

2012-01-04T18:35:00.013Z

Gandhi, Ghalib & the Geeta, we are their Mahmuds until

A Somnath, our stone heart, Ayaz loot at Thy Will

I am the berserker of your Babri, Godse to Thy Ram

Befriend me, or end me- Say, brother, where's the harm?

Krishna is ink's colour, thus Kufr to Khalil's Quran
Thy face, Friendship's page, but I its Bilal Azan
Gandhi or Ghalib- Sahir- our guilt yet is clear
Gita we hear distant tho' all Sukhan is but here.

New Years Resolution- adopt a NGO.

2012-01-04T16:24:00.001Z

While billions of people across the planet celebrated New year with costly feast and ostentatious display, I preferred to turn my gaze to the plight of those who trip and fall down and bang their head on the pavement and pass out. No doubt, somebody or other will help them up or send for an ambulance or something of that sort. However, what is important to remember is that such 'Good Samaritans' are not dedicating their lives to the cause of the upliftment of those piteous and vulnerable people abandoned by a cruel and mercantile civilization to remaining passed out on the pavement.
Indeed, to the best of my knowledge, I alone have raised up my voice on their behalf- parenthetically, I may observe, I also stake my claim to represent the sufferings of those constitutionally unable to drink Margaritas without a straw- and have set up a N.G.O based on an ecologically sustainable, for-profit Micro Finance model, adhering strictly to the Gandhian principle of 'No Fat chicks'.
Make- 'adopt an NGO' your New Year's Resolution.
But, no fat chicks. I'm serious.

The Vande Mataram of a new Socially Conscious Hindutva

2012-01-04T00:03:00.002Z

Though Religion, our Father, is as Beatrice Cenci's

& our Motherland, alas, is e'er in menses

Yet in the hovels of our hungry is beauty rare

& more than Heroin chic, passing fair.

The change India most desperately needs today

2012-01-03T13:32:00.004Z

is with respect to
a) Rahul Gandhi's diapers
b) Anna Hazare's incontinence pads
c) Manmohan Singh's agenda
d) your mind if you think it worthwhile to finish this sentence.
e) All of the above

Ans. This is a trick question. The correct answer is (c) because Manmohan Singh does not have an agenda. Nor, just to be on the safe side, a gender. Hope this clarifies matters.

How Hasan married Rabia

2012-01-02T20:19:00.005Z

Kipling has written a poem showing how, when Jane Austen got to Heaven, Sir Walter Scott arranged her wedding there.
What about Hasan-of-the-pearls and Rabia, beggar maid, of Basra?
I once wrote a poem on the theme of her rejection of his marriage proposal-

What Hasan said to Rabia

Not that, flashing, they burn down Heaven

Nor that, flooding, they put out Hell

But that the wine of Thine eyes' Tavern

Alas! its Saqi loves too well.

We know she refused him on Earth- but what happened in Barzakh?

Before I tell you, permit me a scholarly digression reflecting on my own solitary peek at Maryam's mirror.

Al Jahiz tells the following story. A comely woman appeared before him and importuned him to accompany her to the shop of a goldsmith. She said 'Like this,' and departed. Al Jahiz asked what the woman meant. The Goldsmith, who was Jewish, replied- 'this woman made me promise I would make the effigy of any person she desired. She said 'make one of the devil'. I replied 'I have not seen the Devil. How can I make an image of that which I have not seen?"

My own imagination supplies the rest- I disguise Hassan as myself and send him before Rabia. 'Wed me.' 'No!'. 'What? You reject me? No doubt, it is only because I am not of the Faith. What if I were to bring before you one poorer, uglier, more stupid than I- but of the Faith- would you marry him before you would marry me?' 'Yes!'. 'Then, now, that man is me and, by a Cantor diagonalization of the but denumerable regress of your refusal, in consequence, your self-betrothed husband more infinitely!'

Rabia, poor darling, is caught.

I should open a Marriage Bureau.

Consider the Staggering Drunkard

2011-12-30T14:31:00.006Z

'The disorders we see from afar are as sunspots and comets. We don't know what uses they supply nor the laws by which their purpose is fulfilled. Time was when the planets were considered to be wandering stars; now their motion is found to be regular. Perhaps the same is true of comets; posterity will know.'
Liebniz.

From Prof. Steven Snobelen's essay here.
Notes-
1) Halley (of Halley's comet fame) was a friend of both Liebniz and Newton.
2) The reference to the Nile in the verse given below has to do with Liebniz's proposal, he was interested in a Philosophical system for preserving World Peace, to Louis XIV, the 'Roi Soleil' of France', that he go invade Egypt instead of troubling Holland or Germany.

Consider the Staggering Drunkard, Via Dolorosing down your street

Could a Liebniz tax wits to Halley's Comet serenade as sweet?

'Peace had a Prince, Sun King, incarnadine the Nile!'

Dutch drunk, tho' I vomit, only Philosophy is vile.

Is metempsyhosis 'cheap talk'?

2011-12-30T05:42:00.002Z

This is a link to Joanna Jurewicz's paper speculating on the presence of a doctrine of metempsychosis in the Rg Veda.
She gives an interesting treatment of the familiar 10.16.5-
5 Again, O Agni, to the Fathers send him who, offered in thee, goes with our oblations.
Wearing new life let him increase his offspring: let him rejoin a body, Jātavedas.
(Giffiths trans.)
basing herself on the work of the Sri Lankan antropologist, Gananath Obeyesekere who stresses the ubiquity of the concept of reincarnation in 'small scale' societies and the manner in which it shores up ethnicity and diachronic identity.
However, in my view, the opposite point might, in the Hindu context, be more usefully be made- viz. reincarnation is systematically sublated, ethnicity is systematically sublated, diachronic identity is sublated, by something arising out of the potential for Universalization that exists in a transactional view of the world.

The Vedic funeral is of particular interest because it shows how- as in the modern Economic theory of externalities- no transaction is between two parties alone, all partake of it and all are thereby transfigured. What is conserved is symmetry properties of the system as a whole and it is this conservation alone that makes it meaningful to speak of karma and dharma.
In Judaism, similarly, the concept of ibbur- that is 'partial incarnation'- has the effect of conserving halachah (the law) even by halachah vein morin kein (the law which if known forbids the action it otherwise enjoins).

Does bodily resurrection at the eschaton, give flesh to a 'costly signalling' halachah whereas is it the case that ibbur is just a cheap talk variant?
Similarly, does the notion of samadhi imply that karma kanda is a 'costly signalling' Yoga while Raja Yoga is just cheap talk?
Yes, in my view, if cognitive linguistics is correct. No, if language, as something which has evolved, is in essence reverse mereological.

What's wrong with Anil Menon?

2011-12-29T00:31:00.005Z

Anil Menon is a bright guy who took a course in Sci Fi writing and wrote some derivative, soft core, Femi-Manu-ist, shite distinguished by rather better Gladwellian English than one might expect and rather worse Gladwellian Prognostication than one might fear.

Why is he shite?

We-ell, it's his fucking political correctness. The hovering, never actually hectoring, Governess tone. Anil Menon, like Arundhati Roy can imagine children. But, having imagined them, like Roy, Menon fucks them up big time. Why?
If kids have agency- think Huck Finn drifting down Ol' man river- they change stuff.

Menon & Roy don't want to change stuff. They aim to show- thirty years too late- they are avant garde.

Kipling shows how imagining kids can make fiction 'show more than it knows'. Marriage, everything we adults do, is about imagining kids and affectionately marring that emancipatory imaginal power.
Not so for Menon and Roy, who prefer to fuck kids in the arse- not coz they iz perverts but coz they are stuffing shite down kids' mouths and want to back-stopper the little shit sacks so they really get the benefit and get as puffed up as their progenitors entirely on their own farts.

My own experience of kids from Kerala is that they're kids and will destroy your bed but not your big screen Tv. They are a bit more sociable than Tamils and Gujjus and generic Muslims- but after about two or three days get very, very, violent if Mummy and Daddy don't appear.

I like them. During the London Riots, I had a quiver full of kids to look after.

What's wrong with both Arundhati and Politically Correct Anil Menon is that they aren't as quick as kids from their own country to re-imagine the world in a very radical way when Mum & Dad don't come to take them home- coz home dun bin burnt up.

Iyer attacked these kids- to save his expensive bed which their jumping on was destroying- by asking them to consider life without Mummy or Daddy- draw pictures, tell stories. Understand Mum & Dad aint here coz they wanted to save their small businesses, their working capital- whom for? For you, you little ingrates- so draw, write stories.
The results were fantastic. But then, everybody knows, lower middle types only keep contact with Iyer Sahib so as to get the kids a leg up Educationally.

Kids from Kerala got better fucking imaginations than bien pensant shit heads like Anil or Arundhati.

Roy and Menon- unlike Kipling- can't write coz they fuck up the kids they themselves imagine. They are the High Priests of an education dedicated to the proposition, to quote Christopher Hitchens, that no child's behind should be left alone.

Kids have no agency in Arundhati and Anil. Roy has a Greek excuse- the return of Orestes. Menon, merely, echoes shite 70's crap like 'the world according to Garp'.

My strictures against Anil Menon arise out of my own E-piss-tolatory relationship with him. The guy is a cunt. He invited me to be his fucking student at his shite writer's workshop in some fucking IIT- which has produced nothing- even though I'm greatly his superior and senior as evidenced by my published books on Indian themes. The lazy American cunt criticized my writing though he himself is a fucking derivative creative zero.
Does this guy actually have kids?
If not, why is his oeuvre not simply dismissable as poisonous Babu conformism?

What gets my goat is that Menon trades on his 'Hindu' status to perpetrate some utter shite as reflecting on the Ramayana.
A lot of people from Kerala are Ram Bhaktas. Many are also superb Sanskritists as well as knowing Kamban, Tulsidas etc in a manner I find miraculous and all-loveable.
Not Menon.
In my opinion, Menon is an ignorant little cunt- he hasn't done anything interesting with the one field he supposedly knows about and he is simply ignorant in every other- for e.g. he opposes the end of price discrimination in Indian publishing- yet he has the temerity to refuse to correspond with me just because I insist he cut off his balls- surely no big deal to a man so politically correct?- and stuff them up his arsehole (for safe-keeping! I wasn't insulting or abusing him but suggesting that his arsehole was a perfect 'lock-up box'. How is this abusive or insulting?)

I mean, honestly, I've been a good friend to Anil Menon. I still take time, every few months, to remind him that he is a total fuckwit who sucks cock big time.

I mean this seriously. He's just stupid. There is nothing below his surface. Just pretence and Babu sedulous emulation.

The Americans should build him up.
But why would they do that? Lots of Indian origin people are already well remunerated contributors to their collective imagination. Anil Menon maybe could be- if he weren't stupidly stuck on the project of presenting Indians as stupider than himself and, fat wanker that he is, not solely concentrated upon a false 'Dad-ism'- the Crucifixion as arising from the fact that God the Father was playing Golf with a client or something and so like it served him right dude.
Perhaps, Menon is really is a father. If so, he's shit.
Dads are big animals which don't eat babies or young children.
Menon shits them.
Shits them to order- which is unforgivable.

