Assume for a moment that you are wearing a veil. Now assume that the veil is the veil of ignorance.
Now assume your veil of ignorance extended to yourself. Not only do you not know anything about the society, you don't know anything about yourself either. Now start choosing.
What kind of society would you want to be in? Would you want to be in Saudi Arabia, or in the United States? Remember, you could be extremely rich or extremely poor, you could be a man or a woman, you could be of a dominant race or the dominating race. You could be powerful and control the world, or you could be the most tortured being. You do not know the distribution of wealth, power, and rights in the society.
Done? Now start choosing things. What should go into the constitution? What should happen to women's rights, especially in countries like Saudi and Afghanistan, the situation in North Korea, the minorities everywhere, and so on. Given the veil of ignorance, what choices would you make?
That is Rawls' original position. He starts from there, and goes on to say how the most likely strategy is going to be Maximin, where you try to maximize your worst possible condition. Because, in he end, you could end up like them.
We live
Image: She is why I am probably happier than you are
The ghosts of Kathmandu
Kathmandu ma bhoot aayo.
He scared everyone. The little plastic boys you see around in the dumps shat their pants. You could see that. The computer-pasal owners got heart palpitations-- you would have known that if you had the sales details of blood-pressure medications for the day. The pretty rich girls of Kathmandu, with their bright lipsticks and horrible Nepali hugged their boyfriends harder, you could see their fear in the hugmarks on the boyfriends' backs and the hickies on their necks. You would have known that if you had looked at the sales figures for expensive scarves for males that evening. The stores in Durmarbarg and the malls were full of the boyfriends trying to hide the hickies.
The bhoot wanted to stay longer in Kathmandu, take a hike maybe, take some good photos, get drunk, maybe get something going on with the East European ghost he had seen haunting around in front of his haunt, and so much more, but they wouldn't let him. He was just about to begin having fun in New Road before he was spotted and chased away by narrow-minded men and women. Look at the footage the news channels live broadcast closely, and you will realize there were more narrow minded women than the men. And you thought women were stereotypically afraid of ghosts.
They don't accept the ghosts, mostly because they are scared of them. The ghosts exist, of course, that's a scientifically accepted fact. The only creatures that don't exist in the collective minds of the middle class Kathmandu are the gays. They are mythical creatures created by Americans, they do not exist. No one will deny their existence though, because they never existed to be denied their existence. No, I'm not making this up-- ask your mom, and you'll know.
People of Kathmandu don't like ghosts. The become the biggest drama queens when they have a supernatural encounter.
The bhoot tried killing an Avenues TV reporter. The exact cause of the attack on a bystander is not known, but it is a scientifically-accepted fact that they like to attack and kill people for the fun of it. NewRoad has many gods--lot of them foreign-- but it has more ghosts than the gods. The ghosts seemingly always win.
Less than a minute-walk from the latest haunt is Sankata, the remover of obstacles. Extremely powerful, they say. He was busy chillin' out with the bros at the time though, and try to do miracles for the team he's sponsoring, which is why the security lapse.
The Avenues TV reporter lived to see another day, but no one wanted to listen to him. Because you know that once a person has been attacked by a bhoot, he loses his memory, and will deny the existence of the ghost encounter, instead trying to explain away the event with ridiculously rational and reasonable event.
It's a drama, yaar, it's a drama. They are all in it. Trust me.
Bhoots like to hang around in Kathmandu. Kathmandu is like a haunted gaun-- broken and patched up, creaking but alive. Barely there. It's a holiday spot actually where ghosts like to chill out after scaring people in India and abroad. Ghosts like to have their fun too, you know.
New Road ma bhoot aayo.
New Road is already a scary place to be, even without the ghosts. But ghosts have a long history with New Road-- the ghosts first came in the 60's when the country first opened up to the world. Nepalis already had enough things to worry about before then, we didn't need no ghosts , thank you very much.
