Stray Thoughts...

Mindless, directionless, delirious blabbering to begin what promises to be an interesting week one way or the other...

An interesting thought that strayed into my mind a few minutes ago (as a result of me reading an article called "An Enquiry into India's International Identity") was to wonder about the India-US relationship. The author writes that India's potential partnership with Iran and Saudi Arabia though vastly promising is uncertain (this was written several years before Shashi Tharoor's "interlocutor"-tweet-inducing Saudi Arabia visit) because of the inability of the ruling elite in both those countries to forge relations with India independent of their perspective of Pakistan as an Islamic country. Well, it didnt stop the Saudis to forge the mother-of-all partnerships with the US, considering the adversarial role played by America w.r.t. two Islamic countries - Iran and Iraq. Which led to the next stray thought - India might be the only non-Islamic country that has had historically strong ties with both those countries.. and that America has exactly the opposite relation with both Iran and Iraq - countries that are sworn enemies of each other. And to think that people criticize India's foreign policy...

And Zimbabwe are leaking ten runs per over even as I write this and the Sri Lankans have still managed to make it seem boring.. there's just no way I can enjoy Jayawardene and co batting. I was kind of hoping that Zimbabwe continue their form from the warm-ups, when they beat Pakistan and Australia, so that we could hope to stay up during the Super Eights matches - a daunting prospect if the Sri Lankans make it there...

And flipkart delivered my copy of the "Collected Fictions" of Jorge Luis Borges today (translated from the original Spanish, of course) and am enjoying it thoroughly already. Even the Preface he has written for 'A Universal History of Iniquity' is worth reading, for sheer fun and self deprecation ("The learned doctors of the Great Vehicle teach us that the essential characteristic of the universe is its emptiness. They are certainly correct with respect to the tiny part of the universe that is this book") that is inspiring in a way and makes one want to emulate him right away. He has given an interesting quote of George Bernard Shaw who said that all intellectual labour is inherently humourous. Assuming that the converse is also true, I have finally figured out what it is that my blog was lacking and why...