Chhota Pegs

I woke up early this morning to be reminded of one of Rabindranath Tagore's most beautiful songs, " মেঘ বলেছে যাব যাব". (Thank you Monobina Gupta.)   Here's a link to the song , sung by Indrani Sen.  Here's  another , sung by Debabrata Biswas. But the links above will clarify what Problem No. 1 is with renditions of Tagore. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the songs are sung with the most dreadful instrumental accompaniment. What lovely voices Indrani Sen and George Biswas have, and how these and other voices are ground into the dust by the sentimental cacophony of the sitar/sarod/violin that often accompanies them, not to mention that absolute bane of Rabindrasangeet, the harmonium .  In passing, here is an example of how it might be done . It won't go down well with everyone, but there's definitely something there. I'll even take this Bollywood-style number .  And then there is Problem No. 2. I find the translations of Tagore generally i...

It is refreshing (though slightly alarming) to see that my occasional  and much-beloved correspondent, the voluble Parakeet Ghost, is a free speech fundamentalist.  I'm not. But this week my vocal and mental faculties are fully employed elsewhere. Therefore, I'm handing it over to the Ghost Who Talks,  permitting him to eloquently squawk below (or perhaps more aptly for the occasion, to engage in free screech). Confessions of a Fundamentalist By   Parakeet Ghost I am a free speech fundamentalist. Let me explain. Free speech is often supported because it is seen to produce good results. It creates more informed citizens and voters. New and useful ideas emerge from the cacophony of voices. Problems attract the attention of decision makers more quickly. Amartya Sen famously argued that famines tend not to occur in democratic open societies because news of a crisis spreads fast. The problem with a purely   instrumental   view of free spe...

There's a story --- here's one of several YouTube videos on this delightful subject --- about how to catch a monkey. You use a jar or an empty coconut shell and fill it with peanuts. Monkey approaches, reaches into jar and clenches its greedy little paw around the peanuts. But it can't pull its full hand out, and what's more, it won't let the peanuts go. End of monkey. How governments in developing countries have wished for similar success when it comes to foreign investment! How India, or Indonesia, or Brazil, or the many countries before them, have hoped that the hard currency could come monkeying in, and then stay, forever enraptured by the goodies that emerging markets have to offer! Alas, it's never worked that way --- or perhaps it temporarily has with foreign direct investment --- but certainly never with foreign portfolio investment. What flows in can flow out, and with high probability it will. You can, of course, impede its flow by imposing exit co...

An earlier version of this article was first posted by me on  Ideas For India , and I have updated the material here with permission. It doesn't stop, and at the rate we're going, it never will. The latest (but not the latest by the time you blink) is the horrific rape of a journalist in Mumbai. Here is a brilliant, passionate article on it, which ends thus: " To the police, the legal system, the political establishment, the men who think women are fair game for rape and the people who foster rapists: what will you do to make sure we’re not violated again and again and again?" That is, indeed, the heart of the matter.  I don't care if the American rape statistics look worse (who knows how to adjust the numbers for reporting anyway?), or if drunk Frenchmen molest Indian women , or if there are lots of decent Indian men . None of this crap matters.  Here is what does matter: one out of n Indian men is a potential molester, a potential rapist. Is 1/ ...