Going over a package on poverty in the New Jersey Herald News, completed a couple weeks ago by my friend and former classmate Tom Meagher, I just realized that Tom had done more than write policy analysis and work and live as a temporary laborer for a month—he had also profiled several more regular members of the working-class poor, including two immigrants. One is a Peruvian father and husband named Julio, who has left his family behind in Lima. The other is a 20-year old son named Priyank Desai, arrived from India at the age of 16 and determined to help out his family:

Every week, Priyank Desai carries his paycheck home to the Passaic apartment he shares with his family, sets it before a makeshift shrine and prays to his Hindu deity.

“No matter how much money I make by working hard, it will all belong to you.”

Only after praying will he cash the check, which usually amounts to no more than $80 for two days of temporary work. He gives half to his parents to help pay for phone cards to call their extended family left behind in India, and for rides to work. The rest he spends on movies or lunch. He also pays for transportation to classes at Passaic County Community College that he hopes will lead him to a career as a Spanish teacher.(Link)

Both ‘Dilbert’ and ‘Doonesbury,’ two of the most popular comic strips in America, just ran desi topics on the same day. The new stereotypes: both kinder and more boring than the old.

As usual, India and first-genners loom larger on the cultural radar, at least among these blunt instruments of cultural critique, than the second gen:

Absent… personal interaction with South Asians, people’s perception of South Asia itself determines how they treat us. [Link]

Click the pictures see the full strips.

Over a month ago, we reported that New York City was considering issuing a parking holiday in deference to the Diwali holiday on November 1. While New York’s Committee on Transportation unanimously approved the motion, it was rumored that New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg would veto the legislation. On October 28, as the 30 day time-limit for the veto was set to expire, Mayor Bloomberg vetoed it. From one of the organizer’s emails: Because the mayor vetoed the bill so late,

“there is not enough time remaining before Diwali (Nov 1 is the date the city was planning to observe it) to override him and observe the holiday this year. Council Member Brewer is confident that the council will override the Mayor, but it will probably happen at one of the two Stated Council meetings in November (I believe 11/17 and 11/31). So the city will officially observe Diwali next year. This year November 1 falls on All Saints day, on which alternate side of the street parking is suspended anyway.”

We were also informed that back in February of 2005, Representative Joseph Crowley of the seventh district of New York introduced a mostly symbolic resolution recognizing the Diwali holiday. The resolution’s purpose is simply to “express the sentiments of one of the houses,” and will not make Diwali a public holiday. Still it is nice to see some effort to recognize. See the text of the “simple resolution” here, and more from SM on Crowley’s efforts to recognize Indian-Americans.

Lastly, Washington Post reporter S. Mitra Kalita continues her series of India-centric blog posts, entitled “India 2.0,” with her most recent discussing her Diwali partying. Click here to peruse her latest, and click here to see the archives.

Still no word on the stamp.

And maybe one day the twain shall meet and produce a decent film.  I’m not holding my breath, though.  The Hindustan Times reports on a recent spate of Bollywood/Hollywood joint ventures.  First up is Mumbai-based Percept Pictures, which recently announced plans to co-produce Ram Gopal Verma’s first “exclusively American” film, entitled Within:

The English-language film will reportedly be set in a Manhattan apartment peopled only by American characters.

Within will obviously be a significant first for RGV, but it is likely to be quickly followed up with Ek, a sweeping espionage thriller featuring Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan with a clutch of Hollywood actors. [link]

A Manhattan apartment peopled only by American characters?  Do they have to pass a citizenship exam to enter the building?  According to Verma, “Within will revolve around the fear factor that is present within each one of us, while Ek will be based on nuclear terrorism.”  I personally had no idea that a “fear factor” was present within me.  I hope it doesn’t make me eat cockroaches or something.  Verma said that casting has yet to be finalized, and did not name the Hollywood actors involved.  Will he be able to land a Hollywood heavyweight like Ali Larter?

Indian soldiers in WWI were remembered at a reopened German graveyard today:

Until recently there was nothing to identify the quiet, leafy spot where Jafarullah Mohammad and Mata Din Singh were buried. The two servicemen were among thousands of Indian volunteers who fought for Britain in the first world war, and were captured at sea or on the western front.

For more than 80 years the German graveyard where Mohammad, Singh and 204 other Indian volunteers are buried was forgotten. But today the war cemetery in Wünsdorf, in a forest 40km south of Berlin, is to be officially reopened… Diplomats from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh will attend today’s rededication ceremony…

The restoration is a recognition of the role played by troops from undivided India, who fought in the bloody battles of Ypres, Neuve Chapelle and Loos. Many died. Others ended up interned in German prisoner of war camps. “Very few people are aware of the role Indian troops played in both world wars,” Peter Francis of the Commonwealth Graves Commission said. “In some Indian units the casualty rate was 80%. In three days’ fighting in Neuve Chapelle in 1915, for instance, some 4,200 Indian soldiers perished…” [Link]

Fewer still care to remember those who fought in the second great war on the other side, to evict the British. The ally in that cause was… inconvenient:

• Photos of the Free India Legion
• Photos of Sikhs in the Legion

With pathetic regularity, a handful of delusional losers lived out their role-playing fantasy once again. We liked them better when they were living in mom’s basement, unemployed and pimply with their bidis, bhang and their 12-sided dice. ~50 dead and rising.

Paharganj market after the bombing

The first blast was reported at around 5.40 pm from the crowded Paharganj area, popular with foreign backpackers, and among the most congested areas in central Delhi close to the New Delhi Railway Station. The other explosion occurred soon after in Sarojini Nagar, another busy shopping area in south Delhi, popular among the middle class and even foreigners. Soon after there were reports of similar blasts from a few other areas, including Govindpuri, also a teeming market, in south Delhi.

“There was a huge explosion and the walls of a number of buildings came crashing down,” said Arun Gupta, secretary of the All Delhi Hotel Association. “It was so powerful the whole market started shaking,” added Gupta, who said he was barely 100 metres away from the blast spot at Pahargunj that was full of foreign tourists that throng its budget hotels and innumerable internet cafes…

The third blast occurred near the Kalkaji depot in Govindpuri, another extremely congested area… An official of the brand new Delhi Metro said the trains were running normally and commuters were being thoroughly frisked before entering the stations. [Link]

… [Paharganj] is outside the New Delhi railway station and is popular with travelers. Witnesses said that a woman and her infant were among the dead, as was one of the betel nut vendors who haunt the city’s markets… Mr. Chawla said he saw six or seven women lying on the ground, including one whose sari had caught fire. He grabbed bedsheets from a nearby vendor and used them to douse the flames. [Link]

Paharganj is a busy wholesale market, dotted with small, inexpensive hotels frequented by foreign travelers, particularly backpackers. [Link]

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a guerrilla group in possession of a national flower, must also be in want of a national anthem. The Tamil Tigers, having selected the poisonous Gloriosa Lily as their national flower last year, are now holding a contest for a new patriotic song. [Since 1990 they’ve been raising their flag to the appropriately titled “Look the Flag is Rising”]

Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka are advertising for “bards and minstrels with patriotic fervour” to write a catchy national anthem. The anthem should “symbolize the history of our struggle and victories to future generations,” the rebel statement says.

The lyrics should extol the “virtues of those who sacrificed their lives in Tamil struggle, celebrate the unique qualities of exclusiveness and resourcefulness of the Tamil homeland, and manifest the resoluteness, dedication and the aspirations of the Tamil people for freedom and dignity.”

“It should contain 18 lines - catchy and lively and in immaculate Tamil.”

Budding poets have until 27 November, “Tamil Eelam Martyrs Remembrance Day”, to come up with a suitable anthem. [Link]

Personally, I think that they’re missing an important opportunity here. Not only should the anthem be catchy and lively, but the entire process of anthem selection should also be appositely hip. To that end, I suggest the creation of Eelam Idol, a TV show designed to ensure that the resulting anthem is the people’s favorite. Hosted by MIA, Simon Cowell and a high Tamil Tiger official, the three judges could offer ascerbic commentary on the performances of the singer songwriters who volunteer to perform their proposed new version of the national anthem. The show would get killer ratings, both in Jaffna and abroad, and the new anthem would instantly top the charts! Guys, if you’re reading this, the idea is yours gratis. No really, there’s no need to meet for lunch …

Just a lightning-quick reminder (what IS it with me getting kicked out of the few, feeble places with net access out here???) about Sunday’s MEETUP.

Be there or be gossiped about. Viciously. ;)

VHAT: Meetup!
VHEN: October 30, 2pm
VHERE: Caffe Greco, 423 Columbus Ave

I promise to hold court until at least 6pm, so IST-adherents should be accomodated, just fine. So far, rumor has it that current Guest Bloggers extraordinaire Saheli and Ads will be there, signing autographs if you are exceptionally lucky.

I will probably be live-blogging it, like last time, since unlike HERE, North Beach has wayyy more wifi for the travel-weary and net-addicted. Whether or not the revolution is blogged, it WILL be photographed. So prepare to paneer it up, big time. As for who is on the Wee Eye Pee: come one, come all, blogger, comment-crafter, lurker and anti-Mutineer alike. We don’t bite.

Usually.

But it IS the day before Halloween, so if you get lucky… ;)

The Indian government faces a chronic problem with tax compliance. Nobody pays income tax. Tax rates are relatively high, and the tax system is byzantine. The entire economy is structured in such a way as to help people keep their income off the books. As a result, the government has trouble collecting revenue:

It is estimated that only about 3% of India’s one billion-strong population pay income tax.

“There are only 75,000 to 85,000 people with an income of one million rupees ($22,140) who pay taxes,” Finance Minister P Chidambaram told journalists. [Link]

The text message reads: “Pay your taxes, file your returns and hold your head high. Happy Diwali!” To root out tax evaders, the revenue service is watching people’s behavior during the one time of year when they can’t help but spend money — Diwali. As much as most Diwali-celebrating Indians hate paying taxes, the social consequences of being seen as cheap during a period of conspicuous consumption and status competition are far worse.

Diwali is a time when most Indians loosen their purse strings, buying gifts and making major purchases such as buying a car, and the finance minister said big spenders would be watched.

People with credit card transactions of more than 200,000 rupees a year ($4,435) will be checked by the tax department to see if they have filed their taxes or not.

Similar checks will be run on people who make cash withdrawals of one million rupees ($22,179) or more, or who have bought mutual funds worth more than 200,000 rupees. [Link]

My favorite aspect of this campaign goes after shoppers where it hurts - their mobile phone usage. What kind of Indian shopper can resist gabbing away on their mobile to their friends? The longer they shop, the larger the phone bill will be, thus altering the authorities to the presence of a wealthy person who, in all likelihood, has not paid their tax bill.

Mobile phone users who run up a bill in excess of 1,000 rupees ($22) a month can expect to receive a text message from the finance ministry to pay up.

“Pay your taxes, file your returns and hold your head high. Happy Diwali,” reads the message. [Link]

Breaking news today (thanks for the tip Vikram) is that U.S. citizen Noshir S. Gowadia, the self-proclaimed “father” of the B-2 stealth bomber’s propulsion system, has been arrested for espionage. The Honolulu Advertiser reports on the resident of Hawaii:

Noshir S. Gowadia traveled the world, billed himself as the “father” of the B-2 stealth bomber’s propulsion system, and disclosed classified military secrets about the high-tech aircraft to foreign governments, the federal government says.

The FBI’s criminal case against Gowadia, contained in a seven-page complaint made public yesterday, alleges that the entrepreneur and engineer provided eight countries with stealth secrets, in two instances going abroad to train foreign nationals using classified information.

Gowadia, a former design engineer for Northrop Grumman and later a subcontractor at Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico, told investigators that he “disclosed classified information and material both verbally and in papers, computer presentations, letters and other methods to individuals in foreign countries with the knowledge that information was classified,” the criminal complaint states.

“I used examples based on my B-2 … experience and knowledge,” the Maui resident told investigators. “At that time I knew it was wrong and I did it for the money.”

As of yet the Feds have not released which countries were involved in the transfer of the classified data. If convicted he could face up to 10 years in prison as well as fines.

Oh my. Usually, at this moment, I’m sitting in bed dumbfounded because it’s 3am on what I still consider Thursday (midnight never felt like a commencement, to me). Where were we? Oh yes. I was imagining where I normally type this post from— my bed, in front of Degrassi vintage, with the sound off. I’d be staring off in to space, concomitantly shocked and agog because yes, it’s ALREADY time to write and read nanofiction where does the time go blah blah blah.

But TODAY. Today, I am not doing that. Today, I am in California, in my Mother’s new home, where there is no nimble cable modem. There is no DSL. There isn’t even a local phone line hooked up yet, for me to try…(gag) DIAL-UP. So what could I do? I grimly did what I had to: I went, in search of the interweb.

Kinko’s? Closed. What kind of a Kinko’s CLOSES? Seriously! This blows, because I was quite fond of using “Kinko’s” as a synonym for “24 hours”. Beyond that tiny language tragedy, everywhere else? Um, this is the suburbs, so there IS no everywhere else to try. So get this— I’m borrowing wireless from my fave indie coffee place, because lucky for me (AND YOU) they didn’t switch it off like they usually do when they CLOSE.

I’m in a rainy parking lot, typing like a freak, the iBook’s brightness turning my face a not very divine shade of blue. Why? Because I love you and I love this weekly thing we do. When I commit, I commit. After we had moved the last few boxes to the new house, my mother was aghast when I told her during a dinner we were both to tired to eat, that I’d need to have a nocturnal adventure, in search of the net.

“But internet is coming tomorrow. Noon, I made an appointment with the phone company. Can’t it wait? Your friends will understand?”

“My FRIENDS (read: co-bloggers) will. My readers will be disappointed. Besides, I started this, so I have no excuse. Phone lines or not, the mutiny must go on.”

She nodded somberly at me and told me to try not to get lost. If you were previously unaware, I have the coolest Mother EVER. That doesn’t mean she isn’t strict— if I had said that I felt like going out for a martini, HA. If I had said that I felt like a movie, no dice. But stating that I needed…to…blog? Moms has her priorities straight, yo. ;)

For today’s Science Friday I wanted to talk about science policy (mostly because I don’t have time today to dissect a hard science article) .  This week’s edition of the journal Science features an article (paid subscription required) that debates the suggestion by some that there exists a glass ceiling for Asians in science leadership positions, here in the U.S.:

Virologist Kuan-Teh Jeang always thought it strange that his employer, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), would celebrate Asian Heritage Week each year with a cultural fair. “We’re not known for being great cooks or dancers. We’re known for being great scientists,” says Jeang about an ethnic group that, according to 2000 census data, comprises 14.7% of U.S. life scientists despite being only 4.1% of the nation’s overall workforce. So last year, he and the NIH/Food and Drug Administration Chinese American Association launched a new tradition: inviting a distinguished Asian researcher to give a scientific talk.

This May, as Asian Heritage Week approached, Jeang and his colleagues had another idea: Why not use the occasion to examine the status of Asian scientists within NIH’s intramural program? Jeang had already collected some disturbing numbers about opportunities for career advancement at NIH, and he was eager to see whether his numbers squared with an official tally by NIH officials.

To his chagrin, they did. Whereas 21.5% of NIH’s 280 tenure-track investigators (the equivalent of assistant professors) are Asian, they comprise only 9.2% of the 950 senior investigators (tenured researchers) at NIH. And only 4.7% of the roughly 200 lab or branch chiefs are Asian. (For this story, the term “Asian” includes all scientists with Asian surnames, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status. The group is dominated by scientists of Chinese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani, or Japanese origin.) Within particular institutes, the numbers were even more sobering. As of this spring, just one of 55 lab chiefs at the National Cancer Institute, NIH’s largest, was Asian. At the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, where Jeang works, none of the 22 lab chiefs was Asian.

To Jeang and others, the numbers point to a glass ceiling for Asian life scientists seeking to move up the career ladder.

I know this may be a contentious issue.  Some people automatically think that any suggestion of inequality is “whining.”  Maybe part of the lack of Asians in leadership positions may be due to the stigma associated with a language barrier (or a perceived barrier).  This should become much less of an issue as a generation of American-born Asians reaches “the proper age of leadership.”

SM tipster “Sirc” sent us the Village Voice review of a documentary that has been around for over a year, but seems to finally be opening to a larger audience (Oct 19, 2005 NYC, Nov 11, 2005 LA).  The film is titled ‘Three of Hearts: A Postmodern Family.’  From the review:

This well-told doc follows nine years in the lives of a gay couple and the woman they invited to share their relationship. When we meet this happy threesome—Sam, Steven, and Samantha—they’re trying to get pregnant. In winning interviews spliced between suspenseful EPT tests, the assertively bourgeois strivers chat about their setup, their decision to marry, their spa business, their mix-and-match sex (“There’s never a feeling of being left out!”). Actress hopeful Samantha explains how her traditional Indian family absorbed the news.

Ummm.  Wow.  Trinogamy.  I just imagined the sound of several desi parents dropping dead of heart attacks.  Hell, I almost suffered a heart attack when I saw the trailer.  That “horror-movie feeling” descended upon me.  You know, it’s like when you watch a character on-screen with your eyes half covered saying, “Don’t do it.  Don’t go in there.  You are going to get knifed.  Ooooh, they went there.”  The “monkey wrench” in this case is the birth of a baby.  How will it change the dynamic given that only one man is the biological father? In a perfect world without human insecurities a relationship like this could probably work.  There is unfortunately no such perfect world.  I don’t know how it turns out but I am pretty curious.

The filmmaker gives her quick take on the film and its coincidental political overtones:

We began filming “Three of Hearts” in August 1996, the night of Samantha’s 30th birthday party. When I got home from the first night of filming my boyfriend at the time, and later husband David Friedson told me that the senate had passed the Defense of Marriage Act that day, defining marriage for purposes of federal law as the legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife. David pointed out that the love story I had elected to tell was highly political. And as we premiered in Toronto, the whole issue was exploding in San Francisco, Massachusetts and around the country. So even though our film is not overtly political, we take pride in the fact that it does have political overtones.

