Wrestler Dalip ‘Giant’ Singh: a living testament to the effect of androgens on fetal development. 7’3”, 408 lbs, claims to eat five chickens and 24 eggs a day.

Wrestler Tiger Jeet Singh. Not so large, but like Hasselhoff, he’s big in Japan.

…running amok in a Japanese arena, bedecked in a turban and brandishing a menacing sword. Bellowing like a bull elephant in heat, he attacks members of the ticket-paying audience, scattering them hither and yon… He once mauled the editor of Tokyo’s largest sports daily newspaper. Another time, the Tiger demolished a Mercedes with a baseball bat in downtown Tokyo during rush hour… He claims that Japanese wrestling fans will not wash those parts of their body he has struck, so honored are they to be pummelled by Tiger Jeet Singh.

… the border guards are all MASSIVE. The midget amongst them was 6’8” tall… the guards (quite literally) utter these primal screams at the other side of the border, in some sort of bizarre alpha-male routine. The whole macho element of guns, sabres, and massively magnificent moustaches is, however, completely ruined by the modern dance routine that ensues once the “parade” begins; although it defies description, lets just say that it involves high-kicks, stomping, twirling, a hip-shimmy, and much prancing.

Small OpEd in the Econ Times - Desi Americans against outsourcings -

...recently, when the Chairman of the Indian-American Republican Council, criticised the Senate Democratic leader Senator, Tom Daschle for telling his constituents that six million jobs will be outsourced to India, R Vijayanagar said that these statements are nothing but cheap rhetoric.

Claiming that yet another Democrat has used India as a scapegoat to score political points in a desperate attempt to win an election, he said the Indian-American community was affected by such Xenophobia. But are their fears genuine?

Well why not? We outsource everything else. It’s good for a free market economy. On September 20th I wrote about the deportation of a Sikh man who claimed he would be tortured if returned to India. You see, it is against international agreements for the U.S. to deport someone if they know that person will be subjected to torture. In the case of th Sikh man there was controversy as to whether or not his claims were false. Soon though, that argument may be irrelevant. From the Washington Post:

The Bush administration is supporting a provision in the House leadership’s intelligence reform bill that would allow U.S. authorities to deport certain foreigners to countries where they are likely to be tortured or abused, an action prohibited by the international laws against torture the United States signed 20 years ago.

The provision, part of the massive bill introduced Friday by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), would apply to non-U.S. citizens who are suspected of having links to terrorist organizations but have not been tried on or convicted of any charges. Democrats tried to strike the provision in a daylong House Judiciary Committee meeting, but it survived on a party-line vote.

Slate magazine pokes fun at America’s continuing electronic voting anxiety by using India as an example of how to do things right:

While we in the United States agonize over touch screens and paper trails, India managed to quietly hold an all-electronic vote. In May, 380 million Indians cast their votes on more than 1 million machines. It was the world’s largest experiment in electronic voting to date and, while far from perfect, is widely considered a success. How can an impoverished nation like India, where cows roam the streets of the capital and most people’s idea of high-tech is a flush toilet, succeed where we have not?

Apparently India uses an incredibly simple technology that may not be as fancy as the machines here, but does the job well.

It is well known that there is a growing unease between black South Africans and Indians in South Africa. How bad is it? A recent poll suggests that are large percentage of Indians there think that things were better during apartheid. From Rediff.com:

Despite their support for the ruling African National Congress, more Indians than whites in South Africa were unhappy with the present dispensation and prefer the former apartheid regime to the present democratic state, a survey by ANC has revealed.

The survey, conducted in the Guateng region (which has an Indian population of over 3,00,000) revealed that 37 per cent of Indian respondents replied in the affirmative when asked whether they prefer going back to the apartheid regime compared to 19 per cent of whites who made the same choice.

There is of course a lot of racial tension between the two groups:

The [poll] has made the ANC deduce that the “skepticism” of the Indian and coloured communities towards the government was due to the perception that before they were “not white enough and now they are not black enough.”

I remember hearing about a racist song out of South Africa not so long ago (2002) that was very popular.

A new song [2002] by renowned South African composer and producer Mbongeni Ngema is causing a racial stir — this time round between blacks and Indians. The song, “Amandiya,” which means “Indians” in Zulu, has lyrics describing the country’s Indian population as abusive to black people, and being more racist than whites.

Ngema’s song blames Indians for taking advantage of blacks. He denounces the influx of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent, who he says are flooding into South Africa, so much so that “a brave man is required to confront” them.

The song struck a wrong musical note with the country’s leading politicians and human rights activists, who are wary that the song could provoke racial hatred in a country that prides itself on its new commitment to multiracial cooperation after years of apartheid rule. As of June 19, it was removed from the public airwaves until further notice.

Scientists believe that the Indian curry leaf - an ingredient in many curry dishes and used in traditional Indian healing, may contain agents that slow down the rate of starch-to-glucose breakdown in people with diabetes. The tree’s leaves could control the amount of glucose entering the bloodstream. [link]

Bio researcher Vamsi Mootha, 33, just won a $500K MacArthur fellowship (via Political Animal). Mootha is an assistant professor at Harvard who researches mitochondrial gene expression to combat disease.

By comparing the protein fingerprints with gene expression databases, more than 100 previously unknown mitochondrial proteins were identified. He used a similar, coordinated approach to identify the gene that causes Leigh Syndrome French Canadian variant, a fatal metabolic disease.  In diseases resulting not from a single gene but the interaction of sets of genes, he introduced a computational method for identifying patterns of gene activity in specific diseases… As importantly, Mootha has pioneered powerful, adaptable computational strategies for mining data collected in laboratories throughout the world, providing an efficient means to hunt down gene interactions that lead to a wide variety of diseases.

The James Logan debate coach won one as well. The Fremont-Newark-Union City area across from San Francisco has desi and Afghan gang problems, so this guy’s in the thick of it.

For 15 years, against long odds, Tommie Lindsey has held together an award-winning speech and debate team at James Logan High School in the blue- collar suburb of Union City. His students frequently defeat well-heeled competitors from elite high schools.

His teams have won four state championships; three James Logan students have been top winners at the national level and 25 at the state level. This year the team has more than 200 students. Ninety percent of Lindsey’s students go on to four-year colleges. Overall at Logan, just one-third of students qualify for the state university systems… In recent years, the team has been featured in a documentary and won a $100,000 award from Oprah Winfrey.

A 200-person debate team is enormous.

Microsoft is offering a lower-priced version of Windows in Hindi to discourage piracy. But Microsoft has artificially hamstrung Windows XP Starter Edition in some funny ways:

… display resolution is capped at a maximum of 800 by 600 pixels… users can run only three programs or have three windows opened at once, a limitation that research company Gartner believes could frustrate users and drive them to buy bootleg copies of Windows XP instead.

In all seriousness, differential pricing is as big an issue in software as it is with drug reimportation. Customers hate it, yet countries with lower average incomes can’t afford first-world prices. And high-value products that are easy to pirate are especially trapped in dilemma. To their advantage, software companies can create market-specific versions in ways that pharma companies morally cannot.

A life sized bronze statue of ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi will be unveiled and put on permanent display in Houston, TX this Satarday on the anniversary of his birth. IndoLink reports:

The statue, sculpted in India by renowned artist Ram Sutar, has been gifted to the citizens of greater Houston by the Indian government as a gesture of goodwill and friendship.

Houston Mayor Bill Whitwill formally accepted the statue in the presence of Indian Ambassador to United States, Ronen Sen.

The six-feet bronze statue will be unveiled on October 2, the birthday of Mahatama Gandhi, in the city’s landmark — Hermann Park, which is frequented by millions of tourists each year.

In 2002, a low-caste Pakistani village woman was sentenced by the village panchayat to be gang-raped in retribution for a crime allegedly committed by her brother. The sentence was carried out by four high-caste men, and she was sent home walking naked through her village. But she fought back:

…instead of killing herself, Ms. Mukhtaran testified against her attackers and propounded the shocking idea that the shame lies in raping, rather than in being raped. The rapists are now on death row, and President Pervez Musharraf presented Ms. Mukhtaran with the equivalent of $8,300 and ordered round-the-clock police protection for her.

Yes. I am VERY bitter. Instead of coming to a real NASA Engineer such as myself, they chose SRK for the part in their new movie Swades. Some things are just inexplicable. From The Times of India:

Can you imagine Shahrukh Khan doing a Kalpana Chawla, donning the space suit and taking off? If your upper factory’s done a pole vault trying to imagine the Dilli ka munda as a scientist, don’t bother.

Come December, and Ashutosh Gowariker will present the Badshah as a NASA engineer, who retraces his steps to Bharat land in the quest of fulfilling his dreams.

I'm a tad skeptical, but hey - :: Xinhuanet - English ::

NEW DELHI, Sept. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- India's unmanned moon mission -Chandrayan - is expected to take place in 2007-08 as it is progressing smoothly, the country's space agency chief G. MadhavanNair said here Sunday.

"There has been a lot of debate in the scientific community whether we should do this because of the huge cost, but what I would like to say is that the total cost of the project is just Rs.3.8 billion (83 million US dollars)," Nair, chairman of the IndianSpace Research Organization (ISRO), told reporters.

$83M USD sounds insanely cheap but Nasa's Lunar Prospector was done for only $62M so perhaps that's the proper ballpark.

Attention LA Desi's - your opportunity to become the next reality TV star is at hand - Reality dating show with a desi twist - The Economic Times

INDIAWEST

Champagne-soaked debauchery, fidgeting, uncomfortable good-night kisses, and brazen put-downs - in short, everything we love about TV dating shows - are soon to take on an Indian twist if the creators of a new TV show get their way.

"Prem or Not to Prem" bills itself as the first South Asian reality dating show, and they're looking for contestants in the Los Angeles area to audition this weekend.

Doh! But it appears we Mutineers didn't get the scoop to our faithful readers quick enough -

Interested singles are invited to audition Sept. 25 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Sheraton Cerritos Hotel at Towne Center, at 12725 Center Court Drive, Cerritos, California.

30 Min to decide if you want to pursue the relationship? Why do they need so much time?

Although the Republican Congressional candidate from Louisiana’s 1st Congressional District , Piyush “Bobby” Jindal, has the seat pretty much locked up accoriding to most experts, it isn’t stopping some of his five rivals from going after him. What do they have to say? From the Times-Picayune:

“I can’t imagine that someone who’s more to the extreme on some issues will be able to get bipartisan support for some of the needs Louisiana has, like coastal erosion,” [Dan] Zimmerman said, referring to Jindal’s conservative positions.

Opponents of Jindal include,

Roy Armstrong, an officer in Duke’s European-American Unity and Rights Organization; Vinny Mendoza, a retired Air Force officer; Mike Rogers, a health care consultant; Jerry Watts, a retired orthopedic surgeon; and Daniel Zimmerman, a computer technician.

Apparently even existing Congress members are so sure of Jindal’s victory that they are already recruiting him for the House’s Energy Committee even before he’s been elected. From The Hill:

Six weeks before Louisiana voters decide if they want Bobby Jindal to become a member of the House, Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.) is already lobbying Republican leaders to put the former Bush administration official on a top congressional committee.

It is rare for a freshman lawmaker to be appointed to an “A” House committee, such as Appropriations, Ways and Means, or Energy and Commerce. But because of his extensive background in healthcare and the broad perception that the Indian-American is a rising star in the party, Jindal may be an exception to the rule.

Barnard College is hosting a talk in Manhattan Tuesday about the preeminence of Bollywood films among the Hausa of Nigeria (via Mango Latte).

One of my fondest memories of Russia during the USSR is of dining with a newfound friend. His Tetris-like apartment had the look of violent meticulousness, a Tokyo sense of space. In that lockbox he had allocated a massive drawer jammed with carefully-filed Hindi films from the ’60s, which he showed off, blowing happy notes. We dined on cabbage and cold potato soup, but his Raj Kapoor impression was uncanny.

Every little girl is a goddess. Especially, if she's Preeti Shakya, of Kathmandu.

"Preeti Shakya ... [is] revered as the Kumari and incarnation of the Hindu mother goddess Durga. Each Kumari is chosen aged only three or four, always from the same Buddhist clan, and has to have 32 attributes, including thighs like those of a deer and a neck like a conch shell."

"She lives a confined life, only coming out of her palace three or four times a year until she reaches puberty when another Kumari must be found.

This main outing coincides with a festival of thanks to the local rain god and as always, her feet must never touch the ground unless there is a red carpet beneath them. "

Remember how lots of Americans are suspicious of guys in turbans? Now we’re actually hiring Sikhs to tote firepower around U.S. Army bases. It plays in Peoria, though, because these American Sikhs are white:

In the straight-laced world of the security business, where most people have a police or military background, Akal stands out. It is the only security company that anyone in the business, including Akal’s own executives, can think of that is owned by a nonprofit religious organization. “If we are in a room with 50 other contractors, you won’t remember the other guy, but you will remember us,” said Mr. Khalsa, who wears a white turban, has a long beard and refrains from cutting his hair.

In all fairness, although the owners are turbaned Sikhs, the guards generally are not. American Sikhs are an enterprising group with a CEO from Harvard Business School (thanks, Ennis) and a consumer products empire pulling in $60M annually:

Akal is just one of several for-profit and nonprofit entities that are part of a larger Sikh Dharma financial empire. These include Golden Temple, a natural foods company that makes Yogi herbal teas, Soothing Touch health and beauty products, Peace natural cereals, dietary supplements and private-label products for Trader Joe’s, the specialty food chain.

