With the visit only a couple of days away there are of course ever increasing stories on the Presidential visit to India and Pakistan. Again this roundup is in no way comprehensive, and some 
mutineers may or may not cover one or more of these articles in greater detail.
- Roundtable Interview of the President by Pakistani Journalists (official transcript: whitehouse.gov). If the president can’t keep his meetings with Jack Abramoff straight, how is he supposed to remember how many times he has met President Musharraf? Interview of the President by PTV (Pakistan) (official transcript: whitehouse.gov)
- The President’s Address to the Asia Society (official transcript: whitehouse.gov). President Bush jokes about India’s economy proving the world is flat. Thank you Thomas Friedman.
- He’s Welcome in Pakistan (Ahmed Rashid op-ed in the WP 2/26) Rashid, author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism…, writes about the 6 million dollar question from 2001 using the presidential visit as backdrop- - where is Osama?
- Elisabeth Bumiller writes in the Sunday IHT (via the NYT) about the influence of Bush’s Texas connections on the India trip. She references the immigrant-success stories that Bush became aware of while governor of Texas, i.e. rich doctors that worked hard and gave Bush lots and lots of money. Bumiller, it seems also has learned of MSingh’s daughter Amrit, the ACLU attorney.
- The March 6 Newsweek issue’s cover stories are on India and Indian Americans. The issue features Salman Rushdie’s muse Padma Lakshmi on the cover and includes stories by
Fareed Zakaria (India Rising) where he writes about the increasing prominence of India on an international scale; Ramin Setoodeh (At Home: American Masala) writes (under a very similar title to an article the magazine published almost a year ago) on the highly educated first generation desi-american population; Keith Naughton (Outsourcing Silicon Valley East) writes about an India that is no longer all about call centers and basic tech support; and a very poignant piece by Pulitzer prize winning author Jhumpa Lahiri (My Two Lives) on a topic which some think we focus too much attention on, the identity of hyphenated Americans. The section I paraphrase below really hit home for me a couple of years ago when my grandfather passed away. What happens when those who we look up to and receive guidance from are no longer there to give it to us? This isn’t of course strictly a cultural thing, but for children of immigrants I think it takes on an added cultural significance. As we first genners come into our own as adult Americans, its only natural that our parents, our direct connection to part of us that comes from half-way around the world, are getting older. The fear of the unknown, of the time when our parents are no longer around to guide and advise us, and what this means for our cultural identity, I think can be really puzzling.
While I am American by virtue of the fact that I was raised in this country, I am Indian thanks to the efforts of two individuals. I feel Indian not because of the time I’ve spent in India or because of my genetic composition but rather because of my parents’ steadfast presence in my life. They live three hours from my home; I speak to them daily and see them about once a month. Everything will change once they die. They will take certain things with them—conversations in another tongue, and perceptions about the difficulties of being foreign. Without them, the back-and-forth life my family leads, both literally and figuratively, will at last approach stillness. An anchor will drop, and a line of connection will be severed. I have always believed that I lack the authority my parents bring to being Indian. But as long as they live they protect me from feeling like an impostor. Their passing will mark not only the loss of the people who created me but the loss of a singular way of life, a singular struggle. The immigrant’s journey, no matter how ultimately rewarding, is founded on departure and deprivation, but it secures for the subsequent generation a sense of arrival and advantage. I can see a day coming when my American side, lacking the counterpoint India has until now maintained, begins to gain ascendancy and weight. It is in fiction that I will continue to interpret the term “Indian-American,” calculating that shifting equation, whatever answers it may yield.
- Interview of the President by Doordarshan, (India) (official transcript: whitehouse.gov)
- Roundtable Interview of the President by Indian Journalists (official transcript: whitehouse.gov). This is nothing against the President since he doesn’t type out the transcript, but whoever does really messed up. In response to a question asking what President Bush’s earliest memory of India was, the President responded by saying:
THE PRESIDENT: Ghandi. It’s my first memory, as I think about India. You know, a person who was so spiritual that he captured the imagination of the entire world. He’s proof positive that — throughout history there have been individuals that have had the capacity to shape thought and to influence and — beyond border. And he did that.
I like the answer, just disappointed that the person writing the transcript didn’t think it was important enough to spell the man’s name correctly. It is G-A-N-D-H-I. Also see our faq.
