Sajit shredded Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World as being unfunny and culturally inastute. I come bearing a lukewarm defense: having seen the movie, it is much better than its trailer and is on balance good for the South Asian brand launch.

The main flaw of the movie, a simple-minded farce, is that it’s done by Albert Brooks. Brooks is the Jewish Bill Cosby, his character a throwback, a Mr. Smith Goes to Delhi; his humor is suburban, family-friendly, with all its edges rounded off. The centerpiece of the movie is a comedy show Brooks performs in Delhi, funny to neither the Indians on-screen nor the American audience off-. He does have some choice one-liners, though none stray beyond the safety of stereotype (he gets neither green M&M’s nor a greenroom in Delhi). Even the inevitable outsourcing jokes happen only as background chatter. It isn’t insightful, but for the most part it isn’t brain-dead or offensive either.Sheetal Sheth plays a clueless, shiny-haired chipmunk. I couldn’t decide whether to smack her or take her home

You also get a Brooksian touch like Sheetal Sheth’s character, a wide-eyed naïf. Sheth plays the role like a shiny-haired chipmunk with saucer eyes and a bottomless supply of perk and oblivion. She’s Clueless in Connaught Place; I couldn’t decide whether to smack her or take her home. Sheth gets second billing in the credits. My college buddy Shaheen Sheik also got two brief closeups; it’s always cool seeing someone I went to school with.

The central elision is intact, India is not the center of the Muslim world, and the exculpatory hand wave fails even on screen. But the India-Pakistan subplot is cute in a Sleeper kind of way. And in one witty riff, the sitar on the score switches from desi ishtyle to ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business.’

There are some cultural oddities about the script. Brooks is way overdressed in formal sherwanis for a day at the office. A Native American teepee makes a baffling appearance and leaves you wondering whether exposition was cut from the script; it’s not Brooks’ style to make you think. The Iranian boyfriend’s accent sounds like a cat in a blender, the unhappy coincidence of an inflated resume (‘Dialects: Hindi’) and actually landing the role. Sheth’s own accent is painfully inexact, but you get used to it as the movie wears on. At least they’re attempting Indian accents (Casanova: the Venezians speak in British accents? Really?).

The Washington Post reports on news that is music to my ears. Scientists AND “big business” are actually joining forces for a cause that they know to be important:

Business and science groups are reviving images of the Cold War space race in an effort to persuade lawmakers to spend millions to recruit and train high-caliber math teachers.

They argue that, just as a stronger focus on math helped the United States top the Soviet Sputnik launch by putting a man on the moon, the country needs to improve math education to win an economic race with China and India and a national security race against terrorism…

“The interesting sort of difference in the dynamic then and the dynamic now is that we were competing with a military threat, whereas now it’s much more an economic threat,” said Susan Traiman, an education and work force policy lobbyist for the Business Roundtable. [Link]

Many groups have been sounding this alarm bell for a while now, but nobody listens. From 2002:

The U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st Century warns, “The harsh fact is that the U.S. need for the highest quality human capital in science, mathematics, and engineering is not being met… We not only lack the homegrown science, technology, and engineering professionals necessary to ensure national prosperity and security, but also the next generation of teachers of science and math at the K-12 level… The nation is on the verge of a downward spiral in which current shortages will beget even more acute future shortages of high-quality professionals and competent teachers.”

According to the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), student science scores for grades 4 and 8 are flat and there has been a slight decline in scores for grade 12 since the assessment was last administered in 1996. Furthermore, 84 percent of science teachers and 86 percent of mathematics teachers in grades 5-8 did not major in science or mathematics. This report further underscores the need for reform and investment in math and science education, particularly at a time when our economy, national security and technological advances are heavily dependent on the quality of our future workforce. [Link]

Most news outlets have been covering the serious injuries sustained by ABC news anchor Bob Woodruff, and his camera-man Doug Vogt. Soldiers in Iraq get killed by IEDs every day, but it is much more “in your living room” when it happens to a guy who’s whose face is actually in your living room every night.

“While Mr. Woodruff, 44, faces months of recovery and the full extent of his injuries are not yet known, Colonel Tellez said he could imagine him going back to work someday as a broadcast journalist. ‘He has a very good chance,’ Colonel Tellez said.

The cameraman, Doug Vogt, who was not as severely injured by the explosion, was ‘awake a lot, and talking to family and friends,’ said Marie Shaw, a spokeswoman for Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. [Link]

Another person that was with both Woodruff and Vogt in Iraq, but who doesn’t get any camera time, is ABC News producer Vinnie Malhotra.

Just before the C-17 jet lifted off early Monday from Balad Air Base near Baghdad, an ABC Television News producer, Vinnie Malhotra, stood somberly to the side as doctors and nurses strapped his colleagues and friends Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt in for the five-hour flight.

“They’re hanging in there,” said a subdued Malhotra, who was working with Woodruff and Vogt when they were seriously wounded by a roadside bomb Sunday in Iraq. [Link]

In a poignant report on Monday’s “World News Tonight,” ABC News said that after the attack Woodruff asked his producer, Vinnie Malhotra: “Am I alive?”[Link]

A quick search reveals that Emmy nominated Malhotra has been right there in the thick of things, having spent months reporting from Afghanistan, in addition to Iraq. Much respect. If I hadn’t pursued the line of work that I am pursuing, than I can’t think of a job I’d rather have than reporting from a war zone.

Growing up in what was initially a one-TV household, I was often forced to watch what my mom and sister were watching. From the 3-4 slot, this usually meant a heavy dose of Luke and Laura, Edward and Lila, Frisco and Felicia, and Tony and Bobby. For those of you that I know what I am talking about, we were General Hospital addicts. I hate to admit it, but I knew I had a problem when I started referring to it as GH, and would have conversations, that to anyone not familiar with the soap, would seem like jibber-jabber. I finally kicked my soap habit my sophomore year after studying abroad and now of course, work thankfully gets in the way. But when tipster Noelle (and all the other SM tipsters) informed us awhile back that television’s newest soap opera Passions was going Bollywood, I thought why couldn’t GH do that? Anyway, we over here at SM headquarters apologize for not mentioning this earlier, but most of the mutineers aren’t usually home to watch the show during the day, and for that reason we also wanted to wait for a video clip of the Bollywood item to be available before posting. So, now that the clip is available, you can find the video here. More information on the shoot, the clothes, the song, the choreography, and the video is available here. (The video only opens up in MS Explorer.) From what I gather from my five minute perusal of the show clips, the Bollywood triangle involves three characters: Ethan, Gwen, and Theresa. Gwen is scared of Theresa’s attempts to lure Ethan away from her, and convinces Ethan to travel with her to India so they could renew their vows. This is where the dance number begins and then turns into full on Bollywood melodrama. Featuring an ensemble cast of desi background dancers, Gwen and Ethan’s impending infinite bliss, and romp around the tree of life (I have no idea what that is about) is interrupted by the appearence of temptress Theresa in a ‘minimalist’ version of a sari and a black veil.

Keep an eye out for Rani Karnik, a NYC lawyer auditioning for the new season of American Idol who saves some money by reusing her Halloween costume:

In law school, she was president of an org which bears the best name ever:

I’m a lawyer by day, actor by night. [Link]

My Extracurricular Activities at Penn Law: President, South Asian Law Students Association (“SALSA”)… Prior Education: 2000, B.A. in English… Columbia University… [Link]

She also does voiceover work, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the photo, in which she’s apparently advertising an ottoman. She’s a disciple of Vanna White’s Path of the Open Hand, horizontal variation.

Related post: American Idol bhangra remix, South Asian crooners belt it out on ‘Idol’, Devika Mathur — one Righteous sister, Can an American Idol save a Bombay dream

Last January I posted a link to an online test that you can take, which supposedly reveals if you have even a subconscious racial bias. One of the researchers conducting the study was Harvard’s Mahzarin Banaji. Banaji and her colleagues have just revealed results from their latest set of experiments which, if true, corroborates what many of us have suspected about politics. I love a bit of controversy on a Monday. From the Washington Post:

The field of social psychology has long been focused on how social environments affect the way people behave. But social psychologists are people, too, and as the United States has become increasingly politically polarized, they have grown increasingly interested in examining what drives these sharp divides: red states vs. blue states; pro-Iraq war vs. anti-Iraq war; pro-same-sex marriage vs. anti-same-sex marriage. And they have begun to study political behavior using such specialized tools as sophisticated psychological tests and brain scans…

Emory University psychologist Drew Westen put self-identified Democratic and Republican partisans in brain scanners and asked them to evaluate negative information about various candidates. Both groups were quick to spot inconsistency and hypocrisy — but only in candidates they opposed.

When presented with negative information about the candidates they liked, partisans of all stripes found ways to discount it, Westen said. When the unpalatable information was rejected, furthermore, the brain scans showed that volunteers gave themselves feel-good pats — the scans showed that “reward centers” in volunteers’ brains were activated. The psychologist observed that the way these subjects dealt with unwelcome information had curious parallels with drug addiction as addicts also reward themselves for wrong-headed behavior.

Another study presented at the conference, which was in Palm Springs, Calif., explored relationships between racial bias and political affiliation by analyzing self-reported beliefs, voting patterns and the results of psychological tests that measure implicit attitudes — subtle stereotypes people hold about various groups.

That study found that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.

Not so fast, say a few expected critics.

Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said he disagreed with the study’s conclusions but that it was difficult to offer a detailed critique, as the research had not yet been published and he could not review the methodology. He also questioned whether the researchers themselves had implicit biases — against Republicans — noting that Nosek and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji had given campaign contributions to Democrats.

Desperate to lock up oil supplies and fresh off a smarting Central Asian oil field loss to China, India has signed a deal with Saudi Arabia:

India and Saudi Arabia have signed a deal to develop a strategic energy partnership and have agreed to “fight the menace of terrorism” together… The deal promises to provide India with a “reliable, stable and increased volume” of crude oil supplies…

Saudi Arabia currently supplies nearly 175 million barrels of crude oil a year - a quarter of India’s oil needs. India imports 70% of its supplies and is currently exploring fresh supplies from Central Asia to South America. [Link]

Meanwhile, the Saudi government continues to fund madrassas in Pakistan which churn out militants for Al-Qaeda and Kashmir:

Since the1980s, Pakistan’s education ministry has depended solely on the tuition-free madrassa system of religious education, funded by Saudi Arabia and other orthodox Sunnis, to see a large number of poor Pakistani children get to school. The theocratic education of Pakistan’s orthodox madrassas was tailored to produce the leaders of the Taliban movement. The madrassas also produced the Sunni militants and others who protected the anti-American Taliban and al-Qaeda militants… [Asia Times - author also writes for Indian defense publications]

Zahidullah, 31, a grad student in Islamic law at the Bahrul Uloom madrassa in Pakistan’s northern mountains, boasts of how many recruits he has gained for the outlawed Kashmiri guerrilla force Harkatul Mujahedin: “Many youths here are anxious to join the jihad when I tell them stories of our heroic Islamic resistance against Indian aggression…”

In recent months, thousands of young Afghan men have swarmed to madrassas just inside Pakistan… On the Afghan side, meanwhile, the influx of madrassa students and graduates has helped to produce Taliban battle units as large as 100 fighters, where a year ago the guerrillas were mustering squads of barely a half-dozen men. [Link]

The madrassas are popular because the military-controlled government spends far more on bombs than brains:

… Pakistan desperately needs its madrassas. Without them, an estimated 1.5 million young Pakistanis would get no formal education at all. According to a recent analysis by the U.S. Agency for International Development, Pakistan spends only 2.2 percent of its GDP on public education, the tiniest share for any country in South or Southeast Asia. [Link]

Lunar / “Asian” New Years is always an occasion for me to reflect on how different South (brown) Asians are from East and Southeast (yellow) Asians. However, there is an area in which we, apparently, are a mix of both African/European and East Asian genotypes. The area in question is earwax:

Earwax comes in two types, wet and dry. The wet form predominates in Africa and Europe, where 97 percent or more of people have it, and the dry form among East Asians. The populations of South and Central Asia are roughly half and half. [Link]

This is evidence, apparently, of some yellow in the woodpile:

The dry form, the researchers say, presumably arose later in northern Asia, because they detected it almost universally in their tests of northern Han Chinese and Koreans. The dry form becomes less common in southern Asia, probably because the northerners with the dry earwax gene intermarried with southern Asians carrying the default wet earwax gene. [Link]

There must have been a lot of intermarriage if half the populations of South Asia have the East Asian gene. It turns out that the earwax gene is also related to that other, oh so polite topic of conversation, body odor:

Since it seems unlikely that having wet or dry earwax could have made much difference to an individual’s fitness, the earwax gene may have some other, more important function. Dr. Yoshiura and his colleagues suggest that the gene would have been favored because of its role in sweating. They write that earwax type and armpit odor are correlated, since populations with dry earwax, such as those of East Asia, tend to sweat less and have little or no body odor, while the wet earwax populations of Africa and Europe sweat more and so may have more body odor. [Link]

This would imply that half of all South Asians sweat little and have little B.O. Having recently ridden the Delhi metro, my question is … where are they ?

One of Sepia Mutiny’s signatures is our revolving banners. Back when Abhi first proposed a desi group blog, we pretty quickly figured out the overall theme on the writing side. But, interestingly enough, the banners took more rounds of discussion, trial & error to nail down — in part cuz too many of us were budding artistes / advertising impressarios but also cuz we recognized that the banners greatly shape the overall emotional tone of the site.

Our / my goal with the banners was sorta summarized in this old email conversation w/ the other proto-mutineers -

The logo needs to be dirt simple, pref monochromatic and scale well w/ size…. my ideal example is the Absolut Vodka bottle. In one of the many posts that went back and forth between me / Kiran & the Absolut Vodka company [re: the] Mulit ad, the Absolut folks said that the key to thier ad campaign was to extend the theme of Absolut as the “universal cultural observer” on behalf of the viewer. The Absolut bottle bonds w/ the ad viewer by showing the viewer an interpretation of an otherwise familiar / interesting scene.

Sepia Mutiny[’s banners] could be the same thing….

How about just locking / loading on a single, stylized font and then printing that font in diff colors across diff desi themed picts?

Now, back in the day, banners were mostly made by SM staff (esp. Manish) although we did have a round of submissions from a few friends of the blog.

Recently, however, we received an extraordinarily beautiful set of banners submitted by Sank of EthnoTechno which totally captured the spirit. As we learned at the NYC meetup, Sank’s a designer by trade and his eye for layout, color, and detail are readily apparent in these images. A few of his submissions are below -

Muhammad Ali and Shabana Azmi

Honorees Ali, Azmi, Michael Douglas, Gilberto Gil

… veteran actress Shabana Azmi has been honoured by the World Economic forum… at Davos in Switzerland. The Bollywood actor was honoured with the prestigious Crystal Award… alongside Hollywood actor Michael Douglas. The honour places Shabana in the league of… Paulo Coelho, Peter Gabriel, Richard Gere and Nikita Mikhalkov, who have won the award in previous years. [Link]

See more photos.

Related post: Browns take over Davos

Distraught after a marital tiff, an Oriya man took to a tree 15 years ago and remains there to this day:

That’ll show her

Kapila Pradhan, 45, a resident of Nagajhara village in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, left home after an apparent tiff with his wife… “However no amount of coaxing can make him leave his tree house…”

He recalls the terrifying moments when it rained persistently and the other trees in the forest fell one by one… However, more than the cyclone, it was the threat posed by wild elephants and monkeys that forced him to move to a tree closer to the edge of the forest, near a village…

His neighbours say Kapila’s wife, Tulasi, began having “illicit relations” with his younger brother Babuan. Soon after Kapila left home, Babuan moved in with Tulasi and they had a child a few years later. [Link]

The tree- or cave-dwelling renouncer of the world is, of course, a recurring theme in old-skool Hinduism. Here’s an excerpt from Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai. Life imitates art imitating life:

… in the old orchard outside Shahkot, someone had climbed a tree and had not yet come back down… The man, he said, would answer no questions… ‘Arrange a marriage for him… You will have no further problems…’

Sampath looked down at the veiled woman standing underneath his tree and felt hot and horrified… The devotees raised the girl’s rigid, unwilling form into the tree… She was encased in layers of shiny material, like a large, expensive toffee. The cloth billowed about her, making her look absurdly stout… Her sari was pulled over her head and she held the edge of it between her teeth so as to keep as much of her face modestly covered as possible…

… the girl let out a faint cry. Losing her balance and her gold slippers, she tumbled indecorously towards the ground… and landed with a dull thump…

The signs for marriage were not auspicious. [Link]

Related post: ‘The Inheritance of Loss’

Now that some kind soul has reopened Anna’s post on “A Suitable Boy”, I’ll use it as a segue to write a post about a few lightweight Indian books published recently.