I really feel it is completely unecessary for me to make a joke about this one (although you guys can feel free). The facts provide all the humor needed. From Mid-day.com:

India’s first experiment of desi Viagra on animals is going to be tested on the Bihar tigers following the failure of the authorities of Sanjay Gandhi Zoological Garden to raise the tigers’ libido in its bid to enhance their population in the state.

The zoo authority has decided that homeopathic aphrodisiacs and desi Viagra would be tried on tigers to make them impregnate tigresses.

A spokesman of the Garden said the tigers have become very unromantic. “When a tigress started following a white tiger, he bit the tigress’s right paw. This forced us to decide that the only way to do away with the impotency of male tigers is to administer desi Viagra,” he said.

I know a lot of students go abroad to medical school because they haven’t gained admittance to a U.S. school. The most popular location for Indians seems to be India or the Caribbean. I have heard however that because these schools have the reputation of being less rigorous, life can be very difficult for those that go abroad to study or for foreign born doctors who want to later practice in the U.S. The Boston Globe Reports:

A Harvard Medical School assistant professor who was training to be a psychiatrist filed a federal lawsuit this week alleging that while serving in a residency program run by Harvard at a Brockton veterans’ hospital, he was discriminated against because he is from India.

Rajendra Badgaiyan, an assistant radiology professor for Harvard at Massachusetts General Hospital, alleges in his suit that he may not get his license to practice psychiatry because the director of the residency program was biased against Indian doctors and therefore made false claims about his performance.

What was it that let Badgaiyan to claim discrimination?

It’s not just Shashi Tharoor: India made a joint bid along with Germany and Japan, Brazil tagging along, for a permanent UN security council seat on Sep. 22. Sometimes history has a way of sneaking up on you: The U.S. pushed the UN to offer India the same seat, with veto power, in 1955, but Nehru unbelievably gave it up in favor of China, which invaded India seven years later (via the Acorn).

“…India is not anxious to enter the Security Council at this stage even though as a great country she ought to be there. The first step to be taken is for China to take her rightful place, and then the question of India might be discussed separately.” —Jawaharlal Nehru

the Indian Legion came to a rather sad end… the Germans would be unlikely to get anywhere near India. Second, after Bose left Germany in 1943, the Legion was left without an effective leader… Now they knew they weren’t going to be fighting for India’s freedom, and their morale and discipline disintegrated. Many deserted, some joined the French resistance, and the rest disappeared in the chaos of the German retreat.

Bose’s biggest frustration in Germany had to do with diplomatic recognition. He wanted Germany to officially recognize India as independent, and him as the leader of a government in exile. This the Germans refused to give him. The reasons lay partly in apathy, partly in the Master Race mentality, and partly in the peculiarities of Hitler’s vision of the post-war world.

Hitler was not entirely comfortable with the idea of helping Indians - whom he saw as racially inferior - to defeat the British. The British were Aryans, after all… He was perfectly willing to use Bose to make trouble for the British, but he had no long-term interest in India’s future, one way or another.

Prior to the independence movement, Indian soldiers fought for Britain in WWI, and there is a memorial in Hindi, Urdu and English in Brighton, England for these soldiers. In WWII, there was even a destroyer named the HMS Sikh, along with the HMS Gurkha. They should’ve made it an aircraft carrier — Sikhs have greater surface area up top :)

An Egyptian-American novelist has sold film rights to her Lolita story, Towelhead, to the writer of American Beauty and HBO’s Six Feet Under (via Moorish Girl). The celebratory article doesn’t even mention the fact that ‘towelhead,’ like the term made famous by Louisiana Congressman John Cooksey, is an ethnic slur. I’m looking forward to the sequel, Sand N—.

Set during the Gulf War, the book is a coming-of-age story of a 13-year-old Arab-American girl who must navigate a sexual obsession with a bigoted Army reservist under the oppressive eye of her Lebanese father.

A local ... extension of the Harry Potter series has been shut down by JK Rowlings lawyers.

"Immediately after the Philosopher's Stone, Harry gets onto his Nimbus 2000 broom and zooms across to Calcutta at the invitation of young boy called Junto," ... [where] [t]hey come across a whole bunch of literary characters from earlier Bengali fiction.

No word as to whether they encounter Pavitr Prabhakar along the way.

Shwas, a Marathi film, was chosen as India’s official entry for the Academy Awards next February (thanks, Prakruti). It sounds like it hits the same themes as Roberto Begnini’s Life is Beautiful; it has a great shtick based on a real-life story:

It tells the story of a young boy stricken with cancer of the eyes… an operation will save the child’s life but will rob him of his sight forever. The grandfather follows helplessly, unable to save the child from a lifetime’s darkness. At the door of the operation theatre, they are informed that the operation has been cancelled and will take place the following day… the grandfather takes the child out for the day to show him all the sights he will never see again…

Wonder if Shwas will be ‘Indian enough’ for the judges. I haven’t seen this film, and the eye operation angle usually invites screechy, soapy melodrama. But the one-day-to-truly-live setup can work well: an ice palace in a desert, ‘tell me something that will make me love you.’

Speaking of loss, I also hear Khamoshi did well by the deaf. No surprise, it’s by Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

Surely y’all caught this gem by drive-by Photoshopista Super Jagjit.

The Indo-American Arts Council is opening its annual film festival with a swank cocktail party and a Bride and Prejudice screening at Lincoln Center on Nov. 4.

But, an upstart challenger with a slick Web site and little by way of details, the South Asian International Film Festival, is also opening with that film on Dec. 1.

Be still my beating heart, ‘tis desi indie overdose. And that’s not even including the regular Third I screenings. But can anyone shed light on the SAIFF: does it have a different mission than IAAC’s film fest, is it a desi version of the Asian-American one? Or is this yet another internecine schism, like the duplicate, competing Indian Independence Day celebrations all over the country?

Update: I emailed the SAIFF organizers. Heard back from Soman Chainani, who used to work for Mira Nair’s production company. He says the festival is focused on films about South Asia, while the IAAC focuses on the diaspora.

Wonder if the Arab world will be up in arms about this one? MSNBC - India to fence off B'desh border by March '06 -

NEW DELHI - India has fenced nearly 40 percent of its porous border with Bangladesh and would fence the entire frontier by March 2006 to prevent movement of insurgents, illegal immigrants and smuggling, officials said on Wednesday.

Vinod asked me to expound on my art; a task I have to confess I find terribly difficult to do. I balk at even calling it art, actually. So questions like "why" somewhat irk me. I could be a real smart ass and say - "because it was there" but that doesn't help you any.

I was in India last November and as I waited for my then fiancee to get her clothes stiched by a tailor, I walked around the gardens and found these exotic leaves poking into the afternoon sky. I got a simple reading off of the leaves and by that I mean I exposed only for the leaves and assumed the sky which was pretty darn bright would go to white light. Machines don't disappoint. Sure enough the sky went white and the leaves punched through.

I am reading a book by Robert Adams called Beauty in Photography: Essays In Defense of Traditional Values. In it, Adams states one way "beauty" can be defined in photography is by the form it takes. I think I must subliminally subscribe to this point of view. Do all photographers have their brains wired this way? I can't really say for sure.

What I liked, more than the photograph, was the actual experience of photographing the leaves. Process over results. I think that's really the key to just about anything in life. Enjoy what you are doing and you will end up doing it well. It's a mantra I keep repeating to myself for it is so easy to forget. And didn't the Bhagwad Gita say something similar? And therein lies my desi hook to this week's photograph submission. Enjoy!

You will have to trust me when I say that there was very little manipulation to this image. Just a bit of sharpening in Photoshop, but otherwise the image is as-is. I really don't like fussing about or tweaking my images; even more so when people are in my frame.

Kofi Annan, it is fair to say, is a thorn in the side of President Bush (liberals like me find satisfaction in this of course). But the Nobel Peace Prize winner, originally from Ghana, who has been the Secretary General of the United Nations since 1997, won’t be the U.N. Sec Gen forever. Who will replace him in 2007? The New York Sun reports:

The early scramble to see who will fill the shoes of Kofi Annan has begun, with states and regions vying to bring one of their own into the position of secretary-general of the United Nations and all the bully pulpit privileges that come with it.

The latest Iranian attempt, floating the candidacy of President Khatami for the position, was seen, at Turtle Bay, as a diversion. But it also stirred the pot in the hallways, and as world leaders gathered here for a week of meetings, some wonder whether it is too early to ask: Who will be Mr. Annan’s successor?

More than anything, the early maneuvering for the position, which will become vacant at the end of 2006, underlines the chaotic method of selecting someone for the high-powered position. To be successful at this stage of the race, one has to feed the rumor mill.

Well hell. I feel like Sepia Mutiny is obliged in that case to feed the Rumor Mill, so I will take it upon myself to do so.

Shashi Tharoor

Thought I'd forward out this old-ish story where folks interviewed a series of cab drivers in NYC to find out about their lifestyles, motivations, etc. - A World Connected - Cabdriver Confessions

At aWorldConnected, we asked ourselves what kinds of people have the most intriguing perspectives on globalization? And what do they see?

To begin to answer this question, we sent our cameras to New York City and talked to cab drivers. All the cabbies we spoke to grew up in developing countries and immigrated to the United States. In making these risky, life-changing decisions, they left behind family, friends, and a familiar culture for the chance at a better life.

Of course, several of the folks were desi -

Kawsar from Bangladesh

Making money in America has opened up new opportunities for this driver. Hop in for a ride as he tells his story.

Because it’s unacceptable to kill an animal referenced throughout Hindu mythology, miscreant monkeys in New Delhi and Punjab are sent to a monkey jail and locked away behind monkey bars. Oh darling, yeh hai India.

At Baljeet Kaur’s house, when the monkey demanded food, it was given cut apples and peeled bananas. Kaur, once bitten by a monkey, said she was happy this monkey was gone…. jailers refer to them by where they were caught: Sanam Monkey or Jalandhar Monkey. “They are so notorious, why should we give them a name?” Atalia said. “They don’t listen anyway,” added Surinder Singh, who is in charge of the Motibagh zoo.

Damn those non-Punjabi-speaking monkeys… How to generate a book title in the South Asian lit category: 1. Come up with a tropical fruit. You’re done! It’s The Guava Thief. Call Granta and B&N and ship that sucker.

“He used to eat our guavas,” said Bhagwanti Devi, a neighbor who was harassed by the monkey…

…A friend of mine once noted that the monkey god Hanuman was clearly modeled on Punjabis, because he’s funny, loyal, muscular, hairy, and always spoiling to dish out some whup-ass. And given his vertical leap, he’d make a hell of a baller.

Continue reading »

I could be wrong but I would guess that a fair amount of Indians who are U.S. citizens are moving back to India in their retirement (anyone have any numbers for me). Social Security checks alone (which according to my previous entry, we don’t collect as often as we should) would allow you to live a fairly comfortable life in India. Many of my relatives who have lived in this country for over 30 years, are doing just this sort of thing. My point is that there is probably going to be an increasing number of U.S. citizens living in India. Perhaps with this new trend in mind, two U.S. citizens, Sumana Brahman, who is of Indian origin, and Patti Madigan, along with some other volunteers, have started the India chapter of Democrats Abroad, which targets expatriates and encourages them to vote. As reported by the Economic Times:

They have a simple message for Americans residing here — “every vote counts”. “Look at what happened during the ‘00 presidential elections. Things went to the wire and in states like Florida, the absentee ballots decided the fate of the candidates,” Ms Brahman, who has been working as a consultant in India for some time, said.

There are 7m American expatriates worldwide, who are eligible to vote. “The number is more than in some US states,” she says.

However, Ms Brahman dispels notions that the group is a supporter of the Democratic party as its name may suggest. “We are just private citizens. While we do support the Kerry campaign personally, our target now is to enlist as many people as possible without consideration of their party affiliations,” she says.

The India Abroad Center For Political Awareness has done a nice little summary of the 2000 census data about the Indian American community. For those of you SM readers too lazy to read the whole thing you have me here to summarize it for you, with my own observations thrown in as a bonus. The highlights:

• Indian Americans use Social Security benefits much less than the general population and significantly lower than even the Asian population. (We need to grab our piece of the pie out of that “lock box” folks)
  
  
• A significant number of Indians live in poverty in Rhode Island, Puerto Rico, D.C., and New York. (I didn’t even know Indians lived in Rhode Island except to attend Brown)
  
  
• Indians account for 0.68% of the U.S. population (Represent!)
  
  
• 96.70% of Indians live in Urban areas as opposed to 79% of the general population. (That really sucks if you are brown and live in a small town)
  
  
• Nearly 2/3 of the Indian American population is 35 years old or younger. This is the largest difference between Indian Americans and the general population. (The really young ones are turning into little punks. I worry about this)
  
  
• As this large group of young people hits retirement age we will begin to require a larger amount of healthcare, social security, and retirement facilities (Whatever. I plan to have rich kids to take care of me.)
  
  
• 6.6% of Indian Americans live in the same house with their grandchildren (Wow. That’s less than I thought. But my kids will take me in, I’m sure.)
  
  
• Since 1994, between 32.3% and 54.1% of the eligible Indian American population voted in each election (not good folks).
  
