Follow up to last post

So the previous videos were terrible, but you can't mock this. Pity it's only representative of experimentation of 20 years ago and not more recent.

India - An Ancient Musical Culture

With great emotion, and with welling pride I present the present baton-carriers for an ancient cultural tradition of musical art of high excellence,

In instrumental virtuosity & showmanship


and in vocal excellence


Sniff. My eyes are filled with salt water.

A picture speaks for 200 lives.

Like Hacking a Path Through the Amazon Forest

What is Indian Red Tape like? A great anecdote from a book I'm in the middle of, made me laugh it's so ridiculous but having lived in the system it's totally believable. As Luce says, it's like hacking a path through the Amazon; by the time we have proceeded a hundred yards, the undergrowth takes over again. The author, Edward Luce, recounts a story from Arun Shourie, minister of administrative reform in New Delhi from 1999 - 2002.

Shourie also provided an example of the farce that sometimes results from efforts to reform a system that will go to great lengths to thwart even the smallest of changes. In April 1999, India's ministry for steel submitted a formal query to Shourie's ministry for administrative reforms. The grave matter, which would take almost a year to resolve and would consume the valuable time of some of India's most senior officials, was about whether civil servants should be allowed to use green or red ink, as opposed to the blue or black normally used to annotate documents.

After several weeks of meetings, consultations and memoranda, the IAS (administrative) officers in Shouries' department concluded that the matter could be resolved only by officials at the bureau of printing. Another three weeks of learned deliberation ensued before the bureau of printing returned the file to the department of administrative reform, but with the recommendation that the ministry of training and personnel be consulted. It took another three weeks for the file to reach the ministry of training, since the diligent mandarins at administrative reform needed time to consider the expertly phrased deliberations of the bureau of printing.

And so this question of state meandered for weeks and months, in meeting after meeting through ministry after ministry, before the following Solomonic compromise was struck: "Initial drafting will be done in black or blue ink. Modifications in the draft at the subsequent levels may be made in green or red ink by the officers so as to distinguish the corrections made," said the new order. Hierarchy also had to be specified. "Only an officer of the level of joint secretary and above may use the green or red ink in rare cases [duly set out, with appropriate caveats]." As Shourie noted: "A good bureaucratic solution: discretion allowed but circumscribed!"
Edward Luce, In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India

It's interesting to me, but this kind of management (to misuse the word) is visible to some level at every level of Indian practice, whether in the private or governmental sector, religious or secular. Procedure most often trumps common sense, with the result that things move forward arduously but upward (in terms of stacks of paperwork and procedure) most earnestly.

Watch, weep.

Some days it's hard to feel patriotic. There's not much to say after

This:



This:



And this:



[Unreported World - India Land of Missing Children]

Bollyhood

It speaks for itself. This stuff is hilarious. Because it what it says we know is true.

The Rise of India

ABCNews did a feature on India when Bush visited, and I just found it. It's a great balanced outsiders view of where India is today, and what India can be in 50 years. It's more complicated, sure, but this guy doesn't have the usual bias.

Snippet:
"You see an explosion of 50 years of pent up aspirations. If you want to know what India feels like today, it's very simple. Pull out a Champagne bottle, shake it for an hour, then take the cork off. You don't want to get in the way of that cork."

Mallu Humor of the Day

There's a state in India, down south, called Kerala. It is known as God's own country. The language they speak (they claim) is The Heavenly Language. Well their accents are heavenly too. We lovingly call these folks "Mallus" (short for malayalis, their language is called malayalam)

This clip takes the cake. Don't listen if you have respiratory trouble or heart problems, The laughing might kill you. (So... is that a lie? lol)


Mallu Hot Stepper

*thanks Sarah!

What does it all mean, this windfall for India?

TIME.com: Why Bush Is Courting India

What does it all mean?
Does it mean that I won't be suffering from power cuts (when I'm 60)?
Does it mean that my children will go to the united states without a Visa? (or that by then the rush will be for people to come to INDIA rather than the US, lol)
Does it mean that India will fulfil it's dream about being a superpower by 2020? (a rough interpretation of what "superpower" means is needed here)
Does it mean that someone out there is going to get really, really rich?
Does it mean that poverty is going to be eradicated in india (by nuclear explosions from badly managed plants)?

I hope it means something, and that the something is good, and that the good actually reaches the common people some day soon. I do sound cynical, but I'm really truly hopeful.

India 2004

Rot never needs an excuse to spread. It is the nature of decay to corrupt, to infect and to destroy. Rot from the core spreads outward and onward (Frank Herbert, 'corrupted' a little). Purity and virtue is what takes work. While putrescence will circulate unchecked, righteousness and justice only prevail with blood, sweat and the tears of alienation from the mainstream. To paraphrase a saying, only effort will bring change - decay requires inaction to survive.

In that sense, this land of mine needs work. A family led by thieves will always see it's children struggle to feel pride, to stand tall.