Bathtub metaphor

Grassy things

2006-08-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

I don't know whether to feel a little bad for Günter Grass, or to think that the timing of his 'confession' is adequately brilliant for the sales of his book. I havent read anything by him except Crabwalk (2003), which I liked. But from what's turning out to be a call for action across the 'wronged' literary public, particularly the German public (whose reaction isnt surprising at all - in an Indian context, it's like Nirad Choudhary proclaiming that he loved India after all), it seems unfair to pressurize him into giving his Nobel back.

Salman Rushdie has rushed (er, pun not intended) to his defence (in today's Guardian), and made two very relevant points. One, Günter Grass is an author and a human being. The two need not be mutually exclusive, nor should be they only read together. If he got the Nobel for being an author, it should remain so, regardless of what revelations he makes in the course of his life. Two, that one only has to read a page of his Grass's novels to see precisely how well he can write. I wasnt bowled over by Crabwalk, and thought it became melodramatically repressed in certain areas, but he certainly conveyed the essential point of the book: that neo-Nazism can exist, and that it can exist in and through frightening channels. Grass's 'youthful mistake' need not, according to Rushdie, make him any less of a great writer.

But, great writer or not, there are also extremely compelling reasons to be a part of the public that is understandably hurt at Grass's confession. As a writer who has vocally and equivocally proclaimed himself to be a chronicler of a rebuilt and restructured Germany, he is as tied to his books and they way they are read as, say, Milan Kundera with Prague or Pamuk with Turkey. In a reader's mind, places stay.

And if it's all just a publicity stunt, and Grass has followed dear Jaswant Singh's not-so-exemplary example, the book will certainly be on the bestseller list very soon. I hope it isnt.

Blog to Blawg

2006-08-04T05:04:00.000-07:00

Apparently, blogs which contain a fair amount of legal information/opinions are called 'blawgs'. Since the self has officially gone from unemployed undergraduate to unemployed postgraduate (whee!), and has also officially become a Law Student, one is expected to know the goings-on in all these sort of things. Er. Along with goings-on in almost everything else as well.

College has officially been on for three days, and I underestimated the people I would be studying with, overestimated the infrastructure I would be studying in, and have become a convert of the Hop-To-D-School variety. I do this even in the pouring rain. The mutton cutlet calls to me.

If only it could be otherwise...but...

2006-06-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

You still own my heart, Argentina.

Of Spectres and Sarcasm

2006-05-04T01:13:00.000-07:00

In the memory of my beloved Eco III/A, which has only one exam left (PF!!!!), and J.K. Galbraith, who I will forever revere. Our 2006 yearbook article - Of Spectres and Sarcasm.

*

Many spectres haunt Room 15 and 16. Some are human, some superhuman, and some jellyfish-like. I fall into the last category, and shall borrow from Paul Baran’s inspirational phrasing and be a prophet of gloom and doom.

We are economics students. This is about us. It is about everything, nothing and some third year reading material that I actually ended up reading. There are inside jokes, which nobody else will find funny. Some are so silly that you’ll read this with a polite, but disbelieving, smile on your face and realize how humans can be amoeba sometimes.

Karl Marx probably owned a very up-to-date thesaurus. He was an extraordinarily verbose man who appeared to go into fits of depression if he did not use polysyllabic words where monosyllabic ones would have done just as well. You are forgiven if you do not know what the universality of dialectic theatre is. You are also forgiven if you squint and peer at the opening paragraph of the manifesto, which starts with ‘ A spectre is haunting Europe…’ and remind me of a vampire novel about looming creatures of the night, and not of the almost-Bible of political economy.

The problem, once identified, is rather simple. It is very difficult to read economic theory books. They are not written for students. We were comforted on this point, and then commanded to read them, citing course-structure, pressure of examinations and all that sort of thing. It is even tougher to read Economic Theories of Common Sense. These are all highly acclaimed, award winning, incredibly succinct treaties on the supposed rationalities of human behaviour, and their authors pat us on the back and glibly announce that we did not know all this before because we have no brains and once a utility function is found the world is a happier, happier place.