We thank Sam Cagnina, Samantha Singh and Steven Margolin for their courage in sharing with us eight years of their journey.

The reviews of this film are glowing.  Here is screening info.

Gulshan “Le Chiffre” Grover

That being said, I think it is safe to report that the upcoming James Bond Film Casino Royale, starring Daniel Craig as 007, is keeping it mutinous with its inclusion of at least one brown actor in the film, no not Aishwarya Rai, but Bollywood-villain Gulshan Grover. Grover, true to form, will be playing Le Chiffre, the villain, in Casino Royale, which is based on Ian Fleming’s first James Bond book by the same name.

Shooting for the Bond film is due to begin in Prague in February 2006. Grover will be the first Indian to act in a Bond film since tennis star Vijay Amritraj and Kabir Bedi played important roles in Octopussy (1983). [link]

Upon doing some research I was pretty amazed to find out that Grover has done (and is in the process of doing) several non Bollywood films, including Beeper, a thriller starring Harvey Keitel, Kaizad Gustad’s really bad film Boom which had a really attractive cast including Padma Lakshmi, member of Salman Rushdie’s posse, the forthcoming My Bollywood Bride, the Salman Khan starrer Marigold, and Tarsem Singh’s The Fall.

Abhi posted earlier about a new Albert Brooks comedy, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World. The trailer is now out (thanks, Kiran). Sheetal Sheth apparently gets jiggy with the actor, who was born during Partition and was last unseen as the voice of the paterfish in Finding Nemo. From the trailer, the movie seems to have a reasonably light touch for the genre.

Congrats, Sheetal — it’s her biggest film yet. Her Indian accent isn’t too bad either, considering the competition. Some second-gen actors make such a hash of it, they’re crying out for an accent coach. (Imagine that dinnertime conversation: ‘You did vat? You paid someone so you could talk like me?’)

Watch the trailer. The movie comes out on January 20th.

A faux remnant of the British Raj…

Bombay Sapphire is a brand of gin distributed by Bacardi. The name hints at the origins of gin’s popularity in the British Raj. During their administration, the British took quinine in order to protect against malaria in the form of tonic water. This was mixed with gin in order to make a more pleasing and sociable drink of this medical necessity. [Link]

… put out a moody, animated, Simba-esque ad some time ago. It updates the look of old Chinese scrolls (cherry blossoms, carp) with dandelions, butterflies and… a bug zapper? It starts off in silhouette like a film studio intro, but gets more innovative from there. Watch the clip.

Tonic water was never intended as a cure or preventive for malaria, but malaria is the reason the quinine is in there. Quinine has a bitter taste. To make the stuff palatable when used as an antidote for fevers, legend has it, British colonials in India mixed quinine with gin and lemon or lime. Over time they learned to love the godawful stuff. (You can see this principle at work in a lot of British cuisine…) Quinine is also used, along with other herbs, to flavor vermouth…[Link]

Did you miss Blog Quake Day? Don’t feel bad— the fiercely righteous Samia Khan has come to your rescue, with an EASY way to give. She lovingly spammed ;) my GMail with the following invite, which I was initially thrilled, then jealous to get:

Please join us for an evening of Dining and Giving
Tuesday, November 8, 2005 at dinner time
Heritage India
1337 Connecticut Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-331-1414

You see, I am taking the red-eye on Tuesday, which means I will arrive in D.C. about 12 hours after this starts. I know I’m a rusted cynic, but I think dinner will be over by then. So yes, I’m envious of all of you who have the opportunity to eat at the BEST Indian restaurant in the city, for a cause that is dear to my heart.

Mimi’s American Bistro and Heritage India have graciously agreed to donate 15 % of your tab towards the South Asia Earthquake Relief Effort. The money will go to the Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America (APPNA). While APPNA has already contributed to ground efforts, the need for financial contribution continues to grow as winter approaches and logistics become more difficult. Thousands of Pakistanis are still without shelter and the threat of disease is on the rise. Show your generosity and compassion for the survivors of this devastating natural disaster by dining at one of these charitable Dupont Circle restaurants.

When you dine, please mention the cause when you make the reservation or at the very beginning of your meal.

Sheesh, I’ll eat at Heritage India with no reason or excuse, but to think that my blissing out over their legendary, just-like-Bukhara-at-the-Maurya-in-Delhi’s Ma ki Dal might benefit a human who suffered a quake in the very area most of the menu was inspired by? It’s like my passionate heart and delighted stomach would be picking out Linens ‘N Things. ;)

Seriously, if you are in town, go. Eat yummy food. It counts as giving (what an easy way to do so!). And then thank the Mutiny for being your social planner. :D

p.s. I know I only posted info about Heritage India, even though Mimi’s American Bistro at 21st and P st is generous enough to also participate, but Heritage India just felt more apposite. Of course, I’m not biased. :D

Henna hands on subway stops, brought to you by the bankers of Hong Kong and Shanghai. Oh look, it’s just like South Asian fiction covers

Trite but cute. The first ad actually sets up an artificial duality. I’ve got female friends who’ve flirted with a Delhi wedding while living among the Japanese hipsters of that ‘hood. The punks of St. Marks Place are more taken with piercings — mehndi is no longer mutinous.

Related post: The subway series: The Bombay Dreams ads don’t feature the leads

I have a rampant addiction that even my co-bloggers don’t know about.  Any time they come up behind me at SM headquarters I quickly switch my computer desktop to make it look like I am writing a post for our blog.  In reality however, I am dedicating obscene amounts of time to managing my Fantasy Football team (The Pocket Rockets).  Yes.  During the regular NFL season I am a Fantasy Football fanatic:

Fantasy Football is a game in which the participants (called “owners”) each assemble a team of real life NFL players and then score points based on those players’ statistical performance on the field. Leagues can be arranged in which the winner is the team with the most total points at the end of the season or in a head-to-head format (which mirrors the actual NFL) in which each team plays against a single opponent each week, and at the end of the year the team with the best win-loss record wins the league. Some leagues even set aside the last weeks of the NFL regular season for their own playoffs. [Link]

I take great pride in my team and in my improvement as a coach.  I hate losing at anything.  My first year playing I was ridiculed by the other coaches in my league (my supposed friends) for not even knowing the names of some famous players.  This year (my third) I am dominating most of the teams in my league and talking smack at every opportunity.  Most of the fun of Fantasy Football comes from emasculating your friends and telling them how pathetic they are.  Yeah, yeah.  If you don’t play fantasy football then you won’t understand the appeal, but I am sure those of you who do, know what I’m talking about.  This isn’t just a passive sport.  Every week you have to research all the different football match-ups and note the teams and defenses your players are going up against, as well as injuries.  It takes A LOT of research.  If you aren’t up to speed and able to make the proper adjustments, then your team will lose.  Thankfully there are bloggers like Vinnie Iyer that make the jobs of coaches like me easier.  It is their full-time job to put in the research hours that will help the rest of  us (hat-tip to Sandeep from my league):

This NFL and fantasy football columnist grew up in St. Louis and is a 1998 alumnus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., where he won a decent year’s salary with his appearance on a popular “answer and question” quiz show. Shortly after graduating as a journalism major, he joined TSN in 1999 and has been covering the NFL full time since 2001. He remains loyal to his roots as a fan of the Cardinals (baseball, of course) and Northwestern’s athletic programs (inexplicably). With TiVo, iPod and HD already in his vocabulary, Iyer is ready to “blog” away on pro football and hot topics of the day.

Look.  Let’s get real folks.  There is only one desi player in the NFL.  That shouldn’t mean that all desis should be shut out of football.  I participate by coaching a fantasy team since I am not built like a linebacker.  Vinnie (who may have once had the potential to be an offensive lineman) is doing his part by being one of the best at what he does.  In Fantasy Football circles Vinnie is a celebrity.

Oh joy, oh giddy delight. I love anniversaries, don’t you? Wikipedia’s always interesting and informative main page reminds us that it’s already been four years since we helped America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism:

Passed by the U.S. Congress after the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks, the (Patriot) Act enhances the authority of U.S. law enforcement for the stated purpose of fighting terrorist acts in the United States and around the world. This enhanced legal authority is also used to detect and prosecute other alleged potential crimes. Among other laws, the USA PATRIOT Act amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Among the laws the PATRIOT Act amended are immigration laws, banking and money laundering laws, and foreign intelligence laws…

Critics claim that some portions of the Act are unnecessary and allow U.S. law enforcement to infringe upon free-speech, freedom of the press, human rights, and right to privacy. Much controversy has arisen over section 215, which allows judges to grant government investigators ex parte orders to look into personal phone and internet records on the basis of being “relevant for an on going investigation concerning international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities”, rather than probable cause as outlined in the fourth amendment.

Since the Indian restaurant next door to my apartment went out of business, I’ve been coming home to find unclaimed stacks of Little India magazine strewn all over the sidewalk.  While stepping over a copy the other day, I noticed the cover story:  “Only U.S. Town with an Indian Majority.”  Naturally, I was curious.  Where is this town?  In the Bay Area?  Jersey?  Or is it in the great state that brought us weather-forecasting groundhogs and chipped ham?  (The answer is #3.)

Millbourne is a tiny Pennsylvania borough with an estimated population of 994.  At the time of the 2000 Census, Indian-Americans constituted 40% of its population; current “Little India projections” bring that number up to 63%, compared with a national average of less than 0.6%.   

The 2000 Census outlines the broad contours of Millbourne’s Indian community. The gender breakdown is about even: 53 percent to 47 percent women. Five percent are mixed race. The median age of the Indian community is 32. Only 13 percent of the Indians are native-born. Almost two-thirds migrated to the United States within the previous decade. Like the other residents of the city, Indians in Millbourne are principally blue collar. The median household income for the 102 Indian households in the borough was $36,000, higher than the borough average, but substantially below the national median Indian household income of $64,000. However, only 7 percent of the Millbourne Indians were below the poverty line, as opposed to 9 percent of Indians nationally. Just 10 percent of Indians in the borough owned their home, which is less than a quarter of the home ownership rate among Indian Americans nationwide.

Beads of Paradise is a small furnishings shop by Union Square in Manhattan. Earlier this year, it sold random old photos of a Rajasthani family for six hundred bucks as nothing more than visual texture for interior design. This struck me as comical. Now they’re selling Hindica for the same purpose:

The most egregious in this vein is actually ABC Home, a giant imports store down the street (Moroccan lanterns go for thousands) with expensive Krishna and Nataraja icons in its sidewalk displays.

Religion and art are closely linked, of course; churches in Italy feel to me like shared art galleries. But you generally won’t find secular furnishings stores in the U.S. selling pricy Christian icons because of the disrespect that implies. On the flip side, you can get Ganesh idols at many stores in Jackson Heights, but most of those selling anything larger than a keychain are religious artifacts shops. New Jersey has elevated the metallic dashboard Ganesh to an art form.

In a few days, adorable little humans all over the U.S. are going to wander door-to-door begging, as my parents derisively referred to trick or treating for Halloween. Along with torturously sour candy and milk chocolate-coated sugar, some of those costumed tykes will be looking for money.

It’s true; after screeching their customary greeting requesting candy bribes while exhorting you to “smell (their) feet” and give them something good to eat, some of the more earnest Princesses and Vampires will carefully navigate the following schpiel— can you hear them now, angelic voices pronouncing

30¢ provides lifesaving antibiotics for a child suffering from pneumonia.
$1 immunizes a child against the deadly disease measles.
$2.50 buys basic school supplies for one child.
$10 provides enough high-protein biscuits to feed three hungry children for one month.
$150 pays for a small well to provide clean water for an entire village.

They learned all of those stats from UNICEF, who has sponsored the charitable Halloween program “Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF” for 55 years.

When first graders are going to canvas their ‘hoods for charity, when victims of the South Asian Tsunami are giving after losing almost everything, when nearly every person who is reading this can afford to do even more than the two groups I just mentioned in this sentence, then yes, we have no excuse.

I wrote that accusatory sentence a few days ago, as I posted about those selfless Tsunami-survivors who are sending supplies to people who have been devastated by the earthquake. I asked, “What if we could do good?”, specifically in the context of blogging as a way to encourage fundraising, since we had all come together in a breath-taking, powerful way to stand up for truth, freedom and justice. Could we also unite to fight apathy? Disaster fatigue? Inertia?

I think we can.

Thankfully, people with more energy than me seized my flicker of an idea and ran with it. They heard the tentative call I put out after a fold. And they are doing good.

DesiPundit, predictably, is at the center of this movement. Sepoy at Chapathi Mystery was a pioneer when it came to quake relief. Even Instapundit, the big, bad, brand-name blog I quoted, along with TTLB, picked up on Blog Quake Day.

Now, it is our turn and after you read this, it is your turn. Today is Blog Quake Day. Do something. Give. Write. Post. Comment. Link. Give some more. Think. Do. Tag (“Blog Quake Day”).

As I correctly predicted yesterday, the White House Press Secretary was beseiged today by a question that may end up rocking the administration later this week:

Q Scott, two quick questions. Remembering Miss Rosa Parks. Then in 1955 it was like Mahatma Ghandi in South Africa, same thing happened to him. And during her time, there was very little or not many immigrants in the U.S., but today we have millions of immigrants from all over the globe. What message do you think President will have today as far as civil rights moments —

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the President just spoke about her passing a short time ago in his remarks to the spouses of our military officers from all the branches of our military. And the President talked about what a remarkable women she was, and how courageous she was. She is someone who changed America for the better. She is an inspiration to generations, and we mourn her passing.

Q Second question is on the — now again, most of Indian-American community thankful to the President for initiating — or did initiate the Diwali Festival of Lights at the White House. Now it will be next Wednesday, November 1st, when millions across India and America will — Indians will be celebrating the festival around the globe, including at the White House here. What they are saying in the Indian American community, really, just like President initiates prayers with other groups here in the White House, like Muslims and Jews, and all that, that they are requesting him, please, to the President, this time, that if he can take a few moments and be there at part of the White House Festival of Lights on Wednesday, November 1st.

MR. McCLELLAN: On Wednesday, November 1st? Well, we’ll update you on the President’s schedule later this week.

How much do you want to bet that Goyal was the one who asked that question?  I wonder if he reads us?  Keep it locked onto SM for minute by minute news and analysis of this growing scandal.  I am considering launching my own “Special Counsel website” focusing on just this issue.  The truth is that I don’t care one way or the other whether Bush celebrates Diwali.  I just like raging against the machine. I’m good at it.

R.I.P. Rosa Parks (thanks, Razib).

Martin Luther King Jr…. was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, who led the peaceful struggle for India’s independence from Great Britain. King’s work was helped in the civil rights movement by such people as Rosa Parks who served as a catalyst for the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. [Link]

40,000 people walked, some more than 20 miles, during the Montgomery bus boycottOn Montgomery buses, the first four rows were reserved for whites. The rear was for blacks, who made up more than 75 percent of the bus system’s riders. Blacks could sit in the middle rows until those seats were needed by whites. Then the blacks had to move to seats in the rear, stand or, if there was no room, leave the bus. Even getting on the bus presented hurdles: If whites were already sitting in the front, blacks could board to pay the fare but then they had to disembark and re-enter through the rear door…

“When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up and I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ And he said, ‘Well, if you don’t stand up, I’m going to have to call the police and have you arrested.’ I said, ‘You may do that.’ ” [Link]

You can now listen to Salman Rushdie’s mellifluous British tones in an interview on NPR (thanks, Abhi). The PR tufan bears all the hallmarks of a practiced public speaker: note the near-total absence of fillers like ‘um.’

Now that I think about it, although I’ve bumped into him at Midnight’s Children the play, I don’t think I’ve ever heard his voice before. As usual, it’s not quite how I imagined it.

Here’s a lame, anti-epic review of Shalimar the Clown, which I rather enjoyed, in the NYT. I place it far above Fury and just a hair below his best work, but it’s a clear return to form.

Cascading clauses are a Rushdie trademark; they can be taken as a manifestation of abundant imagination or as a symptom of poor writerly discipline.. It’s hard, though, to see them as anything but laziness when they’re misapplied…

As a rule, Rushdie’s characters lack a plausible inner life; instead they have bizarre quirks, unusual looks or magical powers, like the figures in a fable… For the creation of such a description-mad writer, Rushdie’s Pachigam remains stubbornly hazy: How big is it? How developed? How many rooms do the houses have and what are they made of? Do they have electricity? Are the roads paved? Your guess, even if you haven’t read the book, is as good as mine. [Link]

Yes, and please specify the width of the caulking in the bathrooms. Reviewer please. This kind of dis on Rushdie is not only widespread, it’s absurd. Don’t hate on the book just because you don’t dig the genre. Westerns don’t have a lot of interior dialogue either. Rushdie’s style is very male, and his stories, like Vikram Chandra’s Red Earth and Pouring Rain, are sweeping, masculine epics with strong, idealized women. Sometimes you’re in the mood for circumscribed domestic weepies, sometimes you’re not.

Congrats to our hottie stepsister Pardon My Hindi for finally launching a tee and tank store featuring Raag*’s luscious designs. Unlike our graphically-challenged asses, they actually feature original artwork:

He’s also posted a beautifully designed online magazine with photos of a Bombay circus, his exploits tagging the LES with babu stickers and an interview with Koushik Ghosh, who’s got a new downbeat album coming out on the same label as Peanut Butter Wolf:

Koushik specializes in making that hazy, hip-hop-based downbeat sh*t that you could easily compare to contemporaries such as Four Tet (who released Koushik’s first single on his Text label), RJD2, and DJ Shadow. What sets Koushik apart from the others is a beautiful ’60s psych-pop element that tends to pervade throughout. [Link]

Listen here.

UPDATE: Mukhtar Mai is here. [Thanks Vidster]

Earlier we reported that the US Government has stepped in to ensure Ms. Mai’s passage outside of the country. However, given our inability to make the Pakistani government do anything, I wasn’t holding my breath waiting for her to show up in the US.

