el nino
4K posts
This modern myth has no basis in ancient South Indian reality.
By the 3rd century BCE, the Vedic "Varuna" was already commonplace enough in Tamil Nadu to be found on a ceramic.
One can assume Vedic ideas were present much before in South India to establish the worship.
This goes without emphasizing localized Hinduism as Brahminism is a pedestrian & conspiratorial term framing 97% of Indians as so stupid that they worshipped 3% oppressive Brahmins for 4000+ years.
Localized deities like Mayon (Vishnu/Krishna), Murugan (Skanda), & various analogous deities that you could find from Kashmir to Kerala were also worshipped in Tamil lands (which at that point included Kerala).
Shepard (they/them)@N7_JaneShepard
Brahminism arrived in South India around the same time as Christianity. In some parts, even Islam predates its arrival. The "Hinduism" we see today in the south is Brahminism colonizing the native deities and forms of worship, further reinforced under the British rule.
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@TheEmissaryCo Bhakti movement. The nastika movement. Chokhamela. All were pre british.
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One thing I've noticed across both foreign & domestic analysis on India is a misinterpretation of how other castes view Brahmins in Indian society.
Brahmins were respected because of their conduct - their piety, their asceticism, their devotion, their knowledge, their discipline.
Many would pursue heterodox professions and thus that reverence from others would wane or just become aloofness. In some cases, Brahmins would be seen simply as people you hire for priestly work.
This explains the almost complete lack of anti-Brahmin sentiment pre-British Raj. At most, Brahmins were chided for NOT adhering to their disciplines & abandoning the original way of Dharma (this is how half of these heterodox schools emerged). Brahmins were criticized for not being "True Brahmins" rather than for some mass oppression of the masses.
Yet today, this combined idea of a wide-eyed worship of Brahmins by the masses + utterly cruel Antebellum slavery type oppression by Brahmins is a genuinely mainstream idea. And do not cite random academic shit that no one reads either - many of whom are authored by academics who will smile and wink along in mainstream outlets when these false narratives are put forward while reserving the truth to footnotes in obscure papers.
Part of this is not just foreign ignorance & projection but also a mirror of the past in this QT - where today, Anglophilic Left-Wingers (many who are Brahmin themselves) self-flagellate themselves to ape the much en vogue concept of White Guilt. They cannot conceptualize a world beyond Western models - especially when combined with their own vanity.
The Emissary@TheEmissaryCo
The transmission of caste to the British was done through the prism of a particular interlocutor, specifically amongst a certain class of Brahmins. The British noticed the contradictions & distortions of this transmission funny enough. While this class talked up their highness & distinctness, officers noticed how they betrayed their Brahminhood in etiquette & action. Of ironic note, Brahmins who performed their traditional occupation of priesthood were viewed as the lowest of their caste. Sometimes more material-minded officers would be perturbed by the forced emphasis on caste & would rather focus on land or village records as a method of governance & understanding Indian society. Ironically, the most enthusiastic of this caste-based lens on Indian society were Christian missionaries.
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@alok_bhatt Interesting to know what was sushant sareen doing then. He was working in a pr agency.
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I know Sushant Sareen won't like but let me say it with honesty and complete humility that while his reply to Nirupama Rao is emotionally satisfying and directionally correct but he completely missed the deeper game at play. And this is a problem with even the best of our foreign policy commentariat on the nationalist side.
Yes he is right to point out that the moralising brigade did preside over decades of inaction while Pakistan attacked India with impunity. His 'shut up and sit down, you failed' resonates with larger audience rightly frustrated with decades of diplomatic passivity but treating Rao's tweet as just another instance of the old moralist school preaching restraint is like wrapper to faad diya but uske andar suitcase to khola hi nahi.
Rao's tweet is not just moralising on Iran; she is using it as a carefully constructed bridge FROM a seemingly sounding legitimate critique using India's strategic silence on Iran TO a specific policy proposal (reopening India-Pakistan engagement through 'parallel tracks' in the Gulf).
Khar's reply is the connector that makes that bridge seem natural. And Rao's final response is the actual payload: a 'women's caucus,' Gulf cooperation frameworks, parallel tracks that bypass the terrorism accountability question entirely.
In my quoted thread, I tried going ahead of the 'sit down’ thing and tried showing you exactly what is inside the suitcase, and why it is dangerous.' Actually it is the only response that actually neutralises this dangerous tango of Khar and Rao……
Do read the thread and also the old threads at the end, if you so want to!
