March 26, 2007
Don't Bother: You'll Never Get ItPolitics
I’m still processing the bilious sortie by Shashi Tharoor, the Indian diplomat and author, outgoing undersecretary-general of the United Nations and failed candidate for the top job, in the opinion pages of last Friday’s New York Times. It’s the one where he announces that America and Americans are congenitally incapable of comprehending cricket, that the condition is incurable, and that after valiantly performing such educational mitzvahs as diagramming cricket play possibilities on bar napkins for baseball fans during breaks in World Series games, he has now given up; and hereby retreats to the world of connoisseurs who will gather, he tells us, to watch the final at the home of an expatriate where “of course there will be no Americans.”
Here’s his parting shot:
So here’s the message, America: don’t pay any attention to us, and we won’t pay any to you. If you wonder, over the coming weeks, why your Indian co-worker is stealing distracted glances at his computer screen every few minutes or why the South African in the next cubicle is taking frequent and furtive bathroom breaks during the working day, don’t even try to understand. You probably wouldn’t get it. You may as well learn to accept that there are some things too special for the rest of us to want to waste them on you.
Lovely! Elegant! Thoughtful! Um… diplomatic! Ever considered working for the United Nations?
Alright, so everyone has an off day. And sure, yeah, most people in the U.S. don’t get cricket. Not exactly a novel observation. So why not leave it at that? Instead Tharoor decides to actually argue the case, justifying his dismissal of this thing called “America” with an array of absurd statements. Americans, he says, “have about as much use for cricket as Lapps have for beachwear.” They follow baseball instead, which “is to cricket as simple addition is to calculus.” Tharoor has “even appealed to the Hemingway instinct that lurks in every American male by pointing out how cricket is so much more virile a sport.” All to no avail. But thanks to satellite television and the Internet, now “you can ignore America and enjoy your cricket.” After all: “Why try to sell Kiri Te Kanawa to people who prefer Anna Nicole Smith?”
But all of this is mere appetizer for the main dish, the Comparative Analysis of National Character. Take it away, maestro:
In any event, nothing about cricket seems suited to the American national character: its rich complexity, the infinite possibilities that could occur with each delivery of the ball, the dozen different ways of getting out, are all patterned for a society of endless forms and varieties, not of a homogenized McWorld. They are rather like Indian classical music, in which the basic laws are laid down but the performer then improvises gloriously, unshackled by anything so mundane as a written score.
Cricket is better suited to a country like India, where a majority of the population still consults astrologers and believes in the capricious influence of the planets — so they can well appreciate a sport in which, even more than in baseball, an ill-timed cloudburst, a badly prepared pitch, a lost toss of the coin at the start of a match or the sun in the eyes of a fielder can transform the outcome of a game. Even the possibility that five tense, hotly contested, occasionally meandering days of cricketing could still end in a draw seems derived from ancient Indian philosophy, which accepts profoundly that in life the journey is as important as the destination. Not exactly the American Dream.
All together now: MACACA, PLEASE!
Seriously: What on earth are you talking about? And what does it tell us about what you see when you think of America, and what you see when you think of India? And with all due respect, what kind of UN Secretary General could you have possibly made with a worldview at once so rigid and so fey?
It’s tempting to engage in a line-item refutation exercise, going through the brother’s points, trivial and serious, one by one. For instance, it’s not Lapps, you’re supposed to call them Sami now. Don’t they teach you anything at those urbane cocktail parties? Also: Ever heard of jazz? And best of all, did you read the letter in the New York Times where the writer schooled you on the more-than-12 ways to get an out in baseball?
But all that is noise. What really disappointed me about this article, now that I’ve had a little time to think about it, is the unthinking, crude cultural nationalism, the willingness to truck in stereotypes, the implied view that no matter how much globalization and immigrant entrepreneurship and diasporic arts and international travel and trade mix our populations and produce hybrid souls like the bulk of the readers of this site, National Character is pre-determined and will prevail. Way to validate our concerns, our dreams, our debates, our professional and political and personal choices!
Instead we get us versus them, a view of the world that is positively Bush-like in its reductionism and reliance on obsolete understandings of the nation-state. Not surprising in the end, I guess, from someone whose novel was called “The Great Indian Novel” (oh but you see, that was ironic) and whose forthcoming book is “The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone: India, The Emerging 21st Century Power.”
I’ll believe it when we beat Sri Lanka.
siddhartha on March 26, 2007 11:00 AM in Identity, Politics, Sports · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
All true. But in my view it does not distinguish this article from 99% of all op. ed. pieces about other countries (and sometimes about the U.S. itself with grand generalizations about "the American character" and " the American ethos") in the major American journals and newspapers. Its just more bullshit to add to the pile of shit that already exists in the form of newspaper op.eds. and columns.
"But all that is noise. What really disappointed me about this article, now that I’ve had a little time to think about it, is the unthinking, crude cultural nationalism, the willingness to truck in stereotypes..."
hehe. i know i should be outraged by some of tharoor's points but honestly i wonder if he's just giving a little payback to americans who overwhelm you sometimes with their sporting insularity and condescending claptrap about cricket and soccer (football) etc. i've read dozens of stories over the years by american sports journalists or just plain old journalists about cricket and soccer, and how obscure the former is and how superior baseball (without any knowledge of cricket either and ridiculous comparisons as well) is etc. so maybe he has a point when he says, somewhat smarmily of course, that perhaps americans should just let others enjoy their sports instead of being smarmy themselves about it every time the world cups of soccer or cricket roll around. i mean at least most of the world ignores the "world" series even if they haven't a clue about it. maybe we should all just enjoy what we do and stop paying attention to one another.
or maybe he's just having a little payback at the americans who derailed his nomination due to their own stereotypes about the un and about who should and shouldn't be un secretary general based on their own self-interests and national character :)
And not just at the Americans, as commenter Chandare pointed out. The article running on the morning of India's defeat to Sri Lanka was exquisite timing.
