Is Non Resident Maharashtrian Just a P-L-Deshpande-Book-Eating Lobster Robot?

Non Resident Indians based in USA keep coming under fire from different quarters- Vasant Sarwate, R K Laxman, Ramachandra Guha, Gurcharan Das etc.

But no attack I read has been as vitriolic as this one. It is targeted at Non Resident Maharashtrians.

I found it handy for The New Yorker Cartoon Caption contest # 161.

GPD EPW Issue : VOL 43 No. 28 July 12 - July 18, 2008

“…The NRMs have decided to celebrate the language that they rarely if at all speak. But they cannot be blamed. Their relatives and friends do not speak it either…

… A number of them went to modest schools in Pune, Nagpur or Mumbai. They perhaps read some books then. Most of them must have read the grand icon of the middle classes, P L Deshpande. They would remember a few of his jokes and witticisms. They would have seen some DVDs of his one-man performances. Whatever little Marathi they might speak there would be for telling each other PL’s “jokes”. Not for any reason is he called “Maharashtrache Ladke Vyaktimatva” (Maharashtra’s icon). Of course there is no reason why they cannot or should not celebrate their icons. And, after all, “PL” was no ordinary writer.

But then the point is that it amounts to nostalgia for those years of lower middle class living. The NRMs do not give the benefits of being cyber slaves. An occasional return to culture and tradition leaves them in peace with themselves and with their past…

… Most of the NRMs are cyber slaves in the Silicon Valley. They have no clue as to what is happening in the world of Marathi letters…”



Artist: Michael Crawford The New Yorker Sept 22 2008 Cartoon Caption contest 161

Proposed caption:

“Hey, so you are not just a P-L-Deshpande-book-eating lobster robot from the Silicon Valley. You are trying to clasp the culture.”

Life is Suffering, Meaningless. Even Complaining. पण या नश्वरात तमाशा बहुत आहे.

Newsweek (Aug 18 / Aug 25 2008) recently interviewed Woody Allen.

“…Allen has devoted his career to making films that consistently assert the randomness of life. That they do so in a variety of genres— comedy, drama, suspense, satire, even, once, a musical—only partially obscures the fact that, in Allen's eyes, they're all tragedies, since, as he says, "to live is to suffer." …
Allen says the indifference of the universe has obsessed him since he was a child… "I can't really come up with a good argument to choose life over death," he says. "Except that I'm too scared."…

"Your perception of time changes as you get older, because you see how brief everything is," he says. "You see how meaningless … I don't want to depress you, but it's a meaningless little flicker."

It's not that Allen is unable to enjoy himself (though he did want to title "Annie Hall" "Anhedonia," which means the inability to experience pleasure); it's that he's convinced the moments don't add up to redemption. "You have a meal, or you listen to a piece of music, and it's a pleasurable thing," he says. "But it doesn't accrue to anything."…
“
समर्थ शिष्या अक्का : "स्वामीच्या कृपाप्रसादे हे सर्व नश्वर आहे हे समजले. पण या नश्वरात तमाशा बहुत आहे."
(जीवनसेतु, सेतु माधवराव पगडी, 1969/2000)



The New Yorker

God in the form of Higgs boson; Devil in Flesh and Blood.

Artist: Tom Cheney, The New Yorker, September 15 2008

cartoon caption contest 160

My caption:

"We will soon know if the god indeed manifests in the form of Higgs boson but here we already have the devil in flesh and blood."

Cultures Committed to Unifying Greeds

Susan Sontag:

“We live in a culture committed to unifying greeds…..everyone on the planet feeding at the same trough of standardized entertainment and fantasies of eros and violence…"


Artist: Drew Dernavich The New Yorker September 8, 2008 Cartoon Caption Contest 159

Proposed Caption:

“Like Graham Greene’s ‘Dr Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party’, I now invite you to get inside the cup and drink the beverage to get to the grand prize at the bottom. Remember, one of them is perhaps laced with cyanide.

Go. Prove to the world limitless greed of the rich.”

Leaping the Other way to the planet Saturn and Return

Artist: Mick Stevens The New Yorker August 25 2008 cartoon caption contest 157


Proposed Caption: "Some 380 million years ago, a few pioneering vertebrates first made the leap from water to land. And today, tens of millions of their human descendants seek summer amusement by leaping the other way. According to the travel industry, close to 90 percent of vacationers choose as their holiday destination an ocean, lake or other scenic body of water. So said Natalie Angier in 21st century.

Today I would like to append to her list a new destination- the planet Saturn.

But I am confident this will have no impact on the booming business dedicated astrology channels, run by our sister companies, do in India."

