First personal post

I moved to Jersey City this weekend. That was one of the reasons for the break in blogging. This almost feels like I am back in India. I am staying at this dingy place in the basement with three garbage bins right in front of the door and even found a Manickchand packet on the sidewalk. I had khasta kachori chatfor snack in the evening. Also for dinner at 12:30 in the night we had gone to a place called Baba Hut that had wooden benches and arrangement was just like those Amrutulyas where hostelites have tea in Pune. I was watching Aaj Tak which was playing a show called Subah at 9:35 a.m. India time with about half an hour devoted to fashion news. Seems like Aaj Tak audiences like to watch anorexic models while having breakfast, probably to feel guilty and not overeat. What a benevolent gesture on part of Aaj Tak. But all of the above were not responsible for making me feel like I was back in India. It was because I spent last night in darkness when while attaching a new bulb the fuse blew. First time since my coming to US I experienced what was an everyday occurrence in Pune.

Another thing that made me feel absolutely at home was last night at 12:50 a.m. when I my room mate overheard my call asked me whether today was my ‘Happy Birthday.’ I smiled as I was reminded of friends asking “when is your Happy Birthday’ when they wanted to know my birth date. So Jersey City gave me a nice birthday gift by inspiring reminiscences that made the dark boring night so pleasant with warm memories from India.

Wimpy liberals and strong conservatives stereotype turned on its head

Drudge Report linked to a funny story today. A study has found that whiny insecure kids who run to the teacher with complaints grow up to become conservatives while confident, resilient, self-reliant kids grow up to become liberals. This turns the wimpy liberal/strong conservative stereotype on its head.

The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young
adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with
ambiguity.

The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging
loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls
were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective.

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet! Of course, as with everything that sounds sweet to the ears there will always be caveats, which will ask you to take the news only after adding salt that will spoil the sweet taste. For instance the study is limited to the Bay area, the sample size isn’t representative of the whole country yada yada yada. The study does not mean that nursery school teachers in the conservative Red States are cursed with classes filled with little proto-conservative whiners.

Another way of saying it is that self-reliance predicts statistically about 7
per cent of the variance between kids who became liberal and those who became
conservative. (If every self-reliant kid became a liberal and none became
conservatives, it would predict 100 per cent of the variance). Seven per cent is
fairly strong for social science, but it still leaves an awful lot of room for
other influences, such as friends, family, education, personal experience and
plain old intellect.

Those caveats can be brushed off by liberals by saying that they are like the warnings you hear after drug ads. Do not take the pill if you have liver problem of heart disease. Common side effects are mild and may include diarrhea and vomitting etc. That stuff is supposed to be ignored while regaling in the pure mellifluous flattery that this study is, if you are a liberal.

The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into
bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests.
[…]
...insecure kids look for the reassurance provided by tradition and authority, and find it in conservative politics. The more confident kids are eager to explore alternatives to the way things are, and find liberal politics more congenial.

Chew on that you sissy Charles Krauthammer. I've got to go… There is much boasting to do and friends' legs crying to be pulled.

She would have made Ayn Rand proud

Some time ago Nilu switched from posting nasty and provocative comments on other bloggers and initiated an interesting discussion. He asked his readers to name their favourite character in Mahabharat and explain the reasons for their choice. Karna was of course excluded because then the topic would have been entirely Karna-centric.

A very interesting discussion brewed in the comment section and a few of the commenters mentioned Gandhari as their favourite. Nilu did a second post asking readers to come up with a character analysis of their favourite women characters in Mahabharat. I was really looking forward to reading about Gandhari as I hadn’t given much thought to her character before this. Unfortunately that post didn’t get much response.

However, his post prompted me to think about women characters in Mahabharat and the first one that came to mind was Ganga. I wouldn’t say she is my favourite, but she is definitely the most intriguing of them all. I still vividly remember how as a kid I felt extremely uneasy while watching the initial episodes of Mahabharat on Doordarshan. Ganga used to take her newborn babies and cast them into the river and return smiling to Shantanu, her husband. I couldn’t fathom the motives and was too young to understand the story completely and felt extremely scared.

