Amodini's Book Reviews

Book Reviews and Recommendations

2009 : The Top 10 Films . . .

Written By: amodini - Dec• 31•09

. . .or my experiments with Youtube. And they were good let me tell you, for a novice Youtube uploader. I started off with lofty goals. As a part of my yearly round-up I do a Best Films of the Year post, and this time decided to make a Youtube movie to showcase the notable ones. The original plan was to employ Adobe Premiere to make an ethereal work of art. But after several attempts at this, when running Premiere caused my PC to hang up again and again, and calls to Support only resulted in suggestions of optimizing my PC (defrag, they said, defrag), I succumbed to the looming deadline.

A friend of mine would tell me that on New Years, her Dad would pour each one of them a glass of red wine, because what you do on New Years you do throughout the year, i.e.; do interesting stuff because that sort of portends the future. So drink red wine (prosperity, heart health ?) , dance the night away, or watch Avatar again and again and again. But defrag your PC ? I can just imagine that conversation (and that life).

The husband of course is encouraging me onwards. After I’m done with the Movie (or as he puts it “Clip”), he says, it will take a hellishly long time to Upload the video, and then (this with an evil grin) when oh when will I have the time to paint my nails ? My nails, thanks to low-brow technology, are now exquisitely painted, and to prove my point, I walk by where the hubby is hunkered down in Internet surf mode, and flash them under his nose. His offhanded response: “Nice ! Now can you make coffee ?”

So, Windows Media Maker it was. And the result is not quite the carefully timed, delicately nuanced, “just so” production I wanted it to be. But here it is folks, right before the New Year (Deadline met, check). Next year, who knows – it could be a podcast, or a videocast ? I mean, after Youtube, the world IS my oyster, right ?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgXDZGn43EY]

Posted in india, movies, recommended | 1 Comment »

Book Review : The sweetness at the bottom of the pie

Written By: amodini - Dec• 27•09

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce MysteryI don’t remember how I was recommended this novel, but am thankful post-read that I came across this un-put-down-able book. A good old-fashioned murder mystery with some very interesting characters, this book stood out because of it’s story-telling style and dry wit. The story is narrated by the book’s heroine 11 year old Flavia, and because her prose is really quite excellent, and I shall want to remind myself of it from time to time, this review will present some of the more acidic passages.

Flavia de Luce, a precocious child is living with her aloof father (“Father loved stamps more dearly than he loved his offspring”) and two older sisters, in the English village of Bishop’s Lacey. Sharp-witted Flavia is something of a prodigy, in love with chemistry, especially poisons. She is self taught, and experiments in an old laboratory in her ancestral home of Buckshaw. Flavia besides having more than her fair share of brain-power also has an acerbic tongue, and we get to read prose laced with some great tongue-in-cheek humor. Says she of her laboratory and love for chemistry :

Uncle Tar’s laboratory had been locked up and preserved in airless silence, down through the dusty years until what Father called my “strange talents” had begun to manifest themselves, and I had been able to claim it for my own. I still shivered with joy whenever I thought of the rainy autumn day that Chemistry had fallen into my life.

The household also includes Dogger, and old faithful of her father’s who serves as the gardener. Dogger is a little odd (we do not know of his past) and has “amnesiac” episodes, when he doesn’t remember of what he has done or where he has been. There is also soft-hearted Mrs. Mullet, the housekeeper cum cook, and Flavia has this to say of her :

Mrs. Mullet, who was short and gray and round as a millstone and who, I’m quite sure, thought of herself as a character in a poem by A.A.Milne, was in the kitchen formulating one of her pus-like custard pies.

Flavia’s mother, the oft-spoken of Harriet is dead, and we are told of the most devastating effects this tragedy has had on her husband, the eccentric Colonel de Luce. Flavia, antagonized by older sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, wreaks revenge on them via carefully calculated chemical experiments, like injecting poison ivy into Ophelia’s lipstick, and melting her pearls into a gooey paste. She is a resourceful heroine indeed, with an ordered and sharp mind, and describes her passions thusly :

The book’s title was An Elementary Study of Chemistry, and within moments it had taught me that the word iodine comes from a word meaning “violet,” and that the name bromine was derived from a Greek word meaning “a stench.” These were the sorts of things I needed to know!