Tharoor's musical analogy is apt when comparing baseball and cricket. Anybody who uses Jazz (in comparison to Indian classical music) to question Tharoor's arguments, must be smoking something. I play both jazz and Indian classical music and there is absolutely no way Jazz can come close to the intricacies and complexities of Indian classical music.
"And not just at the Americans, as commenter Chandare pointed out. The article running on the morning of India's defeat to Sri Lanka was exquisite timing."
well, i think the accusations ran both ways, which is always going to be the case in these types of competitions, especially where regional egos are involved. we're not always united south asians. :) but cricket-wise, the lankans have the last laugh this time, and i hope they go all the way.
this is the difference i notice: those of us who don't get baseball or american football at all and don't care to generally don't go onto messageboards where fans of those sports are discussing the latest game or world series or whatever and denigrate the sports (at least in my experience. there are exceptions.) or write articles during the world series putting down baseball. i tend to only compare baseball unfavorably to cricket when someone takes potshots at cricket first. but i notice a lot of baseball or other fans going on to cricket boards and denigrating it. i mean why do people who do not follow a sport and who claim not to care a whit for it feel the need to do this? why have they taken the time to actually leave a comment then? the same with american journalists who, noticing that the cricket or soccer world cup is on, trot out the usual trite stories full of american-sport insularity or wonder that anyone can actually appreciate cricket. it all depends on the tone of the article and i judge each article separately. don't want to tarnish all of them. this is just my experience. i see this with golf as well. i follow golf, and i notice lots of non-golf people on the messageboards saying golf is not a sport compared to baseball etc. what is the point of this? no one is forcing anyone to follow anything.
Were you born this way, or is it learned behavior?
Wow..so Shashi is getting a little payback time through the NYTimes. Like he said, he's tried to explain and can't get through to Americans. So, he's a bit frustrated here and just throwing his hands up to the whole exercise.
But, the same argument is applicable with American attitudes towards soccer, too. However, soccer has hope of setting roots in the US. Cricket doesn't have a chance at this time of reaching mainstream America.
However, Shashi's nose is too high in the air regarding Cricket and Americans. So, he does deserve the letters he got in response!
reply to comment #6
hmmm... name calling.. How do I respond? Do I stoop down to your level and say something like "your mother was wondering the same thing last night when I was...." or do I just ignore it and move on?
I was merely commenting from the perspective of someone who is well versed in both cultures. Both cricket and Indian classical music have so much history that it is difficult to compare them to upstarts like baseball and jazz (although I love them enough to get a seaon ticket to Bosox and lifelong Jazz lessons). But you will probably not understand.
Just a hunch but maybe op-ed pieces like these are why Shashi is so riled up.
This was certainly not Tharoor at his best. The real eye-opener is in the brief paragraph after the column where we learn that he will soon be leaving the UN. He ran against the current UN Secy-Gen and lost - it's hard to continue when you think you deserve your boss's job, so it's understandable that he has to leave. What's not is how Tharoor persuaded himself that he had the gravitas to succeed as a Secy-Gen, especially for someone who's been an insider at the UN as long as he has. Somebody once described him here at SM as having the 'cadences of a British Lord' (was it Manish?) - signalling his inability to truly connect even with diasporic South Asians in spoken English. Unfair to him, perhaps, but his accent does nothing to endear him to official or popular audiences in either of the two largest English speaking nations in the world - India and the US. It's not so much the accent itself, of course, but what it seems to signal about the depth of his understanding of the rest of the world. It's tragic (and perhaps a little hubristic on his part) how he didn't think all this through. It's the same with the op-ed piece.
I don't know why you are so upset Siddhartha. Someone (somewhere, sometime) in the US has written a silly article about another country filled with inaccuracies (Orientalism!) and Mr. Tharoor is now simply responding.
Look, everyone does the 'our sport is better' thing, but usually in a tone of bemusement and usually not in a paper in the home country of the sport/sporting fans you are bemusingly belittling, in gentle and chiding tones.....
Anyway, everyone is insular and parochial to an extent. Americans, Indians, the lot. Arguing about which country is more insular (especially among it's uppermiddle and upper-middle twit classes) is like arguing who is stupider, the dhimmocrats or the rethuglicans. Or arguing which country has the more preachy politicians, American or Indian. Macaca, please. Their politicians. They all preach....it keeps them from actually having to do anything.
Hmm, that didn't come out well: I tried to do gentle irony and sarcasm and failed! Mr. Tharoor and I have much in common....
Shorter MD: Good post Siddhartha.
C'mon Siddhartha. It's not Orientalism when we do it, then it's authenticity and cultural ownership.
Variations of baseball pitches.
Fastball (high velocity)
4 seam fastball
2 seam fastball
split finger fast ball
cutter
Breaking ball (sideways or downward movement)
curveball
slider
knuckleball
sinker
Change up (velocity change, designed to throw off timing)
palmball
"OK" changeup
superchangeup
Ways to get out in baseball
Strike out
Foul out
Ground out
Fly out
Bunt out
Foul out
Tag out
Run down
Double Play
Triple Play
Picked off by pitcher
Caught stealing a base
And nothing, nothing is more climactic than a play at the plate.
distance from mound to home - 60.6 feet
distance between creases - 22 yards = 66 feet
a longer distance means, more time to react.