As with most Indian mythological tales the story owes its twists to curses. Ganga has promised to help Vasus, who have been cursed to lead the lives of men upon angering Vashishta rishi. She agrees to be their mother and kill them as soon as they are born so that they can return to their heavenly existence without spending time on earth.

Strip the epic of all the mythology/curses etc. and then look at Ganga’s actions. If one overlooks the fact that she drowned her children to help the Vasus get rid of Vashishta's curse, then Ganga comes across as someone who is ruthlessly, unambigiously selfish. Her conditions for marrying Shantanu may put any present-day pre-nuptial agreements to shame.

O king, I shall become your wife. But on certain conditions that neither you nor anyone else should ever ask me who I am, or whence I come. You must also not stand in the way of whatever I do, good or bad, nor must you ever be wroth with me on any account whatsoever. You must not say anything displeasing to me. If you act otherwise, I shall leave you then and there. Do you agree?

She has Shantanu by the balls and despite him being the king, she is the one whose dictats are followed. She definitely knew how to keep a man under her toes. He does not even utter a word as she drowns seven of his children for the fear of her deserting him. This gives you an insight into her complete hold over him. By keeping Shantanu guessing about mystery surrounding her actions, she adds to her allure.

Imagine what it must have taken to be such a free bird for a woman in the era of pativrata naris like Draupadis and Gandharis. In C Rajagopalachari's version, one gets an insight into her motives behind drowning her children. It is sinister to say the least.

"O great king," she replied, "you have forgotten your promise, for your heart is set on your child, and you do not need me any more. I go.

Ganga comes across as someone who is ruthlessly selfish and someone who wont share her love no matter what. No character of Ayn Rand comes this close in their selfish love. In fact, Ganga is the quintessential Ayn Rand character. In a way it can be looked as if she leaves because she realises the king loves the child more than herself and her conception of love has no place for sharing. A truly fascinating woman!

Do contribute your take on women characters in the epic in the comments section, especially those of you who like Gandhari. I am really curious to know which aspects of her character you guys find so admirable.

Cartelian logic: 101

Chapter 1: Longest leap of faith axiom by Libertarian blogger and renowned Cartelian Aadisht

If you find this advertisement tasteless then you belong to a certain 'leftist religion' that venerates poverty.

But wait! The lesson in logic is not over yet. Did you know that you are also a condescending prick who looks down upon liberalisation, just because you find that Brand Equity ad tasteless? No! It's elementary my dear Watson. Benevolent human beings that the Cartelians are, they enlighten you advertisement-haters about 10 Commandments of your religion they have oh-so-helpfully compiled. Don't you see the obvious logical inconsistency in that position? Sigh!

What would this world have come to had we not had the Cartelians to remind us of our elementary lessons in logic!

Therefore students the next time you decide to find an advertisement tasteless, you better check with the High Council of the Cartel about its stance, unless you want to be derided by them and their numerous 'enlightented' followers and forced to join as members of this ghastly leftist religion.

Update 2: My comments are back online at Aadisht's blog.

Update: Aadisht has clarified his stance here. He only meant to call out the three bloggers he had linked to and wasn't trying to forcibly convert the rest of us who also found the ad offensive. So the charges against him under the anti-conversion law have been dropped. I have many issues with his clarification and have left a detailed comment there. Those interested may read it there.

Apology: Drunk as I was in my zeal to score cheap debating points I saw things which were never there in the first place, I must apologise to Aadisht for misrepresenting him. He never called anyone a 'leftist fool.' I have said he did while responding to Kya yaar tu bhi in the comments section of this post. I have removed the following line from the post. You illogical dumbos, don't you understand that you cannot hate that ad and yet profess to be in favour of liberalisation. I very clearly misunderstood and unintentionally misrepresented him on this one.

D.C. bloggers' meet

The Washington DC Bloggers Meet held in the food court of Union Station was a grand success. And if you are brushing this off as an expected statement coming from a not-so-famous blogger going gaga after meeting veteran popular bloggers, take your news straight from Greatbong himself. Even he concurs about the meet's success. In fact the first sentence is his quote. And no, this time round he is not being sarcastic!