  
• Indian Americans are 3.5 times more likely to have a professional degree (what a pain in the ass it has been living up to that stat).
  
  
• Indian American children tend to start school earlier than children in the general population (NERDS!).
  
  
• Indian women are more than twice as likely not to have any schooling (foul!).
  
  
• While the general population has only 19.38% more people in poverty than the Indian American population, it receives 176% more public assistance (damn slackers).

Fauja Singh—the astonishing nonagenarian athlete and all-around bad-ass who was in an adidas ad—will be starring in another commercial, an ad for PETA:

The ad shows a runner in mid-stride, training for his next marathon, and reading, “Fauja Singh: Age 93/Champion International Marathon Runner/Father of Six/Grandfather of 13… Vegetarian”.

Singh will be competing at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon September 26.

Singh rediscovered his passion for distance running at the age of 81 and even now shows no signs of slowing down. He has joined forces with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to caution Asians and others about the perils they face if they clog their arteries with meat.

singh has received well-deserved accolades for his accomplishments:

…Singh, who finished ahead of his age group at the New York Marathon last year, was honoured with the Ellis Island of Honour for his feat. He is the only non-American to be so honoured in the history of the prestigious award.

Apart from congressional awards, the Ellis Island Medals of Honour are the only awards recognised by Congress.

what was that about old indian men with superpowers, abhi? ;)

if you want *real* reality TV, you've gotta borrow a hindi movie plotline - Gudiya ki shaadi: Indian reality show on TV - The Times of India

NEW DELHI: The life of a young woman being ordered to return to her first husband, who had gone missing for five years, despite being pregnant by her second husband is unfolding before millions of Indians.

In a story with all ingredients for a maudlin movie, Gudiya, eight months pregnant with her second husband Taufiq, is being forced by family members and community leaders to return to her first husband, Mohammad Arif, a soldier who had been presumed dead.
With Arif's unexpected return after five years as a prisoner of war in Pakistan, Gudiya's second marriage has been deemed illegal by Islamic clerics quoting the Shariat.

Which man should Gudiya choose?

Truely "the most exciting rose ceremony ever."

What pops into your mind when you see Arabic script? BBC World News? Urdu shayari? Old-school Punjabi poetry?

Midwest Airlines grounded a flight from Milwaukee to San Francisco after a passenger grew alarmed at seeing Arabic script handwritten inside a magazine (via Half the Sins). The plane returned to the gate, a thorough search turned up nothing, and passengers had to spend the night. The script turned out to be a meditative passage in Farsi written by a Persian Jack Handy.

Reminds me of a trusty Shazia Mirza joke which went something like this: ‘I told my audience I had a surprise for them. And everybody ducked.’

Shaggy-haired actor Naveen Andrews (Bride and Prejudice, The English Patient, The Buddha of Suburbia, Wild West, Kama Sutra) is starring in a new ABC series, Lost, satirically described by the New York Post as a show about an airplane crash on an island where only models survive. Andrews plays an Iraqi dealing with racial prejudice from his fellow survivors. Can’t say they’re not trying to be topical.

I wouldn’t have expected this of the U.S. film market vs. that of the UK:

The actor told [Asians in Media] recently that he has moved to the USA because opportunities for non-white actors were greater out there.

Over the weekend, I went to a desi wedding in Long Island and drove past a slew of Amber Alert child kidnapping signs asking people to watch for a white van. The kids turned up safe, and the father/abductor committed suicide after killing his wife and shooting her sister. Turns out Clifford Bonner’s wife Michelle and her sister, Candice Rampersad, are both desi. The police bulletin on Bonner described him as black, but he’s actually Hispanic and Cherokee. Another case of conforming race to black / white/ Hispanic / other?

SAKI2004 (South Asians for Kerry in 2004) are putting on a gala event to raise money for the Kerry Campaign on October 6th in NY. They have already signed up DJ Rekha, Kal Penn, and the cast of Bombay Dreams. We can safely assume that they are all Kerry supporters. Interestingly the proceeds from this fundraiser are going straight to the battleground state of Florida. Nice strategery.

SAKI also has some other good stuff going on this Thursday if you are in D.C. (I can only wish). They are holding a South Asian Presidental Debate in the CNN Crossfire Room at the George Washinton University campus. Sigh. One day I hope to be the brown James Carville and host Crossfire. When I am bald of course.

As the elections draw near, candidates continue to reach out to the South Asian vote. Illinois Senate hopeful Barack Obama recently met with a group of South Asian American community and business leaders at a fundraising dinner held at the home of physician Vipul Aurora as reported by NewKerala.com:

…the Senate hopeful who has become a political star after his speech at the Democratic convention, says South Asian Americans and “we share the same values”.

“We are in a good position, thanks to the support from the South Asian community,” he said adding, “We share the same set of values.”

“We have made tremendous strides politically in the last 18 months,” he said. “There was a time when many people said, ‘He (Obama) has no organisation, no money and we cannot even pronounce his name’.”

Of course as you can imagine, many of the doctors at the gathering expressed hopes that Obama would focus on the problems of medical malpractice insurance if elected. Will he oblige them?

British reporter Yvonne Ridley, having been held captive by the Taliban, converted to Islam after her release. Her explanation (conveyed via the BBC) has some odd sexual undercurrents to it:

Working as a reporter for the Sunday Express in September 2001, Ridley was smuggled from Pakistan across the Afghan border.... her cover was blown when she fell off her donkey in front of a Taleban soldier near Jalalabad... Her first thought as the furious young man came running towards her?

"Wow - you're gorgeous," she says.

"He had those amazing green eyes that are peculiar to that region of Afghanistan and a beard with a life of its own.

"But fear quickly took over. I did see him again on my way to Pakistan after my release and he waved at me from his car."

i first heard about controversy-courting comedienne shazia mirza a few years ago, but i wasn’t really a fan of her signature “pilot’s license” joke— i just didn’t think it was THAT funny— so i wasn’t sure that i’d dig her comedic stylings. that might be why i waited to read an interview with her until now:

You used to wear a burqa. Why did you stop?

The reason you’re meant to wear it is because men are meant to be sexually attracted by hair. But I’ve tried, it doesn’t work! (laughs) And I thought, men are the weak ones, yeah? They should be wearing the burqas, they should be locked up in the house, and women should be out. Why is it that those guys who can’t control themselves are let out, and we’re the ones that have to wear the burqas? You can be a perfectly good Muslim without wearing it. You know, it’s not what you wear on your head, it’s what you do with your life.

I took a speech and debate class in middle school which I remember fondly. I used to give my persuasive speeches on trying to convince people that there was in fact such a thing as the Loch Ness Monster, Aliens, and Bigfoot. It didn’t matter whether they really existed or not in fact. It just mattered how well I did convincing the other students that they did. Well, let me try with SepiaMutiny readers. From the Times of India:

Guess what the students at the Delhi centre of Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) up to these days? Not cracking complicated problems through game theory or laws of probability. They are visiting temples and investigating the paranormal.

Books are shut, classes stalled since Friday, most students have been sent home with an unofficial holiday being declared.

The reason being even more unofficial. There is a ghost on campus.

My inner Fox Mulder has just been aroused. But who is this “ghost.” What does it want?

On August 24, a first year MStat student died a sudden death in the classroom. For most students who saw it happen at such close quarters found it “inexplicable”, although it is quite explainable in medical terms.

Somebody ingenious mind came up with a theory that the boy is back. And he appears in the habit as he lived.

“A girl who never smokes, felt a strong stench of cigarette in her bathroom. The boy who died used to smoke a lot,” said Saptrishi, student representative at ISI.

Ummm. Helloooo? Can anybody say “smoking gun.” Have I persuaded you yet? The students want to hold a tantra-mantra puja. Is that like an exorcism? Can someone fill me in?

The truth is out there.

i wish this very odd story was in more places than the moonie news, aka the washington times:

New Delhi, India, Sep. 12 (UPI) — Israeli citizens were flocking to the Indian cities of Jammu and Kashmir Sunday to see the graves believed to be those of Jesus Christ and Moses.

…A section of the local population believes Kashmiris are one of the lost tribes of Israel. Aziz Kashmiri, the author of the book Christ in Kashmir, insists that the Kashmiri people’s ancestors were one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel and that Jesus died during a visit to the Valley.

those lost tribes of israel turn up everywhere.

One of the most widely read bloggers Andrew Sullivan writes for Time Magazine this week about the power of bloggers:

“Bloggers have no checks and balances. [It’s] a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas.”
—JONATHAN KLEIN, former senior executive of 60 Minutes, on Fox News

Well, last week, the insurrectionary pajama people—dubbed “pajamahadeen” by some Web nuts—successfully scaled one more citadel of the mainstream media, CBS News. One of the biggest, baddest media stars, Dan Rather, is now clinging, white-knuckled, to his job. Not bad for a bunch of slackers in their nightclothes.

I am seriously thinking of getting a Pajamahadeen tatoo now. I have always wanted to be part of a club. Somewhere I belonged.

The critics of blogs cite their lack of professionalism. Piffle. The dirty little secret of journalism is that it isn’t really a profession. It’s a craft. All you need is a telephone and a conscience, and you’re all set. You get better at it merely by doing it—which is why fancy journalism schools are, to my mind, such a waste of time.

I assure you that all at SepiaMutiny have a conscience. Well…five out of six is not bad.

Does this mean the old media is dead? Not at all. Blogs depend on the journalistic resources of big media to do the bulk of reporting and analysis. What blogs do is provide the best scrutiny of big media imaginable—ratcheting up the standards of the professionals, adding new voices, new perspectives and new facts every minute. The genius lies not so much in the bloggers themselves but in the transparent system they have created. In an era of polarized debate, the truth has never been more available. Thank the guys in the pajamas. And read them.

Yes. Please read us. AND please tell your friends.

Many people in Florida (especially Indians) have strong opinions on the plight (or supposed plight depending on what view you take) of Paramvir Singh Chattwal. The Herald-Tribune reports:

Paramvir Singh Chattwal would rather stay in jail than be sent back to his native India, where he says he would face another round of beatings and torture.

Chattwal, 30, says he is so afraid of returning to India that he will take his life before someone else does.

“If I am to be deported, I will end my life here,” Chattwal said in a recent phone interview from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Bradenton.

But what is Chattwal so afraid of?

anyone catch the miss america pageant this weekend?

Miss Alabama Deidre Downs, an aspiring doctor who put off medical school to compete for the Miss America crown, won it Saturday night.

but...

...Miss North Carolina Kristin Elrod was second runner-up, followed by Miss Arkansas Lacy Fleming and Miss California Veena Goel.

this wasn't Goel 's first attempt at the crown; the UCLA grad/Pi Beta Phi Alumna was a runner-up in the 2001 and 2003 miss california pageants as well. if at first you don't succeed...

this year, Goel got some press as part of the national pageant:

In a preliminary competition earlier this week, Miss California, Veena Goel, won the talent section for a jazz dance routine and told reporters she had been dancing since age 3.

she also commented on this year's swimwear "controversy":

Goel, 22, defended the swimsuits, saying they were intended to show that contestants were physically fit, not just thin, echoing the official line of the organizers.

not just thin? interestingly enough, Goel's "platform" was eating disorders; the issue is a personal one, since she suffered from anorexia in the past.

via HT and Salon.

heh - Indian men: Retrosexual stinkers - The Times of India -

NEW DELHI: Indian men stink. If anyone had any doubts about this, there are cold, hard numbers that will send these doubts to an unmarked grave.

In a world in which man is less heterosexual and more metrosexual - male eyebrows are being plucked, chest-hair depilated and cheeks and underarms smell fresh - the Indian male is obviously a misfit.

A market study done by ACNielsen, one of the world's leading marketing information company, reveals that while the overall growth of deodorants and other personal care products rose by three per cent globally in the year 2003, in India it fell by 0.2 per cent.

DJ Rekha calls Daler Mehndi the Punjabi Bobby McFerrin (via Tablatronic):

Mehndi was bhangra lite and a diversion, says DJ Rekha of New York’s hip Bhangra Basement club: “Even back when he was big, he was kind of like the Will Smith of bhangra. Not so respected. Now, after the scandal, his position in the scene is that he doesn’t really have one.”…

There’s a new breed of younger, tougher British bhangra kings in Rishi Rich and Panjabi MC. Rich, in particular, has taken the music to heights Mehndi never dreamed of, fusing it with hip-hop to create a more aggressive sound that has Britney Spears and Ricky Martin queuing up to ask the 26-year-old to add a global street edge to their singles… Rich’s hardening of bhangra takes it back to its roots. As the music of the dry farms of the Punjab, bhangra lyrics were often gritty, and even today Punjabi artists are the most outspoken in India, singing about sex, drugs and crime just as their hip-hop peers do in the West…

In 1999 an American critic, stunned by the ecstatic crowd at one of his New Jersey concerts, declared Mehndi “bigger than the Beatles.”… “You know, I was a very bad taxi driver,” he says. “Always looking in the mirror at myself and imagining I would be a big star in music…”

Last week, as we availed ourselves of the magnificently efficient Tokyo public transportation system, my friends and I commented on the fact that so many people who appeared to be deeply asleep were able to immediately wake up and get off at their exact station. How do they do it? When I fall asleep on the train my jaw drops open in a rather unnattractive manner and my head bobs around like it is improperly balanced. I am glad I am not the only one who suffers such problems but should defective people like me be punished? Gaurav Bhatia of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago was. According to India Daily:

When a 25-year-old Indian student at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) dozed off in a Chicago subway train, he did not realise his predicament would quickly become a cause celebre. Gaurav Bhatia unwittingly got caught in a controversy over Chicago’s bureaucracy after he was given a $50 ticket for sleeping on the train. The incident occurred when Bhatia, who does not own a car and resides on the IIT campus, fell asleep while riding to work. Local TV and radio channels have highlighted Bhatia’s experience, but Chicago Transport Authority (CTA) and police officials say he was penalised for “sleeping dangerously”. “How dare they?” asked an outraged Bhatia. “If the police officer had written those words on the ticket I would have told him to lock me up because I won”t accept the ticket.” Explaining how the incident had occurred, Bhatia said: “My work starts at 8 a.m., so I leave the house at 7 a.m. I usually sleep on the train. “A lot of people sleep on the train. I mean, I don”t put up my feet and lie down. I just sit there and sometimes I fall asleep, because there is nothing to do.

