Amerikka Desi - My Tamil Novel

Amerikka Desi (அமெரிக்க தேசி) is my first Tamil novel (yes, you read that right; no spelling mistakes from my end either) published by Tamizhini.

The release function is on Jan 4th, 2015, Sunday, 10 AM, at Raga Sudha hall in Luz, Mylapore, Chennai. Drop in.

Further reading: details about the novel in my Tamil blog; an interview related to the novel and literature in general (and here, in Tamil).

Briefly: The novel is about 700 pages. It is about the expectations, experiences, exultations and possible enlightenment of a Tamil graduate venturing as a research student to the USA. It is also a love story in absentia, on music, on philosophies and so on...

If you choose to miss the release function, the novel should be available in Tamizhini stall, in the Chennai Book Fair from Jan 9th, 2015. For international readers, online sales should begin in a month. Shall update.

BTW, a(nother) science book of mine in Tamil - Ulage un Uruvam Enna, a collection of science essays - is also getting released on the same day. Details about the past efforts are here.
 

Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore

The book by Robin Sloan is a wild ride of a crass-free, violence-free, coitus-free, murder-less, humorous, 'unputdownable' treasure hunt mystery set in modern San Francisco and New York and old world "Griffo Gerritszoon serif". The new clerk at a bookstore, a recently jobless art-school graduate and amateur web-designer cum programmer, wonders why the regular customers borrow not the popular titles but only from a 'wayback list' of titles stacked in the back, books with content that make no apparent sense or meaning. The linear quest picks up pace and intrigue involving secret societies, fantasy games, computer geekery (with Ruby programming), more mysterious bookstores with unreadable old books, dungeons with well-lit tables and clamped books, art-world props, prime numbers, pages of description about Googleplex and stenography since the times of Aldus Manutius -- the earliest publisher from Venice. It all ends in a satisfactory if not scholarly whimper, a la the climax of The Name of the Rose (of Eco).

Along the way, we get to meet colorful characters with groovy names like Ajax Penumbra and Maurice Corvina, with bookstore owners who are averse to computers and telephones (leave alone iPhones), sinister overseers professing no harm greater than the burning of books written by authors they need to chastise, with friends (Neel Shah) who became millionaires by perfecting the art of making digital boobs and girlfriends who are geek-programmers working for Google and yearning immortality. The mystery is solved by the ingenuity of an individual brain and not by the servers of Google, who not long ago wanted to digitize all the old world knowledge. A not too subtle message that I don't mind sucking up to.

Deaf Sentence

Blindness is tragic, deafness is comic. That is the premise Deaf Sentence, the latest by the British author David Lodge, begins with. The first few chapters explores this perspective through Desmond, a likable character, spending his early retirement as professor of linguistics from the English department, but still in academic setting and company continuing with his research (or purporting so). He has accepted his deaf state and its mostly comic and tragicomic flailing in stride, without indulging in self-pity (David Lodge acknowledges his growing deafness for the authenticity of the portrayal of the protagonist).

Through him we learn of the (non) workings of hearing aids, what is Lombard reflex and how deafness saves one from that, why TV is a good companion (close captioned) for the deaf than the movie halls, of 'quiet coaches' in England trains, of Beethoven's despair and how his reclusive character is a put-on to cover-up his growing deafness (as he explains in his letters), how Francis Goya's deafness could have enhanced his concentration to do better paintings in his later years and several such interesting deaf stuff.

These sections are peppered with word play and dead-pan humour

One of the strongest curses in English language is 'Damn your eyes!' (much stronger than 'Fuck you!' and definitely more satisfying) [...] "Damn your ears!" doesn't cut it. Or imagine if the poet had written, 'Drink to me only with thine ear...; It's actually no more illogical than saying drink with thine eyes [...] Nor would 'Smoke gets in your ears' be a very catchy refrain for a song [...] 'There's more in this than meets the ear' is something Inspector Clouseau might say, not Poirot.

