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Quite an interesting title song from the Aman ki Asha initiative.

The lyrics by Gulzar create in the mind an impression of tenuous knots of over a fifty years coming loose, at least for a moment of release.

A.R. Rahman’s two greatest songs

A.R. Rahman’s most under rated songs are perhaps his most artistic, in the honesty of their vision and expression. It’s as if he is straining at the leashes of mainstream film music, and trying to leave behind some imprints of true artistic genius that people may well realize only years after his ‘hits’ have become pale in the collective consciousness. It’s like he is leaving behind some aspects of his legacy, only for future enjoyment. Here are two of his greatest songs in my opinion:

Do Kadam, from Meenaxi.

It’s’ really a song about inviting life on a journey – or even the body and spirit urging each other to move towards a final destination or consummation, at a magical place full of mystery, beauty and fulfillment. And the last verse (Koun rehta hain sada? chalke dekhen to zara) is possibly the most philosophical question a hindi film lyric has ever asked, though I’m not about whether that was intentional.

Rehna Tu, from Delhi 6

I imagine a melancholic man walking alone through the streets of a city at midnight, lost in his own thoughts, while explaining his spiritual position on love to no one in particular except the night itself.

Media Bias

Gerald Marzorati, of The New York Times offers a great response to a question on the editorial bias, if any,  of the NY Times Magazine.

Q. The New York Times Magazine, I’ve been told by a former editor, considers itself “centrist” — playing stories straight down the center. Any comment?

— Ron Mwangaguhunga

A. Interesting. What you’re asking is: Does the Magazine have an ideology? At the risk of giving some of my colleagues hives, I think it does. Call it Urban Modern. That is, I think it reflects not a left-or-right POLITICAL ideology but a geographical one, the mentality of the place it is created: 21st Century Manhattan.

So: The Magazine reflects a place where women have professional ambition, where immigrants are welcome, and where gay men and lesbians can be themselves (if not marry, yet). The Magazine also reflects a place where being rich is not a bad thing, where fashion is not a sign of superficiality and where individualism is embraced. Here, arguing is not bad manners. Here, a chief way of loving your hometown is criticizing it: For, say, not doing enough for those (children, the poor, the homeless) who are most vulnerable. Here, art is seldom spoken of in moral terms, and most aspects of everyday life — food and drink and bathroom fixtures — are mostly spoken of in aesthetic terms. And here, as E.B White famously wrote, it tends to be those who come from elsewhere full of longing who make the place what it is.

More generally, we reflect a place where change is not a threat, where doubt and complexity are more TRUE than certainty, and where most everything non-criminal is tolerated — except a bad haircut.

More here

Shashi Tharoor – Jaswant Singh

A delightfully timely piece by The Hindu about a Tharoor book that was highly critical of the Congress party.

The current Minister of State also took gentle digs at Sonia Gandhi, pointing out that she went to Cambridge to study English, not political philosophy. Referring to Ms Gandhi’s “renunciation” and her nomination of Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister, he said, “A builder’s daughter from Turino, without a college degree, with no experience of Indian life beyond the rarefied realms of the Prime Minister’s residence, fiercely protective of her privacy, so reserved and unsmiling in public that she has been unkindly dubbed ‘the Turin Shroud’ leading a billion Indians at the head of the world’s most complex, rambunctious and violent democracy? This situation, improbable if weren’t true, is proof again of the enduring appeal of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.”

Amazing that Tharoor got away with so much and also managed to get a ministerial berth in the current government.

Two books, two consequences

On opinions

Noting down a thought I expressed on facebook:

Most opinions end up becoming part of our identity. Any threat to the opinion becomes thus a threat to our ego, and our self definition. I think the best way is to have opinions, yet be sufficiently detached from them and allow them to be criticized.

More Amartya – 2

A very interesting approach to poverty from Sen. Poverty of freedom, and capability are just as important than any financial measure, he argues.

Sen, a former Trinity master, economist, philosopher and mathematician, all rolled into one, in his latest book ‘The Idea of Justice’ says the income approach to poverty, which considers people earning less than a certain amount annually as poor, is not an accurate measure of how well people live.

Instead the laureate gives precedence to one’s capability or the capacity that people have of choosing and leading their lives. More here

More Amartya

Sagarika Ghose, known for her tendency to make everyone jump to her conclusions, makes a mess of this entire interview with Amartya Sen.

Sagarika Ghose: So you are not saying talk to the enemy, do not lock him up.

Amartya Sen: No, I am not saying that.

Sagarika Ghose: But that’s the kind of message I am getting from your book.

Amartya Sen: Are you sure you are not reading a different book?

Amartya Sen’s Puzzle

Amartya Sen’s question on idealized versus remedial justice:

Three children — Anne, Bob and Carla — are quarrelling over a flute: Anne claims the flute on the ground that she is the only one of the three who knows how to play it; Bob demands it on the basis that he is so poor that — unlike others — he has no other toys to play with and it would therefore mean a lot to him if the flute were given to him; and Carla says that it belongs to her because she has made it with her own labour.

I think the best solution is for Carla to sell her flute to Anne for a price and thereby get rewarded for her efforts. In the interest of justice, Carla should probably teach Bob how to make his own flute. That way Bob gains a flute as well as the skill to make and sell more flutes, which in turn will hopefully make him ‘rich enough’ to buy other kinds of toys as well.  Sen believes there is no perfect solution.

I think this solution structure fits in well with the reservation debate in India. Meritorious students claim that they deserve seats in the best institutions owing to their demonstrated capabilities. The supporters of reservations argue that reserving seats (on non-merit based criteria) is the only way in which backward castes can get into the mainstream of society. The government of course actually creates or facilitates the creation of seats. So, what the government must do is to sell these seats to the meritorious for a price, and invest aggressively in the skill enhancement of the so called backward communities so that they can play on a level playing field with the others.

Instead the government is arbitrarily giving away seats to individuals who may not yet have developed adequate skills to compete with the mainstream, thereby ensuring that these people have a symbolic tag of education, but not necessarily skills that will lead to employment or any improvement in their quality of life.

Where Is the Friend’s Home

… is a brilliant film by Abbas Kiarostami

It’s like watching a small fable about morality in the form of a visual poem. Truly a work of art.

Strange

Strange piece of news – TN government body destroys heritage works of art in the name of maintenance:

Over the past several years, similar mural masterpieces have been whitewashed at the Meenakshi temple in Madurai, the Arunachaleswarar temple at Tiruvannamalai, the Vishnu temple at Tiruvellarai near Tiruchi, and Siva temples at Patteeswaram near Kumbakonam, Tiruppulivanam in Kancheepuram district and Vedaranyam, all administered by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department of the Tamil Nadu government. More here