A number of posts I found interesting and informative. Please also read Amit Varma's post, Anna's Song, where he has put together a similar selection (warning: links to this blog) and Prajnya's page dedicated the Lok Pal debate, which has a large number of links from different perspectives.
In no particular order:
India needs reforms, not a super babu - Kanchan Gupta - Daily Pioneer
Is there a teaching moment we're missing today? - Swarna Rajagopalan (personal blog)
I'd rather not be Anna - Arundhati Roy - The Hindu
Rupees, Annas And Vice - Gautam Patel (personal blog, but a piece that has appeared in the TOI's Mirror set of city newspapers)
Why Anna Hazare is wrong and Lok Pal a bad idea - Nitin Pai - (personal blog, The Acorn, part of The National Interest)
Of the few, by the few and Time to step back (both by Pratap Bhanu Mehta, in Indian Express)
A thinktank brings Anna the eyeballs - Rahul Kanwal - India Today
The Making of an Authority: Anna Hazare in Ralegan Siddhi - Mukul Sharma - Kafila (a collective blog)
The dangers of a movement - Ranjit Hoskote - Tehelka
The Insurgent - Mehboob Jeelani - Caravan
Jan Lok Pal: unconstitutional, unnecessary - Amba Salelkar - Pragati (part of The National Interest)
Hazare is no Gandhi - Salil Tripathi - The Daily Star
Reign of the Tin Men - Shoma Chaudhury with Revati Laul, The third flight path - Shoma Chaudhury, with an interview with Aruna Roy and Lokpal: An option without a fast or fuss - Revati Laul (all Tehelka)
Answering Anna’s critics: 10 posers and rebuttals - R Jagannathan - Firstpost
Protesters We Like: Anna, Arundhati and the doublespeak of dissent - Lakshmi Chaudhry - Firstpost
Hazare's solution is no solution at all - Aakar Patel Friday Times
Dreams at the barricades - Mihir Sharma - Indian Express
Hazare, Khwahishein Aisi: Desiring a new politics, after Anna Hazare and beyond corruption - Shuddhabrata Sengupta - Kafila
Are we missing anything? Please leave links in the comments. Thank you.
Added later
A patriarch for the nation? - The nation’s problems cannot be solved by a supercop - Ramachandara Guha - The Telegraph
Annationalism - Shekhar Gupta - Indian Express
A tale of two movements - Amita Baviskar - The Times of India
The long shadow of the Ramlila stage - Ashutosh Varshney - Indian Express
Monday, 22 August 2011
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
Rs 0.02
1. I'm anti-corruption.
2. I'm anti-Anna Hazare.
3. Hazare is a sanctimonious right-wing tyrant so cloaked in his own virtue that he believes he is above the law.
4. The law is frequently an ass.
5. Nevertheless, the law is frequently our only hope.
6. Better the elected asses than the dictatorial unelected.
7. The government is playing into Hazare's hands with its idiocy.
8. Yes, these views can be held simultaneously.
2. I'm anti-Anna Hazare.
3. Hazare is a sanctimonious right-wing tyrant so cloaked in his own virtue that he believes he is above the law.
4. The law is frequently an ass.
5. Nevertheless, the law is frequently our only hope.
6. Better the elected asses than the dictatorial unelected.
7. The government is playing into Hazare's hands with its idiocy.
8. Yes, these views can be held simultaneously.
Monday, 8 August 2011
Great-Grandson of Godawful Poetry Fortnight
We launched the first Godawful Poetry Fortnight in 2008, and followed up in in 2009 and 2010. All our posts are here, and there's a brief article in the TOI about the Fortnight here.
Now, time to gear up for 2011. You have been warned!
The essentials:
• Godawful Poetry Fortnight runs from the 19th to the 31st August.
• Our Patron Saint is William Wordsworth.
• To join in, all you have to do is post on your blog*, Facebook or Google+ a godawful poem you have written, with—all totally optional—a brief note about GPF, a bit about what godawful poetry means to you, and a link to this post.
• Post godawful poems as often as you like during the Fortnight. (The True Believers Challenge: post thirteen godawful poems, one on each day of the Fortnight.) Squeeze your muse like a boil. Get it all out. Pester your friends to post too. Once GPF is done, you will write good poetry for the rest of the year, yes?
• Technorati is pretty much dead now. So just use a Godawful Poetry Fortnight tag or label on your post, and maybe a #GodawfulPoetryFortnight Twitter hashtag as well.