Leave it to Psmith

The Humorist, P. G. Wodehouse has written over a hundred books, most of which have remained popular crossing three generations, even today. It is surprising that one of the verbose Tamil critics I read found PGW less appealing, after 'going through' two of his books. Wrong books coupled with a lack of appreciation for excellent English, I should say in my kinder moods, instead of wondering in prose on the misfortune of creators having to cast pearls among pigs. If one wonders where to begin to bask in the sunlit prose of those cataloged hundreds and laugh oneself to tears, Leave it to Psmith is a recommended place. You may then move on to The Code of the Woosters or Right Ho Jeeves, available for download at the gutenberg.

Indignant and harmless, effacing and enlightening, light-hearted and lilting, complex sentences of creative elegance, careening the plot into chaos, only to be unraveled like a sheath of spaghetti en route from plate to the designated mouth, with no loose ends, the story revolves around a happy-go-lucky chap Psmith (p silent), endeavoring to purloin the necklace of Lady Constance Keeble, at the behest of her nephew Freddie, only to redouble his efforts for benefiting his friend Mike and his wife Phyllis, who is the step daughter of the Lady with the necklace. And re-triple his efforts in the guise of Ralston McTodd -- the poet who originally got invited to Blandings Castle by the Lady's brother the Lord Emsworth, but absconded -- having realized that Eve Halliday, a friend of Phyllis and on whom he got love-struck the first sight, is also going to Blandings Castle as a cataloger. The plot is more complex than I have described, but the eliciting prose is of supreme clarity I wish I could write a few sentences that way in English, in my lifetime.

Here are two samples to get you going:

Are you really broke?
As broke as the Ten Commandments.

and the next

Planting his foot firmly on a golf-ball which the Hon. Freddie Threepwood, who had been practicing putting in the corridor before retiring to bed, had left in his casual fashion just where the steps began, he took the entire staircase in one majestic, volplaning sweep. There were eleven starirs in all separating his landing from the landing below, and the only ones he hit were the third and tenth. He came to rest with a squattering thud on the lower landing, and for a moment or two the fever of the chase left him.

When Darkness Falls and Other Stories

Ruskin Bond is one of the Indian authors who writes in English; well. His English is not strained and doesn't read 'translated' from a native Indian tongue -- especially when writing the thoughts and emotions of Indians. Another writer with such language ease is R. K. Narayan (I wouldn't put a Salman Rushdie in this league, not because he lacks skills in English -- far from it -- but his would often read pompous and 'high-browed'). Ruskin Bond lives as a bachelor, away from the cities and on the hills, not mingling with the 'literary crowd' and their intellectual cocktail parties ("The cocktails usually run away with the intellect"). But he has prevailed and been prolific with an impressive profile, decked with the Sahithya Akademi to Padmashree honors. Penguin India is re-releasing some of his earlier titles and I bought a bunch.

When Darkness Falls and Other Stories is a collection of stories written by him around 2001. The book is less than hundred pages and takes an hour to complete. Most of the stories are set in and around his hometown Dehra Dun, at a time when he was young and forming. The first story, which lends the name to the book title, is also the best. It describes the life of Markham, the man with a scary face -- result of an army-term accident -- who no one wants to engage or endure. Put up by his longtime friend, Markham dwells in a forgotten corner of the dilapidated Empire hotel in his hometown, rotting along with the furniture through the changing times. A lifetime of resigned acceptance and dormant frustrations manifest one day (rather, night) unexpectedly, irrevocably, and an era passes in an inferno. I liked this story because it didn't pretend to be a story; just events and experience and the rest is upto the reader.

There are other lighthearted stories like The Writer's Bar (supposedly visited by great writers like Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham... to boost the sales) or the Monkey Trouble (Ruskin's younger self describing the enjoyable childhood phase with a grandfather who loves to keep pets, much to the chagrin of the grandmother). The 'ghost stories' are the driest in content and charm, predictable and bland. But then, as one of the character says, "People can't live without stories". These are stories from a corner of India, events and experience told with a personal touch, in simple language. When Darkness Falls... is not the best by Ruskin Bond, but his regular is a better read than the self-professed nine-point someones in the market.

