Times of India’s rebuttal to Deepika Padukone
A friend of mine shared your article on The Times of India's official response to Deepika Padukone's reaction to their tweet. I realised that while this entire "issue" has been getting mileage, TOI is milking it for all it's worth. And the only thing that will come out of this is more cover shoots and interviews of Deepika Padukone on TOI and their related publications. Exactly nothing will be done by her or her team to ban them from her publicity campaign. Thanks to the furore created by their reaction, the article they published will be the most viewed and the bots who work for them are going to use stuff like this as leverage to claim that their content accounts for the most discussed and trending stuff on the internet.
The platforms to share and spread the word are so vast that by talking about TOI being ridiculous we're only driving traffic to their website, and to their channels and newspapers. Instead, ignoring them and making their content the least viewed followed by undoing our subscription to their feed is a more substantial way to make a point. – Shruthi Padmanabhan
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The Times of India has been publishing suggestive photos and articles on a regular basis although it is not required in the Indian context. They should to some extent respect the tradition of the country. Just because its owners bear a foreign name, it does not mean that they should run the paper like they do in the US or UK. – Gopal
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ToI is right. Deepika is reacting to a silly point as the video has been on YouTube for more than a year. She is deriving undue publicity and cheap brownie points to score over media. – V Sriharsha
* * *
The Times of India has, for the last 40 or more, been an unlettered, uncultured and spineless newspaper. I could have said something much nicer about Deepika ‒ and her cleavage, without sounding as though she just escaped from Falkland Road. The TOI deserves the comeuppance that is being handed out to it. – Sharad Bailur
Indian writing in English
The piece on Mumbai's literary culture is a great and timely read. Perhaps this topic could be opened to debate at the literary festival in Mumbai this December. As a reader and writer, I have felt the same and agree with the author. Many of the English speaking people living in urban India have are disconnected from the reality of India. For want of a better phrase, it is the McDonaldisation of Indian literature in English.
Being cosmopolitan is misunderstood by many of this breed as faux westernisation; being modern as speaking in English and travelling abroad. It is a sad turn that culture and writing has taken and can only be revived by reading some of the best literature of Indian languages and in English by acclaimed authors. – Namita Waikar
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The author observes that "the majority of published work falls into the category of the mediocre middle." This is quite complimentary to the remark by the great science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon that "the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other art forms". So a claim to a mass of mediocrity, together with "some very fine works", actually says that Indian writing in English is doing better than most art forms.
Most crud is quickly recognisable, so why worry about it? You don't have to read it, unless you're tasked with reading a publisher's slushpile. And even that is a good way to learn the writer's craft, by seeing the standard errors so often. – Tim Poston
Shanghai's history of Sikhs
I got excited about this story because my mom's maternal grandparents came from Shanghai. They lived there and came to India to marry off their daughters since they belonged to the conservative Sikh Rajput community. It's even more interesting as my mother's maternal uncle was in the Indian National Army there. He was imprisoned and currently lives in Chandigarh. I suspect he is the only surviving member of the INA. Thanks for showing a little more of the history. – Gina Krishnan
India's Mars Mission
The article on the Mars Orbiter Mission is a very good read. I found original ideas and in-depth notes on MOM along with some great inputs from field experts. – Syed Maqbool Ahmed
On pronouncing difficult names of world leaders
The author of the article titled, 'If you think Xi is difficult to pronounce, try saying Ahmadinejad' tells us that "President Goodluck Jonathan" is easy to pronounce but he does not mention where or who's pronouncing it.
I remember arriving in Rio de Janeiro, and an immigration officer looking aghast at the name in my passport. "Chee ... motch ...?," he asked.
The Nigerian president would become "Goojy Looky". In Rio, English has no way to represent the sound of a final "-an". There is at least a shared alphabet there. Koreans would be even more in the dark. – Timothy Poston
Islamic State or Daesh?
Calling the Islamic State by another name makes a lot of sense. They are neither Islamic nor a state. The prefix gives it an unnecessary justification, which in turn attracts misguided youth. – Naiyer Razzaqui
Tinder dating in Delhi
I read your article on Tinder dating and, I must say, it lays out the situation quite correctly. I recently went on a date with this guy I met on Whisper, a secret sharing app. It hides your identity, and only gives away your location (also optional). But the most annoying thing about this app is that its more about hooking up for casual sex than conversation. Very few are perceptive enough to know when the conversation is at an end, and there are twice as many who think that this is a free hooker service.
