Newspapers that Speak from the Loins

If a person who doesn’t understand either Marathi or English were to look at daily morning newspapers at Pune, how will she distinguish between the two?

Answer: Marathi dailies have less female frontal nudity!

I wonder why because their morals and ethics are as suspect as those of English papers. Read the late Vijay Tendulkar विजय तेंडुलकर on this subject.

Is it because Marathi media have been hypocrites for a long time? For example, they ridicule Hindi TV sitcoms while producing far worse serials than Hindi.

Or is it because they can't afford to pay for the porn or extra pages?

Times of India Mirror Pune edition now has a license for nudity in the name of generation Y. Who knows it may turn out to be its chief quality when they start pricing the tabloid.


‘Yes, it is spoken from the heart, but our readers prefer books that speak from the loins.’


The Spectator June 14 2008

India’s Greed Belts

SOMINI SENGUPTA of NYT recently discovered what many of us now have known for a while:

“Many in India’s upper middle class have moved to gated communities, with servants who live in nearby slums.” (June 9, 2008)

Read an entry dated November 20, 2007 from this blog here.

The NYT article says:

“…Hamilton Court — complete with a private school within its gates, groomed lawns and security guards — is just one of the exclusive gated communities that have blossomed across India in recent years…

… In China, the main Asian competitor to which India is often compared, the state managed early on to harness economic expansion for huge public works projects and then allow more and more Chinese to partake of the benefits. There, the poor are far less likely to be deprived of basic services, whether clean water or basic schooling.

In India, poverty has also dropped appreciably in the last 17 years of economic change, even as the gulf between the rich and poor has grown. More than a quarter of all Indians still live below the official poverty line (subsisting on roughly $1 a day); one in four city dwellers live on less than 50 cents a day; and nearly half of all Indian children are clinically malnourished…”

What I didn’t know was how China handled this challenge.

Movements of Indian upper middle class are an old story. Recently a relative made a statement: “Poor people hate us because we have a big car.”

D D Kosambi has written about “senseless opportunism and termite greed of the ‘cultured’ strata” through India’s known history.

T S Shejwalkar त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर has written some of the best essays in Marathi on various subjects.

In an essay dated Diwali 1962, he writes:


"बुद्धिवादी आणि सुशिक्षित समाजाची नीतिमत्ता" "Intellectual and Educated Society’s Morality”
("निवडक लेखसंग्रह" त्र्यंबक शंकर शेजवलकर; परिचय गं दे खानोलकर
"Selected Articles-collection" by Tryambak Shankar Shejwalkar 1977 introduction: G D Khanolkar)



The Spectator September 22, 2007

Bank Robbers at Pune may now need Financial Adviser!

Times of India / Pune Mirror reported on June 11, 2008:

“Police chief cannot protect banks, he can’t stop MNS from holding illegal rallies. He can’t keep senior citizens safe. He can’t stop burglaries, chain snatchers. Under the present circumstances, he says he is helpless.”

On June 9, 2008: Broad daylight dacoity at Punjab National Bank, Sanewadi Branch, Aundh. Eight robbers enter the bank at around 10 am.”

In calendar 2008, this was 10th attempt of burglary at a bank in Pune.

Police commissioner said: “Maybe the banks are apathetic towards safety as the cash is insured.”

Following picture shows a classic win-win! Bank , bank-employee, robber.


‘Would you like to see a financial adviser, sir?’

The Spectator

Maybe Hillary didn’t Lose because she was a Woman but Joan of Arc?

Pundits wrote Hillary couldn't lose. Therefore, I made an appeal to her using poet B S Mardhekar's बा सी मर्ढेकर words. Read it here.

Now pundits are analysing her loss.

“…Obama is like her idealistic, somewhat naïve self before the world launched 1,000 attacks against her, turning her into the hard-bitten, driven politician who has launched 1,000 attacks against Obama.

As she makes a last frenzied and likely futile attempt to crush the butterfly, it’s as though she’s crushing the remnants of her own girlish innocence. “

MAUREEN DOWD, NYT May 7, 2008

“…She didn’t lose because she was a woman. She didn’t lose because America isn’t ready for a woman as president. She lost because of her own — and her husband’s and Mark Penn’s — fatal missteps.”

MAUREEN DOWD, NYT June 8, 2008


Artist: Mischa Richter The New Yorker 29 January 1949

BJP Saffron and Ivanovic Neo Red are going to be Huge this Summer

Frontline Jun 07 - 20, 2008


A Colourful Champion


Artist: Robert Mankoff The New Yorker September 27, 2004

new caption: "Ditch Detainee Orange now, BJP Saffron and Ivanovic Neo Red are going to be huge this summer."

Have you read M F Husain Version of Ramayana?

U.R. Ananthamurthy says: “The only two languages that are understood all over the country are the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.” (India Today, August 20, 2007)

I know there are many versions of these two ‘languages’ but don’t know which one M F Husain uses.

This refers to “Politics of Art” by GPD from Economic & Political Weekly dated May 17, 2008.

GPD sounds naïve even comic when he compares “blasphemy” of Saint Janabai संत जनाबाई with insensitivity, ignorance and plain mischievousness of M F Husain. He seems to be carried away by the fact that Husian hails from Pandharpur पंढरपुर.

On this subject, I wish to quote the late Durga Bhagwat दुर्गा भागवत, who all her life defended freedom of expression, challenged the dictators like Indira Gandhi when most intellectuals were silent and fought culture-vultures of Maharashtra while defending Marathi author Bhau Padhye भाऊ पाध्ये who was accused of obscenity.