Links

1. Simon Rich in the New Yorker: Unprotected.

2. Scott Barry Kaufman: Brain Stimulation Makes the 'Impossible Problem' Solvable.

3. James Gorman: Pardon Me! A Fearless Look at Our Bodies’ Mundane Functions [A review of Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping and Beyond by Robert R. Provine.

The Quantum of Tweed

British writer Conn Iggulden is known for his historical mysteries. He took a break perhaps, with this one released in the Kindle Singles format. This novella is a send up of James Bond type of spy stories. A 'light' story, tightly plotted, fast paced to suit the genre and format, The Quantum of Tweed features the exploits of a super spy -- (in)appropriately named, Albert Rossi -- who is everything a James Bond is not. Although tagged '00' by a mysterious voice over telephone and licensed to kill, Albert manages to keep the license fresh, and yet strikes havoc and gold and eventually gets away rich. Even as he plans and tries to assassinate the adversaries, they get eliminated without his 'service', first by happenstance, then by coincidence and finally by enemy action (remember Goldfinger?).

The book is not exactly hilarious and no single line is LOL type funny, but throughout its short span (took my slow reading self, less than an hour to complete) holds your smile and attention in place. There are no 'Bond girls', no BMWs (but our man has a Nissan Micra), no gadgets or Walther PPKs (our man favors a Colt), but the plot has enough twists and action. As expected, there aren't any character development or sub-plots, or for that matter an intricate main plot. But it doesn't get as nonsensical and absurd as the 'detective story' from the Nonsense Novels of Stephen Leacock either. This is a story that mocks at spy thrillers and mafioso don-corleone-ish stuff in a stiff upper lip Brit way.

A quick and thrill read that leaves you stirred but not shaken.

Railsea

Post-Harry-Potter English fiction, particularly, page-turning-unputdownable three-hundred-paged 'entertainers', is of a certain mould. For instance, it must cater to 'young adult' and so, all elements in the book should be PG13. The dialogues should be singularly constructed out of simple words with fewer syllables and ample um ah and yu knows strewn around to pad up for the rest of the human consciousness. All old and experienced humans and non-humans will and must listen, obey and follow the 'young adult' protagonist, who will be brave in soul and weak in flesh, but always with a 'vision' that is gifted for his/her virtuous inexperience, a vision or mission or goal that is superlative, indefatigable and unfathomable by any adult in the story. Either that or such development demands effort from the writer and distracts the reader from the 'main narrative'. The story must have some fantastic element, magic by default; it should show off gizmodons and geekery as 'futuristic science ideas' but should always explain them as meta-magic spawned via agarbathi smoke and glabaderifst spells. The story should have non-human lifeforms, vampires by default, preferably succubus, fantastic creatures of fright and delight, always submissive to the protagonists (if for adult, amorous in all its fangs and tendrils) and takes orders in English, preferably teenspeak. And the girls should be in (malnutrition-ed) form-fitting leathers wielding swords as weapons, while the gents are clad in somersault-friendly, shapeless robes. And importantly, none of the characters must be developed to any level of maturity or depth -- All the World is a Stage, hence, all ephemeral Stage-fests must thrive only in the all-pervading now. All of which is OK, but who gets to decide on how dumb the readers should be -- the writer or the reader?

With minor exceptions in plot elements and one neat idea notwithstanding, Railsea, the latest by China Mieville, a talented author at that, fits snugly into the above category.

Railsea has one neat idea. <SPOILER> What if our railroads become in a near-enough future, a sea,  a maze of crisscrossing never-ending rails laid on a terrain of 'dangerous Earth'. Railsea as a symbolism for uncontrolled industrialization and associated deprecation. And mankind train-travels on Railsea as voyages on ships commandeered by noble captains bloodthirsty for Railsea monsters as life-ambitions (all domestic and gentle animals of our times have become megasize Railsea 'man-eaters'), as philosophies; </SPOILER> to far-off forgotten lands, salvaging washing machine wrecks of the 'past'; consulting charts and maps to sunken treasures... Pirates of the Caribbean (all four parts) meets Treasure Island meets Mobydick yielding a sum of the parts that is way less than each of the parts.

