I Love You, Ms. Roy

Sunil Khilnani:

"Our great private institutions - above all, the media - have made themselves unable to engage in fundamental debates (What kind of society do we wish to be Who should we reward, and why) . Private wealth is unwilling to direct its energies and resources to trying to bring about such a desired society (philanthropy is a good deed - but it is not a step towards changing the world: whatever it makes up for in reflecting well on the giver, it loses in its lack of social ambition - however big the gift in monetary terms). And as a citizenry, we are marked by an underwhelming sense of intellectual ambition in trying to understand the generational and planetary consequences of our present ways of life - of the collective, long-term consequences of our individual, short-term choices. So, even as we can celebrate a greater flourishing of the ambitions of individual Indians, we face the collapse of a collective Indian ambition. Our task and our challenge now is to renew and reinvigorate that complex will to power and goodness that brought modern India into being: the ambition to find a political form that combines freedom with a just social order - and that can so realise one of the most remarkable - and ambitious - national moral imaginations of modern times."

Michael Crichton

"A lot of people complain that television lacks focus. But that's the nature of the medium. Television's not about information at all. Information is active, engaging. Television is passive. Information is disinterested, objective. Television is emotional. It's entertainment. Whatever he says, however he acts, in truth Martin has absolutely no interest in you, or your company, or your airplanes. He's paid to exercise his one reliable talent: provoking people, getting them to make an emotional outburst, to lose their temper, to say something outrageous. He doesn't really want to know about airplanes. He wants a media moment. If you understand that, you can deal with him."

On April 18 2010 afternoon, CNN-IBN anchor preposterously asked Arundhati Roy: "Why does India love to hate you?".

Ms. Roy should have said: Next question, please.

In any case, Ms. Anchor did not get media moment from Ms. Roy.

I have still not read any of her books but I loved Ms. Roy when I first saw her "In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones", 1989. And I love her today.

In fact, she now looks even more beautiful than ever.