• To those who feel the need to point out this Fortnight lasts only thirteen days, we draw our cape around us, and say, in a marked manner, "Poetic license."
* I'd be happy to link to you if you tell me where your poem is.
If you don't have a blog, you're welcome to use the comment space here or, if you know me and have my address, email me your poems and I'll post them as guest posts.
Now, time to gear up for 2011. You have been warned!
The essentials:
• Godawful Poetry Fortnight runs from the 19th to the 31st August.
• Our Patron Saint is William Wordsworth.
And he gets this signal honour for saying that poetry "is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." Way too many aspiring poets have rallied behind that banner, too few going so far as recollecting those emotions in tranquillity, let alone reading the rest of the preface to Lyrical Ballads (which can be found on Bartleby, for those interested).
• To join in, all you have to do is post on your blog*, Facebook or Google+ a godawful poem you have written, with—all totally optional—a brief note about GPF, a bit about what godawful poetry means to you, and a link to this post.
• Post godawful poems as often as you like during the Fortnight. (The True Believers Challenge: post thirteen godawful poems, one on each day of the Fortnight.) Squeeze your muse like a boil. Get it all out. Pester your friends to post too. Once GPF is done, you will write good poetry for the rest of the year, yes?
• Technorati is pretty much dead now. So just use a Godawful Poetry Fortnight tag or label on your post, and maybe a #GodawfulPoetryFortnight Twitter hashtag as well.
• To those who feel the need to point out this Fortnight lasts only thirteen days, we draw our cape around us, and say, in a marked manner, "Poetic license."
* I'd be happy to link to you if you tell me where your poem is.
If you don't have a blog, you're welcome to use the comment space here or, if you know me and have my address, email me your poems and I'll post them as guest posts.
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Sunday, 10 April 2011
Chennai Reporters' Beat
Yo, Madrasis (it's okay to say 'Madrasis' for just people from the city, no?),
The noble Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan (have always loved the regal way his name rolls off the tongue) has an experiment to propose, one that we're eager to see the results of. It's happening in a few hours.
Excerpts from his post:
The noble Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan (have always loved the regal way his name rolls off the tongue) has an experiment to propose, one that we're eager to see the results of. It's happening in a few hours.
Excerpts from his post:
On Sunday, the 10th of April, we will all meet at the Luz Signal (near the Sangeetha restaurant), and proceed in a stochastic and haphazard manner towards TT K Road/Sivaswami Road. Along the way you, and I, will meet people, talk to those we meet and keep a keen eye out for all kinds of things. At the end of the walk, we will talk for a few minutes about the things we saw, and coffee/breakfast/brunch later, disperse.Details here.
...
you will sit down and write about whatever you think is worth writing about from the walk.
...
I (and perhaps one other person) will then collate these stories, edit them (minimally, and brutally honestly) and structure them into a paper we’d love to spend a Sunday with. A month of Sundays with.
All of this, then, will be published as an entirely online newspaper; due credit given, of course.
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Change a letter, change the story
These, reformatted and with typos (hopefully) corrected, are from a Twitter hashtag we started in the wee hours, #changealetterchangethestory, which in turn was ripped off from a couple of old posts on this blog (1, 2 and you'll see that my first few were from my own contributions there), which in turn were inspired by an email thread. Please add more!
And check out the thread, scrolling back to the beginning, before it became a sort of minor viral. We particularly recommend contributions by @tinytoots, @ravages, @leftarmspinster and @rajasen (who are cordially invited to repost their selections here or on Facebook, where this will eventually cross-post).
The basic rules: (a) add a letter, subtract a letter, or change a letter, (b) provide a blurb and (c) if (b) is funny enough, you may be permitted to bend (a) slightly.
Jurassic Pork
Stars Miss Piggy. Kermit guests as amphibian with a taste for the Other White Meat.
Bone With The Wind
Rhett decides he doesn’t give a damn and follows his libido.
The Princess Ride
Another set of Princess Di revelations. The butler did it, apparently.
A Suitable Toy
The search for the perfect self-gratification aid
Vernon Dog Little
Dyslexic boy framed for incident in the city pound.
A Stud in Scarlet
Holmes helps a metrosexual accused of a crime of fashion.
The Complete Woks of Shakespeare
The man who introduced Chinese cooking to Elizabethan England.