Railsea is an adventure tale, i.e. an attempt at that. Its target readers age mentally somewhere between a tween and an adult, too old to rejoice in a Treasure Island and too young to enjoy a Sense of an Ending (Julian Barnes); too modern for the directness of a Mobydick too impatient for the relaid Ulysses (James Joyce), too distracted to comprehend a Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco). The narration has all the elements tailor made for the genre: short dialogues interspersed with narrative that is also short, peppered with bombastic words perhaps to keep the needle of Fog Index reasonably above comprehension, all sectioned in short chapters of length between a page and five; Oh, BTW, the 'and' is printed throughout as &, with an original, lame, idea that reasons its form with rails (China, ayyoo!).

Railsea is science fiction, i.e. an attempt at that. A silly idea taken seriously, way too seriously by the author. Yes, there will be fans who will take it even more seriously, rave on, to interpret and infuse meanings into the copious blandness of a story that chugchugs sedately with blips of action frenzy, to the most predictable of endings even a P. G. Wodehouse could better. The book is a telegraph pre-script for an inevitable screen-script of a mega summer action blockbuster. Brace self, it could become one; such writing doesn't deserve anything better. Pools of joy and waves of sorrow are drifting through my annoyed mind...get the drift, 'young adult'?

Christopher Priest in a recent criticism of the 2012 ACClarke Award nominees had this to say on China Mieville and his Embassytown (I am selectively quoting portions, without traducing Priest but to drive my point):

Miéville has already won the Clarke Award three times – which is not his fault[...] However, a fourth award to this writer would send out a misleading and damaging message to the world at large: it suggests that not only is Mr Miéville the best the SF world can offer at the moment, he is shown to be more or less the only writer worth reading.[...] Although Miéville is clearly talented, he does not work hard enough.[...] He also uses far too many neologisms or SF nonce-words, which drive home the fact that he is defined and limited by the expectations of a genre audience.[...] A better writer would find a more effective way of suggesting strangeness or an alien environment than by just ramming words together. Resorting to wordplay is lazy writing. [...] I also find Miéville’s lack of characterization a sign of author indifference [...] unless he is told in clear terms that he is under-achieving, that he is restricting his art by depending too heavily on genre commonplaces, he will never write the great novels that many people say he is capable of. In the short term, to imply that this (Embassytown) is the best science fiction novel of the current year by giving it a prize, or even shortlisting it for one, is just plain wrong.

After reading Railsea, I agree with Mr.Priest -- whether a Mr. Scalzi agrees or not. I will not pre-order another book by China for some years.

Sacre Bleu

Vincent van Gogh, at the heights of his powers, shot self with a gun he didn't own. Or did he? The Sacre Bleu, an iridescent blue color in most paintings by the Impressionists remains alluring and mysterious to art lovers. Would that hue have a common source, timeless and indefatigable? The creative spirit that paints, sculpts, writes, the hand that moves to create, does it belong to the one who muses or the Muse herself? Christopher Moore answers all these and some more in his inimitable style in Sacre Bleu.

I watched Woody Allen's Oscar winning Midnight in Paris a week before I read Sacre Bleu, the poster of which also used that color blue! The Paris they both depict, a cauldron of creativity and culture, is inspiring and inviting. While the movie glorifies the city and its dwellers in the 1920s, the book is more expansive in its period. Both are positive and entertaining. Surprisingly, the book doesn't utilize the Surrealists of the 1920s -- introduced effectively by Woody Allen in Midnight... -- may be because they didn't use Sacre Bleu, or more to the context, didn't paint real life. Nevertheless, Moore's book has an all star line-up of painters and artists spanning several centuries. Should not reveal more to avoid spoilers, but I was reminded of Danny Ocean's (of Ocean's Eleven) comment, which goes something like: "I always get confused with Manet and Monet; I know one of them is a painter and the other died of Syphilis." I also liked the way Oscar Wilde (and his creation The Picture of Dorian Gray) and Michelangelo are weaved into the main story. But that also prompts my crib. When Moore took a perspective to include sculptors and writers, persons involved in creative pursuits in fields other than painting, I expected him to give a scientist the same treatment as other Creators. Such a character is already there, begging to be 'mused' with all his eccentricities and ludicrous contraptions, in Professeur Bastard.

