varnam: Comments

Comment on "Upcoming Competitive Intolerance Events"

Tue, 06 May 2008 12:48:02 -0800

So the Nawab of Arcot used violence to stop an exhibition on Aurangzeb based on historical documents. Now Swami does not want to show certain historical events in movie for crying out loud.

Please google 'Brahman'.

- Philip

Comment on "Upcoming Competitive Intolerance Events"

Tue, 06 May 2008 12:41:36 -0800

@Swami,

I hope you know

(a) Shaivaites and Vaishanites indulged in idol destruction of the opposite sect and it that historical aspect that is being depicted.

(b) It is a movie.

Kamal Haasan as you said is anti-Hindu and not anti-Muslim, so why would he show Danish cartoons?

- Vinod

Comment on "Upcoming Competitive Intolerance Events"

Tue, 06 May 2008 11:26:55 -0800

I disagree. You have tied up two unrelated issues.
It is true that Hindus should focus on rehabilitating temples. However, this doesn't preclude accepting smashing of Vigrahas by a known anti-Hindu actor. Will the actor dare show the Danish cartoon, for instance?
There should be multiple points of focus. If Hindus don't protest against the Vigraha smashing in the movie, the next generation of movies will take Hindu-portayals to the next level. Every anti-Hindu or anti-equality step must be protested. While focussing on the important tasks in our own community.

- Swami

Comment on "Prakash Karat's history lesson"

Mon, 05 May 2008 21:43:25 -0800

With due respect, I am not sure what people like Aseem Naphade are driving at. The 123 agreement has a Hyde Act rider that says that if President of US does not think that India is in synch with US policy objectives, India would have to return the material supplied. Nowhere does it say that we have to "bomb Iran". Probably, he has read the Chinese version of agreement. Moreover,
1. Our defence reactors stay the way they are - no IAEA oversight.
2. Deal opens up huge business opportunities for US high technology firms in India. In all pobability, commercial interest would prevent any future US president taking ad hoc decision with respect to Hyde act.
3. India scientists would have access to cutting edge instrument and technology for further research.
I don't understand the aversion to "strategic alliance with US", maybe for communists it translates to "getting ahead of China". Communists are comfortable with us changing our Tibet policy to please China but heavens fall if we support US in opposing regimes like North Korea.

- Vineet

Comment on "Jhumpa Lahiri's Writing Techniques"

Mon, 05 May 2008 11:01:00 -0800

JK:

I agree. I have read a couple of Jhumpa's short stories: they are simple yet elegant. Jhumpa treats writing as a craft as well as an intellectual exercise.

- Niraj

Comment on "Jhumpa Lahiri's Writing Techniques"

Mon, 05 May 2008 07:24:00 -0800

Niraj, I can see such changes happening in myself - trying to add a bit more analysis. This is vastly different from 2003 when the goal was to post the same things as in newspapers without much analysis.

Still 2-3 years for a short story is quite a lot of time, but as you read her work, you can see the effect of such painstaking editing.

- JK

Comment on "Jhumpa Lahiri's Writing Techniques"

Mon, 05 May 2008 06:12:25 -0800

JK:

Excellent post as usual. That it takes Jhumpa Lahiri years to write one story, and constantly revising while doing it, is a relief to my eyes because I'm basically the same way with my blog. I have ceased to topical years ago because the time constraints were much too narrow. I like to take my time to write what I want to write when I want.

- niraj

Comment on "Two Shocks from Mammotty"

Fri, 02 May 2008 11:18:44 -0800

Mamooty finally proves himself to be a fraud, an opportunist, and an useful idiot, all at the same time! The commies have used him because Mamooty fan base is huge in Kerala, many of whom, naturally, would support who their hero supported (especially given the God-like status of South Indian actors). Otherwise the commies would have jettisoned him long ago.

- Niraj

Comment on "Spirituality as a Business"

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:17:35 -0800

@froginthewell, here is the comparison. past year i went for one lecture from a swami from chinmaya mission - audience count, about 200. went for another by one of the flying gurus - audience - more than 2000.

so the trend is obvious. if we banned such gurus, then it would be like adding the word socialism in the preamble of indian consitution. as time changes, people change and whatever works will survive.

- JK

Comment on "Spirituality as a Business"

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:40:01 -0800

Thanks for clarifying your stance in this post and the one after that. I thought you too were condemning the marketization of religion as some "spiritual-but-not-religious" or humanist-agnostic types do ( eg. criticizing Swaminaryan group for the grand temples ) - nice to know you weren't.