The latest news is that she is planning on coming to America in November to receive an award from Glamour magazine. Mukhtar Mai has a US visa, but she’s still not sure if the Pakistani government will approve:

“I shall go if the government does not prevent me from travelling abroad,” she said. [BBC]

In the past, Pervez Musharraf didn’t want Mukhtar Mai to go abroad because he feared that her visit might tarnish Pakistan’s image. This was a delightfully ironic comment, given how much his own comments on women’s rights have contributed to Pakistan’s image as a banana-less banana republic. In response to this concern, Ms. Mai has said:

“I am a Pakistani and I have no intention of tarnishing the country’s image. But I will speak on the plight of women in rural areas,” she told Reuters news agency. [BBC]

Perhaps to sweeten the deal, she has also promised to:

“… use this occasion to highlight the plight of quake victims in Pakistan and also motivate the Americans and the Pakistanis staying there to contribute and raise funds for them,” Ms Mai said. [BBC]

Will she actually make it? Will Dr. Rice have to intervene again? Will Kristof have to write another NYT piece to embarass Pakistan? Will Pakistan listen? Will anybody care? Tune in here for the continuing adventures of “The Perils of Pauline the Pakistani Woman!”

Man with rubber fetish keeps the hits coming: Would it surprise you to learn that the world’s leading condom designer is Indian?

Dr. Alla Venkata Krishna Reddy is the designer of at least three successful specialty condoms (the Pleasure Plus, the Inspiral and the Trojan Twisted Pleasure) and one female condom (the V-Amour). The tragedy of his head-onistic genius is that he’s completely wrapped up in I. Pee litigation (via Boing Boing). He’s getting shafted by his own patents — it’s autolitigious stimulation.

Reddy’s great contribution to the universe of condom design… [was that] Reddy viewed them as devices that could help enhance male pleasure…

… Reddy’s first condom company failed in the mid-’90s and he lost control of his patents in a bankruptcy auction… He returned to his native India and continued to tweak his innovative designs, and with the help of partners in the United States, soon reentered the American market, first with the Inspiral, and then with the [Trojan] Twisted Pleasure… So, tragically, Reddy is being sued for violating his own patents. [Link]

Randy Reddy [was] dubbed the ‘Leonardo’ of condomsReddy started with a condom with a pouch at the end, progressing to an unholy spiral and then two in the latest incarnation. It’s like Gillette razors, pretty soon there’ll be five spirals with built-in vibration They’ve sold well and won awards from such paragons of hard news as Cosmo, Men’s Health and Maxim:

“When I rolled it on, my penis looked like Marvin the Martian,” says a staffer. “But when I took a look in the middle of things, the extra fabric had twisted itself into a pinwheel shape. It actually lives up to its name…” [Link]

Dr Reddy [was] dubbed the “Leonardo” of condoms by Adam Glickman, president of Condomania… [Link]

(NSFW after the jump)

President Bush, already beset on all sides of his administration by scandal, is courting yet another one even if he doesn’t know it yet.  The 1000 rupee question is, “will he or won’t he show up to the White House Diwali celebration?”  He has opted out of Diwali festivities on all previous occasions.   New Kerala.com reports:

The United States India League has urged U S President George W Bush to attend the annual Diwali celebration in the White House noting that his presence would ”send the right signals to his friends in India and the Indian American community”.

”Merely going through the motions of having a proforma Diwali celebration would not be enough. Diwali is Hinduism’s most importance observance. The White House celebration should reflect that,” the League director Don Feder said in a release yesterday.

The White House is all set to celebrate Diwali, one of the holiest of Hindu festivals on November 1.

Although Diwali has been celebrated in the White House twice before during President Bush’s first and second term, it has always been an unofficial one, with a lot of prodding from the influential Indian Americans with friendly ties to the US Congress and the White House.

President Bush himself has not attended the occasion as he has been out of town on both the previous occasions.

Well what about the good Prime Minister from across the pond?  Will there be a party at the British Parliament?

Over 100 British lawmakers, senior ministers and diplomats are expected to attend the Diwali celebrations at the House of Commons, Lower House of Parliament, on Thursday… Guests at the reception will include over 100 Parliamentarians, ministers and cabinet secretaries, diplomats, business and community leaders and civil servants, the organisers said on Saturday night.

In a message to the Forum, Prime Minister Tony Blair said, “This festival has an important role. It gives every one of us a chance to reflect on the important contribution that your communities are making to Britain’s success. This is something for us all to celebrate…” [Link]

India Uncut points us at a series of fun blog posts over at Minor Scale.   Manoj has translated some choice South Indian film songs into anglais.  Most translations are just text but this one had pix and made me smile.   Next time some cultural elitist snob rants about how every piece of media was better in the original Tamil, Uyghur or !Xóõ, I’ll point ‘em here -

Proof that if you can’t have the pix, some folks really do listen to the lyrics.

I seem to be the Mutiny’s resident “protest publicist”, so why should today be any different? Join the BJP tomorrow (today?) in Delhi as they take to the streets to express their outrage over the latest issue to grip India (Thanks, Usamidalla):

Harsh Vardhan, a leader of the opposition Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in New Delhi, accused traders of limiting onion sales to profit from Dussehra and Deepawali festivals. Onion are an important ingredient in almost everything eaten during both festivals. “An artificial scarcity of onion has been created by traders in connivance with the governing Congress party government,” the Press Trust of India quoted Mr Vardhan as saying.

I wish I could be more sympathetic, but as long-time HERstorians are aware, I HATE ONIONS. I pick them out of my food, no matter how microscopically my mother thinks she’s chopping them; this is usually a futile endeavor though, since they inevitably leave their odious taste among the innocent vendaka and pavaka (read: bhindi and karela) who surely deserve better than such a slimy compatriot. So yeah. I won’t be at the protest. ;)

Apparently, I should take the many-layered vegetable more seriously. Not only can it make you cry if you’re chopping it, it can make you cry as it gives YOU the chop:

Onion shortages in India were responsible for bringing down BJP governments in New Delhi and Rajasthan states in 1998.

Amazing.

In several parts of India, onions were trading at double the price of the previous week.

Obviously, in solidarity with her erstwhile countrymen, my mother should refrain from using ooly in her legendary cooking when I go home for almost two weeks on Thursday. It’s the right thing to do, no? ;)

If you had spent  yesterday afternoon strolling through sunsoaked downtown Sonoma, a nerve center of California wine country, you might have had your Mediterranean reverie broken by an extremely conspicuous member of desi America: one blue-silk-clad, bejewelled and beflowered Bharat Natyam dancer, desperately trying to find the stage of the Kathmandu Fall Festival.  I can assure you I did not blend in. This is a good thing, because the woman who finally helped us had never heard of Depot Park by name, but took one look at me and remembered that “there’s some kind of colorful festival in that park behind us? That must be what you’re looking for.” 

After the set, I looked around the stage for the usual cooler full of water bottles, and was instead greeted by a vision of wine. The usual festival array of Tibetan flags and bells  mixed with bottles and glasses  everywhere, the regular sound of corks popping interlacing with the flute and mrdangam music. Despite booths of frying samosas, the smell of vintage was stronger. Since my family doesn’t drink, we decided to complete the evening with a visit to the video store, and got ourselves the documentary Mondovino. If you’re at all interested in trade, globalization, agriculture, mercantile tradition, France, Italy, Northern California, or, of course, wine, I highly recommend it, though it is a bit long. It’s a film squarely set in Europe and the Americas, featuring titans like the Mondavi family, the ancient Florentine clans Frescobaldi and Antonieri, and a charming elderly Bordeaux gentleman named Hubert de Montille who can’t stand “monolithic thinking.”

It prominently features a travelling consultant, “the flying winemaker,” who, along with Maryland critic Robert Parker, makes and breaks wines. Michel Rolland caught my attention with a throwaway line when he was pointing out the spread of his clientele on a map,

 “Hungary, Italy, France, Argentinia, Chile, Mexico, The United States, and oh—I forgot one over here—India!”

India?! That’s right, India. The October 17 issue of India Today has a three page spread that, at first glance,  doesn’t bode well for desi oenophilic journalism—even I know that “Brewing the Indian Dream,” is a headline directed at the wrong beverage. But what growth the article reveals within!

Before there was Live Aid or Live 8, there was the original, the Godfather of all arena-rock fundraising concerts: 1971’s a Concert for Bangladesh:

The Concert for Bangladesh was the first benefit concert of its kind in that it brought together an extraordinary assemblage of major artists. The two shows, a Grammy award-winning triple album boxset, and the feature film, generated millions of dollars for a charitable cause and as importantly raised global awareness of a hitherto unpublicized humanitarian disaster. It is therefore acknowledged as the inspiration and forerunner of the major global fundraising events of recent years. To quote the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan “George and his friends were pioneers”. [Link]

And from Wikipedia:

The Concert For Bangladesh was the event title for two concerts held on the afternoon and evening of August 1, 1971, playing to a total of 40,000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York.

As East Pakistan struggled to become the separate state of Bangladesh, tremendous political and military turmoil led to a massive refugee problem. This problem was compounded by torrential rains causing devastating floods and threatening a humanitarian disaster.

Bengali musician Ravi Shankar consulted his friend George Harrison regarding a means of providing help to the situation. Harrison recorded the single “Bangladesh” to help raise awareness and pushed Apple Records to release Shankar’s single “Joi Bangla” in a dual-pronged effort to raise funds.

Shankar also asked Harrison’s advice regarding a small fund-raising concert in the United States. Instead, Harrison took over and persuaded his friends to join him at a large concert at Madison Square Garden. The event was organised within five weeks.

A well-reviewed re-release of the concert on CD and DVD drops in record stores Monday.

The other day I was reading a rather ho-hum review of the new Steve Martin movie Shopgirl when this sentence caught my eye:

Tweely narrated by Martin (not as Ray), directed with a dose of barbiturates by Anand Tucker, underscored with a plaintive cello and piano, this is among the most noneventful romantic triangles ever committed to celluloid.

It appears that Shopgirl, that seemingly whitest of whitebread romantic dramedies, was directed by an international jetsetter with desi roots:

Tucker, the son of an Indian father and German mother who was born in Thailand, grew up in Hong Kong and has lived in London since he was 18.

Rediff features a recent interview with the director, who is probably best known for directing the art-house hit Hilary and Jackie.  Tucker (his father changed his last name from Thakkar) has also been tapped to direct a big-budget adaptation of The Golden Compass, the first book in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.

I’m still high off all the fun I had at Arzan’s adorable apartment, at the Brooklyn Meetup last week, so I feel like having some more meetup-induced bliss.

A week from today, join me at Caffe Greco in North Beach (in San Francisco) for a bit of a survivor’s brunch (since I will be recovering from what is sure to be a legendary Saturday night, filled to the brim with debauchery, mais oui). Two o’clock work for you? That should be perrrfect, to get all your tardy kundis there by Three.

Why will I be at home on the Wessss Saeeeed? To celebrate the vedding of a very special Mutineer, who is precious to a few of us North Dakota-bunking bloggers. If I didn’t have to schlep my mom back home on the Saturday after that blessed event, I would’ve had the meetup on Sunday, November 6. Who knows? If you whine prettily, I might hold office hours at my belowed Greco THEN, too. ;)

VHAT: Meetup!
VHEN: October 30, 2pm
VHERE: Caffe Greco, 423 Columbus Ave

Come painted and coordinated, because ye shall surely be photographed and flickr’d, that much is true. Can’t wait to meet you, and bounce off the walls from the cappuccino drip that Greco always hooks me up with…last time I was there for SIX HOURS, so no carping in the comments section ten days from now about how you were late and we were already gone. I keed, I keed! ;)

Soon it will be time to get your filmi on—Third I, the Yay Area’s own promoter of South Asian independant film—has put out the schedule for it’s third film festival, bringing desi masala, fine art, and social commentary to The Roxie and The Castro. Here are some of the descriptions that grabbed my interest:

What does it mean to be an American Muslim? This revealing and engaging documentary follows Pakistani American Rock star Salman Ahmed of Junoon, as he explores stories from a community as diverse as the progressive “Allah made me Funny” comedy troupe, to a prominent family that founded the “Muslims for Bush” campaign. (Link)

On May 23rd, 1914, the Japanese shipping vessel Komagata Maru, chartered by Sikh businessman Gurdit Singh, arrived in Canada’s Vancouver Harbor. Aboard were 376 migrants of Indian origin, citizens of the British Empire who believed it their right to move and settle freely within its domain. Upon anchoring, however, the passengers were prevented from disembarking by local Canadian officials, whose decision reflected a growing nationwide resistance to non-white immigration. (Link.)

This documentary explores the little known ethos of neighborhood photo studios in Indian cities, discovering entire imaginary worlds in the smallest of spaces. Tiny, shabby studios that appear to be stuck in a time warp turn out to be places throbbing with energy. As full of surprises as the people who frequent these studios are the backdrops they enjoy posing against and the props they choose - affording fascinating glimpses into individual fantasies and popular tastes. (Link.)

And of course there will be some Bollywood—-our man Shah Rukh in a really big turban:

Upendra Chivukula, who in 2002 became the first Indian American elected to the New Jersey assembly, is running for re-election.  New Kerala.com reports:

Chivukula, currently serving his second term in the New Jersey State Assembly, hopes his track record on how he has helped his district while in office will get him re-elected.

“I have brought $4.9 million into the district to provide aid to various municipalities; the various legislations I have sponsored, some in process, such as prompt-pay laws for healthcare providers to compensate, better definition of customer care so that insurance companies cannot escape their responsibilities.

This is a work in progress. You keep working on it,” said Chivukula, the Indian American who has sponsored a Science and Technology Caucus in the state legislature and was instrumental in establishing the World Languages and International Studies Caucus.

“The most important issue facing people are property taxes and how to provide relief,” Chivukula, who has also expressed interest in running for the US House of Representatives in November 2006, told IANS.

“Number two is how to make healthcare affordable and providing access to healthcare.”

Methinks this is the wrong political environment in which to focus on priority number one, so maybe he will concentrate instead on number two, which deserves more attention anyways.

American Public Media’s radio show Marketplace did a story this past Thursday on Chivukula, which also featured Congressman Bobby Jindal (thanks for the tip Manan).  The ~4 minute story discusses the rise of political muscle within the Indian American community.  In the story, Chivukala tells the reporter that even though his last name is difficult for most Americans to pronounce, he thinks he can get elected.  To paraphrase, he tells her to, “just think if you drive a Chevy and drink a Cola.  Then put them together and you have Chivukula.” 

Noone ever said technological progress was either monotonic or pareto optimal. This old, but somehow overlooked article from MSNBC gives us one fascinating case - a group of island dwellers right smack in the path of last December’s tsunami who nevertheless emerged with most of their, uh, possessions, pretty much intact -

PORT BLAIR, India - Two days after a tsunami thrashed the island where his ancestors have lived for tens of thousands of years, a lone tribesman stood naked on the beach and looked up at a hovering coast guard helicopter.

He then took out his bow and shot an arrow toward the rescue chopper.

It was a signal the Sentinelese have sent out to the world for millennia: They want to be left alone.

For today’s edition of Science Friday here on SM, I thought I would write about the science story that made the biggest impact in this past week, as well as the one closest to my heart.  The theme of this week’s Science Friday will be Human Space Exploration.  What are countries around the world, including the U.S., India, and China doing in order to keep their societies at the forefront of space technology?  The “prestige” of nuclear weapons pales in comparison to the prestige and society-wide benefits that a country gains on the road to putting its citizens in space.  Anyone can make nukes, but only three countries (U.S., Russia, and China) have the economic power and human capital to put people into space and return them safely.

China continued its impressive run by following up its first human mission with this second one that placed two men is space for five days (the equivalent of our Gemini Program from the 60s).

Chinese astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng, known as taikonauts, were declared to be in “fine condition” after their 5-day spaceflight which ended at 4:33 a.m. Monday, Beijing time. The mission, lasting 115 hours and 32 minutes, was more than five times longer than China’s maiden manned mission in 2003.

“We feel fine,” Fei told a crowd of well-wishers. Nie expressed thanks to the Chinese people for their “concern and support.”

Wu Bangguo, No. 2 in the Communist party hierarchy and head of the country’s national legislature, was quoted by Xinhua as saying the second manned space mission was a “complete success,” and a “milestone” in China’s space technology development. [Link]

What about India?  Is it even trying to keep pace with its ambitious neighbor?

… as China begins planning a lunar mission in 2007, and with the US and India declaring an interest in another Moon landing - and a manned flight to Mars - are we seeing the dawn of a new space race?

“Once China had announced its first unmanned lunar spacecraft, India came along and said that they were also interested in unmanned lunar exploration,” Philip Clark, of the British-based Molniya Space Consultancy, told BBC World Service’s Analysis programme.

“They’ve now signed an agreement with the European Space Agency for joint experiments with the Indian spacecraft…

While India’s space programme is relatively small, it has made considerable strides in recent years, putting a number of satellites into orbit. [Link]

Already?

Please understand, I’m not complaining, I’m just astonished. Very well, then. Today is Friday and that means it is time to write (and read) nanofiction. I’ve become fond of this little ritual of ours, even if it seems to make the week go by far too quickly. ;)

I am elated by the amount of thought, effort and cleverness you are all displaying in our humble comments section. What some of you can fit in a mere 55 words is astounding and delightful— each piece of nanofiction tastes like a well-crafted truffle which leaves me sightless out of joy, as I savor the supple flavors.

Enough with my fawning all over you future-Salmans-and-Jhumpas, let’s get on with it!

Like last week, my title for this post is borrowed from a song—and this is no ordinary song…’twas one of my absolute faves when I was a moody teen—“Blue Monday” by New Order. Am I sad? No, but it’s so kind of you to be concerned. I’m “blue” because I thought I’d add an extra pinch of curry leaves to my weekly lit sabzi.

