Where readers come from

I looked at traffic from Jan 1 of 2018. Here are the top 30 cities, standardized by the # of users from the 30th, Indore:

City User #
Bengaluru 6.6
London 5.7
Mumbai 5.7
New Delhi 4.3
San Jose 4.3
New York 4.1
Lahore 3.9
Pune 2.9
Karachi 2.8
Chennai 2.7
Mountain View 2.4
Islamabad 2.3
Kolkata 2.0
Hyderabad 2.0
San Francisco 1.9
Toronto 1.9
Chandigarh 1.6
Chicago 1.6
Washington 1.5
Los Angeles 1.4
Cambridge 1.4
Spartanburg 1.3
Lucknow 1.3
Ahmedabad 1.3
Austin 1.2
Rawalpindi 1.2
Noida 1.0
Sydney 1.0
Melbourne 1.0
Indore 1.0

The average session form San Jose lasts more than 10 minutes and people look at 4+ pages. This is in contrast to all readers who are closer to 5 minutes. Also, I find it funny that we have more readers from Mountain View than San Francisco. I don’t think it’s just Google crawlers, the sessions average nearly 7 minutes.

If readers want to they can use this as an “unlurk” post too. Basically, you can say who you are if you are so inclined.

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Sri Raman
Sri Raman
6 years ago

I usually read via Feedly. Does that count in your stats somehow?

Xerxes the Magian
6 years ago
Reply to  Sri Raman

I’m surprised by how many London readers we have.

We should do a BP welcomes Kabir event soon

Jaggu
6 years ago

I will be there on my mare
to greet kabira when he’s here
Odd for me, neither bandit nor brown
but will make up with Turanian renown.

Jaggu
6 years ago

Why nobody from Central Asia, the centre of the world?

#StanisInTheHood

Xerxes the Magian
6 years ago
Reply to  Jaggu

Apart from Londonistan I counted 4 Turanian cities (Lhr, Khi, Isb, even Pindi). I don’t know if this is Indian or Turanian Hyderabad I imagine it’s the former..

Jaggu
6 years ago

Londonistan is becoming Londonpur 🙁 The number of indians in london is stifling.. 8% of the pop. Almost 1 in 10. Not counting mixed race.

Xerxes the Magian
6 years ago
Reply to  Jaggu

We’re all Pakis in the UK ?

Jaggu
6 years ago

Though I am too white to be called Paki. Proper Turani Turk. People call me Russian at kebap shops

AP
AP
6 years ago

Hi Razib, I’m from DC, and I’ve been following your blog regularly for a few months. I enjoy your work, and share many of your political views, and views on South Asian history and Indian identity. I write for an Asia oriented magazine, and have written quite a few history/archaeology pieces, for which I’ve found your research useful. For example, this slightly dated article: https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/what-my-dna-says-about-indias-history/

AnAn
6 years ago
Reply to  AP

Please keep commenting. Especially about ancient history and archaeology. Hope to write many articles on this subject.

sandrokottos
sandrokottos
6 years ago
Reply to  AP

Hello Akhilesh

I read your article in the diplomat. Interesting to know that 23andme detected one full blooded Yakut and one full blooded English ancestors in your ancestry tree. However I must warn you that you should take these reports from genetic testing websites with a pinch of salt. Let me narrate my own experience with 23andme to put things in perspective.

I got my own genetic testing done with 23andme around the same time frame (i.e. around march 2018). After a couple of months they posted the results on their website. They put me down at 98.8% broadly south asian, 0.1% European, and 0.1% Japanese.

I was not much interested in this 0.1% European component. We have all heard these boring debates about putative foreign origins of Aryans and connection between IA langues and European languages and as such. So I ascribed this European component to some residual effect of this connection and ignored it. However, what hugely aroused my curiosity was this Japanese component. 23andme plaintively stated that I had a full blooded Japanese ancestor who lived between 1700 – 1790 ad. I had nver heard about it from anyone before. I inquired with all my near and distant, old and very old, nri and non-nri relatives about this possible Japanese connection in the family. However everywhere I drew a blank.

Come to think of it, eighteenth century (1700s) are not that far back in history. Any such event such as a Japanese consort in the family will still live on as family lore. However, there is no absolutely no such tradition, oral history or a whispered rumor in the family or the village.

I come from a dusty village from the interior of Rajasthan. How on earth can any Japanese reach there in 1700s and just mingle with the general population. We belong to an orthodox Brahmin family. Now you imagine, what are the odds of a Japanese male coming to backwaters of rajasthan, settling down with an Indian wife, and incredibly enough, still have his descendants recognized as Branhmins!

