1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0071 Japanese Yen

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0 Jordanian Dinar

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0098 Icelandic Krona

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0051 Indian Rupee

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0002 Israeli New Sheqel

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0217 Hungarian Forint

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0005 Croatian Kuna

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0017 Honduran Lempira

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0005 Hong Kong Dollar

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0001 British Pound Sterling

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0002 Fiji Dollar

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0001 Euro

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.001 Egyptian Pound

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.001 Estonian Kroon

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0086 Algerian Dinar

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0037 Dominican Peso

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0005 Danish Krone

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0017 Czech Republic Koruna

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0381 Costa Rican Colon

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.2612 Colombian Peso

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0005 Chinese Yuan Renminbi

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0553 Chilean Peso

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0001 Swiss Franc

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0001 Canadian Dollar

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0008 Botswana Pula

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0004 Brazilian Real

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0005 Bolivian Boliviano

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0001 Brunei Dollar

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0 Bahraini Dinar

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0001 Bulgarian Lev

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0057 Bangladeshi Taka

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0001 Australian Dollar

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0045 Argentine Peso

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0001 Netherlands Antillean Guilder

1 Indonesian Rupiah = 0.0002 United Arab Emirates Dirham

1 Lithuanian Lita = 25.5813 Indian Rupee

1 Lithuanian Lita = 5052.9339 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Nigerian Naira = 0.1937 Indian Rupee

1 Nigerian Naira = 38.2564 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Czech Republic Koruna = 3.0055 Indian Rupee

1 Czech Republic Koruna = 593.6513 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Bolivian Boliviano = 10.954 Indian Rupee

1 Bolivian Boliviano = 2163.6735 Indonesian Rupiah

1 Japanese Yen = 0.7081 Indian Rupee

1 Japanese Yen = 139.8628 Indonesian Rupiah

Which is the only palindromic song by a palindromic group to have entered the US charts?

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I’m writing this on August 15. It is our Independence Day. A young Kashmiri Muslim told me in Srinagar a few months ago that this is the day on which everyone there tries to stay indoors. This is not because the people support Pakistan, but because they are most suspect on August 15. You are questioned, searched, and locked. If any of the readers have had a chance to view Sanjay Kak’s powerful documentary Jashn-e-Azadi (How We Celebrate Freedom) you’ll see how Sanjay, coming in to Srinagar for a visit around Independence Day, is struck by the fact that the only people present for the ceremony are the cops and members of the armed forces. (That’s Rave Out #1. For Jashn-e-Azadi.)

Last week’s announcement of the Indian Express-CNN/IBN poll, that an overwhelming majority of Kashmiris in the valley want azadi, also underlines the importance of a genuine rethinking on the question of independence rather than empty, nationalist sabre-rattling. (Anyway, that’s Rave Out #2. For Indian Express and CNN/IBN, as well as the good folk at CSDS who designed the poll.)

This is a good day for re-opening the pages of 13 December: A Reader, in which thirteen writers and journalists point out the injustice involved in the quick media-lynching of SAR Geelani and the denial of a fair trial to Afzal Guru. (This would be Rave Out #3, for the book, although wouldn’t it be great if the book weren’t needed?)

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A couple of evenings ago, my cousin Debika and I were discussing how we’d react if we were told we had just a few months to live. She said she would try and do everything she liked in that time, and surround herself with her family. I said that I’d be inclined to save people I cared for the pain of watching me die—whatever that took. Ironically and unexpectedly, shortly after this conversation, we found ourselves watching François Ozon’s remarkable film Time to Leave.

The film begins with its protagonist, Romain, discovering that he is terminally ill with cancer, and deciding not to bother with treatment. He does not tell his friends or family of his condition. He is rude to his sister, and drives her to tears. He tells his lover, Sasha, that he does not love him, and drives him to move out of their house. This is a transparent lie, but though we see it, Sasha doesn’t. He confides to his grandmother—marvellously played by Jeanne Moreau—because she is like him, and “will die soon.” But even in this winding up, complications ensue.

Melvil Poupaud plays Romain, and is magnificent – understated, yet effortlessly expressive. But it is Ozon’s storytelling that makes this film memorable. It is spare, focussing only on the essential, and revealing its essence. There is not a frame out of place in this heartbreaking film that ends, like Romain, too soon and in great beauty.

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I loved Nina Paley’s brilliant animated film Sita Sings the Blues. If you’re reading this, stop right now—and watch the film here.

Paley has set the story of the Ramayana to the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw. The epic tale is interwoven with Paley’s account of her husband’s move to India from where he dumps her by e-mail. The Ramayana is presented with the tagline: “The Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told.”

All of this should make us curious. But there are other reasons for admiring this film:

The film returns us to the message that is made clear by every village-performance of the Ramlila: the epics are for everyone. Also, there is no authoritative narration of an epic. This film is aided by three shadow puppets who, drawing upon memory and unabashedly incomplete knowledge, boldly go where only pundits and philosophers have gone before. The result is a rendition of the epic that is gloriously a part of the everyday.

This idea is taken even further. Paley says that the work came from a shared culture, and it is to a shared culture that it must return: she has put the film on Creative Commons—viewers are invited to distribute, copy, remix the film.

Of course, such art drives the purists and fundamentalists crazy. On the Channel 13 website, “Durgadevi” and “Shridhar” rant about the evil done to Hinduism. It is as if Paley had lit her tail (tale!) and set our houses on fire!

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