Tharoor's Tantalizing Tweets
DID THAT REALLY HAPPEN?
1. Tata Motors announced that it hopes to sell the Nano, considered the world's cheapest car, in the United States within two years.
2. Participating in an anti-American demonstration in Karachi, a group of children held signs that the U.S. Olympic team is used to seeing: “Go America Go.”
3. Trying to promote Tamil language and culture, the Tamil Nadu government started a scheme to give gold rings to babies with Tamil names.
4. A Pakistani store owner in New York disarmed a would-be robber, gave him $40 and a loaf of bread, converted him to Islam and renamed him Nawaz Sharif Zardari.
5. A Peace Summit was held in Delhi, aimed at resolving the rift between former tennis partners Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi.
(1,2,3 and 4 really happened)
THAROOR’S TANTALIZING TWEETS
Should government ministers use Twitter to keep the public informed of their daily activities? That’s a question being debated in India, thanks to new Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor, who reportedly is the first Indian minister to actively use Twitter. Tharoor’s opinion on the matter was shared through a tweet to a follower named Alok: “there will be nothing on twitter that I can't say publicly. Obviously no state secrets. Nor will i conduct diplomacy thru twitter!”
In case you aren’t following Tharoor on Twitter, here’s a sampling of his tweets to tantalize you:
Took my oath as an MP today - 1st time in the Lok Sabha as a Member. Wonderful. And generously warm greetings from Opposition leaders
first dinner by EAM for diplomatic corps. back on a beat i thought i'd left when i quit the UN. But better food here! spoke French after yrs.
Delhi political social circuit has come to life - 3 dinner invites a day, 2 of which I manage to attend. Challenge is not to eat at both!
@brijeshnairan At 1 am, I'm entitled to watch cricket, right? Surely my constituents won't begrudge me that?
still get irritated when Keralites spell my name Sasi. India's most literate state is hopeless at transliterating into English!
Final word to all the controversialists about my twittering: I will only say on twitter what I can say in public. So chill....
Source: http://twitter.com/ShashiTharoor
NEGOTIATING LIKE AN INDIAN
In his best-selling book I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Ramit Sethi includes sections on “Why Indian people love negotiating” and how to “negotiate fees like an Indian.” In the first chapter, he describes how he received his education in negotiation:
“You’ll never see an Indian driving a two-door coupe. Seriously, think about it. If you have a neighborhood Indian—let’s call him Raj—he’s probably driving a four-door car, usually a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry. However, Indian people aren’t just fanatical about driving practical four-door cars. We’re absolutely nuts about hammering down the price to the last penny. Take my dad, for example. He’ll bargain for five straight days just to buy one car. Dear God, it’s not pretty. I’ve been along for the ride on these weeklong negotiating sessions with him before. Once, as he was literally about to sign the papers, he stopped, asked them to throw in free floor mats (a $50 value), and walked away when they refused. This, after he’d spent five days bargaining them down. As he dragged me from the dealership, I just stared straight ahead, shell-shocked.”
WELL-ROUNDED SPELLERS
You’ve heard it before: Indians are just good at memorizing. That’s the reason, detractors say, that Indian-American children have won seven of the last 11 National Spelling Bee titles, the latest being 13-year-old Kavya Shivashankar. But as James Maguire writes in the Wall Street Journal, “No mind can memorize the spelling of 450,000 words. Top spellers must be able to make an educated guess about obscure words using their wide-ranging knowledge of etymology, science, geography, history and literature.”
Yes, it’s not enough to just lug a dictionary around; you also need a well-rounded education. And that, Maguire suggests, is where Indian-American children have an edge. Their parents limit their TV-watching and video-game-playing. For them, he writes, “making sure that their children performed exceptionally well in all their studies -- which supports the cross-discipline smarts of a top speller -- is of non-negotiable importance.”
DESI FUN ONLINE
India Questions Russell Peters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRzEBiqc1dI
The comedian answers questions on an Indian TV show
Indian Timing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOTRXkOiWBw
Panjabi MC raps while Gulshan Komal sings.
Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI.
[Comments? Contributions? We would love to hear from you about Chai Time. If you have contributions, please email us at melvin@melvindurai.com. We welcome jokes, quotes, online clips and more]
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