Shwe on the emancipation of women.

2011-12-28T20:27:00.000Z

This is a link to Shwe's blog post on the emancipation of women.

What follows is my comment, which I was not able to post there because it was too long.

Without claiming to have any answers, there are a couple of points I'd could make simply to kick off the discussion.

Deliberate female foeticide was a policy pushed in the 70's by the International Community as a response to 'Club of Rome' pessimism re. 'the population bomb'. China is further down this path than India. Pakistan is protected to some very little extent because of the countervailing rise of Islamic 'fundamentalism' (Salafism) which emphasizes the legitimacy of bride-price and early marriage. Essentially, if fathers can sell their daughters at puberty, they have no incentive to abort female foetuses. Moreover, if property is only heritable by sons, not daughters, then a guy who has three wives and fourteen daughters is still going to be pressurised- not by his brothers but by his womenfolk!- to buy a new teenage bride in the hope that she will have a son. This is because once a son is born, all the mothers and daughters get a measure of protection.

However, my own personal exposure to Pakistani lower middle class culture shows the same mental attitude of love and reverence for mothers and sisters as seen in Turkish or Indian Lower Middle class. Older men, don't want a teenage bride. It's 'yucky'. They want a spiritual and moral relationship with God, Society and Family.

Mind you, I'm not saying anything against Islam here. The same applies to polygamous Jewish, Hindu, Kenyan (Christian) or South African (again nominally Christian) families like that of Mandela's heir. But it is not polygamy that is at fault. The monogamous Haredi (ultra orthodox) Jew in Israel prefers not to work and lets the State support him. Paradoxically, Haredi women- who often have to support their parasitical Torah studying husbands- have benefited by becoming entrepreneurs and professionals!

Still, a situation where women work so men sit idle is not exactly 'emancipation'!

Biology dictates young men should work harder so young women can concentrate on looking after children and elders.

But biology does not say that the young men in question should be in a sexual relationship with the women in question. On the contrary, sociobiology emphasises 'kin-selection'.

Irrespective of Religion- Young working class men often sacrifice- driving cabs or like the Tunisian vegetable vendor whose self-immolation sparked the Arab Spring, conducting some small business so, at least, the sisters get an education and can rise in class terms- and this is the real Islam, the real Hindutva, the real Buddhism (for e.g. I was shocked to find that 'gay' Thai 'lady-boys'- far from being sex-obsessed perverts- follow a horrible profession simply to lift their mothers and sisters out of poverty and the possibility of exploitation.)

Still, it is true that 'Taliban' type fundamentalism specifically targets women and many people may feel this is the true face of the Religion because these people claim to gain Heaven by assiduously seeking Martyrdom in "Holy War'.

Can we agree that is nothing but an adolescent male fantasy?

I, personally, like many Hindus of my generation, thought the main problem was inheritance laws which favour the male. I was unaware that the moment fairer inheritance laws (like the Code Napoleon, or the breaking of the entail system in English law) are introduced, you get a different sort of cruelty to women- to wit, they are forced into the nunnery (as happened in France) or doomed to remain maiden aunts (Victorian England) because of family pressure. There is no 'Law & Economics'- i.e. Coasian- solution to the problem of 'emancipation of woman' which you are highlighting.

I know many English, so called, Upper Class women of the older generation. They are very good hearted and I meet them through their voluntary work. But as they tell me about their lives, the scales fall from my eyes and I see a type of cruelty- very British cruelty in that it was a 'shakkar ki churi' (a knife of sugar) which cut these women off from education and the chance off a remunerative career. Instead, these ladies- who no longer had domestic servants had to work like slaves and save and skimp while pretending they were still well to do.

Many of these women have superb brains and are exploited mercilessly to edit and research and proof read books published by fat, middle aged, men. There is scarcely a Conservative M.P, a man that is, whose work is not done for him by these women.

Margaret Thatcher escaped this trap because, though married into the Upper Middle, she came from a Lower Middle (closer to Working) Class family. Yet, what was it she rescued? A patriarchal Upper Class which sentences women to domestic labour so arduous no Indian woman would put up with it!

In America there is a saying 'once you go Black, you won't go back!" In England, we should have a saying 'Once you had a White girl-friend you will never be able to get along with a partner of your own community. They won't slave away with a smile, scrubbing and cleaning and doing up properties for re-sale and then also try to be 'sexy' or 'good hostesses' and so on. Not at all. Whether it is an arranged marriage or not, if you marry a girl from Asian community- you will have to share the work and as you grow older do more and more yourself. No ifs, no buts.

But, real men like this arrangement.

I come from the Hindu middle-middle class and one way we've come up is through female education. But, as I point out in my novel Samlee's daughter, this had nothing to do with 'female empowerment'- instead, it was a way of denying women (like my Mum or Grandmothers) the traditional sources of power that they had and 'capitalizing' their value for the benefit of the 'dynasty'.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy's mother- Tarini Devi- saw all this in advance. She knew her clever-clever son was using the excuse of 'Utilitarianism & Unitarianism' to reduce his mother and sisters to the level of- not the goat offered in sacrifice- but rocks and stones merely rather than the living murtis of All Powerful, All Beneficient, Durga who is difficult to approach and (in the Candishantakarin genre) vital to appease.

Patriarchy gives itself the excuse of protecting women, to steal their traditional, even their basic biological rights.

You mention Sweden. Recall that Nobel Prize winner, Alva Myrdal was still advocating 'compulsary sterilization for 'unfit mothers' in the 1970's. You may know of the 'Millenium trilogy'- 'the girl with the dragon tattoo, the girl who kicked the hornet's nest, etc'. It exposes the patriarchal misogyny of this aspect of the Swedish 'Welfare State'. The Myrdals wrote about India, but you should also look at what their son, Jan, who has written about them.

This mantra of protecting women, whether in the name of 'eugenics' or 'morality' or 'Swadeshi ideology' (Valentine's day is so evil! OMG, let's riot already. Women in pubs! OMG! Hindutva is in danger!- is nothing but gangsterism and hypocrisy.)

Look at Reservations for Women- what is it except a way to preserve corrupt, criminal, dynasties? The people may want Priyanka but Priyanka's job is to build up Rahul.

Yes, we may say Mayawati or Jayalalitha or Mamta are women who are outside the patriarchal fold. Yet, Mayawati is merely the heir of Kanshi Ram and what she is doing is shoring up the patriarchal power and prestige, reflected in caste identity, of the coalition keeping her in power. Similarly, Jayalalitha is just keeping up the cause of MGR against Karunanidhi and this translates into benefits for the patriarchy within, for e.g. the Thevar community (to which Shashikala belongs). Mamta, the firebrand, is simply doing the dirty work of the old anti-communists- which no man was brave enough to do- but even the Communists were a patriarchal, High Caste, elite. What about the Naxals? Like you they say Capitalist 'ideology depicts women as sexual-commodities meant to be consumed and this can be loosely termed as Americanization of women- this is obviously backed by the personal care and the fashion industry'. But what do the Naxals actually do with this ideology? They make sure their cadres parrot it and then kill some random tribal girl because she wore ribbons in her hair, or used talcum powder, (Marx forbid she used lipstick!) thus showing a bourgeois mentality which is deserving of death because it means she is a 'class enemy'.

How is this different from the Tribal patriarchy which killed girls for climbing trees or touching a ow and arrow and so on?

It is tempting to take the Gandhian view- viz. lust is what causes all the problems. Men want to have sex with women which is why they oppress them. Lord Buddha said 'do not oppress. Those you oppress, you come to hate'. A Saudi Princess quoted this in her (ghost written) biography. Men blame women for their imputed sexual attractiveness and consider the injustices they suffer to be the result of the temptation they represent.

This argument is false. Consider Japan- where it is still more difficult for a woman to become a senior civil servant, Company director, etc than it is India or Pakistan. Traditionally, men and women were naked together in the sauna. The fact is, the naked body, male or female, is not erotic. I've just come back from the Gym. I'm not aflame with lust because some lady in a bikini was sitting one foot away from me in the Sauna. On the contrary, women who have seen me in the Sauna feel so safe that when they see me walking down the road, they smile and nod and strike up a conversation. There is nothing sexual in this. True, in youth, both girls and boys are looking for their life partner and at that time 'sexual attractiveness' is important. But, later on, it is totally irrelevant to life even if people are completely naked together.

After all, human being were naked for the greater part of their history as a species. The Burka does not protect from, nor the Bikini much pander to, Man's lascivious gaze.

Women come up when they speak for themselves, decide things for themselves. There are many women specific issues where only women should have a voice. The shrill academic Feminism of the 70's failed. Why? Though supposedly addressing women, it was actually creating a din to attract the attention of men.

I think you write very well and will follow your blog with interest. I can't make out your age or gender- but maybe that's a good thing.

One final point- you say 'To a kid, even the Wonder Woman(cartoon super heroine) is shown as scantily dressed'- this is incorrect. The D.C superheros wore the traditional costume of Circus acrobats. Wonder Woman wasn't scantily dressed but wearing the correct acrobatic costume of that time. Nowadays we have artificial fibres and so on, back then a woman trapeze artist or gymnast who did not wear a Wonder Woman type costume would have been more susceptible to injury.

Nudism, sunbathing, body building, vegetarianism, etc gained currency due to their proven health benefits. This became a matter of vital National Security during the World Wars when, ultimately, it was Woman-power not Man-power which proved decisive.

Congrats on your first blog post- keep 'em coming!- & God bless.

Kipling and the Kanpur riots.

2011-12-26T14:13:00.004Z

The Kanpur Hindu-Muslim riot of 1931 was the result of a hartal called in honour of the martyrdom of Shahid Bhagat Singh- hanged for his part in the killing of a White policeman and also his non-violent bombing of the Central Legislative Assembly. Clearly, it was vital for patriotic Congress workers to force Muslim shop-keepers to close their shops and for much mayhem to result because as Mahatma Gandhi said 'We need a thousand Bhagat Singhs'.
The police, guided by Indian Deputy Collectors, stood idly by and, it is said, even joined in the looting. The Commission of Enquiry appointed by the Indian National Congress, however, failed to congratulate them on their patriotism and courage in so doing. The fact is the animosity between the Hindus and Muslims had been deliberately created by the British as part of their philosophy of 'divide and rule'. Secret agents from the infamous CID had instigated the riot. Thus if the police had intervened to stop the rioters they would have been attacking their own people- not in the sense that the rioters were fellow Indians expressing their patriotism but in the sense that the CID agent provocateurs were Indians on the payroll of Raj like the policemen themselves. The police's principled refusal to be divided and ruled by anybody was not appreciated as a mark of higher Patriotism and integrity. Just as Mahatma Gandhi gave unstinting support for Khilafat, even letting them defray his expenses, without asking for any quid pro quo, so too did the Kanpur police and District administration show unshakeable solidarity with the invisible CID agents who first set Hindus and Muslims against each other and then organized the violence.