The hippies were easily scared-- their pot-addled systems processed things in the most vivid ways, and the Nepali scary creatures didn't really work for them. They wanted their own ghosts and that's the irony here-- people who came to Nepal to escape the ghosts of their societies, brought exactly those ghosts to us. Our defenses were poor, and we were caught off -guard--their ghosts became our ghosts, and the haunts got more frequent. New Road paid the price of prosperity-- for all the increased property prices and the business uptick and all the modernity there was, they had to face the ghosts.
Just look around someday in New Road. It's one haunted house after another, each waiting for its ghost to arrive.
He scared everyone. The little plastic boys you see around in the dumps shat their pants. You could see that. The computer-pasal owners got heart palpitations-- you would have known that if you had the sales details of blood-pressure medications for the day. The pretty rich girls of Kathmandu, with their bright lipsticks and horrible Nepali hugged their boyfriends harder, you could see their fear in the hugmarks on the boyfriends' backs and the hickies on their necks. You would have known that if you had looked at the sales figures for expensive scarves for males that evening. The stores in Durmarbarg and the malls were full of the boyfriends trying to hide the hickies.
The bhoot wanted to stay longer in Kathmandu, take a hike maybe, take some good photos, get drunk, maybe get something going on with the East European ghost he had seen haunting around in front of his haunt, and so much more, but they wouldn't let him. He was just about to begin having fun in New Road before he was spotted and chased away by narrow-minded men and women. Look at the footage the news channels live broadcast closely, and you will realize there were more narrow minded women than the men. And you thought women were stereotypically afraid of ghosts.
They don't accept the ghosts, mostly because they are scared of them. The ghosts exist, of course, that's a scientifically accepted fact. The only creatures that don't exist in the collective minds of the middle class Kathmandu are the gays. They are mythical creatures created by Americans, they do not exist. No one will deny their existence though, because they never existed to be denied their existence. No, I'm not making this up-- ask your mom, and you'll know.
People of Kathmandu don't like ghosts. The become the biggest drama queens when they have a supernatural encounter.
The bhoot tried killing an Avenues TV reporter. The exact cause of the attack on a bystander is not known, but it is a scientifically-accepted fact that they like to attack and kill people for the fun of it. NewRoad has many gods--lot of them foreign-- but it has more ghosts than the gods. The ghosts seemingly always win.
Less than a minute-walk from the latest haunt is Sankata, the remover of obstacles. Extremely powerful, they say. He was busy chillin' out with the bros at the time though, and try to do miracles for the team he's sponsoring, which is why the security lapse.
The Avenues TV reporter lived to see another day, but no one wanted to listen to him. Because you know that once a person has been attacked by a bhoot, he loses his memory, and will deny the existence of the ghost encounter, instead trying to explain away the event with ridiculously rational and reasonable event.
It's a drama, yaar, it's a drama. They are all in it. Trust me.
Bhoots like to hang around in Kathmandu. Kathmandu is like a haunted gaun-- broken and patched up, creaking but alive. Barely there. It's a holiday spot actually where ghosts like to chill out after scaring people in India and abroad. Ghosts like to have their fun too, you know.
New Road ma bhoot aayo.
New Road is already a scary place to be, even without the ghosts. But ghosts have a long history with New Road-- the ghosts first came in the 60's when the country first opened up to the world. Nepalis already had enough things to worry about before then, we didn't need no ghosts , thank you very much.
The hippies were easily scared-- their pot-addled systems processed things in the most vivid ways, and the Nepali scary creatures didn't really work for them. They wanted their own ghosts and that's the irony here-- people who came to Nepal to escape the ghosts of their societies, brought exactly those ghosts to us. Our defenses were poor, and we were caught off -guard--their ghosts became our ghosts, and the haunts got more frequent. New Road paid the price of prosperity-- for all the increased property prices and the business uptick and all the modernity there was, they had to face the ghosts.
Just look around someday in New Road. It's one haunted house after another, each waiting for its ghost to arrive.
Rushdie's women
I was looking online for content on Satanic Verses, and I found this excerpt from the book. Reflects why I love the book, and why I worship the man, and someday hope to write like him. Dream, more like.
