मेघदूत: "नीचैर्गच्छत्युपरि च दशा चक्रनेमिक्रमेण"

समर्थ शिष्या अक्का : "स्वामीच्या कृपाप्रसादे हे सर्व नश्वर आहे असे समजले. पण या नश्वरात तमाशा बहुत आहे."

G C Lichtenberg: “It is as if our languages were confounded: when we want a thought, they bring us a word; when we ask for a word, they give us a dash; and when we expect a dash, there comes a piece of bawdy.”

C. P. Cavafy: "I’d rather look at things than speak about them."

Martin Amis: “Gogol is funny, Tolstoy in his merciless clarity is funny, and Dostoyevsky, funnily enough, is very funny indeed; moreover, the final generation of Russian literature, before it was destroyed by Lenin and Stalin, remained emphatically comic — Bunin, Bely, Bulgakov, Zamyatin. The novel is comic because life is comic (until the inevitable tragedy of the fifth act);...”

सदानंद रेगे: "... पण तुकारामाची गाथा ज्या धुंदीनं आजपर्यंत वाचली जात होती ती धुंदी माझ्याकडे नाहीय. ती मला येऊच शकत नाही याचं कारण स्वभावतःच मी नास्तिक आहे."

".. त्यामुळं आपण त्या दारिद्र्याच्या अनुभवापलीकडे जाऊच शकत नाही. तुम्ही जर अलीकडची सगळी पुस्तके पाहिलीत...तर त्यांच्यामध्ये त्याच्याखेरीज दुसरं काही नाहीच आहे. म्हणजे माणसांच्या नात्यानात्यांतील जी सूक्ष्मता आहे ती क्वचित चितारलेली तुम्हाला दिसेल. कारण हा जो अनुभव आहे... आपले जे अनुभव आहेत ते ढोबळ प्रकारचे आहेत....."

Kenneth Goldsmith: "In 1969 the conceptual artist Douglas Huebler wrote, “The world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.”1 I’ve come to embrace Huebler’s ideas, though it might be retooled as “The world is full of texts, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.” It seems an appropriate response to a new condition in writing today: faced with an unprecedented amount of available text, the problem is not needing to write more of it; instead, we must learn to negotiate the vast quantity that exists. How I make my way through this thicket of information—how I manage it, how I parse it, how I organize and distribute it—is what distinguishes my writing from yours."

Tom Wolfe: "The first line of the doctors’ Hippocratic oath is ‘First, do no harm.’ And I think for the writers it would be: ‘First, entertain.’"

विलास सारंग: "… इ. स. 1000 नंतर ज्या प्रकारची संस्कृती रुढ झाली , त्यामध्ये साधारणत्व व विश्वात्मकता हे गुण प्राय: लुप्त झाले...आपली संस्कृती अकाली विश्वात्मक साधारणतेला मुकली आहे."

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

No 1 Olympic Sport that won't get a Gold Medal

THEODORE DALRYMPLE:

"India alone values the Games at their true worth—which is to say, approaching nil. It is not that Indians are completely indifferent to sports. They are crazy about cricket, a game whose considerable subtleties are lost on all who did not grow up with it but which teaches mental flexibility as well as specific skills. But no official encouragement is necessary to promote this enthusiasm...For reasons that I am unable to fathom, for no person is less interested in sports than I, the United Nations Development Program regularly sends me updates on its efforts to promote economic and social progress through athletics. India, I am glad to say, does not believe in this nonsense." (WSJ, August 17 2012)

Business Standard, Aug 13 2012:

"The fact is that if you are a poor or hot country, you don’t do well in Olympic contests. And if you are both poor and hot, the dice are really loaded against you."

(sounds like Jared Diamond)

I often watch Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha TV channels. They are much better than any of India's news channel. They often reflect what is going on in this country.

By watching them, I have developed some respect for a few MP's and the processes governing India's democracy.

One member of the Lok Sabha I love to watch is Sharad Yadav. I have always followed Mr. Yadav's career since the emergency.

In my eyes he is deeply rooted in India's soil, is incorruptible, has high integrity , is a good orator in Hindi and, most importantly, gets elected.

This is what he said, in Hindi, on August 8 2012 on the floor of the house:


courtesy: http://loksabha.nic.in/

Mr. Yadav is expressing his concern on the exploding population of India and how India is not doing anything about it.

He also spoke about similar worries for Bangladesh. Today it is the most densely populated large country in the world. I wonder if illegal migration of Bangladeshi's into Assam can ever be stopped if its population keeps growing at the current rate.

As soon as I heard this, I thought about the article in the Guardian newspaper about 150,000 unbranded condoms that were made available at London 2012 Olympic village.

courtesy: Getty and Guardian

The Guardian story mentions sex as "no 1 Olympic sport that won't get a gold medal".

Is that the reason India and Bangladesh have not won a single gold medal at the Olympics? After all their favourite sport- played without condoms by majority of their citizens- wins no medals.

Apparently, if you are poor and hot, the dice are really loaded in favour of you in that sport!
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