Ravi Mundoli - Livemint.com
ABOUT RECENT POSTS
Member since 05-11-2009
Last visited 08-23-2009
Timezone 5.00 GMT
Total Posts 5
Post Rank 0
  • Sunday, August 23, 2009
    Posted at 11:34:00 AM
    Much like its American counterpart, the unraveling of the Indian equivalent of the Republican Party continues apace. Jaswant Singh was expelled on August 19, because he wrote a book in which he allegedly says that Jinnah was demonized by India, while it was Nehru, Patel et al who were actually responsible for partition. Taking a cue from their national leadership, the powers that be in the Gujarat state government have seen it fit to ban the book in that state because "...it contains defamatory references regarding Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
  • Sunday, August 16, 2009
    Posted at 6:38:00 PM
    That was going to be our team name for the Landmark Quiz that happened yesterday evening at the Music Academy in Chennai, until we changed it for highly obscure strategic reasons. We were quite lucky to scrape through to the Chennai finals, and then even luckier to sneak into the national finals by finishing second in the Chennai round. In the finals, order, balance and sanity were restored to the Universe and we came 6th or 7th per usual. Certain unmentionable person (who ceaselessly berates me about channeling quiz questions in this blog while.
    Tagged in: , , , ,
  • Sunday, August 02, 2009
    Posted at 1:55:00 PM
    Which is finally a post about science, (tangentially)! This blog started trying to be a "science" blog. Various lumpen elements like Simbu and Subbu came and hijacked the whole enterprise, and the science train more or less derailed. Until now. By some miracle (i.e. the Google RSS feed Reader ), I am finally able to churn out a post that is on science, India, and music at one fell swoop. Now anyone who has heard me sing knows that it is preferable to have their nails pulled out with pliers rather than go through that quaint ordeal. Nevertheless.
    Tagged in: , ,
  • Friday, July 24, 2009
    Posted at 6:15:00 PM
    Hallelujah, the Lord be praised! The 17.63th Harry Potter movie is out. It is a tour de force of the cinematic oeuvre and delivers a coup de grace that is je ne sais quoi ; the modus operandi of the cast and crew make it the sine qua non of the canon; its ersatz special effects alter your Weltanschauung and cinematify the zeitgeist ; it will 我希望能与猪. In summary, it is hasta la vista to all your preconceptions about literature and film, and y tu mamá también . In other words, I have not seen the movie or read the book, and so am supremely qualified.
    Tagged in: ,
  • Sunday, July 12, 2009
    Posted at 10:27:00 PM
    It's been a remarkable couple of weeks for the country. On July 2nd, the Delhi High Court struck down sections of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalised certain consensual sexual acts between adults by stating that they were "against the order of nature". This must be a truly remarkable event in the history of Indian jurisprudence. On the personal front, I was living in Cambridge, Massachusetts when the state legalized same-sex marriages and can remember May 17, 2004 when there was a crowd (by US standards!) outside.
  • Sunday, July 05, 2009
    Posted at 4:43:00 PM
    Which was provoked by disturbing goings-on on the Charminar Express last night Long, long ago in a land far, far away, there lived a dairy farmer. He and his friends were mesmerized by the magic of trains. Often, on hot summer days, they would gather near the doors of the air-conditioned compartments, hoping to catch a refreshing gust of cool air as the doors swung open and shut. When the coach attendant caught them, he would shoo them away. The farmer never forgot how cool and good the AC felt, and nor did he forget the treatment that was meted.
    Tagged in: , ,
  • Monday, June 29, 2009
    Posted at 2:13:00 PM
    In which we discuss the dietary preferences of geese Michael Jackson died last week. It was a hugely significant moment for me when I got the news, and my life has not been the same from that point forward. Mostly because for the first time ever, I got real news from Facebook before the BBC . Facebook also informed me that in his dotage, Harrison Ford forgot to lock the door of the fridge while shooting the next Indiana Jones movie at an unspecified location in North Korea, and was duly microwaved; that Jeff Goldblum was fried to a crisp while shooting.