Mishal and Anahita arrived with breakfast on a tray and excitement all over their faces. Chamcha devoured cornflakes and Nescafe while the girls, after a few moments of shyness, gabbled at him, simultaneously, non-stop. ‘Well, you've set the place buzzing and no mistake.’ – ‘You haven't gone and changed back in the night or anything?’ – ‘Listen, it's not a trick, is it? I mean, it's not make-up or something theatrical? – I mean, Jumpy says you're an actor, and I only thought, – I mean,’ and here young Anahita dried up, because Chamcha, spewing cornflakes, howled angrily: ‘Make-up? Theatrical? Trick?’
‘No offence,’ Mishal said anxiously on her sister's behalf. ‘It's just we've been thinking, know what I mean, and well it'd just be awful if you weren't, but you are, ‘course you are, so that's all right,’ she finished hastily as Chamcha glared at her again. – ‘Thing is,’ Anahita resumed, and then, faltering, ‘Mean to say, well, we just think it's great.’ – ‘You, she means,’ Mishal corrected. ‘We think you're, you know.’ – ‘Brilliant,’ Anahita said and dazzled the bewildered Chamcha with a smile. ‘Magic. You know. Extreme.’
‘We didn't sleep all night,’ Mishal said. ‘We've got ideas.’
‘What we reckoned,’ Anahita trembled with the thrill of it, ‘as you've turned into, – what you are, – then maybe, well, probably, actually, even if you haven't tried it out, it could be, you could...’ And the older girl finished the thought: ‘You could've developed – you know – powers.’
‘We thought, anyway,’ Anahita added, weakly, seeing the clouds gathering on Chamcha's brow. And, backing towards the door, added: ‘But we're probably wrong. – Yeh. We're wrong all right. Enjoy your meal.’ – Mishal, before she fled, took a small bottle full of green fluid out of a pocket of her red-and-black-check donkey jacket, put it on the floor by the door, and delivered the following parting shot. ‘O, excuse me, but Mum says, can you use this, it's mouthwash, for your breath.’
Such a playa
"Are you a Playa' ?" she asks me.
I want to ask her to "define player," but that would be an answer in itself, and defeat the entire purpose of asking a rhetorical question.
So I say, after a pause, "It depends...". More pause.
"Do you like being played with," I ask. And then I wink.
Secret: I sometimes practice winking in the mirror after showering. Just to be sure my winking skills are up to the mark, you know. And the eye muscles lose training if you give them too much rest.
I pat myself on the back that evening. It's very difficult to do it physically, but i do it anyway
I want to ask her to "define player," but that would be an answer in itself, and defeat the entire purpose of asking a rhetorical question.
So I say, after a pause, "It depends...". More pause.
"Do you like being played with," I ask. And then I wink.
Secret: I sometimes practice winking in the mirror after showering. Just to be sure my winking skills are up to the mark, you know. And the eye muscles lose training if you give them too much rest.
I pat myself on the back that evening. It's very difficult to do it physically, but i do it anyway
The men who eat oysters
"You write like Lewis carrooll
Carroll*
i like Lewis Carroll", she tells me, after I tell her things.
Nepali culture may have given a lot to the human society (eg: momo, chatpate, and so on) but it lacks in one way-- they don't tell you how to handle compliments.
I take the only road I know-- evading it for as long and as further away from myself as I can.
"Where did this come from anyway, " I ask.
"His writings are whimsical. Yes, and odd. Bizarre. But fun to read. You should read his poems, " she says.
"Jabberwocky," I say.
That's all I can think of. Once upon a time, when Pr was still in Kathmandu, she'd told me that the writer of Alice in Wonderland also wrote poems, and her favourite was Jabberwocky from the same book, mostly because it was so--whimsical-- that was the word, I think. She'd later posted it online (I'm not calling facebook by it's name because its time is over, and internet is internet and no one owns it, and the reason I had opened it exists no longer so it might be seeing the death soon) and it'd been liked, and commented upon. When the 3D movie of the film came out, I'd said JABBERWOCKY, but then it had been almost forgotten. Conversations were a lot shorter, because by then we both had lives.