From left: Sunil, Ujval, Michael, Arnab, Chetan, Ravikiran, Piyush and Arzan (click to enlarge)

The meet started at 12:00 p.m. but I got there horribly late even for someone swearing by Indian standard time. But it paid off. I got the best seat at the table. With "Happy Birthday" boy Ravikiran to my left, Michael Higgins to my right and Arnab the Greatbong bang in front of me, I felt as if I was at the head of the table had a wonderful time. I sure do hope certain qualities of people you interact with actually do rub off on you. Because if that is true, the quality of writing on this blog is going to hit the fan.

As far as reconciling online personas with real life faces go, my guess about how Ravikiran may be in person went for a complete toss. Going by the short, pithy and insightful sentences explaining serious policy issues in a dispassionate manner on his blog, I had expected him to be a very serious looking guy with a moustache who cracks Mallu jokes with an expressionless face. Apart from the bit about moustache, I was proved wrong on all other counts. He greeted me with a warm disarming smile that had no trace of any pomposity or arrogance, which many people have accused him of online. He said that his objective was to get me drunk so that I start speaking in long sentences and everyone gets to know what actually went into the making of the longest comment. We got to hear the 'You don’t come to the cartel, the cartel comes to you' explanation upon being asked about the necessary and sufficient conditions regarding its membership from one of the most prominent cartelians himself.

While in case of Ravikiran, my online perception of him had tough time conforming with reality, in Arnab's case it was exact opposite. He came across exactly as he does on his blog. Enthusiastic, funny and eager to discuss diverse topics, he is as eloquent while discussing as his writing on his blog. He talked about a range of topics, which included Mithun, his latest post on terrorism and the trolls on his blog. Ganguly posts and their responses and behavioral characteristics of his trolls, who never fail to crack me up with their inability to process sarcasm and their angry-to-the-point-of-frothing-at-the-mouth responses were also dissected.

Michael had done a wonderful job at organisation. Beginning from the choice of the venue to minutiae like table signs, it was obvious that a lot of thought had gone into the organisation. The clinching evidence of course was Ravikiran’s birthday present. Along with a delicious cake with gold coin shaped chocolates on it, Michael had also got Ravikiran flushable wipes to reassure him that not all Americans are crazy and that the market here does offer a choice for those who are worried about America's 'toilet gap' with Japan. Michael regaled us with stories about cricket and the first match he had watched. He has blogged about it. His interest in cricket and his knowledge of the game is awe inspiring. The most amazing feeling was when I realized that I felt surprisingly at home amongst bloggers whom I had never met before and some of whose blogs I hadn’t even followed. I suppose just the shared experience of blogging and having followed some prominent blogs is enough to feel that connection.

Ravikiran grinning as he shows off his birthday present

I am thankful to Arzan for driving down to D.C. and bringing Ravikiran along with him. I had read Arzan's comments on Sepia Mutiny and loved the image of the bike as the header image on his blog. Arzan impressed me with his enthusiasm. He seemed genuinely upset with US Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) as he recounted his experiences there. He has a blog post comparing Indian Regional Transport Office (RTO) with DMV.

Seema was the sole representative from the other half ;). We discovered that both of us are alumni of the same university. She has studied International Development. Given that there were very few Indians that I met at my university during my time there, it came as a nice surprise to meet an Indian alumna and that too at a bloggers’ meet. Piyush Gupta was the political junkie at the meet. He spoke animatedly about following the due process of law, corruption and sparred with Ravikiran regarding the need for primaries in the Indian political system. You could feel his intensity and passion and desire to do something about the state of affairs in India throughout the meet.

Eswaran, who commented on Ravikiran's blog during the longest comment controversy was curious to see me and Ravikiran interacting together. He semed well-versed with all the happenings in the blogosphere and I was surprised that he did not have a blog himself. He seemed to have followed almost all the blogs I had. Him, me and Arnab got extra time to spend together as we came together by the metro. Yourfan and Yourfan2, the two famous commenters on Arnab’s blog would have reason to be jealous of Eswaran. He stays in the same apartment complex as Arnab.