Siddharth Chowdhury’s Patna Roughcut is an edgy, cynical take on the life of Ritwik Ray, a young journalist in Patna. Patna Roughcut uses a fractured narrative to trace the events and people that shape Ritwik’s life - from his childhood in Patna, to Delhi where he goes to college, and then his return to Patna with dreams of writing a book. It “is a story of love, idealism and sexual awakening” - a refreshingly different theme for a desi book. Chowdhury’s prose is delightfully unadorned - the rough, untrammelled writing is just what a book like this requires. This is by far the best book out of India I’ve read in a long, long, long time.

Chandrahas Choudhury, in his review at The Middle Stage says

… the last section of the book, “Waiting for Godard”, is one of the very best pieces of extended prose I’ve read this year. […] Patna Roughcut is worth your money just for this section alone. [Link]

First of all, let me say Kung Hay Fat Choy to all of our readers. Today marks the beginning of the Year of the Dog. The Washington Post has what I thought to be a very illustrative article on what holidays like the Chinese New Year mean to politicians who want the Asian American vote:

Most Maryland voters probably didn’t realize that Asian Americans were celebrating New Year’s yesterday, but Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan marks the date on his calendar every year.

Duncan, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, crisscrossed Montgomery yesterday, attending two Lunar New Year celebrations and a gathering to commemorate the anniversary of India becoming a republic, on Jan. 26, 1950.

For Duncan and other elected officials, showing up at these events is part of a strategy to reach out to immigrants whose political influence remains relatively untested statewide even though their numbers are growing rapidly…

Pollsters and political consultants say it will probably be a few years before foreign-born residents are major factors in statewide elections. But candidates this year aren’t taking any chances. [Link]

So the picture remains the same. If you want the vote of immigrants from Asia (including South Asia), and the support of even some of their American-raised children, you don’t have to answer for any of your general policies, many of which might actually affect them pretty significantly. All you have to do is make a show of the fact that you respect their former nation and some of their traditions. It is a total waste of political power in my opinion, given the increased importance of our votes.

Meet one of California’s most recent Indian American residents. Her name is Lali and she weighs about 180 lbs. MSNBC reports:

A “darling girl” named Lali stuck close to her mom but greeted other adults with curiosity during her first public outing this week.

The two-month-old rare Indian rhinoceros made her debut at San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park Thursday after spending her first eight weeks in a private enclosure to allow bonding time with her first-time mother, Gari.

“She immediately was exploring meeting the other Indian rhinos, but most of the time she kept close to mom,” said park spokeswoman Yadira Galindo.

Zoo officials are keeping mum as to whether or not Lali’s mom has already arranged for a suitable alliance with the family of a young male rhino for when Lali comes of age. The San Diego Zoo community has long since cracked down on the practice of dowries so we thankfully won’t have to worry about Lali selling her horn to raise money.

Am I the only one that didn’t know that India even had rhinos? I mean, I always hear about tigers in India (like many I’ve been on a tiger safari there), and everyone knows about the elephants, but I just can’t remember a time when I have heard about an encounter between Indian villagers and a rhino.

The Indian rhino formerly occurred from the foothills of the Hindu Kush in Pakistan, across the sub-Himalayan region, to the India-Myanmar border on the eastern edge of the Brahmaputra watershed. By the late 19th century, the Indian rhino had been eliminated from everywhere except the Chitwan Valley (Nepal), lowland Bhutan, the Teesta Valley (west Bengal, India) and the Brahmaputra Valley (Assam, India). For most of the 20th century, known populations have been concentrated in southern Nepal and northeastern India. [Link]

Of course, as with most megafauna, the Indian rhino’s days appear to be numbered.

Lali, which means “darling girl” in Hindi, is one of about 2,550 Indian rhinos in the world, 150 of which are in parks and zoos. The species is considered critically endangered because of human encroachment on its native habitats in India and Nepal and because the rhinos have been poached for their horns, which some believe have medicinal value.

Chennai these days is littered with hoardings.The large ones have all been taken up by advertisements for saree stores and cell phones, and so the quirky ads have been relegated to occupying the small amount of space on top of bus shelters. Once such advertisement that is all over the city is for a brand of cooking oil, featuring a rather healthy looking film actress suggesting mysteriously that for a healthy life, people should practise oil-pulling. I was consumed by questions. Pulling oil? From where? Is it fun?

Unable to bear the anxiety, I asked my dad what in the world oil-pulling was and he handed me a magazine that featured a six page advertisement on the benefits of oil-pulling therapy. That’s right, therapy. And it is not fun.

The advertisement was not really an advertisement. It was a study on the benefits of oil-pulling commissioned by the oil manufacturer and conducted by a doctor who was featured on the front page of the spread. The results of the study can be summarized thus:

A group of people were asked to take a couple of teaspoons of pure, unadulterated sesame oil, and pour into into their respective mouths. After this, they were asked to swirl the oil in their mouths for a period of fifteen to twenty minutes. Care had to be taken to suck the oil through their teeth.

Eww. The ad continues.

Tawk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic.

The Mutiny is neither mute nor tiny, discuss.

Fine, you want that I should give you another topic? Discuss what’s…below. ;)

Yeah, I’ll BET it’s “easy to take home”. Oh, it’s just too easy to keep going with this…[Thanks, Dinesh]

A few weeks back several news sites reported that the Grammy Awards next month will feature a performance by an Indian American pop singer (who I had never heard of) named Reggie Benjamin:

Keep your eyes above the waist please.

Pop singer Reggie Benjamin, the first Indian American to win a Hollywood deal, is all set to perform at the Grammy awards next month.

Benjamin, who has also filmed a music video in Hugh Heffner’s fabulous Playboy Mansion, said his success was a lucky coincidence, coming as it did with an increasing American interest in Bollywood.

“Suddenly, it is cool to be Indian,” Benjamin, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, told IANS.

To become a Hollywood pop singer was an unusual career choice for Benjamin who was studying to be a chemical engineer. His persistence paid off when he was signed on by music industry mogul Kerry Gordy. [Link]

Here is the thing though. I can’t find any mention of an impending Grammy performance by Benjamin, either at the Grammys website, or his own. Diligent readers, am I missing something? Is this some kind of scam? You can check out some of Benjamin’s music here.

What I do know however is that an Indian Buddhist monk named Ngawang Tashi Bapu is nominated for a Grammy in the ‘Best Traditional Music Category,’ and that the Grammy website backs it up:

Devotion his sole purpose, he chants for the ideal he reveres. And now this Buddhist lama’s divine melodies have transcended the walls of his monastery in the remote Dahung township of Arunachal Pradesh to bring peace to audiences far away in the West.

Ngawang Tashi Bapu, who has been nominated for a Grammy in the ‘Best Traditional Music Category’, says he is surprised. “But when it is fate, you cannot avert it,” he told The Indian Express over the telephone from Dahung. ”I consider myself lucky.”…

Popularly known as Lama Tashi, the 38-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monk is based at the Centre for Himalayan Culture and Studies at Dahung, about 350 km from here…

Finding an eager reception in the US, the Lama’s chants are collected in Tibetan Master Chants, a CD produced by US-based author Jonathan Goldman, who has written the book, Healing Sounds. [Link]

I can’t help but wonder what the video would look like if Lama Tashi and not Benjamin had filmed his music video at the Playboy mansion.

Been WAY too busy to write up detailed notes since the NYC meetup last weekend (since NYC, I’ve been in San Diego, Kansas City, SF and am on my way to Hawaii & Barcelona over the next 2 weeks - work can be a beeyatch sometimes).

Manish trying to hide his obvious jealousy of Anna…

Last Saturday’s NYC meetup was the largest meetup so far (~25ish people over the course of the afternoon) and brought in a lot of new blood, new bloggers, lurkers and almost pulled in a few anonymous patrons at Kati Roll.

The effervescent Jane of All Trades (who, BTW is currently reading one of my recent fav books - David Mccullough’s 1776), posted a good writeup, hints at an interest in a caste-no-bar mutineer 4some & put up handful of her picts.

Our own Suitable Girl blogged, fotolog’ed and flickr’ed the event & some of its aftermath.

Some of the other folks in attendance (reconstructed from my + Manish’s hazy memories of the event… apologies in advance if I missed anyone)-

• Zimblymallu
• Zadeblog
• Nina Paley - who gave us an update on the progress of her Sita odyssey
• commentress Emily
• Jane
• Pooja
• Sank / Ethnotechno
• (anyone else?)

True to form, the Mutiny family continues to amaze and the people at the meetup were each interesting specimens of the desi diaspora. And they certainly have no trouble striking up a boisterous conversation with folks they’ve just met. Some folks were nothing like their blog / comment persona’s. Some were exactly like them. Others were bigger. One thing we all agreed on - while the blogposts brought ‘em in first, it’s obsessive comment checking 15 times a day that really destroys the @work productivity. We heart all the Mutineers.

What is it with desis and competitive eating? Lakshmi Mittal, the world’s third-richest man, launched a surprise bid today for his nearest steel industry rival:

While Bill Gates and Warren Buffett—numbers one and two on last year’s Forbes Billionaires list— engage in a genteel game of bridge, Lakshmi Mittal is ripping apart the world’s steel industry and reshaping it to his liking. This morning, his Mittal Steel… launched an audacious bid for Arcelor… Mittal Steel, the world’s first-largest steel maker, is seeking to pay 18.6 billion pounds ($22.7 billion) to buy the world’s second-largest producer. [Link]

By buying Arcelor, billionaire owner Lakshmi Mittal would control about 10 per cent of the global steel industry, more than three times as much as his closest rival. The purchase would be the biggest ever in the industry… creating a company with 320,000 employees and annual sales of more than $69 billion. Arcelor supplies steel to every second car in Europe… [Link]

… if successful, [the deal] would bring together the world’s number one and number two steelmakers and create the first producer capable of generating more than 100 tonnes of steel a day. [Link]

Mittal, who lives in London, floats Mittal Steel in the Netherlands and maintains Indian citizenship, has lost a couple of recent deals:

Mittal lost a relatively minor deal for a Czech steel mill to a Russian group, despite having the higher bid. And a foray outside steel into the world of oil ended in frustration when Mittal Steel’s joint bid with Indian oil company ONGC for PetroKazakhstan was topped by China National Petroleum Corp. [Link]

But his drive sounds very Roarkian:

He looked at a streak of rust on the stone and thought of iron ore under the ground. To be melted and to emerge as girders against the sky. [Link]

Azim Premji and the Ambanis clock in at numbers 38 and 60 on the Forbes list.

Related posts: World’s biggest steel company will be desi-owned, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and…, Forbes names India’s richest, Midnight’s oil

A San Franciscan named Nalin helped his roommate and six friends snarf down 100 hamburgers at one sitting in Vegas last Halloween. The greasy exploit is photoblogged here (via Boing Boing):

Throughout the weekend, Andy kept on saying: “We should go get a 100x100 at In-N-Out”… [The fast-food workers] were shocked. They said the biggest order they had before this was the 24x24… It’s one set of buns and ONE HUNDRED meat patties and ONE HUNDRED pieces of sweaty-oily cheese in between the buns. Clearly, the worst part of this experience wasn’t the meat… it was the sweaty cheese…

I think I ate about 20. I think Nalin ate about 20 as well (including the raw ones)… Number of people who barfed: 1… In-N-Out use to be one of my favorite things in the world. Now the thought of it makes me sick… [Link]

Beelzebub is the dæmon responsible for the cardinal sin of gluttony. Let’s hope Nalin isn’t Xtian Bro, as a mass moo assassin, you ain’t coming back a Hindu in your next life. And that next life might begin any day now — deadly sin is right. The good news is, you may be Takeru Kobayashi’s competitive eating nemesis.

I’m not sure why I’m surprised by this story. There’s nothing unusual about one tasty pair of buns surrounded by a hundred sausages and sweaty seas of cheese. That about sums up the college desi scene.

While roaming about online, I came across a blog which quoted us— nothing scintillating, I know— but then I noticed the blog’s name: Beliefs, Blackness & Bollywood. The subtitle elaborates:

I talk about faith. I talk about the black experience in America. I talk about Bollywood. You’re welcome to join in.

The question is not, “Is Hrithik hot?” The question is, “Would I scream in his face if he tried to shake my hand, or burst out crying?”

Excellent question, t. For the record, I’d probably do a triple-take if he tried to test my ex-debater grip. But then, subtlety thy name shall never be ANNA. ;)

She found the way to Bombay after a trying break-up:

It was around this time I discovered Bollywood. I suddenly found myself able to appreciate a movie like Dil Se. It is a story of heartbreak and a story of love. Melodrama aside, the film Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham impacted me deeply by the very idea that someone would ever go to such great lengths to bring their family back together. While I realize these are just films, they are based in an ideal, in a consciousness that organizes itself around love. In the words of India Arie, “I am ready for love.” At least for now I have Bollywood.

Follow her thoughts here; see her nod in agreement with erstwhile guest blogger Amardeep on the subject of unrealistic-looking Bollywood stars here.

Several of you beginning with “Msichana” emailed us to let us know that the Indian version of Maxim has just issued its first edition with Priyanka Chopra on the cover. The BBC reports:

Don’t ever change girl…oh…you already did? Nevermind then.

Is primetime Priyanka too hot to handle? Forgive me for pondering the merits of Priyanka Chopra, the Bollywood starlet and former winner of the Miss World beauty pageant.

But this is the burning question asked of us by the inaugural Indian edition of Maxim - the British “lad mag” which has just made its sub-continental debut with a pouting Priyanka plastered across its glossy front cover.

Readers are also promised information on “100 things you never knew about women”, a “how to” guide on professional begging, and a must-see article on the police inspector in Uttar Pradesh Panda, who fervently believes that he is the incarnation of the Hindu Goddess Radha.

Folks I have learned my lesson. I’m not about to make a comment about any of Ms. Chopra’s attributes, just in case I ever meet her. In fact, I had never even heard of her before I read this article. Bollywood film-watcher I am not. Also, it just so happens that guest-blogger Karthik answered a topical question at the very end of his first post. Getting back to the magazine’s contents:

Two bikini-clad models helpfully demonstrate how to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre (handy if you have a piece of food stuck in your throat).

Other parts of the magazine are a masala-like blend of men, motors and models.

Well sure. EVERYONE in India should know how to properly execute a Heimlich maneuver. I’m all for health education in developing countries. I hope however that they don’t let an article like this slip into the Indian edition. It might not go over so well.

See Related Posts: Indians love their newspapers, There is no place to hide it in India, Mortified

Late last week, just as Manish was zeroing in on me after scouring the entire blogosphere to find a guest blogger who could make the rest of the Sepia Mutiny gang look good, a friend approached me with a plan. I was on my first visit to Hyderabad - the rapidly growing capital of Andhra Pradesh - and the friend was trying to convince me to go to Ramoji Film City, a Universal Studios type setup on the outskirts of the city.

“But this is not like Universal Studios at all. It is a functioning studio, not a theme park. No trip to Hyderabad is ever complete without a visit to the film city. It is a happening place. We should go.”

“Happening place? I see you’ve never been to K-Mart.”

“No, but this is happens to be largest movie studio in the world. Sometimes you can even see live movie shootings. Imagine seeing Nagarajuna in action. We are going.” This from the increasingly hysteric friend, who was starting to drool.

So we went. And it was a very disturbing experience. I might have grown up building elaborate temples for film actresses, but I know as well as you that not everything I see in movies is true. Like the blood spurting out of people is tomato ketchup. That the vamps are all drinking Sprite, not vodka. That there is a small possibility the email Aishwarya Rai wrote to me asking me to go check out her topless pictures on the internet may not be from her. All this I know. But then, this trip proved to me, there is so much more to add to that list. Such as the Taj.

You know what we don’t have enough of on this blog? Wicked Tamil music videos. Our new guest blogger has written about buying a car:

Lavanya and I enter a car dealership, excited, dreaming shiny new cars - after all, first cars are bought just once. A salesman greets us at the door - a younger, taller Dennis Farina.

“Hi, welcome to our dealership. I am John.” (or Jacob, or some such name)

He then offers his hand to Lavanya.

“Hi John. I am Lavanya.”

” ‘cuse me?”

“Laa-van-yaa”

“Oh, ok.” Turns to me. And duly shakes my hand, almost squishing it. Wincing, I mouth, “Karthik.”

“Sorry?”

“Car - thick, like a car that is fat.”

A little pondering. “Ummm… Can I call you Bob?”

We left.

Related post: Poison Pills

The image at right is from a recent flyer campaign launched by the Nutritional Health Alliance (NHA) depicting Senator Durbin wearing a turban with the words, “Keep Congressional Terrorism at Bay.” What is this all about? Believe it or not, this flyer was put out by a lobbying group for the makers of dietary supplements, i.e.vitamin pills, who are upset over recent legislation proposed by Durbin to make manufacturers of supplements report serious side effects of their products.