“…why does Husian draw Seeta sitting on the tail of Lord Maruti flying across the sky? And that too naked one? Obviously religious people will get angry, won’t they? Basically Husain has not read Ramayana is obvious because no where in Ramayana, Maruti carries Seeta. In Ashok-vana, he offers Seeta that he would transport her on his shoulder safely. Seeta declines the offer because she wants Rama to go there personally, slay Ravana and free her. That shows Seeta’s confidence in Rama and also pride. Without considering this context, drawing revealing pictures of Hindu goddesses has to be considered objectionable. Such pictures are naturally going to hurt the sentiments of religious people. Not just that even a religious Muslim may not like this insult of gods of other religions.”

In the same book, Ms. Bhagwat dares likes of GPD to defend the right of Salman Rushdie to write “The Satanic Verses”.

(Source- ऐसपैस गप्पा : दुर्गाबाईंशी लेखक प्रतिभा रानडे “Aispais Gappa: Durgabainshi” by Pratibha Ranade, Rajhans Prakashan, November 1998)


Artist: Alan Dunn The New Yorker 22 April 1961

Mobile Towers are a Health Hazard for Parachute Jumpers!

The New Yorker's Cartoon Caption Contest #149


Artist: Mick Stevens The New Yorker June 9 2008

"You completely forgot about the last communication tower installed by Bharti Airtel in our neighbourhood last week. Didn't you?"

Mothers and Sparrows Don’t Thrive on Neglect

I always took my mother and a sparrow for granted.

And why not. They were the two species I sighted most during my childhood. The story millions of Maharashtrians most heard- in Marathi- in their childhood was that of a sparrow and a crow.

The story runs something like this: a sparrow builds her nest using wax and a crow builds his using cow-dung. A rainfall washes out crow’s nest and he goes to sparrow’s nest asking for a shelter. Sparrow refuses to oblige, giving one reason after another.

Although I now refuse to believe that crows are that stupid, I enjoyed the story especially when my mother told it in her clear diction.

My mother now is gone and they say sparrow too may be on its way. Read Outlook India story here.

Therefore, these days every time I spot a sparrow, I get the same pleasure as I may get finding dinosaur bones.

I have learnt one hard lesson. Unlike some flower, mothers and sparrows don’t thrive on neglect.

(Isn't picture below apart from its other qualities just poetic?)


Artist: Perry Barlow The New Yorker 10 April 1948

Sakharam Binder सखाराम बाईंडर and the Basic Middle-Class Hunger for Property

Writing Vijay Tendulkar’s विजय तेंडुलकर obit, Girish Karnad says:

“…Then came Sakharam Binder. It's not only Tendulkar's best play, but one of the masterpieces of Indian drama. When first performed, several political parties united to demand a ban on the play, and it had to be rescued by the courts. Its critics claimed to be scandalised by its overt sexuality. But one suspects that Tendulkar had once again hit a raw nerve, the basic middle-class hunger for property as a guarantee of security, and the ruthlessness this hunger could unleash. Lakshmi, a perfect embodiment of Hindu womanly virtues, manoeuvres a murder to keep the roof intact over her head, invulnerable in her sense of moral rectitude…” (Outlook June 2, 2008)

This angle I had never thought.

As real estate prices climb relentlessly in Pune, everyday one hears sordid stories of greed, corruption, moral decay and crumbling family values. Duryodhana’s following words don’t sound all that far-fetched: “The Pandavas will not receive even a needle- point of territory,"

In 1980’s, I lived in a Bombay where girls fell in love only after ascertaining where the suitor’s property was located. Western suburbs upto Andheri were preferred over eastern ones. I had no chance because I had neither! Now I joke about it, then I felt castrated.

Now, the whole of urban India is Bombay.

I mentioned ancient India by quoting from the Mahabharata. Let us turn to an example from American history.

WILLIAM HOGELAND said in NYT December 27, 2006:

“…In 1763, George III drew a line on a map stretching from modern-day Maine to modern-day Georgia, along the crest of the Appalachians. He declared it illegal to claim or settle land west of the line, all of which he reserved for Native Americans.

George Washington, a young colonel in the Virginia militia, instructed his land-buying agents in the many ways of getting around the law. Although Washington was not alone in acquiring forbidden tracts, few were as energetic in the illegal acquisition of western land…

… By the early 1770’s, George Washington had amassed vast tracts to which his titles were flatly invalid. The Revolution rectified that. With British law void, Washington emerged from the war with his titles legal by default…”

Jonathan Yardley said in Washington Post May 18, 2008:

“…Not merely did George Washington want the capital on the Potomac, he also "was determined to place the capital close to the Eastern Branch, today known as the Anacostia River, virtually across the Potomac from his own estate at Mount Vernon." Washington believed that the Potomac was fated to be the essential connection between the Atlantic and the rapidly growing West -- he didn't know, or more likely didn't want to know, that for most of the year much of the Potomac is unnavigable -- and "he stood to make a great deal of money" from a capital on the Potomac, a useful reminder that the motives of the Father of His Country were not always pristinely patriotic…”


Artist: Bruce Erik Kaplan The New Yorker 17 January 1994

Shiva’s Wrongful Depiction! The New Yorker's Cartoon Caption Contest #148

I continue NOT to be a "U.S. resident age eighteen or over". So here is my entry by stealth.



Artist: Drew Dernavich The New Yorker June 2, 2008

Proposed Caption: “Hindu fundamentalists have threatened to burn this down because of Shiva’s depiction next to an unknown woman instead of his consort Parvati.”