Law, Partially

At the top right of the front page was an ad for the Sunday magazine: "I would sleep with..." where a gay fashion designer lists who he would sleep with. Homosexuality is illegal in India, btw. "Naughty gifts for gennext: Sex is just a joy toy away." Even though sex toys are illegal in India, according to today's paper urban Indians in the 18 to 21 year age bracket are gifting them to each other. Mehul Shah, a 20-year-old engineering student had this to say: "I found out about the variety of sex toys from the Internet and, on a trip to Amsterdam I bought an inflatable doll." I wonder if Mehul really said this or if the quote was made up. At M we used to make up quotes, and I don't find Indian journalism to be of the highest standards and wouldn’t be surprised if it was made up. But really, why would any real person want to say something like this for the public record? Many in India want the country to be conservative, but what’s true in the U.S. i...

I've subscribed to a newspaper. I'm subscribing to the Hindu, which appears to be very sober news reporting, unlike that rag The Times of India. I'll get yesterday's newspaper every day, as the Hindu is printed in Delhi. It's actually a newspaper from Chennai, I think, which is the city formerly known as Madras. You don't just call the circulation office and say you want to subscribe. You go to your local newspaper wallah and ask him to bring you the paper every morning. I asked the receptionist if she could ask the wallah who brings us the paper if he would bring me the paper too. Hopefully this paper will be at my door in the morning, but this is India, and nothing is easy.

Babu watched cheesy Hindi music videos while I ate breakfast and read the Times of India this morning. This is a pretty big step, for him to hang in the same room as me. Usually he serves me my meal, then makes himself scarce, then returns periodically to make sure I’m still doing well. I would communicate to him that I don’t care if he watches videos or even if he eats with me, but I, of course, cannot tell him this because he doesn’t speak English. Alas, when the music video show was over, he put the tv on Seinfeld, not dubbed, but the original English version. I guess he did that on account of me, thinking I wanted to watch it. It was a pretty funny one, though. Jerry’s girlfriend works sells paper goods, but she wouldn’t spare any tissues for Elaine. So then Elaine stole all the toilet paper at Monk’s from the lady’s room while Jerry’s girlfriend was going to the bathroom. Of course, this girlfriend was actually right in the middle of becoming an ex-girlfriend, as Jerry had just mo...