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to interact much with Ujval, Vinay and the two Sunils. I hope that it happens at the next bloggers meet. Of course I wish to to interact through their blogs.

Thanks Michael and Arnab for organising this event and everybody else who attended the meet. Count me in for any subsequent meets. Finally in Amit’s words, ‘fun did come’ and I had nice time flirting with her at the meet.

Vintage Kya yaar tu bhi

Since I am still resisting updating my blog professing some important business that has kept me occupied (which is reality may just be a cover for my laziness) I am posting a comment by one of my favourite commenters in the blogosphere... Kya yaar tu bhi. For a brief introduction to this 'hasti' read his comments here and here. This comment was posted on The Other India blog on the post regarding income disparity. The comment policy of the blog reagarding off-topic comments and use of language has probably led to the deletion of the said comment. Since my blog does not have any issues with language and since I think that CEO salaries is one issue that rallies even otherwise right leaning persons, it might be interesting to host a discussion on this topic. So feel free to voice your opinion in the comment section.

Can give you very simplistic US POV ( no inflation etc. )

Say software shop = 100 programmers, 1 Ceo
100 pgmmers work for 1 year @ 50,000$ salary to code product foo.
cost of foo is atleast 100 * 50,000 = 5,000,000 usd
in reality, cost of foo atleast 4 times ie. 20,000,000 usd ( office,pc,bijli,lagaan etc )
now our "lazy ceo" goes to work & identifies a million user US market
per user foo price $100
1,000,000 * $100 - $20,000,000 = $80,000,000 "profit"
so ceo takes that 80 mil, keeps 20 mil aside ( cost of foo for next year ), another 10 mil for r&d, so 80-20-10 = 50 mil.

so
1 programmer = $50,000
1 ceo =$50,000,000
disparity = 1:1000

next year, US market saturated. only 300,000 customers.
300,000 * 100 = 30,000,000
ceo keeps 20 mil aside for foo, 9 mil for r&d, takes home 1 mil.

1 programmer = $50,000
1 ceo =$1,000,000
disparity = 1:20

ceo wife children used to royal lifestyle. they can't stomach huge diff in paychek, so naturally file for divorce, childsupport, alimony…

now our bachelor ceo works twice as hard, spends all day in office.
suddenly one strange socialist country decides to liberalize. our ceo goes into overdrive. schmoozes CM, FM, PM, every bereaucrat & jamadaar of this socialist country paid off.
next day US market india market = 10,000,000

10,000,000 * 100 - 20 mil foo - 10 mil r&d = 970 mil.

1 programmer = $50,000
1 ceo =$970,000,000
disparity = 1:19400

with new riches ceo buys brand new supermodel wife, big bed, lot of sex.
all this is too much for H1B programmer Muchkund Dubey.
Dubey goes to ceo and says, first you make 1000 times my salary, then 20 times, then 19,400 times! I don't like this widening disparity.
ceo says - where it is widening ? sometimes it widens, sometimes it shrinks. it shrank from 1000 to 20, now it increased from 20 to 19,400, next year who knows…
Dubey says, no, no, so much disparity create social instability. i must be paid more to reduce disparity.
ceo says, why, are you doing more work ? did you find new market or did i find it ? did you take risk and form company or did i ? did your wife leave you or my wife ? are you paying child support or am i ? did you bribe CM FM PM or did i ?

Dubey quits in disgust and returns to mera desh bharat.
There he tries very hard to form company. but because he is confused with all these conflicting social implications of disparity etc, his company goes bankrupt on first month payday itself. his employees lift him on their shoulders and throw him out on street to the dogs.

poor muchkund dubey joins some GoI org CSD & writes long long article about widening disparity and simmering social tension. said article done cut paste job on leftist blog and i am commenting for that. meanwhile our ceo makes the remaining 99 employees work harder, saves the dubey salary of 50,000 which is given as pocketmoney for infant baby of supermodel to buy diaper made of soft cashmere cloth.