Today, boys and girls, ladkas and ladkis, adas and edis, we have a theme. Cease with that grumbling at once! This is just a suggestion for you to consider as you contribute your usual morsels of genius. I must say though, “blue” is a rather expansive starting point, if you’re in the mood for a little extra writing-bondage.

After the jump: my top three…

When it comes to music in the diaspora, there a few names that of course come to mind (Talvin Singh, Panjabi MC), but one of the most consistent and visible musicians evolving from the South Asian diaspora, and who is not universally from the UK Bhangra or the Asian Drum and Bass scene, is without a doubt, Nitin Sahwney.  DJ, producer, musician, and activist extraordinaire, Sawhney whose most recent studio-album Philtre, which has to be listed amongst his best work, is now slated to score Mira Nair’s production of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, and is reported to be working as a producer on Indo-Canadian British transplant pop-star Raghav’s unfinished second album.  In fact, Bobby and Nihal, on their October 12 radio show on the BBC offerred up a bit of a preview of the Raghav/Nitin collaborative work entitled “Seasons,” which draws heavily on the heavenly ‘Mausam’, which appears on the Philtre album.  After having heard the original Mausam, the version featuring Raghav admittedly sounded a bit cheecky, but knowing that Nitin is producing some of the record makes me dizzy with anticipation.  Well, maybe not dizzy, but excited for sure.

Incidentally, Sawhney, who has also worked with Sting and Spanish collective Ojos de Brujo among others, seems to be in demand lately. Former Beattle Sir Paul McCartney, in an interview with Rolling Stone published earlier this month, said he initially wanted to make a record influenced by Nitin’s sound, 

“I liked the idea of toying with a kind of Asian thing, a one-chord thing. There’s an artist called Nitin Sawhney who I like — he’s a British-Asian guy. It was just a vibe I was into at the time

More SM on Nitin here.

Anna wants to know what we can do. If you live in New York City, you’re in luck—you can support the arts for a good cause!

Please join the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective (SAWCC) to help raise funds for earthquake victims in South Asia. 100% of proceeds will be donated to the Edhi Foundation and to community members giving direct aid at the grassroots level. Please bring in-kind donations of painkillers, blankets, and warm clothing*. Home-made food will be served.

For more information on in-kind donations: http://www.yourdil.org/projects/relief/

 Musical Guest: Falu - “Hidden Gem” hot pick in Pop Montreal Festival, September 2005; Performances by: Alka Bhargava, Edward Garcia, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Tahani Salah, Suneet Sethi, Saba Waheed, Kron Vollmer’ Visual Art for auction donated by: Jaishri Abichandani, Amanda Cartagena, Chitra Ganesh, Swati Khurana, Maxwell Fine Arts, Saeed Rahman, Chamindika Wanduragala

Directions to Asian American Writers’ Workshop
N, R, Q, W, F, B, D, V, 1, 2, 3, 9 to 34th Street; 4, 5, 6 trains to 33rd Street

*Please do take a look at the information on the in-kind donations as the request for clothing has been cancelled for now. As of this posting they still say they need: Tents (New is best); Blankets (Used or New); Sleeping bags (Used or New) &
UNOPENED Over-the-counter Painkillers and Stomach Medicines (Tylenol, Advil, Immodium, etc).

(Forward from Saurav.)

Thanks to an anonymous tipster, I now know what happened to Abilass Jeyarajah, the child who came to represent the heartbreak of the tsunami. You might remember the excruciating circumstances he survived, before being reunited with his family:

Initially, eight other couples had tried to claim him, sparking a drama that captured hearts around the world and became a symbol of the tragedy that killed nearly 31,000 people on the island.[msnbc]

Technology made the sword of Solomon unnecessary:

Abilass was given to his mother and father by hospital officials after a local court ruled that DNA tests confirmed he belonged to the couple, who lost him in the Dec. 26 tsunami.[msnbc]

Here lies the caption to the Reuters picture above, which leaves me wanting to pinch chubby cheeks (but all I get is screen):

SM readers are probably aware that I enjoy spotlighting animals whenever I can.  The latest beasts to rise to blog-worthiness are the noble asses of the Pakistani Military.  The only easy day was yesterday.  The BBC reports:

They have their own parades, rigorous training and dedicated doctors. They are treated as fully fledged soldiers.

Some villagers used to laugh at how much time the army spent on them.

But now the mules of the Pakistani army are proving saviours for some of the tens of thousands of quake survivors still stuck atop inaccessible mountains.

Nine days after the killer quake struck Kashmir and parts of northern Pakistan, the army mobilised its animal transport units (ATUs), or what’s left of them, to reach inaccessible areas - sometimes without any human assistance.

These units of specially trained mules have been a critical link in the logistics serving the Pakistan army - and the Royal Indian Army under the Raj before that - in the mountainous northern regions and Kashmir.

Anyone that has participated in high altitude climbing knows that mules can often be invaluable.  In addition to carrying supplies, mules and their cousins can help carry you should you fall ill, as many poor quake victims surely have.  My friend and I were accompanied by a friendly mule named Carlos while on a mountain in Peru.  Because of our manly egos we told each other that it was better to leave the other on the side of the mountain than be helped onto the mule.  We had this conversation out of earshot of Carlos of course.  Beasts of burden have been invaluable to armies for centuries, if not longer.

Military officials dealing with the ATUs say there were more than 2,000 mules deployed in Kashmir when the quake struck.

An officer in the border region of Chikothi in Kashmir told the BBC news website that “only a fraction survived”.

The army takes the loss hard - these mules enjoy a status no less than that of a fully fledged soldier.

Like men, they have to go through a rigorous selection procedure followed by several months of training before they can be formally drafted into the army.

When I read Anna’s recent post on the desi celebrity blogger of the moment, the comments of Chick Pea and Jai Singh caught my eye:

what’s next… apu and manjula’s blog from the kwik-e-mart life?

That would be a fantastic idea for another new-topic thread here on SM — we could all just keep adding fictitious “diary entries” by Apu. Manish, Abhi etc — do you guys want to make this happen ? I think it would be a lot of fun and potentially hilarious too.

Inspired by their comments, I decided to scour the internet to determine if that most redoubtable of Indian-American television celebrities, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, was indeed a blogger.  And, um, turns out he is.  (Sorry if that was anticlimactic.) 

Of course, it’s possible that the aforelinked blog was not actually written by Apu, but rather by some sort of sick Apu impersonator.  In which case, would the real Apu Nahasapeemapetilon please stand up?  Please stand up?  Please stand up? 

…when those who have so little are giving so much. That’s what I’m left thinking, after reading the BBC before bedtime:

People in India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands are yet to recover from last year’s tsunami, but they are now helping South Asia quake victims.

…A senior official of the Andaman and Nicobar Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Mohammed Jadvet, said the first consignment of relief materials included 200 tents, over a 1,000 blankets and three tonnes of biscuits.

So, while Kofi Annan slams countries for only committing to about a tenth of what quake victims need, victims of the tsunami—who are still suffering from their own tragedy which stole 200,000 lives all over Asia— have donated to local quake relief efforts. Maybe the world is suffering from “disaster fatigue”.

“The islanders could not come out of the trauma of the 26 December tsunami. Thousands are still staying in intermediate shelters. Still they have decided to help the quake-hit people of Kashmir,” the official said.

“This shows the true spirit of the islanders.”

Reading such news takes me back in time, to other words read before bed that were so different and yet, similar. They taught me about the significance of small gestures:

“And he looked, and saw rich men putting their donations into the treasury. And he also saw a certain poor widow donating two mites. And he said Truly, I tell you, that this poor widow has cast in more than all of them: for they have all given but a portion of their great wealth, as an offering to God, while she, in her poverty, has given all that she had.”~ Luke:21

In my daily efforts to help bring you guys the most interesting stories from around the world, every once in a while I am just blown away.  Today is one of those days.  ABC News (via AOL news) reports on the revelation that Homer Simpson has embraced Islam:

After 17 seasons of entertaining U.S. audiences, “The Simpsons” can now be seen on Arab television. While U.S. foreign policy is not always a hit overseas, there is a huge audience for American popular culture.

So the Arab satellite network MBC is bringing the cartoon saga of Springfield to the heart of the Arab world. “The Simpsons” has been exported overseas and is now called “Al Shamshoon.”

With Omar instead of Homer, and Badr substituting for Bart, MBC hopes to win coveted young viewers. After all, 60 percent of the Arab world is 20 years old or younger. [link]

Here is the catch.  In an act of what can only be described as “censorship wizardry,” MBC has to convince its audience that the entire time Homer is at Moe’s tavern, he is simply enjoying a cold mug of…soda.  Oh wait…

Moe’s Bar has been completely written out of “Al Shamshoon.”

…MBC is making some changes as the characters go from American to Arab. They will remove references to things forbidden by the Koran, such as bacon, beer, and other references that might be construed as offensive.

Homer Simpson’s ubiquitous Duff beer will now be soda in the Arab version of the show.

Ooooh, that’s—got—too hurt—the Duff man.  Apu can’t sell hotdogs anymore but will instead sell “Egyptian beef sausages.”

With characters who are Jewish (like Krusty the Clown), Hindu (like Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu) and Christian (like the family’s pastor, Rev. Lovejoy), Al Jean — “The Simpsons” executive producer — says those changes mean they aren’t “The Simpsons” anymore.

You can watch a video of the story on the AOL website I linked above.

There is a game of high-stakes foreign policy poker being played in Washington right now between the U.S. and India with respect to nuclear cooperation.  As with most issues of late, the normally homogenous Republicans are showing signs of a spine again by demonstrating thinking independent of their party leader.  The Washington Post reports:

Congressional leaders crucial to the fate of a controversial U.S.-India nuclear deal are pressing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to consult them before proposing legislation to implement the agreement.

The leaders make their case in a letter which congressional aides said reflects deep unease about the deal’s consequences and the way the administration secretly negotiated it, without input from lawmakers who must approve it.

“We firmly believe that such consultations will be crucial to the successful consideration of the final agreement or agreements by our committees and the Congress as a whole,” they wrote in the letter, which was obtained by Reuters.

Many members of Bush’s Republican party, which controls Congress, and also many Democrats fear the deal excessively benefits India and undermines international efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons.

Of course, this is all really about Iran.  India surprised people last month by voting with the U.S. in threatening to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council (where it could potentially be punished) for its nuclear activities.   The genie is out of the bottle with respect to nuclear technology so we may as well spread weapons to our friends if they will help us prevent the spread to our enemies.  The U.S. however, wants assurances that their technological gifts won’t be used for India’s weapons program:

The separation plan is at the heart of the nuclear deal because it is meant to ensure any U.S. or international cooperation with India advances only the South Asian nation’s civilian energy program, not weapons development.

Burns said the separation issue will be central to his talks in New Delhi this week but it would probably take a month or two for the plan to be drawn up.

Once a clear separation plan is offered by India, it will be easier to ask the U.S. Congress for the necessary changes, he said.

SAJA presents

West Indies Records

Building Bridges - The Indo-Caribbean Diaspora

… a panel discussion about the culture of the Indian communities in Guyana, Trinidad, Suriname, New York City, and beyond. With photography, Caribbean food…

• Rohit Jagessar, owner RBC Radio, historian, film director, “Guyana 1838”…
• Ramin Ganeshram, journalists & author of “Sweet Hands: Island Cooking From Trinidad and Tobago”
• Preston Merchant, documentary photographer
• Annetta Seecharran, executive director, South Asian Youth Action! (SAYA!)
• Karna Singh, director, Heritage & Preservation Program, Rajkumari Cultural Center
• Darrel Sukdeo, freelance journalist (moderator)

Also check out this gallery of 45s sung by Indo-Guyanese musicians.

Related posts: Kitchrie cultural fest in Queens, Sampling chutney, Caribbean desis aren’t feelin’ the love, NYT reviews Naipaul’s ‘Magic Seeds’, Desis in Trinidad

Sadly, no mutineer can claim that distinction now that this Bonny lass is blogging.

Like Gogol before her, Bipasha has found a new way to concomitantly combat boredom and promote her new flick. I know, I know. It’s not a “real blog”. It’s a PR stunt. Still, her first post received 186 comments. Watch out darling Ennis, your record may not stand… ;)

Being a star is HARD:

In the past, I’ve had some very ugly experiences in Jaipur — people wanting to touch, wanting to be physically near…
I’m very scared of the mob-like mentality of the people.

Good thing she didn’t have that problem while making this phill-um. Another problem she didn’t have? A sore kundi from sitting in the makeup chair for hours.

One of my goals in life is to figure out a way to get paid to watch Bollywood movies and yell at the TV screen.  According to an article in Salon by Sumana Harihareswara, someone (actually four someones) has beaten me to it:

“Uncle Morty’s Dub Shack,” which just finished its first season on the ImaginAsian cable network, is the “Mystery Science Theater 3000” of bad Asian films, and like its predecessor with the then-unknown Comedy Central, it could help put the obscure iaTV on the map. The conceit of the show is that four loser friends — Trevor, Aladdin, Jimbo and John — earn a little extra cash dubbing martial arts, action and Bollywood films into English at the Dub Shack, run by an old crank named Morty. Uncle Morty doesn’t have the translated scripts, so the friends turn the movie scenes into sketch comedy. For those of us who didn’t warm to MST3K, “Uncle Morty’s” is easier to love, because it’s only half an hour long (the films are significantly, and mercifully, edited down), and the writers create believable alternate narratives for the flicks instead of merely smirking at them.

Unfortunately, iaTV is not offered by my satellite provider, so I had to make do with the clips on Uncle Morty’s website.  (Of the Bollywood clips, I enjoyed “Goatman” and “Chicken Members” the most.)  The episode guide lists Dushman Duniya Ka, Dand Nayak, and Soch among the cinematic treasures given the Dub Shack treatment.  (The channel has also been airing the intriguingly-titled Duplicate Sholay.)

“43” hosted an Iftaar dinner at the White House yesterday, the fifth time that Bush has held one in the State Dining Room. Ambassadors Ronen Sen and Bernard Goonetilleke attended, as did other diplomats and prominent Americans who practice Islam. After the Imam’s prayer, the President announced a “first” which seemed especially appropriate; a Koran is now part of the White House Library.

The President used the occasion to express his gratitude towards Muslim nations who have assisted in the WoT. As for the rest:

“I believe the time has come for all responsible Islamic leaders to denounce an ideology that exploits Islam for political ends and defiles your noble faith,” he said at the White House, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). [link]

I sometimes hang out at Brad DeLong’s blog, where apparently Razib thought I was a dude. Yesterday DeLong wrote a post about Tamiflu, the Roche patented drug which is the one of the only plausible defenses against the dreaded Avian influenza or Asian Bird Flu. DeLong was mostly concerned with the domestic policy and economic ramifications of nationalizing a patent in times of emergency and stockpiling a drug ahead of time, but as with Sepia Mutiny, the comments can be most educational—and that’s how I found out that clever Cipla is at its Robin Hood reverse engineering tricks again. Bird flu is, of course, a global issue:

Cipla, an Indian producer of generic drugs, is preparing to become an alternative producer of oseltamivir phosphate, an antiviral drug better known by the brand name Tamiflu.Cipla plans to offer Tamiflu in the Indian market and in 49 less-developed countries where the company already sells AIDS treatments, Hamied says. The legality of the introduction in India, where pharmaceutical patents started to be recognized this year, is uncertain.

Hamied says he will withdraw Tamiflu from the Indian market if Roche’s patent is recognized.  (Link.)

A Roche spokesman, Terry Hurley, said that the company ”fully intends to remain the sole manufacturer of Tamiflu.” . .Making the drug involves 10 complex steps, he said, and the company believes that it’ll take another company ”two to three years, starting from scratch,” to produce it. Hamied dismissed that claim, saying that he initially thought it would be too hard but that his scientists had finished reverse-engineering the drug in his laboratories two weeks ago. He said he could have small commercial quantities available as early as January 2006. Asked if he thought Hamied was making an idle boast, Hurley declined to comment. Hamied said he would sell generic Tamiflu ”at a humanitarian price” in developing nations and not aim at the US or European market. ”God forbid the avian flu should strike India,” he said. ”There is no line of defense.” (Link.)

What does this have to do with mangosteens? I’m glad you asked!

The Christian Science Monitor carries a provocatively titled article today: “How India’s nuclear secrecy hampers earthquake detection.”  The article investigates India’s refusal to share real-time seismic data on the grounds that it could reveal information about underground nuclear testing:

In the wake of the recent earthquake that devastated Kashmir, some Indian officials are reevaluating the government’s refusal to share real-time online seismology data with the international community.

India has balked at putting seismic data online because it could provide evidence of underground nuclear testing. The country’s refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty also excludes it from exchanging data with the International Monitoring System, a global network of seismological sensors operated by treaty signatories.

Seismologists can more rapidly and accurately pinpoint the location and power of an earthquake when real-time data can be triangulated against a wide network of sensors. A delay of even seconds in reporting data induces errors in the exact location and could set back relief efforts in their crucial early stages, prompting some scientists here to argue against data hoarding.

Such are the consequences of brinkmanship.  We can’t let the other guy know what the yield of our newest, baddest weapon is no matter what.

As for the value of sharing seismic data in the event of a future earthquake, some decision-makers in Delhi have yet to get the message. “Share data? What for?” asked an official from the Ministry of Science, sounding nonplussed when questioned about India’s policy to not make real-time data available via broadband.

“Open-data sharing in seismology over the past century … has been of enormous importance in reporting of earthquakes and studies of global and regional earthquakes,” says Shane Ingate, director of operations at the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) in Washington, the world’s repository for data from most seismic networks around the globe. “It is regrettable that India … imposes restriction on the open and rapid access of these important data.”

Emerging technologies are making it possible to detect blasts and blast yields even without rigorous seismic data, so it doesn’t make much sense for India to maintain this policy, especially when releasing that data could help save lives.