Hate mongering is the last refuge of scoundrels

The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) and over 100 other groups have come together to protest this odious flier. In their response, SALDEF states:

We are outraged that the Nutritional Health Alliance (NHA) would be engaged in the production of such a racist flyer that serves to perpetuate an increased environment of prejudice and hate against the Sikh, Muslim and Arab American communities…The depiction of the turban as a terrorist symbol, or individuals who wear turbans as terrorists, as your flyer explicitly shows, is baseless and reprehensible…The flyer serves as nothing more than hatemongering [Link (pdf)]

SALDEF and its allies call for:

NHA to remove the flyer from any further distribution immediately. We further ask that a public apology be made and posted on the NHA’s website. Legitimate public debate must not be tainted with images that continue to create a dangerous environment of xenophobia and hate against innocent Sikh, Muslim, Arab and South Asian Americans. [Link]

The NHA has a little shame, but not much. They’ve replaced the flyer with one that talks directly about their opposition to the legislation, but they defend their right to use xenophobic lies to make their point: If I sound to you like a hate-monger, then I can’t help it

Even Jerry Kessler, director of the Nutritional Health Alliance, chief executive officer of N.Y.-based Natural Organics and designer of the circular, said it was a purely political response to regulations proposed by Durbin. He also agreed the flier was “not fair” and “in bad taste.”

“Desperate times require desperate actions,” Kessler said. “I’m certainly going to do what’s necessary to call attention to our cause. If I sound to you like a hate-monger, then I can’t help it.”

More than a million copies of the flier were sent to vitamin and supplement buyers, and Kessler said he’s responded personally to phone calls and letters from people he has offended. [Link]

Jerry Kessler, hate monger

Via email, via his company’s Contact Us web page, or via snail-mail:

NHA

PO BOX 649

Melville, NY 11747 - 9806

Earlier today I saw a commercial for Gibson Guitars on the television. I was speechless. Upon checking the tipline I saw that SM reader “Rafi” had already sent it in. It seems like Gurinder Chadha is pulling out all the stops on this one. Ever since Bend it like Beckham her star has been on the rise. I’ll bet nothing will make you fiend for the touch of a Les Paul…like seeing it stroked in a Mughal court. Watch.

This is the “Director’s cut” of the commercial

This appears to have been a huge production. A 93 person cast and a crew of nearly 70. See for yourself:

On The Set

• 1 Elephant - walked five days to get to the studio and then didn’t make the final cut.
• 1 Large Portrait - a local Indian artist painted it from a photo of the actor playing the Emperor.
• 18 Dancers
• 2 Fire Breathers
• One restored old car
• 2 Thrones
• 1 Fountain
• 2 Large treasure chests
• 10 piece band
• 3 Crystal Chandeliers

Last year’s sci-fi flick Serenity turned out to be a WB-movie after all. The captain, a ramblin’ wreck from Duct Tape Tech, tosses his Conan locks and whines incessantly about the health of his ship. But the character is also as hilariously amoral as Han Solo and Indiana Jones. The movie is a whole lot more fun than it has any right to be, and when Heath Ledger’s squire gets shafted, it’s a moment of genuine pathos.

One of the conceits of the plot is that in the future, everyone will speak Chinese and import high tech machinery from India. In a couple of spots, the camera zooms in on hovercraft and spaceship parts prominently stenciled in Punjabi. (Presumably Mahindra Tractors is now Mahindra Tractor Beams.) Indophile also recently noticed that the costume designer drew inspiration from desi formalwear:

It’s ironic that a movie called Serenity bypasses desi philosophy for blingwear which evokes anything but. I say we give Brasilian-American actress Morena Baccarin a couple more turns around the fire and make her an honorary sepiate.

Related posts: A meditation on form, Use the shakti, Luke, “Khaaaaaaaaaannnnnn” Noonien Singh

Here’s the cover of Tourism, the Southall-centric novel by Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal due out May 30 (thanks, Ennis and Pablo):

I am still debating whether or not to attend Dinesh D’Souza’s lecture at UCLA on Wednesday. It is titled Red States, Blue States, and War in Iraq: What Academia Is Missing. Normally I enjoy doing oppo research, but I teach all day on Wednesday and I don’t know if I will have the energy left to fight the hordes at the end of the day. The meeting is being sponsored by the Bruin Republicans. Speaking of Republican Bruins, I am sure by now everybody has heard about this:

Thirty U-C-L-A professors are being targeted by an alumni group that accuses them of expressing left-wing political views.

The year-old Bruin Alumni Association is offering students up to a hundred dollars per class to supply notes, and tapes exposing the professors.

The group says on its Web site (www.bruinalumni.com) it is concerned about professors who use lecture time to press positions against President Bush, the military and corporations. The effort is being led by Andrew Jones, a 2003 graduate and former chair of a student Republican club.

Education professor Peter McLaren, who’s on the so-called “Dirty Thirty” list, calls the tactic a witch-hunt. [Link]

Apparently, even members of the Bruin Alumni Association advisory board thought this was crazy.

The raised fists beneath his picture means that he is dirty

A former congressman is among three people who have quit the advisory board of a conservative alumni group at the University of California, Los Angeles, after students were offered money to police professors accused of pushing liberal views…

“I am uncomfortable to say the least with this tactic,” Rogan wrote. “It places students in jeopardy of violating myriad regulations and laws…” [Link]

Taz tells me that one of the “Dirty Thirty” is UCLA History Professor Vinay Lal:

Much like comic book superheroes, Vinay Lal leads a double life. During the day he is a mild-mannered Southeast Asian history professor, but in his office, safely behind his keyboard, Lal assumes his double identity as a radical ideological warrior of the broadest stripe. His personal webpage provides only the most indirect clue to this schizophrenic existence, mentioning in passing that he has written for the journals Patterns of Prejudice, Radical History Review, and Third Text.

This comes from Ballantine Books and the author of Serving Crazy With Curry:

This painting comes to us via SM tipster Omar Khan:

“An Execution in British India”- Painting by Vassili Verestchagin

As part of his article accompanying the wood engraving of the painting when it was published in Harper’s Weekly on November 17, 1888, [Harper’s Weekly art critic Clarence Cook] wrote:

“So with the other picture, the shooting of the Sepoys, Verestchagin does not say that this particular scene is an incident of the great mutiny. Shooting from guns is the only way, he says, that 60,000 soldiers in a strong country can keep in awe 250,000,000 natives. Superstition must be utilized. The natives do not fear to die, but they fear to die in any way that destroys the identity of the body. They cannot enter heaven blown limb from limb. Therefore this is the way to touch their souls with dreadful awe, and the English, says our artist, have always blown from guns, blow from guns today, and will blow from guns as long as India is held. [Link]

In the painting you presumably see Sepoy soliders in Delhi, captured during the 1857 Mutiny, fixed to the front ends of cannons, and about to be obliterated (although check the comments for a more likely explanation of what is being depicted here). I’m not sure that it is clear if this scene was actually witnessed by Verestchagin, but I like the description of the painting.

Verestchagin’s notoriety came from showing some of the most talked about events of the era. This scene was a standard British way to settle scores, and continued long after the war of independence in 1857. It was hotly debated in British and Indian papers between liberals and conservatives. To the former it was an excess of colonialism, to the latter an essential ingredient. As a Russian, Verestshagin was on opposite sides of the British as far as India was concerned. His American audience was also more critical of colonialism. [Link]

Although there is no desi pope, there is one desi member of the Swiss Guard. Dhani Bachmann was sworn in as the first ever non-white Swiss guard four years ago. Private Bachmann was adopted by a Swiss family at 5 and speaks only German, which helps explain how he could join an elite group whose members are comprised solely of Catholic Swiss, mainly recruited from a handful of small villages.

At the time, one news source snarkily reported the story in the following way:

First Black Man Ever To Protect The Pope

For the first time in the more than 500 year history of the Swiss Guards, the group of 200 soldiers who protect the Pope in Rome, a non white man has been allowed to take his place in their ranks. Private Dhani Bachmann was born in India but adopted by a Swiss family and taken to live there when he was 5. He therefore is eligible to join the guards as he is Swiss. He is now apparently trying to learn Italian so that he can explain to people in Rome why he is not white. [Link]

The Swiss Guard are the Pope’s private army, founded 500 years ago on January 22nd, 1506. They had their origins in the “Swiss mercenary detachments that served as bodyguards and ceremonial guards at foreign European courts from the late 15th century on” and once guarded the Royalty of France and Austria as well. Soon after they were founded, in 1527, “147 of the 189 Guards, including their commander, died fighting the forces of Charles V during the Sack of Rome.”

Today, they are half their original size, with only 100 soldiers. After the 1981 attempt to assasinate Pope John Paul, their non-ceremonial duties and training have been beefed up; their training involves unarmed combat and the use of modern weaponry in addition to the traditional Halberd. Still, they’re best known for their colorful uniforms which, according to legend were first designed by Michaelangelo.

This job combines tradition and religious service in the short term with the potential to make a lot of money in the long term - how typically Swiss!

Swiss Guards sign on for a minimum of two years. Many leave the Pope’s military service for lucrative jobs with some of the world’s best-known security services and banks. [Link]

Dhani Bachmann being sworn in or Vinod making a gang sign?

Brook’s Qawwali Party is a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan cover band made up of non-desi Brooklynites who get together in Park Slope. Their stuff sounds like jazz qawwali with electric guitar interludes. Sometimes it’s pretty musically interesting, other times it resembles Muzak, especially in contrast with NFAK’s voice. The band obviously can’t replicate that voice, but they get by with phonetic chants of ‘Allah hu’ and clapping. In any case, it’s probably one of the only Sufi bands with Jewish members in existence

Listen here. Their next show is Feb. 10th in Park Slope, and it’s free.

Related posts: Sachal can sing, Sachal Vasandani sings jazz tonight (NYC)

If anyone wants to go to the classical music concert to benefit the victims of the Pakistan quake, I’ve got free tickets for you courtesy of my cousin the conductor. The catch is that it’s today at 7.30pm at Carnegie Hall in Manhattan. On the menu: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Email me for the tickets.

There are few real news programs left on U.S. television. You have 60 minutes, Nightline, and PBS’ excellent series Frontline. Two weeks ago I watched all six hours of a brilliant documentary called Country Boys that followed the lives of two poor teenage boys from Kentucky into manhood. I thought it exemplified what reality TV could be if only it had a brain. SM tipster “Anu” forwards us another example by Frontline of a great documentary. Frontline’s Rough Cut series posts a short film by Sasha Khokha (only on-line) titled, India: Calcutta Calling-American girls explore their roots.

In the wake of FRONTLINE’s broadcast last week of David Sutherland’s film Country Boys, about two teenagers coming of age in rural Kentucky, FRONTLINE/World presents Sasha Khokha’s video Calcutta Calling, about three teenage girls growing up in Minnesota… The twist in Khokha’s story is that the three girls — Kaylan Johnson, Anisha Pitzenberger and Lizzie Merrill — were all adopted as infants from an orphanage in Calcutta, India. Their Midwestern American parents raised them in loving families as all-American girls who sing in the choir, play soccer and shop at the mall.

Still, the girls know they are different. If nothing else, their brown skin sets them apart in Minnesota. People are friendly, but sometimes look at them as outsiders.

Khokha is allowed to accompany Anisha, Kaylan and Lizzie when they go back to India with their American parents. This is the first time they have returned to the land of their birth. It is a chance for them to learn more about their origins and to explore their dual identities. Surprising, honest and poignant, Calcutta Calling follows these bright-eyed girls closely as they venture into a country that both delights and disturbs them. [Link]

While watching the film I KNOW that many of you will have the same conflicted reactions as me. These girls were all raised in white families and in white neighborhoods. This is an entire step removed from Indian Americans that, despite being born here, still retain cultural ties to India through family and community. Except for their skin color, these girls have no connection to Indian culture whatsoever. And yet…their brown skin instinctively causes you to sometimes unfairly judge their often shallow reactions as the film unfolds. For example, one of the three girls helps a small child color in the picture of a girl while visiting the orphanage back in India (see picture at right). It isn’t until she is done that she realizes that she helped the child draw a girl with blond hair instead of black. The movie also brought to mind some of the issues we have been discussing on SM in the past week. All three of these American families adopted girl children from India. In the end you can’t help but appreciate that these three girls at least got the chance to meet each other. All three feel that in each others presence they finally belong.

I strongly urge readers to set aside 20 minutes to watch this film. For best viewing use the Quicktime option instead of the Real Media player and enlarge the screen size in the pop up window. Also keep in mind that by posting this I am going to substantially increase traffic to their site. I had no problem viewing it but some of you may want to wait until an odd hour.

Click here to watch.

In the U.S. and Europe, American forces kidnap terrorists so as not to kill bystanders:

Before a CIA paramilitary team was deployed to snatch a radical Islamic cleric off the streets of Milan in February 2003, the CIA station chief in Rome briefed and sought approval from his counterpart in Italy…

In Sweden, an inquiry discovered that Swedish ministers had agreed to apprehend and expel two Egyptian terrorism suspects in 2002 but called the CIA for help in flying them out of the country… [Link]

But in less-developed countries, we just blow up houses:

The provincial government said Tuesday that in addition to 18 civilians, four or five foreign militants were killed by the American airstrikes on the village of Damadola on Friday… The deaths of 18 civilians, among them 6 children, have stirred anger among the population in Pakistan and put pressure on the government to explain what happened in Bajaur. [Link]

I don’t particularly care for national sovereignty when a country won’t take out its trash, as in Afghanistan, the NWFP and the Kashmiri militant training camps. We should’ve put troops on the ground in Pakistan long ago, no matter what the political sensitivities, and bin Laden should have been caught within months of 9/11. That he hasn’t been killed yet is an ongoing embarrassment.

But killing innocent bystanders is not only deeply immoral, it unnecessarily creates enemies and a host population which supports terrorists. One month we distribute quake aid and win public sympathy; the next we kill women and children and say, ‘Oops, but we’ll do it again.’ It’s the very definition of ineffectiveness.

Look at the rank hypocrisy of U.S. lawmakers in defending this missile attack:

U.S. politicians have expressed regret over the weekend killings of 18 civilians along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, but said the airstrike was justified by the erroneous belief that a top al Qaeda leader was among the group, which included women and children. “Now, it’s a regrettable situation, but what else are we supposed to do?” Sen. Evan Bayh [D-IN] asked rhetorically… Senator John McCain, also concurred… “We apologize, but I can’t tell you that we wouldn’t do the same thing again…” [Link]

Gee, Sen. Bayh, would we have launched a missile at a house in London? Would we have killed 18 innocent Brits, shrugged and said, ‘What else are we supposed to do?’

Each year, the world’s movers and shakers — business leaders, politicians, journalists and others — meet in Davos, Switzerland for the meeting of the World Economic Forum. In past years, this has been a relatively pale assemblage of melanin deficient men and women, but no longer. India has arrived on the world stage, and like any debutante, wants to throw a coming out party to show it. Said Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani, the head of a $3 million public-private promotional campaign called “India Everywhere,”

“The Indian economy was doing well. We were becoming the world’s back office. Our democracy is robust, yoga is globalized, Bombay Dreams ran on Broadway, Bollywood is hot, and spirituality is all the rage. So why aren’t we everywhere at Davos?” [Link]

Like any good promoter, the Indians know the importance of the goodie bag, although ironically they’re using old India to sell new India:

Waiting for visitors at their hotel rooms will be gifts from India — a pashmina shawl, an Apple iPod loaded with Indian pop and classical music, a piece of traditional art, some ayurvedic oils — along with a CD packed with all sorts of economic information about the country. [Link]

Our democracy is robust, yoga is globalized, Bombay Dreams ran on Broadway, Bollywood is hot, and spirituality is all the rage. So why aren’t we everywhere at Davos?A highlight of the weeklong brain fest will be the gala soiree on Saturday, the conference’s closing evening. That’s when the contemporary and hip allure of the new India will be showcased in all its boisterous, vibrant glory. There will be dances by Bollywood choreographer Shaimak Davar, music by DJ-of-the-moment Aqueel, and songs by oldie-goldie Usha Uthup. Don’t forget to pack your Nehru jackets and satin saris, folks — Indians dress to the nines, and the style and flash of the country’s new designers will be on display. [Link]

While some people are calling for more modesty, the Indian executives plan to be as modest here as they are when planning a wedding:

Some see a sign of hubris in India’s new swagger. How can the country rightfully lay claim to the status of an emerging superpower when it still faces so many glaring problems, from massive poverty to deficient infrastructure to a huge public-sector deficit? What happens if the boom turns to a bust overnight, as has happened in places like Russia and Brazil?

[Infosys CEO] Nilekani brushes aside such concerns: “Yes, it could be an ego trip for India,” he says, “but you gotta be heard!” [Link]

This is wicked cool [via Sandalwood Swara]. I wonder how one goes about requesting this at a pre-wedding mendhi party with all your female realtives around. I’m sure the groom will dig it.