And then there were the poisonous gases: phosphine, arsine (a single bubble of which has been known to prove fatal), nitrogen peroxide, hydrogen sulfide . . . the lists went on and on. When I found out that precise instructions were given for formulating these compounds, I was in seventh heaven.


Once I had taught myself to make sense of the chemical equations . . . the universe was laid open for me: It was like having stumbled upon a recipe book that had once belonged to the witch in the wood.


What intrigued me more than anything was finding out the way in which everything, all of creation – all of it! – was held together by invisible chemical bonds, and I found a strange, inexplicable comfort in knowing that somewhere, even though we couldn’t see it in our own world, there was real stability.

Her detective powers are called into play, when Flavia discovers a dying man in the garden. The man is soon dead, having whispered to Flavia one mysterious, undecipherable word. The police arrive, and arrest her father on suspicion of murder. But Flavia and her bicycle Gladys set out to ferret out clues to the stranger’s identity, and rescue her father from jail. Things of course do not go as expected, but fearless Flavia does not lose heart, pushing onwards into grave danger . . .

This was a charming read, and author Alan Bradley creates a most quirky, likeable heroine, with a dark, dry wit. The author fleshes out his characters beautifully – the sisters have their fetishes, one is into beauty (and the achievement of it) and the other into books. There is also the very astute police detective who comes to investigate the crime. Inspector Hewitt knows more than he lets on, but really does not come off too badly when Flavia solves the mystery.

While the murder mystery was well written, I also read the book in search of Flavia’s smart-alecky dialogue. Here is an example of Flavia’s gift of the gab :

“I’ve come to see Dr. Kissing,” I said. “I’m his great-granddaughter.”


“Dr. Isaac Kissing ?” she asked.


“Yes,” I said, “Dr. Isaac Kissing. Do you keep more than one ?”

It is a little surprising and kind of unusual to have an 11 year old detective and one such as Flavia, but she is such a likeable character with a flair for the literary and, dare I say “chemical” that it is a most enjoyable experience to read her astute and sometimes quite snarky comments on the characters she comes across. Take for example, the local librarian, Mrs. Mountjoy, whom Flavia has to endure to do her research on events past. Mrs. Mountjoy, is a Nazi-ish character who also unfortunately addresses Flavia as “dearie” :

Miss Mountjoy ! The retired Miss Mountjoy! I had heard tales about “Miss Mountjoy and the Reign of Terror”. She had been Librarian-in-Chief. . .All sweetness on the outside, but on the inside, “The Palace of Malice.” Or so I’d been told.


If there is a thing I truly despise, it is being addressed as “dearie.” When I write my magnum opus, A Treatise Upon All Poisons, and come to “Cyanide,” I am going to put under “Uses” the phrase “Particularly efficacious in the cure of those who call one `Dearie.’”

“The sweetness at the bottom of the pie” won the Debut Dagger Award. It is, I am told, the first book of a series : The Buckshaw Chronicles. I look forward to reading them all.

Posted in 4_star_rating, books, recommended, review | 2 Comments »

Bollywood romance : now and then

Written By: amodini - Dec• 16•09

Love, they say, makes the world go around. It can also make your head spin, if you go by Hindi films nowadays. Not surprising, if you realize that this is the Facebook Generation, where “friending” is instantaneous, and requires little more than a mouse click. The more friends you have the better. And, apparently these are real words, “unfriend” being declared the Oxford Word of the Year (2009) by the New Oxford American Dictionary. When real life buzzes by, can reel-life be far behind?