The first two years whoosh by (for some, they positively crawl) with graphs and calculus and statistics. We learn about the number of potatoes that were carried on specific railway tracks in India in 1860. Those who do not like microeconomics are doomed. They are heretics to the Faith. They are shunned, discarded, ignored, while the others waltz through income and substitution effects, and deliriously wonder about how the backward bending supply curve of labour comes about and why on earth it isn’t the best thing to start a conversation with. The heretics take the easy way out and try to find things to do that they will not fail in.

One meets Marx in the third year, a bit nervously. A year in which everybody is occupied with being occupied and complaining about finding the Deeper Meaning Of Life. Those who do not ruminate on such thoughts are envied as being allowed to be a little less stressed, but in secret are perceived as marginally crazier. It does not help one’s cause if one has declared economics as something that will certainly not be the love of one’s life. Then Public Scorn and Public Pity play a great alternating role.

Come third year, and the scale tips. Mwahaha, chuckle the Unfaithful. Somewhere in the cosmic amphitheatre of fate, SOMEWHERE, justice prevails. The situation improves, considering that this time last year we were trying to decipher what Mr. Hecksher and Mr. Ohlin thought up in their free time. Marx, with his dialectic bongo drums and the mist-enveloped region of his far-cleverer mind, is a kindly old soul. One beams at him, even if he uses too many adjectives.

J.K. Galbraith has been called a hyperliterate economic sage. I agree. He so literate that he warms the cockles of my heart. It is most surprising that suddenly economists are readers, and they drop names like they drop assumptions, and Pirandello’s characters find a mention in Heilbroner’s capitalist logic and all is good with the world. Of course economics has to be literate: after all, what else can economics do in its free time? Mr. Todaro, however, is very unique. He has gone on a round trip of all the developing countries of the world, collected quotes from appropriate people, and printed them in his book. It is possible that his publisher told him that that is what people who want to sound profound and heartrending do.

To be a prophet of gloom and doom, like I said, is an immense task. It requires one to think beyond isoquants. Qua-what? I think of Keynes and his attempts to be vaguely right rather than precisely wrong, and decide that he did have a sense of humour. It is IMPERITIVE to have a sense of humour if one studies the subject. It hones, nurtures and develops irony. If one cannot laugh at butter and guns, and the Godfather joke, the charm of the subject eludes us.

Q: What do you get when you cross the Godfather with an economist?
A: An offer you can't understand.

Are you not laughing yet? See, see, see! We are funny people.

Rooms 15 and 16 tell a story. It is an interesting one. The walls agree that they house some of the stranger specimens of humankind. Using the term loosely, of course. There are chances that aimless, wandering people looking for the room in which class was supposed to start ten minutes ago are from the economics department. The mysteries of the timetable are never quite solved when competing with fiscal deficit for the attentions of an over-taxed brain, pun intended. Which goes without saying – by the end of three years, the said body part resembles a distinctly stringy noodle.

Hmm. But not everything must be flippant, as we have been reproachfully told. The subject is a Serious one. It moves, it shakes, it rumbles, it does the tango all on its own. It frowns at all snarky things in life. Ahem. We, er, do not.

So Marx is revered, Karl more than Groucho, which is a pity, because the latter as much of a genius.

Midnight moocow

2006-04-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

Shashi Tharoor has such a gorgeous voice.

making this a done thing

2006-04-12T10:21:00.000-07:00

aha.

I will make this blog-thing be joyous!

Oddly enough, I have a gazillion multiple entries. It is all strange. This is 2006's first post. I am about to crash into exams. COllege is over, but there are last things to type up and one conversation to be had. Am I looking forward to it.