Alok Bhatt@alok_bhatt
As against what @sushantsareen wrote, the exchange between Rao-Khar makes the fundamental difference between the Pakistani and Indian elite class crystal clear........ This phenomenon rarely gets discussed as it is carefully hidden under the cloak of appi jhappi punjabified nostalgia. Sadly, this is how our diplomacy played out on the world stage for longest of times and is the pain point of Rao as well. Pakistan's elite, regardless of tone, stage, or audience, ALWAYS works in the direction of its state's strategic interest. Compared to them, significant section of India's elite spends its energy working against its own government. Chalo, samjhte hain kaise...
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@ravihanda Pr consultants and lawyers have probably entered the picture. Don't expect anything substancial
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I thought the HDFC Chairman's interview would have at least some substance if not an expose.
Nope.
It disappointed even my low expectations.
Long bureaucratic drivel just to say:
CNBC-TV18@CNBCTV18News
Former HDFC Bank Chairman Atanu Chakraborty breaks his silence. This exclusive conversation with @ShereenBhan is a #MustWatch! youtube.com/live/dvx34ePx4… #HDFC #HDFCBank #Excluxive #CNBCTV18Digital
Jaipur, India 🇮🇳 English
@GhoshSamyak Chakraborty replacement is advanced bhadralok model called Ghosh
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This dude has the most bait posts here. Puja is phenomenal! However, his obsession with Spivak, beating a dead horse a thousand times to make a point, is bizarre. American academia has moved beyond Spivak but some of us don’t want to. It’s time we find other ways of speaking.
peeleraja@peeleraja
When Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, a Columbia professor of South Calcuttan Rarhi Brahmin ethnicity famously asked, "Can the subaltern speak?", there was no internet or generative artificial intelligence. The Calcutta anglophile had a standard path - South Point or Patha Bhaban, followed by Bryn Mawr, Jadavpur or St. Stephens, then a short, unfinished M.Phil stint at JNU, and then the Oxfords, the Cambridges, the Sorbonnes, and the Ivy leagues awaited. Do this well, and sinecure jobs in policy and media awaited you. You could sip your Cuba Libre at the India Habitat Centre, and pontificate on how the subalterns could never speak. Your uncle from NDTV, Hindustan Times or your dad's protege at Prasar Bharati would invite you to thought leader summits and solicit think pieces about how to ameliorate rural life via holistic mother-tongue education. You could even get a Rajya Sabha seat if you were eloquent enough. South Bombay, South Delhi, South Calcutta - the elites from these three towns would play the annual triwizards tournament, with new-age libertarian South Bangalore knocking on heaven's door - demanding a place in this rarefied policy thindi walk. Professor Gayatri Spivak did not envision a Lifeofpujaa in her Derridaesque deconstructivist smorgasbord. In her time, rural subalterns could only speak in Satyajit Ray masterpieces or Mrinal Sen film noirs. Neither did she envision an Otherwarya - a Tamil Brahmin elite ho was less of a Rajagopalachari and more an Iyer-Mitra. Subalterns in her world were accessories for art filmmakers to secure government-sponsored Junkets to Cannes and Venice. Not instagrammers entering brand partnerships with FMCGs. And the "aantels" would stick to the pages of Frontline and the Economic & Political Weekly, and not write unfiltered screeds on Instagram. Social media and generative AI have upended the Spivakian simulacrum - it is no longer the Baudrillardesque ecosystem it once was. The privileged Otherwarya is no cocktail sipper at 4S - she likes her Noon Wines and Chin Lung, and her venom is like methanol-laced hooch from Tirunelveli. And, the subaltern claps back. Lifeofpujaa is no longer the docile Devi in Satyajit Ray's Devi - she is now the kickass Shakti Shetty in Rohit Shetty's Singham Returns. Exit Satyajit "Nyaakachondi" Ray. Enter Aditya "Dhuran" Dhar So can the subaltern speak? The answer is a YES. A resounding YES.
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el nino retweetledi
When Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, a Columbia professor of South Calcuttan Rarhi Brahmin ethnicity famously asked, "Can the subaltern speak?", there was no internet or generative artificial intelligence. The Calcutta anglophile had a standard path - South Point or Patha Bhaban, followed by Bryn Mawr, Jadavpur or St. Stephens, then a short, unfinished M.Phil stint at JNU, and then the Oxfords, the Cambridges, the Sorbonnes, and the Ivy leagues awaited.