The Kanpur Riot Commission report, though containing much valuable fiction, nevertheless failed to mention the true author of the atrocity- viz. Kipling's Deputy Commissioner Petit from the 1888 story 'On the City Wall' who quoting Caiaphas, observed 'It is expedient that one man die &c' and one man did die in Kanpur- Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi- and that was expedient true enough but like Kipling's Lahore's, Kanpur's riot was about letting an old-all-too-old man go maying one last time. The young atheist aesthete who suffers a lycanthropic transformation into a Shia fanatic, is just method acting. But, Rama, Rama what for this drama? The young chap knows the old man gone maying one last time can achieve no actual mayhem. Was he paid? No he'd have done it all anyway. It was a matter of style, of a doubtful thing done in excellent taste. So he did it. And he does it. And he will go on so doing. And for all now are prostitutes none possess Lalun's grace for what is expedient to die now is not a man but his fame.

Oddly, Borges didn't get this point. No wonder, that Argentine Spinoza was denounced by his own people as, of all things, a Jew.

What is Justice that we should desire its reign?

2011-12-24T05:51:00.009Z

What is Justice that we should desire its reign?

& topple Tyrants so Terror, blind Power, attain

& what's Fair so deflower, fouler Rape might fail

Och! A but Gyges' ring is Rawls's veil

Essence of the Gita.

2011-12-24T01:27:00.001Z

Feel no fury at the foe you slay

All is but as a Scene in a Play

To refuse to Act, is the only Sin

Till you're sacked, just phone it in

Neitzche's filioque

2011-12-22T22:47:00.001Z

What wanders solely on treacherous terrain?

& what mystic heights do I thereby attain?

What moves in me, myself to write?

Spirit for aye where the Word is Spite.

Gandhi bismarks Cornelia Sorabji.

2011-12-22T20:38:00.010Z

Just watched this delightful video of Prof. Richard Sorabji, talking about his aunt Cornelia Sorabji- the legal champion of the pardah-nasheen (secluded) child widows of Hindustan and author of much mawkish sub-Kiplingesque (that is the Kipling of the unreadable Naulakha) shite.

Cornelia's coming to England was facilitated by Florence Nightingale and her position at Oxford was secured by Benjamin Jowett- which explains why her books read like Edmund Candler's tampons. Tellingly, she was a friend of Pandita Ramabai, but, towards the close of her professional life in India, almost as ineffective- thanks to a Lesbian, Katherine Mayo, who killed off a promising indigenous infant literary industry and salutary career for our daughters by turning the Oriental woman, from an object of romantic pity merely, to one of visceral revulsion.

After Gandhi's goons extorted money at gun point from her patron- a female relative of the Nawab of Dhaka (at least this is what I understood the Prof. Sorabji to say)- and nothing was left to pay for her program of Social Work, Cornelia settled in England finding time to give that toothless old twit a swift kick in the goolies-
except, being a girl, she missed.

. What is your real following, Mr. Gandhi?”

“Three hundred and fifty millions.”

“Ah, do be serious. I want to know the number of your disciples, not the population of India.”

He repeated, “Three hundred and fifty millions.”

“Deduct at least one individual from that total,” I said, indicating myself. “Come, now, what is your following?”

“Three hundred and fifty millions, whether you like it or not.”

It seemed hopeless to pin him down, so I tried another tack. “What is the membership of the Congress of which you are the accepted leader?”

“We have no list of members - all India.”

I tried again. “How many people were imprisoned when you came to Delhi last year to negotiate with Lord Irwin?”

“The entire Congress.”

“yes; I remember you said so at the time. How many people would you say were then in prison?”

“Lakhs and lakhs.” (Hundreds of thousands.)

“And why were they in prison? Didn’t you invite them to qualify for prison by breaking the law? Yes, I heard you myself. They obeyed you, and committed acts of violence punishable under the Indian Penal Code - murder, assault, the wrecking of trains, arson, the burning of imported or mill-made cloth, which ruined the poor, smaller Indian merchants. How was it that the apostle of passive resistance had disciples who committed violence?”

“I deny that cloth was burned.”

“But it was, Mr. Gandhi. Your disciple here,” said I, indicating a wealthy cotton merchant and mill owner who sat beside me, - a mill owner who is commonly believed to have been excused from Gandhi’s ban because, like the mill owners of Ahmedabad, near Gandhi’s home, he is said to subsidize the Congress, - “your disciple here knows that this is true.”

“Yes, Mahatmaji,” he said, “cloth was burned in Bombay.”

“Well, I never commanded violence. I repudiate all who committed violence.”

“You can’t repudiate your followers and agents. ‘What you do through another you do yourself.’ You and I are familiar with that principle. You certainly commanded picketing. The cloth burners said they were picketing. What did you mean by picketing?”

“I meant for them to fall at the feet of the persons using or selling foreign cloth or mill-made cloth, and say, ‘Please do not do this.’ That is not countenancing violence.”

“But surely you knew that that was not the way they would do it. And those who committed violence said that you paid them to do it. That was revealed when they were let out of prison in 1931 after the Irwin-Gandhi Pact. They complained that if the boycott could not be renewed they would starve, since they would lose both their wages from you and their gains from looting. You held a meeting to decide how many of these people you could continue to pay.”

“Yes, I paid them. But I repudiate those who committed acts of violence. They were hooligans.”

“Exactly. Many people have thought all along that your following was swelled by the hooligans who live on the edge of social unrest in all countries, but I didn’t expect you to say the same thing. However, deduct the hooligans from the ‘lakhs and lakhs’ - how many are left whom you would regard as your followers?”

“Thirty thousand.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gandhi. When I am asked in America, ‘What is the number of Mr. Gandhi’s real discipleship?’ I shall say, ‘Thirty thousand; he told me so himself.”

Reverting once more to the question of non-violence, I asked Mr. Gandhi to recall the case of Bhagat Singh, who in 1931 murdered two policemen, a Sikh and an Englishman, in cold blood. “Do you remember saying, Mr. Gandhi, ‘Let there be thousands of Bhagat Singhs’?”

“Yes, I said that.”

“What did you mean?”

“I meant that I admired the self-sacrifice of a man who committed for his country a deed which he knew, if discovered, would cost him his life.”

“But that argument would apply to any murderer. And your disciples did not understand what you meant. Cawnpore in February and March, 1931, was the result.”

A woman disciple spoke up: “The Congress did not stir up the Cawnpore riots. The British did that.”

But Gandhi said: “You should not bring that up against me. I fasted, and God has forgiven me.”

On first reading, especially as this was written for an American magazine in 1931, it looks as though Cornelia has scored a technical k.o. The reverse is the case. Gandhi looks like he is in charge. He can get Whitey killed while grinning toothlessly and coming across all Jesus Christ in diapers.

Cornelia swings and misses. Gandhi's swinging dick bismarks the prissy Miss. That's what you get for coming out of purdah you slack twatted bluestocking you.

No wonder, Ms. Sorabji came to support British rule as essential for protecting traditional Hindu values. What she didn't get was traditional Hindus couldn't shoot Gandhi till the British left. Unfortunately, in 1942, Pundit Nehru blurted out a commitment to total war against the Japanese and, Churchill, foolishly, told Roosevelt about it. That's what did for traditional Hindu values. Well, that and flush toilets.

As the sole Hindutva blogger I have not scurrilously abused, it falls to me to point the way forward as follows

1) enforce Suttee for all Congress Presidents.

2) permit infanticide for sons of same if obviously feeble minded and unable to even rape some Congress worker's daughter without 'assistance from his foreign friends'.

3) Circumcise Subramaniyam Swamy, keep the foreskin as Janata Party leader and throw the rest away.

4) Put some viagra in Manmohan's camomile & see how fast he makes Anna Hazare his prison bitch.

5) Murli Manohar Joshi. You may not know how to murli him or even the precise nature of the particularly degrading type of sexual act the word connotates, but you know you want to so just treat yourself already.

What Gandhi gained from Khilafat

2011-12-21T20:05:00.006Z

I was under the impression that Gandhi's support for Khilafat (the demand for the restoration of the Turkish Caliphate) arose out of a naive desire to show solidarity with Muslims in their hour of need. The fact that he did not ask for a quid pro quo, in terms of a ban on cow slaughter, appeared a generous act.

I'm reading a book which paints a quite different picture. By 1920, Gandhi had succeeded in marginalizing Annie Beasant but the older generation of highly educated and accomplished 'moderates' were in no mood to be bossed around by some provincial South African crank. They considered Non Cooperation stupid. Already, Indians were displacing Europeans in the Administration, the Bench, the Professions and so on. Already, the central concession to Indian Capital had been made. True, Indian monetary policy, at this time, was seriously fucked so the Money-men were unhappy. But fucked monetary policy is the sort of thing that don't last forever and anyway nobody had a better idea. Thus, the only thing Non Cooperation would achieve would be letting a bunch of stupid college drop-outs and fuckwit journalists and gobshite mullahs and pundits and so on stick their snot-filled or syphilitic noses in to the serious business of Govt.

Fortunately, the spirit of an earlier generation of, High Caste Hindu, college drop-outs and rabid godmen had been thoroughly broken by Police Commissioner Tegart. Never again would a Hindu Sadhu be regarded as anything other than a conduit for Black Money or Black Magic or Mental Blankness, as opposed to a Moral force in National politics.

Khilafat, however, showed Islam as possessing a potential Hinduism no longer had. There is a Quranic prohibition on association with non-Muslims which could be interpreted as a ban on cooperation with the British Govt because of their hostility to the Turkish Caliph. This raised the chimera of tens of millions of Non-Cooperators coming out onto the streets avidly seeking death as a ticket to Paradise. This would mean, as Gandhi said, that Swaraj would be a reality within one year. Gandhi emerged as the one non-Muslim leader who whole-heartedly embraced the Khilafat cause. The bizarre thing is that his non-Muslim status as a Khilafati made him a Hindu leader. For a start the Khilafati's were awash with money- from zakat and contributions, they also printed their own money- and financed Gandhi lavishly. A picture was painted such that if appeared the Hindus would get Swaraj off the backs of the martyred Muslims. No need to join a Revolutionary cell and risk the hangman's noose. Gandhi becomes a sort of Hindu avatar, like Buddha or Vamana, who tricks essentially violent races into adherence to non-violence- except, of course, the threat of violence remains to poison the air.
This suggests that Gandhi's was always a rational irrationality and his curiously Religious halo, Simoniac stage magic. Only something wholly irrational, like Religion, could motivate support for a wholly irrational, purely Religious demand. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who opposed non-cooperation, and was threatened with physical assault by Shaukat Ali, ultimately learnt his lesson and became a Muslim leader working for tangible benefits accruing to Muslims exclusively.
He was driven out of the Home Rule league and complained bitterly to Gandhi-

Jinnah didn't know it at the time, but the Central Khilafat Committee was using its money to help sow division and bloodshed not just in India but the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. To their credit, once they realized this they stopped their monkey tricks.