Lately I have been subject to delicate ministrations of the romantic kind. On celluloid that is. One film after another claiming to be either a romance, or a romantic comedy – I see them all. Boy-meets-girl, they sing and dance (preferably in the rain), and voila! Love blooms! Truly, is this love, or the fast forwarded version? What ever happened to good, old-fashioned romance? You know, the kinds where the hero and heroine spied each other from afar, and remained where they were, instead of galloping into each others arms almost immediately! You know, the kinds where the language of love was spoken with the eyes, and conveyed through coyly written letters which dripped with complicated yet sweet-sounding words in the most chaste Hindi!

Yes, times have changed and so have the notions of love and romance. The lovelorn hero may not be your swashbuckling Sunil Dutt, but perennially suave Saif Ali Khan as modern-day pragmatic lover boy isn’t so bad either. Asha Parekh’s kohl-lined eyes may not make young men’s heart’s go pitter-patter anymore, but Kareena Kapoor’s do. In the recent romantic hit “Love Aaj Kal” Khan romanced two heroines, one of the present-day, and one from an older and, some say, wiser time. The beautiful and leggy Deepika Padukone played Meera, an independent minded girl who is quite practical about love, while Brazilian model Giselle Monteiro played Harleen Kaur, a young girl of the 60s, so in love with a boy not acceptable to her family, that she leaves them for him.

“Love Aaj Kal” nicely contrasts today’s love with yesteryear’s. While Harleen Kaur and Veer Singh are content to just look at each other, sigh and then sigh some more, Jai and Meera have no such forbearance. Their love is happy, snappy, and very, very hip. While one might imagine Harleen and Veer’s commitment hush-hush, their ardor tamped by the social mores of that time, Meera and Jai are New Age, and the openness of their relationship shows it. Love and all that comes thereafter no longer cleanly fits into the “happily settled” philosophy. Whereas older films were often almost prudish when showing physical affection (remember all those shots of two roses meeting, and the hero-heroine disappearing into tall grass?) newer romantic films are more open about such aspects.

Because so it was then; restraint was the name of the game. In the 60s, beautiful actresses like Waheeda Rehman and Nutan in churidars and huge hair-dos, waltzed their way in and out of love stories complicated by class barriers, familial obligations and the “accidental” pregnancy. In the 70s with the rise of talents such as Gulzar, love stories were often simple, but characters well-fleshed out. Gulzar’s fabulous film “Khushboo”(1975) starring Hema Malini and Jeetendra was a simple story set in rural India and dealt with love and perceived betrayal. It’s not that the basic love stories that films seem to thrive upon have changed so much; after all, we essentially are the same people, aren’t we? But the attitudes of the people in love have changed, and (don’t you love this?) changing times pose their newer challenges to the love-stricken.

Take the 80s for example – long before Mithun became a “dancing” star he actually did some great cinema. His 1980 film “Sitara” which starred Zarina Wahab in the female lead dealt with love gone wrong in the razzmatazz of the film world, where she attains stardom, and he feels left out. There are also social shifts in society which have influenced love as we see it now. Women for one thing weren’t really independent, in older films. Yes, an heiress maybe, but a businesswoman with an MBA? Not so much.

In a film like the recently released “Wake up Sid” Konkona Sen Sharma plays a writer out to make her mark in the world. She falls in love with a younger, immature college kid. So she actually has more agency than him, which shifts the love angle a little bit. In the 2006 romantic hit “Pyar ke side effects” the woman Trisha (played by Mallika Sherawat) is taller AND makes more money than her live-in boyfriend Sid (Rahul Bose), and their love-story plays out in the context of Trisha’s insistence on marriage.

There is also then the issue of relative ages, and the almost spiritual it’s-all-in-the-head quality of love. In the 2001 hit “Dil chahta hai” Sid, falls in love with an older, divorced woman. Where traditionally the man is older, in “Cheeni Kum” the hero is older than the heroine’s father. Which is good enough for her, but not for her father.

There is ofcourse the happy medium where older and wiser counsel meets youthful exuberance. A prime example of this is the 2004 film “Rules – pyar ka superhit formula”. In it Radha, a lovelorn girl pining away for unattainable model Vikram (Milind Soman), is assisted by her grand-mother’s five rules for getting the man she so wants. This was a sweet film, which played up Radha’s grand-mother’s sprightly character and her old-fashioned common-sense against Radha’s lively and impulsive nature.