In this strange, sentimentality-in-stages way, yes.

two two oh five

2005-12-31T07:19:00.000-08:00

How does one blog? How does one gather all the thoughts and sit in front of the screen and type? Egh. I always forget what I want to say. It's actually rather funny. I have this one blogworthy moment and I tell myself 'This'll make an entertaning post ~~that only two people will actually end up reading, but still~~', and then I sit down and roll up my overlong-sleeves and think. And then I forget. I really don't have that bad a memory, but blogging always does this to me. Whining is easiest to type, and therefore whining gets done most often. QED.

2005 has been a funny year. I don't recall one in which I've jumped to extremes that much, but this year I did. All I want from 2006? A little less stress, a few more books, and decisions made. I want a clear head. I have nothing special planned for tonight - Medhavi might come over and we wil pig out on pizza and watch squee-worthy movies. I havent indulged in reminiscing because, frankly, there is a lot of stuff I would like to forget. I dont find anything particularly spectacular about New Year's Eve, and I spend most of January trying to remember that it is '06' and not '05' when I write the date.

On performing : I would like to do less of this. Except the one play that I really, really want to do which I most probably will not be able to. Payback by fate. It's not been the most memorable years, dancing/acting-wise, and I'd like to remdey that by being choosier about what I end up doing. No point in being insane and trying to do everything.

On writing: More next year. A definite promise, that.

On people: A species still to be avoided. Aishwarya, you're my favourite person of the year. Supriya, COME TO DELHI. I look different and more rabbit-like. We will bundle you with sweaters. Everybody else, who will not be reading this because they dont know of its existence, I do like you if I talk to you. ;)

On red lipstick: It isnt that bad.

On reading: Still the most kickass pastime. Hands down. JKR, Pratchett, LeCarre and Nabokov have been obsessed over a lot.

Quote of the year: 'It was a very interesting conversation. I'd forgotten who they'd been; they weren't interested in who I'd become' - Milan Kundera, Ignorance

2006? I await with snark, rum and a tuneless ballad.

two two oh five

2005-12-31T07:18:00.000-08:00

How does one blog? How does one gather all the thoughts and sit in front of the screen and type? Egh. I always forget what I want to say. It's actually rather funny. I have this one blogworthy moment and I tell myself 'This'll make an entertaning post ~~that only two people will actually end up reading, but still~~', and then I sit down and roll up my overlong-sleeves and think. And then I forget. I really don't have that bad a memory, but blogging always does this to me. Whining is easiest to type, and therefore whining gets done most often. QED.

2005 has been a funny year. I don't recall one in which I've jumped to extremes that much, but this year I did. All I want from 2006? A little less stress, a few more books, and decisions made. I want a clear head. I have nothing special planned for tonight - Medhavi might come over and we wil pig out on pizza and watch squee-worthy movies. I havent indulged in reminiscing because, frankly, there is a lot of stuff I would like to forget. I dont find anything particularly spectacular about New Year's Eve, and I spend most of January trying to remember that it is '06' and not '05' when I write the date.

On performing : I would like to do less of this. Except the one play that I really, really want to do which I most probably will not be able to. Payback by fate. It's not been the most memorable years, dancing/acting-wise, and I'd like to remdey that by being choosier about what I end up doing. No point in being insane and trying to do everything.

On writing: More next year. A definite promise, that.

On people: A species still to be avoided. Aishwarya, you're my favourite person of the year. Supriya , COME TO DELHI. I look different and more rabbit-like. We will bundle you with sweaters. Everybody else, who will not be reading this because they dont know of its existence, I do like you if I talk to you. ;)

On red lipstick: It isnt that bad.

On reading: Still the most kickass pastime. Hands down. JKR, Pratchett, LeCarre and Nabokov have been obsessed over a lot.