The Turks abolished the Caliphate and adopted a secular course. Ibn Saud's Wahhabi zeal alienated Hanafi and Shia Indians. The Egyptian King's bid for the Caliphate was opposed even by the Wafd Egyptian Nationalists. Thus, Khilafat died out by itself. Yet, absurd as it was, it had served a greater or more greatly absurd purpose. Gandhi had established his ascendancy. Hindu Muslim riots had been revived. Indians had shown their incapacity to run their own 'alternative' Courts, Schools, Colleges and so on. Gandhi had done his job well. He could safely end the Non Cooperation Movement- his excuse being some guys protesting the high price of meat had roasted 23 policemen alive but failed to eat them- and spend some time in Jail.

Ultimately, spending lots of time in Jail is a good thing for fuckwit agitators. What's bad for them is running things.
Indeed, Spiritualizing Politics- whether in the name of Khilafat or Gandhian Swaraj or Eco-Feminsm or whatever- like the idiocy of Ethics, is only excusable if Occassionalism runs our prisons.

ghalib- ghazal 64

2011-12-17T21:09:00.025Z

{64,1}

junūñ kī dast-gīrī kis se ho gar ho nah ʿuryānī
garebāñ chāk kā ḥaq ho gayā hai merī gardan par

1) {from / by means of} what/whom would madness receive {help / a hand-grip}, if nakedness would not exist?

2a) the right/duty of ripping the collar has come to be upon my neck
2b) [oh] Collar, the right/duty of ripping has come to be upon my neck

Were Nakedness not Solitary could Majnun's reach-around thus wreck?

This pube plucked Mansur, the choked chicken of my neck.

{64,2}*

bah rang-e kāġhaż-e ātish-zadah nairang-e betābī
hazār āʾīnah dil bāñdhe hai bāl-e yak tapīdan par

1) with the aspect/color of fire-stricken paper [is] the wonder/trick of restlessness

2a) [it] binds a thousand mirror-hearts onto the wing of a single agitation
2b) the heart binds a thousand mirrors onto the wing of a single agitation

Like paper burning, Yearning so twists, shrivels and smokes to but sparks utter

A thousand mirrors, my heart speckles, thy butterfly of a single flutter.

ham aur vuh be-sabab ranj-āshnā dushman kih rakhtā hai
shuʿā-e mihr se tuhmat nigah kī chashm-e rauzan par

1) we, and that causeless(ly) grief-{acquainted/friendly} enemy! --for she places
2) blame for a gaze by/from the sun-ray, on the eye of the crevice-work

She and me, alas capriciously!, are afire of one ire, so she, that is we, ash-reap me to as enemy keep
That I may, at her Western wall pray, for aye its fenestrae, eye Evil I, its peep hole Creep

I think Mihr has the connotation of the Sun during Ramadan- i.e. the last rays of the setting sun being connected with the breaking of the fast- so I put in Western Wall (which also references the Wailing Wall).

I think this poem answers the question Dmirtri Karamazov asked about Fyodor, his author- 'why does such a man as he (obviously, in quoting this, I mean me) live?'

God, this and every Christmas, is for anal fucking emotional Scrooges like me, not the rest of youse guys.

Just as the Ghost of Christmas Present, David Cameron M.P & P.M, has saved all us old fashioned LSE misers from the Scrooge like sin of letting Tiny Tim (the City of London) go the way of Lehman Bros, so too may any young person out there who genuinely wants to know 'why does such a man as he live' w.r.t fathers as egregious as I, take solace in Theodicy as an Noetheran symmetry of the world, for the conservation of rage, that is ire. For that, indeed, is Iyer.

The Vampire of Veluvan

2011-12-15T18:55:00.005Z

The Vampire of Veluvan

The old German lived in a Buddhist dharamshala on the edge of the old town. Not far, but the flat rate fare wouldn't stretch to it. The trip would cost extra. What to do? These are disturbed times.

   I disdained to haggle. The tonga driver's face grew longer. He had misjudged me. “It is a bad place,” he temporized, sizing me up slyly. “Good people do not go there.”
   ‘So,’ I thought to myself- ‘some prostitutes are lodged in the dharamshala. No big surprise. Since the riots, the pilgrim trade has dried up. No doubt, the lodge keepers have found a way to appeal to a different type of customer’.
‘I’ll pay what you like.” I said sharply- “Just name your fee and stick to it. Mind it,no tamasha later on!”
  “No, Babu, you don’t understand.” the tonga wallah was placatory. My flash of temper had convinced him I was harmless. “It is not a good place. Unlucky. There has been talk.”

                                “Some bad characters hanging around?” I asked.
   “No! They are too scared. It is something else. There are some foreigners there. They are old…really, too old. What can I tell you? It is not a good place. You are young and fit. Why risk?”
            “All right,” I said quietly, “We will go and come back quickly. It is for my work.”

   The dharamshala was in a deplorable condition. The lodge keeper had fled the previous year. An enterprising Jain youngster came round on his three wheeler to sell the elderly pilgrims some basic items. He seemed a smart enough fellow. I was surprised to see that he stocked Japanese (or perhaps Korean) magazines and noodle packets.
   Initially, he was polite and solicitous but abruptly lost interest when I mentioned who it was I had come to see. Apparently, the old German didn’t spend money here. Instead, some Sadhus, belonging to the Natha order, came to see to his needs once every fortnight or so.

No, nobody knew why the naked Sadhus should want to look after the old foreigner.

   I stopped probing.  Ever since the riots, the townsfolk had become wary of the nanga Sadhus with their tridents and matted hair.
    The elderly Ambassador, whose memoirs I was editing, had mentioned that the old German was a Knight of Malta. He was some sort of relative of the Spy Master Gehlen. The story I had pieced together was that he had initially been sent to Nepal on charitable work for the Sovereign Order. After the fall of the Ranas, he reappeared in Rangoon as a student of Buddhism. There are some articles he wrote for German magazines available on the internet. I don't read German, but gather that he was an admirer of U Nu.
  After Ne Win's coup, he resurfaces in Sihanouk’s Cambodia, but, in ’65, after that puissant Prince’s deal with the Communists, he receives a sort of bedraggled entrée at the court of Sikkim’s Gyalmo- the beautiful American blue-blood, Hope Cooke. From there, around the time of the fall of the dynasty, the German went away to Sri Lanka. Then- the Karmic Ouroburos of that Edenic isle having swallowed and spat him back up again- some twenty years ago, he returned to India and settled in this little pilgrim town. The Indian Government seems to have turned a blind eye to his remaining in India. Perhaps, if he had really converted to Buddhism, he had become stateless. The Knights of Malta are a Catholic order. They would have withdrawn his passport.

My other reason for thinking there might be a story here was because I had come across his name in a book on ‘Hitler’s High Priestess’ the French savant, known as Savitri Devi, who inspired Serrano and Evola and, now, a whole host of neo-Nazis who, strangely to my mind, have done little to build upon her foundations to secure the recognition of Hitlerism as a bona fide religion.
My first visit to the old man did not go well. He was completely hairless, hunched, and naked. He shouted at me, in Hindi, to go away. There were two European women there- both over 70. They looked terrified. I hurriedly left.

   Later, more ashamed of my lack of savoir faire than from any higher motive, I sent over a note explaining my interest. To my surprise, I got back a rather beautifully handwritten invitation to dinner at a local restaurant- ‘Gaylord’, I think, it was called. The D.M, a friend of a friend, was kind enough to lend me his ‘lal batti’ car. To be frank, I was nervous about staying out late in a town so recently scourged by riots.

  Von Gehlen was very thin, perfectly bald, with creased but surprisingly pink and healthy skin. He introduced himself in good English with a degree of gentility but spoiled it by asking if I could pay for the meal. Before I could reply, he added that he had already ordered himself an expensive brandy.

  With an affectation of Teutonic bluntness, I let him know that money was not a problem. However, he continued to harp on the subject. ‘I am too old,’ he said simply, ‘you will have to pay. If not in money, then by presenting your arse for the kicks that our good host will surely shower upon you. You see, I am too old. They worry they will have the corpse of a white man on their hands. That is the only thing that restrains them. Otherwise, they are wild beasts.’

   I called the waiter and told him to take the old man’s order. I myself would have to leave shortly- so let the bill be kept ready for me.
   “Sahib, you came in the ‘lal batti’ car?” the waiter turned out to be the proprietor. A milder looking man could scarcely be conceived. Far from wishing to hand out thrashings to deadbeat customers, he had his own tale of woe to tell. But, by this stage, I just wanted to escape. This trip had been a waste of time.

The old man was enjoying his brandy. If I hadn’t been in such a hurry to leave, I would have felt sorry for him. He was in his eighties. This might be his last occasion to eat in a restaurant- not fancy by any means, but, perhaps, the best this little town could offer.

Simply to give him face, I muttered a couple of questions about Savitri Devi and Julius Evola and Ambassador Serrano and so forth.

He immediately assumed an air of bemusement- did anyone take those cranks seriously?

I remembered that the German word ‘krank’ means a sick man, rather than a nut-job. Heidegger’s comment on Celan- ‘Celan ist krank heillos’- came to mind. For some inexplicable reason, I spoke my thought aloud.

“Celan” he said, correcting my accent, “You like his poetry?”
“Too deep for me” I said truthfully.

   Perhaps, it wasn’t very tactful to bring up the meeting between the Jewish poet and the Nazi philosopher. Let the old man enjoy his brandy.
   “Yes.” said the old man, “He had depth. Unfortunately, the River Seine had more. Who would have thought it?”
   “Were you in Sri Lanka during the Black July pogrom?” I surprised myself. It wasn’t a question I had intended to ask.
   “What? Yes... I suppose so. I saw some killings myself. The villagers had got hold of a Strassenvalze- do you say road roller? So they used that on the children and the old people and the too stupid to run away. You are…Tamil?”
   I was astonished. Could the German be reading my mind? I’d read that thing about the steamroller in a book by R.D Laing. The great psychiatrist was in Sri Lanka to learn some advanced meditational technique to slow down Time- that single, spokeless, Strassenvalze wheel of King Menander's otherwise non-existent chariot- and freeze the elusive moment which, the Buddhists maintain, is the only reality.
   It occurred to me, I would have said Milinda- not Menander- and, suddenly, the brandy tasted vile.
I asked the proprietor to hurry up with the main course.

“I heard you were a Knight of Malta.”
“In another life… another, do you say habilitation?|”
“No, we don’t say that. Do you mean incarnation? Another birth?”
“No. Habilitation. A course of higher studies. Do you have such things here?”