Don't expect a Coyote Blue or anything that Chris has written earlier. The plot here is even more intriguing and the exploration of the 'what ifs', ambitious. The narrative is taut, the humor, as usual, whacky and sophisticated. In fact, the humour is underplayed (barring the penis fixation, but then it is after all our Chris). Moore's baker protagonist Lucien and family are also likable characters churning up lively banter and bread (with rats). Moore cites enough books and on-field research at the end that made the characters and Paris authentic. He glosses over the explanation for iridescent colors -- which I wouldn't hold against him. I liked the characterization of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, present throughout the book as an ebullient, congenial drunkard of a painter, unlike the one-dimensional recluse portrayed in the movie Moulin Rouge. Sacre Bleu, in my opinion, is the best work of fiction by Christopher Moore. And yes, I don't think Chris ruined Art for everyone. He has entertained it for me in radiant colors.

Timequake

Timequake is an event where the Universe, due to some quirk, incurs a glitch in its spacetime and decides to 'relive' ten Earth years of its existence. Ten years to be relived exactly as in the first run, by every human on Earth and elsewhere, with full knowledge of what is going on as their  accrued 'memory' cannot be undone due to the timequake. They should relive ten years, experiencing the consequences of their follies, of their mistakes and lost opportunities. But Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut is not only this. Timequake is a much maligned book, at least in the writing circle I frequent. One popular Tamil writer, while praising Timequake as a science fiction (which it could be), cited the blurb (about the ten year re-run) and mentioned the book is about the consequences of that event. Having read it, I am now convinced that Tamil writer hasn't.

Timequake is an autobiography. An autobiography can be told only as a 'timequake', a set of events that cannot be altered to suit our convenience and comfort. It has to include all the mistakes, wrong turns and consequences. Timequake is also a fiction. Fiction, as a fertile imagination of the mind of the writer (even as he plays the autobiographer in the same book), is not affected by any 'timequake'. Fiction lives many a life in the mind of the author, even as he relives his life in a timequake. Kurt Vonnegut is the autobiographer. Kilgore Trout is the writer - an alter ego of Kurt. They both recount their stories and life, through 'time quake' and before and after. They even meet, rejoice, relive as they recount. Timequake (1998) is one of the later writings of Kurt Vonnegut (passed away in 2007), is also the most moving of his books, if not the most disturbing (thankfully). The Kurt and Kilgore of Timequake did remind me of the haunting lines of Paul Simon, "Old friends, old friends, sat on their park bench like bookends.... how terribly strange to be seventy..." They do bring out that sigh but they were also uplifting.

If you are getting introduced to the writings of Kurt Vonnegut through this book, be prepared for an exasperation that should turn into fulfillment only as you finish reading the book. For veteran fans of Kurt this feeling is neither new nor artificial. I got introduced to Kurt through Breakfast of Champions, a whacky, funny and seemingly pointless collection of loosely tied up events, sometimes bizarre and sometimes poignant, narrated presumably by the same guy. After going through Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat's Cradle, Bagombo Snuff Box, Welcome to the Monkey House... I have come to expect the exasperation and fulfillment. Books of Kurt works at least in two layers; as individual events, funny and reflective, frivolous and poignant and as a collection with a thread of common message: we, humans, are made of this (war) and this (peace).

M. Rajshekhar: "A shrinking of world views"

He wonders why "we hardly see fiction about present-day rural India either written in English or translated into English?"