Fastest pitchers ~100mph
Fastest bowlers ~100mph, balls speed can reduce
after the bounce (although direction can change
drastically)
Baseball bats are narrower, requiring more
hand to eye coordination.
I think that's the whole ball game. Baseball is better than cricket. you heard it here first
Next time, give us a list of all the ways football totally kicks the ass of rugby! F-yeah!
Ever heard of Steve Bartman?
HMF, in your paradigm, if Shashi Tharoor like the evil white dude who coopts real hip hop or is he someone who just, likes country music?
I think that a lot of tharoors writing here is sarcastic ( as are most of his literary works). I think trying to read a 'diplomatic accurateness' into his writings would not make any sense - because a diplomatically precise document is almost always nothing but a bunch of intentionally vague statements.
I find his article to be a great read !
Steve Bartman????
Speaking as a Cubs fan, I think it time to forgive Mr.Bartman for his actions in game 6 of the 2003 NLCS.
Yes, he's being patronizing as hell, but having heard my share of "Oh my God, you watch cricket? It's so boring! It takes FOREVER! It makes no sense! I don't know how anyone can enjoy it!" comments, I have to agree with him.
SurAJ: Do you see any condescension in the article at all? And, 'you Americans do it too' isn't an answer. I find it breathtakingly tone-deaf from a supposed world class diplomat. But then, his hair! His glorious shiny hair, in a soft wing on either side of his face, hair capable of mesmerizing Charlie Rose, and me (as I watch the two on PBS), too. Why, I think he alone, with such hair and such delicate wit, could clearly have brought peace to the MidEast. Oh, how I long for the American hegemon to pass the batton to India, for surely, as the birthplace of civilization, the hegemon-batton belongs to India/South Asia......(asia, asia, asia: said in echo).
'Cricket is boring' is strikingly different from 'Cricket is boring and India sucks, too'. See the difference, my dear friends?
I'm all for forgiving him, but just showing an extreme example where a single play potentially changed the outcome of a game/series/season.
And India, of course, can pass the cricket bat on to the American, er, what kind of mon was that? :)
MD: I repeat - I believe most of this work is sarcastic in nature. To interpret it to be condescending in nature is the same as interpreting a blonde joke to be condescending to blondes. It would be very un-diplomatic and it is incorrect to make "generalizations" about a certain group of people. I agree. I am sure Shashi Tharoor knows this very well too ( he was not a runner up to a UN sec race for nothing ! )
I think it is best to read the article for its sarcastic wit and humor - not to interpret it as a generalization or a way of thought !
battons were invented in India, in the area of Mohenjo-Daro. baseball was also invented there, but the stopped playing it because it got boring. It didn't occur to India to play any sports until the british accidently reminded them to play cricket. Which India started to play as a favor to the british. It all had to do with the british helping build the railway. And now India has ruined cricket on purpose, by betting on sports. Betting on sports, by the way, was also invented by Indians at Mohenjo-Daro
I'm all for forgiving him, but just showing an extreme example where a single play potentially changed the outcome of a game/series/season.
Calling time out when none existed.....NCAA Championship game.....6 seconds in the game left........Webb.............Fab 5.......
It is interesting that America invented her own sports, whilst the rest of the world fell in love with football, cricket and rugby. Maybe it has something to do with how America defined herself as different from everyone else, especially Britain, after the war of independence.
"It is interesting that America invented her own sports, whilst the rest of the world fell in love with football, cricket and rugby. Maybe it has something to do with how America defined herself as different from everyone else, especially Britain, after the war of independence. "
Wow, Red Snapper! I've never made that connection before. That's so true.. Americans are the innovators, while the rest of the world follows the footsteps of its imperialist leaders.
So, will they be playing baseball in Baghdad in the future??
What sports were popular in India before the Raj?
lol Ashi, probably not baseball in Baghdad. But that is how baseball spread to Venezuela, which is not a soccer-playing nation, curiously enough, because baseball is so popular. And also to Japan, South Korea, the Caribbean, etc.
I don't think it's as simple a question of the rest of the world following in the footsteps of the imperialists --- football was introduced to Latin America by British sailors, not imperialists, the same in Europe. The refinement and exporting of the English games was innovative in its own way, and (especially with football), it was something that spread like wildfire throughout the rest of the world. America was an innovator for her own sports which appealed to the American imagination --- but they don't really mean anything outside the USA. So perhaps they are suited to Americas sense of herself as distinct from every other country.
Of course nations have character. The haughty Frenchman. The inscrutable Chinese. The long-suffering Russian. The pompous Indian. And yes, the insular American. Seek all you want for a nation of hybrid souls. I present to you, instead, Fast Food Nation.
Put a West Indian in the United States - in about ten years, they will learn of baseball, of basketball, perhaps even of football. Put an American in, say, Antigua. In about ten years, they will learn where the McDonalds is.
Quite frankly, it's a fools errand to try to argue which is more sophisticated, whether it be cricket v. baseball or jazz v. indian classical music. Anyone who tries to make such broad statements only reveals their ignorance because even a cursory understanding of either sport or either musical form can only lead to the conclusion that it's a comparison of apples and oranges. Other than the fact that cricket and baseball are both played with a ball and bat, they are totally different sports, each with its own nuance that makes it interesting. Likewise, indian classical music (first one would have to be more specific because the hindustani/carnatic distinction is also very important) and jazz share an improvisational focus, yes, but the harmonic and rhythmic roots of the musics are completely different.
So if you play both jazz and Indian classical music, or both cricket and baseball, and believe one can't come close to the "intricacies and complexities" of the other, then you probably are not nearly as knowledgable and skilled as you might have us believe.