“Yes, we abound in it. In India, possession of a PhD qualifies you for better treatment in Jail. All the apprentice gangsters have PhDs. You may have seen them busily completing their habilitations during the recent riots. ”

“So, there is progress. Good. And you yourself are…”
“Not a PhD. Don’t worry. The restauranteur will get paid in money, not kicks.”
‘So, you are not an academic. Perhaps, a journalist?”
“No. Definitely not a journalist.”
“But political.. you ask about Savitri Devi and that old paralytic- Julius Evola…”

“He was paralyzed? I somehow thought he was a mountaineer like …urm... y'know, the British poet, the enemy of Yeats at the Golden Dawn... y'know...the guy who persuaded Ananda Coomaraswamy to try a bit of wife-swapping...sorry, the name was on the tip of my tongue....”

It was the British occultist, Aleister Crowley, whose name had slipped my memory.
The old German was peering at me intently. Suddenly, he grinned.
Could he, not just read my mind, but actually disorder my thoughts?

But no, why should he bother? He was busy with his brandy. He had already achieved his objective. He had established his ascendancy. Put simply, I was spooked and I would stay spooked. I might as well just pay the bill and go home. Chalk it up to experience. Old Germans living in derelict dharamshalas are still no objects for pity or, worse, the sort of fuzzy-minded mystagogy some middle class Indians still occasionally go in for.

“Did you know Evola, in Germany, during…urm.. your military service?”

I had remembered that Evola was hit by a shell that paralyzed him while working for the SS in the last days of the war.

Except, I wasn’t sure I’d ever actually known that.

Thought transference?

Was I tapping into the German's private portal to the collective Unconscious?

“He was in Vienna. I was on the Eastern Front.”
“That must have been…”
“Glorious? Yes. War is glorious... to the young. For a fit man who is young.”
He looked pointedly at my thick eyeglasses.
“Perhaps, you know the poem by Tyrtaeus…”
“That lame school teacher? He was before my time.”
“Since he lived a few centuries before Alexander- I suppose he must have been!”
The old man grimaced. “All soldiers are contemporaries.”
“The Buddha was not a soldier.”
“Is that what they teach you nowadays?”
He blinked at me happily, like a lizard in the sun.
"Forgive me. I did not know. It explains so much.”

    Karma, I thought- or thought that I thought- for, perhaps, the German was putting these thoughts into my head... Still, either way, I had brought this on myself. The truth was, I just wanted a bit of local colour, I had no interest in the man himself. There was a slot, in my new novel, for an old European aristocrat living in an Ashram or dharamshala in some little town- perhaps in the Himalayas…actually, definitely, the Himalayas… and he’d say wise things in a German accent and maybe quote Novalis… no, Holderlin- the God within us always lonely & poor- or better yet, Heidegger on Holderlin- the poet's blighting illness as Being's recovered future from which our salvation will come as a god-… and… and… I don’t know, the whole thing would have been kind of mystical with a bit of a sentimental undercurrent and, well, kind of sophisticated.

   Instead, I was stuck playing the role of the pretentious, bespectacled, Babu upon whom this elderly Hitlerite hooligan could practice his mind games while leaving me to pick up the tab.

            I called for the bill. “I’m sorry, I have to go… the District Magistrate lent me his car.”

    Von Gehlen ignored me. I was relieved. What if he really was a hypnotist, like Aleister Crowley? Or, worse a vetala, a vampire- there had been unexplained deaths in the vicinity of the dharamshala…- where better for a vampire to hide himself than a riot plagued Pilgrim town?

  I was out of my depth. I don’t do Horror. Well, Dracula maybe- but this was shaping up to be H.P effing Lovecraft! How get out of it? Got to let my lower middle class, N.R.I, instincts take over. When you look into the abyss- thus sprach Neitzche- take an effing snapshot on your camera-phone, otherwise, the abyss will look back into you.
   Maybe I should take a snapshot of the menu- which by a typesetter's error translated ' Athithi Devo Bhavah' as 'The Guest is Cod"- or find some billboard with a hilarious example of Indian English I could post up on my blog.
                    I never actually did take a snapshot of the menu.
              Just that zikhr-e-sukhan- the mere memory of my blog- was enough to save me.

“Will you visit me again?” the old man was crying. “No one comes. No one comes. The abbot said he would send me V.I.P visitors. I would conduct lecture tours. My books would be published. That was 20 years ago. They have forgotten me. Everyone has forgotten me.”

I asked the driver to turn on the siren. “Sahib,” he said, “It is against regulations. Lal batti can only be turned on for official business.”
“Arre, it is for your own safety I am telling!” I replied, “There is a vetala behind! I was clever to trick. But, why take chances? No backchat, just drive fast, I say!"

Manmohan Singh slaps Sharad Pawar.

2011-12-15T09:47:00.001Z

Followers of this blog well know of its unstinting admiration for Manmohan, aka Man Mountain, Singh. Recently, outraged by Sharad Pawar's opposition to Sonia Ji's new Food Bill, Manmohan has manned up, done his press-ups, applied some Grecian 2000 to his beard and gone and slapped the NCP leader.

Well done, Manmohan. Always thought you had it in you. Now kindly put the smack down on Amartya Sen.

Harvard sacks Subramaniyam Swamy

2011-12-12T11:05:00.000Z

Subramaniyam Swamy is a Mathematical Economist. In other words, an idiot. Anything he writes about Politics or Culture or the Law is bound to be egregiously and recklessly false, mischievous, and fatal to any cause he holds dear.

Harvard has finally given him the sack over an article where he says-

'India that is Bharat that is Hindustan is a nation of Hindus and others whose ancestors are Hindus. Even Parsis and Jews in India have Hindu ancestors. Others, who refuse to so acknowledge or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration can remain in India, but should not have voting rights (which means they cannot be elected

representatives).'

There is only one person in India to which the above stricture applies- Sonia Gandhi. But, she has been popularly elected whereas Swamy has lost his seat. She has formed a Government which has been returned to power and whose legitimacy is unquestioned.

There is no Muslim who does not acknowledge that they are descended from idolators. According to Islam, the father of Abraham, himself, was an 'aatish parast' fire-worshipping idolator. Swamy knows all this very well. The Jews weren't always faithful to Jehovah- if not a Holy Cow, they had a Golden Calf. No Jew, and therefore no Christian, denies that he or she is descended from idolators. True those ancestors may have lived far away but, don't you know, entire world plus many other planets were conquered by Emperor Bharata? Francis Wilford said Britain itself was nothing but the Sweta Dwipa of the Puranas. Thus everybody in the world is descended from Hindus because G.o.I, as well as Swamy defines Hinduism as any and every species of animism, shamanism, idolatory or vodoo practised by anyone not of an Abrahamic Religion. That's why, BJP MP's have to convert to Islam just so as to legitimize their second marriage even though both Polygyny and Polyandry are normative within Hinduism.

Swamy knows all this. His brother-in-law is Jewish, his wife Parsi, his son-in-law Muslim and his sister-in-law Christian. Yet reckless disregard for the truth has become his trademark, his one asset. These supposed Mullahs who deny they are descended from Jahil idolators don't exist, not even in Swamy's fevered imagination. The whole thing is a rhetorical flourish. If he had written instead 'Only one person shouldn't hold elective office in India- Sonia Gandhi.' people would have laughed at him. After all, even if Sonia Ji weren't an MP, she'd still be running the Govt. She could get her maid-servant elected and save herself the bother of visiting her constituency.

Swamy is a Tamil Brahmin. This is what he proposes ' Implement Uniform Civil Code, make Sanskrit learning compulsory and singing of Vande Mataram mandatory, and declare India as Hindu Rashtra in which only those non-Hindus can vote if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors are Hindus. Re-name India as Hindustan as a nation of Hindus and those whose ancestors are Hindus.'

Does Swamy seriously think that the people of Tamil Nadu will sit quietly by while some idiot Brahmin forces them to learn Sanskrit? Does he not remember how the Tamils in Sri Lanka reacted when their Govt. tried to make Sinhala compulsory? Is he utterly mad?

No. He's an economist from Harvard, They're all fuckwits who shouldn't be let out in public without a minder for their own safety.

Still, Swamy's sacking by Harvard may yet redound to his credit. Perhaps, we will now get some plain speaking from him about the scandal that is National Income Accounting and Developmentalist chicanery.

Veena Malik vs. Chief Justice Katju.

2011-12-12T08:15:00.000Z

The Pakistani media is up in arms because Veena Malik has appeared nude in an Indian magazine with I.S.I stamped on her arm.

The Indian Media, however, have said nothing about Chief Justice Katju's much more shameful and embarrassing public 'uryani', despite the fact that he is now their overseer.

I think, as part of Indo-Pak confidence building talks, Katju should be forced to pose nude for the Daily Jang with RAW stamped on his backside. In exchange, Veena Malik may kindly be appointed Chairman of the Press Council of India.
Provided, of course, she keeps her clothes on. Katju's uryani should suffice for the whole sub-continent.

Apoorvata and identity- a parable

2011-12-11T17:08:00.002Z

There was once, in a certain village, a learned young Brahmin who had mastered the Vedas and Brahmanas and Upanishads and won golden opinions from visiting scholars. However, in that same village lived a solitary old man who seemed skeptical. An ironic smile played upon his features whenever he encountered the young Pundit on the street.

One day the question of the young man's marriage was being discussed by the village council. Actually, the villagers were simply basking in the reflected glory of the flattering marriage proposals that had come for their prodigy.
One of the village elders feigned regret saying- 'Vivaham vidyanasham! Marriage destroys knowledge. Such a pity our young man has to get married to fulfill his duty to the Manes."
The skeptical old man laughed out loud. "Don't worry, " he said, "the boy has no true knowledge. He loses nothing taking a wife. On the contrary, the gain is all on his side!"
Fearful of the old man's sharp tongue, the village elders remained silent. However, the young pundit soon came to hear of the old man's comment.
He went to confront the old man, cheered on by a group of his young acolytes.
"Sir, you say I have no true knowledge. Please examine me, asking any questions you like. Do this as a favor to me, so that I may learn my shortcomings and take measures to amend them."
"I have only one question- who are you?"
"Sir, you know very well, I am so and so, son of so and so, belonging to such and such gotra and such and such sect."
"You have told me about the relation you stand in to others- not who you are."
"Ah, I understand! You are asking me about my true Self. Sir, I know from Scripture that my true Self is the Atman which is eternal, unchanging....
"Stop! You are just parroting what you have learnt. There is no apoorvata- nothing new, unprecedented, or uniquely individual- in what you say. Hence, according to the rules of your own hermeneutics- your answer is meaningless."
"Okay, I understand your purpose. Indeed, in our Chandogya Upanishad, we see that the Brahmin who just repeats what he has learnt without understanding the inner meaning deserves to lose his head. Don't worry, I will now explain to you, using my own words and giving unique examples drawn from my own experience, that same essence I was trying to convey to you before. Thus, my answer- satisfying the condition of apoorvata- will have to be accepted by you."
"Very good," said the old man smiling ironically.
The young man began speaking. As he spoke he waxed eloquent. He was amazed by his own brilliance, he got carried away and uttered a true gem of rhetoric.
Suddenly he noticed that the old man was grinning like a devil. His own supporters were murmuring. What had happened? Curse it- I went and quoted the heretical doctrine! I had only memorized their formulation because it was the argument to be refuted (poorvapaksha) in the Brahma Sutra commentary. Carried away by my own wind of words- I have sailed into the enemy camp!
The young man laughed out loud. "See," he said, "I almost committed myself to the false doctrine, however I know the proper counter argument. Here it is- I give it to you verbatim."
"Back to parroting?!" said the old man, " where is the apoorvata here?"
"Okay, you have caught me out," said the young Pundit, 'but give me a second chance. I will go away now and meditate. When I have formulated my arguments properly such that they exhibit the apoorvata you consider so important, then I will come in front of you again. On that basis, kindly permit me to depart."