I am sure this law was meant to prevent homeless people from making a residence out of the train, but is a ticket necessary for an honest mistake?

A police officer came in. “He did not have to shake me up or anything like that. My body is programmed. Every day I take the same train, so my eyes just open up at the same time,” Bhatia said.

You might want to check the lines of code in your program for errors buddy.

Chicago police spokesman David Bayless, who affirmed Bhatia was “sleeping dangerously”, said: “I am told his legs were blocking the aisle.”
.
.
Bhatia explained he had his face against the train window, so he could not possibly have stretched into the aisle. “It would have been physically impossible,” he said, “Even Keanu Reeves from ”Matrix” could not do it.”

Eight hours isn't much these days. I mean, who does all their work between 9 and 5? Most of my friends work 10, 12, or even 14 hour days. But Pemba Dorje Sherpa was just confirmed by the Nepali government as having ascended Everest in 8 hours 10 minutes!!! His claim had been under dispute by his main rival, Lakpa Gelu Sherpa, who held the previous record of around 11 hours for an ascent of Everest. Even 11 hours is amazing for any of us, except perhaps the intrepid Abhi. I mean, think of how quickly the time flies between 9 AM and 8PM. How much do you really get done?

The world wide Masala march continues - Now, France succumbs to the taste of Indian chutney : HindustanTimes.com/UK: News for UK Asians -

The enthusiasm for Indian food is touching such heights that even the French food snobs can no longer resist its lure. The age-old Indian chutney, which is believed to have found its way to France through Britain, is being hailed as a symbol of modern cuisine by the French.

I like to follow the exploits of old Indian men that do crazy things. Earlier I brought you the misadventures of a man that survived upon a diet of staring at the Sun. Now I bring to you the Rolling Saint. I saw this guy on TV many years ago (there is a 1994 documentary on him). From Outside Magazine:

October 1994: Covered in blisters from lying down and rolling along the roadside for 2,485 miles, Indian holy man LOTAN BABA reaches Jammu, in Indian-controlled Kashmir, eight months after departing his home, in Ratlam. Now, he’s on the roll again, covering 1,500 miles on his way to Lahore, Pakistan.

Well, it seems Baba has run into a little hitch. As reported at NewKerala:

A maverick saint who travels by rolling his body along the road has vowed to enter Pakistan Saturday to visit several religious places in the neighbouring country.

But there is a serious hitch in Lotan Baba’s plans to roll into Pakistan through the border check post at Wagah, 30 km from here, and the saint from Maharashtra knows it well.

For the record, he cannot cross into Pakistan easily as he has neither a passport nor a visa.

“I have appealed to the Indian government to issue me a passport and visa. It is up to them to complete the formalities so that I can undertake my journey smoothly,” he said Friday.

The saint, who claims to have rolled over 25,000 km, said he would start rolling from this Sikh holy city to reach the Wagah border Saturday morning.

Roll on Baba. Roll on.

A new Asian entertainment newspaper that is being distributed by Urban Media Ltd. of Birmingham will go on sale today in England as reported by Asians in Media:

Editor Reena Combo says: “Desi Xpress is the type of publication the young Asian community is crying out for at this moment. The Asian music scene has never been so popular so it’s not only great to give our stars a platform to reach their fans, but for our readers to keep up-to-date with the latest events in the world of Asian showbiz.”

Although I don’t envision this publication gaining any significant readership in the U.S. for quite some time, if ever, I thought some of the more dedicated music buffs would appreciate the heads up.

Also recently launched was Nirali Magazine:

Nirali, which means “different” in several South Asian languages, is just tha—a different kind of magazine for today’s modern South Asian American woman. Published monthly online, Nirali Magazine reflects the identity, needs and interests of South Asian American women all over the United States.

Nirali is your complete one-stop source for all things South Asian. It’s not your typical women’s magazine: While you’ll find the requisite fashion and beauty stories within Nirali, you’ll also see stories on politics, trends in the South Asian community, profiles of strong, smart South Asian women, and introspective pieces about what it means to have an identity that is both South Asian and American. Nirali’s stories are like the smart and supportive conversations you’d have with your girlfriends over lunch.

Nirali does have a feature article on some of the current young politicos in the South Asian community that is worth checking out.

An interesting multi-part article @ The India Times about the life of Desi Gen-X.

There's the techie who can't get da ladies -

After having spent his formative years in an all-guys boarding school, Brijesh Pandit thought that he would get lucky with girls when he enrolled himself in college. However, much to his dismay, the ratio in his engineering college in Manipal was 1:10.

Ruchita Kumar, a single web designer, says that techies are a strict no-no for her. Ask her why and she replies with a smile,” belonging to the industry myself, I don’t find any of my techie comrades exciting. Some of them can be really boring, going on hours at end about Linux and Open Source,” she complains.

For software engineer Ambarish Sen Sharma, life has not been easy. After spending six years in Sacramento, the 34-year-old’s Sundays are now devoted to checking out prospective brides with his family. Although he is not too keen on an arranged marriage, there does not seem any other option available to him.

The "want it all" career girl -

A workaholic colleague at the next cubicle, a ‘coming soon’ hike, a loving boyfriend , a new music system-DVD-VCD player, the Da Vinci code – these are just a few things that keeps Ameeta Singh going. For the 27-year-old art director in an international advertising agency, life is about striking the right balance.

The emasculated older guy -

Mohan Ojha, 33, realized this when his manager retired and he became answerable to his 28-year-old boss. For Ojha things got complicated further when it turned out that his superior was a woman and his junior from B-school.

The country bumpkin who goes to the big city-

“I never used to wear branded clothes or drink mineral water when I stayed in Agra. I was also very stuck up on pre-marital sex and could never identify with women who smoked or drank. Call me old-fashioned, but after living for 2 years in Dallas, my attitude changed,” Animesh Dutta, US-returned programmer, said.

Jagdish Bhagwati is a sterling economist whose work I've run into several times over the years. Some say he's a contender for the next Desi Nobel Prize in Econ. Perhaps.

A compendium of some of his work can be found in his recent book In Defense of Globalization.

Daniel Drezner has a couple of excerpts from WSJ and interviews with Prof. Bhagwati up on his blog today - Daniel W. Drezner :: Jagdish Bhagwati -

If we look at the offshoring of online services like call centers or basic accounting, we're talking about a maximum loss of 100.000 jobs a year to countries like India. That is nothing for an economy this size. The US is a major hyperpower, and yet every time it gets into competition with Mexico, China and India, we work ourselves into a panic. It's like a rottweiler getting scared because a French poodle is coming down the road.

Read it all...

A new collection of South Asian diasporic short stories has been put together by editor Shyam Selvadurai under the title Story-Wallah as reported by The Globe and Mail. This might be a great way to get your diasporic writing fix if you are like me and find a full novel much too depressing to read through.

Indo-American writer Bharati Mukherjee, one of the contributors in this collection, believes that the diasporic posture is fraudulent and self-serving. “In literary terms,” she writes, “being an immigrant is very déclassé. There is a low grade ashcan realism implied in its very material.” In Karima, one of the stories in the collection, Pakistan’s Aameer Hussein writes of a character who is alienated both from Bangladesh and Pakistan: “With pride we assume the mantle of the dispossessed.”

The contrary view, held by writers such as Salman Rushdie, asserts that the immigrant is a cultural nomad, an Everyman in a world of shifting values and cultures — an interpreter of maladies (to quote the London-born, U.S.-raised Jhumpa Lahiri). Selvadurai, closer to this latter group, mentions the importance of this cultural clash to his own plots. And this is the theme running throughout the stories in this anthology.

No way! It will never happen. I don’t think it is very likely that a brown man will become the leader of Germany, nor is this mayor even considering it. I just wanted to put it out there to see how it sounded. Still, the thought of a brown mayor in the heart of former East Germany raised my eyebrows. From AFP:

Altlandsberg in eastern Germany has long been known for its medieval church and its stork nests, but today it is known, above all, for its long-serving Indian mayor Ravindra Gujjula.

On Sunday, Gujjula will put his popularity here to the test for Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s ruling Social Democrats (SPD) in the state of Brandenburg, in a neck-and-neck race with the successors of the former communist rulers.

He presents himself as Germany’s “only mayor of colour” and he is also one of the country’s most appreciated town leaders. Last year, electors in this town of 8,875 residents returned him to office with 80 percent of the vote.

Various news organizations including the Asia Times report on a poll sponsored by New California Media:

The survey was carried out in August by several national polling firms. Interviewees could respond in English or their choice of eight Asian languages. The poll found that Kerry’s strongest support came from Chinese and Indian-Americans, while Vietnamese and Filipino-American voters are the most supportive of incumbent President Bush and of his Republican Party as a whole.

Overall, Kerry leads Bush among Asian-Americans by 43% versus 36%, a significant gap in favor of the Democrats, but a good deal smaller than the 14% margin of the 2000 presidential race. In that election, former vice president Al Gore won 55% of the Asian-American vote to Bush’s 41% and Ralph Nader’s 3%.

The closing of the gap between 2000 and 2004 is what is of most interest. Have the Republicans made better progress than the Democrats in recruitment during this time? I am also sure that SM readers will be more than willing to contribute their theories as to why Chinese and Indian-Americans trend differently than Vietnamese and Filipino-Americans. The other number that jumps out in the poll is that 20% of the Asian vote is undecided. The overall undecided vote has been repeatedly characterized in the media as miniscule.

By far the largest group of undecideds were “Asian Indians” (30%).

A more in-depth analysis of at least the Indian-American aspect of the poll numbers can reportedly be found in the print edition of India-West magazine.

Amardeep Singh reports that Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh is visiting the UN in New York this weekend, followed by meetings with Bush and Musharraf and some quality time with his youngest daughter, Amrit.

Now here’s what’s really interesting: Amrit Singh works for the ACLU in NYC fighting both the Pentagon on Abu Ghraib and airlines on anti-brown discrimination while flying.

Many years ago, my now-retired uncle was an Indian diplomat. Whenever my cousin and I stepped out of the family apartment, we were trailed by Indian men in dark suits, packin’ heat. So here’s what I want to know:

1. When Manmohan Singh meets Bush, are their daughters verboten? Is talking about Amrit frowned upon, like ‘Hey Dubya, is Jenna out of rehab?’ and ‘Hey Dick, what’s Mary been up to lately?’
2. Could Amitabh Bachchan beat up eight Indian bodyguards, like in the movies? Or do they have some gatka moves up their sleeves?

Maybe they need to hire this woman.

Miss India 1997 Nafisa Joseph hanged herself on July 29, distraught over an argument with her already-married fiancé. The 25-year-old model and MTV VJ had locked her mother and a friend into an adjacent room in her Bombay flat. The publicity over her death may have sparked a wave of copycat suicides in Bombay.

The former Kuwaiti information minister said on the 9/11 anniversary that Muslims should condemn terrorist Osama bin Laden with the same energy they expended on the fatwa against Salman Rushdie:

Tefla said much damage has been caused to Muslims because the world is contrasting Muslims' tepid approach to bin Laden to their overwhelming response in the 1980s to British author Salman Rushdie and his controversial book "The Satanic Verses."

Against Rushdie, Tefla wrote, "We rattled and sharpened all of our rhetorical sabers, our religious legal rulings [fatwa], [alerted] our guards, our ports, our airports and our border crossings in order to prevent his entering [our countries] and the distribution of his book, since it does damage to Islam."...

"Have we earmarked a reward for anyone who kills bin Laden as we did for anyone who kills Rushdie on account of his book?

Salman Rushdie has adapted Haroun and the Sea of Stories into an opera playing at Manhattan's Lincoln Center from Oct. 31 to Nov. 11. Haroun is a fabulist children's tale, more accessible than his usual work, but still layered with allegory:

Haroun narrates the fate of the story-teller, who loses his ability to tell tales. His son then sets out on a journey to save his father's skills. Rushdie had intended the book as a gift to his son Zafar... to make the son understand his father's plight...

[T]he book reached out to audiences uncomfortable with the complexities of Rushdie's other novels...

Rushdie found the process of adaptation taxing:

S.R. It’s a strange book, Haroun. This was the one that came with the greatest fluency—it took me less than a year, and it’s now taken ten times that long to adapt, so you know this is a much larger achievement...

C.W. There’s a practical reason for that. Its brevity makes it a little bit more manageable. I mean, I have my eye on The Moor’s Last Sigh...