Kama Sutra Mendhi (click for larger picture)

Our own F.A.Q. defines “South Asia” in the following way:

What is South Asia?

It’s the countries in the area of the Indian subcontinent which share common ethnic and cultural roots (food, family, Bollywood). SAJA opines that South Asia includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives. The U.S. State Department also includes Afghanistan.

Well it seems we may now have to tweak our F.A.Q. just a bit. The U.S. State Department reports:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says South Asia and Central Asia are high on her list of global priorities, and the State Department is adjusting its bureaus so that the same teams of experts and diplomats are focused on both regions.

“One of the things that we did in the State Department was to move the Central Asian republics out of the European bureau, which really was an artifact of their having been states of the Soviet Union, and to move them into the bureau that is South Asia, which has Afghanistan, India and Pakistan,” Rice said January 5.

“It represents what we’re trying to do, which is to think of this region as one that will need to be integrated, and that will be a very important goal for us,” Rice told reporters in Washington. (See related story.)

The five Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are predominantly Muslim nations with a combined population of nearly 60 million.

The New Eurasia Blog opines:

This is an interesting move for the State Department, and potentially a problematic one. While Central Asia’s being grouped with the rest of the former Soviet Union might be an “artifact” of history, it is an important one. Over a hundred years of dominance and control has left its mark on the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, and officials experienced with South Asian states like Afghanistan and India may lack an important context of understanding for the region.

I know that it isn’t going to go over well with some people that Russian speaking Muslims are moving in to their “neighborhood.”

See Related Post: A New Spook at the Agency

My title may be a bit inflammatory, but deservedly so I thing. Just a couple of weeks ago I wrote about India’s Lost Girls. The discussion that followed about the practice in India of gender selection through abortion, was quite interesting and evoked many strong opinions. It now seems that this practice has long since spread like a disease from the old world to the new. The Observer reports on its own investigation [link via Pickled Politics]:

… abortion of female foetuses has long been a part of life in Britain and The Observer has uncovered evidence that pregnant British Asian women, some in effect barred by the NHS after numerous abortions, are now coming to India for gender-defining ultrasounds and, if they are expecting girls, terminations…

…Ritu, 27, is fidgeting impatiently with her scarf. This mother of two children from Leicester has come to India while her husband, an engineer, has stayed with his family. With her is a cousin she barely knows. Ritu is just over 14 weeks pregnant. ‘I’m here because we were already coming on holiday to see relatives,’ she says quietly, motioning her cousin away. ‘I had an ultrasound here a few days ago. It cost about £20 and we found out I was having a girl. My mother-in-law suggested we aborted the baby because the family wants a boy, but insisted we do it in Delhi. I’ve had an abortion in the UK and she is worried the NHS won’t let it happen again; anyway, it is cheaper here - only £100 - and the doctors are excellent.’

Ritu says two of her aunts in Britain have had five abortions between them in their quest for a boy. Both were eventually refused ultrasound tests in Leicester and had them privately.

‘There are clinics in Leicester that won’t identify the sex of babies to Asian women. They have a policy, they say, so more British Asians are coming to India when they are pregnant to make sure everything goes to plan.

My dad forwarded me the picture below. It is of a mural that serves as the centerpiece at the “Dharma Sansad,” a two day meeting at a Swaminarayan Temple at Vadtaal town near Ahmedabad, Gujarat. It is a meeting of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the ultra-conservative Hindu Nationalist group. Divine justice??

Durga takes care of Musharaaf and Shiva takes care of Osama Bin Laden

The Imagineers at Disney World in Florida have erected a mandir to the abominable snowman next to their new Himalayan-themed roller coaster. Expedition Everest opens in spring (via Boing Boing):

Yeti another mandir

The artificial mountain is not a reproduction of Mount Everest; it is the fictional “forbidden mountain” guarded by the yeti… One of the highlights of the attraction is an encounter with an enormous audio-animatronic yeti… Although moderate by contemporary roller-coaster standards, Expedition Everest is unique for having its trains travel forward and backward as a result of the yeti’s interference…

Riders approach the attraction through the remote village of Serka Zong in the fictional kingdom of Anandapur, which is located in the foothills of the Himalayas. Several village buildings that had been used by the Royal Anandapur Tea Company have been repurposed… the legend of the yeti is communicated vividly through a mandir… and a makeshift museum that documents yeti sightings, the yeti’s significance in Himalayan cultures and a so-called “lost” expedition that ran afoul of the yeti many years before… [Link]

Disney is taking over Times Square immediately after Valentine’s Day:

Disney plans to transform the exteriors of the W Hotel and the adjacent Argent building at Broadway and 47th Street into a gigantic backdrop of Mount Everest. An aerial acrobatic troupe will perform there Feb. 15 and 16 on a stage 57 stories high, rappelling down the mountain and coming face to face with a Himalayan yeti — the legendary abominable snowman. [Link]

I’ve never felt entirely at ease in simulacrum cities like Orlando and Vegas, miniature Matrices. There’s something odd about Imagineers daubing tilaks onto idols of yeti which look like ‘roid-crazed Hanumans, leaving offerings of plastic fruit and hanging a poster of Krishna stealing butter. Disney movies like Aladdin and Pocahontas often mince cultures into purposely inaccurate baby pap which plays to stereotype.

(And in the other direction of mashup done badly, I can’t stomach the weak-ass rap in Bollyflicks. French and Spanish rap has coalesced as the language of the barrios, but Little B rapping is as silly as Nic Cage going gangsta.)

But let’s not be yenta about yeti. At first glance, the props around this roller coaster look pretty cute. I love the hand-painted signs.

The XXth Olympic Winter Games are just a few weeks away. Guess what? The U.S. team doesn’t have a single desi athlete representing? What gives? Aren’t there any Mohinis or Rajs out there that like the snow? There will be one desi participating at least:

Uday Joshi, SportsCenter [ESPN STAR Sports’] presenter will create history on January 18, 2006, by being the first man of Indian origin, to be one of the celebrity Torchbearers for the XXth Winter Olympics, which commenced in Genoa, Italy in December 2005…

On being part of the relay team, Uday Joshi, said “This is a big honor for me. I am personally very proud and happy to be a part of the relay. At the same time it is a very humbling experience to be suddenly pushed in an esteemed group of the biggest athletes in the world…” [Link]

In truth, I think there will be four athletes from India at the games (although I was hard pressed to find mention of them in the news). I couldn’t find any athletes from other South Asian countries, so perhaps readers can fill me in. The realization that even now in 2006 there are a dearth of desi athletes, has left me quite jaded. I took it upon myself to do something for my people, for South Asians both here and abroad. I searched the internet for an alternative. What could desis compete at AND have a chance to win at? The answer arrived a few days ago in my email inbox from my visionary friend Tushar:

Witness how he mocks us

The World Beard Championships

No brown people compete- it’s like the NBA before black people were allowed to play. Maybe five of us should enter…

Just hear me out people. Right now white folks DOMINATE this event. Just look at their website. Do you see a single brown face? The U.S. Beard Team even has their own blog. Yep. No desis. If I grew a beard I could kill a man with it in just one month. Its razor sharp texture makes for some lethal shit. Desis would absolutely dominate this competition. We’d be like the equivalent of the Kenyans in the marathon. I urge my people to rise up. Who will stand with me? Ennis? Amardeep? Vinod? If not now, then when?

There comes a time in every knighted actor’s career when he descends from Oscar material to B-level creature feature. Ben Kingsley is the vampire king in Bloodrayne, yet another awful flick derived from a video game. After playing Fagin, he’s well into his monster oeuvre:

I vant to suck

German director Uwe Boll (“House of the Dead,” “Alone in the Dark”) is fast becoming known as one of the worst directors on the planet. Indeed, Boll’s films are archetypes of bad filmmaking… Yet he continues to license big-name videogame titles and turn them into movies with ever more impressive casts… Boll somehow lures an Oscar-nominated Knight of the British Order to play a character as ridiculous as the King of the Vampires. [Link]

If I wanted to watch a desi actor draining the life out of his victims, I’d go down to the local Bollyplex.

The video game: sex, death and subtlety

Related post: Monster’s ball

An Oldie but not covered here before -

Angry youths in this Kerala capital Friday burnt an effigy of US President George W. Bush, not because they are anti-American but because he has named his cat India.

Members of the citizens group Prathikarana Vedi assembled before the Kerala assembly saying that Bush calling his cat India was an insult to the country.

“This is a disgrace to our great country and this has come from none other than US President George W. Bush. This is nothing but an insult to India because there are hundreds of thousands of Indians in US, and many who occupy key posts in the White House,” said M.A. Latheef, president of the group.

“He should make amends,” Latheef added.

The members of the group walked to the front gate of the assembly building but were stopped by police. After a brief speech and some slogans, the members burnt an effigy of the US president.

Behold the latest tool of post colonial oppression and humliation. In response to Bush’s callous racism, citizens’ group leader M.A. Latheef, speaking on behalf of 1 Billion desi’s decreed that he had named his girlfriend’s … err, wait, that’s too easy.

Once again, the Pakistani government has decided to show just how petty it is. Instead of respecting Mukhtar Mai’s courage, or even just looking the other way while she goes about her business, it has gone out of its way once again to block Mukhtar Mai from speaking.

Ms. Mai had long been scheduled to make an appearance called “An Interview With Mukhtar Mai: The Bravest Woman on Earth” in the United Nations television studios, sponsored by the office for nongovernmental organizations, the Virtue Foundation and the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Human Rights.

But on Thursday night the organizers were informed that the program would have to be postponed because of Pakistan’s objections.

Ms. Mai is leaving New York on Saturday so the effect was to cancel her appearence [Link]

I’m astonished by the depth of the desi book market in the UK. I was at a store of Britbooks last week. It wasn’t even a real bookstore, it was an airport bookstore, and it was still amazingly well-stocked. If you’ve ever wondered why people call Brits polite, it’s all the time they spend buried in books (while their chavs and yobs whoop it up in da pub).

On the popular fiction shelves I saw a Granta book on India, an odd little compilation of highfalutin’ essays like a Bollysampler CD; several Hanif Kureishi titles; Shalimar the Clown; both of Meera Syal’s novels; Hari Kunzru; William Dalrymple’s White Mughals; Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide; and so on. (In Sevilla, I also saw a tiny book of Ghosh’s tsunami essays.) The chick lit section was chockablock with titles like Bindis and Brides by Nisha Minhas, in which an abusive desi guy tries to rape his estranged wife, and a white guy rescues her. Minhas previously wrote Passion and Poppadoms, Saris and Sins and Chapattis or Chips?, so she’s going for some kind of Nancy Drew mystery effect with alliteration in the titles.

I picked up a copy of Hanif Kureishi’s Intimacy, a 1998 novella about marital egress and male sexual restlessness, and devoured it on the plane. The book supposedly caused an uproar when it was published; it reminds me of Rushdie’s Fury, a thinly-fictionalized account of leaving your wife and kids by a desi author who had just, well, left his wife and kids. But liberated of the need to be a full-blown novel, it’s a startlingly direct confession of a loveless, sexless marriage told like Portnoy’s Complaint, hands a-wringing and in the same plain yellow cover. It begins the day he decides to leave his wife. Kureishi’s stark emotional intensity comes off better than Fury, which IMO was Rushdie’s weakest after Grimus.

(Side note: According to the NYT, Shalimar the Clown had sold only 26,000 copies in the stores BookScan tracks as of December. Edward Champion points an accusing finger at the less-than-sonorous title: ‘If I were Rushdie’s publisher, I would have urged Rushdie to come up with a title that didn’t involve clowns at all… Shalimar the Clown? Not really a lot of enigma there. You may as well call the book Joe the Barber.’)

NSFW quotes from Intimacy after the jump.

Last night I went to the sold out Badmash Comedy Night in West Hollywood. The Badmash guys (Sanjay Shah, Sandeep Sood, Nimesh Patel, and Aron Bothman) are going to be putting on a recurring comedy night in LA (next one is on February 9th), which brings together both South Asian and non-South Asian comics. This is a smart mix. Audiences get tired of a whole night full of desi comedy, with only desi “insider” jokes. The comics end up competing with each other over who will use the same hackneyed “aunty joke” first. Some of the best new South Asian comics that perform here in LA are already moving away from such played-out routines. Their jokes are well balanced and appeal to a general audience, which is key for long term success. Badmash is trying to foster this new talent.

Continue reading this post to learn the sad real life story behind this picture

[The internet] has also allowed Sanjay Shah, 28, and his friends to find an audience unserved by traditional TV. For the last few years, their weekly South Asian-themed animations—like an Indian spoof of “The Simpsons” ‘s opening theme—have drawn millions of visitors to his site, Badmash.org. “I look at the Internet right now as the incubator, the RD department for traditional channels,” Shah says.

I actually attended the comedy night as “Press.” One problem. The batteries in my camera died just as the show began. THIS folks is why I am a mere blogger and not a journalist. I’d make a sorry excuse of a journalist. It was quite unfortunate, because none other than Sheetal Sheth was in the audience. The night was co-sponsored by Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, which was plugged throughout the night. Also performing was a surprise guest. Mr. Cleveland himself, Drew Carey, was in the house. His jokes are a lot dirtier in person than you would think from watching him on television. Comedian Jo Koy was on fire. Good stuff.

As much as I complain about life in LA, THIS is why I do like living here. Everyone desi you meet in LA has a thing that they do on the side. They have their main job, career, or way to pay the bills, and then they have their “side thing.” The truly brave ones make their “side thing” their main thing. I’ve always felt that life would suck unless you have “a side thing,” going at all times. You should, at all moments of your life, be pursuing something that you will probably fail at. Speaking of which…

A quick reminder - the NYC Mutineer Meetup is less than 24 hours away. On tap - 2 blog geeks and a blog diva - Vinod, Manish & Anna (you figure out who’s who) and other mutineers / commentors / readers / lurkers of various stripes.

Where: the new Kati Roll - 140 W 46th b/t 6th & 7th

When: Saturday, Jan 21, 1pm

If precedence holds, Manish & Anna will vie for the honor of live blogging the event while Vinod will vie mightily for even more incriminating picts .

I’ve been spending all day trying to figure out the Albert Brooks/Sheetal Sheth movie Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World. After sitting through the movie, I had no idea what Brooks was trying to do or what he was trying to portray to the audience. A day later, it’s no better. I still have no clue. The movie was boring and confusing. Brooks’ whiny self deprecation got old quick, and I am not sure how much humor really can be found in a movie that attempts to get all its laughs through constant cultural miscommunication. The East-meets West and terrorist jokes get old really quick, and I am actually a little puzzled that a studio executive thought it would be enough to make a commercially successful film. Maybe I missed the point. Actually, I am sure I did but I was too bored during the film to search for its meaning.

From Seattle Weekly’s review:

He’s lost in India. That’s where his character, named Albert Brooks, goes on an improbable U.S. government mission to find out what makes Muslims laugh, so that we might better understand them. His ventriloquist act bombs in New Delhi; Al-Jazeera tries to recruit him for a sitcom called That Darn Jew; nobody gets him, and he doesn’t get them.

That Al-Jazeera scene, that is one of the two funny scenes in the film and it features singer Shaheen Sheik.

From Salon’s review:

When he [Brooks] asks the audience, during his stand-up performance, why there’s no Halloween in India (“Because they took away the Gandhi” is the punch line), the joke is supposed to be kindergarten-caliber, and, of course, the audience isn’t supposed to laugh. Brooks sets himself up as the butt of the movie’s big joke — a well-intentioned Western comic attempts cross-cultural outreach and just look what happens — but his bombing is simply painful to watch. It’s not entertaining, not even in a twisted, sadistic way, and Brooks’ obsessive attempts to engage his audience only coat the movie with an egotistical veneer. “Looking for Comedy” pretends to be a plea for understanding, but it isn’t about what Muslims do or don’t find funny; it’s only about Brooks’ failure to make them laugh.

I also must admit I did enjoy Brooks’ embracing of desi menswear, the kurtas, the sherwanis, the mojdis, (thankfully no lungis or dhotis) however inappropriate his clothing selections might have been for the occaision. Anyway, check out the film if you are feeling lucky, want to support Sheetal, or are a glutton for punishment. But if you are looking for comedy, I suggest looking elsewhere.

Click here to read more reviews of the film, and click here to read more from the mutiny on the movie.