In Google we trust(ed)?

This is a tentative post. I have been caught up in something important and haven't been able to update my blog. This piece is a compilation of two comments I made on this issue and will be rewritten properly as soon as I get time. They are haphazard and may be repetitive in parts and incoherent too. My apologies to those of you who regularly visited the blog checking for new posts. Updates should be regular henceforth.

In my book Google is not worthy of scorn being heaped on it. The same media which is criticising Google has no qualms when it compromises with the Chinese government to curry favour. I think more than the action itself, it is the company which did that has outraged people. Somehow Google itself had built this holier than thou halo about it which has now shattered. People are finding it hard to shed their image of Google and find it hard to digest their favourite benevolent geeky boys next door suddenly treading into a moral muddle.

Besides Google is particularly having it hard from both sides of the aisle. The conservatives are worked up because of perceived help to communism(How can anyone in his 'right' mind can call China communist is another issue) As Gawkar in his blogpost said the same conservatives who are crying hoarse about Google aiding commies have no qualms going gaga over Fox news without a trace of irony. Given Murdoch's deals with China which are more acomodative or in fact supportive of the Chinese regime, they have no right to take a high moral ground at all. From my discussions with Suyog it seems the Liberals are outraged because of another issue. They are linking this issue to the fact that our blue eyed boys would never have done anything like this were it not for the evil market forces prevailing on them ever since they have gone public with their IPO. They think somehow the shareholders are holding Page and Brin by the scruff and forcing them to deal with China.

In real world terms whether Google enters Chinese market or not is a non-issue given the fact that whether it entered or not would hardly have made any difference to freedom in China. It was not as if Chinese government was going to wake up one day and lament, 'Oh look! We have deprived our population of so much information through Google because of our repressive policies. Its time we change.' In a globalised economy it is impossible to be consistent and morally right about corporations dealings with countries which how shall we say are currently out of favour. If you really are that outraged by the lack of freedom in China choke their economy till they acquiesce. But that would bring down an economic slowdown everywhere. As a company expands this is bound to happen and earlier we get used to this the better.

Check this essay. It dwells on the topic of companies and moral responsibility beautifully and in an even handed manner. It deals with corporate philanthropical initiatives and tainted money, particularly about Harward University accepting grants from Exxon whose interests in South Africa were construed as abetting the aparthied regime. I think the same logic that the author explains applies to Google's case.

It is the same argument that the payton paper which Suchi pointed out during the Tsunami discussion on my blog. I believe his logic applies more to the Google/China controversy than apartheid which was pre-globalisation. Then there could have been a difference. Now whether google goes in or not is not going to change the Chinese regime's heart. Besides if you want to take a moral high ground about freedom then stop dealing economically with China altogether and be willing to bear the global economic downturn that may occur. After all that is the best way to twist Chinese govt. arm and submit them to accepting democracy.

Why was there no hue and cry when Google agreed to censor Nazi related sites in France and Germany? Also paedophilia is censored in many countries. If one takes a 'there should either be complete freedom or no freedom at all' sort of a moral stance then there should be no double standards and the same yardstick should be applied elsewhere. That is the problem with moral stances always. In a globalised economy you can never get away without being a hypocrite. There will always be one small component that will be tainted. Besides I agree with Brin when he says that little freedom is better than no freedom. And you are discounting the ingenuity of the Chinese citizens altogether. Do you think that they aren't smart enough to coin new terms in place of democracy and human rights and falun gong to talk about the same things secretly? Also Google is not starting blogger and gmail so there is no question of the govt. arm twisting it to extract personal info about a user who has accessed some unwanted data. Also Google is going to have a note whenever the results are censored. Currently google results are censored by the Chinese and the readers may not even realise that they are missing out on something because it is being censored. Whereas once they know that they are being censored at least there is a chance of outrage being kept simmering everytime this happens. Only thing where you can fault Google is that they are going agaisnt their moto of 'do no evil.' But as you yourself have said in your post on terrorism evil is a subjective term. Once even dealing with a communist regime would have been considered evil. But we have seen the benefits reaped by the ordinary Chinese because of this so called 'evil.' And besides a company evolves. It is foolish to expect google to have the same policies as it had when it was a small start-up. That is not hypocrisy, that is maturity and much needed change owing to its adaptation to economies of scale. There will be newer geeks who will form the next Google through a technological invention. Google has now moved in a different league and it has earned its place through fair means without breaking any laws.. Another thing is if and when China becomes a democracy what is Google going to get in return if it stays out. a big zero. Because Yahoo and MSN would have a significant market share by then. Why should Google a corporation lose out to competitors through no fault of its own. It is the responsibility of the govt. and not Google to define the interactions permitted with such regimes. So long as it is breaking no law I dont see a problem.