It also brought home the point that young or old, famous or not, we all eventually want the same thing – to be loved, adored, and appreciated. When this happens, birds sing, the skies clear, and music spews out from the heavens. Whether its yuppie rock, or a refrain from the 60s, really, how does it matter?

(The edited version of this post appeared in the Nov 29th edition of the Sunday Herald.)

Posted in bollywood, features, india, movies | Comments Off on Bollywood romance : now and then

Never Forget

Written By: amodini - Nov• 26•09

never_forget

On 9/11/09 Yahoo ran a photo on it’s main page, which showed a banner fluttering in the wind, hung on the top of a building with the words “We will never forget”. Search for the words “We will never forget” on Google, and you get hundreds of images, all etched with these words and pictures of the American flag, the twin towers or the memorials which have been erected in the memory of all those lives lost then. Year after year, Americans remember the incident and mourn all those who died in that tragedy. The outrage is alive and well.

On the 26th of November, 2008, Mumbai in India was attacked by people with similarly evil intentions. This year as the world remembers that attack, we mourn all those who were lost. This year, candle-light vigils are held, people gather to read tributes, Indian politicians lead parades to mark the date. NDTV’s website is full of 26/11, as it has come to be known. Will it be the same next year and the next ?

9/11 was the first and biggest overt onslaught by terrorists on America and on US soil. India on the other hand, has been fighting terrorists from across the border for a long time. There have been many such 26/11s even before the one in 2008. Remember the 2005 Delhi bombings ? What about the 1993 bombings of Mumbai, then Bombay ? Recall that there was an incident where professors of IISc Bangalore were shot at. In 2001, the Indian Parliament was attacked. In 2007, the Samjhauta Express was attacked mid January, near Panipat. In Hyderabad, two bombs exploded simultaneously in crowded public places, in 2007. In July of 2008 itself, a series of bomb blasts occurred in Bangalore. Search back to the 1990s , and you’ll see the hijack of Indian Airline Flight 814, which was then forced to land in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

These are just a few of the numerous attacks that India has borne over the past 2 decades. After each one, there has been anger and outrage. But soon anger dims, outrage lessens. The Indian media takes pride in moving on. Indians are portrayed as being stoic, moving on, forgetting ? Innocent lives are lost one year, but are they remembered the next ? Seemingly there is no outrage, and if there is, cynical old me thinks it is lost among the many other atrocities taking place; there are probably many other juicier news stories we search for and read, rather than a couple of people who are no more, yes ? Indian blood is spilt, has been spilt for many years now, and forgotten behind mumbled platitudes. Are lives, each life tied to numerous others – a father, a mother, brother, sister, wife, daughter – really that cheap ?

American lives are being lost in the war on terror being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. This war, perceived by many as an unjust one, nevertheless is taking it’s toll on American soldiers and their families. Like war does. Everytime a soldier from my city loses his life, his loss is reported, mourned city-wide. His lost life is not forgotten in the bigger story of the war. I hear of the soldier, his life, his family, his service to the nation and to it’s cause. I hear of his sedated wife, see his now-orphan toddler smile innocently at the camera, his aged father wipe away his tears. I see that bonds have snapped forcibly by one death. I also see that with that one death, we have lost a great deal.

I remember the bombings in Sadar Bazar in Delhi when bomb blasts ripped through that crowded market, and being thankful that none of my family was anywhere in the vicinity at that time. But what of those who were ? They had families too, but do we mark their deaths ? Do we even remember that date ? Why is there not a 3/1 anniversary ? Why is there not a 8/25/03 (Mumbai) ? Why not a December 28, 2005 (Bangalore) ?

There can never be a doubt in our minds that a single life lost is a humongous outrage, whether it be through a terrorist attack, a religious riot, or an honor killing. We must remember each and every one of those lost lives. We must keep alive that outrage, that anger against those who take lives that were not theirs for the taking. If we forget this will happen, again and again. Lives, bright and beautiful, will be snuffed out, and we, who will never be whole again, will let slip that knowledge through the cracks in our minds, until we remember no more those who were lost forever for no fault of theirs.

