Farewell Jon Stewart

A bit out of date, still wanted to re-post what I wrote in FB a few months ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/…/jon-stewart-a-sarcastic-critic-of-…
I am sure this article does a much better job, but I wanted to do my own eulogy of Jon Stewart's departure from Comedy Central's Daily Show.
I am depressed; not that I have been able to watch a lot of him these days from India and especially when I am jaded about American politics. When I started watching him (more than 10 years ago?) he blew my mind away. Behind the humor (mostly good but at times crass) and silliness, there was a very intelligent political satire. He brought some refreshingly new templates to the game of political satire. Exposing politicians' and the media's hypocrisy by juxtaposing what they are saying now with what they said a couple of years ago. 

His targets were not just politicians, but also mainstream media (CNN), the political right and of course his arch enemy Fox News. He has had multiple famous exchanges with Bill O'Reilly from Fox News, with each appearing on the others' shows. There is general consensus that Jon won most if not all of those debates. But you also got the sense that they had some grudging respect for each other. Another great format is his reporters giving fake news reports from a "remote place" (while they are clearly standing on another corner of the studio). There are also actual reports produced with tongue in cheek interviews which Jim Colbert was great at before he left the show. 

During the last Indian elections, there was a 5-part report which was absolutely hilarious; it balanced multiple things - backhanded compliments and respect to the massive Indian election machinery including the 100 % electronic voting (which incidentally the US still doesn't have) and of course lots of fun at the expense of some hapless bureaucrats. Like any great entertainer, Jon has groomed a lot of talent that has left his show and started their own very successful shows - Jim Colbert's Colbert Report (pronounced of course as Colbeir Repor) and more recently John Oliver's Last Week Tonight.

I am sure most people on the right side of the political spectrum hate him, often with good reason. But I am sure they wish they had someone intelligent like him on their side (to complement the perennially angry loudmouths they have). His political bias did not stop prominent figures from the right from eagerly lining up to come to his show; his show had huge ratings and any kind of visibility can't hurt; he would invite the more reasonable people and I thought he generally treated them with due respect - I remember a very civilized interview with Mike Huckabee on abortion.
Oh well, this is definitely an end of an era. Will miss you Jon.

Fender benders and street justice

I wrote this a while ago, but didn't feel like posting. Now I am in a blogging mood, so publishing it finally.

One of the maddening things about India is of course how the roads are and how we all drive on them. It is my 8th year since my return and this is one of the things that still irks me. I used to find Hyderabadis' road manners especially bad, perhaps because Hyderabad roads still seemed to have some space (compared to say Bangalore and Chennai) for people to misbehave. That is changing in the last 7 years, as Hyderabad roads have become more and more congested. I am not as bothered by my fellow drivers on the roads these days, and I am wondering if this is because my driving has deteriorated to that level.  I have had my share of accidents; with god's grace no injuries to body, but my cars have taken a lot of punishment; and I have inflicted some as well. Recently I seem to be going through a stretch of bad luck with three fender benders in the last four months or so.

In the US, after an accident, there is a fairly organized process of blame assignment and financial recovery through insurance.What happens after a fender bender in India can be quite chaotic.   At least so it would appear for the lay observer. I routinely see altercations which at times escalate to fisticuffs. Once my driver got into one of these with an auto driver; it was a blur, but I remember forcibly removing him from the melee. In the more civilized encounters (as I can attest to based on personal experience ) there is a certain kind of spontaneous street justice.  Things are happening fast with all the people involved clearly worked up and witnesses gather to weigh in on the matter. If you're a participant, you have to make some split second decisions factoring in all of this.

The first two accidents were on my commute returning home. In the first one, a cyclist with a pillion rider came very fast on an intersection and hit me on the side. In intersections, everyone assumes they have full right of way and come full speed and this happens millions of times every day miraculously without incident. On this occasion it didn't. I believe I was right to assume I was on the "major" road and the other was a smaller street. The bicyclist had fallen down just ahead of me and I motioned to him that I am going to cross the intersection but will stop after that. I pulled up and got down. The driver of an SUV behind me came up, rolled down his window and helpfully pointed out that it was clearly not my fault and I didn't need to stop. I stopped anyway. The cyclist and his rider were not injured but his front wheel was a bit bent out of shape. The cyclist who seemed not older than 18 made some vague complaining noises but I thought his heart was not in it. Another pedestrian started scolding the bicyclist (in Telugu if I remember right) that I couldn't entirely follow. I decided I was clearly not at fault, said something to the cyclist to that effect and bailed.