The young man went aside and began to meditate. As often as he tried to frame his thoughts in his own words, relying on his own arguments and analogies- rather than the authority of Scripture- so often he fell into error and confusion.
Finally he determined to go quietly to the nearby town and gain practice in dialectics in a place where he was unknown.
As he walked, he saw a wood cutter. He thought to himself, 'let me talk to the wood cutter and learn the secrets of his craft. In this way I can find a new analogy- one not given in the commentaries- that will have the requisite apoorvata. Thus, I will prove I am not just a parrot."
The wood cutter said, if you want to learn about my craft- try it yourself. No! That is not how you hold the axe; that is not how you stand; that is incorrect!"
"How so?" the Pundit replied, "I am cutting the wood. Indeed, as I gain strength, it may be, I will be a better wood cutter than you!"
"No," said the wood cutter, "from long experience, our caste has learned that there is a particular way to hold the axe, a particular way to cut, a particular way to carry the faggots, such that injury is avoided and wear and tear on the limbs is minimized. Furthermore, if you look at the songs we sing- their rythmn and melody are optimized for the work we do and the particular psychological strains associated with our vocation. Our dialect and manner of speech, too, is adapted to our needs."
The young Pundit learnt from the wood cutter and, after him, from the carter, the merchant, the sentry at the octroi post, the bandit, the revolutionary, the spy, the pimp, the ambassador, the scavenger, the mendicant, the aristocrat, and so on.
Finally, he had seen enough. He turned his steps homeward. No one, now, could call him a parrot in a cage- he had spread his wings and seen the world. His speech was full of apoorvata. No one could place him. No one could predict what he would say next. The old man would have to admit that whatever answer he returned to the question 'Who are you?" evidenced knowledge rather than the training given to a performing pet.

As he walked down a forest path, he heard a rustling in the bushes. Immediately all his senses became alert. He was no longer the Pundit immersed in his own thoughts, blind to the dangers of the road. He had heard stories of how tigers shadow their prey. He saw his chance. Leaping across a rain gully, he seized a hanging creeper and quickly pulled himself up a tree. In the process, some of his clothes fell away. Even his sacred thread snagged on a branch and broke.
From his vantage point he peered around. In the silence, the only thing he could hear was the tinkling of his own ornaments. Quickly, he tore them off and cast them away. There was a rustle above him. A hissing sound. Perhaps, a poisonous snake? He dropped to the ground and ran crouched through some low bushes. The tiger may be tracking him by smell. He saw a patch of mud. Quickly, he rolled in the mud. That might throw the tiger off the scent. He darted to the safety of some undergrowth. Resting there, he cast his eyes about. There was water ahead of him. Sooner or later, he would need to drink. He came cautiously forward and surveyed the scene. All seemed peaceful. Still he waited. Even when he finally gave in temptation and came down to drink, he drank quickly- alert and in a suitable posture for instant flight.
Wandering like this, he lost track of time. Suddenly he found himself on the border of a village- but was it a village of bandits or respectable men? Before he could decide, he was spotted. Farmers armed with scythes came running to the spot.
'The tiger' he said and fainted.
The good people of the village took him in. They understood that he had escaped from a tiger. They gave him water to bathe and clean clothes to wear. After he had taken his meal and was in a relaxed frame of mind, they asked him the inevitable question- "Who are you?"
He had forgotten.
The village Vaidya said- he has received a terrible fright. A portion of his soul left him when ran from the tiger. It has not found its way back to him. No doubt, when he sleeps, it will find it easier to come to him across the landscape of dreams. Let him rest."
He rested, he dreamed, his health was restored, his body became plump, his scratches and bruises faded away leaving no mark of his trauma.
Still, when they asked him the question 'Who are you?" he had to confess 'I don't know.And... I don't know why but I feel the answer to this question is the most important thing in my life. So, though you mean well, I can't agree to your proposal that I forget the past and just settle down here."
The village council assembled to consider ways of helping their guest. The carpenter spoke up. He said- 'the man is from the carpenter caste. I can tell because the way he handled my tools." The potter said- 'no he is a potter." The toddy tapper said- 'no, he is a toddy tapper."
The Pundit said- all of you are wrong. He is a Brahmin expert in Vedas and Upanishads.
The Headman replied- "No he is an aristocrat, who acquired Brahmin lore as part of his studies. However, his practical knowledge shows he must be the son of a King trained to take over the reins of administration. The merchant replied- "no, he understands bargaining and accountancy. He must be the son of a great Seth, the head of a transnational Guild,who arranged for him to receive instruction along with the Princes of the realm. This can be seen from his knowledge of the Shraman heterodox sects. This is the true explanation."

The watchman said 'What if he is a spy? Our whole village will be put to the sword if we harbor an enemy agent!"
Suddenly it became urgent to establish the young stranger's identity.

The Vidushak (detective) was called. He asked for the young man's childhood memories- the lullabies his mother had sung to him. The Vidushak saw that one of the lullabies was unfamiliar to him. It contained a clue as to the direction in which the stranger's natal village might lie. The Vidushak took the young man and set off in that direction. After various travails, the Vidushak was finally able to return the young man to his native village. Slowly he began to recognize his old friends and neighbors.
One day, he remembered the old man. He laughed ruefully- "'Who are you?'- such a simple question yet it caused me to lose my identity! Where is the old man? Take me to him. I will touch his feet and admit defeat."
But the old man was dead.
The story of the young man had become famous. A great scholar came to the village. He asked the young Pundit how he had come by knowledge of so many different castes and conditions of people. The Pundit could not reply. That part of his life was still clouded from him.
The scholar assembled the villagers and said to them- 'this young man left the village to find a fitting answer to the question 'Who are you?' Immersed in meditation, he broke the chain of Maya- Illusion- which creates a false and delusive egotism which expresses itself as greed, envy and craving. However, evil forces sought to break his meditation. Thus, he emerged from the forest not as an accomplished Yogi but in an unfinished state. His knowledge of all other castes and professions arises out of past-life experiences which continue to exist in the apurva state rather than fully fructifying. That is why though he remembers the skills and knowledge of every craft or profession he excelled in in previous lives, still everything seems jumbled together. Now, clearly, we can see that this young man's experience is a proof of Religion. How so? Well, he has memories of being a scavenger. But, he must have been a very good and pious scavenger, for he was next reborn as a wood cutter. Again his piety and good deeds as a wood cutter enabled him to rise one step higher. Even wealthy merchants, and great aristocrats can testify that he had the qualities of their own station. The fact that his final birth was as a Brahmin- shows it is the top most caste.
However, still we see he excels all others of his class even in this life, for-without taking monastic vows or practicing severe austerities- he has gained knowledge of past life experiences and thus can give a proper answer to the old man's question 'Who are you?" for the element of apoorvata that the old man requested is now supplied by his now being in an apurva state whereby the action has already been completed but the fruit is not yet in the hand. No doubt, this was the hidden meaning of the old man's insistence on apoorvata.
'In consequence, I find, this young man is fully qualified to act as the Rashtra Rishi (National Sage) for the Kingdom. Such, indeed, is my recommendation."

The young Pundit could find no fault in the great scholar's opinion. With a diffidence and humility that smacked of true spirituality, he took up the post of Rashtra Rishi.

One day a crime was reported to him. A learned Brahmin, gathering herbs in the forest, had come across a young boy of the scavenger class conducting a Vedic ceremony all by himself. The Brahmin could testify that the boy- being free of all blemishes and having the uttermost purity and spirituality- conducted the ceremony in a manner superior to all other priests of our present fallen Age.
But, was this not- in a sense- a violation of the 'closed shop' of the Brahmin caste? How could they gain food and livelihood if such practices became prevalent? What should be done?
The Rashtra Rishi said- 'whereas Scripture emphasizes attainment not birth- nevertheless, the lad should be beheaded. This is because my own experience shows that the proper course is to wait for slow promotion up the caste ladder. This prodigy has jumped the gun. Though this action is neither displeasing to the Heavens nor against the observances of Religion- still, it is still against Nature.Let him now take the ultimate promotion of pure union with the Deity and enter that realm where Nature has no claim."

The reason I tell you this story is not, however, what you might have guessed from the title. Nor will my slovenly literary style have prepared you for the surprise I mean to spring on you when I tell you my purpose here.

Strange as this may seem- I wish to reflect on the impossibility of modernist literary fiction in our present age. Whereas traditional cultures work by 'participation mystique'- abnegation of identity and full participation in the events depicted- and whereas, my generation, could still see the computer, and the internet, as being like a spectacle which draws us in- like the Matrix movies- we are dinosaurs. The new twittering/texting generation doesn't see Knowledge as being like a book that draws us in, a spectacle to which we surrender- rather, for them, technology is a servant that enables more human interaction, more sharply defined identity, apoorvata as the inescapable condition of being alive.
Why is this problematic?
Well, modern literature is related to the notion of leisure and rational recreation. It is based on the notion that while engaging with the book you do not surrender or dissolve your identity- that is 'escapism' and simply a low class dissipation- but, employ judgement and a particular judicial type of empathy, which strengthens and makes more secure your own sense of security and entitlement.
This was all very well when new information, from whatever channel, was believed to always incrementally shore up identity. This meant leisure- a period devoted to recreation because no threat is visible- could expand. Indeed, expanding leisure and rational recreation combated social phenomena founded in participation mystique- e.g the craziness of crowds.
Path dependence ceases to be a problem in an economy where rational agents act consulting only their own interests. Judgement, as a faculty, becomes a sort of social reflex. Irrationality and 'deterministic chaos' type processes tend to disappear. History itself becomes predictable. It becomes meaningful to speak of a non-eschatological meta-history. The Arts address themselves to the question of representing historical evolution in a manner constantly monitored and chastened by the critical judgement of the audience.
Then disaster struck. Knowledge, it turned out, was not incremental- rather it proceeded by somersaults. Furthermore, new types of knowledge meant that suddenly core elements of our identity could at any time be shown to be false.
Consider King Oedipus. At any moment a messenger can come before him to reveal that everything he thought he knew about himself was actually a lie. Our position is much worse than Oedipus. Messengers have already arrived from the four corners of the globe and from across the entire spectrum of the sciences, any or each of whom might have information that can show we ourselves are the culprits that we seek. Nothing is safe.
Just as some obscure Maths Journal, or Law Journal, or Science Journal might, today, have published something which makes nonsense of the Business Model of your employer- dooming you to penurious retirement- so to with our Personal Identity Model, so to speak.
There is no such thing as Leisure because we need to be monitoring so many different information channels to ensure that we are still who we think we are. True- as a distraction, not a recreation- we surrender more on more to all sorts of virtual realities. But we are like the young Pundit who thinks he is being chased by a tiger. The faulty of judgement is not being strengthened. Empathy is not being increased. There is no more 'Oliver Twist' , there is only 'Slumdog Millionaire'.

