Attention all people who are going to go up in arms over the Sabarimala issue:
If your belief system is so accomodating that you’re comfortable with a god who was born out of the union of two other gods (one of whom was cross dressing), then how difficult is it to make a further leap of faith? Once you’ve started believing in gods, believing that one of them will be defiled if he sees a woman is easy.
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Posted by Aadisht
Readers of Maajorly Shadymax Arbit Fundaes are obviously too intelligent to be taken in by this Pankaj Mishra editorial, which manages to contradict itself repeatedly and also indulges in some very selective reporting of facts.
To take just one of the contradictions, Mishra first claims that when China adopted free market policies, the result was a 25% inflation rate in the late 1980s, and even says that the Tiananmen Square protests were not for greater democracy and accountability, but against rising prices (So was the Goddess of Democracy actually the Goddess of Low Prices?). But he then goes on to say that China’s adoption of free market policies is undermining European economies through cheap exports. You can’t have it both ways. Why do ‘neoliberal’ policies cause inflation in the 1980s, but 15 years on, with greater adoption cause deflation? And why are rising prices bad in China, and falling prices bad in Italy?
Tim Worstall has a rebuttal up on his blog. It makes some very excellent points about the things not mentioned in the editorial, and leaves Mishra looking pretty silly.
I disagree with Worstall’s opening paragraph, though, where he says Mishra seems to be suggesting that India and China need a healthy dose of socialism. Actually, Mishra’s beef with free market economics is not that it doesn’t work, but that it is a Western idea based on Western values, and thus unsuitable for India and China. If you were to take this to its logical conclusion, socialism is also ruled out as it too has Western origins. Mishra would presumably be satisfied if India and China were operating under pre-imperialistic conditions. Of course, this would mean scuppering democracy, free speech, the university system and bringing back untouchability, sati, absentee landlords, and foot binding, but at least these are homegrown concepts.
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Posted by Aadisht
On the topic of vegetarianism, the Master wrote:
Cut him off from the proteins and the amino-acids, and you soured his normally amiable nature, turning him into a sullen hater of his species who asked nothing better than to bite his n. and dearest and bite them good. But give him this steak and kidney pie outlet, thus allowing him to fulfil what they call his legitimate aspirations, and chagrin would vanish and he would become his old loveable self once more. The dark scowl would be replaced by the tender simper, the acid crack by the honeyed word, and all would be hotsy-totsy once more.
This could explain why Gujjus are so ornery, and go about rioting and vandalising and whatnot. All they need to do is have a nice steak, and they will overflow with love and benevolence once more.
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Posted by Aadisht
I must have seen more television in the past two months than I have in the two years before. I haven’t missed much. The ads are the best bit.
The Garnier fairness cream made me recall something I saw in China but didn’t remember to write about in the travelogue. The Chinese buy fairness creams too. As usual, the language gap prevented me from finding out details, but it was interesting to see that the Chinese beauty ideal also places a premium on fair skin.
It’s especially interesting because China was never colonised by the British to the extent that India was, so the usual explanation of the preference for fair skin being a colonial hangover doesn’t hold that much water.
Perhaps human beings actually do have an innate, genetic preference for fair skin, for whatever reason. Of course it is not logical, but sexual selection does not have to be.
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Moving on, curly haired woomaans in the Slice and Sony Ericsson ads strongly are, so much so that they make me drop back into IIMB lingo. Is it the same girl in both the ads?
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The Tata Mutual Fund which you should pick because it has “a hedging function for maximising returns and minimising risks” is a remarkable piece of financial gobbledegook. Because, after all, only Tata’s mutual fund will try to maximise returns or minimise risks.
Secondly, how the hell does it do both? Risk and return are proportional. You can maximise returns while fixing risk, or minimise returns while fixing risk, but you have to accept a tradeoff somewhere.
And finally, how, oh how, does a hedging function maximise returns? A hedge is done specifically to fix risk at an acceptable level. Returns don’t enter the picture.
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Finally, the Frankfinn ad is one of the worst made ones I have had the privelege of seeing. Despite that, it is remarkable for another reason. It is the first ad I have ever seen which pitches a product as an alternative to marriage instead of as an aid to it. In remarkable opposition to stuff like Fair and Lovely and LIC.
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Posted by Aadisht
There was an another phenomenon that I almost put into the post about Chinese puzzles: that people were making out all over Shanghai (and Singapore too, but I got used to that in December). You could hardly move without seeing someone or the other being affectionate in an emphatic way.
