Land Of The Ten Million Dead Girls

Indianwriting and Within/Without have both written about the Mystery of the Ten Million Deaths.

Also, an article by Dilip D'Souza on Rediff about this very subject. And if you like your data fresh from the tap, there's always the Census Commissioner's site (with a hilarious tagline, a la Tata Steel: We also count people in India)

I don't want to moralize here. Moralizing is boring. (Moralizing also poses a terribly awkward question. If aborting a female foetus is wrong, why is abortion itself right? I know the logical answer, I can't find the correct emotional answer here.)

All humans have perfectly valid explanation for their actions. Regardless of our backgrounds we all rationalize, both our smallest and our most important decisions (you can tell I watched Woody Allen's "Crimes & Misdemeanors" last night.) I am sure these parents who aborted the female foetuses have a good reason for their action. I do not understand the reason at all, but I just hope this ghastly reason disappears quickly.

Nearly 200,000 Indians In America Are Bi

Bi-racial, that is. (But, to paraphrase Woody Allen, does being bi-racial double their chances of getting married to the perfect man or woman?)

According to the cover story appearing in my favorite free mag, Little India, nearly 10% of the Indian-American population is bi-racial. Which means one of the parents is not an Indian.

(Little India's website does not have this article yet...they are still linking to last month's issue.)

Well, what are you waiting for, say hello to your two hundred thousand biracial brothers and sisters!

"Blood Of The Beasts"

If you are looking for an excuse to turn vegetarian, this film is it. After I was done watching it, I was only too eager to erase all my memories of those wonderful lunches and dinners in Paris. It takes an awful lot of beating and violence and blood-letting for us to have that one elegant meal.

Georges Franju's 1949 classic documentary "Blood of the Beasts" is the ultimate anti-March Of the Penguins. It contains no cute animal images and it has no inspirational storyline. If "March of The Penguins" was about the self-preservation instinct, consider this: the animals in this film are way past that point. Chances of survival are zero. The forces here are much crueler, colder and stronger than polar winters.

This 20-minute film takes us inside the abattoirs of Paris, circa 1949 and shows us how cows, horses and lambs are turned into meat for our consumption. I double-dare a vegetarian to look at this film without squirming. I double dare meat-eaters to look at the film without squirming. Nothing could quite prepare me for Franju's painful directness (a reviewer on IMDB called it "sick and disturbing".) The sensation some of the scenes produce can only be compared to the pain one feels when struck hard in one's, er, cojones. It really is that bad.

("Blood of the Beasts" is available as a bonus feature on Criterion's "Eyes without a Face".)

Meanwhile, the vegetarianism debate still confuses me. Is killing an animal for food wrong? What about killing an animal for sport?

iDeaf

Could someone please explain why Pete Townshend felt compelled to send out an important PSA disguised as PR drivel? "I have unwittingly helped to invent and define a type of music that makes its principal components deaf"

Principal components? WTF?

Not only is he talking like a corporate hack, he is also not coming clean about the real cause of his deafness. All through the 80s and 90s, he claimed it was The Who's legendary decibel levels at concerts that caused his deafness. Not so, he says now. It was them headphones in the studio.

Well, now you know. Don't be pumping "Live At Leeds" directly into your ear-drum.

(For those with too much time and curiosity, here's how the ear works.)

(And for the really curious, a very good resource on Beethoven's deafness.)

The New Greeting Card Tradition

I cut open the thick, white envelope with my cold fingers. It's a greeting card. But wait a second! The card looks familiar. Didn't I send a similar card to someone recently?

I pull out the card. Huh? The handwriting in the card looks familiar. Even the words are familiar.

Put Mr. Sherlock Holmes on Line 1 and cue in the Twilight Zone music.

What on earth is going on here?

It IS my card and my handwriting. It is MY card sent back to me. I look at the envelope for the "return to sender" stamp. No, it's not there. It is my address on the envelope.

I have no idea why it was sent back to me. Maybe it's a new business etiquette, who knows? If it's a new recycling fad, I am all for it. If it was meant in seriousness, I am still all for it.

After all, I chose the card in the first place because I liked its design. I also wrote the message myself, so it must mean something to me. Nothing wrong in receiving one's own card, is there?

Five Times The Fun

Lars Von Trier's "Five Obstructions": Brilliant? Pointless? Or both?

The film has a simple premise. The guru of "constraints-based cinema", Lars Von Trier, challenges his idol, filmmaker Jorgen Leth, to remake Mr. Leth's 1967 film "The Perfect Human" five times. Each version is dictated by certain obstructions. Examples of obstructions include: no edit may last more than 12 frames, no sets to be used etc.

Amazing idea, I think. I just wish the DVD instructed the viewer to watch Jorgen Leth's original film "The Perfect Human" first. Then this film becomes so much clearer and enjoyable.

(Arun Verma and I discussed constraints a few days ago.)

This Time, Last Year

(A sticky. New posts appear below.)

The tragedy is far from over. Read, remember and react. Do something.

An addendum: Seshu, of Tiffinbox, pointed me to his blog where he wrote about the importance of continuing media coverage of the post-Tsunami situtation and SAJA's Reporting Fellowships.

Disaster Remembrance Week