yazadjal.com

A tour of the Indian blogosphere. In the rains!

Green aliens from Mars have invaded my blog

Dug up some old haikus (written circa 1999-2000)
red sandstone buildings
imposing archways -
of a capital city
a lovely poem
easily typed on the comp
printer paper jam!
brown paper cups
and flattens to draw on
wraps your creativity
wicker baskets for holding junk
cute little peices of art
with the flotsam of life

AnarCapLib will be hosting the Monsoon Mela on July 21–the day Neil Armstrong landed on the moon.
The Rules

Posts must either be made by Indians or must focus on India or Indians.

Send in permalinks to the individual blog entries only, not just the URL. If the permalink is not working, send me the title and […]

Ever enjoyed monsoon luck? It’s pouring all day, but when you decide to go out, the skies stop the spray. Run along, get the errand done and as soon as you back home, the rains restart. It’s like you have the power to switch the rains on and off to suit your convenience! I’ve had […]

I’m putting up this notice to encourage people to submit an entry. Please send all further correspondance to the address at the end of the post, not to me. Also, as this is an announcement, no comments are enabled.
‘A SECULAR RETHINK’
THE INDIAN EXPRESS - CITIZENS FOR PEACE ANNUAL ESSAY WRITING COMPETITION
Citizens for Peace (CfP) […]

The Centre for Civil Society has started a unique Livelihood Freedom Campaign.
After the 1991 liberalisation, the poor do not seem to have gained as much as the rich. The truth is there has been hardly any liberalisation for the working poor. For them it has been all LPQ (Licences, Permits and Quotas) and little LPG […]

Tunku Vardarajan has a pithy piece on British phlegmatism in the face of the bomb blasts yesterday.
The secret of British composure is that Britons really do feel proud of their civilization. On the whole, they apologize for very little, which is as it should be. Their message to terrorists is always likely to be straight […]

Mid-Day has a story on the latest lifestyle neurosis.
My family members sit on a floor mat while the cats lounge on the sofa. The first bite of any dessert is sampled by the cat family, before being passed on to us humans.
This is the first time I’ve actually seen a medical term attached to behavior […]

I’ve been on an enforced blog-holiday. For fortnight or so my internet connectivity has been poor and I’ve barely been able to keep up with email. Plus my work and social life has ratcheted up a few dozen notches. So the blog took a backseat.
Moreover, I’ve never been a must-blog-or-will-lose-face blogger. I enjoy blogging as […]

The last few melas have all been extensive affairs with lots of variety reading. I must say the quality of hosting has shot up dramatically! Jump over to Harini Calamur’s POV for your weekly fix.
The next mela will be hosted by none other than Shanti Aunty and her dancing doggies (thanks to a spontaneous emergency). […]

Stop Blogging! And join us for the Bombay Bloggers Meet (don’t worry, the blogosphere can spare you for one Sunday afternoon). It doesn’t matter where you blog and what you blog. If you blog, we’d like to meet you!
3pm, Sunday, June 26
The Barista near Regal Cinema (Directions here)
If you have any complaints regarding […]

My journey from “good Parsi Zarthosti” boy to an atheist took many years; most of them largely spent wandering the empty spaces of agnosticism. As a boy, I recited my prayers, knew their meanings and questioned a hell of a lot. I was also fascinated by my name, which (insert modest smile here) means “worthy […]

Passing by the spanking new Saifee Hospital in South Bombay, I saw this quote in bold just above their main entrance. “When I fall ill, He cures.”
Aha, an old repetition of “It’s God that does the curing, doctors are just His tools.”
I find such statements preposterous. And very illogical. Let me explain.
For those who […]

AnarCapLib was down for a few hours today. I’d forgotten to pay the great gods of domain renewal. Well, they’ve been appeased and the site is up again.
My email would’ve also bounced during this period, so if you’ve sent me mail and it’s bounced, please resend.

Funny gimmick by a man who’s become a billionaire leveraging good fun. And it reminds me of the first time I’d used an “air sickness bag.” I was in Lisbon for a seminar and decided to take a small detour to London to see my uncle before returning home. I took the cheapest possible airline […]

Of late, I’ve been watching bits and pieces of Ekta Kapoor’s “K” serials (around 10-15 minutes at a stretch is all I can bear). And I’ve noticed strange stuff. No, it’s not the regressive portrayal of women, e.g. all the “good women” are housewives, career women are mainly bitches, nor is it her excessive portrayal […]

We don’t need taxpayers money to prop up our culture. In a brief piece, Sruthijith explains why
The justification for a state-run organisation to promote the ‘ancient cultural heritage of India’ came from two basic assumptions. That the state is the “organised manifestation of people’s will” and hence it must undertake the “maintenance and development (of […]

I generally don’t write on memes, but this one’s interesting. Firstly, it’s about books. Secondly it was sent to me by a blogger who I’ve read once in a while, but never thought that he read me!
Total Number of Books I Own: Never counted. Close to 1,000. I lugged nine cartons of books when I […]

After a great cartel meet and some ok dinner (pizza and biryani can never pass off as gourmet), I set off for home from Gaurav’s place in Kalina. Kalina, that quaint suburb between Santacruz and Kurla, was where I trudged to for two years of my life as I struggled with a Masters in Economics […]