ISKCON devotees in Allahabad

It is these I.D.-creationists who are leading the current barrage of anti-evolution lawsuits… They have found enthusiastic allies among the Hare Krishnas… who have been actively propagating their theory of “Vedic creationism”, “Krishna creationism”, or “Hindu creationism”, as it is sometimes called…

Earlier this year, the Hare Krishnas filed an amicus curiae brief supporting I.D.-creationists… Hare Krishnas appealed to the court to keep the anti-Darwinian warning stickers. As the stickers only attack Darwin without endorsing a specifically Christian God, Hare Krishnas see them as an opportunity to introduce Vedic creationism into American schools. They know that once one religion gets its foot inside the door, all others will automatically get equal time to bring in their own creation stories and cosmologies into science classrooms in America. [Link]

The ID’ers don’t mind since it gives them multi-culti camouflage:

`I.D.’ is often accused of being a scientific-sounding cover for Christian creationism. The ID-ers conveniently use the support of Hare Krishnas to paint themselves in multicultural colours. Prominent I.D. theorists (Philip Johnson, Michael Behe) and some Catholic creationists have endorsed Vedic creationism. Any enemy of Charles Darwin is their friend… [Link]

ISKCON creationism sounds just as nutty as the ID’ers:

The intellectual force driving Vedic creationism is a pair of American Hindus, Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson, both resident “scientists” of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, the research wing of ISKCON. Cremo recently published a huge book, Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin’s Theory… While Cremo insists he is offering a “scientific” alternative to Darwin, almost all of his evidence comes from paranormal phenomena, including studies of extra-sensory perception, faith-healing, reincarnation and past-birth memories, UFOs (unidentified flying objects) and alien abductions…

Almost fifty people are running to become Canada’s latest South Asian MPs:

Who wants to be a Canadian millionaire (USD $14.92)?

For Jaipal Massey-Singh, Bal Gosal and Jagtar Shergil however, Saturdays for the past month and a half means knocking on doors, listening to complaints and plaudits and eating take-away food… All three men are running in the Canada’s 23 January general elections… [Link]

Fluency in Punjabi or Hindi is virtually a prerequisite for the ethnic vote. In the Punjabi area of Vancouver, the streetsigns are in Gurmukhi:

Nearby, a volunteer makes comforting noises into a phone receiver, before hanging up and saying wistfully, “If I spoke Punjabi, I would know whether or not I was promised that vote.” Mr Gosal says he campaigns in three languages, Punjabi for his largely Sikh constituents, Hindi for other South Asians and English for the rest. [Link]

‘If I spoke Punjabi, I would know whether or not I was promised that vote’If s/he spoke Punjabi, s/he’d also endure a cross-examination about his/her marital situation, village ancestry and parents’ health before being force-fed chai and laddoos. Michael Bloomberg also attempted speaking in Urdu in his re-election campaign for NYC mayor:

During his re-election campaign, Mr. Bloomberg soaked up the city’s diverse communities by hopscotching across its ethnic neighborhoods, and he even studied Spanish. He recorded campaign commercials in two Chinese dialects, Russian, Urdu and Korean, among other languages. [Link]

Yesterday while at the gym I was looking up at the TV and noticed the news was running a re-cap of a spectacular car chase. This is pretty ho-hum for LA television. There is one on every day. Police in Houston were in hot pursuit until the driver went up a ramp the wrong way, and smashed headfirst into another car. Immediately afterward, a woman jumped out of the car and moved in between the two cars. I assumed that maybe she was attacking the offending driver. Because the television was muted I didn’t get the whole story. SM tipster “Kanti” tips us off to the real story. Apparently the woman was primarily rushing to the backseat of her own car to make sure that her baby was okay. What about this crazy driver? Watch the video. Click2Houston.com reports:

The man who led police on a dangerous chase through three counties appeared in court early Thursday morning.

Jatinderjit Mann, 31, was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon — the weapon being the gray BMW he was driving — and evading arrest…

Mann is being held in the Harris County [Houston] Jail on a $55,000 bond…

The 90-minute chase reached speeds of 100 mph. From the restaurant, Mann led officers east on Beltway 8 past Highway 59 before turning around and heading north on Interstate 45 near Conroe, where he turned around and headed back to the beltway…

Some officers were upset that they were not allowed to do more. Under the department’s policy, they were not allowed to hit the suspect’s car, which some officers believe would have ended the chase a lot sooner. [Link]

This whole thing started because Mann was apparently making racial slurs and using abusive language at the restaurant he was at. Some women complained, and when police were called he took off in disgust. Apparently Mann is a Brit:

The suspect said very little in court. He kept asking if he could speak to the British Embassy. The judge told him he could speak to the British Consulate. Mann is a British citizen. [Link]

Two of Time Magazine’s Persons of the 20th Century were the duo of Sir Edmund P. Hillary, and Tenzing Norgay. Their accomplishment was simply mindboggling. In an era in which there existed the most rudimentary of climbing gear, the two men became the first to summit Everest on nothing but heart.

On May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal became the first human beings to conquer Mount Everest—Chomolungma, to its people — at 29,028 ft. the highest place on earth. By any rational standards, this was no big deal. Aircraft had long before flown over the summit, and within a few decades literally hundreds of other people from many nations would climb Everest too. And what is particularly remarkable, anyway, about getting to the top of a mountain?

Geography was not furthered by the achievement, scientific progress was scarcely hastened, and nothing new was discovered. Yet the names of Hillary and Tenzing went instantly into all languages as the names of heroes, partly because they really were men of heroic mold but chiefly because they represented so compellingly the spirit of their time. [Link]

Tenzing was born in Tibet and grew up in Nepal. He was one of “Chomolunga’s people,” and so it was fitting that he was part of the first summit. Almost every great prize in moutaineering to be won, has now been won. Still, every mountaineer worth a dime aspires to one goal, however impossible it may seem. The Seven Summits. These are the tallest peaks on each of the seven continents: Kilimanjaro, Denali, Elbrus, Aconcagua, Carstensz Pyramid, Vinson, & Everest. To date, less than 130 climbers have bagged all seven peaks and not a single one has been Indian, which is especially surprising given that India lies in the shadow of Everest. Well Gautam Patil is out to change that.

As an avid mountaineer, Gautam has been invited to present motivational talks at various venues including Sierra Club, REI Company Stores, and Any Mountain Company. He has shown bravery in dealing with people and situations in extreme conditions including those involving death and dramatic rescue operations. Gautam’s professional background is in Technology Product Management in Enterprise Software Products. He is a founding director of the Silicon Valley Product Management Association Inc.

He has already completed Kilimanjaro, Denali, Elbrus, Aconcagua and is currently mounting an expedition up the Vinson Massif.

Apparently the Republicans in South Carolina’s General Assembly think that Assemblywoman Nikki Randhawa Haley (see previous post) has got that whip appeal. They have just named her Majority Whip for the South Carolina House Republican Caucus. Rediff reports:

As majority whip, Haley will be responsible for lining up votes in support of caucus priorities and setting the direction of the 74-member Republican majority.

“Haley was selected because of her proven leadership skills. She is always prepared when we go to the floor and she’s passionate about issues of concern to her constituents,” Republican chief whip Shirley Hinson said.

For Nikki this is the third leadership position she’s held in her first two years in the General Assembly.

“I’m honoured to be recognised again by my peers and I know this new position helps me serve my constituents.This position will help me drive legislation that will benefit Lexington County and the entire state,” Nikki said.

The Whip position requires you to know everyone in the state legislature because it is your responsibility to twist their arms and get them to vote the party line. It is the sort of position that would definitely help to have under your belt should you later decide to run for U.S. Congress.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Bobby Jindal is a deputy Whip. With head whip, Roy Blunt (R-MO) vying for ousted Majority leader Tom Delay’s position, look for Jindal to seek a move up the leadership chain should Blunt win. He is exactly the type of young outsider that many disgruntled Republicans want.

My apologies to Babyface.

Bukhara is a tandoori place in New York popular with many, including Bill Clinton. I’ve had one amazing meal there and one passable.

Samsas stuck to the sides of a tandoor

Reflecting the influence of silk and spice trades, there are tastes of China and India everywhere. Every Bukharian menu offers a garlicky, chili-spiked Korean carrot salad, morkovcha koreyska, that is a legacy of Stalin’s mass deportations of ethnic Koreans from the far eastern Soviet Union to its western frontiers. At Tandoori Bukharian Bakery in Rego Park, a samsa - one of Asia’s many cousins of the Indian samosa - is deliciously spiked with cumin and baked against the walls of a clay-lined oven that Bukharians, like Indians, call a tandoor. [Link]

It probably got the samosa directly from Iran when the Persian empire absorbed the city. The restaurants sound a whole lot like hill stations in India:

A traditional Central Asian restaurant is little more than a stop for merchants and shepherds traveling the difficult road over the Pamir peaks; the ancient Persians called the region the roof of the world. These restaurants, called chai khanas, or tea houses, provided travelers in the most remote settlements with a place to warm themselves with pots of green tea… [Link]

There are Chinese influences on Bukharian food as well:

Farther north, bread and flour take over - especially lagman, hand-pulled noodles whose name evolved from the Chinese lo mein. Very popular among the Bukharians, lagman have been mastered by another Central Asian group, the Uighurs, who have a small community in New York… Uighurs are Muslim, and speak a language derived from Turkish… [Link]

A newly-invented wristwatch draws blood from the wearer four times a day and tests it for malarial parasites. It’s designed for South African miners, but it could also be useful in South Asia, where malaria is rampant.

Gervan Lubbe has developed the watch which obtains blood samples with a microscopic needle that automatically penetrates the skin twice during the day and twice at nightThe watch takes blood samples with a microscopic needle that penetrates the skin four times a day. An alarm sounds if the parasite count is above 50, before the first symptoms appear… at that point an antidote in the form of tablets should be consumed and, within 48 hours, all traces of malaria are eliminated from the body. Malaria is the single biggest killer on the African continent, claiming close to three million lives a year. [Link]

“If you wait until you get symptoms and a malaria diagnosis, you can be in bed for six months and have to take huge quantities of quinine, which can be dangerous…”[Link]

It even has a remote data feed:

With the wristwatch, each miner will walk through a scanner, similar to a metal detector, and the watch’s radio frequency will transmit the wearer’s information to a central computer.

And, just like cleaning out the filter on a clothes dryer, you have to do something with all the blood. Anne Rice should be all over this:

… the watch’s alarm rings every 35 days to remove the small metal sieve and wash the old blood away. [Link]

India still suffers ~2 million malarial infections a year:

According to the World Health Organization, every year in India an estimated 2 million cases of malaria occur, with 1,000 deaths; and 95% of the population live in malaria-risk areas. [Link]

A fabulously helpful anonymous tipster sent me my newest and sweetest crush: a boy who can DANCE! Said my anon-penned GMail:

Hey gang, I was reading a NY times article about ballet and it mentioned an Amar Ramasar, an Indian-American male ballet dancer with the NYC Ballet. How cool is that?!

…I hope you write about him! Bonus points if you include lots of Billy Eliot/Center Stage references. :-P

More about this gorgeous man, whom the Voice deems “extremely promising, both forceful and softly muscular” (hell yes!)

Amar Ramasar was born in the Bronx, New York. He began his studies at the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, in 1992. In addition, he studied at the American Ballet Theatre Summer Program and The Rock School of Pennsylvania Ballet. In July 2000, Mr. Ramasar was invited to become an apprentice with New York City Ballet, and in July 2001 he joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet.[nycb]

I think I’m feeling faint. A brown face in the New York City Ballet? You can’t hear my eeeevil cackle, but I’m gloating over the fact that our DesiDancer is married, else I’d have to whip off my bamboo earrings (at least two pair), smear vaseline on my face and get DIRTY. I keed, I keed…I’m all about the “sistas before mistas” principle (ahem. until someone else comes up with a feminized “bros before hos”, we’re stuck with that).

Amar said the following about his unique situation:

I actually looked at my race as an advantage because there was no one who looked like me. In New York City Ballet especially, I felt my casting has always been great. The biggest one for me was Fancy Free because, if you think of the history of that ballet, it’s not necessarily the case that in the 1940s an Indian guy was one of the sailors fighting for America. But they let me do that here, and I thought, “I’m breaking boundaries that people automatically put up for a stereotypical white ballet.” [link]

So hot.

Two Hollywood related items arrived on the tipline today and may be of interest to readers. The first comes from former SM centerfold Cicatrix. She points us to a one paragraph blurb in the New York Times which mentions that Nickelodian Films has just inked a deal for a new CGI movie slated for next year:

A young bull from Montana named Bamboo befriends a caterpillar that tells him of a place called India, where cows are sacred, free and holy. The two embark on a journey, and find the country while outwitting a group of pesky chickens.

Now that seems pretty cool. A bull in search of the promised land, looking for a place where his people can be free. The name of the movie? According to the website where the info originated, it will be titled Holy Cow. But why chickens? I would have chosen monkeys, or tigers, or elephants.

If you are listening girl…don’t ever change. Don’t ever change.

The second bit of gossip comes from former SM hit-man Amardeep. He points us to a Rediff article about actress Sheetal Sheth’s misadventures in tinsel town:

You can’t blame Sheetal Sheth for praying that Hollywood would take note of her performance in her first major film Looking For Comedy In The Muslim World and not worry about her bosom.

For, she recently told Contactmusic.com that many Hollywood agents thought she should have a breast implant.

…”About five different times they have suggested I get breast implants.”

But Sheth, who was a founder of the Hindu Students Association in her high school and later a mentor to many younger Indian students at NYU, knew her talent would suffice.

First I’d like to point out that if Sheetal had a breast implant then she’d look like a freak. I think I hope that the author of the article meant breast implants. I would write more about Sheetal’s breasts and the fact that I think she is fine the way she is, but my dad reads this blog daily and then tells my mom everything. Thus it’s best that I avoid adding detail to such racy topics.

Update: “Flygirl” informs us that a movie about a freedom seeking cow has already been made (hilarious!)

Related posts: Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, ‘Looking for Comedy’ trailer, Looking for permission to film in the Muslim world

Speaking of cell phones and sweet, sweet looowe, it used to be that desi parents could track your nefarious romantic activities via phone bills, but only until you went off to college. Now they can track who you’re dating right now simply by buying your cell phone bill— and it’s all totally legal:

You wanna tight thappad, beta? I know who you been callin’

The Chicago Police Department is warning officers their cell phone records are available to anyone — for a price. Dozens of online services are selling lists of cell phone calls… In some cases, telephone company insiders secretly sell customers’ phone-call lists to online brokers, despite strict telephone company rules against such deals, according to Schumer. And some online brokers have used deception to get the lists from the phone companies, he said. “Though this problem is all too common, federal law is too narrow to include this type of crime…” [Link]

Ennis says it even happened to former presidential candidate Wes Clark:

… this morning AMERICAblog bought former presidential candidate, and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO… General Wesley Clark’s cell phone records for one hundred calls made over three days in November 2005, no questions asked… All we needed was General Clark’s cell phone number and our credit card… [AMERICABlog, a liberal blog]

As this becomes widely known, it’s not just police informers, cheating spouses and leaking politicians who need to worry. With desi culture’s open-door, no-privacy social contract, it’s also desi teens living out their Heer-Ranjha stories. Maybe keyloggers, spy viruses and purchased cell phone bills will begin showing up as the new villains in the movies.

Related post: Cell Phones of SHAME and LONGING

My friend and international man of mystery Parag Khanna just published an essay which made the cover of Harper’s, Jan. 2006 (not online yet). Congrats, Parag! It’s a modest proposal for reforming the U.N. by putting Bill Clinton in charge:

Indulge me for a moment as I fix the world. First, rich countries must raise their development budgets… underdeveloped societies must root out corruption and boost investment in social welfare… we must strengthen the capacity of international institutions to manage global collective security against the threats of terrorism… we must move rapidly toward free and fair global trade, and involve NGOs and the international business community in providing responsible and accountable delivery of public goods around the world…

… there is only one solution… Embed a super-American at the highest level. That man, at this moment, is Bill Clinton.

But is Bubba the right plumber for these pipes?

Allegations of widespread sexual abuse came to light in a U.N. refugee camp in Bunia, Congo. Blue-helmets were paying girls as young as thirteen or fourteen with bread, milk, or a little cash…

U.N. personnel… have eased the burden they bear in lightening poverty with fermented marijuana cocktails along the banks of the Mekong River.

Parag tells of his first experience with the U.N.’s legendary inefficiency:

I first got involved with the United Nations just before its fiftieth birthday. In 1995, at age seventeen, I was likely the youngest intern wandering the corridors of the two glass towers… One week the Youth Unit had exceeded its quota of printing paper, so we simply were not allowed to make photocopies until our stock was replenished. I started to wonder: If the unit, or even the whole Division for Social Policy and Development, ceased to exist, would anyone miss it?..

A NYT columnist tells a story of vengeance (paid link) that’s become all too familiar (thanks, Turbanhead). It’s got overtones of Mirch Masala, Krantiveer and Bandit Queen:

… in the central Indian city of Nagpur… [f]or more than 15 years, the mud alleys of the slum were ruled by a local thug named Akku Yadav. A higher-caste man, he killed, raped and robbed in this community of Dalits… One woman, according to people here, went to the police station to report that she had been gang-raped by Akku Yadav and his goons, and the police raped her.

