Dear Amit Varma

Dear Amit Varma

You should know that writing open letters is mostly lame. Anyway, 

1. In a recent blog post, you make a below-the-belt comment (quite literally) about how Sanjay Gandhi should have practised what he preached about forceful sterilization. You suggest it would have spared us Varun Gandhi's crap about forceful sterilization. Oh man! Aren't we funny! You seem to think it was a mighty witty comment. Except that Varun Gandhi said no such crap. Are you man enough to withdraw that post, now that the editor of the Daily Telegraph has clarified that Varun Gandhi made no comment on forceful sterilization? Will you issue an apology for that cheap comment? Going by your track record, I'm guessing you'll keep that post on your blog to elicit cheap laughs.

2. You wrote an open letter to our Sports Minister MS Gill where you start off equating gambling and betting with investing in the stock market, and then you go off on your favourite tangent of unnecessary and unjustified government involvement. At the risk of lowering my blog's intellectual rating, I reproduce below what you have written:

Dear MS Gill

Cricinfo states that you have objected to an SMS competition being run during the IPL on the grounds that it is “akin to betting and gambling.” I have two questions for you:

One, do you not gamble? If you have ever invested in the stock market, or in property, you have gambled. Indeed, every career choice you have made is effectively a gamble. We face choices at every stage in our lives, weigh up the risks involved, and make decisions. All of that is no less gambling than, say, betting that Matthew Hayden will score 10 runs in the next over.

Really? How ridiculous and nonsensical can your liberal rhetoric get? The stock market, in the medium to long term creates value while bringing in returns to investors. The gambling aspect of stock investing is only confined to day trading. It requires blinkered vision of the highest order to equate investing in the stock markets with betting and gambling. I can't say I expected better economics from you. Even then, your pontification to MS Gill was cringe-inducing. 

We face choices at every stage in our lives, weigh up the risks involved, and make decisions. All of that is no less gambling than, say, betting that Matthew Hayden will score 10 runs in the next over.

OUCH!

Anyway, regards and all that.

(I can't decide what to sign off as. Now this is a choice. Must weigh risks, must gamble.... OMG Matthew hayden just hit a SIX!)