The twittering/texting generation, on the other hand, may evolve their own answer to this existential threat from information. Too late, alas, for my generation. It may that their literature will be so different from ours that we won't recognize it when we see it.

Let us suppose a world of hand held devices dependent on cloud computing delivered through a BPO type channel; except not just Business Processes but all sorts of Psychological and Personal services are also covered; then, perhaps, we will have a Knowledge enabled population whose valorization of apoorvata- novelty, not security, as the condition of life- enables them to escape the fate of the Pundit terrorized by the Tiger of Information.

For us post-modern subjects- for whom modernity is an impossible project because of the threat from information to core identity- Literature is over.For a while we can still tune into programs like 'House' or 'Fringe' or 'Numbers' or 'Lie to me' where a maverick or just plain mad savant can still put all the pieces together in time for the credits to roll. But, notice that ordinary people have no stable identity in this world. Anyone can become anything. All that is solid has, at last, really melted into thin air. There are no secure sources of identity anymore- not no master narratives, but no way of telling how we will figure in those narratives.
Why should this matter? Because Knowledge is re-inventing itself on a basis bereft of the possibility of a participation mystique. The Matrix has no place for us- no story to anchor us in it. Technology, to which life has become symbiotic, evolves such that Life belongs to those who want to live it on the basis of apoorvata, of novelty, of uniqueness.
But such a life, like that of King Solomon, is 'a treasure that can never befall another'. There still will be life- it just won't be a life transposable into literature.

Katju is racist and misogynist for holding India to be 'an Urdu-Sansrkit culture.

2011-12-10T19:19:00.029Z

Chief Justice Katju is a Kashmiri Brahmin. He comes from good, in the sense of deeply parochial, people, who so long as they steer clear of Populist Politics, don't necessarily fuck themselves up big time, indeed, occasionally, should they genuinely apply themselves, they can do well as barristers or brokers or bagmen- if not, or seldom, as peerless scholars.

Now, I've no doubt Katju is a nice guy but he's real stupid and ignorant. Compare him to people like Chief Justice Gajendragadkar or Anantanarayananan- equal masters of Sanskrit and English and their own mother tongue- and one becomes aware of the steep fall in the quality of the Judiciary arising out of (for those recruited from Katju's crooked, supposedly India conserving, 'Universal Culture'- as opposed to people who are or are prepared to be Judges coz Judging- i.e. rationality-as-impartiality- is their metier) the dramatic fall in their real wage.

This crazy old coot thinks that Sanskrit, as opposed to Tamil or Bengali, was the only language fit for scientific enquiry or rigorous thought. He is wrong. Maths, Medicine and Science existed before and after Paninian Sanskrit. Look at the epigraphic evidence you worthless fuckwit. Ind's great scholarly lineages and centres of learning evolved before Classical Sanskrit. Jains, Buddhists, Ajvikas, etc, had a considerable and diverse literature in various Prakrits. True, Classical Sanskrit functioned as a sort of academic lingua franca, in the same manner that Arabic and Latin did, but there are important Medical, Legal, Mathematical and other manuscripts written in Pali, Ardhamaghadi, Tamil and so on. Katju's Kashmiri ancestors did propagate something new in Sanskrit for a couple of centuries about a thousand years ago. But, it wasn't Maths or Science, but Tantric psilosophy and Dhvani aesthetic doctrine, neither of which are vehicles for enquiring minds as opposed to corrupt mystagogues. Indeed, Sanskrit verse, especially in polished and allusive form, was highly unsuitable for the preservation of Mathematical or other exact knowledge. The actual working papers and full development of the discourse was probably in the vernacular- Sanskrit prose, or macaronics, can get awfully tangled very quickly- and so, I think, the Sanskrit shite which has come down to us was a sort of prestige publication. Al Biruni, whom I take for an armchair scholar waxing wise off the labour of his Hindu slaves, and who I don't believe ever visited India, blamed the Indian love of Sanskrit poetry- verbose, witless shite- for the unintelligibility, inaccuracy, and negligible intellectual impact of their works as presented in Classical Sanskrit. What that old fraud and plagiarist didn't realize was that the Sanskrit versification was done after the thesis had been formulated by the author and that it was memorized by students before proper induction into that field of studies by the instructor. In that sense, it had a dhvani suggestiveness and leant beauty and grace to a burgeoning and ultimately shared Bildungs-Lebenswelt, so to speak. True, a lot of people in useful professions may have been able to read and even write Classical Sanskrit. What they didn't do is think in it, argue in it, or provide complete prose treatments of their theories in it. Since Classical Sanskrit took more effort to write, the most laborious and worthless type of literary work- viz. euphonious versification replete with allusion and assonance- became its province, not as a stimulus to thought but purely as ornamentation.

The problem is this sort of glistering Sanskrit chandas tend to get preserved while local language texts are superseded. Most maths work was probably in vernaculars like the yukitbhasa of Jyeshtadeva.
Katju disagrees.
He says- 'Science requires precision. Panini made Sanskrit a powerful vehicle in which scientific ideas could be expressed with great precision and with great clarity and it was made uniform all over India, so that thinkers in one part of the sub-continent could interact with thinkers of another part easily. That was his great contribution.'

Panini did not endow Sanskrit with precision, if by precision is meant certainty as to the referent. What he did was to make it easy to write correct Sanskrit- according to his own rules. Indeed, only Paninian Sankrit is sufficiently artificial to permit the writing of a book which has two quite different meanings or tells two totally different stories simultaneously. This is possible because the artificiality of the language encourages ornamentalism such that synonyms grow exponentially by synechdoche. One reason it was easy to write correct Sanskrit was because- once words lost precision w.r.t to the emotional or other valence of the referent- nothing constrained the writer to only expressing a thought which he had actually formulated for himself rather than sacrificing all for euphony. We, in English, or any actual spoken language, can tell the difference between a grammatically correct but meaningless sentence such as 'Green ideas sleep furiously' because, since childhood, a specific discipline has been applied to us- viz. to avoid talking shite. No such discipline applied to writers of Sanskrit shite. That's why it's shite.

Greek is still the bedrock for the vocabularies of Medicine and Physics but the Greeks had no Panini who permitted all words to become synonyms. Instead, they had Aristotle, who used observation of Nature to make distinctions between things in the world, to taxonomise things on the basis of genus and species, such that words cease to be synonyms and Thought, to express itself without risk of censure, must refer in a precise way to alternate states of the world.

What Greek literature teaches Western European Vernaculars is that grammar don't fucking matter. Rigour of thought does. Ornamental euphonious shite is shite only because Ornamentalism is shite, Euphuism is shite. Don't fucking do it. Don't inhale. Just say no.

What matters is Thought- and Thought, to be worthy of expression, must be precise and refer directly and unambiguously to states of the world. You may say- ah! but what about Wittgenstein's similarity to Bhratrhari? Fuck off. Wittgenstien was a fuckwit. He produced not one single Scientific or Mathematical advance. The same goes for any talk of fucking Heidegger, or Gadamer or Derrida and other such fuckwits. Lacan never fucking cured anybody. He was a quack. If their shite is similar to Sanskrit shite- its coz both were and are shite and even if you are a total fuckwit, are you being paid enough to puff that sort of fuckwittery? You're not being paid? You're prostituting yourself gratis? That's just sad, dude.

English, at present, is the International language of Science. Why? Is it because English is more precise than other languages or that it has a scientific grammar? Not at all. English speaking countries dominate militarily, economically, culturally and also in terms of Academic Research.

Ancient India needed a lingua franca. Some artificial system like that of Panini would, in all likelihood, been the solution to the co-ordination problem. However, because Panini's solution allows stupid fuckwits, like Katju, to think they are thinking just because they are writing or speaking grammatically, the solution was decidedly sub-optimal.

He says- 'Bengali and Tamil have only stories, novels and moral literature (like Thirukkural) but they do not have any discussion on mathematics, law, medicine, etc. Sanskrit was the language of people with an enquiring mind, who enquired about everything, and therefore there is a whole range of subjects which have been discussed in Sanskrit. '
This is racist. This Kashmiri Pandit, whose ancestral vocation was Sanskrit related, is telling us Tamils didn't have enquiring minds. If by chance their minds suddenly become enquiring, immediately they become Sanskrit speakers.
The Chief Justice is also a misogynist. In Classical Sanskrit plays, women speak Prakrit. This shows they don't have enquiring minds. They are stupid.

The truth is Classical Sanskrit, in the hands of Katjus's ancestors, became a resource for the fabrication of Tantric texts which supposedly endowed magical powers on the elite practitioners of its sordid and absurd rituals. Yet Katju thinks this sort of Sanskrit was 'the language of people with enquiring minds'. Why? The fuckwit thinks people with enquiring minds want to gain super-powers for themselves while letting the country go rot. This is not true. People with enquiring minds know, a priori, that reading some worthless Sanskrit shite and fucking your daughter don't make you God. It just won't happen. Katju won't believe me. People like him think they have 'enquiring minds'. All they enquire after is how they can give themselves a leg up and grab more power and prestige for themselves. That's what minds are for. What is worth enquiring about is power, pelf and privilege for oneself alone, nothing for the Common Weal. But, so what if some fucking Tantric actually gains God like powers by fucking his daughter or feeding on corpses or whatever? The guy remains a fuckwit who won't use his powers for any good for the rest of us. And what's the point of being a God if you can't do anything for suffering creatures?
For Katju and his ilk, enquiring minds are greedy only to posess Sanskrit of this Kashmiri Tantric sort and Urdu of the sycophantic 'please, please Laat Saab, increase my pension by reducing the share of my cousins because the back of your hand is the qibla of kisses and the palm of your hand is the ka'ba of hope'.
Vernacular languages, like Tamil, Bengali, Gujerati and so on are bound up with a country to which all its speakers owe loyalty. If the country progresses, all are better off. On the other hand, if your Uncle becomes a Tantric God- I should say demon rather- he will fuck you up and he will fuck up the place where you live. Same goes for if this Uncle manages to suck up to the new Governor. His gain is your loss. Worthless artificial, euphuistic macaronic, languages like Katju's Sanskrit or Urdu are a menace to the Common Weal.
Read Valmiki Ramayan, or Bhagvad Gita by all means. They aren't Tantric shite. They are pure poetry because they are genuinely profound and seek to advantage all equally- not confer magical powers on some fuckwit who has sex with his daughter or chews corpses by night.

