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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • to add an interesting anecdote, there is an archer in indian mythology called Ekalavya who apparently showed great promise. he practiced his craft in honour of a legendary warrior called Dronā(chārya), assuming him to be his teacher, imagining how he would teach, and learning thus on his own.

    Dronā himself was semi-retired by then and was teaching the princes of Hastināpur (5 of whom form the principle protagonists and 100 more of whom are the primary antagonists of the indian epic poem “Mahābhārata”) and, when he saw Ekalavya, he was afraid that this untitled prodigy would upstage his more royal proteges.

    so he invoked an indian custom which states that a student must give a teacher whatever is asked of them and asked Ekalavya for his right thumb. his aim was to not let Ekalavya overshadow his charges since an archer needs his thumb to grip an arrow properly. Ekalavya cut his thumb off without hesitation and presented it to the teacher. Dronā was deeply touched by the willingness to undergo this sacrifice, as the story goes.

    the relevance to this news article is that Ekalavya went on to practice drawing the bow with his feet instead and achieving aimilar levels of accuracy. this story in the OP is more than an archer overcoming her difficult circumstances; it’s also about her reliving a celebrated legend.

    (although, separately, why Ekalavya just didn’t switch to being a southpaw, i don’t know.)




  • the data from india is incomplete and not fit for the analysis you’re attempting. the actual problem lies in misogyny; rape is more of a symptom of that than a series of unrelated incidents.

    misogyny, also, is a symptom by itself of indians making categories and preference tables for virtually every fucking thing. we discriminate on gender, skin colour (it’s legal to advertise and sell “skin whitening creams” here!), religion, caste, sect, language (we have about 530 active dialects), state, height, weight, food preferences (india has the highest percentage and, therefore, the highest population of native vegetarians), occupations, the list is endless.

    heck, cows live a better life than most women in this country. unless we start seeing each other as fellow human beings, the situation here is simply not going to improve. ever.


  • it’s not just the government. that’s pretty much the response of any of the majority that voted for that government. it’s embedded into our culture.

    pointing out a mistake is greater sacrilege than committing that mistake in the first place. press freedom is the lowest it’s been. and we have things like stand-up comics being arrested for “hurting sensitivities”.

    the OP is right. we indians will always sweep info about our mistakes under the rug and this country, therefore, will never improve.









  • for a minuscule impact on climate.

    who defines what is miniscule here? what if an oil baron deems 20% to be miniscule? do we all go swimming in their blackened beaches?

    how is 2% miniscule? and who says that emission reduction exercises have to stop at 2%?

    it’s sometime very easy to minimise the seriousness of something with the clever use of generic statements. there are enough spin doctors already trying to pull the wool over our eyes–we don’t need to help them by also shooting ourselves in the foot.


  • each see each other as a threat. there’s disputes on various territories across the 4k km himalayan border for one. both countries fought a war in the 1970s around these disputes and, by all reliable accounts, it was india that ceded territory then.

    separately, india has provided sanctuary to the current dalai lama for many, many years now and also is a refugee base for tibetans, which mr. xi and his folks don’t appreciate.

    india has also banned tiktok since its inception as well as access to alibaba and other online chinese stores.

    china’s relationship with indian neighbours is seen as a threat as well, be it of a strategic nature such as their belt and road initiative with pakistan, their predatory relationship over sri lanka after drowning them with easy loans, or their latest “coup” in the maldives where the long-standing india-friendly government lost out in the last elections to a party that campaigned on “india out” and who were very pally with winnie the pooh and gang.

    the geopolitical relationship is stereotypical of two neighbours who hate each other so much that each would go out of their way to torment the other.