Red, don't want to take anything away from your overall point, but the roots of baseball in rounders, a game originating in 17th Century Ireland and Britain, seems to be reasonably well-accepted. The similarities are so great, that rounders could be called British baseball. Of course, I'd normally be expecting you to be telling us this!
Here's one American who does like and has played cricket. I even had my Sourav Ganguly wallpaper up until India blew it. Now, I'm just rooting against Australia.
chachaji
Sure -- but rounders is played by 10 year old girls at school who are too scared of picking up a cricket bat and getting hurt. It's not a mass sport at all, nor is it played as widely, with the kind of mythology and passion that surrounds football, cricket, or in America, baseball. Either way, Americans indigenised baseball and made it their own game.
I think baseball is often considered to have roots in both rounders and cricket.
Yes special and complex, like his opinion piece, which is not just jingoistic chest thumping, but also hollow and pathetic.
"Here's one American who does like and has played cricket. I even had my Sourav Ganguly wallpaper up until India blew it. Now, I'm just rooting against Australia."
:) a friend of mine touring the u.s. was once stunned to see an american (of european descent ) wearing an indian cricket shirt. upon inquiring, he found out that the man had been introduced to cricket by college friends and had taken a shine to it. his favorite player was tendulkar.
Being FOB,Consider me a Cricket fan turned Baseball fan.
I went through the Ken Burn's baseball history series (all 16 (?)hours of it) just for fun.Baseball does have roots in both rounders and cricket .Specially the guy who devised baseball scoring was a cricket player(1860 as I remember).
If anybody think that rounders is for girls they should check the Sri Lankan version of rounders which is called Elle(EL-LE).They use a tennis ball the way to get a player out is to hit him with the ball when running between bases.It is extremely painful to get out !
Elle was quite popular until 80's then "Cricket killed the Elle star".
It is just B.S.compare two games but I always wonder why all the macacas aint' give a shit about baseball.
I'm just waiting for the day when Colombo "Kabaragoyas" are Playing Bombay "Indians" for the world series.
That statement is empty and bombastic. Chest-thumping insecurity.
"I'm just waiting for the day when Colombo "Kabaragoyas" are Playing Bombay "Indians" for the world series."
then it would truly be a "world" series :)
Yeah but that's more a question of wealth and agency than any inherent culture. Americans abroad stay ignorant and aloof because they can.
Immigrant populations large enough to sustain an economy in the United States are perfectly able to (at least) delay American cultural norms too. Why do you think Zee TV exists? I dunno whereabouts you are, but it's very possible for my city's large Latino population to keep up with its cultural traditions too.
Cricket-fan, what instrument(s) do you play? I'd most likely be inclined agree with you if I was playing jazz-triangle, for instance.
Good start, though I'd add a few more to your list. I'm with Sriram: any attempt to claim a hierarchy between jazz and Indian classical music is a fool's errand, not to mention that both jazz and Indian classical are quite broad and disparate genres that cannot effectively be defined by any singular example. Just look at the wiki on jazz, it lists and explains over 20 distinct styles of jazz music and still doesn't broach more modern interpretative styles such as Klezmer jazz and jazzy drum and bass.
Mmm. Note to self: do not read SM while eating lunch.
;-))
Some people are incorrigible. Kobayashi, read Pat Metheny's (one of my favorites - third wind and last train home) cribs about the lack of complexity in jazz for a change. That's waht happens when the grammar is wanting. And listen to a good rendition of Hamsadhwani [0-1:18; resumes again at 2:15 - 2:50). One is about melody, and another more about harmony. Call and response patterns exist in both.
[cricket-fan, let there be no disputes about tastes; whisper starts *between you and me - you are right, there's really no match. some fusion jazz tries to copy, and churn out chutneys - but they cannot rob the soul* whisper ends]
coming back to the original post - why is this blogger calling another Indian a Macaca? Who gives him that right? Be happy if you are one, and leave it at that. And here ends my conversation.
I think Shashi Tharoor's article was probably more suited to a bar conversation, where the article would be his exasperated sigh after 20 minutes of trying to explain cricket to an american.
As for Macaca...It's OK.
We're taking it back.
I call Macaca please too, but other than that I don't think the article is half the things siddartha called it.
I could be wrong about this?
But it's seems to me that desi's youth in the United States and Canada are more likely to be into basketball then into baseball. Maybe it's the impact of hip-hop influence into the NBA.
please, i'm sure Mr. Tharoor opined with a twinkle in his eye. lighten up everyone, it's only another stupid game where the people who watch seem to be more involved than the ones playing it. baseball, cricket, football sorry soccer or did i mean football, anyone?
considering it was a prominent nyt op-ed, very little reaction from the blogosphere to the piece, according to a technorati search.
Just one more thing. Where did Shashi Tharoor learn his calculus? I mean, at a stretch, we could apply this to integral calculus (though "geometry" would be more accurate than "simple addition"). But if he's talking differentiation, then he's got his well-coifed head up his colon.
The thing with witty insults (and I presume Tharoor's going for wit here) is: you've got to be accurate, for the full devastating effect. Addition, calculus, that's lazy stuff. Of course it's lazy. The fellow also thinks there's only one improvisational music tradition in the world?
And that Kiri Te Kanawa/Anna Nicole Smith comparison is the worst use of rhetoric I've seen in a long time. It would make as much sense as an American saying, "We like Martha Nussbaum, but you folks prefer Bipasha Basu." As Siddhartha says, this stuff is fey and rigid, a tricky mix at the best of times.