There is not a single book, written in Sanskrit, on Maths, Medicine, Law, or any other field, published in the last 200 years, which isn't a great steaming pile of crap compared to stuff in Tamil, Bengali and other such languages. True, Shyamji Krishna Varma started out as a Sanskrit orator, but the point about him is that he abandoned that worthless vocation for Herbert Spencer's Sociology and Revolutionary Politics. Varma had an enquiring mind. Katju has shit for brains. Compared to him, the syphilitic whores of the Indian Journalistic community start looking quite smart.
For the generation born after Independence, English has utterly eclipsed every and any Indian language. Not because English is more 'scientific' or 'logical' or 'moral' or 'refined' but because every official Indian language is way more 'scientific' and 'logical' and 'moral' and 'refined' and scholarly and noble and, in consequence, is suitable for nothing by pi-jaw, hypocrisy and lies. Not being able to read an Indian language, even your own mother tongue, is a good thing because it protects you from the shite the netas and their ideological stooges spout. In the 1940's there was a Marxist historian, living in Moscow, who made a point of writing in Hindi. Since then, there is not a single serious Academic, working in any field, who writes exclusively in an Indian language. Indeed, it is now compulsory to submit an English version of one's dissertation to get a Phd- a vital qualification for a career criminal because its possession automatically qualifies one for better treatment in jail- in every subject save vernacular literature.

We can't adopt English as our National language because many of our people who know it and are in positions of authority are demonstrably the most worthless cunts in history. But, English aint the shite spouted by Katju. And that other, non Katju, English is the English everybody in India wants to know. Nobody wants to know Urdu or Sanskrit unless they already know non-Katju English or are just fucked in the head.
Sanskrit Mimamsa, of Katju's sort, is utter stupidity. So is learning Paninian Sanskrit. That is why Sankaracharya, in his Bhaja Govinda, condemned it as sheer foolishness. Katju is a fuckwit of truly epic proportions. Sanskrit is dead. No one who quotes it is not a fool or a knave or both.

Katju thinks he belongs to the 92% of Indians who are immigrants. Urdu, however, unlike Sanskrit, was born in India and thus not an immigrant. This places it on a higher footing than Tamil, which is merely regional. True, Katju says Munda speakers belong to the 8% of Indians who are not immigrants. However, they speak an Austric language which, therefore, must be an immigrant (otherwise, Katjus thesis that people never emigrate from India is contradicted). Urdu alone is a wholly Indian language. A great injustice has been done to this true son of the soil by all these immigrant languages, like Tamil. The State of Jammu and Kashmir has adopted Urdu as its official language. Those stupid Tamils- lacking enquiring minds because they reject Sanskrit- should take the hint and kindly follow suit.
This is the fugugly fellow below.

Where precisely did you immigrate from you worthless pile of shite? Could you kindly fuck off back there?

You get 2000 dollars a month and think 2000 dollars a month worth of deeply janitorial thought.
For example-
'Unlike Hindi, Urdu is a language with real 'dam'. '
If you write poetry in Hindi it is bound to be shite. Write in Urdu and you have a chance. Real poets write in Urdu. If they don't know Urdu, they're fucked.
I see. So, Harivansh Rai Bacchan wrote shite did he? How come his books outsold Urdu shite? Katju won't tell us.
Tagore wasn't a poet- why? He wrote in Bengali, not Urdu. Iqbal was a poet. He was descended from Kashmiri Brahmins and wrote crap in Urdu, while priding himself on his un-idiomatic Persian. However, only his English prose is without blemish and not utterly risible.

Still, Katju has a point. Iqbal used Urdu to build and unify a Nation. Not India but Pakistan. You are in the wrong country dude. But you already know that because you are a self-professed immigrant.

Like Ghalib, who genuinely was an immigrant, Iqbal considered Urdu a deeply second rate language. Incidentally, the best novelist in Urdu, Abdullah Hussein, switched to English. Why? Urdu wasn't his mother tongue and, by the 70's, it was clearly fucked.
Faiz, for whom Farsi was a mother tongue, started writing crap English verse. Why? Urdu was played out- or rather it was a neverwozzer.
Serious poetry was always written in Persian. However, the Persians consider only Amir Khusrau- who wrote in Hindvi, not tarted up Urdu- a true poet.
Kashmir's Nund Reshi- because he didn't know either Persian or Sanskrit or Urdu, did not have an enquiring mind nor did his poetry have 'real dam'.

What Sanskrit and Urdu have in common is that they appeal to deeply provincial fuckwits who get a thrill out of feeling superior to other people. Neither language is difficult to learn and one can say really trite things in them while still feeling you're being terribly profound.

Katju's real thesis- though he doesn't know it- is that India should break up. Nothing holds it together. At least, nothing worthwhile.
India does not have a 'Sanskrit-Urdu' culture. Both languages have been shown to be worthless shite. Nobody believes God will grant your prayer if you can talk to him in Sanskrit. Nobody still thinks their Urdu ghazal will win them a pot of gold from the Sultan. Those days are gone.

Sanskrit, at one time, served as a sort of link language but it is utter shit and nobody, literally nobody, writes anything in it. Urdu too, very briefly, held a sort of prestige. But, it's shite. Arabic is worthwhile. Persian is worthwhile. Urdu is third rate. The point about Urdu, in the old days, was that it was a stepping stone to Persian as Persian was a stepping stone to Arabic. Now, Urdu is not needed. You can learn Arabic and Persian directly and not have to struggle to rid yourself of your Urdu accent and infelicities of style.

Official Urdu or Hindi or Tamil, etc, is just a direct translation of Bureaucratic English into a stilted jargon. But, instead of mastering that crap, why not just learn Maths and functional English- or Globish as a French Academic has named it?

Why be part of a country whose Chief Justice is a racist, misogynist, fool who can't frame a logical argument to save his life?
India is a country where, if Katju-style sententious stupidity is allowed to get the upper hand, not 92% but 100% of the population will want to emigrate. The only practicable way this can happen is if India is officially designated as having boundaries as small as the Vatican State. Which part of New Delhi should it enclose? Obviously the chiddiyaghar- the zoo, Katju- teach your Sanskrit Urdu culture to the animals. I hope they eat you.

Incidentally- this is you on Ghalib-

Eemaan mujhe roke hai, kheeche hai mujhe kufra
kaaba mere peeche hai, kalisa mere aage”

i.e. “Faith is stopping me, while atheism is pulling me forward. Kaaba is behind me, the Church is in front.”

Here the word `Kaleesa’ only ostensibly means `Church’, but its real meaning is modern civilization. Thus Ghalib, like many Urdu writers, is opposed to feudal civilization and commends modernism.

So, Katju- you think you know Urdu but can't understand one of the oldest tropes in Islamic literature. You think, the Church, for Ghalib, represented progress and the Ka'aba backwardness. I see. Fatwa time anyone?
You think you know Sanskrit Mimamsa, but can't reason worth a damn- what is wrong with you? Oh. I see. You didn't take bribes as a Judge. So your owe it to the Public to explain that your failure in this respect was entirely due to feeble-mindedness rather than lack of 'Urdu-Sanskrit' culture.

Well done thou good and faithful servant. Now depart in peace.
By which we mean- shut the fuck up.

Debbie does Dharamsala- Tibetan Tulkus & Tantric Sex Slaves.

2011-12-09T11:56:00.002Z

As a kid in Sikkim, my Mum often warned me about White women. They were probably anthropologists who might mistake me for a pygmy of some as yet undiscovered tribe and try to have sex with me. In Papua New Guinea, or Irian Jaya or something, an American Anthropologist had tracked down an tiny wrinkled old man in the Jungle and begun raping him while claiming to be married to him. The Indonesian army managed to drag her off him and repatriate her to the U.S. True, Hope Cooke and George Orwell's friend who married Kazi Lendup Dorjee, weren't actually guilty of rape. But, they weren't feminist academics either. At least they didn't write serious feminist books.

Not so, June Campbell who became a Buddhist nun and slept with some smelly old man. This was a clear case of abuse because ...urm... he was a Tibetan monk rather than some random dude from the homeless shelter and she wasn't drunk off her head or only doing it coz she lost a bet or something. The question that Feminism must face is why smelly old fuckwits from far away places still want to stick their dicks into vaginas?

The answer it turns out is 'because of the deep Power ditopology of the 14 dimensional interaction of the Patriarchical peristalsis of the Post-Kristevan Chora and all men are shits and gimme tenure already.'

This is from the article in the Independent previously linked to- my comments in bold.

' To outsiders, the Rinpoche was one of the most revered yogi-lamas in exile outside Tibet. To outsiders, the Ratcathcer or whatever was some smelly old fuckwit charlatan refugee from some place nobody every heard of. As abbot of his own monastery, he had taken vows of celibacy and was celebrated for having spent 14 years in solitary retreat. Smelly homeless guy was a Doctor or Witch Doctor or whatever back in his smelly old homeland but basically the guy was a smelly homeless dude of some foreign sort so DON'T GIVE HIM A FUCKING BLOW JOB. Among his students were the highest-ranking lamas in Tibet. This smelly old dude who kept getting BJs off our June had students as perverted as himself amongst the highest ranking perverts back wherever. "His own status was unquestioned in the Tibetan community," said Ms Campbell, "and his holiness attested to by all."

The inner circles of the world of Tibetan Buddhism - for all its spread in fashionable circles in the West - is a closed and tight one. As opposed to Ms Campbell's. Her claims, though made in a restrained way- 'Debbie does Dharamsala' not having quite the right ring- in the context of a deeply academic book subtitled "In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism", provoked what she described as a primitive outpouring of rage and fury. "I was reviled as a liar or a demon," she said during a public lecture last week at the non-sectarian College for Buddhist Studies in Sharpham, Devon. "In that world he was a saintly figure. It was like claiming that Mother Teresa was involved in making porn movies."

But it was not fear of the response which made her wait a full 18 years before publishing her revelations in a volume entitled Traveller in Space - a translation of dakini, the rather poetic Tibetan word for a woman used by a lama for sex. It took her that long to get over the trauma of the experience. "I spent 11 years without talking about it and then, when I had decided to write about it, another seven years researching. I wanted to weave together my personal experience with a more theoretical understanding of the role of women in Tibetan society to help me make sense of what had happened to me."

Frankly, the amazing thing is that the smelly old dude in question wasn't totally bent and didn't weep tears of blood on being confronted by a vag.

Monasteries just aren't good places for heterosexual males to spend their whole fucking lives. They're great for butt sex or no sex, but if what your genes want you to do is to get with a vag, then they can seriously fuck you up.

But, Campbell's Monk didn't get her preggers- so still kind of missing the point about vaginas, Holy Tibetan dude. What makes them super special is that's where babies come from. And trying to help your kids with their Homework will soon disabuse you of any notion you might have that you're 'enlightened' or don't need to a second mortgage on your after-life to pay for College what with the way tuition fees keep going up.

For which, personally, I blame David Cameron. That boy aint right.