Quote of the year: 'It was a very interesting conversation. I'd forgotten who they'd been; they weren't interested in who I'd become' - Milan Kundera, Ignorance

2006? I await with snark, rum and a tuneless ballad.

two two oh five

2005-12-31T07:17:00.000-08:00

How does one blog? How does one gather all the thoughts and sit in front of the screen and type? Egh. I always forget what I want to say. It's actually rather funny. I have this one blogworthy moment and I tell myself 'This'll make an entertaning post ~~that only two people will actually end up reading, but still~~', and then I sit down and roll up my overlong-sleeves and think. And then I forget. I really don't have that bad a memory, but blogging always does this to me. Whining is easiest to type, and therefore whining gets done most often. QED.

2005 has been a funny year. I don't recall one in which I've jumped to extremes that much, but this year I did. All I want from 2006? A little less stress, a few more books, and decisions made. I want a clear head. I have nothing special planned for tonight - Medhavi might come over and we wil pig out on pizza and watch squee-worthy movies. I havent indulged in reminiscing because, frankly, there is a lot of stuff I would like to forget. I dont find anything particularly spectacular about New Year's Eve, and I spend most of January trying to remember that it is '06' and not '05' when I write the date.

On performing : I would like to do less of this. Except the one play that I really, really want to do which I most probably will not be able to. Payback by fate. It's not been the most memorable years, dancing/acting-wise, and I'd like to remdey that by being choosier about what I end up doing. No point in being insane and trying to do everything.

On writing: More next year. A definite promise, that.

On people: A species still to be avoided. Aishwarya, you're my favourite person of the year. Supriya , COME TO DELHI. I look different and more rabbit-like. We will bundle you with sweaters. Everybody else, who will not be reading this because they dont know of its existence, I do like you if I talk to you. ;)

On red lipstick: It isnt that bad.

On reading: Still the most kickass pastime. Hands down. JKR, Pratchett, LeCarre and Nabokov have been obsessed over a lot.

Quote of the year: 'It was a very interesting conversation. I;d forgotten who they'd been; they weren't interested in who I'd become' - Milan Kundera, Ignorance

2006? I await with snark, rum and a tuneless ballad.

Concerning relevance

2005-11-29T11:00:00.000-08:00

It is past midnight and there is no coffee. I have an assignment tomorrow which I had no inclinations to study for, despite my friend Namrata's insistence that I should, because it is a paper I rather dislike. The relevant coursework revolves around the efforts of a Mr. Turnip Townshend, who Aishwarya later informed me, was LORD Turnip Townshend instead. But it is economics, and there is a Mr. Turnip. Things do not get much stranger.

Namu! Namu! Namu! Rhodie! *does the happy dance*

The blog and the life have been separated of late. Somehow am lacking the inclination to come online and post, apart from cursory mailcheck, and the life is a bitch ~~but we all know that~~. Not good.

Especially long dance class today, most irrelevant post. How DO people write nice, lengthy, interesting, well-informed, funny things? Er. I don't know. I'm just not one of them.

Maynard and Judgment Day

2005-10-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

The concept of Judgment Day is simple. One sins, and will eventually have to face the music. Everybody sins.

Maynard isn’t Oscar Wilde. He doesn’t think that we’re all lying in the gutter and that some are looking up at the stars. To Maynard, stars are these vague twinkly things that don’t have the things that an economist desperately requires –
· No supply
· No demand
· No market
· No capital
· No bottle of cyanide pills.

Yet Maynard is a romantic. He used to secretly read stories about British adventurers discovering Egyptian mummies in tombs when he was supposed to be calculating how many coconuts and fish Robinson Crusoe managed to acquire eventually. He would like to be a mummy. He even thinks he’d make a rather good one. The prospect of returning to terrify the world has some merit.

MR. MAYNARD?

Maynard jumps. He looks around. At first there is no one, but then he can see a ghostly figure holding a plasticky sickle. “Er,” he says, cautiously. “Are you someone I know?”

I AM SOMEONE YOU MIGHT KNOW.

There is realization, harsh, loud, and drudging through his brain like Honoria Glossop’s laugh.

“You’re someone everyone knows they’ll meet.”

PROFOUND, UNDOUBTEDLY.

