The List Of Lists

My colleague and co-writer at Newslaundry, Anand Vardhan has a rather critical take on lists. A piece I highly recommend. While I’m not against lists per se, there is some merit in the criticism that the obsession is rather silly. There are 10 basic reasons for this

1. Okay I’m kidding.
2. No really. I am.
3. No I’m not listing out rank-wise reasons for finding some rankings silly. It can’t be written this way.
4. STOP THE LIST!

Ok, thanks!

So as I was saying some lists are really dumb. But April has been a fertile season for them. There was the Indian Express list of Powerful Indians. Then there was the India Today list of the “high and mighty”. There was also the Time magazine list of 100 most influential people on earth.

And as if a list of the “powerful” and “influential” wasn’t fluffy and page 3 enough (as a concept, we’ll come to the substance in the lists a little later), there is a Thinkers list by Prospect magazine. It lists the finest thinkers in the world. Really, Prospect? A ranking of thinkers? How about that? They even know who’s thinking what and how good that thought is.

I admit listing things makes it more compelling and easily readable. Maybe it’s in our DNA to view everything as a contest and then learn about individuals from that position. For example, if there was a Time special issue titled “100 Random People Who We Think Are Pretty Cool, With a Large Photo & Paragraph About Each of Them” maybe not many would grab it on a flight, but “100 most Influential People”. Ah! That’s a collector’s item. Or “A List Of 50 People In No Particular Order Who May Be Able To Influence Things Or Maybe Not But Are Quite Popular” doesn’t grab you like “Power List – India’s 50 most powerful.” Damn! It’s a no contest. But still. It’s an absurd concept. What makes it more absurd is Sonia Gandhi isn’t in any of these power lists!

Since it’s silly season, here is our listing of lists we see in the India media. IT’S FINALLY HERE:

The List of Dumbest Lists:

1. The Times of India’s best sex positions list.

The Times of India has several versions of this. Best positions for a woman. Best positions for a man. Best position to burn calories etc etc. I have no idea where they get these lists, what are the parameters, how the jury deliberates on this, what are the meetings like, what is the age range in the jury, what is the mechanics or body structures or athletic abilities or skill with hands and tongues, tastes, preferences, fetishes etc of the jury. But anyone of my generation who knows soccer will understand that while Jurgen Klinsmann was lethal in the air, Maradona was unbeatable on the dribble. Both were invaluable for their teams and won the World Cup for their countries. These lists are wonderfully entertaining but those who read them for tips, here’s one – don’t.

2. The Indian Express power list.

What is most striking about this listing is that everyone who writes for IE is on it. Most of their regular columnists are among the most powerful Columnists, Economists or something or the other. Lovely. Can’t wait to get the Newslaundry power list out. Or better still, just read our list of writers on the right of the homepage. And Sonia Gandhi or her muscled son-in-law aren’t on the IE power list while Pratap Bhanu Mehta is!

3. India Today’s power list.

It has Anna Hazare at number 1 and Mukesh Ambani at number 3! And we all know how easily Anna has influenced policy in the country repeatedly, and how hard it is for Mukesh Bhai to get what he wants. It takes a man to sit hungry for 14 days to get an ineffective bunch of government nominees to hear what he has to say (and ignore it), the other breezes in and out of the Prime Minister’s office at will and we all know what happens to policy after that, right? And Sonia Gandhi or her muscled son-in-law aren’t on this list either! That’s ridiculous! But in case these lists are really accurate, Dr.Naresh Trehan please get us out of the shit we land in. You’re at number 33.

4. BJP’s PM Candidate List.

This list is as random and bizarre as the list of the high and mighty. Modi is always on the list but the rest of the list is either blank or has every name in the party (like The Indian Express powerful writers/columnists list).

5. BJP’s I’m Not A PM Candidate list.

More bizarre because everyone on the “BJP PM Candidate List” is also on the “I Am Not PM Candidate List”. Modi keeps trying to stuff himself into this list but I suspect only for tokenism and being politically correct, a bit like Arvind Kejriwal on Indian Express’ power list or Anna on India Today’s power list. The only one who is not on both BJP lists is LK Advani. He’s on only one of them, but even he’s not sure of which one.

And in closing, since the Prospect List of World’s Most Influential Thinkers got me thinking, here’s my favourite take on thinking.