I formed hypotheses about that as well. Was it caused by communism breaking down traditional taboos? Or by market liberalization breaking down a puritanical communist society?
But people making out is not a puzzle at all. There is no point asking why people make out and forming hypotheses to explain it. Public displays of affection are almost universal. The important question to ask is: why don’t people make out in India?
The culture shock is still there. But in this case, the deviating culture is not China but India. It is as unnatural for a society to frown on being affectionate in public as it is unnatural for small cars to be missing despite the presence of millions of motorcyclists who would be anxious to upgrade.
What does it say about us as a society when the other countries which have similar taboos on PDA are ones like Saudi Arabia and Iran?
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Posted by Aadisht
Just to clarify, the previous post was not about me. For me, having any sort of romantic entanglement, even one my parents didn’t approve of, would be a step up. This was about entirely hypothetical situations about hypothetical people with Day Zero placements (wink, wink).
Okay, enough with the allusions. I’d mentioned that I was surprised more people weren’t estranged from their families. Yes, you’d need a fifteen-lakh-a-year consultant job if you were giving up a reasonably large family business, but if the opportunity cost was only family savings, or a small shop, then a software or BPO job would surely give you enough money to compensate. So why don’t we see more estranged families?
In the style of the inimitable Tyler Cowen, I’m going to list possible reasons. As always, you get to tell me which ones are likely, which ones are unlikely, and what I’ve missed in the comments.
I think Reason 1 describes most ‘suitable’ marriages, while Reason 4 will account for most ‘unsuitable’ ones. What are your comments?
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Posted by Aadisht
Which is better: joining a management consultancy, being paid 14 lakh rupees a year, and working 16/6; or being the heir to a small family business where your dad and some professional managers do all the work, you can take it easy, and all your needs are met (though you don’t actually own anything: you only stand to inherit)? The (expected) wealth you will earn as a consultant and the (expected) wealth you will inherit when your father tells jai are equal (in present value terms), so from a purely monetary point of view, both options are the same.
If you don’t enjoy the work for itself than you would probably prefer the second option. The money is the same, but you get to take it easy. All your time is leisure time, and you can spend it doing what you like- adventure sports, perhaps, or wildlife photography. If you were the sedentary sort, you could spend all your time blogging.
But what happens if you fall in love and your parents disapprove? In fact, what happens when they disapprove so much that they throw you out of the house and cut you out of the inheritance if you continue to put blade?
In that case, you would definitely prefer the first option. Your employer might make you work hundred hour weeks, but at least you won’t be fired for your choice of significant other.
This is actually one of the overlooked but vitally important advantages of getting into an IIM and cracking a Slot Zero placement: it neutralises the financial risk of pissing off your parents and being estranged from your family. You will still have to face the emotional trauma of not being able to speak to your family, but at least you won’t have to pull a Salman Khan and spend your life breaking rocks in a mine wearing nothing but a vest. (Given the eating and exercise habits of most IIM grads, this is a good thing from an aesthetic point of view as well.)
Of course, everything is not always as simple as this. Your inheritance could be much more, or much less. You could be very blase, or very worried about the prospect of never speaking to your family again. The point is that you have an income source that is not going to exercise veto power on who you marry.
I’ll close here, but this has actually made me wonder why more families aren’t estranged. That would be worth a post by itself.
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Posted by Aadisht
As mentioned in the earlier post, a German female who came down to IITM for exchange decided to do her MA thesis on IITM lingo.
Was wondering how much of the IIMB lingo has actually come from IITM, and how much of it is original. Must start by mentioning that when i moved from IITM to IIMB 2 years back, I hardly had a problem adjusting to the new lingo. Most of the words seemed only too familiar, some of the new ones being:
– Global Origin unknown. However, commonly used across B school campuses
– Fraud Origin: from one of the northern IITs. I know for a fact it’s a commonly used word in IITK
– Poltu Again from one of the northern IITs
– Geela Think this was invented at IIMB. Talking about wetness around the center of gravity
– Hoosh Definitely invented at IIMB. All over the rest of the world, people call it ‘bumps’
During the course of the last two years I’ve been here, the following words/phrases have got added to the lexicon.
– Agreer I complete agree with you. Originates from a mail sent by our placement committee…
– Strong Credits must go to DD I guess. Definitely a strong word.
– Good Stuff Our President liked to use this phrase, so the locusts caught on to it and added it to the lexicon. Meaning and usage is identical to that of “peace” in IITM slang
Good stuff I must say. As for the rest of the Maajorly Shadymax Arbit Fundaes, they’ve all come from IITM Lingo!
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Posted by Aadisht