When I first saw the headline Door, Half Ajar (Nov 22), I was really surprised—Outlook criticising Sonia? Even during the worst performance of the Congress, the magazine never blamed her, it was always either her inefficient footsoldiers or her coterie, never her. And to criticise her now, when she’s actually going strong! That was something. But my apprehensions were soon laid to rest when I read the article. It was the usual paeans to Madam.
Venugopal, on e-mail
Sonia this, Sonia that! Only Outlook, Congresswallahs and some Communists may be enamoured of her, not the rest of us despite your hardsell.
Navdeep Hans, Delhi
Sycophancy is in the Congress culture. And Mr Mehta and his correspondents are doing a good job of it.
Babusri, Allahabad
Why did Outlook have to get so excited about a divorced Smita Thackeray continuing to use her married name (Rules of the Name, Nov 22)? And then to have quotes from the husband about her unsavoury character, veiled references to her extra-marital affairs and her unnatural proximity to her father-in-law. What’s all this fuss about, especially since women quite often continue to use their married name even after divorce simply to avoid the hassle of name change. Altogether the piece belonged more in a daytime tabloid rather than in a sober current affairs magazine.
Anupama Sasi, New York
The people of Maharashtra should make it plain to Balasaheb that they value his leadership and principles but they won’t agree to a dynastic transfer of power to any of his sons, his daughter-in-law or any near relative. The next leadership of the Shiv Sena should come from outside the family, based purely on the merit and character of the individual.
V. Seshadri, Chennai
The piece on Yasser Arafat Not an Inch in Jerusalem, And Yet (Nov 29) mentions Arafat as a friend of India. But I clearly remember him and his organisation plo coming out in ‘support’ of India during the Kargil war and asking it to withdraw from Kargil. What kind of friendship is that?
Yashvant, Bangalore
Isn’t it ironic that Arafat, who spent all his life in a religious/ territorial conflict, was buried in a place composed of two religious entities—Ram and Allah?
Norman Sequeira, on e-mail
Prem Shankar Jha’s assumption that "fear" was an element in Bush’s re-election (The Republic of Fear, Nov 15) is ludicrous. You can’t converse with just two Americans to gauge American sentiment. I’m a first-generation American, descended from immigrant Indians; we all voted Bush, not out of fear, but out of pure logic. You should be happy, Bush has been largely responsible for allowing companies to outsource jobs to your second and third world nations. Kerry was to levy heavy tax burdens on companies who continued to do that.
Bert C., San Antonio, Texas, US
While some of Prem Shankar Jha’s comments in his piece Now, Fear is the Right Key (Nov 29) were right on target, his locating the main causal factor in globalisation is far too overdetermined. For example, Hispanics overwhelmingly voted for the Republicans though it wasn’t deemed to be in their economic interest. It couldn’t have been for globalisation, they would stand to lose from it. Was it a concern for "moral values"—whether it was abhorrence for "gay marriage" and runway judges or Mayor Gavin Newsome’s proactive pose this May in San Francisco? Was that globalisation? Perhaps not. How societies function and engage in decision-making is hard to reduce to a few overdetermined economic interest mechanisms. The answers may be deeper but far simpler.
Anil Jacob, New Jersey, US
Established more than a thousand years ago by Adi Sankara with a view to spreading Hinduism far and wide and to uphold its tenets which include tolerance and universal brotherhood, the Kanchi math is much-maligned now in the aftermath of the events leading to the arrest of a senior pontiff (Swami and Fiends, Nov 29). The ongoing legal proceedings implicating the seer in the case with irrefutable evidence seems to hold him guilty beyond reasonable doubt, the crime having been perpetrated with malicious afterthought. It is beyond one’s comprehension as to how the seer, religiously trained to be above reproach of mortal frailties, could succumb to baser instincts. It is just and proper that he relinquish his pontiff status protempore till he is proved not guilty; it is incumbent on mass media’s part to maintain decorum and decency even as the seer’s portrayal in a few magazines/ newspapers is against all canons of taste.
M. Sundaresan, Chennai
In the item A Lot More People in the Sky (Newsbag, Nov 29), Mr Sunil Arora, CMD, Indian Airlines, was quoted as saying that competition is not a concern for IA. He actually said that new aircraft acquisitions would help IA face the competition. We regret the error.
It’s alarming how a good number of our countrymen, even the supposedly enlightened ones, prefer to banish the insecurity of the unknown (The Future is Big, Nov 22). Don’t they feel any qualms about living under an astral dictatorship that would plan their every thought and action? And can they truly claim they do so to "have greater control over one’s life" when the truth is just the opposite? Collecting information, integrating it to our own knowledge base and making our own intuitive judgements has a pleasure all its own. Outsourcing such very personal matters would make life less interesting. Would such enthusiasts rather live in an environment of reduced uncertainty by way of less freedom of choice and opportunities to exercise one’s own judgement, perhaps in a Taliban albeit ‘prosperous’ type of regime? Does democracy hold much meaning for them?
