Category: Zachary

Browncast Episode 32: Indian Linguistics Podcast

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We had a conversation about Indian linguistics. It was Razib, myself, Avtansa, Indian Linguist and TianChengWen.

I’m quite proud of this podcast since I was able to get some of the linguistic luminaries together. The topic was a broad overview of language in South Asia.

We were able to keep a very strong regional balance since TCW’s specialty is Dravidian. We touched on the role of Sanskrit and its prominence as a literary lingua franca until the late medieval period (until it was supplanted).

Incidentally, we didn’t talk all that much about Indian English instead we delved into the “dialects.” There seems to be a turning point in that the Subcontinent is consolidating linguistically among regional, national and religious lines with English emerging as the great neutral and prestige language.

We touched a fair bit on the specific languages of the Hindi belt but I guess for next time we will have to tackle those that are tangential to the Hindi language sphere like Punjabi, Bengali, and Marathi.

Pakistan is home to the most frenetic education reforms in the world

EVERY three months, Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab, gathers education officials around a large rectangular table. The biggest of Pakistan’s four provinces, larger in terms of population (110m) than all but 11 countries, Punjab is reforming its schools at a pace rarely seen anywhere in the world. In April 2016, as part of its latest scheme, private providers took over the running of 1,000 of the government’s primary schools. Today the number is 4,300. By the end of this year, Mr Sharif has decreed, it will be 10,000. The quarterly “stocktakes” are his chance to hear what progress is being made towards this and other targets—and whether the radical overhaul is having any effect.

For officials it can be a tough ride. Leaders of struggling districts are called to Lahore for what Allah Bakhsh Malik, Punjab’s education secretary, calls a “pep talk”. Asked what that entails, he responds: “Four words: F-I-R-E. It is survival of the fittest.” About 30% of district heads have been sacked for poor results in the past nine months, says Mr Malik. “We are working at Punjabi speed.”

Reformers are trying to make up for generations of neglect

Continue reading Pakistan is home to the most frenetic education reforms in the world

The Advice of the Childfree

As an aside Vidhi censured me last night for my “polemical” post since it seemed as though she was condoning my views on Arjun Rampal.

I explained to her my perspective that rich and powerful men must always be held to account as they are the movers and shakers of all societies. That includes Mr. Rampal, Mr. Akhtar and Mr. Ali Khan.

It is interesting that Farhan and Saif are the “spoiled” scions of an Indian elite whereas the much more humbler Shah Rukh Khan has kept his marriage and family together (whatever the rumours may be about them).

Farhan Akhtar is simply replicating the pattern of his philandering father and is now infecting his close friend Arjun. What irks me about these boys is that they all have daughters (5 daughters between them and only Saif has a son from his first marriage) and essentially the message they are transmitting to their daughters is that they can be replaced for a younger model when the time comes.

It’s interesting that Zoya Akhtar has never gotten married; the sins of the father visiting upon the innocent daughter. I also think that Alia Bhatt’s older half sister (Pooja Bhatt) never had children either, so it really is the daughters who get the pain of their selfish fathers.

I do not condone selfish behaviour by fathers. I’m not a father and I’m very happily child-free because neither Vidhi or I are at the stage of our life where we want to be parents. As an old school libertarian I don’t believe in laws necessarily regulating human behaviour but custom and culture.

Having children is a long and painful process since they are meant to be the culmination of any relationship. While I believe government has no role in marriage I simply cannot understand how a couple, who cannot bother to have a wedding, can go on to have a child.

I’ve noticed that the most successful children are those that have received intelligent and formidable parenting. Just because a man can happen to have children does not mean he should have them.

While I don’t think abortion should be the answer, it would be incumbent on all to realise that having a child should be a very hard-thought process. A sign of an affluent society is the shift from the quantitative to the qualitative and to my mind the collapsing birth rates are usually a sign of civilisation. Of course the line between self-actualisation and self-indulgence is a sober one so collapsing birthrates in Russia and Eastern Europe is a very different phenomenon to that in Western Europe or the US.

I am simply taking exceptions to the neo-Mughals of Bollywood who strut about thinking they are demi-gods. A good example is when I heard Nasserudin Shah state that he had taught his children (with Ratna Pathak) the Quran to improve their “Tahafuz.”

I’m taking that to mean that their fluency in Urdu but if one wanted to get really good in Urdu it would be better to learn Hindustani and Dari since Urdu is not simply a creolic language where one can add Perso-Arabic words at whim. Also those words that have been added have in themselves been transformed so reading the Quran to learn Urdu is disingenuous and simply  cloaking the real reasons for teaching it to his children.

Linguistics Podcast

Finally we’re doing a linguistics podcast tomorrow; Razib, əbʰɪ əʋət̪əns̪ अभिअवतंस & Indian Linguist. Any questions please pop into the comment.