Seen any fiction recently about how the new lot of self-selecting government programmes are impacting rural India? Take NREGA. In Chhattisgarh and elsewhere, while the lot of the agricultural labour has improved after NREGA, small farmers are unable to afford labour now. [...]

Similarly, read any stories about environmental change in rural India? There is climate change, manifesting itself in erratic rainfall patterns across rural India. Or, for that matter, seen anything in your local bookshop about how villages are changing as our cities spill outwards — the rise in land values; the buzzing of real estate agents in and around villages looking for farmers willing to sell their land; and the younger rural generation, drawn by the gravitational pull of the cities, and only too aware that agriculture promises hard labour and uncertain gains, urging their parents to sell?

Links ...

1. Michael Bérubé in American Scientist: The Play is the Thing: A review of Bryan Boyd's On the Origin of Stories -- Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction. You may or may not be interested in the book, but you ought to read it for this take-down of evo-psych:

   Let me explain a thing or two about humanists like me. There are legions of us who reach for our guns when we hear the word genome. That’s because we’re all too familiar with the history of eugenics, and we flinch whenever someone attempts an “evolutionary” explanation of Why Society Is the Way It Is; we suspect them, with good reason, of trying to justify some outrageous social injustice on the grounds that it’s only natural. Likewise, there are legions of us who clap our hands over our ears when we hear the term evolutionary psychology. That’s because we’re all too familiar with the follies of sociobiology, and we’ve suffered through lectures claiming that our species is hardwired for middle-aged guys dumping their wives for young secretaries and students (I sat through that lecture myself) or that men run the world because women have wide hips for childbearing, whereas men can rotate three-dimensional shapes in their heads (okay, that one is a mash-up of two different lectures).

2. Sujatha at Blogpourri: Book Review: Karadi Tales' Will You Read With Me? Series

3. Sue Sellenbarger in WSJ: Placing A Value On A College Degree.

4. Vikas Bajaj in NYTimes: In India, Anxiety Over the Slow Pace of Innovation .

Science Fiction Contest

Selva, The Scientific Indian, writes in to alert me about the latest edition of the science fiction contest. I think this is the third year of this contest. Check out the archives of Selva's site for the prize-winning entries from the previous two years.

When Kari met PC - Part 3

The concluding part of the saga of how an entrepreneur succumbs to political correctness -- and yet, loses.

Here are the first and second parts.

Things moved along nicely, and Kari managed to get Rambha and Premananda on board the IndiJoIndi blogging team. The latter came with a bonus: a long beard.

Kari thought he had nailed the problem of political correctness; his satisfaction, however, was to last less than 24 hours. On their first day at work, Rambha wore a Kiran Bedi look, while Premananda looked like Kevin Kostner in The Untouchables. It turns out that both of them blew up half their signing bonus to get a fancy hair cut. Kari's heart sank. Time was running out on him, and fast.

He called his assistant to identify a few more potential IndiJoIndi bloggers to interview.

***

The first interview was with a blogger called CM, who had a loyal readership in the thousands, and whose hair would make for a very happy Peppy. More importantly, his youth was on his side -- Mallika Sherawat had not stolen it, yet; so, his hair can grow!

"So, CM, let us just step back a bit, and check where we are. Here is my summary: Your background is great, your strengths complement ours, and you will get a great launching pad from IndiJoIndi. I think the fit is just perfect. What do you say?"

"What can I say, Kari? I am, like, totally in awe, here," CM punched the air, "Wow!"

"There is just one more thing before we sign the contract."

"What is it, Kari?"

"Oh, it is just a little statement that you sign here. It says you will not cut your hair while you are with us."

"You must be kidding."

"No, I am not. I hate doing this as much as you do. Trust me, I am doing this against my own instincts."

"Which are ...?"

"That people with long hair are inferior".

"Are you nuts? Has anyone called you a hairist, Kari?"

"Don't go all Peppy on me, CM. I am already being harassed by him and his cronies. It is nothing against you. It is just that we at the SuperSleuth Club have this hypothesis".