Always remember. 9/11. 26/11. 25/1. 16/2. 16/3. 20/4. 22/5. 19/6. 11/7. 10/8. 27/9. 14/10. 17/11. 13/12 . . . . . .

NEVER FORGET.

Posted in india, usa | Comments Off on Never Forget

Bad-Ad Project : Speaking volumes with your eyelashes

Written By: amodini - Nov• 21•09

A couple of months ago I saw this ad which featured Brooke Shields touting a product, Latisse, which promised, thicker, fuller eyelashes in about 12-16 weeks. It was bizarre.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWoVT2cGoN0]

When I first saw this advertisement I couldn’t believe that they were serious. A product which treats the condition of not having thick enough lashes, inadequate lashes as the ad. puts it ! Is that even a condition ? Not enough lashes to bat around ? Use Latisse.

Oh, yes, now that you’ve tweezed your eyebrows, made up your face, removed all traces of bodily hair, worried yourself to death about the dreaded VPL, and in general made yourself presentable as per societal expectations, you also now need to consider whether your eyelashes are inadequate. And do something about them. Because God forbid, what if you were to bat your lashes at a man, and OMG, they weren’t enough, or thick enough, or full enough or dark enough to get his attention ?

Beauty companies nowadays flood us with ads. designed to think women need improvement, i.e.; your natural self is just not good enough. Face too dark ? Lighten it ! That worry solved, now let’s get down to matching up body color to face color, because if they don’t all hell would break loose. If it isn’t your “dark” skin, your hair needs help. Hair frizzy, straight, curly, the wrong color ? No worries we have a product for that ! If the head on your hair is fine, have you ever thought that the natural hair growing on your legs and arms can actually hold you back from achieving your full potential ? Wax, shave, depilate, depilate, depilate !

Once that is done, wear makeup artfully so that noone can tell you’re wearing any. To look taller the fashion industry provides really tall heels, the wearing of which will probably result in some sort of a foot injury after a while, but hey, at least you’ll look good sitting down.

Lashes are important because they prevent stuff from getting into your eyes, so most of us have some of them. I have short, not so thick lashes, but I figure they are sufficient for what they do. New drugs and the research which goes into them is important because they are solving important medical issues, sometimes essential life-saving ones. But I’m put off by the pop-a-pill approach to most problems. Allergies – take a pill a day. Foot fungus – take another pill a day. Inadequate lashes (I feel ludicrous even saying it) ? Apply Latisse once a day. And here’s the wonderful thing about these products – you stop taking them, EVERY SINGLE DAY OF YOUR LIFE, and the problem reappears. Allergies come back, foot fungus reappears, lashes go back to normal growth patterns.

Latisse costs $120 per month, about $4 a day. And it has contra-indications – it might cause a change in skin color, and change in iris pigmentation. Also it could grow hair on ANY skin it comes in contact with. It might also cause itchy/red eyes.

Latisse is supposed to treat “Hypotrichosis” which wikipedia describes as a condition of abnormal hair growth. Basically sparse hair, which could result from a medical condition or chemotherapy. And in those cases I think it’d be a good thing. But it is being marketed at the general public, at women like you and me. Otherwise healthy women, who suffer from “inadequate” lashes. Oh, poor us !

And at times like this, when I think about the pressure already on women to adhere to impossible standards of beauty, that I think that people who think up stuff like this and market it must be demented. Not only for pushing potentially harmful, unnecessary stuff on women who might buy it because it helps them feel beautiful (and hence they say better), but also for introducing this facet of “beauty” into a realm where my daughter (and other young women like her) in a few years might not be able to ignore it, and might wonder if not only her body, her legs, her waist measures up, but even whether her lashes are thick enough ?

And even though it’s been a while since I first saw Latisse being advertised, I’ve been meaning to write about it. And looking around the Net, found a few other women who were fuming about this, but an article on Salon said it best :

How much do you have to hate your body to shell out $150 a month for a mysterious product that might ruin your eyes?