Maynard racks his considerable brains very hard. “I’m afraid I can’t quite remember…”

Death waves the sickle, pointing to the body hidden under stacks of photocopies. SORRY ABOUT THAT.

“But…but…I cant be dead.” Maynard says desperately.

EVERYONE HAS TO BE.

“Not now!”

Death shook his head sympathetically. WHY NOT?

“Then I’ll be dead!”

THAT WOULD BE THE SUMMARY OF THE SITUATION, YES.

Maynard gets irritated. “Why on earth are you being so patient?”

ONE LEARNS WITH THE JOB.

“Do I have to be dead now?”

Death fishes out a grubby notebook and thumbs through it. YES.

“But I was just becoming famous! I was reconstructing the world! I was introducing new, stupendous economic concepts that were setting the planet ablaze!”

Death nodded, appreciating the rhetoric. BRAVO.

“And if I die now, my rival economists will steal my ideas! They’ll plagiarize!”

WHAT AN UNFAIR THING TO DO.

Maynard considers this. Then he realizes that he’s speaking to someone who’s never had to deal with unfairness. “Look,” he says, “It wasn’t my fault that all those photocopies fell on my head.”

Death looks severe. THEY WERE BADLY STACKED.

“I suppose you have a better method of keeping paperwork?”

I DON’T REQUIRE PAPERWORK.

“Right.” Maynard concedes. “Okay. But can’t this be a….I don’t know…a warning sign or something? I promise that next time I’ll keep them properly stacked and not stand under them.”

TOO LATE.

“That’s unfair.” Maynard murmurs plaintively.

THINK OF THE LONG-RUN PROSPECTS.

The words ‘long-run’ warm the cockles of Maynard’s heard. He cannot help it. He was born that way. “What long-run prospects?”

THAT THE UTTER SURPRISE OF YOUR FATE WILL NOT HAVE BEEN SPECULATED UPON, AND THE ROYALTIES YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL REAP FROM YOUR WORKS WILL IN FUTURE DRIVE MANY UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TO THE SIMILAR QUEST.

Maynard is impressed. “That almost sounded appealing.”

Death shrugs amiably. ONE LEARNS TO MAKE THIS SORT OF THINGS SOUND FUN.

“So I have to be dead?”

YES.

“No warning sign? Last chance?”

OUT OF MY HANDS, SIR. THESE ARE DECIDED BY HIGER POWERS.

Maynard wonders what the Higher Power could be.

“Can I recover my tortoise-rimmed sunglasses from my corpse?”

IF YOU CAN WADE THROUGH THE PHOTOCOPIES.

Maynard performs the required wading, discovers just how strategically the papers fell on his cranium, and sighs a little. If only he had hired a secretary to keep the papers in order.

He dusts his hands and looks around the place, a little mournfully. “Righty. Lets hop it.”

EXCUSE ME?

“Lets proceed. Go. Move on.”

YOU COULD HAVE JUST SAID SO.

As they make their way into the dank, grey, English sky, Death asks, DO YOU KNOW MARX?

Maynard is tempted to say ‘duh’.

THEY BOTH TELL THE MOST AMUSING STORIES, Death says chattily.

“Both?”

KARL AND GROUCHO.

“Oh.”

* Notes - Supposed to be the third in the Maynard series. The second is not yet written. Death is Pratchett's.

First day of blah

2005-10-28T04:08:00.000-07:00

I generally like holidays. I like the concept of holidays. They are days when I do not have Ouch! rehearsal or dance class or college. Well, there was college in the morning, but it was surprisingly laidback and mellow, as opposed to what college normally is. I'm not quite used to having evenings free. So I hum. And twiddle thumbs. And get down to the Real Fun in Life.

All capslock unsarcastically (?) intended, da.

I have things to read, things to study, things to be floozy about. I think I shall read.

Quizzes

2005-10-20T10:32:00.000-07:00

Your personality type is RLUEI

You are moderately reserved, moody, moderately organized, egocentric, and intellectual, and may prefer a city which matches those traits.

