I was out on the floor tonight running discs back and forth for a Reuters photographer. Before the speeches began, I ran into my old friend Gaekwad. Tonight he had donned a handsome black Nehru jacket. I complimented him on it and he responded,
“Thank you. It’s important to keep some of yourself.”
It was a poignant thing to hear out there in that sea of white people. Each time I spotted a fellow brown, I felt as though I were viewing myself as a child, alone in a Dallas public school, sure that no one could understand me or my family, and especially not the country we had come from.
But Gaekwad had it right. As I reported yesterday, these pro-McCain Indian Americans have India at heart when they support him. That they can join forces with people so dissimilar from them is unnatural, and nice. They do it with gusto.
I met Swadeep Nigam, a delegate from Las Vegas. He was excited about Palin. I asked him what he thought about the grandchild and he told me we all have problems in our families. He praised her as one more in a line of women politicians - listing off Indira Gandhi and China’s Annette Lu as some others.
Here’s Nigam, looking proud:
Gaekwad found me later and made a point to introduce me to Charlie Crist, governor of his home state, Florida (Did I tell you G is an honorary county sherrif back home? When I asked him how he managed to swing that, he said if you get involved, people will start to give you things.) That was a sort of awkward meeting, seeing as Gaekwad could say nothing to Crist save that I work (temporarily) for “Rooters.” But it was very uncle-ish and cute.
Before I continue, I have to say some quick things about Palin’s speech - though there was nothing Desi about it. Is it just me, or is she an awful lot like Tina Fey? I don’t just mean looks, though the similarity is striking:
It’s also the quippiness. Palin’s biting lines (Listening to [Obama] speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate and My fellow citizens, the American presidency is not supposed to be a journey of “personal discovery,” to name two). Each time she let loose one of her zingers, women around me sighed, “I love her.” At one point, a man said it in the same way, and that’s when I knew she’d done it. I think this could create the same sort of mild (and probably temporary) upswing for McCain that Fey’s pro-Clinton appearance on SNL did for Hillary.
And now, for the big swing back. Tomorrow I’ll be interviewing another woman politico - this one an Indian. She’s Harmeet Dhillon from San Francisco and she’s running for the California State Assembly.
While at Dartmouth College in the 80s she took on what she saw as inappropriate political correctness by a music professor of hers who held forth in class on his liberal views. She published a transcript of the guy’s class on the front page of the conservative Dartmouth Review, which she wrote for. It landed her on 60 minutes.
Here’s a video of her explaining the whole thing in an interview.
I’m excited to talk to her. She’s sharp. And unpredictable - she is a board member of the ACLU.
Till next time, M