The Dairy of Samuel Pepys
How one man milked success for all it was worth
Of Human Bandage
Florence Nightingale's rip-roaring autobiography
Finnegan's Cake
Buttery, over-cooked
Beautiful Thong
@soniafaleiro's lyrical real-life story of Fashion Week
Sin Fish
@chakraview's coming of age story, set in an aquarium
Heaver Lake
Vikram Seth's beautiful collection of poetry on throwing up
Nine Hives
William Dalrymple's ode to bee-keeping
Known Smurf
@anniezaidi 's debut novel about her childhood's favourite toy (yeah, okay, that was 2 letters)
Homage to Catatonia
The pro-LSD manifesto
Popcore Essayists
@jaiarjun edits set of learned essays on incestuous pornography
The Grill
@soniafaleiro on the art of barbecuing
My Fiend Sancho
@amitvarma's experiments with devil worship
My Experiments With The Troth
MKG's story of his marriage
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Umpire
@prempanicker's argument for neutral match officials
Mound of the Baskervilles
A pictorial study of the gravestones of Yorkshire
Of Rice and Men
How to ensnare a Tamizh groom
To Fill a Mockingbird
A guide to the bird-feeders of Alabama
The World According to Carp
Scientific study of the migration habits of this popular fish
Fear and Loafing in Las Vegas
The flaneur's guide to sin city
Match 22
Elizabeth Taylor's marriages
Midflight's Children
The progeny of the Mile-High Club (one more cheat - 2 letters changed)
The Unbearable Lightness of Peeing
Blessed relief
Sods and Lovers
The Hemingway you never knew
The Girl With The Dragon Tatti
Creative defecation
The Girl Who Flayed With Fire
S&M, pyromania; it's all there
The Grate Indian Novel
Slightly irritating IWE work
The Sly Company Of People Who Caress
Love for sale, surreptitiously
India Balling
An NYT reporter takes a gap year in India
Trainspitting
Why the railway tracks turned red
Shtupping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Frost's raunchier side
Love and Ponging in Bombay
How a deodarant salesman found romance in the city's trains
Malgudi Pays
RKN's guide to budding IWE writers
Sacred Dames
The BJP's sadhvis - an insiders account
Groom on the Roof
Finding love in the hills
In An Antique Band
Life on the road with The Rolling Stones
Maxiumum Pity
When Mother Teresa opened a branch office in Bombay
2 Statues
Best-selling Indian novel with wooden characters
Lunatic in my mead
The mad bootlegger of Bangalore
The Hungry Diet
Amitav Ghosh's patented, guaranteed weight loss manual
The Mother Side of Midnight
Oedipus revisited
Supperman
The sad story of an overweight superhero
The Kite Punner
Who strangled him with the manja?
A Hose for Mr Biswas
Naipaul's epic work on suburban gardening
What Ho, Jeeves
Bertie can;t remember who he was with last night (well, okay, no letters changed)
The 3 Mistakes of My Wife
How his spouse said 'I do, I do, I do'
The Singh And I
@bhogleharsha on how to keep smiling in the commentary box
Spittle Women
The first compartment of the 8.20 Churchgate fast
Withering Heights
Collected criticism
Sex and the Pity
How the losers get laid
The Twin Showers
The Ashleigh and Mary-Kate voyeur tapes
Park Night
Bruce Wayne cruises the Oval, looking for a little Robin
Lady Chatterly's Lever
Give me a place to stand and I'll make the earth move for you, baby
It Takes A Pillage
The USA's war on Countries Which Won't Give Them Oil
Who Filled Roger Rabbit?
A taxidermist's tale of woe
The Audacity of Grope
Another president's memoir
The Audacity of Dope
How an idiot became President
The Wind in the Pillows
Why she had to change the bedclothes
The Call of the Mild
Indian engineers move to the USA
Caturday Night Fever
The LOLCATS collection
Pilates of the Caribbean
Weight Loss in the West Indies
Dork Knight
@sidin's secret fantasies
Monday, 7 February 2011
Caferati's Fifth Annual Poetry Slam at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj (formerly Prince of Wales) museum garden
Sunday, 13th February, 2011
7.00 pm.
Caferati's Annual Poetry Slam made its debut at Kala Ghoda in 2007 (the first in India, actually) and has returned every year since then, to much enjoyment from its faithful audience and participants. This is its fifth edition.