Before this Mutiny started I took a solo trip to North Dakota to find a suitable location in which to establish our world blogging headquarters.  The choice of North Dakota was obvious.  There were many existing underground bunkers where we could make a home for ourselves, far away from the prying eyes of  “others.”  I found one facility in particular that immediately caught my attention and won my heart.  I knew I had found our home.  It was a fixer-upper though.  In addition to being a mess, which took days of back-breaking labor to clean up, it featured some old electronic equipment left behind by the previous residents.  Among the bookshelves I found a video cassette which I played out of naked curiosity.  In hindsight this was a bad idea.  The video said that something horrible would happen unless I pressed a red button (which was embedded into a table in the conference room) every three hours.  This helped explain why the previous owner was in such a rush to leave and offered a great deal on the place.  This button reminded me of an old Twilight Zone episode I had once seen titled, “Button, button”:

The 1980s revival of the Twilight Zone series featured an episode entitled “Button, button”, based on a short story by Richard Matheson. In the story, a gaunt, black-clad gentleman arrives uninvited at the cramped apartment of a financially destitute couple and presents them with a tempting though somewhat ominous offer. He gives them a simple wooden box with a clear plastic lid overtop a large red button - the type of nondescript contraption teens might build in a high school Woodshop class - and explains their options: 1) Don’t push the button. Nothing happens; the man will come back tomorrow to claim the box. 2) Push the button and get $200,000 - tax free - and someone will die. “Who?” the wife asks. “Someone you don’t know,” the man replies. He then leaves them to think about it. The husband decides it’s unconscionable, but the wife wants to go for it. After all, what is the death of someone they don’t know? People die all the time, don’t they? Maybe a bad person will be the one to die. “And maybe it’ll be someone’s newborn baby,” the husband counters. [Link]

By the time the rest of my fellow mutineers moved in to our bunker I had become obsessed with the red button.  Anna makes fun of me.  She wants to see what will happen if I don’t push the button.  Ennis helps me out from time to time.  If I fall asleep he pushes the button for me.  Anna is probably right, and nothing will happen.  Still, I am both a man of science and a man of faith.  Why am I telling you all of this?  Because today SM tipster Shashi Kara sent us another button to press and it has got me thinking.

Would that every morning commenced with such gur at my front door. This bundle of adorable is named Darshi Shah and yesterday, she was on WaPo’s front page for a story about how schools are working fitness back into their students’ lives.

Many schools in the area, and across the country, are combating the trend toward child obesity by extending physical education beyond gym classes.

Walking, running and jump-rope clubs are popping up, even for the youngest children, before and after school. Students are wearing pedometers and learning to calculate their heart rates. And fitness gear designed to help kids improve upper body strength and agility are complementing slides and swings on school playgrounds.

The article didn’t contain any quotes from the precious little runner above, to my disappointment. Then again, her game face says it all doesn’t it?

Some disappointing news from last week:

Vandals this week sprayed several swastikas and racial epithets on property that includes a Sikh temple at the northeast corner of Armstrong Road and West Lane.

Lodi, CA is a city that is 90 miles northeast of the bay. The vandalism went down at a site where plans for a larger Gurudwara were approved by the San Joaquin County Planning Commission. I don’t think the vandals’ choice of targets was coincidental.

Apparently there are close to a dozen groups of White Supremacists in the county. No one believes me out here on the right coast when I mention that I grew up near Klan members; they can’t get past the Golden Gate bridge/Hollywood sign in their heads. All the peaceful, flaky, uber-tolerant golden state stereotypes just make more sense, not that I can blame anyone for their disbelief. Unfortunately, stories like this validate a point I never cared to prove.

Nirmal Samra owns the 8.6-acre property and said he noticed the graffiti on his produce stand and a big-rig trailer Monday morning. The vandalism included remarks such as “killers” and “white power” along with other racial epithets directed at Muslims of Middle Eastern origin.

Nirmal Uncle is a grape farmer who

has never before experienced prejudice in his 30 years living in Lodi…

And I want to stress the following point: my experiences aren’t meant to be a blanket statement regarding racism or ignorance in the bay area or NorCal. Use Mutineer Manish’s statements for that. He went to the better school. ;)

I know of only a few people in the world doing pop art or Web design incorporating Bollywood kitsch, and we had at least two of them at the wonderful Brooklyn meetup on Sunday. (Arzan the hobbyist chef played heeeero. He slaved over the stove for four hours making dhansak, kebabs and delicious flan-like custard.) An ill-fated piece of Skylab could have taken out a significant part of the worldwide Bollykitsch talent pool. And then where would we be without snarky, arty, phillum-referencing tees?

There’s a dark side to all this. Like the children of atheists and their relationship to religion, Turbanhead’s babies will never know Bollywood irony-free. Like the preacher’s daughter, Pardon My Hindi’s future kids may rebel and turn into weepy Chunky Pandey fans. How ironic that would be. I spy, with my little eye, something that starts with K. There’s no escaping the ferric fate of the children of the kitsch.

I bring this up because one of my very favorite Bollykitsch artists, a Dutchman named Johan Manschot who did Diesel’s kitsch Indian theme a couple of seasons ago, has just sold out published a mainstream coffee table book on Bollywood. It’s called Behind the Scenes of Hindi Cinema:

… I’ve published a brand-new book… about Indian Cinema… [it] has been launched on the international press conference of the IIFA awards in Amsterdam… [I] was the one who [presented] the book to Mr. Amitabh Bachchan! And… presented the first signed copy to the alderman of Amsterdam…

The Web site, which uses a Bombay street scene theme, has song snippets and video clips from some of the classics. Here are some book samples. You can buy the glossy, $35 book here.

Whether or not you’re into the coffee table format, you must check out Manschot’s art.

Previous post here.

Related posts: Blood brother, Kitsch Idol, Blog bidness, Kitsch-mish, Happy Diwahanukwanzidmas

Taut, tested arguments falling into place at long last are beautiful to behold. Like any good debater, Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys, has finally got his case down. First, talk smack about India’s place in the world:

Q. Are you worried about the outcry over outsourcing in America?

A. What’s happening is pretty fundamental. If you go back to the 1830’s, India and China were 50 percent of the world’s G.D.P., and then they missed the entire revolution of industry. So if you take a long view of this game, it’s just part of the process. [Link]

That ‘missed the revolution’ turn of phrase is a nice little euphemism for the Gothic horror of the British Raj.

Second, deftly position the inevitable outsourcing question as non-unique, overheated arm-flapping:

Q. What do you say to people who think that globalization will inevitably harm the United States work force?

A. Every time Wal-Mart replaces a person at a checkout counter with an automatic machine they’re eliminating thousands of jobs. This is one more facet of that, except it’s more emotional because instead of a checkout counter machine replacing Steve Smith, some kid in Bangalore is replacing Steve Smith. You can point to that kid and say, “He took my job.” [Link]

If you go back to the 1830’s, India and China were 50 percent of the world’s GDPFinally, remind Americans of their own core values:

Q. Does it feel odd to find yourself lecturing Americans on the joys of capitalism?

A. You guys told us for so many years to cut out this socialist rubbish and go to free markets. We came to free markets and now you’re telling us, “Stop, don’t come…” [Link]

This guy is better at jawboning than the politicians. Next step: mayor of New York?

Abhi posted earlier about Sri Lanka objecting to high-res satellite imagery of sensitive government sites on Google Earth. At the time, Indian officials were also worried but had given up trying to block it. Ironically, the post came on one of India’s two biggest military parade holidays:

India agrees. Reuters quotes an anonymous security official there as confirming that “the issue of satellite imagery had been discussed at the highest level but the government had concluded that ‘technology cannot be stopped’…” [Link]

There’s apparently been a change of heart behind the red sandstone in Delhi. You can’t stop technology, but you can lean on companies. India has escalated the issue to the man who used to run India’s missile program:

Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam expressed concern Saturday about a free mapping program from Google Inc., warning it could help terrorists by providing satellite photos of potential targets… The Google site contains clear aerial photos of India’s parliament building, the president’s house and surrounding government offices in New Delhi. There are also some clear shots of Indian defense establishments… [Link]

India’s not the only one complaining:

The governments of South Korea and Thailand and lawmakers in the Netherlands have expressed similar concerns… South Korean newspapers said Google Earth provides images of the presidential Blue House and military bases in the country, which remains technically at war with communist North Korea. The North’s main nuclear facility at Yongbyon is among sites in that country displayed on the service. [Link]

This issue is similar to that of the deliberate error injected by civilian GPS satellites to prevent use by enemy missiles. On one hand, Google fuzzes out sensitive U.S. sites, so why not let other legitimate governments submit these requests as well? On the other, the public has a right to know, and foreign providers of satellite data will always step into the gap.

I come down on the side of consistency. As a private company rather than an extension of the U.S. government, Google should act even-handedly, no matter which approach it takes.

With all this mutinous talk of Toral’s recent demise on the Apprentice the past couple of days (1,2,3)  and the really excellent discussion that has ensued, it has been really hard to find focus on other areas.  Despite that, the mutiny must go on, and part of our progression is the appearance of Washington Post Staff Writer, author of Suburban Sahibs and (former SAJA President) S. Mitra Kalita’s ongoing Washington Post blog, India 2.0, chronicling her eight week trip to India.  Accompanied by photographer Andrea Bruce (see her recent WP Photo Exhibit here), Kalita departed for her trip before the recent earthquake disaster in India and Pakistan.  The scope of her blog looks to be very interesting and falls very-much into line with some of the things we like to focus on here.  Since her departure, and subsequent arrival in Delhi, Mitra has blogged on the departure pangs that many of us go through before leaving for the country of some of our parent’s birth, especially post liberalization of the early 1990s. 

“Yet again I am surrounded by suitcases and piles of clothing — the bright pinks and oranges and magentas of East and the tans and blacks and navys of West — and engaging in the giving and taking that foreshadows the semiannual rite of my hyphenated life: a trip to India.  Will I really wear these jeans? Or should I pack another salwar kameez? What’s the point of taking so many saris if I still can’t wrap myself in them properly.  These are familiar questions, posed since I was a little girl spending summer vacations in the land of my parents’ birth. But as I look around my bedroom, I am struck by a stark difference between then and now.  There are no Nikes. No Walkmans. No Tang. No Pringles. No Guess. No Gap. No Minoltas. No socks. No razor blades. No microwaves (I swear we took one once.) In fact, I am taking no gifts, just a few requested items for my husband’s cousin’s family, who are hosting me. Among them: a Bose iPod speaker and Livestrong wristbands. I do not have an iPod and didn’t know what the heck those bands were. Already, this American cousin feels she has been living in the Dark Ages.”

“Make no mistake about the “mall” moniker. In India, that means marble floors and glitzy storefront displays. Like many conveniences taken for granted in the West, the Indian counterpart tends to be equally rooted in providing the customer experience. (McDonald’s, for example, might have a worker who pumps your ketchup.) So the opening of M.G. 2 (named for its location on Mehrauli Gurgaon Road and because it is adjacent to M.G. 1) served up a heavy dose of pomp and importance alongside glasses of Coke and mineral water, with trays of tofu triangles and asparagus bruschetta circulated by waiters.” 

I like to keep tabs (as best I can) on South Asian Americans running for public office around the country.  The latest two are running for state government in Virginia and Maryland.  Democrat Supriya Christopher of Virgina may have thrown her hat into the ring as a one issue candidate (in my opinion), but she is looking to get smart on the rest of the issues to fend off the competition.  MSN reports:

Supriya Christopher, a US military veteran and mother of two, is a busy woman these days. She is contesting for the Virginia State House of Delegates.

Running for an open seat, Christopher feels “tired but energised” after endless fund-raising efforts that have notched $150,000 to date. She is hopeful of bringing another $100,000 for a media blitz in this last round of campaigning before the Nov 8 elections.

“I’m tired but energised,” said the former US Army Signal Corps officer and now a member of the Commonwealth of Virginia Veterans Services Foundation.

She is the first Indian American as well as the first Asian American to run for a seat in the General Assembly.

Christopher, running from what is considered a Republican bastion, feels she is holding her own against Republican opponent Sal Iaquinto, an attorney, and former staff member delegate Robert F. McDonnell, a Republican.

So what is her one main issue?  All politics are local.

Virginia Beach, and the 84 th District, is the home of some of the world’s greatest military bases and military families. As a proud Navy wife, I have a personal connection to the challenges we face. My husband Damien is an F/A-18 fighter pilot presently onboard the USS Harry Truman serving in the war on terror. This is Damien’s fourth six-month deployment and second tour of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

When serving as President of the Oceana Officers Spouses Club, I was a vocal, public advocate for Navy families. When the issue of base closure arose and opposition to jet noise came to a head, I spoke at hearings with Senator John Warner, the Navy League, the Association for Naval Aviators and congressional and city officials. I was privileged to reiterate how important it is to keep NAS Oceana open in order to provide a quality lifestyle for Navy families, particularly in the 84 th District. [Link]

Glancing away from the usual topics in Amrika, Britain, Canada and the Subcontinent—long before Microsoft was filling out H1-B forms, and even before Sputnik inspired the 1965 Immigration and Nationalization Act*, indentured laborers were crossing from South Asia to South America. At the age of 24 Munshi Raman Khan brought with him a love of all things Indian,  particularly the Ramayan, on which he lectured the children of his Hindu brethren. Why do I have a feeling this guy could have had a great blog if he was around today?

At age 24, Rehman M. Khan (1874-1972), a young Pathan arrived in Suriname in 1898 on the steamship Avon.  …this young Khan knew the Qur’an as well as the Ramayana very well. He soon became popular in his plantation and among the surrounding Indians of the other plantations as a Ramayan specialist. He started propagating the Ramayana ideology and taught Hindi to the children of the Indian community… .there are many manuscripts available which he wrote in Suriname dealing with the Muslim problems in Suriname, the language issues and his own biography in four volumes. Coming from a middle class Pathan family, Khan was very educated. His knowledge of Urdu and Hindi helped his literary prose. He was also a poet and could compose poetry in standard Hindi “with a flavour of Braj”…He used his knowledge to educate the Hindu and Muslim community and to reconstruct the “Indian identity”. Khan kept in touch with India constantly and was also craving for news from his homeland. (Link.)

Khan wrote an autobiography, apparently in Hindi or a related dialect, that was previously only translated into Dutch. (According to one review in The Hindu,  he was even knighted by the Dutch Queen Juliana for his merits.) A translation into English has been popping up in reviews in The Hindu, IndoLINK, and The Tribune. The Autobiography of an Indian Indentured Laborer, by Munshi Rahman Khan, looks to be a fairly new release and seems available for purchase in dollars from Bagchee. 

*Of which we sadly missed the 40th anniversary.

Check out Zerobridge, a qawwali-influenced alt-rock band from Brooklyn. Mubashir Din plays guitar, Mohsin’s on drums and Greg Eckelman rocks the bass. The Din brothers trace their roots to Kashmir. Listen here and here.

I’m diggin’ the clean guitar melody on ‘Out in the Distance.’ The instrumental ‘Bleed’ samples ‘Chalte Chalte’ from Pakeezah and evokes the wall of sound from Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Cherub Rock.’ ’Refugee Citizen’ reminds me of the Velvet Underground.

The group explains its name:

Zerobridge is an actual bridge in Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar. The story goes that as they were building bridges to connect the suburbs to the city center, they would name them by numbers, 1 Bridge, 2 Bridge, etc. The only bridge that was there before construction didn’t have a name, and so they called it Zerobridge. [Link]

Over the summer, they rocked my building’s roof (photos) as well as a smaller party (photos).

I think on our record we released in September (2003), being in Kashmir was definitely an influence. We were there just after the Indian parliament bombing after 9/11…

South Asian artists such as the the Sabri Brothers and Hindi film composers like A.R. Rahman and Ismail Darbar are an influence as well. [Link]

Aizaz Akram, half of the NYC DJ duo Mixer Assassin, has posted some wildly contrasting photos from a trip to Pakistan.

The scene of a mosque suicide bombing in Sialkot, Pakistan which tragically hit his own family:

The suicide bomber packed the briefcase with tiny ball bearings. The force of the explosion sent the ball bearings through this door frame… Adjacent to the front pillar is where my Uncle Ghazanfar was seated, reading his prayers… He suffered cranial fractures and has had 14 pieces of his skull removed…

The row directly in front of the crater is where a few of my cousins were sitting. They were shredded instantly…

Clubbing at a socialite’s haveli in Heera Mandi, Lahore:

A view of Yousuf [Salahuddin’s] (or Sallu for short) Haveli (mansion) in Heera Mandi, Lahore, Pakistan. This entire building is his. There are at least 50 rooms. At least that I SAW. It’s practically a castle…

The man himself… the Hugh Hefner of Lahore, and possibly even Pakistan, Mr. Yousuf [Salahuddin], complete with bling-bling white hair. Yup. Bottles of liquor everywhere.

Admission? 6,000 rupees for an invite, or $100 dollars… The party was also protected by policemen outside. Unbelieveable.

Like an incestuous college dorm, this alternadesi hothouse of a ‘hood keeps yielding interesting hookups.

This past summer, I wandered home late one Friday night, sharing the building elevator with a gaggle of desis heading to the roof. I dumped my stuff in my room, walked upstairs and stumbled into a large yet strangely chill party: an indie rock band, a DJ rig, beer, Christmas lights, extension cords and lots of people dancing, drinking and enjoying the NYC skyline. That party nearly got the entire building banned from the roof (much respect), but I didn’t know whose party it was.

A few months later, I went shopping for my first Mac in years to build a fruit-friendly version of the blog editor we use. The font of all things Mac here is the Apple temple in SoHo. Because it abuts all manner of modeling agencies, it’s usually packed with offhandedly striking women, those for whom beauty is merely a Mendelian byproduct. Like the Nano, they’re shiny, costly and impossibly thin.