Do this well, and sinecure jobs in policy and media awaited you. You could sip your Cuba Libre at the India Habitat Centre, and pontificate on how the subalterns could never speak. Your uncle from NDTV, Hindustan Times or your dad's protege at Prasar Bharati would invite you to thought leader summits and solicit think pieces about how to ameliorate rural life via holistic mother-tongue education. You could even get a Rajya Sabha seat if you were eloquent enough.
South Bombay, South Delhi, South Calcutta - the elites from these three towns would play the annual triwizards tournament, with new-age libertarian South Bangalore knocking on heaven's door - demanding a place in this rarefied policy thindi walk.
Professor Gayatri Spivak did not envision a Lifeofpujaa in her Derridaesque deconstructivist smorgasbord. In her time, rural subalterns could only speak in Satyajit Ray masterpieces or Mrinal Sen film noirs. Neither did she envision an Otherwarya - a Tamil Brahmin elite ho was less of a Rajagopalachari and more an Iyer-Mitra. Subalterns in her world were accessories for art filmmakers to secure government-sponsored Junkets to Cannes and Venice. Not instagrammers entering brand partnerships with FMCGs. And the "aantels" would stick to the pages of Frontline and the Economic & Political Weekly, and not write unfiltered screeds on Instagram.
Social media and generative AI have upended the Spivakian simulacrum - it is no longer the Baudrillardesque ecosystem it once was. The privileged Otherwarya is no cocktail sipper at 4S - she likes her Noon Wines and Chin Lung, and her venom is like methanol-laced hooch from Tirunelveli. And, the subaltern claps back. Lifeofpujaa is no longer the docile Devi in Satyajit Ray's Devi - she is now the kickass Shakti Shetty in Rohit Shetty's Singham Returns.
Exit Satyajit "Nyaakachondi" Ray. Enter Aditya "Dhuran" Dhar
So can the subaltern speak? The answer is a YES. A resounding YES.
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@IndiaHistorypic He would have looked like ahmad shah Masood and would have spoken some version of khadi boli...
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Mohur of Mughal Emperor Akbar
( Photo - British Museum )
Devina Mehra@devinamehra
Does this man look Chinese to you? This is an authenticated contemporary painting of Emperor Akbar At a Lit Festival yesterday, @authoramish said that it was absurd that we think Akbar looked like Prithviraj Kapoor. As per him, to our eyes, he would've appeared Mongolian or Chinese Also that his language wasn't Urdu but Turkish/Persian Nobody had asked him about this! He said it on his own as an example of the historical absurdities we believe... and repeated it about three times. According to him Akbar was Central Asian, looked nothing like an Indian Now I see this as a real problem when we've left history in the hands of so called history narrators instead of history scholars, because make no mistake, it is a scholarly discipline If Mr Tripathi had done even a bit of research on either history or geography he would have come to know that while Akbar's court language was Persian, by his generation, the spoken language in the royal household was close to what is now Brij Bhasha & Haryanvi - what later evolved into Hindustani. Akbar incidentally also was very interested in Sanskrit and Sanskrit texts. Of course, he was famously illiterate so could not read/write in any language Back to geography and Prithviraj Kapoor. Mr Kapoor was born in Peshawar probably in the same mohalla my grandmother (my parents are both Peshawar born) If only Tripathi had picked up a map of Asia, he would have found that even Babar's birthplace is only about 700 km from Peshawar - about 30% less than the distance between say, Delhi and Patna. The world is, surprise surprise, a continuum where faces don't magically transform at borders of modern nation states. That is why many in Mumbai persistently mistake me for a Parsi or Irani. Or why Prithviraj's son had blue eyes 😊 The burden of Mr Tripathi's song was that all history is biased with an unstated corollary that therefore any made up version of history is as good or valid as an academic's This is a dangerous slope in any field History ultimately has to be based on original (preferably contemporary) accounts if available, as well as other sources like archaeology, architecture, sculpture etc A close friend of mine, a world renowned business strategy professor, once said to me, "I've more in common with a Ph D in History or Physics than I have with a management practitioner. My mindset is that of an academic". He has the discipline of researching everything from original research papers so much so that during Covid all of us in the batch gave up trying to keep up with the fast changing medical research & delegated it entirely to him to read the papers properly and advise us on the latest research, along with the caveats That is the discipline of #academics! This whole thinking that no rigor is required to start spouting your version of history or anything else at all makes me wince Even assuming earlier #history writings are biased they've to be refuted by proper #research, not made up stories!