Themes
There are no required themes. (Since it's the eve of St Valentine's Day, we suggest you bring at least one love poem.)
We’re proponents of free speech, but please understand (1) that we must abide by the laws of the land, and (2) that there may be children present in the audience. Please don’t bring poems that could get the Festival in trouble with the law.
Deadlines
For initial submission via email:
11.49 p.m., 11th February, 2011. (We may extend this deadline, but don’t count on it.)
To respond to the invitation to the Slam:
10 a.m., 13 February, 2011.
On the day of the Slam, 13th February 2011:
Report to the sound console at the venue by 6.00 p.m, and ask to speak to one of the Literature volunteers. Please show all five of your poems to the volunteers.
How our Poetry Slam works
Even if you know how a conventional Slam works, please read this section. There are more than a few tweaks.
Before the Slam:
Each poet must have ready at least five poems.
To be invited to compete in the Slam, you must submit one poem via email. (See address at the bottom of this post.)
The organisers/judges will short-list poets from the entries. Selection criteria will be the quality of the writing and how well, in the judges’ opinion, those poems lend themselves to performance.
The selected poets will be informed of their selection only via email. Their participation will be confirmed only once they reply to that email and confirm that that will be able to perform at the Slam and that they will come prepared to perform five of their poems.
At the event:
Participants in each round will perform in random order.
After each round, the judges will vote, and the competitors with the lowest points in that round will be eliminated, until we have a winner. The exact number that will be eliminated in each round will be decided depending on the number of participants selected to compete in the Slam, and will be announced before the performances start.
Scoring will be cumulative. Those who survive each round will carry their points with them. Elimination in each round will be based on total scores up to that point. In case of a tie, the totals from that specific round will be used as a tie-breaker.
Rules and Conditions
Submit only one poem via email.
The contest is open to anyone over the age of 16, except families of the organisers and the judges. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been published or not, whether you’ve performed before or not.
Since the main event is live on stage, selected participants must be prepared to travel to the venue (at their own expense), from wherever they are, to perform their work.
Entries must be your own, original work.
Entries can be in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and English
Each poem must take no longer than two minutes to perform. Time on stage will be kept strictly, and you will be cut off if you exceed the limit.
Participants selected for the Slam can, on stage, read from a written version, recite from memory, declaim, shout, or sing their words. They can stand still, gesture, pace, jump and up and down, stand on their heads, whatever. They will be judged on both the quality of the words they perform and the performance itself.
No costumes, musical accompaniment, or audio visual aids allowed. It's just you and your voice
There is no entry fee.
Submissions remain the intellectual property of the entrants, but by submitting an entry, you give the the Kala Ghoda Association, the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival and its Sponsors, and Caferati permission to use your entry, with acknowledgement, but with no payment to you, in their websites, as part of Press Releases (where they may be reproduced by media organisations), and in a possible special booklet or CD featuring the best of the Festival.
The decisions of the jury are final and binding, and no correspondence will be entertained regarding the jury’s decisions.
Judges
Caferati’s editors will evaluate initial submissions.
On the event day, there will be a panel of 6 judges.
The expert panel:
(to be announced)
The Audience Panel:
Three randomly chosen members of the audience will join the experts to help judge each round.
Prizes
Prizes worth approximately Rs 3000 (first place), Rs 2000 (second place, and Rs 1000 (third place).
Winners will be announced at the end of the contest.
How to enter
Email editors AT caferati DOT com with the subject line Kala Ghoda Poetry Slam 2011.
Please include:
Your name
Your age
Your telephone number (preferably a cellphone you carry at all times)
Sunday, 13th February, 2011
7.00 pm.
Caferati's Annual Poetry Slam made its debut at Kala Ghoda in 2007 (the first in India, actually) and has returned every year since then, to much enjoyment from its faithful audience and participants. This is its fifth edition.
Themes
There are no required themes. (Since it's the eve of St Valentine's Day, we suggest you bring at least one love poem.)
We’re proponents of free speech, but please understand (1) that we must abide by the laws of the land, and (2) that there may be children present in the audience. Please don’t bring poems that could get the Festival in trouble with the law.
Deadlines
For initial submission via email:
11.49 p.m., 11th February, 2011. (We may extend this deadline, but don’t count on it.)
To respond to the invitation to the Slam:
10 a.m., 13 February, 2011.