I got to talking with a random sales guy in a hoodie. Here’s what turned up:

• He spins house music and is an amateur photographer
• He was in my loft building that same morning
• He was visiting two DJ friends who live right downstairs from me
• The DJs and the rockers were the very same guys who threw the mother of all parties on our roof
• And, they’re all desi

The next couple of posts came from this serendipitous connection…

Mephistopheles1981, eagle-eyed observer of the Sri Lankan diaspora, writes in with a tip on L.A.-based rock band The Slow Signal Fade.  The quartet features Sri Lankan-born Marguerite Olivelle as its lead singer, and a bunch of other people that I don’t care about because they’re not Sri Lankan.  (Just kidding, Ron Ulicny, Chris Walters, and Christy Greenwood!  You guys seem nice, too.)  According to a cached Google page from their website-in-progress, the band “formed in fall of 2002 through an array of failed alliances, random acquaintances, circumstance and numerous ads in the LA based classified paper The Recycler.”  They went on to record a five-song E.P. called the “Kindling E.P.,” setting some sort of land-speed record in the process:

Their first demo turned into their first album, “Kindling E.P.,” and was recorded in only eight hours.

“We had to pay studio time and didn’t have enough time to listen to the CD before we released it,” Walters said. 

I don’t know that I would necessarily want to advertise that aspect of my debut album, but fair enough.  This year they released a second E.P. called Through the Opaque Air.  So what does The Slow Signal Fade sound like?  Lots of stuff, apparently:

Armed with a vast collection of esoteric and sometimes conflicting influences, they have crafted a unique sound….a delicate blend of power and intimacy that sits comfortably and transcends genre.

Their musical influences vary from the likes of classic rock bands including Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Doors….through early post-punk and pop like The Cure, New Order, The Police, and U2…..to the modern sonics of Mogwai, Tool, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Fugazi. The SSF’s evocative style, colorful melodies, and engaging percussions provide the foundation for the beautiful, timeless and ethereal vocals that draw inspiration from singing legends ranging from Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington, to Chrissie Hynde, Sinead O’Connor and Cat Power. This band provides a musical journey that leaves an indelible mark on the listener, a refreshing balance of musicianship and candor. [Link]

And what do people who aren’t in the band think they sound like?  From Popmatters:

It’s Disintegration-era The Cure as done by The Cranberries, all epic slow tempos and one-note guitar lines fronted by Marguerite Olivelle’s lovely, pitch-perfect, urgent vocals. It’s a combination that shouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable as it is, but the wall of sound on display is exotic, acid-washed, and somehow really accessible. [Link]

A quick listen to a few of their songs, especially “Push Pull Push,” leads me to think the Cranberries comparison is particularly apt.  However, as the great LeVar Burton once said, “You don’t have to take my word for it!” since free MP3s are available at their website.

I was thinking of starting up “Science Fridays” here on SM.  Let’s face it, there are a lot of science geeks and engineers that read SM on a daily basis who aren’t being catered to.  I think our long term growth strategy should include reaching out to this key demographic.  Why Friday?  Two reasons.  First, the two most prestigious peer-reviewed journals Science and Nature are reported on in the media on Fridays (though they usually come out on Thursday).  More importantly however I usually have more time to blog on Fridays (the rest of the week I am busy doing science-geek things).   This being SM I will of course look for the desi connection in science stories.  So without further pomp here we go.  This week’s theme will be Cryptozoology.  The first story I bring you is a tip from SM reader Marvin Thomas who writes to us about something that washed up on a beach in Tamil Nadu recently because it was supposedly dislodged by the Tsunami from months ago.  First watch the following clip [via Giantology]:

If you remember, Vinod blogged about ancient ruins that were uncovered as a result of the Tsunami.  This creature was supposedly buried close by.  But according to the “reporter” Rupa Sridharam in this “news clip” the bones of this creature just washed up/was unburied now.  Luckily SM has a paleontologist on staff to definitively tell you that this is a hoax.  Even if you can’t see the fake special effects it’s obvious that whoever filmed this doesn’t know the first thing about science.  First off they sent in archeologists to do a paleontologist’s job.  I HATE it when people mess stuff like this up.  Remember Top Gun?  Kelly McGillis’s character was described as a “civilian astrophysics instructor.”  Why the hell would someone that specialized in stars and globular structures be sent in to teach test pilots?  That’s just stupid.

Currently Snopes.com has this case (hoax or not) categorized as “undetermined.”

It’s probably safe to say that the clip itself is not a genuine news report, as no other news outlets have reported on this amazing find. We don’t yet know the source of the video — it could be something taken from a television or film drama, a viral promo for some type of upcoming entertainment offering (such as a video game), or just something created for the sake of perpetrating an amusing hoax.

Often times when we post about immigrant rights on SM I see a conflict develop between those that believe that even certain basic rights should only be granted to, or expected by citizens, and those who believe this policy is too harsh.  As one commenter pointed out, the U.S. Constitution does not consider immigration status when dealing with certain freedoms.  The reason I bring this up is that governments around the world have been using the “citizenship loophole” to deny large populations of people the right to have rights.  The Christian Science Monitor explains by citing the example of Geneva Camp in Dhaka, Bangladesh:

Borders have made all the difference in the life of 25-year-old Noor Islam. He was born in Bangladesh, but an invisible line has virtually confined him to Geneva Camp, a squalid enclave in the capital, Dhaka.
Shifting borders dictated this fate. In 1971, when East Pakistan gained independence as Bangladesh, Islam’s family and some 300,000 other Urdu-speakers found themselves without a nationality in the new Bengali state.

“In Geneva Camp, we don’t have much access to education and jobs,” Islam says, adding that citizenship would dramatically transform their lives.

The so-called Stranded Pakistanis are one of the largest and oldest communities of stateless people, a group estimated to number 11 million across the globe. Their predicament deserves more attention, say experts, since national identity is the most fundamental of human rights - indeed, the very right to have rights.

“They are the ultimate forgotten people,” says James Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative in New York. The problem persists, he says, in part because nation-states still enjoy broad discretion under international law to grant or deny citizenship as they see fit.

It’s really easy to exploit citizenship status actually.  Even our own President uses it to a degree.  If you change a person’s status from citizen to something else, say an “enemy combatant,” they no longer have the right to have rights.  They become a stateless person.  Governments all around the world are getting in on the action to make their “problems” go away (and have been for decades).

We introduced Toral to mutineers with a gentle reminder to her that “all glory is fleeting” and my oh my how true it was. On Thursday, October 13, her Apprentice star was extinguished in dramatic fashion after a run of just 4 episodes. While probably not an ideal role model, we can answer Desi media critics and say that this week at least 1 TV show was truly led by a desi characterThis week at least 1 TV show was truly led by a desi character.

The episode’s story arc traced Toral’s fall starting with her perilous escape from last week’s boardroom - something Trump pointed out was her high point in words almost fitting a Greek Oracle - “Enjoy the view, Toral”.

The subsequent verdict from the flock of Cassandras was immediate and fierce -

“Not bringing Toral into the boardroom isn’t loyalty, it’s stupidity”

And in Waiting to Exhale fashion, a caucus was called where her teammates admonished her to step up the plate and run like she hadn’t run before. The die was cast as her teammate’s demands were diametrically opposed to Toral’s master plan -

In June I posted about Operation Meth Merchant in Georgia that netted nearly 50 people, most of them Indian convenience store owners, on suspicion of selling components that make methamphetamines, knowing what they’d be used for. 

But first, a quick lesson in meth production: The key ingredient in the process is ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, which also happen to be the key ingredients in cold and allergy medicines such as Sudafed, Tylenol Cold capsules and Max Brand Pseudo 60s.

Those are legal products, legally bought and sold in stores all over the country. Selling them becomes a federal crime only if the seller knows that they’re going to be used in meth production. To minimize that problem, stores at the time had been urged by law enforcement to limit the amount of ephedrine-based medicines sold to each individual. [Link]

In August, Ennis reported on some of the prosecution’s mix-ups.  Now, Rediff reports how elements of the case have begun to dramatically unravel for the prosecution, and asks the question, “why did it take so long?”:

US District Attorney David E Nahmias requested the courts last fortnight to dismiss charges that Siddharth Patel had sold over the counter components used in the manufacture of the drug methamphetamine.

And well he should — Patel was over a thousand miles away when he supposedly committed the crime, and had photographic evidence to prove it.

In a case that has assumed racial overtones, Nahmias told the court Patel had been identified, erroneously, as the man who sold the components July 23, 2004 in Georgia, USA — when it was conclusively proved that at the time, and on the date, in question, he was in New York…

Earlier, similar charges against Malvika Patel of Cleveland, Tennessee, and her husband Chirag Patel were withdrawn after McCracken Poston appeared as their attorney. Poston is also Siddharth Patel’s attorney in the case…

“Malvika Patel was picking up her young son from day care in Cleveland, Tennessee, at the exact moment this informant claimed she was behind the counter of a store in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia,” Poston told rediff India Abroad. “Similarly, Chirag Patel was with his family in India at the time the informant claimed he was at the same store in December 2004.”

Similarly, Siddharth Patel was working at a Subway outlet in Hicksville, New York, at the time the informant placed him in Whitfield County, Georgia, selling the components at Deep Springs Superette, a convenience store in the Varnell community of Whitfield County. [Link]

Uhhh, woops, I guess.  Why did it take so damn long to establish that the person arrested had been misidentified.  In stinks of incompetence and probably something worse.

A video clip of Toral Mehta’s firing on The Apprentice has been posted. She’s not just the new Omarosa, she’s the new Narinder Kaur, the definitive chavette from the UK’s Big Brother:

Narinder has been married for seven years but the 28-year-old Geordie says she was “looking for a snog” when she went into the Big Brother House… [she] erupted in a torrent of abuse about her housemates [in] a four-letter tirade… [and] had a string of bust-ups with fellow contestants… [Link]

There was a lot of racism in the part of Newcastle where we lived and it didn’t help being the only brown face in my school. I got bullied a lot. On the way to school I’d read ‘Narinder Paki’ scribbled on the bus stop and when I got there, I’d get picked on and the teachers would do nothing. Most people didn’t even know my name - ‘that Paki girl’ was enough…

I was showing British people that modern Indian girls could get drunk and have a laugh and still say their prayers… I remember drunkenly telling my husband I was going to be famous. He was like, alright, all I want to do is get your kit off… So why do I keep sticking my tits and neck out and go to so many premieres, you ask. Why the hell shouldn’t I?… [Link]

Mehta spazzed out in the boardroom, was punted to the curb and gave her teammates the back of the hand on cab-cam. Squirrel-hair called her ‘divisive,’ a nicer way of putting it.

Watch the video. Here’s the official site for the self-proclaimed ‘unforgettable business genius.’ Previous posts: one, two.

…but I can write it. So can all of you, apparently.

Dear, excessively creative readers writers, since we commenced our sweet Friday festival of nanofiction fun, it feels like someone put a chip and new exhaust system in that vehicle called time. Those around me will attest that I can often be found muttering, “Where do the hours go?” several times a day; thanks to this delightful ritual, I’m even more incredulous. It’s Friday? AGAIN? Didn’t I just write this post? Yowza. It’s like Groundblog’s day.

In any case, indulge me in my disbelief, that it is already time to write an uber-short story and leave it or a link to it in the comments section below.

If you’re just tuning in, you might want to read this and then this, so you learn what I’m going on about, as well as how you can join in the chant. That second link established yet another tradition I’m sticking to— I like the idea of selecting the three short-shorts that made me swoon. Without further blathering, here they be:

When Jai Singh said, “I guess I may as well kick this off….” he wasn’t playing, y’all. The following gem left me daydreaming with a wistful smile on my face, as I concomitantly recalled my fond days in History 196A AND a certain battle scene from LOTR. Suh-wooooooon.

60,000 Rajputs waited in the crisp dawn, armour glinting in the sunlight, horses battle-ready. The track down the mountainside twisted ahead, the green flags of the approaching legion already visible.
With a thundering evocation to the Almighty, they raised their curved swords skywards in unison. The black smoke from the pyres billowed above the fortress.

Jay’s 55 was adroit; it captivated all of us, as we attempted to solve the ingenious riddle he posed:

Ice broke under the ankle. In a hospital room they conspired friendship. Set to work, she fumbled at the remote clumsily. In the boardroom she spat venom as they cornered her – then unbelievably granted reprieve. From the loft she saw the little woman walking towards the cab. She knew that it should have been her.

Ann Arbor doctor Shankar Palaniappan went to Toledo, Ohio over the weekend to meet with some old friends.  He met up with them at around 9p.m.  The club’s closed-circuit video shows him leaving alone around 1a.m.  He hasn’t been seen since.  ABC 13 of Toledo reports (thanks for the tip Kumar):

Right now police don’t have many clues. They say the disappearance of the 26-year-old looks suspicious. Family and friends say it’s totally out of character for Shankar Palaniappan to ignore phone calls and not show up for work. That’s why today they an issued an emotional plea for help.

What started out as a night of fun at a Toledo hot spot has turned into a family’s desperate search for a young doctor. Shankar Palaniappan came to Toledo Saturday night to meet some old college friends. Police say the young doctor and his friends arrived at Gumbo’s/Sin Nightclub at the docks around 9 p.m. But at the end of the night, friends went in search of Palaniappan and they couldn’t find him. Police are calling the case suspicious.

Palaniappan’s family flew from Indiana to Toledo this morning desperate for any information about their son. Family members say Shankar Palaniappan is a medical intern at St. Joe’s Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor. They say he’s always in contact with them and they haven’t heard from him since Saturday night.

This story immediately reminded me of the very similar circumstances that surrounded the disappearance of Arvin Sharma in Washington D.C. back in April.  He too went to a club with his friends and was nowhere to be seen at the end of the night, his body recovered days later.  As far as I know, no suspect was ever arrested for his murder (if it was a murder).  Let’s pray for a more positive ending in this case.  Palaniappan’s parents made an emotional plea on television asking for help from anyone who may know where their son is.

Shankar Palaniappan… “My son is a very hard-working, sincere, dedicated young man,” said Ramanathan Palaniappan. With tears in his eyes, he went on, “I hope he’s okay, and if he’s out there, please give us a call.” It’s every parent’s worst fear, and Shankar’s mother and father are extremely concerned something has happened to their only son.

“We’ve been trying to reach him on his cell phone, and there’s no answer,” said Ramanathan. “He usually checks in with his family, he usually checks in with work, and at 1:04 in the morning, Saturday night, or Sunday morning, no one has heard from him since. We consider that very serious,” said Sgt. Tim Noble with Toledo Police. [Link]

Anyone that has information in this missing person case should call: 419-255-1111.

Update: Sad news. Palaniappan’s body has been found.

When the basic AP article about the swearing in of the new Joint Chiefs of Staff has a lede that casually tosses off  “recruitment shortfalls” in the same breath as Iraq and disasters, you can be assured it’s one of the military’s biggest concerns. Ace mil-blog Intel-Dump frequently highlights the number crunch being faced by the army, and Armchair Generalist analyzed the recent lowering of the educational bar.  I sympathize with the recruiters greatly—we need a military, regardless of whatever goose-chase this or that administration might lead them on. It’s not really their fault that teenagers who don’t need a ticket out of town may question the extent to which the military is really about defending American freedom. That is, it’s not their fault until they start physically harassing a student-veteran for quietly protesting and then get him arrested on his own campus:

More than 100 George Mason University students and faculty members gathered on campus yesterday for a teach-in, six days after an undergraduate was arrested in a confrontation with military recruiters there.

Tariq Khan, 27, said he was standing near the recruiters’ table in the multipurpose Johnson Center at lunchtime last Thursday, holding fliers and wearing signs, including one on his chest that read “Recruiters Lie, Don’t Be Deceived.” One of the recruiters, plus another man who said he was a Marine, began yelling at him, he said, adding that the Marine ripped off his sign. Khan said that after a campus police officer asked for identification, which he didn’t have with him, he was arrested, taken to the Fairfax County police department and charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct.

Khan, a Pakistani American who grew up in Sterling and served four years in the U.S. Air Force, said the recruiters, and later the campus police, made disparaging comments to him about Middle Easterners.

Daniel Walsch, a university spokesman, said that Khan “was considered to be distributing literature,” which requires a permit, and that he was asked to leave the building.(Link)

The ACLU of Virginia wryly notes that the arrest occurred “at a public university named after the person who may be most responsible for the Bill of Rights.” Whether or not recruiters lie, George Mason U. is being patently untrue to its namesake’s ideals if it fails to urge the Fairfax D.A. to drop charges against Mr. Khan. (Link.)

The ACLU is defending Khan, who has a court date of Nov 14. (Link). Last week he gave a speech at the rally:

First of all I want to say that what happened to me last Thursday is not an isolated incident. . At at least three different colleges in the last week alone - the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Holyoke Community College in Massachusetts, and here at George Mason University - students engaged in non-violent counter-recruitment were met with police repression…And here at GMU I was harassed and assaulted by police and right-wing vigilante wannabe’s simply for standing in the JC with an 8x11 sign taped to my chest that said “Recruiters lie. Don’t be deceived.” Then I was charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct. While the police and vigilantes were brutalizing me, other right-wing students were cheering them on and shouting “Kick his ass!” . .Officer Reynolds, the goon who arrested me told me that he had to handcuff me because of 9/11. He said, “I didn’t know who you were, and what with 9/11 and all, there’s no telling what you’d do.” So because he didn’t know me, he had to assume that I’m a terrorist. Another officer at the GMU police station shouted at me, “You people are the most violent people in the world! You’re passive aggressive!” What does that mean? Who are “you people”? 

Besides the fundamental issue of preventing a student from engaging in free speech on a public campus, which I thought was settled over 40 years ago, there is the issue Khan brought up, a crystalized example of why we need first amendment rights to debate public policy and government actions in the first place—do recruiters lie?

The folks behind Desilicious (the erotic anthology, not the pride party) are at it again with a call for submissions for Divas and Dusham! Dusham! Mmm, onomatopoetic irregularity.

The anthology will collect both scholarly and literary works inspired by Bollywood, and the deadline is Jan. 31. Methinks a certain per’fessor could submit.