The largest representation of your personality type can be found in the these U.S. cities: Albuquerque/Santa Fe, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, Richmond, Denver, Providence, Louisville, Washington DC, Austin, Harrisburg, San Antonio, Baltimore, Indianapolis and these international countries/regions Bulgaria, Canada, Brazil, Poland, Finland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Hungary, Germany, France, Argentina, Portugal, Thailand, Switzerland, Spain, Russia

What Places In The World Match Your Personality?
City Reviews at CityCulture.org

Hmmm. It is right. I like the fact that Russia came on the list. :) Oooh, and Italy.

Cold Comfort Farm.

2005-10-12T04:54:00.000-07:00

It is funny. And I mean funny.

It has been way too long since I have sat with a book in the middle of the afternoon and laughed to myself. LAUGHED. Like HaHaHaHa laughter.

Like Supriya said to me yesterday, it is unbelivable that this book was written in 1932. Bra-collecting Mrs. Smiling, and Amos and his lack-of-butter-in-hell and Seth and the open shirt buttons. Omg.

I think that, after Embers, this could be the most brilliant book I have ever read.

Bathtub metaphor

2005-10-12T01:07:00.000-07:00

I am being prolific. I am proud.

This is quite amusing.

Ram Lila was excellent. I have eaten enough potatoes to last a lifetime. I am going to look like a potato. I can see the future.

Bathtub metaphor

2005-10-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

Gacked from Supriya, the list of leading public intellectuals. I recognized quite a few, and voted for Umberto Eco(BECAUSE *guh*), Sen (because he is just the funniest, cutest economist alive), Sunita Narayan (because she's incredibly underappreciated in her own country and a most brilliant woman) and Eric Hobsbawm (some of his work is in my Comparitive Economic Development course material and it is sleep-inducing, but his biography 'Interesting Times' is incredible and his stuff on the Industrial Revolution makes one WANT to know more about steam engines and emerging capitalists *gasp*).

Interesting, of course, as to who decides which philospher to include in the list. I've always been of the fatalist opinion: i.e. works/ideas/beliefs are almost always appreciated posthomously, because, well, death is binding and final and a pretty darned good way of ensuring that no more spouting is done by Mr. Philosopher. The only one I can recognize in that profession is Jean Baudrillard, and I have always read his quotes with a smile.

In other news, I also want a bad poem for myself. *sulks*

Blips in the graph

2005-10-02T11:20:00.000-07:00

*brushes aside the 'Omg. Long time'-ness*

There are times when sitting and thinking and feeling bored are things that NEED to happen. I want to sit. I want to be bored. I WANT. I do. I do not want to go to college and then wonder if I'm going to be able to get to rehearsal A on time, and then throughout rehearsal A wonder if I'm going to make it to rehearsal B depite the traffic. Then reaching rehearsal B and wondering if I'll be able to go home vaguely. I mean, I like it. I would be miserable if I didnt do it because I've done it for so long that its part of my life, but YE GODS. I feel like a guppy.

So today is the second day of the autumn break and it is the birthday of the Father of Our Nation, who everbody has slightly mixed views about anyway, but is too polite to say so or has the sense to let bygones be bygones. Gandhi was coming on DD-I today, but I doubt anyone saw it because DD is extinct and One Tree Hill just seemed to overflow with such teen angst that it was irresistible. *sigh* I wanted to see Gandhi. Result: Less of Gandhi Jayanti, and more of Sunday laziness.

There was chocolate cake today. A lot of it.

I have work to do this break. Systems project and Policy project, notes to be made, vague course related things to wrap up somewhat because ~~oh, cripes~~ the latter half of October and all of November should be rehearsal hopping again. I whine, and I like it, and I whine, and sometimes I dont like it. Vicious cycle.

So, nothing intelligent said just yet, and hopefully one shall gravitate from jellyfish-intelligence to something more entertaining. Glump.

When feeling monumentally bored...