In the second one, I received a call on my way home which caused me to change my plans and make a U-turn. I swung a bit left to turn right so that I could make the U-turn within the narrow street. As I was turning I noticed a bike on my side mirror; I thought he would be able to swerve away and continued through my turn. He clearly was coming too fast. He barely avoided contact with my car but fell down. Again I stopped and walked over. He seemed shaken up with his helmet at an odd angle, but thankfully unhurt. He seemed unsure whether to be aggressive with me. Again things were a blur, but I remember him pointing to his brake wire which had come off. A bystander joined him and made sympathetic noises. I decided I was at least partially at fault in making a sudden U-turn. My slight left turn before the right turn might have confused him even though I had the right indicator on. I told him he was coming fast, but I will pay for his brake wire damage and gave him Rs. 1000. The guy actually thanked me! I turned around and left.

A few days later on the day of Holi, we heard a crash outside our house, bud didn't think much of it until someone knocked on our door. Someone had backed in and crashed into my trusty old Honda Civic. My neighbors told me they saw who did it (another neighbor); he was drunk and will pay for it. He later stopped by and apologized profusely and agreed to pay up and he did after I showed him the receipts from the Honda body shop.

A few things that stood out for me in all this  - the collective fairness of the street justice; for the most part the impressions of the bystanders actually helped me decide (or confirm my instinct) as to my course of action. The innocence and integrity of the victim of the last one with the brake wire damage. And most of all this is clearly an example of order in chaos that people mention when they talk about India.

Balaji

On learning languages and scripts - part I

After moving back to India, living in Hyderabad, I used Hindi for practical purposes for the first time. I learnt Hindi as a school going kid with a private teacher in my home town Kovilpatti and passed many of the Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha exams. All the way till Praveen Purvardh (had to leave Utharardh for post retirement). I think 12th standard intervened. The syllabus gets quite up there once you get to Vishaarad including studying a bunch of Hindi literature. I remember studying Tulsi ke dohe, Panchavati (portion or Ramayana from a poet whose name I don't remember) among others. The one I fondly remember is the short stories and novellas by Munshi Premchand. His stories were of the simple and soul stirring variety.

Ironically, I didn't use my "knowledge" until I returned to Hyderabad 22 years later. Whether you know Telugu or not, you can survive with Hindi in Hyderabad. For the most part. It was pointed out that what is spoken by the Muslims in Hyderabad is Dakkhani Urdu, not Hindi, but close enough. The dialect in Hyderabad did not sound right for many words ('kara' instead of 'kiya', 'kariye' instead of 'keejiye', 'mere ko' instead of 'mujhe'). But who am I to complain - someone who hasn't spoken Hindi to anyone except the Maukik examiner during my Hindi exams?

To this day, I haven't picked up speaking or understanding Telugu, because I have managed with Hindi. My wife on the other hand who did not know Hindi, has picked up an amazing amount of Telugu and converses freely with maids and our driver in what sounds like flawless Telugu (Telugu folks disagree). But I did something interesting; I learnt to read Telugu. During the first few years in Hyderabad, what started as a casual thing became an obsessive habit - as I drive I would read every name on the boards along the road written in both English and Telugu and started learning the Telugu characters. That over a period of 2-3 years reinforced with textbook consultation once in a while (most of the learning happened as I was driving), now I can read and write Telugu. I am a very slow reader, signs often go by on the road before I finish reading, but the thing is I eventually can, taking a few seconds per word. 

So knowing Tamil and Hindi and now learning just the Telugu script, it invites all sorts of comparison about the three scripts, how they work, the strengths and weaknesses of each of them. And that would be the subject of a subsequent post.

Balaji