Neighbors tell how Akku Yadav forced a man to dance naked in front of his teenage daughter. They say that he chopped one woman into pieces in front of her daughter, and that another woman burned herself to death after he and his men gang-raped her…

Usha turned on the gas, grabbed a match and threatened to blow up everyoneWe have the bad guy, now we need the heroine. Usha Narayane, one of the few to leave the slum and get an education, was back home visiting relatives when the gang attacked. What Narayane managed to pull was like walking into a biker war with a hand grenade:

Akku Yadav returned with 40 men and surrounded the Narayane shack. He waved a bottle of acid and threatened to disfigure Usha’s face, and to rape and kill her… Usha turned on the gas, grabbed a match and threatened to blow up everyone if the gang broke into the house…

Calling one and all to the first mutineer meetup of ‘06. Turns out that this weekend, we’ve got a triple threat lined up - Anna, Manish & I are all in NYC…

Where - Kati Roll - 140 W 46th between 6th & 7th [Note updated place!]

Lassi opened to some fanfare last April, and NY metro’s Underground Gourmet gave it rather favorable reviews praising it’s nouveau take on classic Indian street food and “inexpensive” prices. Others, including a few mutineers, weren’t entirely happy with the nouveau.

Several readers (particular thanks to NYCDesi, Ace, Sank, Emily, and others) have pointed out that Lassi is probably too small for our plans for world domination. So we’re moving to the new Kati Roll

As usual, given previous meetups, worst case - the food sux but the company will titillate.

As usual, if you can make it, leave a comment or drop us a note so we have some idea of how many folks to expect & how much space to cordon off @ the restaurant.

Damn modern technology and its capacity for conveying horniness (via the Beeb):

Bangladeshi authorities have ordered mobile phone operators to stop offering free calls after midnight, to protect the morals of young people.

A telecommunications regulator said it had received scores of complaints from parents that children were using the service to form romantic attachments.

They said children were losing sleep and some indulged in “vulgar talk”.

Oh, Razib…talk genetics to me. ;) Eek, didn’t mean to lose sleep while being a strumpet.

Every 40 days, a mobile phone company in Bangladesh called Grameen signs up another million customers. That number just seems insane. Predictably, the persecuted purveyors of phones in that nation are a bit perplexed:

The phone companies say they are surprised by the order, which the regulator says must be obeyed immediately.

One spokesman has been quoted as saying that if the authorities wish to stop young people meeting each other, by the same logic, fast food restaurants and universities should be shut down, too.

Whatever will the youth of Bangladesh do, if they aren’t able to lose sleep by covertly murmuring nothings sweeter than ras malai in…to plastic? The horror. The HORROR! WON’T someone think of the CHILDREN? Oh wait. That’s how this whole cluster started. ;)

The front/main page of Wikipedia imparts something new and interesting, yet again.

Did you know…that Kishan Shrikanth, age ten, is in the process of directing a Kannada-language feature film, C/o Footpath, which will almost certainly make him the youngest director ever to release a commercial feature film? [wiki]

Kishan Shrikanth (born 6 January 1996), professionally known as Kishan or Master Kishan, is a Kannada-language actor from India. As of January 2006, having acted in some twenty films, he is in the process of directing a feature film, C/o Footpath (Care of Footpath), about an orphaned boy who wants to go to school. The cast includes prominent Indian actors Jackie Shroff, Saurabh Shukla, and Thaara.[1] Kishan will, himself, play the lead. [wiki]

The Guinness Book of Records currently lists Sydney Ling as the youngest person to direct a professional feature film. Ling was thirteen in 1973 when he directed the Dutch film Lex the Wonderdog.[wiki]

“I prefer directing to acting because of the creativity it affords me. From the beginning, I used to ask my directors about the technical aspects of the film, and hound the cameramen to show me their art. I want to continue directing and have already finalised the script for my next film, which will be a Hindi film,” he says.[rediff]

This diminutive auteur is the real deal:

“He is such a genius that I had to work in his film,” Jackie says. “He is constantly thinking about his next shot, constantly innovating to make it better. He is only nine years old, but he is sure about what he wants from his actors.”[rediff]

Now THAT’S impressive.

In my previous post about the National Security Agency’s (NSA) wiretapping of U.S. citizens, I quipped:

I’ve also been using a calling card (from what may be a shady NSA front company) to call my parents who are vacationing in India. I should think twice about what I say…

NPR commentator Sandip Roy must have had the same thought. In a humorous piece this morning he plays a recorded conversation between him and his mom who is in Calcutta. At various times he pauses the tape long enough to advise the NSA, what he is NOT talking about.

This just reiterated to me that every single person should have a library of recorded phone conversations with their parents. Even the most mundane conversation can make you smile.

Listen.

BREAKING NEWS (well, sort of) via PEREZ HILTON (and tipster Simran):

Casually dressed erstwhile pop superstar Britney Spears attended an event at a Malibu mandir yesterday, Feder-spawn never out of her arms. More pictures of her doing so are available here.

At least this is one occasion where it was appropriate and not disgusting for Brit-Brit to be shoe-free.

Seriously though, motherhood agrees with her— and so does going to mandir. While I have NEVER been a fan and I am gloating that she’s not wearing her ring (DUMP HIM! You still have a chance! Turn your future “Behind the Music” ep around NOW!), I sincerely hope she got something out of her trip to temple.

Anyone have any idea why she was there? After some lazy googling, I haven’t discovered further details so I leave it to you, Mutineers. Kindly call your religious cousins in or near Malibu and beg them for deets, thanks. ;)

A new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (subscription required) offers a counter theory to the long held Aryan Invasion Theory (thanks for the tip “Gujjubhai” and “Mauritious”). But before I get into that, I want to address a pet peeve of mine. The word “theory” is one of the most mis-used words in the English language. When most people use the word theory, they actually mean to use “hypothesis” or “hunch.” A theory by definition means:

A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

By definition a theory has already stood up to repeated challenges, and on the basis of scientific evidence has held true despite many assaults on its validity. Therefore the Theory of Evolution isn’t just some willy-nilly hunch. It has taken on and turned aside all would-be challengers. Everybody “knows” that gravity is real, but did you know that Newton’s gravity is in fact a theory? When dealing with physics that approach the speed of light, the Newtonian Theory of Gravity fails, and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity takes over. Now that we are past that let’s go back to the PNAS paper. First, what is the “Aryan Invasion Theory”:

… a term that refers to the theory developed by 19th Century European linguists to explain the similarity between Sanskrit and European languages, by hypothesising that peoples originating outside India invaded or migrated to India. Another view is that this theory was developed as a means to show the superiority of European Aryan race. Max Muller and other western scholars who studied Sanskrit were very impressed with it and wanted to develop a link of this brilliant language with there own race i.e Europeans. They found some roots common in german and sanskrit and invented AIT. There is no archaeological evidence for the invasion. In ancient times there were abundant contact between civilization in India and Europe and European languages borrowed lot of words/roots from Sanskrit. Interesting fact is that modern non-Indians still cling to this theory even though it has no locus standi or a scientific basis. [Link]

Fresh from the little red phone which rings whenever I get a tip:

This is probably the stupidest ‘tip’ I’ve ever sent to a blog, but…If you look at the cover of Gwen Stefani’s latest album, and sort of squint your eyes, doesn’t it look just like a picture of Ganesha’s head? Am I nuts, or do others see this too?

Hmmm. How many other blogs you tippin’? How long has THAT been going on? ;) Anyway, I’ve squinted enough that I now need creme de la mer eye balm, but I still don’t see it. Don’t be surprised though— I could NEVER see the “hidden” pictures in those magic-eye-annoying posters, either.

And the rest of you lot? Is our “anon” nuts or do you see the face of a beloved deity, too?

By now most people have heard about the U.S. airstrike in a remote section of Pakistan on Friday. Immediately after the airstrike of a house where a dinner party (which may have been celebrating Eid al-Adha) was taking place, there were whispers that that among the dead may have been Al Qaeda’s number two himself, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was the intended target. By yesterday morning officials were saying that the initial missile (probably launched by an unmanned Predator) must have just missed his departure, or perhaps he hadn’t shown up yet. Today all hell has broken loose:

U.S. television networks CNN and ABC cited sources saying that unmanned U.S. drones had fired missiles at the village of Damadola, some 200 kilometers northwest of Islamabad. Their target: top Al-Qaeda figures believed to be in the area, including Osama bin Laden’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Those reports said it’s possible al-Zawahiri was killed in the strike. If officially confirmed, al-Zawahiri would be the most senior Al-Qaeda figure captured or killed so far.

However, unnamed senior officials in Pakistan told Reuters and AP that al-Zawahiri was not present at the site of the attack.

And angry villagers in Damadola have also denied al-Zawahiri was there and thousands were today protesting the strike in a nearby town. [Link]

As you may have heard, last month Bangalore decided to change its name to Bengaluru, a contraction of a Kannada phrase, ‘benda kaal ooru,’ which means ‘city of boiled beans.’

We here at the Mutiny fully support casting off the linguistic corruption of the oppressor. We raise our henna’d fists in solidarity and announce the following:

Sepia Mutiny shall henceforth be known as Faärtinfernø, which means ‘blog of hopeless flames.’

Anyone visiting us in North Dakota must use the new name, or their luggage will wind up lost.

Anyone using the old name will be refused entry into places of worship for being insufficiently brown.

We are spending 900 kajillion dollars to update our signs and stationery. That leaves us nothing to fix our traffic jams, deteriorating infrastructure and inadequate power and bandwidth for our technology operations, but our readers will be happy knowing that we’re spending our time on what really matters.

All blog business will be conducted in our native language: uninformed bloviation, semantic squabbles, unfunny jokes, incomprehensible literary references, tales of virility, meandering personal stories and poli-sci-theory put-downs which nobody gets.

We apologize for this radical change.

To more fully throw off the yoke of the oppressor, every post will be written in our ancient script of Chefspeak.

Yørn desh born, desh born Yørn, børk! børk! børk!

Related post: The tyranny of a transposition typo

Time Magazine’s Asia edition writes a favorable review of the new book by Amitav Ghosh titled, Incendiary Circumstances : A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times:

…moments of collapse, when the writer realizes what he cannot do—and what he has to do, as a citizen—are the center of the roaming anthropologist’s new collection of essays, Incendiary Circumstances. The title comes from a piece in which Ghosh, sitting at his desk in Delhi, working on his first novel, in 1984, suddenly sees the tranquil world around him go up in flames in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Hours before, he was just another student and aspiring author, hovering over his notebook in a part of Delhi called Defence Colony; overnight, he becomes an activist of sorts, going out into the streets to shout Gandhian slogans with the other everyday citizens trying to quell the riots.

It is part of Ghosh’s curious luck that he often seems to be in the thick of things: he was a schoolboy in Sri Lanka just before civil war broke up the island, and he was living in rural Egypt when villagers around him started going to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in search of jobs. He was in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. The disappearance of seeming paradises has been his lifelong companion. More than that, though, he is an amphibian of sorts who knows what it is to be both witness and victim.

Reading the review I was reminded a little of this question I posed to Manish just a few days ago. When is the time to write about and discuss an issue over, and the time to to either act on it or walk away at hand? Sometimes writing can inspire the cause that will produce a needed effect. Ghosh seems to focus on this balance.

Faced by those rioters in Delhi in 1984, some women stood up to them and, miraculously, reversed the tide of violence. Following the destruction of their country by the Khmer Rouge, a handful of survivors in Cambodia in 1981 put on a dance performance, piecing their lives together like “rag pickers.” Writers have to be solitaries, Ghosh recalls V.S. Naipaul saying, and yet, he seems to feel, to be useful they have to be participants, too.

Incendiary Circumstances traces, over and over, the perfidy of empires and the corruption of most governments, but it never loses sight of individual action and power. And navigating both sides of the shadow lines within him, Ghosh travels to some of the most difficult places on earth to bring their voices back to those in places of seeming comfort.

See Amardeep’s review of Ghosh’s previous book, The Hungry Tide.

Earlier this week a SM tipster (thanks Ami) sent us word of this article in Time Magazine that does a pretty good job of examining the second generation Asian American experience:

The American story is, of course, made up of successive influxes of immigrants who arrive in the U.S., struggle to find a place in its society and eventually assimilate. But the group of post-1965 Asians was different from the Jews, Irish and Italians who had landed earlier. The Asian immigrants’ distinctive physiognomy may have made it more difficult for them to blend in, but at the same time, their high education and skill levels allowed them quicker entrée into the middle class. Instead of clustering tightly in urban ethnic enclaves, they spread out into suburbia, where they were often isolated. And it was there that their kids, now 20 to 40 years old, grew up, straddling two worlds—the traditional domain their recently arrived parents sought to maintain at home and the fast-changing Western culture of the society outside the front door. The six people at the New York City dinner are members of that second generation and—full disclosure—so are we, the authors of this article.

In the paragraph above you see a very concise reason for why the experience of South Asian immigrants living in the U.S. is different from those living in European countries, and totally different from those living elsewhere abroad. The fact that immigrants here spread to isolated suburbs helped them assimilate more quickly, while at the same time encouraging them to embrace inclusiveness by identifying with other immigrant populations.

If you were to draw a diagram of acculturation, with the mores of immigrant parents on one side and society’s on the other, the classic model might show a steady drift over time, depicting a slow-burn Americanization, taking as long as two or three generations. The more recent Asian-American curve, however, looks almost like the path of a boomerang: early isolation, rapid immersion and assimilation and then a re-appreciation of ethnic roots.

I enjoyed this article because I felt that they were describing my own experience quite accurately.

As a child growing up in Pennington, N.J., Fareha Ahmed watched Bollywood videos and enthusiastically attended the annual Pakistan Independence Day Parade in New York City. By middle school, though, her parents’ Pakistani culture had become uncool. “I wanted to fit in so bad,” Ahmed says. For her, that meant trying to be white. She dyed her hair blond, got hazel contact lenses and complained, “I’m going to smell,” when her mom served fragrant dishes like lamb biryani for dinner. But at Villanova University in Philadelphia, Ahmed found friends from all different backgrounds who welcomed diversity and helped her, she says, become “a good balance of East meets West.” Now 23, she and her non-Asian roommates threw a party to mark the Islamic holiday ‘Id al-Fitr in November, then threw another for Christmas—which her family never celebrated. “I chose to embrace both holidays instead of segregating myself to one,” she says.

Asian Americans say part of the reason it is so hard to reach an equilibrium is that they are seen as what sociologists call “forever foreigners.” Their looks lead to a lifetime of questions like “No, where are you really from?”

The origins of India pale ale are similar to those of Bombay gin, which was mixed with quinine to combat malaria, in that there’s a real, tropical reason for the name:

After the British East India Company had established itself in India… it had a large number of troops and civilians demanding beer… Ships typically left London, cruised south past the equator along the coast of Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and then crossed the Indian Ocean to reach Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. The temperature fluctuations were huge, it was a very long trip (about 6 months) and the rough waters of southern Africa resulted in an extremely violent voyage…

Early shipments to India contained bottled porters, the favorite beer in London, which generally arrived flat, musty, and sour… Hodgson took his pale ale recipe, increased the hop content considerably, and raised the alcohol content. The result was a very bitter, alcoholic, and sparkling pale ale that could survive the challenges of travel and shelf life in India. [Link]

High hop levels can preserve a beer’s flavor in two ways: they have a limited ability to protect beer from spoilage by some microorganisms, and, more importantly, their bitterness can mask stale flavors. While the beer arriving in India would certainly have suffered from oxidative staling during the long voyage, it could still taste acceptable because of the masking effect of alcohol and hops. [Link]

After reading the tale of John Boysie Singh, 20th-century Trini pirate of the Caribbean, methinks Keira teams up with Parminder again, maties:

Johnny Dhillon?

John Boysie Singh, usually known as “the Rajah,” “Boysie” or “Boysie Singh” … had a long and successful career as a gangster and gambler before turning to piracy and murder. For almost ten years, from 1947 until 1956 he and his gang terrorized the waters between Trinidad and Venezuela. They were responsible for the deaths of many fishermen — the number has sometimes been put as high as 400. Their technique was generally to board fishing boats, murder their crew, and steal the engine which they would later sell in nearby Venezuela after sinking the boat.