2005-08-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

....one must not scare people on MSN. Erm. *peeps at Namu*

I am TRYING to have a relaxing weekend here, extra day and all. I have a feeling it may not be a very good try, or that the choice is out of my hands.

*pokes around for Divine Providence*

Mr. Maynard and the U.M.M.s

2005-07-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

Introducing Maynard.

Thirty-something, owner of chocolate-coloured shoes with a red sole, fan of Elton John, John Berryman and Walter Mathau, also fan of Blackadder and Wilde, nail biter, half-baked capitalist, artist of the unobserved life.

So Maynard is an observer. An observer with a keen, spectacled eye. He has chosen his model well, and calls it the Unsuspecting Mercantilist Mannequin. Unsuspecting because, as Maynard giggles to himself, the poor sod doesn’t know he is being Watched; Mercantilist because it the fledgling stage of the Venerated Subject; Mannequin because of a certain glassy-eyed waxy look the object of observation acquires after the required 9 to 4: 15.

But as Maynard is not a very good conversationalist, this collection of thoughts will trespass many rambles and many nooks. He will ask you how your mother, father, sibling and grandparents are – he will certainly remember the names – but the conversation ends there. Unless, of course, you are able to catch his attention with some interesting quip about cold turkey and how the Fed. refers to NAIRU as Nothing About Inflation (is) Related (to) Unemployment. In which case he will bestow undivided attention because FINALLY there is someone who understands.

INTRODUCTION:

At last, the unveiling of the U.M.M. (refer to above). Maynard’s painstaking groundwork begins with laborious peeps into Rooms 15 and 16, First Floor. Because it was imperative that he was not noticed, being of wrong species and sex. But Maynard is resourceful beyond ways imaginable to mankind, and ferret-like, does accomplish what he sets out to do.

So, as he sits behind his PC named Adam, intelligent, feverish eyes glinting with the prospects of Material Not Yet Unearthed, MS Word proving a loyal companion in times of need, he types and laughs to himself a little. About what? We shall soon see.

Incidentally, his laugh sounds like Honoria Glossop’s.

CLASSIFICATION:

‘Scintillating’, regretfully, is a term one never applies to an Eco student (For now we come to the purpose of objectively and subjectively stalking the lab rat). While they make passable social animals – the ones who talk, at least, and do not read Lipsey for a bit of nighttime reading - they tend to be droll. Sarcasm is a very common trait. The subject trains one to perfect the art. Maynard, as he points out with a certain lack of modesty, is quite the riot.

The trouble with Economics students is that they do not know which category they fit into. Not mathematics, not literature, not psychology, not commerce. Instead it is a strange combination of every Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Business Administration degree, often supplemented with a Diploma in How To Try Avoid Losing Sanity.

Maynard, as is true to his royal bloodlines, loves using big words, and pities the hallucinations of students who think they are doing the jolly old B.A. (Hons.) Economics

FUNCTION:

Maynard reads Calvin and Hobbes publicly and Garfield secretly. It warms the cockles of his heart to learn than comics are so popular with his brethren, especially in class. Along with Sudoku, the crossword, knots-and-crosses, Bollywood/Hollywood, word building, Hangman and Bingo.

But what of functions? The problem that the student faces of ‘What to study’, ‘How to study’ and ‘How much to study’? Maynard bows to the supreme excellence of the summation of the central problems of an economy and points cleverly to the universality of its application.

A choice, he cries (a la The Matrix, but without the Ray Bans), a CHOICE. Opportunity cost!

So the mere mortals who furrow their brows in search of academic enlightenment plough through readings, and some waltz on stage, roar on the sports field and spread the message of equity through social service. In class, Maynard is quick to notice, the glassy-eyed-ness of the stares never really goes away.

CONSITUTION:

Maynard has a namesake that every economics student should know. This particular namesake proved that he had a sense of humour when he said ‘I'd rather be vaguely right than precisely wrong’, and Maynard is fortunate to have inherited the gift of the smirk.