I even considered the possibly of any ancestor traveling to east asia in british indian army and bringing home some Chinese/Japanese woman as wife, but unfortunately we just don’t have a military tradition in the family. There is no record of any of my pre-1800s ancestor ever travelling out of our village.

But even before my curiosity could be satisfied, 23andme did a somersault on their report. One fine morning they quietly dropped the Japanese component from my ancestry composition. Now I am 99.9% south asian and 0.1% European. You can guess how much trust I am putting in their ancestry report now 🙂

Right now, even as I write this, 23andme regularly sending me emails that they have found many “dna relative” for me. They confidently state that “We predict xyz is your 4th Cousin”. However most of these so called dna relatives come from all over the world, some even from Arab countries. They can’t be my relative by any stretch of imagination.

Therefore I would advice you not to put too much weight in this so called Yakut ancestry. Caste endogamy in India is so stringent that chances of any Turkic ancestor entering your family tree via the Asaf Jahi dynasty (remember, nizam dynasty was muslim!) is practically nil. Asaf jahi dynasty certainly intermarried with many indians, but then those children became muslim. It is next to impossible that they would quietly melt into your caste.

sandrokottos
sandrokottos
6 years ago

Hello Akhilesh

I read your article in the diplomat. Interesting to know that 23andme detected one full blooded Yakut and one full blooded English ancestors in your ancestry tree. However I must warn you that you should take these reports from genetic testing websites with a pinch of salt. Let me narrate my own experience with 23andme to put things in perspective.

I got my own genetic testing done with 23andme around the same time frame (i.e. around march 2018). After a couple of months they posted the results on their website. They put me down at 99.8% broadly south asian, 0.1% European, and 0.1% Japanese.

I was not much interested in this 0.1% European component. We have all heard those boring debates about putative foreign origins of Aryans and connection between IA langues and European languages and as such. So I ascribed this European component to some residual effect of this connection and ignored it. However, what hugely aroused my curiosity was this Japanese component. 23andme plaintively stated that I had a full blooded Japanese ancestor who lived between 1700 – 1790 ad. I had never heard about it from anyone before. I inquired with all my near and distant, old and very old, nri and non-nri relatives about this possible Japanese connection in the family. However everywhere I drew a blank.

Come to think of it, eighteenth century (1700s) are not that far back in history. Any such event such as a Japanese consort in the family will still live on as family lore. However, there is no absolutely no such tradition, oral history or a whispered rumor in the family or the village.

I come from a dusty village from the interior of Rajasthan. How on earth can any Japanese reach there in 1700s and just mingle with the general population. We belong to an orthodox Brahmin family. Now you imagine, what are the odds of a Japanese male coming to backwaters of Rajasthan, settling down with an Indian wife, and incredibly enough, still have his descendants recognized as Branhmins!

I even considered the possibly of any ancestor traveling to east asia in British Indian army and bringing home some Chinese/Japanese woman as wife, but unfortunately we just don’t have a military tradition in the family. There is no record of any of my pre-1800s ancestor ever travelling out of our village.

But even before my curiosity could be satisfied, 23andme did a somersault on their report. One fine morning they quietly dropped the Japanese component from my ancestry composition. Now I am 99.9% south asian and 0.1% European. You can guess how much trust I am putting in their ancestry report now 🙂

Right now, even as I write this, 23andme is regularly sending me emails that they have found many “dna relative” for me. They confidently state that “We predict xyz is your 4th Cousin”. However most of these so called dna relatives come from all over the world, some even from Arab countries. They can’t be my relative by any stretch of imagination.

Therefore I would advice you not to put too much weight in this so called Yakut ancestry. Caste endogamy in India is so stringent that chances of any Turkic ancestor entering your family tree via the Asaf Jahi dynasty (remember, nizam dynasty was muslim!) is practically nil. Asaf jahi dynasty certainly intermarried with many Indians, but then those children became muslim. It is next to impossible that they would quietly melt into your caste.

AnAn
6 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Will these problems be fixed in a few years by AI?

Science
Science
6 years ago

I’m not brown. I’m a WHITE MALE!! Am I allowed to read this blog?

AnAn
6 years ago
Reply to  Science

“WHITE MALE” is . . . okay . . . sigh
“WHITE FEMALE” is preferred!!! 😉 🙂

Thank you,

Brown Pundits