S.R. Yes, that would be a very long opera.

Rushdie's last stage adaptation was the excellent, albeit rushed, Midnight's Children in London and at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. He's also working on a film version of his short story The Firebird's Nest, in which he's cast his inamorata Padma Lakshmi.

Update: Amardeep Singh has more.

On so many levels, this kind of stuff can only happen in India -'Gujarat' missing in Kerala national anthem: BJP -

New Delhi, Sept. 16. (PTI): After national tricolor and Savarkar, the BJP has stumbled upon another "anti-national" issue of "deletion" of word 'Gujarat' from the national anthem in SCERT textbooks in Kerala which it plans to raise in a big way.

Happy New Years, I'm glad to see that even the Times of India is writing a story on Rosh Hashanah. How's the new year look? Well, shofar sho good ...

Around a year ago, it seems that Sukhmani Singh Khalsa, a student and conservative columnist at the University of Tennessee, wrote a column criticising University Issues Committee for being liberal and one sided. (The Issues Committee is the body that invites speakers on to campus)

Upon reading Sukhmani's column, one of the committee members, Justin Rubenstein, emailed some of the others, saying:

if you see one of those ragheads, shoot him right in the fucking face.

[Sukhmani deserves] torture that would put the Spanish Inquisition to shame.

according to a report on “Population and Development” from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, indian adolescents are having sex. often. without birth control.

wait—which indian kids are they talking about? surely not MY virginal cousins who’ve been shoved spitefully in my face for my entire life as paradigms of modest perfection. i kid. okay, i don’t. bitter! party of one!

my shock and scorn aside, i present most of the brief article below:

In the chapter on Adolescent Reproductive Health and Development, the report says: “Sexual relations among adolescents tend to start early, involve multiple partners and often are casual. They are also characterized by lack of contraception or condom use, and occasionally involve coercion and non-consensual experiences.”

The report further says that misconceptions aside, a large number of teenagers don’t even know the correct way of using a condom. “Young people between the ages of 10 and 25 years make up for 50 per cent of new HIV infections,” it concludes chillingly.

Only 59 per cent adolescents know about condoms and 49 per cent about contraceptive pills, the report says. “Instead of asking adolescents not to have sex, we have to give them information on how to protect themselves,” says Anjali Gopalan, director, Naz Foundation India. “Children are not stupid, they will protect themselves if they know how.”

and to think, vinod and i posted within minutes of each other…if young people in india are behaving this way, it’s quite possible that “India is already in first place”. sigh.

I have no way of intelligently commenting about this one -

NEW DELHI (AP) - India has the world's largest number of HIV-infected people, the head of a top international AIDS-fighting fund said Wednesday, dismissing official figures.

"I don't believe in the official statistics. India is already in first place," said Richard G.A. Feachem, executive director of the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Latest U.N. data show the HIV virus has infected 5.6 million people in South Africa and 5.1 million in India. But Feachem said he and many other experts believe India's actual figure is much higher, surpassing South Africa's.

Financial woes of the Tamil Nadu tobacco workers -

Mukkudal (Tamil Nadu), Sept 15 : The beedi workers in Tamil Nadu are in a pathetic condition these days. These under-paid workers are facing tough time eevn as they have to borrow loans to meet their daily expenditure.

The workers are paid a meagre 50.25 rupees per 1000 beedis. They seek loans from their pension fund to meet their urgent monetary needs, but often they are denied the right...

Am I the only one who's surprised that they've got a pension fund to draw upon? Wild stuff....

The BBC ran a great profile of long jump queen Anju Bobby George:

She’s the only Indian ever with a world championship bronze… On the runway she’s imposing, attractive, five feet 10 inches, her legs long, her elegant face carrying a hint of cosmetics… Ask her about the make-up and her giggle skitters down the phone line from Paris. She sees herself as an ambassador, and that means presentation is important… She stands there, visualises her jump, and in and out of her mind flow technique and prayer, asking perfection from herself and from Mother Mary…

When Anju competed in Madrid two weeks ago there wasn’t a single brown face in the audience. They know, they’ve looked… despite every achievement she has only one sponsor, Sobha Developers (though the government helps considerably). It is an absurd universe… “Imagine,” says Bobby, “Indian cricketers playing abroad without supporters, not even one.”

More here, here and here.

Desis have begun competing in reality shows with a vengeance: Raj Bhakta on The Apprentice, Julie Ann Titus on America’s Next Top Model, and now Anish Shroff on Dream Job, a competition to be the next ESPN SportsCenter anchor (thanks, Jagjit). Shroff is a 22-year-old Yankees fan and radio sports announcer, a Syracuse University graduate from Bloomfield, NJ.

I’m looking forward to seeing Thuggee leader Amrish Puri on Fear Factor and backstabbing Bollyistas on Real World, though young Neil Kadakia of Spellbound qualifies under fear and loathing on film.

Maybe this will be the next topic of competition conversation between desi moms: ‘My Twinkle was just on American Idol last week.’ ‘That’s nothing, my Sweetie was on Survivor.’

Ah, who am I kidding. With all due respect to Hari Sreenivasan and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the most common desis on American TV will probably be on Beat the Geeks and Jeopardy. You’ll have to watch CNN International to catch Monita Rajpal, Daljit Dhaliwal and Zain Verjee. BBC World has at least six more, and the UK’s Channel 4 is rife.

A Bombay businessman has commissioned Indian painter Maqbool Fida Husain to create 100 paintings for $21M (Rs. 1 billion).

The buyer, Guru Swarup Srivasava, is described as a low-profile Bombay (Mumbai) businessman who was not an art collector. He says he believes it is a good investment.

What’s Husain doing with the money? He’s going to Bollyland!

Husain plans to splash a major portion of his fee - $20m - on a mega Bollywood film. “I will… cast all the big names in the industry - Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, everyone,” he said.

Unless dissuaded by saner men, Husain would blow double the budget of Devdas, India’s most expensive film ever.

Here are a few of Husain’s highly stylized paintings.

Delhi extends its shopping hours from 7 to 11pm to please its consumption-conscious citizens. But no government should restrict shopping hours in the first place. It smacks of the labor protectionism of France and Germany, where shopping hours are inconvenient.

Separately, Delhi has a late-night crime problem:

[T]here are others who think extending shopping hours in a city which remains extremely unsafe for women is an unwise move… “We have decided that women will work till 2000 hours and then the men will take over. We will not force our women to work late… But if we can make arrangements for them to travel late, and they want to work late, we’ll welcome it.”

IST = "excess time consciousness" - MNCs grappling with Indian culture - Sify.com.

Realising the vast potential of Indian market, about 3000 multi-national companies (MNCs) have set up shop in the country and grappling with the stubborn Indian work culture that is particular about respect for seniors and disfavours finicky attitude and excess time consciousness.

Trying to get a Manhattan theater to tell me which Bollywood flick they were showing:

She struggled through something that sounded like the wonka-wonka teacher in a Charlie Brown special... ?What?s that first word again??

?Dill. As in pickle.?

Ah, dil. It?s a clue, Watson. Unfortunately, it?s also the first word in 17 million other Hindi film titles which mix-and-match dil, kya, main, nahin, and pyar. Like the housing developments of Seattle (timber, wood, lake, lawn), no other words are allowed.

Continue reading ?

Firangpolicypundit Fareed Zakaria notes that the American strategy of playing off Shia vs. Sunni in Iraq resembles that of British India (via Amardeep Singh):

The intractable security problems in Sunni areas coupled with some success in Shia ones might lead the Iraqi government (and Washington) toward a “Shia strategy” in Iraq… In many of its colonies the British would often favor a single group as a quick means of gaining stability. Almost always the results were ruinous—a trail of civil war and bloodshed.

Muy interesante - India-made scooters help bring down Lanka suicide rate : HindustanTimes.com.

Three wheelers made in India have played a silent but a very critical role in bringing down the appallingly high suicide rate in Sri Lanka, experts say.

But this has steadily come down over the years, with 2002 recording 23.8 suicides per 100,000 people, the lowest so far.

"Almost every fair sized habitation in Sri Lanka now has four or five Bajaj three wheelers which enable quick and timely transfer of the suicide cases to the nearest hospital," said Manisha Wickramanayake, a staffer at the suicide prevention organisation Sumithrayo.

Unintended consequences rule.

The name of a new museum in Washington, D.C. perpetuates a historical mistake. In the 21st century, the Smithsonian still saw fit to call it the National Museum of the American Indian. In a farcical juxtaposition, even the hometown paper calls them Native Americans throughout the very same story.

Researching desis in the U.S. has always been a pain because the injection of American Indian in search results forces you to use ever more tortured qualifiers like East Indian (which really means Bengali, Bihari, Oriya, Assamese…), Asian Indian, Indian-American, South Asian and South Asian American. This museum’s name just makes it worse. (I suppose it’s too late to ask the West Indies to choose a new moniker.)

The sexy, curvy new museum sits on the National Mall between the Capitol and the spectacular aerospace museum.

One of my favorite culture blogs - 2Blowhards - throws a nice hat tip in the direction of Sepia Mutiny - 2blowhards.com: Desiblogs.

I'm getting used to the term "Desi," which -- if I understand it right -- is a term for anyone of South Asian descent. Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis -- they're all Desis. Corrections appreciated if I've got this wrong, of course, as long as everyone understands that I'm just a passe old man who's doing his valiant best to keep up with a bewildering new world.

Make sure you check out the comments left by various folks including a couple of the mutineers.

Razib plugs common desi names into Wedding Channel and comes up with a 38% outmarriage rate for second-gen desis, which he says confirms his belief that:

the first Asian Indian generations are in the same statistical ball-park as Japanese who have been resident in the United States for 100 years!

A 38% outmarriage estimate strikes me as inaccurately high due to least two forms of sampling bias. One is obvious, online wedding registries disproportionately draw from people of higher socioeconomic status. The other is less so: it samples outmarriage from age groups at the leading edge of population cohort and subculture formation.

Californian Sikhs in the early 1900s outmarried at a near-100% rate because they were barred from bringing over Sikh wives. Similarly, older second-gen desis met fewer desis in college and grad school because there weren’t many others in their cohort. And they didn’t have as thriving a popular subculture and identity within the U.S. to play with, as Vinod ably demonstrated:

We were at the bleeding edge of the Desi demographic wedge — the children of the first wave of Indian professional parents… demography has provided a critical mass of other Desi’s… The turning point here was somewhere around my senior year in college (1995)… 5-10 years of additional Desi penetration into America has made all the difference and provides them with a college experience quite distinct from mine… Desi is now a “3rd culture” that’s neither mainstream American nor FOB Indian.

The outmarriage rate will most likely follow a trinomial path where it reverses twice: high in the beginning, sharply lower as cohort size increases, and then gradually increasing as assimilation progresses. Razib notes but then glosses over this argument:

there are likely to be more South Asian partners on the market than there were for the children of the late 60s to early 80s…

going to graduate school in DC with a bunch of students FROM india destroyed most of my preconceived notions about the motherland. this article put them right back ;) :

Most Indian men expect their wives to be virgins before marriage and would refuse to wed a woman who admits to having had premarital sex, said an opinion poll in a weekly news magazine on Saturday.

About 72 per cent of 2,499 men surveyed in 11 Indian cities expected their wives to be virgins before marriage, the poll published in the latest edition of India Today magazine said.

An overwhelming 77 per cent of those surveyed in the country, known for its sexually conservative culture, said they would reject women who admitted to having had premarital sex.

my favourite line of the article:

…According to the magazine, “Virginity continues to be confused with chastity (by the Indian male).”

my least favourite line in the article:

In what could set alarm bells ringing for AIDS prevention groups, only 38 per cent of men felt condoms were “a must use” while 24 per cent said, they “spoiled” sexual pleasure.

i think people are lying about whether they want to do Ash:

Six per cent of the men voted former Miss World and Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai their fantasy woman while 16 per cent idolised acquaintances and others.

like they’d turn down someone in a victoria’s secret runway outfit. pshaw:

Fifty-four per cent of respondents said their favourite attire for women was the traditional Indian dress, the sari, with 38 per cent voting for the salwar-kameez or long shirt and pyjamas. Just eight per cent voted for Western attire -bikinis, skirts and trousers.

i’ve often stated (usually for no obvious reason) that little boys in patkas are the most adorable thing ever…but little girls in pigtails are precious too. or are they?

New Delhi, Sep 12.(PTI): The Sikh community has the lowest sex ratio of 893 females per 1000 males well below the national average of 933.

…As regards the disparity of the absolute and relative number of males and female population in the society, expressed in terms of sex ratio or number of females per thousand males, the Hindus recorded 931 and were slightly below the national average whereas sex ratio among Muslim was 936.

my only consolation after such sadness? “my” team is doing just fine:

The sex ratio among the Christian population grew handsomely from 994 in 1991 to 1009 in 2001, it said adding, for the Buddhist and the Jains, the sex ratio remained almost the same as 953 and 950 respectively.

gujarat’s most literate citizens are Jains:

The largely business-oriented community, which has a population of around 5.25 lakh in Gujarat, has a staggering 87.08 per cent literacy. This is much above the total literacy figure of 58.86 per cent in the state.

