This “India is a union of states” is written in the Constitution (because that’s how India was constituted when it was written), it’s a definition, in the way my body is an union of my organs. (1/n) Congress, when it ruled unimpeded, by people directly in RaGa’s line, had no conception of this. It used policies like Freight Equalization to destroy certain states, without their agency, to derive political benefit. There was no EU flavor then.

While Rajamouli et al make cinematic spectacles rooted in Indian tradition, creating a world that to global audiences unique even in its over-the-topness, Bollywood keeps on making MI or Fast and Furious clones without the technical finesse. Why would Indians watch? But that used to make these movies before too. Of course they did, we had no choice. Now OTT gives us choice for nearly free. Why would we go to the theater for a pale, dated, imitation?

On Twitter, Meta layoffs.

There are a lot of upsides to working in FAANG and FAANG-type companies, and that is why they attract the best talent. Good salaries, insane stock grants.

But that’s really where the downside, often not seen, starts. Many of these companies are effectively Ponzi schemes. They generate excitement in market (“we will go full VR” ), create grossly optimistic projections, raise capital from market, pay off investors (the ones they got on the “n-1” hype), give some to employees, rinse-repeat.

Been in india for 3 weeks now and one amazing thing is the efficiency of delivery services. Those who stay in India have no idea how terrible delivery services are in major cities like LA. Some anecdotes… During the height of covid, we tried subscribing to a paid service for grocery delivery. You couldn’t get a slot for weeks, when we got one, the guy delivered the grocery two days late and bought only half of the stuff. We cancelled.

So yesterday I went to my alma mater (alu mater) Jadavpur University. Some of it has remained exactly the same, even after 23 years and some…well… thread follows. First there are the funnies. No one other than Elon Musk can enter. And “torn off” might refer to the power supply or the paper itself.

One of my favorite pictures of my father. Left-center in politics, right in economics (at least by the standards of the day), professor of economics at Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (he left a tenured position at Cornell to come home) One of my favorite pictures of my mother. She did her MA in Economics from Rochester University where my father did his PhD.

My grandfather, Jyotirmoy Ray, in his Congress uniform. Nehru visiting Birbhum. From our personal album. (Cc @RahulGandhi and @ShashiTharoor)

One of the most difficult things for an outsider like me to understand about US is it’s fascination for guns. The solution to gun violence is simple: take away guns. Excerpt like that fable of how the shoe was invented, America tries to cover the world in a pouch & not their feet The 2nd Amendment is linked to the history of America, of the need of the individual to protect itself from the terror of the state. American freedom was won by militia action and at that time it made sense.

The leader of Indian “National” Congres (he thinks it’s Nehru of course) continues to push for the underlying principle of separatism, laying the foundation for the dissolution of a country he now knows he can’t rule. If Britain can exit, so can Kashmir. He is casting aspersions on the fairness of the election system with no proof. In the US, this is termed as Trumpism. In India, it’s called progressiveness

Ashwin’s interview should be seen as a very senior cricketer lashing out at a toxic environment created by Kohli and his understudy Shastri. That he contemplated retirement just goes to show how bad it was. As I have said before, Kohli has a fetish for low body fat percentage and random dick measuring contests like the yo yo test. Anyone who doesn’t meet his standards, he does not see skill nor cricketing utility.

If you want to buy a dog:
1. Research the breed. If you can only take the dog out sporadically do not her a Shepherd or a Retriever. There will be destructive behavior due to too much residual energy. If you leave the dog alone for long periods of time, don’t get Maltese or poodles. Intelligent dog breeds are attached, need mental stimulation.

There is no sight sadder than seeing tiny puppies, too young to be separated from their mother, being sold at Gallif Street, and the way the dog breeders handle them, throwing the cheaper puppies into their cages, yanking them out by their shoulder. That of course the government allows this to continue is of course expected, though not surprising, given that these little dogs aren’t political opponents.

The genius of Dhoni is that even though he does not perform, his team does. I had compared him once to an exceptional engineering manager, and that’s what they do. Even though they have forgotten the architecture and can’t write a line of code themselves, they make others deliver How does a good engineering manager do it? Because they were once a good architect/developer themselves, they put the right people on the right task, make great hiring and firing and reassignment decisions, know when to escalate (review decision) & when to stay quiet.

Last chance. Which movie?

https://twitter.com/greatbong/status/1439094343399182341

@alter_jamie

Me on Friday evenings. And if you can identify the song, you and I are friends. Anyone? Identify the movie?

For the world T20 championship I am going to say something extreme. Rohit Sharma, the only person left from the first T20 World Cup, should not be the first XI. I know he shines in ICC tournaments & I hope he proves me wrong, but we need a more aggressive opening pair than now Yes my openers are Shaw and Ishan Kishen. The England approach. Go hell for leather. But back it up in next 2. Surya and Kohli.

Follow me on Clubhouse. I can’t promise you Prashant Kishore level honesty though. If what I am reading actually happened in Clubhouse, no wonder Modi and Shah win. It’s like Wasim Akram bowling to Rinku Singh.

IPL thread. The only weakness MI has is that there hasn’t been a Netflix MI documentary for years, what would be better than to see Chris Lynn playing rumaalchor at Antila & inspirational speeches from the Ambanis. Otherwise MI has the greatest T20 side that ever drew breath. Ambani ka haath is truly magical. They have God on their payroll, Talent as their captain, one end of the Modi stadium, and while sky may be the limit for others, they have him at one-drop. How can anyone go up against them?

The last thing I had in 8 stages in Bengal was a sit down dinner during a wedding (back when people still had them). Lemon(yes they identified that as an item too), radhaballabi, aloor dum, fish, chicken, doi, misthi, paan. This was of course the “Bengali middle class menu”. Variations were cholar dal and beguni. If the groom had a private sector job (i.e. executive), there would be a fancy item like “fish orly” or “chili pheesh”. If mutton was served, there was a presumption of “black money”.

One shouldn’t be surprised at the dual standards of censorship Twitter adopts for the home country (US) and “third-world” countries like India. Since it’s not bad to use work terms on the wokes, this is institutional racism. Countries like India need to be taught what free speech is. An incident where a non-national flag is forcibly planted on a symbol of authority is dissent whereas the exact same thing in US is insurrection. The ones who abetted the former are dissidents while the later are banned

With respect to Twitter banning permanently @realDonaldTrump and the justification it provides requires attention. It’s the easiest thing to ban him after he stopped being the President and can no longer take steps to the commercial detriment of the corporation. It’s obvious that after the unprecedented incidents in DC, there was commercial pressure in terms of shareholders and Directors to take steps, if for nothing more than to ensure that the Biden admin doesn’t come down hard on them.