"Any evidence for this, er, hypothesis of yours, Kari?"

"Why, we have Rambha and Premananda, don't we? Why else would they go and have a haircut? That too, at my expense?"

"This is ridiculous. Do you know the kind of discrimination we face and endure because of hairist bigotry? Here we are, doing our own thing.... And, things get ruined because of idiots like you ... "

"Hey, don't insult me. Just for your information, CM, this discrimination or societal influence or nurture -- none of these has nothing to do with who you are. It is all in the genes, you know."

"What? Say that again."

"I mean, this nurture thingy is overblown. Many people thought it was responsible for why some people turned into psychopaths and serial killers. You know what? Genes are responsible. Genes, CM, GENES! The same genes that also create other inferior people. With long-hair!"

"You know what, Kari? I always thought of you as some dim-witted, overambitious anchovy; now I know that you are all that, and a hairist hignoramus."

"Hey, you are insulting me, again."

"You call that an insult? Here is a real one: 'you, denigrator of hairy - I mean, hoary -- traditions!' Can you take that, Kari? You want one more? How about: you ....""

At which point, their alpha male verbal duel gave way to one with their arms and fists. A few 'biff's and a few 'bang's later, the security people arrived.

***

Kari was taken to a hospital with black eyes and a broken nose. The doctors announced, grimly, that he would require plastic surgery to fix his nose.

***

CM's blog had a lone entry the next day. It read:

There are two kinds of entrepreneurs in blogging: those who have a nose for it, and those who lose their nose for it.

When Kari met PC - Part 2

A tale Follow the saga of one entrepreneur's tryst with personal battle against political correctness.

The first part is here, and the third and concluding part is here.

The link to the post on therapeutic touch was through the 10th Skeptics' Circle, a mela-type post over at Skeptico.

The [PC]² (Politically Correct, Pretty Cool) Funds are run by a team whose members first met in the early 1990s at a Woodstock Festival of Plays for the Children of Flower Children, that their war-hating, love-loving parents took them to. They finished their schooling during the early Clinton years under a John Dewey inspired curriculum, met up again at Harvard, dropped out, grew pony tails, and formed an internet company that sold 'love potions'. The buyers of their potions were told to enjoy them while watching a Keanu - Angelina video called Passion Preloaded. Their venture was an instant hit, a rarity in the dot com era, and it was successfully acquired for a billion Dollars. With so much money in their pockets, they set up the [PC]² Funds, with Carl "Peppy" Smith, the one with the longest pony tail, as their chief.

Many observers feel that [PC]² Funds's street cred is fully deserved; Peppy and his partners have nurtured so many companies into Wall Street's darlings. Consider s² Personal Care that sold, among other things, bath soaps renowned for their shy softness (or, was it soft shyness?); or, t² Services, a provider of training in Therapeutic Touch techniques to practicing nurses; or, i² Books that filled a great void in the market for beginners' guides for the intellectually inclined.

When the venture market in the US became too crowded and brutal, it was inevitable that [PC]² Funds would turn to emerging markets. They did, and their first non-US client was Kari Kalan, who was trying to raise money for his group blog venture.

***

The meeting took place in an ashram in Pune. Kari found the ashram and its environment, with all those devotees with long, flowing hair, creepy. He felt almost like Advani did when he (er, Advani) entered the VHP headquarters after his recent Karachi visit. Kari's discussions, however, went reasonably well, until Peppy dropped a bombshell, saying "everything sounds good, but don't you think you have got to bring some balance into your blogs?".

Kari was perplexed. "What do you mean?"

"Look! All said and done, about half the people in this world have longer hair than the rest. Your bloggers' median hair length is less than 25 percent of the median for the entire population. We suggest that you hire a few from the other side of the spectrum. Remember, we take the first 'PC' in our name quite seriously."