Among the Jains, 88.59 per cent men and 85.52 per cent women are literate. In comparison, there is 58.16 per cent literacy among Hindus, 61.89 per cent among Muslims, 67.70 per cent among Christians, 74.27 per cent among Sikhs, 55.30 per cent among Buddhists and 61.04 per cent among other faiths

as for hindus, those pesky scheduled castes blew it for ya:

The literacy figure among Hindus is higher than only that of Buddhists, who are largely converts from Dalits. Literacy rate of Hindus is bogged down by the low level of literacy among Scheduled Tribes, who constitute nearly 15 per cent of the Hindu population in the state. For example, the figure in largely tribal Dahod district is barely 36 per cent.

GNXP isn't everyone's cup of tea (the material there attracts controversy like flies to cow theetum) but Razib's got some interesting material on the mtDNA of Desi's - Gene Expression -

There is a important new paper (you can view the full PDF if you follow the link) out that surveys the genetics of South Asians viewed from the angle of mtDNA, that is, the direct female lineage. If you follow this stuff, you won't be surprised to find out that the authors conclude that

Sigh. This editorial cartoon by Pat Oliphant (9/8/04) just ran in the New York Times and the Washington Post, among other papers. Using an emaciated, half-naked beggar sitting next to a cow to represent Indian high tech: it’s Temple of Doom all over again (thanks, S.K.).

Let Universal Press Syndicate know how you feel: content@uclick.com. Takes only 30 seconds. I just wrote in.

For a funny, thinly-disguised take on outsourcing, check out ‘Dilbert’ on the fictional country of Elbonia.

what on earth is wrong with our intelligence? this is disturbing, to type the least:

The US military in Afghanistan has apologised for detaining a BBC World Service reporter and interrogating him at its Bagram air base near Kabul. Kamal Sadat, an Afghan who also worked for Reuters, was taken from his home in eastern Afghanistan by US soldiers late on Wednesday.

…Mr Sadat is a well-known reporter in Afghanistan for the BBC’s Pashto and Dari language services.

Based in the province of Khost near the Afghan-Pakistan border, he has worked for the corporation for almost two years.

…Speaking after his release, the reporter said he was never told where he was.

He said he was kept in a small, windowless cell, blindfolded most of the time and interrogated by an American official about his work.

if this is a “well-known” reporter, why are we behaving like this? oh, right. it’s because we probably don’t have any pashto or dari speakers paying attention to such figures. i’m no expert, (have a field day with that admission in comments, why don’t you) but that seems like poor “strategery”, to me.

if indeed that WAS the case, then honestly, is it THAT hard to ring up the beeb and ask, “yo, is this terrorist a reporter like he says he is? oh, word? all right-y then…our bad.”

it’s fine to be vigilant, but please, do your homework. breaking down someone’s door, displaying menacing behaviour towards their innocent family members and confiscating the tools of their trade…that’s a fine way to treat a journalist who works for the largest press-outfit of our most beleaguered “ally”.

liz hurley has a little naan in the tandoor (that sounds so much better when it’s “bun in the oven”, doesn’t it??) :

Hollywood bombshell Liz Hurley is expecting her second baby, with Indian boyfriend Arun Nayar, News of the World reported.

The model is expecting a sibling for her son Damian in February, it said.

Liz and Arun have been dating for 18 months following her split from Damian’s father Steve Bing.

A source close to Liz was quoted as saying: “Unlike Bing, Arun is happy at the thought of a new baby.”

via hindustan times and a bunch of gossip columns ;)

Now, Britain's youngest Olympic boxer since Colin Jones in 1976 is firmly in the spotlight. That Khan is his country's only fighter makes the glare even brighter. But if he is feeling the strain, the graduate of Bury Amateur Boxing Club is keeping it well hidden. "I don't feel any added pressure. I'm just going to box like I normally do," he said. "All the media attention I'm getting is brilliant, it's everyone's dream at my age. All my mates are buzzing about it and everyone from school and college is proud of me. "I'm only 17 and it's an experience for me. At the next Olympics I'll be a lot more mature, a lot stronger and I'll also have a lot more pressure on me because I'll be tipped for gold." Refreshingly self-aware, Khan also realises the significance of his Pakistani background and what his appearance in a British vest could do for race relations. "Asians are thin on the ground in British teams and it's a big thing for me to get a medal," he said. "I hope it could push a lot of Asians into sport and show that, with the support of your family, as an Asian you can get anything you want."

Mandvi's first lesson on the racism that can come with living in a community where you are different should have prepared him for his second. As a small Indian-born schoolboy in the working-class town of Bradford, England, he was often taunted and chased home from school by "the white boys." The experience, fading over time, rushed back to him after the attacks of 9/11, which produced a backlash that made him, as a Muslim, again feel the sting of being "an outsider."

But Mr. Mandvi, an actor, has reacted to what he sees as the current assault on Islam - born of indiscriminate fear and suspicion - by identifying with those who are attacked rather than those who are doing the attacking. "I never heard the word 'jihad' until it came out of the mouth of an American television reporter," he said, "and I was raised Muslim. I was never interested in being a political artist, but all this has forced me to become a more political artist. And it has made me a better artist.

I want to do work that is honest, work that allows people to see another dimension of life." To that end, Mr. Mandvi, who says he is in his 30's, is turning his one-man show, "Sakina's Restaurant," for which he won an Obie Award, into a film. "Sakina's Restaurant" is a comedy that chronicles life in a family-owned Indian restaurant, which in the movie will be set in Jackson Heights, Queens. "I think it is possible to portray Muslims without having to set them against the backdrop of a post-9/11 world," he said. "This is the story of an American family that happens to be Muslim."

Click here to read the full story.

You're on the phone with your grandmother, and she wants to know when you're going to produce grandchildren for her and how on earth you can be "dating" the same person for 2 years without any marriage plans. You tell her that these things take time, that people are complicated, and it's hard to know where this is going. You feel morally superior as she clucks disapprovingly. You think, I'm a modern person, and I have science on my side.

Or do you? Well, today the BBC reports that:

People decide what kind of relationship they want within minutes of meeting, a study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships said.

"It's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. We make a prediction about what kind of relationship we could have with a person and that helps determine how much effort we are willing to put into developing a relationship."

The results were the same for people who talked for three, six or ten minutes.

Prof Ramirez said: "That tells you things are happening very quickly. People are making snap judgements about what kind of relationship they want with the person they just met."

Screen Daily has some interesting details on yet another Mira Nair project (thanks, Brimful!)

[Nair] recently acquired the remake rights to an Indian “blockbuster” and has sold them on to an as yet undisclosed Hollywood studio. “It will be the first time there has been a reverse, when Hollywood will buy Bollywood. I’m going to remake it in an African-American context.”

Blockbuster in an African-American context? Maybe Shaft meets Sholay! I can see it now: Will Smith channels Amitabh, Martin Lawrence does Dharmendra. Don Cheadle sneers as Gabbar Singh, Mya dances over rough-cut bling. Instead of ‘Mehbooba Mehbooba,’ we get ‘Girls Dem Sugar.’ And all the motorbike scenes are filmed on a wicked Japanese racer.

I think the reverse is even funnier, Indian ripoffs of Hollywood films. But I hear that’s been done.

Mira, no charge for the treatment. Just send me a couple of points off the back end.

Two young Kashmiri Muslims recently eloped against their families’ wishes and are in hiding. The village elders have ordered the man’s family to offer a bride and cash to the woman’s family and are allegedly holding the man’s family hostage to ensure compliance.

This takes the theory of vicarious liability to a whole new level. But merely taking them hostage stinks of rank amateurism. Why not follow the lead of Russian counterterrorism and send the couple a severed hand? That would really get the point across: love hurts, babe.

My buddy Kiran Rao guest-stars on Charmed on the WB this Sunday, Sep. 12 at 8pm. Here are some shots of Kiran on Threat Matrix and The Shield. His roles have ranged from substantial (Alias) to brief (Spin City). He also runs a great desis-in-film site called Hollywood Masala. Watch him Sunday, it’s always fun!

Time Asia runs an interesting profile on Mira Nair (also see Sajit’s post):

Nair was also, she claims, an unwanted child—or, as she puts it, a “contraceptual blunder.” In 1957 the Indian government was worried about its exploding population, and her father, a senior bureaucrat, had sworn to limit the family to the two sons they already had. He sent his wife Praveen to a clinic for an abortion, but she couldn’t bring herself to go through with it…

…Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love was universally skewered, and even Nair disowned it as an “aberration.” (Time)

As Amardeep Singh has fisked in far greater detail, some reviewers have complained about the desi influences in Vanity Fair:

The buzz is all about how Nair has played up Thackeray’s Indian influences—he was born in Calcutta—including a Bollywood dance number and an ending shot in the Rajasthani fort town of Jodhpur. The New York Times griped about the “outlandish” sight of Witherspoon doing a “grinding Indian-flavored hoochy-cooch, worthy of Britney Spears,” saying it seemed “shoehorned in from another movie.” (Time)

Nair defended her colonialism-centric angle as a legitimate, innovative interpretation:

The basis of what I loved and which I thought Thackeray plumed so acutely and beautifully was the relationship between the colony and the empire. Thackeray himself was born in Calcutta and came to England, and I always saw him and his writing as a sort of satiric look at his own society; that he was the ultimate insider/outsider and I think it was in that realm and that vein that he created his great heroine, Becky Sharp… (Metro)

Swiss Army knife maker Victorinox is creating a line of high-end kirpans for Sikhs, saying premium knives should be treated with the same reverence as samurai swords (via Ennis):

“The first kirpan — with a handle made of solid gold and studded with diamonds and precious stones — will be presented to the Darbar Sahib at the Golden Temple in Amritsar before being rolled out in India, UK, US and Canada.”

Next up: a Victorinox kukri knife for Gurkhas.

Personally, I’d be happier with a desi Swiss Army knife with red chili and pickle dispensers. I’ve got no beef with ethnic cuisines and would never pull my knife on them. But I’d whip it out against continental, nouveau, and that anemic simulacrum, American vegetarian.

The new Indian government is unleashing universities from some of the pro-bribery, anti-intellectual freedom regulations the previous government imposed:

[Education minister Arjun Singh] has… scrapped a controversial order, also issued by the BJP government, that required private donations to public universities to be routed through a special government agency; and allowed India’s universities to seek collaborations with their foreign counterparts without obtaining the government’s permission. In addition, Mr. Singh has ordered the replacement of high-school history textbooks that the previous government had changed to reflect a Hindu-supremacist viewpoint.

Centralizing financial control over donor money? No prizes for guessing what the purpose of that was. Striking down the new regulations allows more intellectual freedom:

The academics were up in arms because they thought it was an effort to blatantly promote ministerial intervention and curb the autonomy of the universities.

And the education minister calls the reversion of textbooks ‘de-saffronisation.’ So far, the new Manmohan Singh government is doing good things.

Blogger Priya Lal wrote that the Oscars found many desi films 'not Indian enough' for the foreign language category. But what's Indian enough?

Second-gen writers like Jhumpa Lahiri and Monica Ali have largely been re-telling their parents’ tales. It’s interesting as a topic but repetitive as an entire oeuvre, made even worse by book covers which all feature nubile brown women with mehndi hands and first-gen authors who willingly swan with incense and sarod music at book readings...

Peacocks and payals are gorgeous when judiciously applied, and any desi could be forgiven for admiring a royal, nose-ringed nariz evocative of Mughal miniature. It gets annoying mainly when lit and film treats culture as a tourist backdrop, a Potemkin village with the thinnest faciæ of stereotype... when directors ask for the Peter Sellers / Gunga Din caricature of a desi accent rather than the real one, like Apu on The Simpsons and the dad’s accent in Harold and Kumar. That’s just insulting...

Can’t we all just agree to consign mehndi to weddings, mangos to dinner plates and the words exotic and spicy to the seventh circle of hell?

Continue reading »

A Sikh truck driver from Yuba City was cited for carrying a concealed weapon while on a produce delivery haul in Oregon. His kirpan is a ceremonial dagger common to Sikhism (via Ennis).

The officer allegedly dragged Gill to the ground, shoved a knee into his back and shoved his head into the ground as he handcuffed him, he said. The officer then told him that the police look to pull over people who look as though they are from India, Pakistan and or of the Sikh faith, which Gill and Sraon said is racial profiling and illegal… Gill was cited for carrying a concealed weapon and told to appear in Douglas County Court… Sraon said the kirpan is not a weapon but a religious symbol and therefore protected by law under the first amendment of the Constitution.

Kirpan case law is an example of a very interesting body of law dealing with the conflict of religious beliefs and the public interest (e.g. peyote in Native American rituals, sharia vs. common law, religions which ban modern medical treatment). Since Sikhs are in the minority in most places, they’re often afterthoughts when laws affecting them are enacted. For example, the new hijab ban in France, ostensibly aimed at undermining militant Islam, also inadvertently bans turbans. Nobody thought to ask the small French Sikh community for input, it was a boundary case. And in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, wearing a kirpan provided an easy pretext for cops to detain Sikhs without suspicion of wrongdoing.

No comment - MSNBC - Hindus Worry Over Christian, Muslim Growth.

BANGALORE, India - The leader of India's Hindu-nationalist opposition on Tuesday voiced concern over the growth rate among minority Muslims and Christians, urging them to practice family planning to preserve the nation's

The data released Monday showed the share of Hindus in the country's 1.028 billion population fell from 82 percent in 1991 to 80.5 percent in 2001. The portion of Muslims increased from 12.2 percent to 13.4 percent and Christians rose from 2.32 percent to 2.34 percent.