Boysie was well-known to everyone in Trinidad. He had successfully beaten two charges of murder before he was finally executed after losing his third case. He was held in awe and dread by most of the population and was frequently seen strolling grandly about Port of Spain in the early 1950s wearing bright, stylish clothes. Mothers and nannies would warn their charges: “Behave yourself, man, or Boysie goyn getchu, oui!” [Link]

“Bhagrang Singh, his father, came from de Punjab. He was a member of the Hindu tribe dey call de Chutri; a tribe dat was known for its bravery in war. While he was in India, Bhagrang Singh kill a man of high rank and run to Trinidad to save he neck. He didn’t come here and call heself Maharaj for people to tink he was Brahmin. He was a warrior. When he came to Trinidad he brought wid him a cavalry saber made of fine steel. Artistically, the handle of the saber was shape into a falcon’s head with red stones for eyes. Dat was de warrior in he…

The latest foreign affairs crisis is the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran. The country broke seals on uranium enrichment facilities this week, making it clear it intends to build nukes. Iran’s mullahcrats sometimes make Kim Jong-Il sound like Mr. Rogers:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, gets fresh with a supporter

One of Iran’s most influential ruling clerics [Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani] called Friday on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapon against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them “damages only”. [Link]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has described the Holocaust as “a myth” and suggested that Israel be moved to Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska… Ahmadinejad sparked widespread international condemnation in October when he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map…”

“There is a perception, based on past experience that only when Iran threatens and pushes does the West back off,” he told Reuters. [Link]

Which responsible, nuclear-armed military put nukes in the hands of nutty madrassa grads? Do you even have to ask?

The Iranians turned over the names of their suppliers and international inspectors quickly identified the Iranian centrifuges as Pak-1s, the model developed by Khan in the early 1980s. [Link]

The CIA report is the first to assert that the designs provided to Iran also included those for weapons “components.” [Link]

Nature has given it all the raw uranium it needs. With help from the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, it has acquired uranium enrichment centrifuges and possibly a workable bomb design. And thanks to its ample oil reserves, it has the means to withstand all but the most sweeping and universally enforced sanctions. [Link]

Khan was hardly ‘rogue’:

“One thing we do know is that this was not a rogue operation… How do you get missiles from North Korea to Pakistan? Do you think A.Q. shipped all the centrifuges by Federal Express? The military has to be involved, at high levels.” The intelligence officer went on, “We had every opportunity to put a stop to the A. Q. Khan network fifteen years ago…” “This is not a few scientists pocketing money and getting rich. It’s a state policy.”

Rep. Bobby Jindal led a delegation of members of Congress to meet with Manmohan Singh today to discuss the India-U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement. Indian MPs laid the smack down on U.S. support for the Pakistani military:

They were shown the precise spots in the Indian parliament building that bore the brunt of terrorist attacks Dec 13, 2001, to underscore India’s continuing battle against terrorism. [Link]

… Indian MPs raised the issue of cross-border terrorism allegedly supported by Pakistan. One MP questioned the Congressmen on US double standards in dealing with Pakistan, which was not moving fast enough towards democracy, sources said. [Link]

Jindal was last seen comparing and contrasting the dhol technique of Tigerstyle vs. the duggis of Tabla Beat Science: Jindal was seen explaining the finer points of Indian culture to colleagues

The 34-year-old Jindal, whose parents migrated from Punjab and who narrowly lost the 2003 gubernatorial race in Louisiana, was seen explaining the finer points of Indian culture to his US Congress colleagues. [Link]

Southern India noticed a pocket of hot air which raised temperatures across the region:

Influential US Senator and former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who is currently in India, has lauded the “remarkable transformation” taking place in India. “India and the US are at the centre of an economic revolution,” Kerry said here on Thursday before he left for Hyderabad. [Link]

Off the record, the BJP gave Republicans tips on dealing with the Abramoff scandal. First lesson: don’t take a bribe for any question mentioning Sepia Mutiny of Britain.

Guess who this guy is? Hint: the photo was taken 24 years ago. Answer after the jump.

Last week, the Mutiny was anomalously quiet and for that I am very contrite.

I love our weekly nanofiction orgy just as much, if not more than you, our phenomenal contributors do, so please don’t think that our creative fun came to an abrupt and unexplained end. It didn’t. As you can see, we are back on track this week, now that I am up to being the hostess you deserve, after a very difficult week. Forgive me for leaving you without a Friday you’re in love with? Thank you.

:+:

This week’s “theme” is inspired by all of YOU, or more specifically, those of you who commented on my last post about “Which Celebrity Do I Not Look Like?” When one of you discovered that you resembled TMBWITW, you joked about adding such valuable information to your biodata. Which got me thinking about auto/biography as advertisement. (This shit is bananas! B-I-O-D-A-T-A!)

Surely you know where I’m going with this, as I cackle wickedly. :) 55 words. Sell yourself (or the celebrity you look like OR someone whose identity we try and guess OR a Mutineer) in exactly 55 words. Do it well and who knows who might make a bid. ;)

If only you knew what goes on behind the scenes here in North Dakota— the GMail arrives constantly and furiously, let me promise you that. No, it’s not easy to foment a mutiny, but we try our damnedest.

Without going in to too much detail, since I love you all too much for such carnage (it involves someone exhorting others to give his caruthu kundi an ooma), I’ll just let you know that I ended up at a verrry interesting website, which scanned a picture I uploaded before telling me which celebrity in its database I resembled. Mutineers, I present to you a most inapposite result:

See whom YOU don’t look like by going to MyHeritage.com y’self.

But THIS is where it’s at. The SASA conference is being held this weekend in New York. BUT…if you want to go to a conference that you will truly learn from and be inspired by, why non register for the South Asian Awareness Network (SAAN) conference at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor? It will be held on the February 3rd through 6th weekend. If you are a college student in the state of Michigan then you have no excuse. If you are a student in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, or several other close states, then I just have one word for you: ROADTRIP!

SAAN’s primary function is to establish an annual South Asian conference for South Asian and non-South Asian students alike. SAAN 2006: Impact Through Interaction will be the fourth annual holding of this conference, and we hope to continue setting a precedent that all future SAAN conferences will follow.

SAAN’s broad goals include: educating participants and raising awareness about issues affecting South Asians that are often overlooked or not discussed, inspiring young South Asians to become leaders through activism, building pride, unity, and friendship among students in order to promote South Asian awareness, addressing the educational needs and rights of South Asian Americans, maintaining a network of South Asians in Michigan, the Midwest, and across the nation, sponsoring and co-sponsoring programs and events with other South Asian organizations and promoting peace, unity, and tolerance at a young age to South Asians. [Link]

So why am I endorsing THIS conference? Two reasons. First, the South Asian students at the University of Michigan have an unrivaled history of activism. Don’t just take my word for it, ask around. Where do you think the National Gandhi Day of service was started? In addition, back in 1997-1998, students at the University of Michigan began holding conferences (I helped to organize the first one) partly because they were disgusted by the emphasis on partying that conferences like SASA had embraced. These conferences were to focus on REAL activism, and interaction with equally passionate students through plenty of small group interaction. What is the second reason I am endorsing this conference? Well, because they invited me to speak . I am more than a little nervous though. They put me on a panel where the other speaker’s first name is “Preacher.” Who the hell is going to pay ANY attention to what I have to say when the other guy is named “Preacher?!?” Manish suggested I change my name to Abhi X so that I can compete. Here is a partial listing of the speakers (which include a few people we have blogged about) and a listing of the workshops. The panel I am on is titled: Get up, Get Out, and Get Movin’. And yes. If there is Wi-Fi access, I will be live blogging the conference for SM readers. I’d love to sit five feet in front of some of the speakers and type away every time they open their mouths. What?

You can register here for just ~$50.

The idea of paying blood money to settle murders in rural Pakistan reaches its logical conclusion, since women are still considered nothing more than chattel:

A village council in Pakistan has decreed that five young women should be abducted, raped or killed for refusing to honour childhood “marriages”… The marriages were part of a compensation agreement ordered by the village council and reached at gunpoint after the father of one of the girls shot dead a family rival. The rival families have now called in their “debt”, demanding the marriages to the village men are fulfilled. [Link]

Shall the sins of the father be visited upon the sons daughters?

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan condemned the “barbaric custom of vani”, - the tradition of handing over women to resolve disputes - and called on President Pervez Musharraf to enforce a ban. Last year a three-year-old girl near Multan was betrothed to a 60-year-old man in a similar settlement. [Link]

Her father had killed someone, and she had to marry a member of the victim’s familyHer father had killed someone and she had to marry a member of the victim’s family as compensation under a centuries-old custom of Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtun tribes. Known as swara, the custom calls for a girl to be given away in marriage to an aggrieved family as part of settlement for murder perpetrated by one of her relatives… the custom is still prevalent in the semi-autonomous tribal regions where Pakistani law seldom applies and where jirgas, or councils of tribal elders, settle disputes the old way… “Sons are never given away in settlement because we women folk are easy target…” [Link]

Check out this gallery of Bangladeshi rickshaw art (thanks, Gujjubhai). I especially like this tiger-borne palki:

Most worrying is the growing popularity of the prodigal son / criminal as a theme around town:

Perhaps it’s fitting that people park their derrières on bin Laden’s face.

Related posts: Pimp my ride, Rickshaw revival, Top Down, Chrome Spinnin’, Pulling more than your own weight, The next generation rickshaw

A desi conductor is organizing a classical music concert in Manhattan later this month to raise money for the Pakistan earthquake. On the program is Beethoven’s 9th:

Beethoven’s 9th for South Asia Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

… In the aftermath of the tragedy, an exceptional and unparalleled group of musicians have joined forces and donated their services to help the survivors. All proceeds from the concert will go directly to Doctors Without Borders.

Performers to include principal players of the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra… as well as a chorus of 150-200 assembled from the major choral ensembles in New York City.

George Mathew, a friend of my cousin’s, is conducting.

Earthquakes, I point out, have always made men eager to placate the gods. After the great Lisbon earthquake of November 1, 1755… the locals decided on a propitiatory auto-da-fé… Herr Candide of Thunder-ten-tronckh, a name like an occult incantation, likely to provoke earthquakes where none had previously occurred, was flogged rhythmically and for a long while upon his bloodied buttocks. Immediately after this auto-da-fé there was an even bigger earthquake, and that part of the city which remained standing instantly fell down. That’s the trouble with human sacrifice, the heroin of the gods. It’s highly addictive. And who will save us from deities with major habits to feed?

So god’s a junkie now, Vina says.

The gods, I correct her. Monotheism sucks, like all despotisms…

On Thursday morning NPR will be featuring an interview with this talented and hot young thing. She just goes by one name: Suphala (see Manish’s previous post about her).

The young percussionist known as Suphala studied for years with Ravi Shankar’s tabla player, the late Usted Allarakha.

She still goes every year to Bombay, but she also likes to see where else the tabla can take her. Her musical journeys have included a concert in post-Taliban Afghanistan and a tour with the group Porno for Pyros…

For the series “Musicians in Their Own Words,” Suphala describes how she gets the tabla to speak in many languages. [Link]

There are three tracks on the NPR link that are pretty sweet. You can either wake up to her tablas naturally by setting your alarm clock to NPR, or download the interview after 10a.m. EST. I’ve already made my choice.

Yesterday I brought you the story of the competition between airlines in India to have the hottest stewardesses. Today, a blockbuster deal was announced that will put even more attractive, svelte bodies in the Indian sky. Well…at least they are more attractive to this Aerospace Engineer . Boeing announces:

At a signing ceremony held today at Air India’s headquarters, Boeing [NYSE: BA] Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Alan Mulally and Air India Chairman and Managing Director V. Thulasidas formally announced an order agreement for 68 airplanes. The order, placed with Boeing in December 2005, is valued at more than $11 billion at list prices and deliveries are scheduled to begin in November 2006.

Air India’s order consists of 23 777s, including eight 777-200LR (Longer Range) Worldliners and 15 777-300ERs (Extended Range), and 27 787-8 Dreamliners. Air India Express, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Air India, will receive 18 Next-Generation 737-800s.

Here is the sugar in the coffee:

Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said the US aircraft maker had agreed to spend nearly two [billion U.S. dollars] on reciprocal deals.

‘Boeing has a counter-trade… amounting to (1.9 bln usd) over the next 10 years, which would mean that Boeing will buy from India a range of goods and services,’ Patel said.

The aircraft maker will also spend 75 mln usd on training pilots and another 100 mln in maintenance and repairs to the aircraft, he said. [Link]

So basically Boeing gets a huge contract from India, and in return outsources some of its production line there, which will result in a very positive economic impact. I hope some of you purchased Boeing stock before the closing bell. PRI’s Marketplace has a nice audio summary of the specifics.

Our tipline has been buzzing (thanks “mg” and others) with news that Rakesh Sharma, director of the award winning “Final Solution” about the Gujarat riots, is suing the City of New York, and that the NYCLU’s got his back. Here is why:

Rakesh Sharma was filming cars emerge from under Manhattan’s Metlife building in 2005 when he was stopped, questioned, allegedly shoved, and then detained by the NYPD for shooting footage of the building. The cops were suspicious of Sharma’s motives but, after four hours, the director was released and told that he would need a permit if he wanted to do any further shooting.

When Sharma applied for a permit, however, his application was denied because he lacked the proper insurance. Now, represented by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the director (who has won multiple awards for his documentaries) has filed suit against the city’s “police restrictions on taking pictures in public.” Among those named in the suit are the city itself and the commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting. [Link]

Why was Sharma filming cars? Well it will make sense when you know what kind of cars he was filming:

Rakesh Sharma was shooting footage for a film on New York taxi drivers in May 2005 when officers stopped him…

“It’s a sad day when the police think they can detain and mistreat someone simply for making a film on a public street in New York City,” Mr Sharma said on Tuesday.

“I co-operated with them and answered all their questions, but they treated me like a criminal. It was wrong, and I was scared and humiliated,” he said. [Link]

A blogger at Mediabistro quips:

Honestly, if the cops in New York start arresting Indian guys with cameras, they’re going to have to shut down all of Sixth Avenue. We’re officially scared.

I’m hoping that DNSI’s Valarie Kaur might leave a comment and shed some light on this for us. She has recently been filming in New York City as well. I wonder if she was similarly hassled.

Update: Both Rakesh Sharma and Valarie Kaur were kind enough to respond to this post.

You can sign the petition to protest his arrest here.

Last month the BBC had an article about the stern warning issued by Air India to its cabin crews:

India’s state-owned airline Air India has threatened to ground its overweight cabin crew unless they shed their excess pounds over the next two months.

Some 10% of its 1,600-strong cabin crew are estimated to be overweight or suffering from obesity.

S Venkat, Air India’s general manager public relations, told the BBC that the airline would strictly implement the directive.

“We have a tolerance limit that cannot be exceeded,” he said.

Although the Air India Cabin Crew Association welcomed this decision, they didn’t say anything about the fact that the “tolerance limits” were different for men and women. Quite simply the airline wants hot stewardesses in order to compete in the always cut-throat airline business (see the Kingfisher Airlines picture on the right). Want more proof? Check out the BBC’s most recent report (quite humorous) from freezing cold Delhi:

Delhi can be mercilessly chilly during the opening weeks of January.

Central-heating devoid houses constructed to withstand the furnace-like temperatures of high summer seem more like well-upholstered cold rooms…

So imagine my surprise the other afternoon at finding my favourite outdoor swimming pool absolutely teeming with glamorous young people, in what looked, from a distance at least, like a cross between spring break in Cancun and a Mumbai movie premier.

Swimsuits, stilettos and Speedos abounded. [Link]

MTV has been showcasing the efforts of young Pakistani-Americans involved in Earthquake relief on many of its cable channels. As an example, you can head over to MTV Overdrive. Click on “Play Now” and then go to the “News” menu. One of the links in the menu is titled “Young People Pitch in for Pakistan.” This leads to a series of short news clips with enough music and fast camera work to hold the attention of young desis long enough to inspire them. It’s worth it just to hear aging hipster John Norris say the word “desis.” I’m digging the girl’s “I Love Nerds” shirt. The group featured in the news clips is Developments in Literacy (DIL):

The Developments in Literacy organization (DIL) was launched in February 1997 in Southern California. Its main purpose is to work for the eradication of illiteracy, in the remote and neglected areas of Pakistan, by establishing primary and secondary level non-formal schools for underprivileged children.

DIL, a nonprofit, voluntary organization has succeeded, in a period of five years, at establishing 200 schools in collaboration with various NGO’s…

In addition, a press release from MTV announces that their dreamy young newsman Gideon Yago, will be reporting from Pakistan all this week, culminating in a video diary titled, “Aftershock: Diary of Gideon in Pakistan.” Presumably the clips will be uploaded onto MTV’s website throughout the week. I will try an update this post if/as I discover those links.

Starting today [Monday], MTV News will turn over a week of its programming - on all platforms - to report on the aftermath of the October earthquake that rocked northwestern Pakistan and Kashmir, leaving 87,000 dead and 3.5million homeless. MTV News correspondent Gideon Yago will report on what’s being done to aid and rebuild after the disaster - from Pakistani-American marines assigned to humanitarian relief to a local movie theater turned rehab center for women. Yago’s reports will air on MTV, MTV2, mtvU and MTV Overdrive and will culminate in the documentary “Aftershock: Diary of Gideon in Pakistan,” premiering Friday at 7:30p.m. [Link]

I’m actually looking forward to seeing it. I think the interaction between young Pakistani-American Marines and the local population could make for some powerful television.