"Sure," she says very patiently.
Four hours later, as I'm writing something, and she sends me one of Carroll's poems.
I like the poem-- The Walrus and the Carpenter.
My favourite part:
Carroll*
i like Lewis Carroll", she tells me, after I tell her things.
Nepali culture may have given a lot to the human society (eg: momo, chatpate, and so on) but it lacks in one way-- they don't tell you how to handle compliments.
I take the only road I know-- evading it for as long and as further away from myself as I can.
"Where did this come from anyway, " I ask.
"His writings are whimsical. Yes, and odd. Bizarre. But fun to read. You should read his poems, " she says.
"Jabberwocky," I say.
That's all I can think of. Once upon a time, when Pr was still in Kathmandu, she'd told me that the writer of Alice in Wonderland also wrote poems, and her favourite was Jabberwocky from the same book, mostly because it was so--whimsical-- that was the word, I think. She'd later posted it online (I'm not calling facebook by it's name because its time is over, and internet is internet and no one owns it, and the reason I had opened it exists no longer so it might be seeing the death soon) and it'd been liked, and commented upon. When the 3D movie of the film came out, I'd said JABBERWOCKY, but then it had been almost forgotten. Conversations were a lot shorter, because by then we both had lives.
"Sure," she says very patiently.
Four hours later, as I'm writing something, and she sends me one of Carroll's poems.
"Yo ho mero fav poem Lewis Carroll ko...sooo sounds like you, link ," I receive in gChat. I've already evaded. <3 is all I can think of now. Because I'm no Lewis Carroll.
I like the poem-- The Walrus and the Carpenter.
My favourite part:
'A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said,
'Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed --
Now, if you're ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.'
'But not on us!' the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
'After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!'
'The night is fine,' the Walrus said,
'Do you admire the view?'
'It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!'
The Carpenter said nothing but
'Cut us another slice-
I wish you were not quite so deaf-
I've had to ask you twice!'
Just as I am putting finishing touches to this post, my hall erupts in a flurry of excitement. Several floormates love the poem--one knows the poem by heart-- and they tell me Carroll choose a carpenter over all other professions because his illustrator said it would be the easiest to illustrate. Interesting.
Normal
Everything is very normal, thank you for asking.
The skies are normal, as they always are.
The weather is normal, as it always it.
The grasses are also normal, sir.
Yes, the fires are raining, but no sir, nothing is not normal, because normal is what things are, yes.
The families are normal sir. No family is abnormal except abnormal ones, and they are just abnormal. And everyone's perfect normal here, including me. And you, of course sir.
The skies are normal, as they always are.
The weather is normal, as it always it.
The grasses are also normal, sir.
Yes, the fires are raining, but no sir, nothing is not normal, because normal is what things are, yes.
The families are normal sir. No family is abnormal except abnormal ones, and they are just abnormal. And everyone's perfect normal here, including me. And you, of course sir.
Things you should know about me (updated)
1. I promise people I'll get drunk, and never do it. :)
2. I give my password to people I like, who will post things under my name in my blog. I will then post embarrassing things in their blog in turn.
2. I give my password to people I like, who will post things under my name in my blog. I will then post embarrassing things in their blog in turn.
Unrequited love
Allow me, dear reader, to talk about unrequited love.
I know, I know. I can already hear sighs of disbelief-- perhaps even disillusionment. What has come over you, owner bro of this blog, you will be thinking, you don't talk of things like these. Remember the various times you have stated the manipulative nature of your genes, and how everything is so stupid, and stuff? What has come over you man, what has come over you, you will ask. And I will concede, dear sirs and madams from all over the world-- from the towering towers of Hong Kong and Singapore, to the cold costs of the North. I shall answer, certainly, after you explain to me the exact nature of relationship between the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and the then-Queen of England.