I think Tharoor's going for a kind of sly humor in this piece--his tongue is firmly lodged in his cheek--but it falls flat because he's too insistent about denigrating America and finding essentializing tropes to fit his argument. It's as if he started off with a preposterous joke, and then suddenly realised that he could strike a blow for the oppressed at the same time. What might have worked well as a piece of sports-buffoonery (a genre, I must admit, that's close to my heart) spectacularly fails once it becomes a lecture on benighted American exceptionalism.
I'm all for insults, but shape up Tharoor. We need sterner stuff than this.
It's a genre?
'Lota-washed pomaded colon' would have worked better.
I hope it is. :)
Most sports have been transplanted onto other cultures through dominance - cricket through colonialism in the Commonwealth countries, baseball through America's economic dominance of Latin America and Japan. When there is parity among nations or cultures, popularizing one nation's sport in another is almost impossible. So Americans aren't buying into cricket and India, now gaining a foothold among the powerful nations of the world, should have no reason to buy into baseball.
The NFL stages those ambitious exhibition games in Europe and Asia with the hopes of marketing yet another American product to the world as if sports were blue jeans. Has it worked? Americans can't even sell a foreign sport to themselves. Soccer was imported forty years ago and is still floundering at the school level. There was an expectation that Americans would play soccer as children and then go on to do mega deals for the sports when they became grown ups.
But Mr. Tharoor, let's give Americans their due for at least tuning into their voters and giving them cricket ovals if that's what it takes to get re-elected. True story! I live in the Ft. Lauderdale-Miami metro where the Caribbean population is quite large. Of course, there are the ubiquitous desis, and thanks to our warm weather, sizable communities of Aussies and Brits as well. Can cricket be far behind! Several of our municipalities have allowed cricket pitches in public parks. One town went so far as to send its council members on a junket to the Caribbean to "study" cricket grounds prior to building an oval in their town. I have watched cricket there many times. The last time we desis were humiliated when St. Vincent - yes, if you can find it on the map - roundly beat Mother India. Oh well, they had a batsman who used to play for the West Indies, and all we have is slightly paunchy Motorola engineers who only played college level back in India.
Regarding Mr. Tharoor's anti-American rant, it is unfortunately a global myth that America, Americans and American culture are simplistic and trivial. In fact, a sign of intellectual refinement is to dismiss America as a lucky accident of history - a big success, but no substance. Mr. Tharoor must have fallen into that popular pseudo-intellectual trap when he made those remarks.
Except football, which flourished in Latin America and Europe, where England did not dominate.
Mr Kobayashi,
Please apologise to Ms. Bipasha Basu immediately, otherwise we will start burning your effigies.
:)
Bipasha Basu said: "I still have to understand this. Most people, who tell me that I look sexy on screen, do so almost apologetically. It’s like, 'You look so sexy in (insert movie name here).' What I seem to hear under their breath is, 'I’m sorry, but must you do that?'"
Martha Nussbaum said, "Through cosmopolitan education, we learn more about ourselves. One of the greatest barriers to rational deliberation in politics is the unexamined feeling that one's own current preferences and ways are neutral and natural. An education that takes national boundaries as morally salient too often reinforces this kind of irrationality, by lending to what is an accident of history a false air of moral weight and glory. By looking at ourselves in the lens of the other, we come to see what in our practices is local and non-necessary, what more broadly or deeply shared. Our nation is appallingly ignorant of most of the rest of the world. I think that this means that it is also, in many crucial ways, ignorant of itself."
That's the long and short of it folks.
Are apologies really necessary? Can't we all just get along?
(p.s. Please, Indianoguy, fax all effigies of Bipasha to my private line. Thx.)
This discussion comes up every fourth year in time for soccer world cup, when american and euros exchange insults towards eachother on basis of their sporting preferences. It always ends with, WW2, coward and soccer being a sissy sport on the one hand, and fat, lazy, stupid and NFL being the only elite sport where some people actually are fat (yes I know Sumo).
There is one thing funny with baseball, thw only two countries other than the US that have baseball as their sport numero Uno is Cuba and Venezuela...
Okay, so I'm a smarmy American who thinks that cricket and soccer are mind-numbingly boring. But I'm an equal opportunity snob; I feel the same way about every other televised sport except for college basketball (by the way, can somebody find a March Madness desi angle?). But during last year's Word Cup I noticed a lot of Americans a few generations removed from the boat were bringing up soccer match results in casual conversation. I dunno, maybe it has something to do with New Yorkers attempting seem more "European." Because then they would finish eating their fromage-stuffed crepes.
Tharoor said :
I guess thats why stupid morons in India did "yagna" and "havans" to please to gods so that India wins the world cup. How idiotic!! I guess Tharoor is proud of those people :-) Attitudes like Mr. Tharoor's encourage this kind of stupidity.
What sports were popular in India before the Raj?
gilly dunda
Guha's history of Indian cricket is a very good read. One learns about early "untouchable" players who made it big playing alongside caste Hindus, and how early teams were communal, viz., divided by religions. It was the "more British than the British" Parsis who first took up cricket in a big way - and they were unbeatable for a century!
Werd.
But mostly, Siddhartha, you are such a writer! Loan me some of that talent!
"It is interesting that America invented her own sports, whilst the rest of the world fell in love with football, cricket and rugby. Maybe it has something to do with how America defined herself as different from everyone else, especially Britain, after the war of independence. "
Basketball was invented by a Canadian...
American football was actually closer to what is now known as soccer till one of their universities (Harvard) played against McGill (in Montreal).