I downloaded Tinder and was quite excited at the prospect of meeting new people. Well, that didn't last long as I deleted both the apps after a couple of days. I think it's easier to go on blind dates set up by your friends, than through such apps. As you rightly pointed out, these apps objectify the individual, and are largely about portraying who they wish they were and little about who they actually are. – Paavani Sachdeva
The case for Scottish independence
The piece on the Scottish referendum is the funniest thing I have read in a long time – Krishna Lahiri Majumdar
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A friend of mine shared your article on The Times of India's official response to Deepika Padukone's reaction to their tweet. I realised that while this entire "issue" has been getting mileage, TOI is milking it for all it's worth. And the only thing that will come out of this is more cover shoots and interviews of Deepika Padukone on TOI and their related publications. Exactly nothing will be done by her or her team to ban them from her publicity campaign. Thanks to the furore created by their reaction, the article they published will be the most viewed and the bots who work for them are going to use stuff like this as leverage to claim that their content accounts for the most discussed and trending stuff on the internet.
The platforms to share and spread the word are so vast that by talking about TOI being ridiculous we're only driving traffic to their website, and to their channels and newspapers. Instead, ignoring them and making their content the least viewed followed by undoing our subscription to their feed is a more substantial way to make a point. – Shruthi Padmanabhan
* * *
The Times of India has been publishing suggestive photos and articles on a regular basis although it is not required in the Indian context. They should to some extent respect the tradition of the country. Just because its owners bear a foreign name, it does not mean that they should run the paper like they do in the US or UK. – Gopal
* * *
ToI is right. Deepika is reacting to a silly point as the video has been on YouTube for more than a year. She is deriving undue publicity and cheap brownie points to score over media. – V Sriharsha
* * *
The Times of India has, for the last 40 or more, been an unlettered, uncultured and spineless newspaper. I could have said something much nicer about Deepika ‒ and her cleavage, without sounding as though she just escaped from Falkland Road. The TOI deserves the comeuppance that is being handed out to it. – Sharad Bailur
Indian writing in English
The piece on Mumbai's literary culture is a great and timely read. Perhaps this topic could be opened to debate at the literary festival in Mumbai this December. As a reader and writer, I have felt the same and agree with the author. Many of the English speaking people living in urban India have are disconnected from the reality of India. For want of a better phrase, it is the McDonaldisation of Indian literature in English.
Being cosmopolitan is misunderstood by many of this breed as faux westernisation; being modern as speaking in English and travelling abroad. It is a sad turn that culture and writing has taken and can only be revived by reading some of the best literature of Indian languages and in English by acclaimed authors. – Namita Waikar
* * *
The author observes that "the majority of published work falls into the category of the mediocre middle." This is quite complimentary to the remark by the great science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon that "the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other art forms". So a claim to a mass of mediocrity, together with "some very fine works", actually says that Indian writing in English is doing better than most art forms.
Most crud is quickly recognisable, so why worry about it? You don't have to read it, unless you're tasked with reading a publisher's slushpile. And even that is a good way to learn the writer's craft, by seeing the standard errors so often. – Tim Poston
Shanghai's history of Sikhs
I got excited about this story because my mom's maternal grandparents came from Shanghai. They lived there and came to India to marry off their daughters since they belonged to the conservative Sikh Rajput community. It's even more interesting as my mother's maternal uncle was in the Indian National Army there. He was imprisoned and currently lives in Chandigarh. I suspect he is the only surviving member of the INA. Thanks for showing a little more of the history. – Gina Krishnan
India's Mars Mission
The article on the Mars Orbiter Mission is a very good read. I found original ideas and in-depth notes on MOM along with some great inputs from field experts. – Syed Maqbool Ahmed
On pronouncing difficult names of world leaders
The author of the article titled, 'If you think Xi is difficult to pronounce, try saying Ahmadinejad' tells us that "President Goodluck Jonathan" is easy to pronounce but he does not mention where or who's pronouncing it.
I remember arriving in Rio de Janeiro, and an immigration officer looking aghast at the name in my passport. "Chee ... motch ...?," he asked.
The Nigerian president would become "Goojy Looky". In Rio, English has no way to represent the sound of a final "-an". There is at least a shared alphabet there. Koreans would be even more in the dark. – Timothy Poston
Islamic State or Daesh?
Calling the Islamic State by another name makes a lot of sense. They are neither Islamic nor a state. The prefix gives it an unnecessary justification, which in turn attracts misguided youth. – Naiyer Razzaqui
Tinder dating in Delhi
I read your article on Tinder dating and, I must say, it lays out the situation quite correctly. I recently went on a date with this guy I met on Whisper, a secret sharing app. It hides your identity, and only gives away your location (also optional). But the most annoying thing about this app is that its more about hooking up for casual sex than conversation. Very few are perceptive enough to know when the conversation is at an end, and there are twice as many who think that this is a free hooker service.
I downloaded Tinder and was quite excited at the prospect of meeting new people. Well, that didn't last long as I deleted both the apps after a couple of days. I think it's easier to go on blind dates set up by your friends, than through such apps. As you rightly pointed out, these apps objectify the individual, and are largely about portraying who they wish they were and little about who they actually are. – Paavani Sachdeva
The case for Scottish independence
The piece on the Scottish referendum is the funniest thing I have read in a long time – Krishna Lahiri Majumdar