Kari's management training had prepared him for handling situations like this one. He said, "You know, we are already working on this problem. We have got a few interviews lined up later this week with some really hot bloggers with cool names: Rambha, Tilottama, Hariharan, Premananda ... But, I don't know how to put it ... As I see it, our success will most likely ride on the people we have already hired".

Peppy was rolling a flock of hair in his fingers when he asked, "Do you think your new recruits may not be cut out for greatness?"

"Do I think that? Absolutely! Considering their innate differences with, er, normal people, and considering the time they spend on grooming their hair, I don't see how they are going to take us forward!"

"You don't mean long-haired people are not as smart as the others, do you?"

"Hey, don't get all sensitive here, Peppy. It is just a hypothesis."

At this point the talks broke down. Kari was told in no uncertain terms that either his team got more, um, politically correct, or else. Kari was very upset; he tapped into the very core of his self, and it responded with 'Remember the first lesson, Kari: listen to the guy with the money'. So he did.

They set up another meeting the following week to assess IndiJoIndi's progress.

(to be continued ...)

When Kari met PC - Part 1

A tale of one entrepreneur's tryst with political correctness.

Here are the second and third parts.

Many days later, facing a plastic surgeon by his hospital bed, Kari Kalan was to remember the evening when it all started.

***

He had just finished playing with Andy, his four-year old son; he even let Andy's GI Joe skate down his short and silky soft hair, that stuck out straight like the grass in his freshly mowed lawn. He then told him a couple of stories from Tales from Social Darwinism, a favorite from Kari's own childhood days. After Andy went to sleep, he returned to the living room to cuddle up with yet another childhood favorite, the SuperSleuth comics. In the background, CNBC News was on, where a guest was talking about this new, new thing called blogging...

Kari's brilliance in engineering and MBA courses marked him out early as a star. His firm faith in Red Lysenko's theories of pest control put him on a fast track to the very top of the HR heap in a frontline infotech company. His ambitious nature, however, made him hunger for more, as he felt an indescribable void that only winners, apparently, can feel; a void that a steady diet of SuperSleuth comics -- and gin and tonic -- could not fill. It was during this perceived crisis that the CNBC guest's talk about the business potential of blogging caught Kari's eyes, and it fired up his imagination. He could feel that all-too-familiar itch in his pants, and a dream was born.

As with any entrepreneurial venture, this one, too, was a roller-coaster ride. First Kari discovered that ad revenues in blogs could be truly astronomical. But, some of the rules of blogging -- such as taking others' opinion seriously and speaking straight from the heart -- seemed forbidding. Then someone suggested a group blog, which sounded promising, until he discovered that many of them -- such as Crooked Timber and ZooStation -- were run by academics, a community he hated. The final piece of the puzzle that put him firmly on the entrepreneurial journey fell into place when he discovered TPM Cafe and Huffington Post. The idea appealed to him, and he decided to start a group blog with popular bloggers and MSM columnists. Thus was born IndiJoIndi Blog, the Indiana Jones of Indian blogs.

Kari's facility with 180 degree feedback and his bloggers' flexibility allowed them to target relentlessly that one sweet spot craved by their readers. His bloggers wrote about infotech, but not coir mats (except as accessories to making love). Free markets were in, free electricity for farmers was out. Gurcharan Das was in, P. Sainath was out. Laptops for kids were in, girl's toilets in public schools were out. Bipasha Basu was in, Nandita Das was out (except when she went to Cannes as a jury member). Bunty was in, Babli was out (or was it the other way round?). As Kari put it, "there are two kinds of bloggers; those who make money, and those who just blog. Why would we want to be the latter?".

The advertisers loved Kari's rhetoric, and money started flowing in. The early recruits, particularly those who wrote for MSM, were very excited, and were willing to settle for a share of the advertising revenue. Those from the blogging world, who knew better, played hardball; they wanted a contract with a regular revenue stream -- aka a monthly salary. This forced Kari to go for venture funding. It was a fateful decision that would inevitably put him on a collision course with [PC]² Funds, the biggest -- and the baddest -- of them all.

(to be continued ...)