Manu Rajan, Bangalore
Most of the astrologers featured in your cover story seem to be better businessmen than great future-tellers. Thanks for letting us know how an entire industry is feeding off our future.
Sri Venkatasubramanian, Kochi
As a parrot-lover, I was delighted to see an Amazon parrot (Amazona autumnalis) adorn the Outlook cover, albeit for the wrong reasons.
Avin Deen, on e-mail
Astrology itself may be a science, but its practitioners are nowhere close to being ‘scientists’. In any science, research and continuous experimentation are a must for it to thrive. Astrology seems to be accelerating in a reverse direction. Monetary gain seems its overriding mantra. And when a divine science is manipulated thus, it ceases to be either divine or scientific.
Munir Parikh, Ahmedabad
The clergy in all religions and societies has for long used the fear of the unknown to maintain its dominance over others. Now it also rakes in moolah. So deep is the influence of astrology in our individual and collective psyche that we have become a pack of helpless robots remote-controlled by our astrologers.
R.K. Sudan, on e-mail
Your cover story on the fortune-telling boom has astrologers bragging about their successful predictions. But it is strange that none of them mentions their misses which I am sure far outnumber their hits? The 68-year-old Bangalore-based Astrologer Magazine in its recent issue ventured into the US presidential election but backed the wrong horse.
M.P. Yashwanth Kumar, Bangalore
While I’m no believer in astrology, I can fairly predict this: if Outlook can’t come up with better stories than this, it will go down the tube as its none-too-illustrious competitor is doing.
Biswapriya Purkayastha, Shillong
After reading your cover story, I am unsure how big the future is for Outlook. Earlier it was an endless stream of Top Ten lists, from darzees to schools, films, food, now this.
Prabhram, on e-mail
Astrology is, no doubt, a lucrative profession for some. For the rest, it does nothing to improve their destiny.
K.S. Thampi, Chennai
As a qualified astrologer, I have my own doubts about its rate of success. The subject is too vast and complicated for it to be foolproof. Be that as it may, there is a certain thrill to peeping into the mysteries of the future. Show me a person who’s not curious about his future.
T. Santhanam, Chennai
How come your cover omitted to mention how several of the most prominent Indian astrologers misread the stars, predicting that John Kerry would win the US elections. Even the old names make more blunders than accurate predictions. Groups like the Indian Rationalist Association and the Indian Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Claims of the Paranormal have extensive data on every one of today’s astrological ‘stars’ which would reveal how patently ridiculous this whole business is. Most newspapers put the astrology section on their fun and games pages—where it belongs.
Mehul Kamdar, Appleton, US
What is most disappointing about astrology is that affluent, educated people give it patronage when it is a scientifically known fact that all planetary positions are along predefined elliptical orbits and except for some negligible gravitational effects due to their mass, they have no effect on earthlings.
Mayank Chauhan, on e-mail
Why should astrologers demand industry status for themselves? Can’t they divine when they’ll get it?
Sujith Soman, on e-mail
You pose a pertinent question in the piece Storm Trooper (Nov 22) regarding the Uma Bharati episode—"Could the bjp be fundamentally hostile to backward caste leaders?" The bjp is unquestionably an upper-caste party. It shows in the manner it has treated a leader of Uma’s stature, who led the party to such a resounding win in MP, defeating a well-entrenched Diggy. The bjp has always similarly undermined backward caste leaders, Kalyan Singh being a case in point. The man the party is assiduously promoting as a future CM in MP, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, is an interesting case—he’s from the Kirar community, yet uses a Rajput surname, perhaps to woo his upper-caste masters in the party. And it seems to be working for him, at least temporarily. But he should heed what Mayawati said of the bjp once, that it’s a party of "tilak, tarazu and talwar". Impersonating upper castes is alright now, but his masters will find a replacement soon. And the backward castes then won’t forgive someone ashamed to use his own name for fear of offending his upper-caste masters.
Vishal Kori, Bhopal
William Dalrymple’s letter (I Stand, Misread, Nov 29) claims I am "sour and embittered", this in response to a piece where I’d lavishly praised as many as five writers—Ghosh, Karanth, Khilnani, Mahasweta and Seth. Having got the abuse out of the way, however, he concedes that his elite/mofussil theory of literary merit lies in tatters, now writing that "someone’s background should (not) disqualify them from writing about a particular subject". But he remains delightfully vague about his contributions to Ambedkar studies. And I was amused by his artless attempts at enlisting audience sympathy by cliched appeals to the greatness of India (this "wonderful, complex, and endlessly fascinating country") and to the hospitality of its peoples (as manifest in their "tolerance, warmth and generosity"). Dalrymple calls me "slightly demented", which I suppose I am, for abandoning those ancient Indian virtues in favour of a modern British trait—frankness.