Indeed !

Posted in dumb things people say and do, women | 1 Comment »

The Bad-Ad Project – 2

Written By: amodini - Oct• 25•09

Here’e the next installment of Bad Ads. (here’s the previous one) I have seen Kaya skin clinic’s advertisements quite a few times, always advertising skin care (and by allusion skin fairness) but find their ad. on hair-free treatments really objectionable.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdZrl_AGYhY]

The words in this advertisement are :

“Pari ho tum, Apne pankh na chupa na,
Kali ho tum, Khilne se mat ghabrana na,
Haseen ho tum, Gumsum mat ho jaana”

which roughly translates to :

“You are an angel, Don’t hide your wings,
You are a flower bud, Don’t be afraid to bloom,
You are beautiful/laughter, Don’t be sad”

At the end of the song, a voiceover says to not shy away from life because of unwanted hair.

Admirable words to the little poem there, but in appaling context. The ad. shows a young woman noticing the hair on her arms and rolling down her sleeves, and also hesitating to say hello to a male friend. Because **gasp** what if the guy actually sees HAIR on a female arm ? Something terrible would surely ensue – blindness, the plague, the end of the world ? We wouldn’t want to bring that about now, would we ladies ?

The visuals and the song/voiceover indicate that a woman who hasn’t shorn herself of all bodily hair must somehow feel lesser, and that would cause her to shy away from life. That there is something wrong with having bodily hair – the implication being that a woman must be purged of all hair to spread her wings/bloom/be happy.

What utter nonsense !

I use makeup, wax, thread my eyebrows etc. but I totally resent being told that a woman needs to adhere to this unspoken “code of attractiveness” to be happy. As I was growing up, yeah you would see attractive, leggy, hairless models in magazines, but maybe with less media this whole “women have a duty to be pretty” thing wasn’t pushed on us too hard. And growing up you did some of the beauty things that you were comfortable with and some you didn’t. They didn’t come with strings attached i.e.; I wasn’t unhappy when I didn’t shave my legs.

Although anal people are duty-bound to point out to you that you must defuzz that almost unseeable hair on your upper arms, and that ring on your finger would look so much prettier if you only got rid of the hair on the knuckle. Yes of course, so it goes, and people have tongues and they will use them. Me, I am inured; to ignore politely is an art learnt and honed. But educating our daughters into believing that they are complete women, natural bodily hair, dark skin color and all, is going to be hard.

Posted in dumb things people say and do, women | Comments Off on The Bad-Ad Project – 2

Ask and ye shall recieve

Written By: amodini - Oct• 24•09

They say women don’t ask. Women who ask, negotiate on their own terms, are viewed unfavourably to put it mildly. In my personal experience, I’ve been asked to “not argue” because it’s unladylike, accept what I’m getting with gratitude and not push for more (womanly virtues), blah, blah, blah . . .
Mother-figures and aunts impress upon us the value of subservience, and a woman who asks doesn’t exactly fit into the good girl/daughter/bahu/girlfriend mould.

Is it any wonder then that I am a regular reader of this blog ? La Roxy, of the Daily Asker, started a 365 day experiment in asking; she asked for something everyday for a whole year. Says she on her blog :

Prompted by a book I started reading today, Women Don’t Ask, about how women’s reluctance to negotiate costs them millions of dollars individually — not to mention the collective losses — I decided, quite spontaneously when I got to the bottom of page 7, to try asking.

Perks. Discounts. Upgrades. 2 for 1. 3 for 2. A better restaurant seat. Application of an expired 20 percent coupon. Salary boost. Access to discretionary funds. Lower insurance rate.

Interesting stuff.

Posted in culture and society, women | Comments Off on Ask and ye shall recieve

The Bad-Ad Project

Written By: amodini - Oct• 14•09

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, so here it is. Every week, I will post about an ad. which I find damaging – it stereotypes, objectifies, subtly puts down women, or just voices the condescending patriarchial voice. Here’s one now :

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7MBZBgJJLE]

Seriously, doesn’t that make you sooooo proud that we’re starting little boys early ? How else would they know that women are like cars ? Or that they like getting whistled at ? Oh, lovely !