From Wiki:
"Harvard was isolated from its US counterparts by the fact that it did not play soccer. As a result, in 1874, Harvard footballers welcomed a request from the rugby team of McGill University of Montreal to play a pair of games. In these games, the two teams alternated between the rules used by each college. It is from this home and home series that the game now known as American football entered the United States. Following these games, Harvard also adopted a game based on the rugby football code and played Yale under these rules in 1875 for the first edition of The Game. Within a few years, other US universities had also adopted rugby.[16])"
And Hockey is Canadian too.
3 of America's 4 main sports has its roots in Canada. So there.
"I could be wrong about this?
But it's seems to me that desi's youth in the United States and Canada are more likely to be into basketball then into baseball. Maybe it's the impact of hip-hop influence into the NBA. "
Yup that's mostly true. Punjabi kids in the GTA seemed to have bucked the trend though, many being in hockey.
"I play both jazz and Indian classical music and there is absolutely no way Jazz can come close to the intricacies and complexities of Indian classical music."
I thought this was interesting. I don't know enough about jazz to say whether this comment is accurate or load of crap.
But I do know that one of the reasons Indian classical music (I don't buy into the entirely rigid, strict divisions of Carnatic and Hindustani),along with Persian, Afghan, Turkish classical systems etc. is somewhat looked down on by proponents of Western Classical Music because of their "jazz" like improvisations and lack of harmony.
I've been singing Carnatic and Hindustani since I could open my mouth, and I learned how to play both the piano and western classical violin for almost ten years. I gave up the latter two, not because they weren't sophisticated or challenging in their own right, but simply because my heart wasn't in it anymore.
On the other hand, I have a cousin who, while she hasn't learned any formal music, simply can't stand Indian classical music as she makes the same points about lack of harmony, everything sounds like some sort of wailing, crying etc. She's become quite the opera aficionado-which is something that other than as a light element in Hollywood background scores, I have little interest in (though I seriously gave it an effort). Anyways, my point is that tastes are simply tastes-it's somewhat of a fool's errand to say what's better and what's a "higher form" because ultimately what's higher depends on what you value higher: harmony, rythymic complexity, melodic development, improvisation, composition, soul-belting or restraint and adherence to notes etc.
On the other note, Tharoor's article, at least to me, had a very sarcastic tone to it. Although the poor fool should have realized the average reader was not going to pick up on that.
"But during last year's Word Cup I noticed a lot of Americans a few generations removed from the boat were bringing up soccer match results in casual conversation. I dunno, maybe it has something to do with New Yorkers attempting seem more "European." Because then they would finish eating their fromage-stuffed crepes."
haha...I have to agree with you here to an extent. I lived in downtown NYC last year, and I knew too many kids in NYC who have never played soccer, nor follow it all during the regular seasons, but during the world cup were all into it. There's definitely a bit of a "cosmopolitanism" to it in their heads, which is funny if you've ever been to a soccer match in the UK.
"Yeah but that's more a question of wealth and agency than any inherent culture. Americans abroad stay ignorant and aloof because they can."
Sorry ,but I dont agree with the above comment. Americans all over the world are famous for their dimwittedness and ignorance not because they can but because they live the life of a frog in a well...where American is the centre of teh universe for them....and all of a sudden now when they look around and find all their good jobs taken away by Indians or other communities not far away but right there in their own hometowns, its only now that they have rudely awakened and suddenly realise something that the rest of the world realiased logn back "Hey dude, it is important to go to college". So puhhleeez dont give that crap load of justification as to why Ameicans abroad stay ignorant of other cultures or people or places.....
They live the life of a frog in a well because THEY CAN.
"They live the life of a frog in a well because THEY CAN."
Thats right Americans! Keep telling yourselves that ;)
Puh-lease. Does that explain the sorry state of the educational system in, for example, India? Generally citizens of every country view their home as the center of the universe. The tired bashing of Americans as ignorant has reached a highly pitched whine, as Tharoor's article indicates. Siddhartha got it right in bemoaning the "unthinking crude cultural nationalism."
Come on guys! Clearly this is largely a tongue-in-cheek article not to be taken seriously. I thought it was brilliant!
And just to be sure, it is NOT racist. As far as Mr. Tharoor is concerned, and in my personal experience, ABDs are in the same boat as Americans. It's about the place where you grow up, not your genes.
Just the way that someone describing how French food has a different character from English food, which in turn is different from Indian, or Chinese food is not showing "unthinking, crude cultural nationalism"; so it with culture.
Anyone who has talked to an American about cricket knows that the only thing Americans know about the sport, in case they have heard of it, is that the game can go on for five days and not have a result. And that bothers them a lot...while it doesn't bother the Indians so much. It is something cultural and that is all the article is saying. (Ok, I am making gross generalizations here. And so in Tharoor. But don't you think replacing Americans by "99% of Americans I have met" in the article would hurt tremendously the readability of it?)
I encourage you to read Bill Bryson's take on cricket in "In a sunburned country". It has some choice gems such as "there's nothing wrong with the game that the introduction of golf carts wouldn't fix in a hurry", "I don't wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way", "It actually helps not to know quite what's going on. In such a rarefied world of contentment and inactivity, comprehension would become a distration", "The commentators were in calm agreement that they had not seen anyone caught behind with such panache since Tandoori took Rogan Josh for a stiffy at Vindaloo in '61."
It is an American's take on cricket. It is full of inaccuracies and exaggerations. But it makes extremely amusing reading. In my opinion, it is in this spirit that the Tharoor article is written.
Was at the Hariharan's show in UCLA the other day, he sang something he called Urdu Blues , a mix of Blues and Gazal, pretty nice!