  • Saturday, June 20, 2009
    Posted at 6:15:00 PM
    Which was sparked by observation in local grocery store and is about culture, values and traditions When the Truth dawns on them and taxonomists draw up the final hierarchy of living beings, it will read (from top to bottom) something like this: Megan Fox, atheists, other human beings, great apes, some primates...leeches, objectivists , tapeworms...monkeys, pigeons, the malarial parasite...people who jump lines and cut queues. Merely watching one of these last mentioned worthies in action is enough to give one a minor stroke, and set thoughts scampering.
    Tagged in: , ,
  • Monday, June 15, 2009
    Posted at 10:58:00 AM
    This post must set some sort of record in that it's partly a movie review. Except the movie was released nearly a year back! Nevertheless, regardless of the hapless plight of the reader, we plough on. While talking to a friend last night, the conversation drifted to movies, and for some reason or the other, last year's thriller drama A Wednesday . The film was moderately successful by box office standards, but has had a lasting impact on lots of viewers, including this one, for various reasons. Many people I know seemed to have really liked.
    Tagged in: , ,
  • Wednesday, June 10, 2009
    Posted at 12:01:00 PM
    In the mad days around the elections, not too many people may have noticed a small storm in the blogosphere teacup that erupted a few weeks back. Like the old Phantom comics used to say, for those who came in late: The Indus valley civilization flourished some 6000 4000 (Thanks to Anand M. for pointing out the error.) years ago over a large part of what is today Afghanistan, Pakistan and northwestern India. It was one of the most advanced and urbanized civilizations of its time, and left us with quite a few enduring mysteries to chew on, including.
    Tagged in:
  • Saturday, June 06, 2009
    Posted at 3:12:00 PM
    When the outsourcing boom was at its peak, a new word entered the global lexicon - "Bangalored". An American (for example) is said to have been Bangalored if her company "restructured", terminated her, and moved the job overseas because it was more cost effective for the company. But Bangalore itself had shown up in the lives of Americans (some of them, anyway) about 6 decades before the young Anands and Jahnavis of India transmogrified into Andys and Jennifers. During the early hours of June 6 (i.e. today) 1944, the Allied powers.
    Tagged in: , ,
  • Wednesday, June 03, 2009
    Posted at 6:49:00 AM
    I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by. - Douglas Adams Words have a way of creeping insiduously from the places where they were born into "mainstream" language. The interesting thing about Douglas Adams' quote above is the word 'deadline'. It's one of those words that we use almost unthinkingly practically every day. And yet, like many of its counterparts, it has an absorbing tale (tales, actually, in this case) behind it. Apparently during the American Civil War, there was a literal line.
  • Saturday, May 23, 2009
    Posted at 2:10:00 PM
    Yes, I know, I've blogged about this before . But what to do ya , it's that time of the year and can't be avoided. Especially when you're sitting in salubrious Chennai and are basically a walking talking puddle. Anyway, this post is less about wet starlets and monsoon raaginis , and a lot more about history, geekiness, and Murugan Idli. It all starts in the University of Cambridge. Actually it all starts with the Big Bang, but for the purposes of this post, we will begin with Cambridge. Until 1909, the third year nerd who topped.
    Tagged in: , , ,
  • Monday, May 18, 2009
    Posted at 12:23:00 PM
    A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. -- From Manual of Muad'Dib by the Princess Irulan What better way to start off a new blog than with a hi-falutin' sounding bon mot that only geeks of a certain bent of mind are likely to have come across. Nevertheless, Frank Herbert's epic Dune saga is not a bad point of reference to try and explain what this new and unique (yeah, right) blog will hopefully be all about. Just as Herbert manages to weave a story together from strands of science and.
    Tagged in:
  • Thursday, May 14, 2009
    Posted at 1:00:00 PM
    Our favourite historian has delivered again. From the manner in which he delivers, one begins to imagine he is trained in the innards of Pizza Hut, or Dominos or somesuch. Or not. Practically the very first post at the choultry involved this man, and two years and many biryanis down the line, we find ourselves gushing over him again. On New Year's eve, we bought 1 pair Sandak chappals, 1 pair Hawaii chappals, 1 chicken biryani and 1 copy of Sowing The Wind in the vicinity of Paradise( 1 ) and wended our way home to Begumpet, through the reveling.
Copyright ©2007- 2009. HT Media Limited. All Rights Reserved.