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Hyundai Venue 1.2 Kappa MT Petrol HX5 Plus
Paying ex-showroom and RTA of 11 Lakhs at the dealer.
Zero Depreciation Comprehensive Car Insurance with Engine Protection and Return to Invoice (ACKO) for 20k.
Hardest decision remains - which color to buy?
Jaipur, India 🇮🇳 English
@TheEmissaryCo Pakistani Mirpuris dominate in the uk. They are more rural and religious.
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Interesting thing I've observed as an American Desi is that American Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi relations are on the whole chill.
But in the UK I've seen a distinct bifurcation. "Desi" events are Indian + more secularized Pakistanis/Bangladeshis.
While the other big chunk of South Asians find community in Islam rather than "Desi."
Ex: a British Pakistani at a Bollywood boat party on the Thames won't be as tight with Mothin et al, but will feel more at home with Indians. In the US, the more hardcore Muslim group is much more miniscule. American subcontinentals are a bit more integrated across that way.
Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼@DrewPavlou
Mothin Ali’s parents were more integrated than Mothin Ali and his wife today. The second generation actually regressed back into Islamist peasant shit. What a fucking disaster, seriously.
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My school building in Delhi . From left to right .
Huge garden - junior wing and badminton courts . Administrative wing .
Sports courts ( basket ball , volleyball etc ) . Senior wing . Canteen . Small garden .
Junior wing . Art room . Music rooms .
Thoroughfare for cars to get to main field .
Main sports field . Cricket , football et all .
Road .
Chanakya theater .
anisha@bip0larc0re
i feel so bad for bom kids like school for u is a building but delhi schools are all so fucking huge i miss laying in the ground in peak winter days and 7 am girls washroom meetups
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@chiragbarjatya Rahul made a call to the white house. Apki baat sun li
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Only one person can stop this war. I am not sure why he is silent. He has the support of crores of people. Fans around the world. Show people one last time what your power is.
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Cheers from Gurgaon.
Nifty has forced me to come out of the hotel to drink. Way too expensive.
This is how I cut costs. 😁
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@omarali50 IMO it is not a script in the conventional way. More like a ledger to communicate trade information. Sort of like inca quipu. It will never be deciphered...
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@greatbong Nice snark. Now try writing something as good as 23% of Vineland
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One Battle After Another (OBAA), not to be confused with Keshto Mukherjee's One Bottle After Another, won Best Picture at the Oscars yesterday, an event that once signified something culturally significant but now reduced to the seriousness of "Most Promising Debutante" in Manikchand Gutkha Filmfare awards.
OBAA is what ChatGPT would generate if it were given a prompt to create a movie that would win the Oscars for best picture. Emasculation, white racists, communist idealists, illegal immigration, Del Toro, and De Caprio, and Sean Penn, OBAA is a probabilistic next token generator, traversing through encodings of woke politics and old Hollywood power, outputting a scene or a dialogue that may not be coherent but is most likely to tickle the jury. Like AI without a world model, it is internally inconsistent, like it was running out of tokens in its context window, with wild tonal shifts in story, and when it ends, you really don't know what it was trying to say or do (like AI-produced content), except, of course, to win an Oscar.
But even a generic Oscar-bait would have been welcome, but OBAA also tries to shock, from time to time, and that too not consistently, like in an opening sequence straight out of Gunda where a character named Perfidia tells another (Lockjaw): Dharmendra maarta tha paani pila pilake, main tujhe maroongi nunni hila hilake. (If you don't know what I am saying, you haven't seen the movie, and trust me, it's even worse), and, if it could have maintained that level of over-the-top absurdity, it would have at least been entertaining, even in a "so bad it's good way", but OBAA is not even interested in that, pretentiously average that it is at its core.
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@LifeAfterFI Yes. But plenty of brands out there already and no unmet needs. Without vc money subsidizing unprofitable business, very difficult to build..
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Have said this to many clients during my career: india has at most 150-200M people with wealth enough to be a profitable segment for a product/service. (Willingness to pay is a different story.)
A billion are just there for arithmetic and have no utility as a customer segment.
Sayan@thesayannayak
We have 1.4 billion people and can't build one globally dominant consumer app. Not one.
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