Mr. Kobayashi writes:
"Bipasha Basu said:
...
Martha Nussbaum said:
That's the long and short of it folks."
I seriously hope that was with tongue firmly in cheek. Otherwise the absurdity of the comparison is mind-blowing.
What next? Should I respond with a comparison of quotes from George Bush and Vivekanda?
if you thought this lacked tact, you should read his article on Times of India asking women to wear sari.
Siddhartha -> writer -> jazz -> James Brown
"Now lookahere, if you ain't got enough soul, let me know and I'll loan you some. Ha! Boy, I got soul to burn!"
Oh, please don't tell me he used that overdone photo of the sadhu with the cellphone on the cover.
Why did he have to go and act like such an idiot? Thanks Siddhartha for calling him out on his Dubya-inspired rhetoric. I hope he doesn't 'misunderestimate' the cringe-worthiness of his own writing ;)
Oh lordy. I need an editor.
Siddhartha -> writer -> music -> James Brown
Wow, Canadians must be real proud of their state's role in nurturing their country's popular sports;)
Why? I go to matches all the time and the crowds are very cosmopolitan (especially at Arsenal -- last week watching Match of the Day there was a bunch of Sikh Uncles at Old Trafford who are known as The Punjabi Reds)
And the game is the most cosmopolitan of them all --- South America, Europe, Africa and Asia are all owned by football.
It's probably just people taking interest in th best sporting even out there. Like how I don't care for athletics but when the Olympics come around I'm stroking my chin and discussing track times knowledgably as if I'm an expert or something.
is that what they're called? I noticed them for the first time watching United v Lille. They sit right smack in the middle of OT where players come on and off the pitch. In fact, I just checked right now- 4 sardars, a little round around the corners, 2 black pughs, 1 blue and 1 red, and one wearing that hideous AIG-stamped shirt. Great seats though, must cost a fortune.
My Man Utd supporting friend (also Sikh) says they're rich businessmen from Manchester, and he remembers watching a documentary about them when they were youngsters back in the 1980's, about desis into football.
IndianaJones/Anna: Switching handles in the same thread is not appreciated, especially if done to support or address points you previously made. It's something we've banned for in the past. Consider this a friendly warning.
Parsing Shashi with a healthy hermeneutics-of-suspicion approach, what he is really saying is-
1. Damn the Americans for messing up my ambitions; I kinda knew it already when I ran...
2. It's true that most Americans aren't interested in what happens with the rest of the world.
3. Even now, in the 21st, there is no way to rise above parochial narrow natural desert sands of dead habit and be a 'global' citizen.
4. There is much to be ridiculed about every individual culture and the real tragedy is no one cares enough about other cultures.
5. I, too, can apply quintessential Americanese to talk about my culture...how does it feel then, yo?!
Oy vey. Chickity check yo self before you wreck yo self...
Red Snapper -
re the popularity worldwide of soccer, it's due in large part to the fact that you don't need any equipment except a ball (which is often not even a real ball in many poor countries). This makes it easier to play than basketball, football, baseball, tennis, hockey, golf, etc.
I don't know what sport people choose when they have a choice, but I know that soccer is traditionally the choice in part because of its utilitarian lack of equipment needed.
All that, plus it's the beautiful game, exciting, skilful, physical, depends on defence and attack, has a room for tough guys who break legs as well as highly talented artists, depends on individual talent as well as teamwork, and is sexy and fun too. All those things.
"On the other note, Tharoor's article, at least to me, had a very sarcastic tone to it. Although the poor fool should have realized the average reader was not going to pick up on that."
not even the average reader of the nyt?:) i guess they were overestimated. agree with #79 and #89. he was being serious/sarcastic at the same time (smart move! killing so many birds with one stone) but just isn't as good a humor writer as a bill bryson who can insult cricket but still make you laugh despite your annoyance. perhaps that's because tharoor appears to have been trying to kill too many birds with one stone (as #89 pointed out).
Yeah Bill Bryson is very funny....but even then he's gently mocking himself and his inability to understand cricket as an incomprehending American, so his humour is very very sophisticated and layered, even though it seems so simple, which is part of what makes him such a great and subtle humorist --- Tharoor's piece in comparison is straining for effect, trying too hard.
"All that, plus it's the beautiful game, exciting, skilful, physical, depends on defence and attack, has a room for tough guys who break legs as well as highly talented artists, depends on individual talent as well as teamwork, and is sexy and fun too. All those things."
That describes American Football perfectly! And beneath its sheer physicality is very intricate planning, almost resembling a general's tactics in the battlefield. In fact, its goal is similar to that of a battle - to advance into enemy territory one step at a time.
Not to take anything away from the greatness of soccer, experts say it didn't captivate the US because it is a very low scoring game. What will be the harm in tinkering with the rules a little to generate 10 to 15 scores a game? Look at how cricket has evolved from the test match format to fixed number of overs of the World Cup.
"is somewhat looked down on by proponents of Western Classical Music because of their "jazz" like improvisations and lack of harmony."
Indian Classic Music simply does not permit jazz-like improvisations. The jazz analogy is used so rampantly that people forget that it is just a loose analogy to explain Indian classical to lay people. The biggest difference between the two is that the improvisation permitted to an Indian classical musician is very tightly circumscribed by the raag and taal, making improvisation quite premeditated and extremely challenging. Imagine giving somebody your grandma's chocolate cake recipe which calls for a precise measurement of every ingredient, then telling the person not to deviate from the recipe one iota but still find a way put his or her unique flavor to the cake so that it tastes different than grandma's. I won't comment on the freedom allowed in jazz. I am not an expert on jazz, though I enjoy it very much.
