logic of maa- bahen and other simians

For quite some time now, Bhajji and Monkeys have dominated gossip, blogs and news ... thankfully their story ended yesterday ... and in its end, it also ended up hogging max space on TV and morning news papers ... here's my take

A TOI piece suggested that Bhajji didn't racially abuse Symonds by calling him one of those-simian-species-which-should-not-be-named ... instead he was merely throwing "normal" insults on Symonds' mother ... It seems that this explanation was the clincher ... it ... along with lack of recorded proof and solid BCCI clout ... sealed the case in favor of Bhajji.

But look closely ... was the case closed in favor of Bhajji???

If we assume (as claimed by Bhajji, and not disputed by Symonds) that Symonds provoked Bhajji ... with something comparable to maa-behen ki ... then Bhajji should have fought for an equal punishment for Symonds ... Equal punishment for equal crime ... It would have been fair ... Both guys used bad language - both get fined for it ...

but now .. with only one guy punished ... Bhajji comes out of the controversy as the offending offish boor ... while Symonds is the poor sufferer ... Symonds' offensive provocation went unnoticed, while Bhajji coarseness got punished.

Obviously if we had assumed that Bhajji did intentionally call Symonds a Monkey ... then things would have fallen in the grey area ... the comments could have been found to be racially motivated - in which case Bhajji should have been punished to send out the message that society will not tolerate racial attack and abuse ... Or the comments could have been found to be of non-racially-motivated, cuss words of the saala, gadha, kutta, bunder variety ... using which, it seems, is an OK thing in todays international cricket ... and no action should have been taken

Anyways ... it is possible that Bhajji was so messed up with the racial abuse charges ... that he totally forgot to do the logical thing ... demand equal punishment for Symonds ... and with that he failed to establish, for the records, the fact that ... Symonds started it all ...

Now since we are talking about "logic" and "news" ... here's another one ...

Health Secretaries are the kind of people who should NOT be making logical mistakes ... Seems like our current one just made one -

While trying to say that the bird-flu was brought to India from Bangladesh, by illegal poultry traders (a very possible thing ... in fact most probable) he is supposed to have said this -

"If we see that the virus circulating in Bengal is the same as the Bangladeshi type, we can almost be certain that illegal trade of infected poultry from Bangladesh into India was the cause of the present outbreak. If the strains don't match, the virus may have then been brought into India by migratory birds."

how can same virus strain prove that "illegal poultry trade" is the cause of the virus spreading ??? ...

...The same set of wild migratory birds might have landed first in Bangladesh and then in Bengal to spread the same strain of H5N1 virus at both places ...

... wild birds in Bangladesh might have caught the virus and then migrated to join illegal bangladeshi bird-force in India, spreading the virus here ...

... some infected Bangladeshi chicken might have just walked over ...

there are many ways in which both the countries can end up having exactly the same virus strain ... but ... for our health secretary ... if the strains are same - illegal traders are the only ones to blame ...

His only saving grace ... he is procedurally smart ... he did what only an accomplished Indian civil servant can do ... he played it safe .. by by using an "almost" in "...we can almost be certain..." he sort of saved his a** ... that was very clever ploy... but it cannot fully hide fallacious logic ...

So that's all for today ... one should always remember that actually ... things are not all that bad ... not everything is gloomy ... and not everything needs to be logical ... so we can all chill out ... watch the news ... and enjoy

(Update 05 April 08)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Ducks_cause_of_bird_flu_outbreaks/articleshow/2927117.cms

Madman - Perur writes well

Here's link to a very nice story written by my pal Srinath

http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jan62008/artic2008010545058.asp

easy come, easy go

One year's up

It's been exactly one year since the day I started chemo therapy

Rahim shows the bright part of it -

रहिमन विपदा हू भली जो थोडे दिन होय |
हित अनहित इह जगत में, जान पड़े सब कोय ||

Says Rahim these troubles are good, though if of a limited size
they teach you good from the bad, and make you worldly wise

TATA नन्हूँ

Yesterday TATA launched its new people's car - Tata Nano ...
Here's a pic (googled out of a german website)

I just love the name "Nano" ... It sounds great ... and very importantly the actual meaning of the word ... and its popular-press usage ... both add a favorable flavor to the car ...

First on to the popular press ... "nano" is most commonly used along with "technology" in the word "nanothechnology" - the next in-thing ... the cutting edge of modern development ... the driving force of future ... nice association for a car that is touted as a paradigm shift (yes i am licensed to use the "p" word) in auto industry ... gives you the feeling that TATA Nano is capable of being the driving force for the masses that will make India's future

Not to leave the actual meaning of the word ... its a prefix that means one billionth ... with India's population being a little more than a billion ... one billionth is just the right fraction for each person and his/her car ...

Now to my favorite ... Nano sound so much like " नन्हूँ" ("nanhu") ... the everyday coo-chi-coo hindustani word that means - small and cute ... bang-on target for the car ...

nice choice of a name ... Mr Tata

(there is some discussion on small car related problems at Gokhale's blog post)