Ramachandra Guha, Bangalore
Being myself a product of St Stephen’s, I cannot fully agree with William Dalrymple. Yet I do concede that sometimes such institutions do foster an elitism not entirely in touch with India’s grassroot realities. Guha, of course, is right to say that being a product of such institutions, and of the elite echelons in India, has not been a bar to sensitivities which transcend this background, but I disagree with him when he seeks to buttress his argument by rubbishing William’s credentials as a researcher and scholar. I think William expends an enormous degree of time and effort to research the books he writes. Having myself written several books on Delhi, I consider City of Djinns a very readable and authentic rendering of the many facets of this historic city. There may be some factual errors in it, but these do not, in my view, detract from its depth and scope, and its outstanding prose. William’s next book White Moghuls is another exceptional example of scholarship and readability, and the fact that it won the Wolfson Prize, Britain’s top academic history prize, bears testimony to this. Currently researching a book on Bahadur Shah Zafar, he is undertaking prodigious research, both here and in Delhi, including new material hitherto not seriously looked at by our own professional historians. William is a foreigner who has fallen in love with India, and while he is conscious of his status as an ‘outsider’, it is wrong to superficially dismiss him merely on account of that.
Pavan K. Varma, London
Most discerning readers who’ve charted Dalrymple’s work on India will testify to two things: first, a growing maturity and depth of understanding of his subject accompanied by a refinement of his writing style; and second, a deepening affection for and commitment to India itself, as reflected in his recent relocation to New Delhi. Dalrymple’s most recent book White Moghuls has been commended in the literary and academic world for its intelligent probing of an early phase of Indo-British relations, most of it based on original research. As someone involved in cultural affairs in the US, I can tell you that his work is held in high esteem here, admired for its sensitive blending of history, places, people and art. As for the mistakes cited in Dalrymple’s work and the facts he supposedly doesn’t know, they abound in almost all writers’ works and I am certain his overall knowledge of Indian history rivals that of most of his critics.
Dr Navina Haykel, assistant curator, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Guha is making a mountain out of a molehill. If George Orwell could write so well about the British working class, it is precisely because he went to Eton, where education is all round and about making "men out of boys". If Amitav Ghosh and Vikram Seth’s generation has done well out of Doon School, it is because of that. However, there would always be exceptional boys and men in any educational institution who would shine in any situation. Pankaj Mishra is one such example. Dalrymple summed up the quality of his writing rather subtly but brilliantly in the review of his book: it could develop and prosper even "in the decaying anarchy of Allahabad University". Maybe he wasn’t right to use the word "mafia" for his fellow writers, but here I suppose professional jealousy got the better of him. But then even Guha’s piece betrays this malady. A long time ago, I read Somerset Maugham’s critique of Henry James, and he found fault with every aspect of the American writer’s quality of writing. It was, however, done with such sophistication and civility that one could not help but admire Maugham’s essay. Guha’s piece, however, appeared more personal.
Surjit Kohli, Gurgaon
While the Guha-Dalrymple exchange is entertaining reading, I think the notion of a strictly class-riven society is misplaced. The caste system has sometimes allowed for social groups to move up and down and to divide and coalesce so that status is not always a permanent or impermeable category. This is so much more true in the Indian context of the "class" system Dalrymple alludes to—the boondocks of Bihar aren’t that far from the boondocks of Dehra Dun. Never mind that someone like Pankaj Mishra, who has been to university and writes in English, is hardly a son of the soil. More pertinent is that the huge difference Dalrymple sees between St Stephen’s and Allahabad University isn’t as great as he imagines. Just as Mishra could well have a cousin in the ‘metropolitan’ world, one of the "St Stephen’s mafia" is more than likely to have a cousin in the "mofussil".
Supriya Guha, Basel, Switzerland
I have no love lost of Mr Guha, but I’ll say at least this much for him: he may write in English, but it is for an Indian audience. The Pankaj Mishra types appeal to the Dalrymples because they are lusting after Western, White approval. Commenting on the incongruousness of an Indian frothing at the mouth about the alleged lack of civil liberties in India in the pages of New York Review of Books, one (Western) reviewer, whose name I forget, sarcastically remarked, "but nobody reads the nyrb in India!"
Raghu Reddy, Bangalore