I am going to make a logically well-argued post. But feel free to point any holes in this one till then.

Mahablogartha: Contemporary Contextualisation of Blogosphere Rants or CCBR Part 4

Disclaimer: This post is a work of fiction. However, resemblance to any person living or dead is not coincidental. They are real people some of them are my friends. I have merrily caricatured them. My apologies to the lay reader. This post is not for everyone and can only be understood and contextually appreciated by those who had followed the unfortunate exchange between two prominent bloggers Hawkeye and Gaurav and the resulting vitriol in the comments section reagarding Crystal Blur's Mahabharat spoof.
continued from Episode 3: Meet the spoofer

Episode 4: Tu tu, main main

Narrator: In the blogosphere, Hawkeye whose real name is Bharath has his own little kingdom with a dedicated band of loyal readers. He claims to worship logic and hate hypocrisy. Once writing a post arguing against support for Ganguly getting a decent exit he went as far as saying, “Anything that focuses on emotion and not logic is stupidity.”

(Hawkeye notices Crytal Blur, Vyasa and Ganpati and eavesdrops on their conversation)

Crystal: I am really worried about this Chetan. He is probably the only guy on earth who writes 2000 word posts and 5000 word comments without a single reference to sex in it! I don’t friggin believe this. And to top it all he titles his post Mahablogartha. Try as I do I cannot find any reference to sex and violence? I am getting worried about our future generations here. He is sending them the wrong message about our heritage.

Vyasa: From what I gather even his love letters must have been filled with essays on political economy. No wonder his girlfriend left him. Poor child. I don’t blame her. Tsk tsk.

Ganpati: Vyasa, we all know you are still a virgin. So stop trying to use Chetan’s example to validate your own status as a single.

Vyasa: For the last time Ganpati, main virgin nahi hoon nahi hoon nahi hoon.

Crystal: Chetan missed so many chances to infuse some much-needed testosterone in the writing. He could have inserted a rain dance sequence when he spoke about water cannons, he could have published the lurid details of a private diary of a feminist, described in detail those nude protestors who fight against fir. Huh! I think I am expecting too much. I mean what kind of a man refers to Pamela without uttering a word about her boob-job! What a pathetic loser! Is he gay?

Vyasa: We don’t have to worry, our version rocks. This sort of writing will only appeal to 35+ demographic. No moolah there.

(Crystal goes ahead and starts typing a comment on the computer)

Crystal Blur says… comment posted on December 28, 2005 6:06AM
Contemporary Contextualisation, my foot. This is a bloody systematic attempt at Contemporary Sterilisation of our sacred lore. In the land of Kamasutra and Khajuraho you are perpetuating rabid ignorance. It is because of stuff like this that Indians think a child was dropped in Kunti’s lap when she was praying. I hope you do realise that you are promoting the Western/Christian concept of stork delivering babies. You are being anti-Hindu and pro-Christian. You offend devout Hindu’s like me. Ugh! Such backdoor Christian apologists.

Narrator: Hawkeye listening to this talk has his knickers in a tight twist by now.