Perhaps the way to Hinduism's survival is by making it "cool", and perhaps we need "jet-setting" gurus for that. Yes, I agree dishonesty is shady.

- froginthewell

Comment on "Politicians Finally Get It"

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:02:12 -0800

Thanks for clarifying that, JK; I hadn't thought of that.

However I still don't know whether the correct approach is to let Government have control over landfills and dictate to companies how much waste they can generate - as long as land isn't scarce.

- froginthewell

Comment on "Politicians Finally Get It"

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:48:58 -0800

@froginthewell,

The question is not if there is enough landfill or not, but that some portion of these pastic bottles are non recycleable resulting in clogging the existing ones. Yes, you could dig around America and create more landfills, but the policy is not to go that route.

- JK

Comment on "Spirituality as a Business"

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:43:13 -0800

@Sandeep, Thanks so much! Looking forward to your post.

- JK

Comment on "Spirituality as a Business"

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:40:21 -0800

@froginthewell,

Ramakrishna Mission, Chinmaya Mission, Sivananda Ashram, Vipassana Centers are all low key and most of their teachers don't have the profile of the jet setting gurus of the new age groups and they all have been surviving for years without this menu card system. Then they are low on marketing and do not get as much coverage as other charities.

One of the local temples here offers free yoga classes every weekend and it seems no one comes for it. The priest was saying that if he charged $30/class like YMCA or Yoga Studios, there would be a rush. The perception is that there is no value for free goods. The folks at the new age groups tell me that they charge money to make people committed and this money is used mostly for charity.

Then as you noted, they don't mention this dakshina thing at the begining and that's when it gets a bit uncomfortable for my taste.

- JK

Comment on "The Reading Brain"

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:16:44 -0800

"by reading less we are going through devolution."

I am not so sure...until recently most people couldn't read - forget reading for pleasure or knowledge, even in the west - where literacy was/is generally high. Could we conclude evolution didn't happen until few generations ago! There has always been and will be intellectually curious people, and it'll always be just a small percentage of a society's population. And then there is mass reading market that spikes for every Harry Potter...

- Chandra

Comment on "Spirituality as a Business"

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:20:08 -0800

The ancient kind of gurukula isn't there anymore. The new "business model" is perhaps the only workable way at least for Hindu organizations that don't have rich patrons or Government funding. Anyone who opposes it runs the risk of contributing to destroying Hinduism.

And somehow it seems that Hindu charity doesn't get as noticed as charity from other religions eg. compare the popularity of the charities of RK Mutt and Mother Teresa within India. Perhaps this business kind of thing is the only way for Hindu charity to be recognized - when people realize that the fees they are charged are going to charity.

Unless they are keeping quiet about the dakShiNa, and then announcing an expected minimum amount after the course - which is patently dishonest.

- froginthewell

Comment on "Politicians Finally Get It"

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:54:38 -0800

Landfill clogging by these bottles became a major issue

Are you sure or were you bitten by the mallu anti-corporate bug? The wikipedia article on recycling says :

Regarding the claim that the U.S. is running out of landfill space, Tierney wrote, "A. Clark Wiseman, an economist at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., has calculated that if Americans keep generating garbage at current rates for 1,000 years, and if all their garbage is put in a landfill 100 yards deep, by the year 3000 this national garbage heap will fill a square piece of land 35 miles on each side. This doesn't seem a huge imposition in a country the size of America. The garbage would occupy only 5 percent of the area needed for the national array of solar panels proposed by environmentalists. The millennial landfill would fit on one-tenth of 1 percent of the range land now available for grazing in the continental United States

- froginthewell

Comment on "Spirituality as a Business"

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:48:28 -0800

Awesome post! Just inspired me to do a "serious" (therefore, boring) post on the same lines.

>>By giving a dakshina, as per Indian tradition, we honor the guru parampara; all the masters in the org structure who made this transmission of knowledge possible.
Bang on target, but VERY well put!

- Sandeep

Comment on "The Reading Brain"

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 10:44:29 -0800

Hai varnam
Steve J was not arrogant but dismissive, he actually made an observation but was definitely not arrogant..
Macbooks may one day become smaller than kindle...
Regards
arun

- arun

Comment on "The Circle of Life"

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:12:57 -0800

You are being unfair to Koothrappali! ;)

- Ashutosh