The Politics: How have characters, narratives, or cinematic techniques sustained or subverted hegemonies? How do we identify and engage progressive and reactionary strains in Bombay cinema? What is the relationship between filmmaking and national/transnational politics? Why are Bollywood actresses all fair? Why do the movies tell stories especially of young people? Why are they mostly upper-caste (and Punjabi based)? …

Literary Adaptations: Submissions could include subversive alternate endings to famous Bollywood films… stories in which the central character is modeled after a distinctly filmi character; or screenplays (story-length or excerpts) attempting contemporary Hollywood remakes of Bollywood classics… [Link]

My favorite category:

Explorations of Villainy: Bombay Cinema is the only cinema that grants major film awards for “Best Performance in a Villainous Role…” Bollywood villains who can drop a line as menacing as, “is ko liquid oxygen mem duba do. Liquid ise jine nahin dega aur oxygen ise marne nahin dega” (Drop him in liquid oxygen… the liquid will not let him live and the oxygen will not let him die) make Darth Vader look like a kitty. [Link]

I, for one, welcome our new erotic villainy overlords.

U.S. aid after the horrific quake in Pakistan (higher death toll than the Gujarat and Bam temblors) is already being spun by the politicos in Washington:

“Musharraf is a friend and hero in our eyes,” said one senior U.S. official… “There is a clear and unmistakable signal being sent that we help our friends.” [Link]

Who gets credit for eight U.S. helicopters and three field hospitals? Round and round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows:

A survey of 1,200 Indonesians one month after the tsunami… found that, for the first time, more Indonesians (40 percent) supported the U.S. terrorism fight than opposed it (36 percent). Sixty-five percent of those surveyed had a more favorable impression of the United States, with support strongest among those younger than 30, while support for Osama bin Laden dropped from 58 percent before the tsunami to 23 percent. Terror Free Tomorrow is a nonpartisan group that studies popular support for global terrorism. [Link]

Indonesian support for bin Laden dropped from 58% before the tsunami to 23%after U.S. aidOne expert thinks the U.S. will reap the benefits, but Musharraf will not. The Pakistani government’s quake relief has seemingly been as ineffectual as the U.S. government’s Katrina response:

Husain Haqqani, director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University and an adviser to Terror Free Tomorrow, said the experience in Indonesia could easily be replicated in Pakistan… But Haqqani said the U.S. effort to prop up Musharraf with the relief effort is unlikely to succeed. He said hard questions are already being asked about the faltering response of the Pakistani military, which Musharraf controls. Moreover, he said, much of the $1 billion in annual U.S. aid that Pakistan receives is perceived as going toward buying F-16 fighter planes and toward supporting the state, not the common people. “The man in the street has not been the beneficiary of the U.S. aid” in the past, so credit for the disaster relief will flow to the United States, not to Musharraf… [Link]

Tony Blair has introduced a new anti-terrorism bill in the UK. One section of the bill is sorely needed. Britain’s grand bargain with the jihadi mullahs, sanctuary in exchange for immunity, was as always as ill-informed as Saudi Arabia’s:

… the bill would make it illegal to publish, disseminate or sell material that incites terrorism, giving authorities power to shut down bookstores and Web sites deemed to promote extremism. It would also become an offense to attend a “terrorist training camp…” [Link]

Muslim men might be be arrested, jailed for 90 days and then released… the wrong ‘Mohammed Khan’But the rest is a bad echo of Dubya’s Fascist Act. From feudalism to democracy and back?

Blair, formally presenting his new terrorism bill to Parliament, said police had made an “absolutely compelling” case that they need to detain suspects for as long as 90 days without charge; the current limit is 14 days. [Link]

Heavy-handed measures can create backdraft. Careful policing is why people praised the British troops in Iraq — pity it’s good enough overseas but not at home:

Livingstone said the proposals brought back bad memories of the response to the start of the Irish Republican Army’s violent campaign in 1969. He said the government passed emergency measures under which innocent people were locked up for long periods. Far from making Britain safer, he told the group Wednesday, this reaction helped the IRA recruit more members.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, drew sustained applause when she said she feared that the new measures would largely target young Muslim men, who would be arrested, jailed for 90 days and then released with nothing more than an explanation that police had picked up the wrong “Mohammed Khan,” a common name. [Link]

I had to bring this to your attention: a five-year-old Kashmiri girl named Lishba who lived in one of the areas that was most affected by the quake spoke to the BBC about her memories of the tragedy and what she felt during and after it. I wish there were a picture of her; even without one, she’s captivated me. I don’t remember being this eloquent when i was five…

Where she was when the quake hit:

I was at home watching television and my sister was playing outside, my parents were in at home as well.

I felt the house shake and I got scared and ran to my father.

My sister was playing outside and at first we couldn’t find her, then my father went and got her home and all of us came out into the garden.

At first both my father and I thought the painter doing up my room must have broken something since the house shook, but then my father said this was an earthquake.

After the earthquake everybody was out of their houses and there was confusion everywhere.

Lishba, like so many others, is now homeless:

My house is completely broken all over.

We are now living in a field near my grandfather’s house.

When it rains, we all take shelter in the balcony of my grandfather’s house. It’s all broken and there are cracks everywhere but we all sit there.

The province of Ontario is subsidizing the Toronto Lord of the Rings musical with a $2.5M (U.S.) loan. As posted earlier, A.R. Rahman is composing the music, his theater sequel to Bombay Dreams. It promises to be the most expensive theater production ever:

Ontario’s officials - on behalf of their 12 million citizens - have signed on as investors for the show, which is expected to be one of the most expensive ever… the provincial government will contribute some $2.5 million of the show’s $23 million budget… The stage version’s $23 million price tag would make it more expensive than any show on Broadway. “The Lion King,” by comparison, cost Disney some $20 million…

Air Canada has donated more than $1 million worth of airline tickets to help the creative team - which includes… an Indian composer, A. R. Rahman; and a Finnish folk music group, Värttinä - commute back and forth to Toronto…

Press materials circulated for the show call it “the biggest and most ambitious theatrical production ever staged,” promising a three-and-a-half-hour event that starts even before the curtain rises. (Hobbits are to prowl the aisles as the audience enters.) [Link]

The one fiscal conservative left in Canada was outraged:

… eight of every 10 Broadway shows fails to earn back their money… “This government is certainly creative when it comes to spending taxpayers money, but not when it comes to saving it…” Kheiriddin noted that the province dropped $1-million to get popular American talk-show host Conan O’Brien to host a week of TV shows in Toronto last year.

But Bradley said… $4.6-million in grants offered by the province following the SARS outbreak generated some $50-million for Ontario’s tourism industry. [Link]

I have been a die-hard Wallace and Gromit fan for years now.  Ever since I saw A Grand Day Out on PBS in the 90s, I’ve been hooked.  In that movie the clumsy inventor Wallace with his faithful and cerebral dog Gromit, go to the Moon to look for cheese (which they have run out of).  There was no movie that I was looking more forward to seeing this year than Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Wererabbit (well except for one maybe).  I will probably go this weekend to watch it.  For the last month in fact I was desperately searching for a desi angle on the movie so that I could bring this dynamic duo to the attention of SM readers.  Manish emailed me this morning about our old friend Turbanhead’s latest post.  It seems there is a desi character in the new movie.  So who is this South Asian character, and how does he fit into the film?  Turbanhead tells us:

Towards the end, the “Indian” character is the one who improvises a stand that sells pitchforks and torches to an angry mob.

Ha!  Well…I mean someone has to provide weapons to an angry mob…err, right?  May as well make a buck off of it.  Those damn wererabbits need to be hunted down anyways right?  You could say he is an exemplary citizen.

Footnote: Bad news. Let’s hope the desi character didn’t provide the torches for this one.

Isn’t that title just thrillingly trillable? So is the notion that consumers can use information to purchase products supporting their tastes in environmentalism and social justice. “October is Free Trade Month,” a billboard reminded me at the Berkeley BART station—also reminding me that dhaavak owes me a tip on a Rajasthani fair trade NGO.  Taking up where the beloved Cicatrix left off, let us examine the possibilities for a mutiny of the wallet.

Cotton is crucial: ever since Megasthenes told Seleucus of  ”there being trees on which wool grows” in Indika, it’s been one of the subcontinent’s great exports.  For many diasporic desi dads, soft cotton wifebeaters are a must-not-forget purchase on trips back to the homeland. From Gandhi’s spinning days, the ties between social justice and khadi are apparently enshrined in a requirement that the Indian Flag be made only from khadi. Socially conscientious clothing is a constant work in progress, at home and abroad:  ETC India.org  and Dutch development group Solidaridad have announced that they will collaborate to create a Fair Trade Organic Cotton Supply Chain, connecting individual farmers, mills, clothing factories, and markets:

So far, 405 farmers have been enrolled in the programme, who are producing organic cotton in an extent of 1,352 acres of land spread over five rainfed districts in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh and two rainfed districts in the Vidharbha region of Maharashtra…He said that Rajalakshmi Mills of Kolkata was currently supporting farmers by purchasing cotton and marketing it in the US and Europe. Last fiscal, over 100 tonnes of lint cotton was sold at a premium of Rs 200 to Rs 250 per tonne over the prevailing market rates. (Link)

It’s the kind of support that’s vitally necessary to small famers whose plight has been highlighted by a plague of suicides.

Raise your hands if your parents usually have a giant bag of rice sitting in the kitchen. Basmati is a key ingredient in making our home away from home, and TransFairUSA now certifies fair traded rice from India, Thailand, and Egypt,:

Traditionally, these farmers have sold their rice to local middlemen rather than developing relationships with exporters. The low prices they receive often do not cover their costs of production, leaving them unable to repay the loans they need to buy seeds and fertilizer and further impoverishing their families. Fair Trade certification ensures that rice farmers receive a fair price for their harvest, creates direct trade links between farmers and buyers, and provides access to affordable credit. Through Fair Trade, farmers and their families are earning a better income for their hard work - allowing them to hold on to their land, keep their kids in school, and invest in the quality of their harvest.

There are three licensed west coast distributors of this fair trade rice, including this supplier of organic basmati rice. Consider taking contact information to your local grocer next time you go shopping.

The IIPM issue in India provides me with a great opportunity to educate SM readers and fellow bloggers about the assault of late on a precious (but little known) liberty here in the United States of America.  It is the fundamental, God-given right to blog!  A few weeks back we received what was intended to be a “Cease and Desist Notice” from someone claiming to be the lawyer of a person that we had written about on SM.  This “lawyer” threatened legal action and dire consequences unless we took down the “libelous” statements against their client.  However, in none of our posts had we made any libelous statements about the semi-celebrity in question.  Rather, it was some of the commenters to our site that had written what might be considered rude.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I represent the legal interests of ########. The content on your site contains libelous information that is against the interests of my client ########. The information on your website cannot be verified and contains defamatory, heresay information.

We are firmly requesting that you take down this web site within 24 hours. We are prepared to take legal action against your company and will sue you at the full extent of the law for punitive damages.

This notice was followed by several others (including a “second notice” time stamped two minutes after the first one) that increasingly led us to believe that this lawyer was either a friend of the person we had offended, or the person themselves posing as a lawyer.  Making a few spelling mistakes and citing laws that seem sketchy, sort of erode one’s credibility.  Getting sued over this might have been a welcome experience though.  I have always sort of dreamed of representing myself in front of the Supreme Court, grilled by Scalia, and waking up to that goddess Nina Totenberg re-capping my oral arguments on NPR as I lay in bed the next morning in rapture.  I coulda’ been a contenda’.  Having reviewed the relevant precedents, we think we would have done quite well in court if slapped with a lawsuit.  I am what people would term a Constitutional Originalist. Who am I to doubt what the Framers originally put into the Constitution?  Who am I to question or re-interpret their original intentions?  Let me direct you to Article IV Section 4 of that most sacred of documents:

The United States shall guarantee the rights of every Blogger in this Union, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence and frivolous lawsuits.

Meetup reminder: Come by Arzan’s place for a home-cooked Parsi lunch. Arzan lives in the Clinton Hill ‘hood in Brooklyn by the Manhattan Bridge. We’re meeting Sunday, Oct. 16 at 12:30 pm.

Sunday afternoon is traditionally the time when every Parsi household in the world has dhansak. It’s a dal and rice dish. Brown rice with a masala daal which has a lot of different ingredients. It’s accompanied by mutton kebabs and chilled beer.

Please RSVP [disabled] for directions, because his living room space is finite. First come, first served. Let him know whether you’re vegetarian.

Previous post here.

Apart from Kal Penn’s little brother’s five-minute Goth phase in the movie Where’s the Party, Yaar?, South Asian Goths seem to be largely absent from the desi cultural landscape.  While doing some extensive research on the topic, I learned that a Google search for “South Asian Goths” yields no results, that “Indian Goth” leads largely to porn links, and that half of Google’s “Desi Goths” results point to some guy’s profile on RateDesi: the Desi Hot or Not.  (His average rating is a 7.7393.)  But there’s also this guy:

Shumit Basu designs custom corsets and other items for his label Underground Aristocracy, which has been “hand-crafting corsets for the discerning corset enthusiast since 1997 using a range of materials from fine silk to leather.”  Basu studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the London College of Fashion, and has been designing for over ten years. Underground Aristocracy currently offers a large selection of corsets for sale, and also promises that more items including bridal wear, accessories, skirts, and cats (?) will soon be available online.

I’ve been working like a dog the past few months & one of my few connections to pop culture has been my beloved TiVo.  So, after a day of conference calls & meetings, I decided to vege a bit and watch last week’s Apprentice and check out how Sepia Mutiny’s friend Toral Mehta was doing.

Now, in contrast to Raj who dished up the drama almost from the outset, Toral’s been disappointingly flying beneath the radar and laying low.   No longer - last week her fangs were unleashed and my-oh-my what snobby, elitist, east coast fangs they were.   A few choice quotes -

“I’m from Wharton …we’re really here to demonstrate work ethic and that’s a different style of thinking from those individuals who have not been trained by large corporate institutions

“I would have to say that there are a group of women here [pointing at a gaggle of laughing blondes] who have banded together based on the fact that they have no work experience.   I like them all on a personal level, I think they’re cute people if I had a secretary job or an administrative job, I’d happily hire any of these people”

Oh Boy.   Now that’s a good way inspire folks.  Note to The Toral, it’s one thing to not forget the little people as you rocketship takes off.   It’s a different thing to tell ‘em they’re little before your ship has even left the ground. 

Anna posted earlier about the IIPM affair, where a degree mill in India has pressured a blogger into leaving his job by threatening his employer, simply because they didn’t like a site he linked to.

One thing has been bothering me about this kerfuffle: we have long called for commercial boycotts, e.g. of advertisers with racist radio stations, as preferable to government regulation. At first blush it seems like the IIPM, however false their case and however toady and odious their tactics, were within their rights to threaten to protest at IBM/Lenovo.

But here’s the key difference. When we called for a boycott to get a racist DJ fired, we weren’t going after the DJ’s personal hobbies or his family. We were calling for it because of actions directly in the course of business, actively supported by the DJ’s employer.

In this case, the IIPM didn’t respond to the original article in JAM magazine directly. It didn’t talk with Gaurav Sabnis, the hobbyist blogger who merely cross-linked. It didn’t post a comment with a point by point refutation of the article. That’s what a credible response looks like.

It didn’t, in fact, backing up its assertions in any way whatsoever. Instead it went stalker by going after a completely unrelated party, his day job, his employer, and issuing filmi, melodramatic threats. Burning laptops? Please. That’s like the Indian college students who threaten self-immolation over a minor fee hike. The more nuclear and disproportionate the threat, the less credible, and IBM/Lenovo knows it.

This post is about IIPM’s deplorable, misogynistic, retaliatory attacks on Rashmi Bansal, a female blogger who runs a magazine (JAM) which gave IIPM, a B-school in India, a less than stellar review. If you’d like, you can skip the Red Hot Chili Peppers lyrics and vignette below them; Rashmi’s story commences right before the jump.

:+:

Twisting and turning
Your feelings are burning
You’re breaking the girl
She meant you no harm
Think you’re so clever
But now you must sever
You’re breaking the girl…{rhcp}

:+:

After I finished my last degree, my next step—like every other desi who didn’t feel like going to medical school or being an engineer— was law school…or so I thought. I took Kaplan, took the LSAT and took obscene amounts of time filling out applications and writing essays, like everyone else who applied to be a 1L during the 2001-2002 school year.

My heart wasn’t in it.

I refused to go unless I was accepted at a school I loved because frankly, Mr. Shankly, I didn’t need to be a lawyer (and $100k in debt) that badly.

Out of the blue, I got a scholarship to a school I had no interest in…my Mom forced me to keep an open mind and at least visit it with her when she came east for my graduation.

“Fine, Mummy. For you, I will”, I said.

The materials made the campus sound fantastic; the truth was, ‘twas a hole. I didn’t really hold it against them though— we all bullshit a little bit to make reality seem more fabulous. I’ll accept that proclivity— within limits.

Exactly a year later, when I was tending to my interns, I told them all about my experience with the law school suitor I had rejected. I felt like it was the right thing to do; almost half of them were in the process of applying themselves and a guest speaker who had graciously enriched their time with a speech was an Alum of the school I had found so hole-y. As I tried not to wince, he talked it up ridiculously. If I had had the time to blog during the summer of 2002, when I was working 70+ hour weeks, I would’ve told the world my story, in an honest, unflinching way. Aside from potentially getting flamed via comment, I wouldn’t have had anything to worry about, after posting my opinion.

Lucky me.

:+:

Rashmi Bansal, the blogger behind “Youth Curry” runs Just Another Magazine or JAM. JAM did brown youngsters in the Amma-land a favor by discussing B-schools, a topic which must be quite popular judging by my daily updates from Rediff.com, which inevitably include an article on the subject.