Is Bollywood “whitening” Indian beauty standards?

Since Vidhi’s passing remarks seem to generate so much controversy on BP; I thought I would share a statement she made to me earlier (I usually send her the links when I’m quoting her but she’s too busy to read them).

But she was pointing me towards this latest starlet:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BuWv610B-Cg/

V was saying that she could look Spanish or Italian and the first person who came to my mind was Natalie Portman. V was then comparing Tara to Madhubala or Meena Kumari who had much more “Indian looks.”

Image result for meena kumari Continue reading Is Bollywood “whitening” Indian beauty standards?

The unconscious whiteness of Britain-

I had posted this last night but saved it in the draft. I just heard a story about a Bursar of a Cambridge College telling an *Asian* lighting Engineer that he should watch out with the lighting because otherwise you can’t see “black people in the dark except for their teeth.” Continue reading The unconscious whiteness of Britain-

Self-respect starts at home, Mr Kohli..

I don’t want to detract from the intensely sad news emerging out of Sri Lanka however I came across this ad on instagram and I found it rather amusing. Anyone who has read my views over the years, will know my thoughts on this so there is no need to repeat them.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwmG1FlAMnj/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=jv082jxrsh6f

Virat Kohli is known to have an “arrogant” streak (I can’t confirm either way) but him doing this ad demonstrates the same judgement SRK had when doing Zero, When Harry met Sejal or RAone.

Perhaps I’m being overly critical but a little tact and a lot of taste will go a very long way in building an International Reputation for both himself and Brownitude (if such a thing exists) abroad.. Continue reading Self-respect starts at home, Mr Kohli..

philhaal is guftagu se thak gaye hain hum.

She simply raises an eyebrow, twirls a finger, twinkles her eyes — and the screen goes ablaze. I wanted to join the front-benchers screaming with delight when, pre-interval, she naughtily murmurs, philhaal is guftagu se thak gaye hain hum.

We went to watch Kalank starring Alia Bhat and Varun Dhawan last night. I don’t have much to add to the film reviews, who’ve done a pretty fine job in pointing out both the strengths and the weaknesses.

Karan Johar and his runaway success straddles both new and old Bollywood. One of the reviews chimed in perfectly with what I felt; that Karan is all about “more is more.”

It detracts from the essence of the film and Bollywood is now the inverse of  Pakistani dramas. Pakistani dramas convey exceptionally powerful stories on shoestring budgets (Hum Safar was shot on 5,000 USD and it, along with Dastan, revitalised the Pakistani Drama industry).

One of Vidhi’s podcast suggestions is asking why Bollywood doesn’t garner the same level of international respect as Persian Cinema. We’re iA going to explore it in a future podcast but the splintering of a Unified India’s High Culture, where Pakistan got the Mughal bits and India the rest, has had some lasting damage.

Kalank also descends into a farce because it’s as realistic about Hira Mandi and pre-Partition Punjab as Aladdin is about “Arabia.” I enjoyed the performances all around but they lacked that raw intensity of the Khans.

Madhuri Dixit stole the show but even she had to navigate the difficult corners of the script. One reviewer touched on various influences on the film (Pakeezah, Raazi) but what came to mind is that this was supposed to be the Desi Titanic.

Partition is a painful and difficult subject; the cumulative and untold trauma can spin a thousand romances and tragedies. Like most psychic wounds it can be mined for great art but if KJo wants to pioneer Urdu cinema (Ae Dil Eh Mushkil) he has to first learn that the language of love is spoken with the heart.

It’s what powers the great Pakistani plays and initially I was surprised that the screen play was by Abhishek Varman, the language used was so elegaic and chaste (I thought more Urdufied than Urdu but that is to quibble over little details) but then I heard in one of the reviews that the writer was a Muslim.

In the end though I appreciated the nod towards Urdu culture though I found one line rather offensive, which roughly translated, “her face was Irani but her dress was Indian.” Self-respect starts at home.

The Kalash of Iran

87 years ago in a small village outside yazd called Hossein Abad

“Just to tell you a little story, the gentleman in the middle with white beard is my great grandfather who’s holding my mum in his arm.

His father had seven sons and they were Zoroastrian and one day he told his sons that he has seen a sign that Shah Barham has come and he asked them to investigate and they all did and became Baha’is,”

 

I came across this on social media and I found it amusing in light of the discussion on the Kalash of Pakistan. Continue reading The Kalash of Iran

Notre Dame & Babri Masjid

This status represented my initial thoughts on Notre Dame. Not all monuments are equal and the Notre Dame has a place in the global imagination. Continue reading Notre Dame & Babri Masjid

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