Hawkeye: (addressing the audience) Look at Crystal. Introducing our innocent Ganpati, omniscient God of knowledge, to such blasphemous carnal things like sex. And to top it all she calls herself a devout Hindu! If she was really a Hindu wouldn’t she have known how chaste our Gods are? Take Lord Krishna for instance. I am certain she will twist his sacred platonic relationship with Gopis as some kind of an orgy. Why do people find it so hard to believe that Krishna was being benevolent and merely helping the Gopis carry pots over their heads? Such twisted minds I tell you. And what if Indra did sleep with Kunti and danced with Apsaras and flirted with other Gods' wives once in a while? What is the big deal? It is strictly his private matter. Did she give a thought to how westerners might perceive this? Why do we have to corrupt the innocent and pure westerner’s mind talking about such filthy things like sex. I sense a huge conspiracy here. She is out to denigrate Hindusim.

(Hawkeye goes to type the comment)

Hawkeye says…comment posted on December 28, 2005 6:50AM
To Everyone: As an MBA student I came here to defend free markets but this stupid little blogger called Crystal has raised my hackles. I am not a prude to give a lecture on sanctity and all. But I will give it anyways. Contemporary contextualisation eh? Show me one thing that is contemporary here? Is her series about software or BPO? Is it about moral policing? Is it about Laloo? Is it about IIPM? No. It is about sex! This is made-for-porn-channel material. Since when did sex and porn become contemporary? Does she know we are living in the 21st century?

This is the problem with us forward thinking Hindus who make fun of ourselves. We never level the playing field by making fun of other religions. Therefore on behalf of all Hindus I hereby call for reservations on the basis of religion in the creative writing sector. After all our minorities should not feel left out. So henceforth if an author starts spoofing a book of Hinduism, s/he can only spoof 80.5% of it. 13.4 % of the remaining material should be from an Islamic scriptures, 2.3% from Christianity, 1.9% from Sikhism, 0.8% from Jainism and 1.1% drawn from atheist/agnostic and other sources. Within 80.4% Hinduism there should be internal reservation. None of the Shaivite, Vaishnavite or Shakti sect followers should feel that their Gods are being unfairly targeted more than the others. And while we are at it, the author should ensure that the six Vedic schools are also spoofed equally. Additionally, the number of sexual references while spoofing, should also be proportionate to the demographic mix amongst the Hindus. The same applies to Protestants and Catholics / Sunnis and Shias etc. A committee called NRKD committee comprising of prominent Non-Resident-Knicker Dhari’s will be strictly monitoring the content. And mind you wannabe authors, it’s in your best interest not to get their knickers in a twist.

To Crystal: Jao pahile us religion ka spoof likhake lao jisne poojniya Modi aur Thackeray ko pareshaan kiya… Jao pahile us religion ka spoof likhake lao jisne Dara Singh jaise pyare insaan ke character ko hamesha ke liye Staine kar diya… Jao pahile us religion ka spoof karke lao jispe kiye gaye PJs ne mujhe bore kiya… aur fir.. aur fir Crys main tumhare Mahabharat ko endorse karoonga.

(Hawkeye leaves. Writes a post on his blog calling Crystal stupid, idiot.)

(Gaurav enters the scene and reads Chetan’s blog entry utters a single word Dude! and proceeds to read the comments. He spots Hawkeye’s comment and his face turns ashen. He goes over to Hawkeye’s blog. There 50 of the 53 commenters have already approved of Hawkeye’s reservation idea and denounced Crystal. Gaurav returns all charged up to type a comment on Chetan’s blog)

Narrator: Gaurav was already feeling gheraoed by the socialist revolutionary forces. All this talk about revolution had really rankled him. After Chetan’s long comment bravado any naya-navela blogger would get his 15 minutes of blogosphere flame oops… I meant fame, by attacking the Libertarians. The constant chipping away at Libertarian economic agenda had already got Gaurav’s goat. And Hawkeye’s comment portended that Libertarian social agenda too was being hijacked. All this was too much to handle for Gaurav. In a brash act he decided to take Hawkeye head on.