It is interesting to see Shashi Tharoor having 'provoked' people from all spheres of life including blogoshere with his NY Times column on cricket! ... I can see that the world is still seething and is all out to scathe Shashi for his ‘a bit carried away’ display of love and longing for the beautiful game of cricket. ... I think we need to understand that even a great personality like Shashi Tharoor - an accomplished author and diplomatic - can sound like an ordinary human being on a particular day. ... More importantly, we, his 'Indian' fans, should not just enjoy his writings on his ‘good’ days but rather be with him in his ‘not so good days’ by not joining the Americans in his condemnation, even if we do not necessarily agree with his viewpoint.
Oops, forgot to plug my family's classical music web site, which is purely a public service effort for us. A lot of good information on something all desis should be proud of.
www.classicalmusicofindia.com
It doesnt have to -- it's the global sport already.
"Not to take anything away from the greatness of soccer, experts say it didn't captivate the US because it is a very low scoring game."
isn't baseball a low scoring game? and it goes on for much longer than a football match, yet it is still low scoring.
I think soccer did not take off in the US because of choice. New immigrants made a choice to assimilate and baseball became one of the major routes by which new immigrants assimilated, leaving sports such as soccer behind. Joe Dimaggio was a hero to italian-americans for this reason, Hank Greenberg was loved by jewish-americans, and Jackie Robinson's efforts at integration riveted the country. Baseball was in a way integral to what it meant to be american
@ Anju: I agree totally. I think people are making a mountain of a mole hill here ! There is no harm at all in what he wrote. It is a free country and every person can have an opinion and state it.
Surely he deserves a chance to take a small dig at the Americans - all in good humor ! - America did the same to him in that secret-ballot veto for the UN Gen. Sec race ;)
So puhhleeez dont give that crap load of justification as to why Ameicans abroad stay ignorant of other cultures or people or places.....
So a poor American (they do exist, you know), dropped into a different culture would be able to just stay completely aloof and ignorant? That's ridiculous. The reason Americans abroad stay aloof is because people cater to that attitude.
||I seriously hope that was with tongue firmly in cheek. Otherwise the absurdity of the comparison is mind-blowing. ||
@Kobayashi: ||Oy vey. Chickity check yo self before you wreck yo self...||
Apologies. My bad. Didn't have the patience to read your earlier comments.
However, now that I did, I have something to say to the guy who said "absolutely no way Jazz can come close to the intricacies and complexities of Indian classical music".
Please listen to an incredible album by R. Prasanna called 'Electric Ganesha Land'. This is a Carnatic musician's tribute to Jimi Hendrix. Prasanna has been called one of the most innovative sounds in contemporary guitar ("Prasanna plays guitar, quite simply like nobody on the planet" - PHIL DI PIETRO, ALLABOUTJAZZ.COM). Coming from someone who plays as regularly on the Chennai Carnatic concert circuit as he does with Jazz greats in NY City, this album may give you a different perspective on your blinkered view on the great musical traditions of the world. Music in all its forms is a gift to be enjoyed, not used as a proxy for nationalistic bravado.
About Tharoor's article, I think he was spot on. I think Siddharta's post is self-denigrating, where he tries hard to be apologetic to hide his own sense of embarrassment. I would be interested to know what his reaction would be if Tharoor's piece was directed at a country, say like Indonesia...or maybe Peru...you know, a country where cricket is as alien as kabaddi, but one which does not permeate the urban Indian mindset like America does. Would he have cringed or laughed?
More loyal than the queen, Siddharta?
Finally cricket makes an apearence in the radar screen of my favorite sports columnist,King Kaufman ,via NYT and a Murder.
As for your cousin being an opera fan and not into Indian classical music....hey, coloratura arias found in many 19th cen operas, are an opportunity for a vocalist to show off her/his ability to improvise...sound familiar?
Sure, similar to the performace kalpanaswarams and niravals of a well-rendered keerthana. But the hallmark of a Carnatic vocalist is the Ragam Tanam Pallavi, where the entire thing is improvised within one raga. But my cousin's reasons for not liking Indian music aren't due to technique, she just doesn't like how it sounds, period. While I can appreciate the difficult technique of Operatic singing and I can enjoy it from time to time, it doesn't excite me the same way a khayaal or a sung ragam do. Likewise, I would never expect most people to feel the same way about Carnatic or Hindustani they way I do. The point I was trying to make is that it's pointless to try and push one music genre as "higher" or "better" than another. Tastes are tastes.
"The jazz analogy is used so rampantly that people forget that it is just a loose analogy to explain Indian classical to lay people."
Like I said, I don't know enough about jazz to really evaluate this statement. But wouldn't you agree that, for example, carnatic renderings of keerthana's for example, especially insertions of kalpanaswarams and niravals sound a bit more like jazz theory than anything in western classical music? The other day, I was reading the "Time Out" travel guide to Mumbai and Goa, and there was a section titled "Scat Like Ella" that was about opportunities for learning Indian classical music.
But I agree with you on your point that people often don't realize how trying it can be to put your own stamp on anyone particular ragam-and I don't know if there is an equivalent to it. Maybe someone who's more knowledgeable can elaborate on this.
Must say, this thread has made me more inspired to learn about jazz theory, though.
Well said.
Going on my previous points...
this article I think sums it up fairly well...
http://media.www.utahstatesman.com/media/storage/paper243/news/2004/11/17/Features/At.The.Altars.Of.Carnatic.Music-808044.shtml
And I encourage you to listen to "In a Big Country" by Big Country. They're from, like, another country or something. It sounds big.