Unrequited love is a powerful force of nature, at least for some people. It stays dormant for years, like cancerous cells, waiting and waiting for the right time to strike. It knows the right time may never come, and even if it does, the right moment may be over, but wait it does, waiting to strike. It's dangerous, and everyone should be aware of the existence of such a creature. People have been killed, or injured while dealing with it, and it can rarely be tamed. It's a creature not to be messed with. Like a snake. Or a dragon. Or that creature from Harry Potter 2. You get the idea-- only swords can vanquish it.
I know, I know. I can already hear sighs of disbelief-- perhaps even disillusionment. What has come over you, owner bro of this blog, you will be thinking, you don't talk of things like these. Remember the various times you have stated the manipulative nature of your genes, and how everything is so stupid, and stuff? What has come over you man, what has come over you, you will ask. And I will concede, dear sirs and madams from all over the world-- from the towering towers of Hong Kong and Singapore, to the cold costs of the North. I shall answer, certainly, after you explain to me the exact nature of relationship between the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and the then-Queen of England.
Unrequited love is a powerful force of nature, at least for some people. It stays dormant for years, like cancerous cells, waiting and waiting for the right time to strike. It knows the right time may never come, and even if it does, the right moment may be over, but wait it does, waiting to strike. It's dangerous, and everyone should be aware of the existence of such a creature. People have been killed, or injured while dealing with it, and it can rarely be tamed. It's a creature not to be messed with. Like a snake. Or a dragon. Or that creature from Harry Potter 2. You get the idea-- only swords can vanquish it.
नेपालीमा लेखौंन, एस्सो
नेपालीमा नलेखेको धेरै नै भईसक्यो, लेख्नै बिर्सें कि भन्ने डर लागेर आउँछ कहिलेकाहिँ | इस्तिफान, त्यो बुल्गेरियाली साथी अस्ति झोंक्राएर भन्थ्यो, "तिमीहरुको कल्चर छ यार, हामी त तेश्रो तहको नक्कली अमेरिका हौँ, अटोमन साम्राज्यले हाम्रो भएभरको संस्कृति उडाइदियो, किनभने हामी उनीहरुको भन्दा फरक धर्मका थियौँ " |
मलाई पुर्वी युरोपका बारेमा त्यति धेरै थाहा छैन, तर नेपाली भाषाको भने चिन्ता लाग्न थालेको छ | अस्तिसम्म मै भन्ने गर्थ्यें "भाषा भनेको फेरिने हुनुपर्छ, समयसापेक्ष हुनुपर्छ"| बिस्तारै थाहा पाउँदै छु, अझ सापेक्ष हुँदै गयो भने नेपाली छिटै हिन्दी हुनेछ | आइस्ल्यान्डेली भाषा १२०० वर्ष देखि खासै फेरिएको छैन, त्यैपनि बोल्ने टन्नै मान्छे छन्, भाषा फस्टाएको नै छ | नेपाली पनि त्यस्तै हुनुपर्यो | नत्र अबदेखि मा नि नेपाली मर्नेगरी बिगारेर भाषाको धज्जी उडाउने हो |
मलाई पुर्वी युरोपका बारेमा त्यति धेरै थाहा छैन, तर नेपाली भाषाको भने चिन्ता लाग्न थालेको छ | अस्तिसम्म मै भन्ने गर्थ्यें "भाषा भनेको फेरिने हुनुपर्छ, समयसापेक्ष हुनुपर्छ"| बिस्तारै थाहा पाउँदै छु, अझ सापेक्ष हुँदै गयो भने नेपाली छिटै हिन्दी हुनेछ | आइस्ल्यान्डेली भाषा १२०० वर्ष देखि खासै फेरिएको छैन, त्यैपनि बोल्ने टन्नै मान्छे छन्, भाषा फस्टाएको नै छ | नेपाली पनि त्यस्तै हुनुपर्यो | नत्र अबदेखि मा नि नेपाली मर्नेगरी बिगारेर भाषाको धज्जी उडाउने हो |
WHEREIN THINGS ARE NOT RIGHT
THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS RIGHT, AS WE WANT THEM TO BE. SOMETHING IS WRONG TODAY, AS YOU PROBABLY NOTICED. THE CAPS LOCK KEY, OBVIOUSLY.
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