In the behavioural pattern mapped by the average economics student, humour (black, white, colourful, bland, slapstick) plays a pivotal role. Maynard has already assumed the existence of Wit, ceteris paribus. It sustains. It nourishes. It keeps the eyelashes glued to the eyebrow.

Maynard, unfortunately, having tried to flaunt his talents without honing them very much, once tried to use the line ‘You bring the butter, I’ll bring the gun’ with disastrous consequences.

Therefore, Maynard warns, caution when playing with satire is of utmost importance. He is pleased to report that the U.M.M.s have done this exceptionally well.

DEDUCTION:

Say’s Law of Market, which states in clearly precise terms that ‘supply creates its own demand’. How this enlightened thought can possibly be misinterpreted, Maynard cannot understand. Perhaps, to his utter horror, there is a different point of view. Points of view are of greatest danger to economics students. That is why they have steadily learnt that art of making similar points of view sound different. Often, they use increasingly official phrases to drive home the idea.

Economics students are resigned to have had everything else already discovered. Their chief grievance is that there is technically no physical discovery, or invention in economics. There are no jumping-out-of-the-bathtub-and-shouting-‘Eureka!’ moments. Its sort of takes the fizz out of it all.

Which is why, if a survey is conducted, it shall be found that majority of National Geographic’s audience is made up of Economics students. After all, they sometimes need to assure themselves that human beings are not simply idiots who buy ‘x’ amounts of good 1, ‘y’ amounts of good 2 and are done with it. The humanity, Maynard pleads, the humanity.

DELUSION:

Maynard props his glasses on his head nattily, acts the priest, and asks his loyal faithful to dispel ideas of grandeur.

DERIVATION:

The Bitter Truth (and Maynard is loath to admit it) is that Eco students tend to think that they are God’s gift to Mankind. Or, if the student is of a less egoistic demeanor, with more Varian-like sincerity, he will acknowledge that he is one of the gifts, if not The Gift. The subject’s convoluted nature makes them so – because anyone who can graduate with all eyes, ears, legs, arms, brains, and mental faculties still functioning, should indeed be revered.

If you ever meet an Eco student in the hallway, never ask them if they have read Thomas Hardy. The chances are that they have, and are the only ones who can possibly stay awake through his work. (Even English students have not reached that exalted position. But Maynard digresses, and hurries back to the point.) If kept occupied long enough, they’ll explain the economic conditions in Sparta at the time the Iliad was written, and why Hector was such a risk-taker who did not analyse the prevailing market conditions.

SUSPICION:

Subjects are all a bit mad.

Maynard is remarkably succinct about this.

~*~*

To end, Maynard would only wish his subjects a loyal farewell, and an earnest request not to make quite so much noise when they laugh. But laughter, he sighs wistfully (in the mode of his favourite poet T.S. Eliot), laughter will be our saviour.

So Maynard cannot resist. This is his favourite light bulb joke.

Q: How many economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Eight. One to screw it in and seven to hold everything else constant.

He has laughed. There is one more.

Q: What do you get when you cross the Godfather with an economist?
A: An offer you can't understand.

Maynard, complete with non-existence, one-liners, cluelessness and depressing enthusiasm, holds audience in LSR’s Eco IIIrd Yr. Section A.

~*~*

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

http://www.youreallythinkthereisone.org

http://www.gotcha.co.in/ecojokes

Quote by J.M.Keynes, found in Forbes magazine 01/25/1999 issue.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

To Supriya and her Roswitha, who started it all.
To Namu, who witnessed the beginnings of the silliness.
Everyone else at college who read, appreciated and smiled a bit.

Links

2005-07-21T04:28:00.000-07:00

Here you go, Namu. :D

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=10462132396003208006 Chemical Element are you?

http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=23320 Which world view do you have?

Nimbus for the Hogwarts Sorting.

be sorted @ nimbo.net

small beginnings.

2005-07-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

Eeeee.

To mark arrival.

And to prepare for What To Say.

Right.