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Home Truths

This Website Has Heritage Roots

Many years ago, a few days after I took up a new job as a communications professional, a senior colleague approached me with a strange request. Ram, his son, who was studying in Standard V, had to write an essay on the topic “Honesty is the best policy”. He knew, he said, I had written a well reviewed book (Corruption—Control of Maladministration). So, would I please write the essay for his son?I was initially shocked by the request which was, of course, politely turned down. When I later thought over this incident, I was truck by the irony of the situation of a parent trying to corrupt this child with the help of the author of Corruption.

Recent Posts

Are Indian netas humourless?

I don t think cartoons are only for kids, but I think kids will love anything as long as it’s visually interesting.
- John Kricfalusi

Cartoonists are at the receiving end of people’s ire, lead by political leaders whose bloated egos are often punctured by cartoonists. In Iran, a cartoonist was recently condemned to receive 30 lashes in public. In India even parliamentarians have risen to attack cartoons and cartoonists. The background on this and the implications are well rounded up in an article titled Censors In the House by Ronojoy Sen, a visiting research fellow at ISAS, National University of Singapore, and published in The Times of India (16-5-12) and excerpted here.

Are stings justified?

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.- Henry David Thoreau, American essayist, poet and philosopher (1817- 1862).

Nowhere is this more true than in the new area of sting operations. Olden-day investigative journalism involved sustained leg-work and brains. Today’s situation and the attendant moral, ethical issues are being debated following every new sting operation results making headlines in the media. Many of these sting operations involve cricketing, as noted in the following article by Mukund Padmabhan titled “With stings like these” and published in The Hindu (21-5-12) – and excerpted here.

Should we dictate diets?

“The university and all teaching systems that appear simply to disseminate knowledge are made to maintain a certain social class in power, and to exclude the instruments of power of another social class.... The real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the workings of institutions, which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise and attack them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them.”

Meena Kandaswamy, in a hard-hitting opinion piece in Outlook (30-4-12) under , A

Cowed-Down Nation, asks “Why kill over a people’s dietary preference for beef?”. Here are some excerpts.

Is notice mandatory to condemn?

If I shall be condemned
Upon surmise, all proofs sleeping else
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you,
‘Tis rigour, and not law.
- William Shakespeare, English dramatic poer (1564-1616) in Winter’s Tales.

In law the accused has to be given a chance to defend himself before a judge finds him guilty, condemned or punished. But inquiries to find out the truth of a situation and discover the wrong and wrong-doers, as a prelude for further police inquiries and set the legal process into motion does not namandatorily call for explanation from those identified as guilty. Those identified as wrong-doers in the Lokayukata report by Justice Santosh Hegde went to town complaining that they were not given a chance to have their say before the report was drawn and published. The legal issues await judicial ruling on this point are likely to be argued in in the apex court. Meanwhile, a Supreme Court ruling seems to support Justice Hegde that he was not obliged to give an opportunity for the allaged wrong-doers. But, first the facts, as reported by Krishnaprasad in The Hindu (28-5-12) and excerpted here.

Should airbrushing be banned?

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Anon.

Now there need not be beauty ; it is manipulated by using technology. As Gillian Orr points out in an article titled The teens taking on airbrushing in The Independent, digitally altered images of impossibly perfect models are a familiar sites in ads and magazines. But a new generation is talking tough on retouching or photo-shopping as noted in the following excerpts from Gillian’s article

In the latest edition of Seventeen, the go-to US magazine for teenage girls since 1944, models with flawless skin, glossy locks and tiny waists adorn page after page. While the girls pictured are certainly blessed in the beauty department, it’s also evident that airbrushing has played a part in each and every spread. We’ve come to accept that this is standard practice across these magazines but Julia Bluhm, a 14-year-old schoolgirl from Maine, has had enough of it. Recently Bluhm and other likeminded teens staged a protest outside the New York offices of Seventeen’s publisher, Hearst Corporation, and delivered a petition urging them to print at least one unaltered feature a month.

Are our MPs humour-killers?

‘Twas a saying of an ancient sage that humour was the only test of gravity, and garvity of humour. For a subject which would not bear railery was suspicious; and a jest which would not bear a serious examination was certainly was false wit. – Sir Anthony Ashley, 7th Earl of Shaftsbury, English philanthropist (1801-1870).

Humour, or the lack of it has been making media headlines. If headlines are there, can analysis be far behind? One of the outstanding comments on the present status of humour in India, specially with reference to the political class, by S. Prasannarajan titled “The house of dark arts” was published in India Today (18-5-12) - and is excerpted below:

Will same sex marriage go viral?

Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same sex partners to marry diminish the marriage of heterosexual couples? – Ted Olson.

Same sex marriage has been the subject of controversy and debate. The subject has acquired a new focus with President Barak Obama endorsing it on May 9, 2012. The issues involved are put into perspective by Adam Nagourney in an article in The New York Times under the title “For Obama, the move is both risky & inevitable” – and excerpted here. Apart from Obama’s personal impact, will his stand make the same sex marriage a global rage?

Should sub-18s wear chastity-belts?

Then there is the chastity-belt phenomenon, where her love handles have been his excuse for their dismal love life, or he fears that if she loses weight, he won’t be good enough for her anymore. – Edward Abramson.

A chastity belt, it may be noted, is a locking item of clothing designed to prevent sexual intercourse. They may be used to protect the wearer from rape or temptation. Chastity belts have been created for males and females, ostensibly for the purpose of chastity. According to modern myths the chastity belt was used as an anti-temptation device during the Crusades. When the knight left for the Holy Lands on the Crusades, his Lady would wear a chastity belt to preserve her faithfulness to him.

Chastity belt culture seems set to return to India if we go by laws proposed to be brought to Parliament, as explained in the article by Madhu Purnima Kishwar, professor, centre for the Study of Development Societies, under title Last of the Victorians and published in the Times of India (2-5-12) – and excerpted here.

Is cosmetic industry going to obscene lengths?

It seems yes, if one goes through the column by Anuja Chouhan titled fifty shades darker in The Week (22-4-12) – and excerpted here.

The fairness/beauty industry has just planted its flag on a whole new virgin territory. After making us ashamed of the circles under our eyes, the cracks in our heels and swarthiness of our armpits, they’ve finally gone below the belt. The latest in thing to be ashamed of is your dark vaginal area, which, don’t you know, is a terrible turn off to your lord and master. So please use X vaginal wash for a fresher, fairer vagina and a happy married life!

Is marriage a trap?

A man is incomplete until he has married. Then he’s finished. – Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Marriages today are under tremendous pressure, many ending in divorces. But their sacramental sanctity has been their foundation for undying bonding “till deathe do us part” as the Biblical dictum says. But unconventional thinker, Osho has different take on marriages.

Rakesh went to Osho and said that he knew the guru was against marriage but wanted his blessing before he went ahead with his marriage. Osho is provoked to give the following discourse – the gist of it is that marriage is a mutual trap.

A fool and his cool are soon parted. It is not yet published anywhere, but Asha is the custodian of Murphy’s unpublished manuscripts, so she goes on supplying these maxims of Murphy to me. Meditate over it: A fool and his cool are soon parted.

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