may 28th, 2007
whereas india's ruling dynasty is most keen on keeping its people 'barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, and preferably illiterate, too'.
the reason is that educated people cannot stand the idea of dynasties and empty promises.
here's kristof painting a picture of rapid advancement in china. it is true that they have sworn to create 1,000 universities that will be world-class.
meanwhile, india is creating nalanda. with amartya sen in charge, naturally it will be a useless university, just like his fellow-communist k n pannikar destroyed sri sankara sanskrit university in kerala.
http://iraqwarit.blogspot.com/search/label/Kristof
3 comments:
Hello Shadow Warrior,
Just popping in to say thanks for linking to Kristof's article at my site. Well, I was going to just pop in but, as a Toronto native(*) who's visited Mumbai (a decade ago) and Beijing (a month ago) I appreciate your various takes here. See you around ..
(*) home to Rohinton Mistry, by the way, whose best-selling books on India (especially but not limited to A Fine Balance) are quite revered over here.
hi sydbristow, thanks for dropping by. and thanks for putting all that nytimes stuff up so people can read it. i didnt realize kristof had a chinese wife.
we have some people on this blog who are from canada, vancouver perhaps. we have been following the testimony in the air india bombing trial.
well, i've been to toronto a couple of times years ago, too. we here are not very thrilled about beijing or china, considering china a nasty imperialist menace. mumbai hasn't changed a lot in the last ten years except real estate prices there are mind-blowing: USD $1 million for a 2000 sq ft apt in a posh area.
i am not all thrilled about rohinton mistry . most of these indo-english writers tend to exoticise and romanticize the negatives, and in any case writers in indian languages tend to write far better prose. i'd recommend the late o v vijayan, who wrote mind-blowing stuff, and translated it into english himself.
nizhal yoddha (shadow warrior)
Shadow Warrior,
I was in one of those very posh apartments of which you speak .. I think even then the price was well over a million. The owner was the head of (what was then, and in terms of accountholders) the largest mutual fund in the world, UTI (Unit Trust of India). It was a "penthouse apartment" with full, open panoramic views of the city and beyond. I nice breeze wafted in as we were served Indian delicacies in a most luxurious though not overstated (minimalist almost) setting. I must say I was overwhelmed.
Thank you for your Indian author recommedation, I am definitely interested.
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