On the day of the Slam, 13th February 2011:
Report to the sound console at the venue by 6.00 p.m, and ask to speak to one of the Literature volunteers. Please show all five of your poems to the volunteers.
How our Poetry Slam works
Even if you know how a conventional Slam works, please read this section. There are more than a few tweaks.
Before the Slam:
Each poet must have ready at least five poems.
To be invited to compete in the Slam, you must submit one poem via email. (See address at the bottom of this post.)
The organisers/judges will short-list poets from the entries. Selection criteria will be the quality of the writing and how well, in the judges’ opinion, those poems lend themselves to performance.
The selected poets will be informed of their selection only via email. Their participation will be confirmed only once they reply to that email and confirm that that will be able to perform at the Slam and that they will come prepared to perform five of their poems.
At the event:
Participants in each round will perform in random order.
After each round, the judges will vote, and the competitors with the lowest points in that round will be eliminated, until we have a winner. The exact number that will be eliminated in each round will be decided depending on the number of participants selected to compete in the Slam, and will be announced before the performances start.
Scoring will be cumulative. Those who survive each round will carry their points with them. Elimination in each round will be based on total scores up to that point. In case of a tie, the totals from that specific round will be used as a tie-breaker.
Rules and Conditions
Submit only one poem via email.
The contest is open to anyone over the age of 16, except families of the organisers and the judges. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been published or not, whether you’ve performed before or not.
Since the main event is live on stage, selected participants must be prepared to travel to the venue (at their own expense), from wherever they are, to perform their work.
Entries must be your own, original work.
Entries can be in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and English
Each poem must take no longer than two minutes to perform. Time on stage will be kept strictly, and you will be cut off if you exceed the limit.
Participants selected for the Slam can, on stage, read from a written version, recite from memory, declaim, shout, or sing their words. They can stand still, gesture, pace, jump and up and down, stand on their heads, whatever. They will be judged on both the quality of the words they perform and the performance itself.
No costumes, musical accompaniment, or audio visual aids allowed. It's just you and your voice
There is no entry fee.
Submissions remain the intellectual property of the entrants, but by submitting an entry, you give the the Kala Ghoda Association, the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival and its Sponsors, and Caferati permission to use your entry, with acknowledgement, but with no payment to you, in their websites, as part of Press Releases (where they may be reproduced by media organisations), and in a possible special booklet or CD featuring the best of the Festival.
The decisions of the jury are final and binding, and no correspondence will be entertained regarding the jury’s decisions.
Judges
Caferati’s editors will evaluate initial submissions.
On the event day, there will be a panel of 6 judges.
The expert panel:
(to be announced)
The Audience Panel:
Three randomly chosen members of the audience will join the experts to help judge each round.
Prizes
Prizes worth approximately Rs 3000 (first place), Rs 2000 (second place, and Rs 1000 (third place).
Winners will be announced at the end of the contest.
How to enter
Email editors AT caferati DOT com with the subject line Kala Ghoda Poetry Slam 2011.
Please include:
Your name
Your age
Your telephone number (preferably a cellphone you carry at all times)
Sunday, 6 February 2011
The Essential Indian Books survey / the Readership survey
Would much appreciate it if you could post links to these on your blog. I'm trying to get at least a few thousand responses, and a link from you would help big time.
If you prefer to Tweet, you can use http://bit.ly/EssentialIndianBooks and http://bit.ly/readershipsurvey
Click here to go to the surveys.
Essential Indian Books
Informal Readership Survey
Or you can take them on this page, below.
Do please pass the URLs on to friends as well. The more people we get to fill this out the better the results will be.
Many thanks!
If you prefer to Tweet, you can use http://bit.ly/EssentialIndianBooks and http://bit.ly/readershipsurvey
Click here to go to the surveys.
Essential Indian Books
Informal Readership Survey
Or you can take them on this page, below.
Do please pass the URLs on to friends as well. The more people we get to fill this out the better the results will be.
Many thanks!
Sunday, 30 January 2011
ForbesLife India - an e-sampler
Open publication - Free publishing
Please also read a short introduction by Indrajit Gupta, editor, Forbes India, and the introduction to ForbesLife India by Charles Assisi, editor.
If you'd like to subscribe, please see this page for details.
We hope you'll pick up your copy soon, and we look forward to your feedback. You can write to us at ForbesLifeIndia AT network18online.com, follow us on Twitter or 'Like' us on Facebook.
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