I hope Fiat goes out of business.

Posted in dumb things people say and do, women | 2 Comments »

Why desi comedy sucks

Written By: amodini - Oct• 09•09

Recently I read a lovely post by Anuvab Pal, on the Random House blog, about the state of Indian comedy. Well, it’s dismal, although we didn’t need Pal to tell us that. I think Raghuvir Yadav, when he was on “Ranvir, Vinay aur Kaun” said it best – he called it “Chichorapan” in Hindi . You see lots of Chichorapan on desi tv shows – I’d written about one such show here albeit on a different topic. Pal, on Indian comedy shows, says :

Though wildly popular, (check out any intercity Jet flight’s entertainment system), this comedy is not often watched by the cultured classes, not because of the language but because of the aesthetic. Jokes, like everywhere else, involve telling a story and its foundation is the taboo (Ricky Gervais opener, ‘George Michael was caught having sex with a midget on a piano, his excuse…it’s an Elton John tribute’). But the mass Indian comedy describes non-confrontational and harmless incidents, spicing things up with odd noises, strange accents and body contortions. A lot of the time, it imitates Bollywood, never the lucrative terrain of sexual humor (the lifeblood of western comedy).

Complete post here.

Posted in comedy, desi, india, media, tv, usa | Comments Off on Why desi comedy sucks

The great healthcare debate

Written By: amodini - Sep• 10•09

I’ve always thought that one of the greatest things about American society is the fact that most Americans are “givers” – they will volunteer, they will help some cause or the other. People routinely donate to charities, volunteer their time at local public schools, and line up to give blood. Neighbors are busy, if nothing else, in coaching local baseball/soccer teams.

Which is why I find the opposition to government led healthcare such a surprise. I admit that Obama’s plans need to be fleshed out in more detail, and there are a whole lot of important questions that need to be asked and answered before such a reform can be realistically thought about, much less implemented. But still what he’s trying to do is a good thing, if you keep in mind that healthcare in the US is prohibitively expensive, and that many people go bankrupt every year because of healthcare expenses. Expensive healthcare is the No.1 reason for bankruptcy in the US.

Ira Rosofsky at Salon puts it pretty nicely whe he writes :

I’m 62 — old enough to cash in my 401K, yet still too young for Medicare — and, despite my advancing age, some might view this as just another infantile boomer rant. But I want to put in a word for the idea that the elderly among us are just plain selfish — as is any group with health insurance that believes what’s good for them is threatened if made available to others.

Where is the idea of community, the idea that we sacrifice and help others? Those who oppose government, conveniently forget that the community, “we the people,” wrote the Constitution to “promote the common welfare.”

There’s been a whole lot of stupidity about “death panels” in the press, and the lead rumor-monger is none other than a potential president. I totally agree with Carl Hiaasen, also at Salon, when he writes :

Nobody with an IQ higher than emergency-room temperature could ever believe that “death panels” would be appointed to nudge the elderly toward euthanasia. Yet for idle entertainment, it’s hard to beat Sarah Palin’s ignorant nattering on the subject.

He goes on to say :

Nobody knows for sure how many Americans don’t have medical coverage, but the most frequent estimates range from 43 million to 47 million. Some carry no insurance by choice, but the majority simply cannot afford it.

We’ve already spent more on Iraq than the Democrats’ current healthcare plans are projected to cost over the next decade. Yet some of the same bright bulbs in Congress who were excited to bankroll that foolish invasion are now huffing indignantly about the price tag for insuring our own citizens.

Reform can’t work without including the uninsured, not just because it’s humane but also because it will ultimately save taxpayers a fortune. The public cost of treating uninsured patients, who often don’t see a doctor until there’s an emergency, is boggling.

Posted in usa | Comments Off on The great healthcare debate
<<4546474849>>