"This imbalance is not good for the country," Naidu said. "Family planning is the need of the hour for all people."

Could the non-Hindu brown folks engage in a bit more "Family Planning", please?!?!?!

Veteran Bollywood actors Anupam and Kirron Kher will play the parents of Parminder Nagra’s med student character in an upcoming episode of ER (via Ennis). Anupam Kher already played Nagra’s dad in Bend It Like Beckham and will also play Aishwarya Rai’s dad in Bride and Prejudice.

That’s the trouble with desis: you let one in, and they’ll bring in all their relatives ;) I once hired a great desi dude for my group and later left that job. When I came back to visit some friends, I found out he’d taken over my office and even my phone number. Apparently we’d turned that position permanently brown. Colonize, y’all!

i hope the rest of you enjoyed your holiday weekend as much as i did. :) i spent the latter part of today catching up on email and my bloglines feeds, where i found THIS:

The New York Times ran a story today about how the city’s luxury strip clubs have been sitting empty all week. This is a bit baffling, honestly. At one club, at least, tonight, a barback instructed a waitress to keep at hand a good supply of speared olives and lemons “for when 50,000 Republicans show up.” In the dressing room, meanwhile, the dancers popped speed-like pills in preparation for a long night…

…Yesterday I saw a youngish Republican point to the sparkly dot on the forehead of the South Asian dancer gracing his lap. “What’s that?” he asked. “A bindi,” she answered matter-of-factly. “A what?” he asked. “A bindi.” They went back and forth in this way for some time before she said, with some hostility, “It’s my heritage.”

This sort of tension has been brewing for several days now. If the Republicans, buoyed by Bush’s nomination, get randy tomorrow night, it may boil over.

via the village voice’s “Hot Girls, Frisky Delegates: RNC Diary of a Strip-Club Waitress”

Across America, I expect sports columnists to be remarking on how the crown has been passed from a black man to a brown man in what used to be the white man's sport (largely because the only way you could get on the court if your skin was darker than manilla was by caddying). But why talk about the transition from black to brown? Why not say that a browner black man was overtaken by a blacker brown man? Or that the yellow man lost to the brown man?

As Vinod has posted, the Iraqi insurgents who took Indian truck drivers hostage were tokin’ the desert weed with their nonsensical Dr. Evil demands. And here I was thinking the coalition of the willing could fit on a 3x5 index card:

This shadowy group of kidnappers demanded that Indian troops immediately leave Iraq and stop assisting US forces… it was pointed out to the kidnappers that India had no troops in Iraq and was indeed vehemently opposed to the US invasion… The group maintained that the war had killed 250 women and children in Falluja and demanded the Indian [not U.S.] government pay compensation to the bereaved families.

Given their familiarity with underworld financing and general lack of recent employment, aging Bollywood stars jumped into the fray:

[The mediator] Sheikh Hisham al-Dulaimi has a passion for Bollywood… He has three wives and 12 children. He smokes cigars… if big Bollywood stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Asha Parekh and Dharmendra made a personal call to him pleading for the release of the three hostages, the three, in his words, “would be released today itself”.

The imprisoned drivers were more than willing to do their own stunts:

[T]he [Iraqi] guards are hopelessly trained. At the first sound of gunfire they usually run away… “My Iraqi security was pathetic. I shouted at him that if you cannot fire your gun yourself, teach me how to do it.”

More by Vinod here and here.

Frequent SM commentor Godless Capitalist / "GC" posts over @ GNXP - How the Asians became White.

I first noticed this effect 10 years ago, at a party where a friend of mine commented that the guests were all white. I responded by mentioning about a dozen Asians; oh, she said, that's right, but you know what I mean. At a recent UCLA conference I attended, two speakers complained that everyone on the panel was white, without even realizing that one of the speakers was ethnically Chinese, and another was an Asian Indian with skin darker than that of many American blacks...

If true, it would leave many an aspiring desi race/ethnic activist unemployed....

A new Bollywood film about the Sepoy Mutiny is nearing completion. The Rising, a patriotic screed that’s the love child of Lagaan and 1942: A Love Story, stars Aamir Khan, the ubiquitous Aishwarya Rai, Rani Mukherjee and Amisha Patel. It focuses on Mangal Pandey, the original militant vegetarian who sparked the rebellion. And nothing says ‘freedom fighter’ like a big, honkin’ moustache (vegetable wax only, please). Director Ketan Mehta hopes the film is subversive, not preachy:

“We have seen our history from the British perspective. Now let us see it from the Indian perspective…”

I have to admit the Brits are good sports about it, shelling out shillings for Lagaan and those adorable cricket-playing natives. But what about the odd appearance of Prince Ears at the film’s ceremonial kickoff? Chuck, just a hint: you were on the other side. Khan wiggled uncomfortably:

“This film is not against the Queen’s rule, but the East India Company, which ruled India then.”

A nuanced, sensitive position on war. Well, ok then. Mehta also did the art film Mirch Masala with Shabana Azmi and the film Sardar on the iron-willed annexer of Indian kingdoms, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. A.R. Rehman, who did the music for Lagaan, is scoring the film, to be titled Mangal Pandey for the Indian market.

Numerous villagers who all claim to be Pandey’s descendants are up in arms over a smooching scene in the film, the irony of which is left as an exercise for the reader. We at Sepia Mutiny are just chapped over being kissed off by their casting department for said scene, despite our obvious lip-locking skills.

How does a new Olympic silver medal winner celebrate? Mohini Bhardwaj is tattooing the five rings to her wrists and exchanging rings of a different color by getting engaged. It’s a far cry from surviving on PowerBars:

“… [A]fter practice, I’ll grab all the pennies and go to the Coinstar and get like $12 off the Coinstar and be so excited that I could buy some soy milk and cereal…” [The coach] became aware of Bhardwaj’s fun-loving side in 1997, she said, when Bhardwaj stayed out late with the members of the Russian team at the world championships in Switzerland. She partied too much and studied too little, once coming to the coach in tears, proud that she had finally earned a B in a class. “Her peak of being a rebel was probably in the late 90’s, so it really wasn’t her time,” Kondos Field said. “This time, she did it for herself…”

By the way, that multi-culti paragon The New York Times thinks a desi with a nose ring is ‘walking on the wild side’:

She has walked on the balance beam and walked on the wild side; she still has a subtle piece of jewelry pierced into the left side of her nose.

I listened carefully for the usual remark, and wondered what it would be. My mind flashed forward to a scene of myself, explaining to a judge why I had decided to wastefully pelt these kids with my precious produce. I was also wondering, in another part of my mind, whether I would miss my peaches or beets more, and which ones would be more accurate to throw. I wished I had picked up some overripe tomatoes just a few minutes before, to make sauce with and to express myself more precisely with. With the anniversary of 9-11 approaching, I really didn't feel like smiling and turning the other cheek at a threat, an accusation of terrorism, or my favorite phrase (which I haven't heard here yet), "Sand Nigger."

The chatter from the boat dimmed as they noticed me, and I tensed slightly. Finally one of them yelled, "Nice Beard!"

"Thanks!" I responded. "I grew it myself!"

Excerpts above; the full version is available at my home blog.

Keira Knightley, whose breakout role came in Gurinder Chadha’s Bend It Like Beckham, is going head-to-head with her former mentor as they both film Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It’s a Brit vs. British Asian showdown separated only by angle and time.

As Sajit has posted, Chadha’s version, Bride and Prejudice, is an unapologetically Bollywood interpretation starring Aishwarya Rai that debuts this year. Knightley’s version comes out in ‘05, a traditional version with mostly British actors set in yesteryear London.

Chadha recently released the full trailer for her version, a light-hearted romantic comedy co-starring Martin Henderson, Namrata Shirodkar, Anupam Kher, Naveen Andrews, Indira Varma and Ashanti. Check out the bit where Henderson describes bhangra (‘screw in a lightbulb with one hand and pet the dog with the other.’)

Throw in the Mr. D’Arcy character from Bridget Jones’ Diary, he of the ugly jumper, and never-married miss Jane is gettin’ some lowe. And she’s not the only one. Considering all the desi shout-outs scampering through Vanity Fair, and the desi re-imaginings of Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the English are in for some hot, back-door reverse colonialism action.

Following up on Anna’s post, Shikha Uberoi lost her second-round U.S. Open match to Venus Williams yesterday, 7-5, 6-1, after sprinting to a 4-1 lead in the first set. The match was hard-fought:

Shikha Uberoi of Boca Raton won a lot of new fans with her super-aggressive play against Venus Williams in the second round.. Her coach, Rick Macci, tutored the Williams sisters for four years…

As fellow Palm Beach County players, Uberoi and Williams are acquaintances. On 9/11, their local airport was in lockdown, so Williams gave Uberoi and her sister Neha a limo ride home. A grateful Uberoi invited Williams in for some home-cooked bhindi:

Shikha invited her to dine with the family. ‘‘And guess what: she agreed. She loved Indian food, bhindi masala particularly, so we called Mom and asked her to make that.’’

Despite having shared bhindi, a near-sacred bond in Punjabi culture equalled only by sharing makhi di roti and sarson da saag, Williams had to take down her young rival at tournament time. All’s fair in love and tennis.

Uberoi is a cousin of Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi.

From the Beeb:

Angry eunuchs in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu are protesting against a state-run insurance company which they allege has refused to issue an insurance policy to a eunuch.
[snip]
A spokesman for the Life Insurance Corporation at their headquarters in Bombay (Mumbai) has denied that eunuchs will not be sold insurance.
But a senior official who requested anonymity told the BBC that, according to the company rules, only men or women can apply for insurance.
He said that, going strictly by the rules, applications from eunuchs are normally rejected.

I can just picture some desi bureaucrat looking at the boxes labeled "M/F Check ONE" and stamping denied across the form. Somebody please smack said bureaucrat silly, then send him to Bombay Dreams for re-education?

I don't necessarily think the appropriation by popular culture of Hindu icons is always offensive. Any deity on a toilet seat, sure that is offensive, a deity on a t-shirt...I don't think so.

Anyway, Time Magazine (Asia) recently published an interesting story on Pop culture's appropriation of Hindu icons and how "the faithful" is up in arms about it. The article is essentially a listing of some of the more recent examples of this, including Roberto Cavalli's ingenious Holy Bikini and undergarments which made a stir earler this summer, and were subsequently removed from the famed British department store, Harrods.

It's been five years since the spirituality-seeking Madonna, dressed in a sari and adorned with a tilaka marking on her forehead, sang a self-composed Sanskrit song at the MTV awards before a backdrop of Hindu god images—simultaneously raising the West's awareness of Hinduism and incurring the ire of the religion's faith police. Things Indian have only gotten trendier since. But as Madonna discovered, cashing in on Hinduism can be a mixed blessing.

To read the full article, click here.

One of the most reported issues in the U.S. media a few months ago, was the issue of Gay Marriage. On one side you had the mayor of San Francisco issuing what turned out to be illegal marriage certificates and on the other side you had the President calling on Congress to amend the most sacred of all democratic texts. The rights of homosexuals are increasingly becoming an important topic in South Asia as well. From SFGate.com:

Islamabad, Pakistan — One recent Sunday evening at midnight in a town near here, Kohsar Riaz sat down eagerly in her favorite living room chair for her weekly dose of ARY One World network’s “Drama Hour” and was instantly engrossed in the depressing tale of a hijra (cross-dresser) disowned by family and friends, desperate for acceptance and hopelessly in love with a young man who used him solely for money.

The young hijra, unable to understand why his love would spurn him after achieving business success, dies trying to chase down his love’s car.

At the funeral, attended almost exclusively by other hijra, the young cross-dresser’s grief-stricken parents beg for their dead son’s forgiveness. He was their only child, but they failed to protect or help him.

Tens of thousands of South Asian night owls who stayed up to watch the popular television show got a rare glimpse from the other side of one of the region’s most ostracized groups.

I have posted a few entries now about the Indian delegates to the Republican National Convention. An SM reader named Jagjit (who earlier brought us a poster about his visionary new film) has once again provided us with something useful to look at. He writes:

It appears that we command quite a significant presence among the GOP delegates. This is an incredible development, and truly meaningful progress for our community, our issues, and the country as a whole.

They are making their way up the ranks of our country’s dominant party. Their victories are our victories. We should all pull for and support these trailblazers.

The first order of business is to polish up the bios/self-descriptions that were provided to DesiTalk-NewsIndia Times. Most of them sound like they were written in quite a hurry, and without consideration given to marketing the delegates. To show my support, I would like to take a stab at spinning together an effective public image with which to brand themselves by editing the aforementioned descriptions (free-of-charge).

My proposal will offer them the best chance to rise within the GOP by demonstrating a readiness to champion the party’s core beliefs.

Because the last thing I want people to think is that I am somehow biased, I decided to make up for yesterday’s posting about profiling at the RNC with a story about profiling at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Am I not fair? From the Boston Phoenix:

There were so few arrests for DNC-protest-related activities, we now know, because there were so few demonstrations to begin with; everyone, apparently, was waiting for the Republican National Convention to make their voices heard. As for the massive security efforts orchestrated for the DNC, well, how safe should we feel now that it’s become clear that, with federal authorities at least, “suspicious” individuals were targeted not based on what they do, but on how they look?

Good news from the science front - MSNBC - Montezuma’s curse gets reversed.