Gaurav says…comment posted on December 28, 2005 7:33AM
Some people!
A spy from the PMK-Sena-Taliban combine has infiltrated the Indian blogosphere! Don’t be misled by his concern for leveling the playing field and his use of playing field lingo such as ‘stupid little blogger.’ Make no mistake; Hawkeye is here to disrupt our playing field. He is a neo-prude. The difference between prudes and neo-prudes is that while prudes wear parachute-like ‘hava ane de’ style khaki half pants, the neo-prudes’ pants are longer. While prudes are nut-cases, neo-prudes are pesky. How dare he attack Crystal personally! Doesn't he know that only the Cartelians reserve the right to attack others that way? And lastly, who is he to get offended about Mahabharat? It is Crystal's heritage as much it is his. Hasn’t he watched Jaane bhi do Yaaron? (Suddenly becoming nostalgic) Waah! What a film.... In the spirit of the Mahabharat sequence in Om Puri’s voice I say to Hawkeye: Oye! Mahabharat tere akele ki nahi hai, hum sab shareholder hai! (In the original it was Arjun, played by a goggle sporting Om Puri, who says, "Draupadi tere akele ki nahi, hum sab shareholder hai!")And regarding the names you called Crystal I say to thee in Pankaj Kapoor’s voice, “Nalayak, adharmi, durachari, vamachari, bhrasthachari, bol sorry!”

(Gaurav leaves the stage shouting “Jai ho! Crystal jaisi Sati nari ki jai ho!”)

Narrator: Hmm. I wish somebody had said “Shaant blogadhari Gaurav. Shaant!” before he typed that comment. This comment turned out to be the start of a flame war, which reinforced my belief about the concept of kaliyug. Those Jaane bhi do yaaron fans need not sulk. The dialogs did not end here. What followed next had 90% of the bloggers chanting a la Dhritarashtra, “Ye sab kya ho raha hai!”

By usurping the role of blogosphere superhero, Shaktiman and trying to safeguard freedom of speech, Gaurav had taken a serious panga not with Hawkeye alone but with all the self-professed blogosphere ‘Bhakti-maans.’

Narrator: Now before our blogosphere pychoanalysts come and prejudice your view regarding both our protagonists through their comments, let me give you the true story behind their motivations. Hawkeye is not the neo-prude at all. I know, I know what you are thinking about contradicting his own statement about emotion and stupidity. But, hear me out. What if I tell you he was merely posturing… that he was had a strong self-interest/stake preventing Crystal’s series from getting famous. I have read his other posts and I can vouch that Hawkeye is quite an intelligent chap and not your stereotypical NRKD. He knew that if Crystal's popularity continued to grow, the next book under Crystal’s scanner would be Ramayan. And Crystal would need to pick on someone in Ramayan and stereotype the character as gay. Now think of a character in Ramayan who is sensitive, is not afraid to shed his tears, who is caring, is exact opposite of a MCP, in short a gay/metrosexual stereotype. Bingo! Bharath, Ram’s illustrious cousin. Being the smart guy, Hawkeye a.k.a. Bharath had figured out that he would be the butt of gay jokes following Crys' carticature of his namesake. Plus Bharath planned to come up with a Vishishtha Avavaitik take on Mahabharata. Crys’ take from tantric sexual perspective was giving him nightmares thinking about shrinking sales. That why the vicious attack.

Now about Gaurav: Apart from the frustrations mentioned earlier regarding sinking fortunes of Libertarianism, there was a selfish reason behind Gaurav’s outburst. Ever since the IIPM fracas Gaurav had to project a Yudhistira like image of upholder of principles. He was feeling severely constrained as his readers expected him to write just about serious stuff. He saw in Blur’s writings a chance to reclaim the naughty Gaurav. He knew sooner or later the character of Yudhistira would appear in Blur’s writing. Gaurav was smart enough to know that Blur was capable enough to sexy him up a little bit. He knew that by linking from his blog Crys would be beholden to him and would go a little easy on Yudhishtira. Gaurav thought he might even be able to convince Crystal to spruce-up the drab image of Yudhishtira and in the process giving him an image makeover. And therefore his defense.

(Garry a.k.a Hannibal Lecter enters the stage)