Running Rent-a-Billion-SMSes Bureau in Mumbai

Artist: Leo Cullum The New Yorker August 4, 2008 cartoon caption contest 156

Proposed Caption: "...Because I run rent-a-billion-SMSes bureau in Mumbai that is dedicated to Indian reality TV shows, I could get into your bed easier than into your shoes."

New Yorker at India's Cabinet Meeting

Because of their own huge Obama/Osama cartoon controversy, New Yorker couldn't attend Indian parliament's recent session for trust vote.

To catch up...


Artist: Lee Lorenz The New Yorker August 4, 2008 cartoon caption contest 155

My proposed caption:

“We indeed are privileged members of the world press. We are about to witness the federal cabinet of world’s largest democracy selecting one of these five as their Prime Minister.”

Are Table and Chair of Somnath Chatterjee, Speaker of the India's 14th Lok Sabha, Fireproof?

Artist: Drew Dernavich The New Yorker July 28th, 2008 Cartoon Caption Contest 154


Proposed Caption:

"For us Indian communists nothing is unfair against anyone who goes against our groupthink. Remember Trotsky?

Here we are about to burn down the table and chair of comrade Chatterjee on the night of July 21, 2008. Now we”ll see how he chairs the session and tries to save the government."

I like my Vertigo. More so after reading Francois Truffaut.

Times of India, July 11 2008:
“Incidence of vertigo highest in 36-60 age group…sedentary urban lifestyle, stress and lack of exercise are factors contributing to the growing trend of vertigo in the youth…”

Although “sedentary urban lifestyle, stress and lack of exercise” don’t strictly apply to me, I suffer from mild vertigo/ acrophobia.

In fact, I think I tend to enjoy it.

I wonder if this “perverse” enjoyment has anything to do with my favourite movie Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”. First time I saw it was in early 1980’s in Mumbai (at Sterling cinema?). I enjoyed every minute of it.

Later I read and keep reading masterly “Hitchcock (revised edition” by Francois Truffaut with the collaboration of Helen G. Scott (first published in 1967).

Books says:

“…To put it plainly, the man (Scottie Ferguson played by James Stewart) wants to go to bed with a woman who’s dead; he is indulging in a form of necrophilia…

When you see Judy (played by Kim Novak) walking on the street, the tawny hair and make-up convey an animal like sensuality. That quality is accentuated, I suppose, by the fact that she wears no brassiere…That’s right, she doesn’t waer a brassiere. As a matter of fact, she’s particularly proud of that!”

I knew part of the reason why I liked the movie so much!


Artist: Sam Gross The New Yorker 11 February 2002

All I want is a Stock that will go up a Little Bit…Else I will Smash the Stock Exchange

This is bubbles and bunges season.

Bloomberg reports on July 17, 2008:

"Pakistan investors stormed out of the Karachi Stock Exchange, smashed windows and cursed regulators after the benchmark index fell for a 15th day, the worst losing streak in at least 18 years...

...Police surrounded the exchange after hundreds of investors stoned the building and shouted anti-government slogans. They directed their ire at the government and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, which this week removed a 1 percent daily limit on price declines. The measure was aimed at halting a slide that wiped out $30 billion of Pakistan's market value in three months, threatening to undo a 14-fold rally since 2001...

... Investors were also protesting outside the Lahore and Islamabad stock exchanges, Geo Television reported.

``We demand that all stock prices be frozen at current levels,'' said Kauser Javed, who heads the Small Investors Association. ``People have sold their assets in the last 15 days to meet payments and if things continue this way, you will start hearing of suicides. The regulators always favor big brokers and investors.''
"

I think India is prone to bubbles of all kinds. Fixed deposit schemes of many NBFC's, stock markets from time to time, real estate, plantation companies, pyramid/ ponzi schemes, certain medical treatments, godmen, astrologers, coaching classes, film-stars, ideologies…

However currently for Indian stock markets it’s like February 1637 in Holland . In that one month prices of tulips fell by approximately 90 per cent, bursting tulipmania.

Likes of Daniel Gross have argued that bubbles are good for us.

“The bigger the bubble, the more useful soapsuds it leaves behind when it bursts.”

“Gross believes that America is prone to investment bubbles partly because its government tends to have a laisser faire attitude to innovation, preferring to let private investors fund new technologies, rather than the state. “

I am not sure about the reasons in case of India and Pakistan.

Possibly here is one…


Artist: Helen E. Hokinson The New Yorker 7 August 1948



Angry Pakistani stock brokers demonstrate at the Stock Exchange to protest the decline of stock market in Karachi Photographer: Fareed Khan/AP Photo via Bloomberg News Thursday, July 17, 2008.

p.s. “The final myth is that the crash put the Dutch off tulips. In fact, a form of tulipmania never died…Today the Netherlands has 90 per cent of the international flower trade. Fortunes really are made in tulips.”