September issue, Budget Travel magazine - Traveler's diarrhea, or T.D., has ruined many a vacation, especially to high-risk destinations such as Mexico and India.

Changing the approach to treating the common ailment is an antibiotic that'ss newly approved in the U.S., but one that's been prescribed in Europe for years. Rifaximin was given the official OK by the FDA this past spring, and as of August it'll be sold under the name Xifaxan (the first x is pronounced like a z).

In an interview with the Guardian, novelist Anita Desai says that male characters tell more adventurous stories (via Kitabkhana):

As a young woman, Desai says she felt her own life was not big or broad enough to feed her writing. “My whole life was about family and neighbours: it was very difficult for a woman to experience anything else. I was bored, and I needed to find more range, which is why I started to write about men in books like Baumgartner’s Bombay [in which a German Jew flees the war in India] and In Custody [a college lecturer goes in search of a famous poet]. Men led lives of adventure, chance and risk. It just wasn’t possible to write that from an Indian female perspective.”

Desai, who grew up in Delhi, had a German mother and a Bengali father. Her new book, The Zigzag Way, is a tale about the Cornish miners who settled in Mexico before mysteriously fading away. Desai also wrote the novel In Custody, about a slowly degenerating Urdu poet. The book was adapted into a luscious movie, Muhafiz, starring Shabana Azmi (one of the greatest pleasures in film is watching the lovely Ms. Azmi, bedecked and bejeweled, sitar in hand, croon a ghazal full of smoke and longing). Desai’s daughter Kiran recently debuted as a novelist with Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard.

since most brown restaurants in britain are actually owned and operated by bangladeshis, an indian entrepreneur in coventry has decided that it would be novel to put the "indian" back in indian food. read on:

Ownership of 'Indian' restaurants by Bangladeshis in London is so widespread that many Asians of Indian origin remark that they should pay royalty to use the word 'Indian' in their businesses - because that is what brings customers in.

Several patrons also often complain that what is served in such restaurants as Indian food is a pale shadow of the real thing.

...Jo Matharoo, one of three brothers who are partners in the venture, said:..."Flamingo Bar and Grill will be the real thing.

"What many people don't realise is that 50 percent of people in India are vegetarians so that is a market we intend to cater for strongly."

The four nuns from India, some with a few pimples left over from adolescence and all in black habits and crucifixes, giggled and chatted like American freshmen as they arrived here for college.

They came from Kerala, a state in southwest India, to attend Assumption College for Sisters at Mallinckrodt Convent as part of an atypical Roman Catholic experiment.

[snip]

The students have been encouraged to display their talents at prayer services, in the motherhouse and occasionally at Mass. One of the visiting nuns ... said, "The Nigerians are great singers.'' The Indian nuns, she added with a giggle and peek in their direction, "really know how to dance."

Does anybody else think this sounds like a bollywood movie? Or yet another Sister Act movie with Whoopy Goldberg? Sister Act 12, in which Whoopi Goldberg teaches teenage indian nuns how to sing to go with their dancing.

Mira Nair to direct the new Harry Potter movie? According to Nair herself:

"I'm getting offers to direct Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I read it over the weekend. I'm still deciding... I'm not letting all this go to my head. I'm grounded. I practise detachment, it helps me keep my balance. I'm a Dilliwalli [someone from Delhi], only an asana [a position in Yoga] gets me on my head! My son Zoharan's excited. I've seen all the Harry Potter movies with him."

I'd be quite interested to see what she could do with the material. I thought that Chris Columbus did an awful job, both in terms of deadening the joy in the material, but also in terms of whitewashing it all. Cuaron, on the other hand, did even better than I had expected (although given how well he directed "A Little Princess", maybe I shouldn't have been surprised). He also managed to showcase the non-white characters who were there all along, and who play a larger role in the story as the series goes on. No word yet on whether Sitara Shah will come back as Parvati Patil (heck, they haven't even re-signed Daniel Radcliffe yet).

For more on Nair, read Sajit's earlier post on the topic, where he mentioned this rumor earlier.

We're always looking for a gratuitous reason to put up a pict of Ms. Rai - CNN.com - Ash leads the Bollywood brand - Sep 1, 2004

MUMBAI, India (CNN) -- Think global brands and the first names to come to mind might be Microsoft, McDonald's, Toyota or Samsung.

For India, that global brand is Bollywood, the massive film and entertainment industry that has its heart in the city of Mumbai.

And its best-known brand ambassador is former Miss World Aishwarya Rai, an actress who is proving adept at a multilingual and multinational approach to picking scripts.

Last week I gave SM readers a chance to get acquainted with the Indian delegates to the RNC. DesiTalk-NewsIndia Times now has a more in-depth look at them. You can read their statements for yourselves and see what motivates them to support Bush. Don’t worry. I won’t get into trouble with the Justice Department for this because I am not including their Social Security Numbers.

A friend of mine who works for Human Rights Watch has a floor pass to tonight’s show at the convention. I pleaded with her to not get arrested. She emailed me back, unable to understand why everyone kept telling her that. So what is it like being in NYC at the convention right now? I don’t have any way of knowing since I am stuck on the wrong coast, but I am much more interested in what’s happening outside than inside the convention hall. That’s where the real stories are at. Rediff reporter Arun Venugopal gives a pretty interesting first-hand account of his “stupididty”:

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

That’s what I was thinking to myself, about myself, as I stood just inside the entrance of Madison Square Garden, where the Republican National Convention was taking place. In the space of a few footsteps I had gone from being just another reporter on the job to possible radical activist. Large men in suits, large men likely concealing large guns, hovered around me, asking me questions about my work, my family, my place of residence, recent trips I had made out of town and out of the country. Outside, nearly a thousand protesters had been arrested for civil disobedience and vague rumors of anarchist violence were floating about – I had quite clearly picked the wrong day and place to be carrying anti-war, anti-Bush literature. Dumb.

So, Vinod pinged me the other day and asked if I could chime in about once a week with an image – yeah, I am a freelance photographer – and I said sure, I would like to give it a whirl.

So, once a week or thereabouts, I'll post an image here – I'll leave the comments and the commentary to you. Append your best caption to the image and we'll see how this experiment takes off.

I run my own blog - TIFFINBOX. Do come visit. And if you are aching to look at some of my photography (lately weddings in the documentary style), check out Pipal Productions.

Thanks for this opportunity to showcase some of my more personal work.

The Maharashtra government has extended its caste hiring quotas into the booming private sector. Because if you happen across an avian that lays ovoids of gold, the first thing to do is to throttle her.

“We’ve already been suffering under many constraints, like socialist economic planning and labour restrictions,” says Rahul Bajaj, chairman of Bajaj Auto, the world’s largest manufacturer of scooters and motorcycles and one of India’s largest companies. “If we implement reservations, we’ll have no way to become internationally competitive.”

Many say the constitution intended reservations as a temporary measure. But the rising political clout of low-caste Indians (who make up some 50% of the population) prevented the programme from being discontinued. Instead, it was expanded to include Indians from lower-middle positions in the caste hierarchy… Singh’s reforms made a mockery of the affirmative-action policy, entitling over 90% of the population in some states to reserved jobs.

BREAKING NEWS THAT PEOPLE WHO CRAVE SUBSTANCE WILL FIND ABSOLUTELY IRRELEVANT:

“america’s next top model”, the UPN reality show that has almost made erstwhile supermodel tyra banks relevant again, has, for the first time in the show’s history, a brown contestant in the mix.

Julie Ann Titus is 19 years old, pulchritudinous, and a whopping 5’10”. acccording to the official “america’s next top model” website, she “…wants to create a new image for Indian women.”

judging from the extended-commercial for the “ANTM” season premiere that i just saw, which featured soundbites from all 14 contestants, our girl is SASSY!

yes, i am well aware that editing often renders our perceptions of reality tv contestants meaningless, but if what i caught a glimpse of tonight is any indication of who Julie is, she has enough attitude to make vin diesel incontinent.

i applaud her poised confidence as well as her unyielding, “anti-drama” stance, and i look forward to wasting an hour each week cheering her on this fall. go on with your bad self, jules. :) oh, and did i mention that she’s malayalee? and that this fact doesn’t make me biased towards her at all? ;)

thought i should bring this to your attention, since we are brown, and it IS tennis; Shikha Uberoi, an indian american, has upset saori obata of japan in a “spectacular” first round match in the US Open. for her second match, shikha will play a tennis-“david” to Venus William’s “goliath”.

india’s Mahesh Bhupathi digs miss uberoi:

…Indian tennis ace Mahesh Bhupathi complimented Uberoi on her victory, saying she would inspire players like Sania Mirza back home.

“Shikha’s excellent performance at the US Open is a very positive sign for women’s tennis in India. With (players like) Sania Mirza, the future of women’s tennis in India seems extremely bright; brighter than it has ever seemed before,” Bhupathi, who narrowly missed out winning a medal in partnership with Leander Paes at the just concluded Athens Olympics, contended.

Indian born Uberoi, 21, lives in Boca Raton, Florida.

A right-hander with a two-handed backhand, she is ranked 380 and has had a pretty good run this year.

now the dozen SM readers who love tennis can shrug and say, “duh. i already knew that”, while the other five of you scroll on impatiently because you are looking for the next installment of the manish vij book club. no matter. thanks for reading! ;)

Your new film, ''Vanity Fair,'' is based not on the magazine but on the great English novel. Reese Witherspoon plays Becky Sharp, one of the most conniving heroines in literature. As someone once said of Becky, she is not just a social climber; she's a mountaineer. Becky Sharp was a girl who bucked the system. She didn't like the cards that society gave her. So she created her own deck, and created it at a time when a woman was supposed to sit still in a drawing room and hope a guy was going to come and propose. You grew up in India and set films like ''Salaam Bombay!'' and ''Monsoon Wedding'' there. Were you drawn to Thackeray because he was also born in India? When I was young, I spent summers in Calcutta and worked in political protest theater. And every morning, walking to my theater company, I would pass Thackeray's bungalow. There is still a crooked board there saying, ''William Makepeace Thackeray was born here.'' As an Indian citizen living in New York, do you see the U.S. as a force for good? No. Islamophobia has completely raged in the Western world since 9/11. Americans are only given one very biased point of view about the Islamic faith. You seem to be suggesting that Americans view all Muslims as terrorists. Living in New York, we never felt foreign. After 9/11, we felt foreign.

A review of the film from the San Francisco Chronicle can be found here, and here is a larger profile of Nair from MSNBC.

Incidentally, rumor has it that Mira Nair has been offerred to direct the next in the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Over the past three years I have heard the term “Thugs” used countless times in American politics, especially by our leaders:

Like Bush here:

The world changed on a terrible September morning. And since that day we have changed the world. Before September the 11th, Afghanistan served as the home base of al-Qaida, which trained and deployed thousands of killers to set up terror cells around the world, including our country. Today, Afghanistan is a rising democracy. (Applause.) Afghanistan is an ally in the war against these thugs. (Applause.) Many young girls now go to school in Afghanistan for the first time. (Applause.) Afghanistan is becoming free, and America and the world are safer for it. (Applause.)

or here:

At every stage of this process, before and after the transition to Iraqi sovereignty, the enemy is likely to be active and brutal. They know the stakes as well as we do. But our coalition is prepared, our will is strong, and neither Iraq’s new leadership nor the United States will be intimidated by thugs and assassins.

Great Post - The Acorn: Indian hostages released

A collective sigh of relief masks the grave damage done

Antaryami, Tilak Raj and Sukhdev Singh have been set free in one hostage drama that comes with a happy ending, and without recourse to Asha Parekh after all.

...The Indian government has already paid too high a price for their release, allowing a bunch of armed thugs to dictate its emigration policy. For the time being every Indian passport will carry a stamp of shame - making them invalid for travel to Iraq...

You MUST go read Jagjit's comment on the H&K post and check out the attached graphic. It's priceless and one of the best pieces of desi parody I've seen in a LONG time. It's so good I'm jealous.

yesterday, vinod had some “pulpy” advice for the nepalese government, via his Sepia Mutiny post on the unfortunate end of a dozen nepali hostages.

today, in nepal’s capital of kathmandu, outrage poured into the streets:

An indefinite curfew has been imposed in the Nepalese capital following violent protests against the killing of 12 Nepali hostages in Iraq. Angry mobs in Kathmandu attacked a mosque, government offices and the offices of two Middle East airlines.

…The news was received with anger and grief in Nepal with one official describing it as “one of the worst days” in his country’s history.

…The government is being heavily criticised for doing little to free the hostages and there have been calls for the prime minister to step down.

…The government denies the criticism and has condemned the incident as a “barbarian act of terrorism”, and pressed the international community to hunt down the killers.

i wonder if that last sentence destroys any possibility of retribution via Gurkha…

…The government said it would take action against agencies illegally sending people to Iraq.

Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, has banned Nepalis from going to Iraq, despite the relatively well-paid jobs there.

The militants said the 12 Nepalis had been killed because they “came from their country to fight the Muslims and to serve the Jews and the Christians”.

they came to fight the muslims? from what i’ve read, they came to cook and clean for a jordanian company. if those tasks are now considered hostile acts, i’ve got one hell of an excuse to avoid housework.

i mean no disrespect to these twelve innocents. i apologise in advance if any of you read it that way; i’m just exasperated at the lunacy that stole their lives.

as we say in the greek orthodox (and probably hated by the militants as well) church, “may their memory be eternal.”