Here’s what JAM had to say about IIPM, a somewhat controversial school that reminds me of that sleazy guy at the bar who talks a good game— i.e. they’re full of shit. The bar-scum doesn’t have a porsche and IIPM isn’t a 10 ten school which is better than IIM, in fact IIPM has been removed from B-school rankings for misrepresenting itself. Though I’m a St. Thomas Christian, I don’t have to go to a sleazy garage to place my hands in the hole where the ultimate daily driver should be nor do I have to visit one of the “plush” IIPMs to tell you that they lied, too. Some things, you just know are true.

Every Geologist has the same macabre dream.  They want to be as close to the fault as possible when the big one hits.  Any geologist that tells you different is lying so as not to upset your sensibilities.  The first three months of this year I spent nearly every weekend camping in the rugged mountains near the San Andreas Fault while constructing a geological map of the area.  On every drive out the professor would smile devilishly and then say “maybe the Big One will hit this weekend.”

Previously I blogged about the extreme dangers of the world’s most unforgiving battlefield, high in the Siachen Glacier near the Line of Control in Kashmir (Manish followed up with some stats).  As if the hail of artillery rounds, machine-gun fire, and extreme cold weren’t enough, over the weekend the soldiers manning their outposts had to deal with a massive Earthquake almost directly beneath them.  How did those soldiers fair during the Earthquake?  That is a secret held close by both sides for good reason.  What men with guns can’t dislodge, an Earthquake can manage with ease.

ISLAMABAD: The Army General Headquarters has asked the Ministry of Water and Power to restore power to several sensitive military installations, which collapsed in the earthquake, along the Line of Control (LoC) in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), a government official told Daily Times.

The Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) was providing electricity to AJK from the Muzaffarabad Grid Station through a single point electricity provision system, while AJK Electricity Board was responsible for power distribution in the area.

The official said that the Muzaffarabad Grid Station supplied electricity to all sensitive military installations and pickets, but the earthquake has completely destroyed the system. [Link]

and on the Indian side:

Twenty-six security personnel, including 21 Army jawans, were killed and scores of others injured as the massive earthquake damaged bunkers and barracks along the Line of Control (LoC) in Baramulla, Kupwara and Poonch districts of Jammu and Kashmir today.

The Army has lost 21 soldiers due to bunkers caving in and damage to barracks along LoC in Rampur, Uri, Baramulla and Tangdhar sectors, a defence spokesman told PTI. [Link]

I blogged awhile back about the imminent release of the last film in Deepa Mehta’s elemental trilogy, Water. The film, whose shooting was forced to relocate secretly to Sri Lanka, stars Lisa Ray (Bollywood/Hollywood), Seema Biswas (Bandit Queen), and Bollywood hearthrob (and Peta Spokesman) John Abraham. It is finally making its way through the film fest circuit, recently playing to a full house at the 30th Toronto International Film Festival, and appearing at Washington D.C.s recent SALTAF. The preview screenings, and the audiences reactions’ to the film must have been great because it turns out the film will be distributed in the in the U.S.by Fox Searchlight (MongrelMedia has Canadian distribution and is set to release the film on November 4), the house that distributed wildly successful Bend It Like Beckham. What does this mean for us, the audience? We’ll actually be able to see the movie without having to travel far and wide to find the one theater in our state showing it.

View the trailer for the film here. Incidentally, those of you lucky enough to have access to Canadian Bravo will have the opportunity to catch two special episodes of Scanning the Movies, which will focus on the making of Water with part one airing on October 28 and part two on November 4.

It’s Columbus Day here in the U.S., or Indigenous People’s Day in the republic of Berkeley. Let’s toast Amerigo Vespucci and Cristóbal Colón: the former for lending his name to the continent, the latter for one of the biggest geographic cockups of all time.

As we all know, Columbus was horndoggin’ it to the land of mirch masala. Like some lecherous old geezer, he ran across a couple of prepubescent bumps in the sea and mistook them for the Himalayas. Always happy to compound a mistake, he then foundered upon the continental shelf and called its inhabitants Indians.

Contrary to popular belief, most educated individuals in the 15th century, and especially sailors, already knew that the earth was round. What was not realized by Columbus, however, was just how big a globe it was. Columbus seriously underestimated the size of the planet. [Link]

He believed the peaks of Cuba were the Himalayas of India, which gives one a sense of just how lost he was… [Link]

Not just bad at math, he was a poor businessman to boot. You’d think he’d notice they had no jewels, silk or spices. And hello, no turbans? It apparently didn’t occur to him to ask the Arawak what they called themselves. No wonder Rome fell — the Italiano was Mr. Magoo playing with sailboats in a bathtub.

We live in the United States of HenryBecause of Columbo, we suffer the same irritation as when someone nabs our handle on Gmail. We suffer the same pain as being given a dorky nickname that stuck. We’re not Indians here but rather East Indians, we’re all Oriya here. We’re not Asians but rather South Asians, running on IST relative to the Chinese. We’re Asian Indians, dot not feather. Searching the card catalog at research libraries sucks. We did not get a neat moniker like As-Am. We’re stuck with rickety contraptions like South Asian American or Asian Indian American or just fuckin’ desi, yaar.

I hate paying so much at the pump but I am glad that the current gas shortage has stabbed a dagger into the heart of SUV sales.  It also seems like every other day there is a news story about someone tinkering with their engines, or the battery array in their hybrids, to get more juice for the buck.  Sometimes innovation still does take place in the trenches.  Popular Science tells the story of Somender Singh and his relentless pursuit of perfection:

India is booming. The expanding population has overwhelmed the Bangalore-Mysore road the way a river floods its banks, and the flow of two-way traffic is choked with a living history of human transportation. There are belching herds of diesel trucks, diesel buses and iron-framed diesel tractors. There are wooden-wheeled carts pulled by brightly painted Brahma bulls, and two-stroke-motor rickshaws fueled by kerosene or cooking oil or whatever else is flammable and cheap. There are mopeds and bipeds and bicycles and motorcycles, and every conceivable type of petrol-powered, internally combusting automobile, from doddering Ambassador cabs to gleaming 16-valve Mercedes miracles. But there’s only one car like the one Somender Singh and I are riding in right now.

That’s because Singh invented it. Or rather, reinvented a piece of it: a small detail on the engine that he calls “direct drive.” He claims that his invention makes an engine cleaner, quieter and colder than its internal-combustion cousins around the world—while using up to 20 percent less gas.

“Some people say to me, ‘Singh, why are you wasting your time on such a thing?’” he yells, his singsong Indian English barely piping above the tooting traffic. “But I tell you sir—I tell the world: I have conquered the internal combustion engine!”

To hear Singh tell it, his story has all the makings of a Bollywood movie, a classic heartwarmer about a small-fry Indian grease monkey who challenges the big boys armed only with a dream and a dirty wrench. And there’s no doubt that he has come up with something new, at least in the eyes of the U.S. Patent Office. But has a potbellied philosopher- mechanic from Mysore really discovered the efficiency El Dorado sought by every auto manufacturer, R&D center and thermal engineer from Detroit to Darmstadt?

Geez.  Does every story out of India have the makings of a Bollywood movie?  We could get 6-fingered Hritik Roshan to play Singh and the story can play up the fact that his extra finger allowed mechanical modifications not capable by lesser men.  Still, Singh does lead the life that every engineer secretly dreams of.  He is a fearless tinkerer who doesn’t accept that good ideas are only born in the R&D labs of large companies.  The majority of the article actually focuses on his utter frustration in getting noticed.  Heads of state, large automobile companies…nobody will listen to the man.

Well, this is delightfully unexpected. A technology support services company called SlashSupport just announced that it’s outsourcing—to America. Yummy globalization.

Here’s information from the press release, via SAJA’s email discussion list:

SlashSupport, the technology support services company announced today the opening of a new support center in San Jose, California. It is SlashSupport’s sixth center (adding to its existing four locations in India and a redundancy center in Singapore). SlashSupport is a part of Cybernet Software Systems ( CSS ) Group.

SlashSupport’s core support delivery backbone at India employs over 2000 representatives, at four distinct support centers spread across 180,000 sq. ft. in Chennai, India.

This might only be the beginning?

The new San Jose support center will help SlashSupport meet some of the local support needs in providing complete range of support services, significantly strengthening its support infrastructure outside India. Depending on the needs of the business, SlashSupport has the option of expanding its North America operations.

Jason Alexander, erstwhile-Costanza and current…um…outsourcing guru was unavailable for comment.

Harriet Miers, the latest SCOTUS nominee, is involved with a Texas-based missionary church which trolls for souls in Madhya Pradesh (via SAJA):

… [Harriet Miers’] longtime congregation [is] Valley View Christian Church in Dallas… She also served on the missions committee and took a deep interest in its programs in central India, according to minister Barry McCarty, inviting him and an Indian mission director to lunch at the White House last March. Miers also served on the board of Pioneer Bible Translators, which has missions worldwide… [Link]

McCarty serves on the board of Central India Christian Mission, which was meeting in Washington, D.C., in March. Miers knew of the meeting, and hosted McCarty and missionary Ajai Lall for lunch at the White House. [Link]

The Central India Christian Mission is part of the Texan-xtian nexus:

The primary task of the mission is evangelism and church planting… It is the need of the hour to train the native leaders in India as much as possible. The Mission Center… is located on about 15 acres of land in Damoh District of Central Province [Madhya Pradesh], India. [Link]

The missionaries, Indu and Ajai Lall and their Bible college-trained brood, are apparently the Johnny Appleseeds of Indian churches

Over 400 churches have been planted in central and northern India, in the country of Nepal and along the northeast India/Bhutan border. [Link - PDF]

There I was, shivering in the winds of the great plains, trying to figure out how, exactly, the Mutineers were going to haze me. Downing a glass of sweet and salty lime water to calm my fluttery stomach, I tried to imagine the worst. Would Abhi race me in rappelling down the face of the North Dakota headquarters? Perhaps Vinod and Manish might make me read aloud from the works of Ayn Rand while standing on one leg? Might Anna challenge me to a literary write-off?  Could Sajit make me play some hyped up diasporic version of the Filmigame? Perhaps in the mountain headquarters’ darkened corridors, Ennis would torment me with a tantalizing, mirrored glimpse of a single eye, stirring up Sepia speculation about the rest of his mysterious visage. 

Somehow, all these were not so scary. The Ig Nobel prize post, however, reminded me of last year’s peace prize—and the dreaded combination of Karaoke and Antakshari. What could possibly be worse than being made to perform in public like that?

Except, I suppose, that’s what blogging is. Hey, look at me, I’ve got something to say. Well, might as well make it an entertaining group activity. If I had to describe the culture of the South-Asian American community in a single sentence, I might very well hit on this: We’re very supportive—perhaps too supportive—of our children’s performance-related self-esteem. It only takes two or three Diwali shows with a hundred klutzy butterballs bouncing around the stage, adorably off-beat, to realize that we start drinking in theater with our mothers’ milk. This season brings a fresh batch. 

I am going to keep this intro short and sweet since her reputation precedes her (I mean the clean version of her reputation of course).  We took Saheli snipe hunting in the woods near our North Dakota HQ last night as a way to haze her in to the family.  We were just going to let her wander around out there for hours as we drove off.  The joke of course is that there is no such thing as a "snipe."    Or so we thought.  Saheli once again demonstrated her encyclopedic knowledge by telling us the entire history of the snipe on our way into the field.  She even had pictures of seven species of snipe in her purse.  Ennis and I just turned the SMobile back toward HQ after that.  We decided to go the more traditional paddle-spanking route.

May I present to you the newest guest blogger, Saheli...

Sulanga Enu Pinisa (The Forsaken Land), the Sri Lankan film that won the prestigious Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, has apparently been withdrawn from screening in Sri Lanka (second article down).  The film opened on September 9, but was removed from Sri Lanka’s five main theaters by the National Film Corporation of Sri Lanka on September 20th.  The director and producer of the film then requested that the movie be withdrawn from the country’s remaining theaters in protest. 

While the Film Corporation claims that the film was withdrawn due to poor box office performance, the director of the film, Vimukthi Jayasundara, argues that it is a form of “unofficial censorship.”  According to the BBC Sinhala Website, the film was criticized by a senior officer of the Sri Lankan Navy:

Rear Admiral Weerasekera on September 25th in an article in the Sunday ‘Divaina’ has said that film producers should be labelled as terrorists and hanged.

The Sri Lankan media watchdog Free Media Movement additionally claims that Army officials made veiled threats against Sri Lankan filmmakers critical of the ongoing ethnic conflict:

An article published in an English language daily on 14 September 2005 indicated that films by prominent directors such as Asoka Handagama, Prasanna Vithanage, Sudath Mahaadivulwewa and Vimukthi Jayasundara have been labelled “new terrorism” and “foreign funded cinema” in statements attributed to a military spokesperson.

Articles written by military and political leaders criticizing anti-war films as propaganda for separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have started to appear in mainstream newspapers.

In a meeting between two of the filmmakers and high military officials that took place subsequent to the publication of these articles, where they were asked whether they were willing to make films for military propaganda, the filmmakers were told that if war breaks out again they will face repercussions.

 

An Asian-American college student cries brutha-on-brutha violence:

Who are Asian girls dating? Whites and South AsiansIn one of the discussion classes I taught last year at Berkeley, half of the Asian girls in the room stated that they do not prefer to date Asian men… who are they dating?… The most obvious [answer was] white men… The second most common answer from the girls was Indian men (South Asians).

… their responses centered around… economic status and physical attractiveness… the Asian girls said that both white men and Indian men in our society (especially here at Berkeley) were viewed as successful, intelligent, and confident….

… the girls said that they found these two groups of men to be physically attractive… My conjecture in this case would be that both groups tend to share the same sharp features (Greco-Roman noses/eyes) that the media tends to value.

… Asian women are “up for grabs”… Asian men are getting the axe on two levels here. First, they are only seen as being able to date their own kind… At the same time, their own kind, at an increasing rate, tends not to prefer them sexually. [Link]

… the Asian male as sexually impotent voyeur or pervert is a reoccuring icon, appearing throughout American cultural history and especially in film. Notable examples of this include Mickey Rooney in “yellowface” as the bucktoothed Japanese landlord who sneaks peeps at Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) or the pathetically asexual nerd Long Duk Dong in John Hughes’ adolescent classic Sixteen Candles (1984). [Link]

 

A big earthquake epicentered in Kashmir hit northern India and Pakistan around 8:50 am local time. At 7.6 on the Richter scale, it’s bigger than the California quake of ‘89 (7.1) which took down the upper deck of the Bay Bridge and sent cars plunging into the ocean.

A powerful earthquake centered in the Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan on Saturday morning sent tremors across South Asia, killing more than 18,000 people… [Link]

The quake in Kashmir had a magnitude of at least 7.6. The epicentre was 80km (50 miles) north-east of Islamabad…

Two buildings of the Margalla Towers residential complex collapsed in [Islamabad]… there is a small hill of broken concrete over which and under which rescue workers are desperately trying to dig out survivors… In Indian-administered Kashmir, 157 civilians and 15 soldiers are confirmed dead and more than 600 people injured. [Link]

Qaiser Abbas, a receptionist in the building, said he was sitting in his office when the building suddenly began to shake. ”After five seconds, I heard big sound, and then about 40 apartments collapsed,” he said. He said some of the residents were foreigners, including Westerners and Central Asians. The building is in an upscale neighborhood of Islamabad…

”It was so strong that I saw buildings swaying. It was terrifying,” said Hari Singh, a guard in an apartment complex in the New Delhi suburb of Noida. Hundreds of residents there raced down from their apartments after their beds and couches started shaking. [AP]

Over the past year, whenever the topic of books comes up, I grab whomever I am speaking to by the collar and hiss just one word: “Stiff.”  You have to read this book.  This is quite ironic since the person who finally gave me the book for my birthday tried unsuccessfully for about 6 months to get me to buy it on my own.  Who the hell would want to read a book about dead bodies?  The full title, “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadaver,” is an entire book of non-fiction that pays homage (through use of a unique and witty brand of dark humor) to the unlikeliest of heroes:  the human cadaver (see previous SM post).  SM tipster Shailaja informs me that the author, Mary Roach, is following up her brilliant book with the most logical sequel possible.  The New York Times reviews SPOOK: Science Tackles the Afterlife:

Mary Roach’s journey into the occult takes her to as many strange places as she can scare up. Having written a humorous book about corpses (“Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers”), Ms. Roach has now ventured one step further into the unknown. On this new journey, she is supposedly searching for answers to life’s great questions about the migration of the soul. But readers of “Stiff” know what to expect: the author is looking for quacks.

Those quacks are sitting ducks for Ms. Roach’s fine-tuned sense of the absurd. So Ms. Roach studies ectoplasm, notes that it looks like woven material and learns of a researcher who in 1921 asked of disembodied spirits: “Have you a loom in your world?”

She visits India to look for firsthand evidence that spirits return. (This trip was worth it for the chapter title alone. It is called “You Again: A Visit to the Reincarnation Nation.”) She finds scientists who have identified the weight lost by a dying person and notes that a recent movie title used the metric version of that figure, “21 Grams.” (“Who’s going to go see a movie called ‘Point Seven Five Ounces’?” she asks.) She cites two Dutch physicists, J. L. W. P. Matla and G. J. Zaalberg van Zelst, and notes that one worked with a Ouija board. She hopes that “the question ‘What is my full name and that of my partner?’ was never posed.” And she digs up the fact that Elizabeth Taylor claimed to have had a near-death experience but was sent back to the land of the living by one of her husbands, Mike Todd, then adds: “Whether this was done for her benefit or his is not clear.”

I can’t wait.  Each chapter in Stiff can be read almost as an independent essay.  I assume she will follow this model for Spook as well.

In “The Ordinances of Manu,” a legal text based on Vedic scripture that dates to A.D. 500, she finds that a rogue Brahman may be forced to reincarnate as “the ghost Ulkamukha, an eater of vomit.”

Yes, I know.  That is probably an unnecessarily provocative title.  Still, it is a provocative issue I am about to broach.  Dave Sidhu at DNSI highlights a new report by UK Migration