Update: The Vice President of MTV news, Ocean MacAdams, has provided us with direct links

The Diary Of Gideon In Pakistan (FULL SHOW plus exclusives)

Gideon In Pakistan: Exclusive Clips

Aftershock: South Asian Earthquake (Comp of news briefs)

Young People Pitch In For Pakistan (Desi packages)

On Monday, India’s President Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam presided over the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Awards:

The Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Awards have been instituted to recognize and reward the meritorious contributions made by NRIs [Non-Resident Indians] and PIOs [Persons of Indian Origin] to further India’s interests and causes. [Link]

Among the 15 recipients was Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria. What interested me however was Kalam’s speech at the awards, and the types of things that he hoped NRIs and PIOs could accomplish for India, or to bring pride to Indians. Here are some choice words, but the whole speech was quite good:

Today, the 9th day of January, marks the return of Gandhiji from South Africa to India 91 years ago. His work in South Africa and reasons of his return are well known. The point I would like to make is that when Gandhiji returned, he travelled from one colony to another of an Empire on whose territory; the sun would never set at that time. It would not be an exaggeration, if I say that today the sun truly cannot set on the empire of the Indian Mind. Some children of Mother India are always working wherever the sun is shining on this planet be it Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, the Americas and, indeed, on the icy reaches of Antarctica. Twenty million children of India live in various parts of the planet and every year it is increasing, because they are needed…

People of Indian Origin worldwide represent four waves of migration in the past. The first, and probably the longest wave, was of Indians going forth in search of knowledge and opportunity as travellers, as teachers and as traders. Indians went to China and around Indo-China. The second wave was one of enforced migration of indentured labour, a legacy of colonialism. Indians were taken to Africa, West Indies and England. The third wave was a product of partition. The fourth and the most recent wave has been that of Indians empowered with skill and knowledge seeking various type of opportunities and challenges. The destination is the United States, Canada and English speaking European countries and West Asia. Will there be a fifth wave? In the fifth wave, towards the end of 21st century, Indians may participate in the planetary civilization that may result [in] many resourceful Indians [inhabiting] Mars and entering the space industrial establishment on Moon…

Superstar desi lawyer Neal Katyal, who will later this year be representing Osama Bin Laden’s former driver in a Supreme Court case, had a book review in yesterday’s Washington Post. The book he was reviewing was a new one by John Yoo titled, The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs After 9/11. Katyal cleverly uses his book review to slam Yoo and his conservative policies, while also adding to the very relevant debate about what limits should be imposed on the powers of the Executive.

In particular, the book argues that the Constitution gives the president a much larger role in foreign affairs and military operations than the other two branches of the federal government, that the president does not need a congressional declaration of war before placing troops on the ground and that treaties ratified by the Senate have no legal impact unless Congress explicitly passes laws saying that they do.

In advancing these claims, the book is burdened by its strange attempt to mix constitutional claims grounded in the Founders’ intent in 1787 with the practicalities of living in an age of terrorism. Either one can take the position of such conservative icons as Robert Bork and Justice Antonin Scalia — that the original intentions of the Constitution’s authors bind us today and changes can only come through amendment — or hold the view of more liberal figures such as Justice Stephen Breyer that practical, functional considerations create a living Constitution that adapts as times change. Both are perfectly plausible. What isn’t credible is a theory that cherry-picks from the two to advance a particular thesis. And that’s exactly what Yoo does at times.

…In the end, the most glaring failure of the book is its one-sided attack on the courts and Congress, with no real attention paid to the failures of the executive branch. The underlying message is that the executive doesn’t need checks on its activities, but that the other branches consistently do. Yet presidents of both parties have made tremendous mistakes, and recent events have shown that claims of unchecked power can lead to massive abuse. Yoo even unwittingly refers to at least one recent miscalculation, in words that already date the book, by stating that Iraq was “potentially armed with weapons of mass destruction.”

It seems very likely that this book review also gives us a small preview of what some of Katyal’s arguments in front of the Supreme Court may be in Hamdan v Rumsfeld. I am just counting the weeks until Nina Totenberg wakes me with details of Katyal’s fight in front of the Roberts court.

At some point after hearing the fifth K3G remix at the Net cafe in Fez and watching a Moroccan boy who knew and sang all the words to ‘Shava Shava’ doing chair-bhangra (it’s just like car-bhangra, only the entire cafe doesn’t tilt), I became obsessed with the idea of watching Bollywood in Morocco.

My atrocious and limited French interposed itself between me and my Priyanka fixation like an ill-tempered gendarme with little bits of toilet paper stanching a bad shave. ‘Waqt.’ I said, pointing at the movie poster and tapping my wrist. ‘Quoi heure?’ The man behind the grill patiently wrote ‘8.30’ for me and repeated it in French. ‘Waqt, oui?’ Same answer.

In each of these locations, there was a weird juxtaposition of things sited. In the first and second locations, a gym was right along side some form of educational institute, in the third the municipal gym was between a gurudwara on the left and a mandir on the right. Incidentally, the first and third places were closed (I tried to join while I was here … start the new year right and work off all the gulab jamun I’ve been eating). The third place, the municipal gym, saw all of its equipment break from overuse so the city just closed it down. It was a shame, but this is the risk inherent in overly subsidizing a service.

The tip line is burning up with news from readers about the latest scandal to put the drama in ABC’s hit “Lost”. I was ready to credit one of you helpful email-senders for this post, but it turns out Lulloo beat you to it. Who cares, pour some tea, call your neighbor and start gossiping!

Naveen Andrews, who plays Mystery Island’s resident Iraqi Republican Guardsman Sayid Jarrah, has admitted that he fathered a child last year while briefly separated from longtime companion, Barbara Hershey.

Andrews’ publicist released a statement to E! Friday saying that Andrews, 36, and Hershey, 57, “quietly” split for a period early last year, during which Andrews had a fling with another woman. He recently learned that he is the father of her baby boy.[E!]

No worries, Sayid fans. Your boy intends to do the right thing AND stick with his Hershey Bar…ba..ra:

“Andrews has every intention of assuming appropriate responsibility for the child and proceeding with all integrity in this matter,” the statement says.[E!]

Who’s calling Naveen her baby-daddy? A Czech acting student who met the star at a New York bar. Nope, I didn’t intend to rhyme.

The baby’s mother is pretty student Elena Eustache, who has alleged in the past that…he regularly flew her to the Lost set in Hawaii for love-making sessions.[tabloid]

That’s one way to conceive of “room service”. Anyway, she said they were hooking up for a year. He said something which sounded like a forgettable Shaggy song featuring Rik Rok. The paternity test proved that indeed, it WAS him.

When Elena announced she was six months pregnant following a year-long affair with Naveen, the actor denied those claims, branding her claims of an affair as “ridiculous.” Elena claims Naveen told her that his relationship with Hershey was over…[tabloid]

Sigh. Who knew you couldn’t trust boys you meet in bars, who are on the rebound?? I think we’ve all learned something here today (besides “The Pill is only effective when taken”).

A new study published in the medical journal The Lancet (subscription required) exposes the staggering numbers involved in India’s greatest shame. The BBC reports:

More than 10m female births may have been lost to abortion and sex selection in the past 20 years, according to research in The Lancet medical journal.

Researchers in India and Canada said prenatal selection and selective abortion was causing the loss of 500,000 girls a year.

Their research was based on a national survey of 1.1m households in 1998.

The researchers said the “girl deficit” was more common among educated women but did not vary according to religion.

In most countries, women slightly outnumber men, but separate research for the year 2001 showed that for every 1,000 male babies born in India, there were just 933 girls. [Link]

The one result of the study which really makes me lose hope for the future is that a more educated woman is even MORE likely to pursue sex selection by abortion (although this could be due to pressure from their equally more educated spouse). Also, there is an even larger spike in people selecting the sex of their babies through abortion if there has already been a daughter born into a family.

In cases where the preceding child was a girl, the ratio of girls to boys in the next birth was 759 to 1,000.

This fell even further when the two preceding children were both girls. Then the ratio for the third child born was just 719 girls to 1,000 boys.

However, for a child following the birth of a male child, the gender ratio was roughly equal.

Basically this means that for a female fetus to see the light of day she has to hope that she has an older brother waiting on the other side for her.

Dr [Shirish] Sheth says: “Female infanticide of the past is refined and honed to a fine skill in this modern guise. It is ushered in earlier, more in urban areas and by the more educated … A careful demographic analysis of actual and expected sex ratios shows that about 100 million girls are missing from the world - they are dead…” [Link]

Why Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World filmed in India:

Some of the Arab press, Mr. Brooks said, questioned his decision to set the film in India and Pakistan rather than an Arab country. “I said, ‘Well, if you can get me permission to shoot in Saudi Arabia, let me know,’ ” he said. “Because it was not happening when I was making calls. That was shut down within five minutes, with ‘What, are you insane?’ They’re not going to let a Jewish man, much less a filmmaker, in there. That’s just not going to happen. But I wanted the conflict between the two countries. I knew in writing this that I wanted to take two existing powers that are always suspicious of each other, and that was the one place you could do that. The idea was always that I go to do a peace mission, and I almost start World War III.”

Dude, Johnny Lever is still very much around, on film and on stage:

Comedy in the Muslim world (Arab or otherwise) can indeed be hard to find. “Today, stand-up comedians just don’t really exist,” Mr. Usman said. “But they did once. I have albums from the 70’s. The big, towering guy from Pakistan is called Moin Akhtar, and another guy, who was his contemporary, was Umar Sharif. And there was a guy in India who was really famous, who used the name Johnny Lever. They basically did one-man shows, with a lot of improv and sketch comedy, but with a small portion of what we would call stand-up.”

I dunno, the previews seemed similarly lame to me:

Once Mr. Brooks chose India as his setting, he visited the minister of information. “He told me that Steven Spielberg had wanted to shoot ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’ there, and they wouldn’t allow it, because they didn’t like the scene where they ate monkey brains,” Mr. Brooks said. “I said, ‘I don’t do that,’ and I think they were really appreciative that I didn’t have the whole scene where the cow stops traffic. They’ve seen that so much, and they hate it…” “I get nervous when I hear people are doing something about India, because usually it’s done with so little intelligence,” Ms. Sheth said.

Yesterday Google announced the launch of yet another service: All hail the Google Video (Store). The Los Angeles Times Reports:

Search giant Google Inc. put its own twist on the budding online video market Friday, unveiling an Internet bazaar that allows movie studios, TV networks and any amateur with a camera to sell their wares.

The Google Video Store, launching with 5,000 titles, is the first major challenge to the early lead that Apple Computer Inc. has in the emerging market for online video. It also could help realize the dreams of futurists who have long envisioned the Internet as a creative commons that upends the business models of traditional media.

Independent filmmakers, for instance, can try to bypass Hollywood; dog trainers and yoga instructors can offer how-to videos; and someone who captures a plane crash or other major news event on video can skip the traditional media — all in favor of selling their work as a digital download.

“Now any guy with a camera who believes in what they’re doing can compete with the Sonys and Warner Bros. of the world,” said director Ben Rekhi, who said he turned down a $125,000 distribution deal to instead sell his film “Waterborne” through Google for $4.99 a download.

Rekhi tipped us off about this article in the LA Times, and the fact that his film “Waterborne” was the first independent film to premiere thru Google Video, because of two of the co-stars in his film: Shabana Azmi and Ajay Naidu.

On the ferry from Spain to Morocco, I had my ear bent for several hours by a friendly Moroccan bloke, as they tend to be. It was either that, or coming out of stealth mode and joining the Americans listening to an Aussie English teacher yap nonstop for four hours. The job selects for strong lungs. Between broken English, a smattering of French and German, and long phrases in Mime, the fellow now residing in Germany kept the ferry crossing lively.

The rest of the encounter got weird.

In the ’60s, the U.S. Department of Defense grew increasingly worried about containing the USSR and funded departments of South Asian Studies at many American universities. Ironically, many of the beneficiaries of the grants were exactly the kind of free spirits that granite-cut DoD types abhorred. As time went on, this faculty started facing 2nd gen desis asking to learn about modern South Asia rather than psychosexual analyses of Radha-Krishna, and asking for native language instructors rather than those one step phonetically removed.

Today the Hindoo Peril arises anew, and this time around it’s that the Axis of Non-English has imbibed capitalism too deeply (thanks, Joby):

President Bush is asking for Congress for $114 million in next year’s budget to push Americans into uncharted linguistic territory under what is being called “National Security Language Initiative…” Hindi has been identified as one of the critical foreign languages that Americans need to learn… Americans are also being urged to study Farsi, Arabic, Chinese and other languages… [Link]

Note the clumping of the language of potential military enemies with economic competitors. OTOH, since oil supply is an economic chokepoint, maybe it’s all about dem billz over at Larnin’ ‘bout Furriners, Part Deux.

Hey, you might even get a Tamil, Gujarati or Telugu class resurrected out of this. All in the name of knowing the ‘enemy,’ of course ;)

Erstwhile Guest Blogger Ads finds the ultimate in pimp rides, on Craigslist of all places; I totally understand her desire.

I realize that this is completely impractical, but I still kind of want it. [link]

I want one, too. What a beaut. Classic red with tan top, street legal, meets strict emissions standards for my home state, a mere 400 miles old…book it, I’m sold.

The annual South Asian Student Alliance (SASA) conference begins next weekend. I think that SM bloggers and quite a few of our readers have made it pretty clear what little respect we have left for SASA, which seems to have lost its way (see previous posts 1,2). If you are a student who has not yet arrived at the conclusion that we have, and you have decided to attend next weekend, then I have a critical mission for you. I believe that there exists a way in which you can make the trip to New York worth it. The SASA conference will once again hold a Bone Marrow Drive. Make sure that you take the time to give just a few drops of your blood.

Thursday Jan 12th: 1:00pm - 10:00pm
Friday Jan 13th: 10:00am - 10:00pm

Ballroom Floor
At The New Yorker Hotel
481 8th Avenue at 34th Street
New York City

Take a look at these faces…they are just like you and me! Look at the fellow South Asians and ask why can’t we save them and help many more, who are likely to be in same situation in the future. It does not matter if you are from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh; it does not matter if you are Hindu, Moslem, Christian or Jain. What matters is, that we all share the same genetic pool, and we save each others life!

You can probably show up for the drive even if you aren’t there for the conference. Need more motivation? Help Save Ashish:

Ashish has undergone a great deal of suffering since first admitted at Texas Children’s hospital on September 26, 2005. He has been in and out of the hospital, first admitted at Texas Children’s hospital on September 26, 2005. requiring transfusions, fighting infections, undergoing bone marrow biopsy’s and surgeries. He has to check his blood levels every week and needs transfusions regularly. In spite of the pain he has gone through he has an incredible inner strength that is portrayed in his beaming smile and good nature. While we pray for a miracle his only medical hope for survival is a bone marrow transplant.

I used to think the urge to convert mosques into temples was an obsession peculiar to Hindutva types. But Córdoba, Spain makes it ok to have rapacious religionists in your cultural closet.

As I posted last, the mountain fortress of La Alhambra looks Spanish on the outside, Mughal on the inside. But the Mezquita cathedral in Córdoba is the reverse, a Moorish mosque converted into a cathedral.

I am in India right now, “helping” my baby sister with her preparations for her impending nuptuals. This is what a bridal show looks like, Indian style :

Does this lehnga make my hips look large?

[Excuse the photoblogging - it’s hard to get the peace and quiet necessary to string two words together around here and the DSL is unreliable to boot.]

UPDATE: The photo above was taken at Frontier (sic) Bazar in Karol Bagh, Delhi. My sister bought none of the lehngas above, they were being shown to somebody else (and most Sikh weddings are done in Salvaar Kameez suits, which is what she bought). She did, however, buy her suit material at Frontier, which she heartily endorses, after having done the tour of most of the South-Ex boutiques (selection is small, and unless you want what is in fashion at that moment you’re out of luck).

Where everything I see reminds me of you, our loyal readers, and the rest of the mutineers:

(Look at the doorknob)

It’s been said that when it comes to Capitalism, the Poor often have much to teach the Rich. And if there’s one place where the Poor are a veritable petri dish of experimentation, it’s India. Marginal Revolution has an interesting series of posts on the emergence of private education in this sector of da homeland. They quote a Washington Post column by Sebastian Mallaby who cites a growth story of nearly Google-esque proportions -

Vellore is a small town in southern India, poor enough for some of its buildings to have thatched roofs rather than the rain-proof metal sort. Until a few years ago Vellore was notable only for its large Christian medical center, erected with the help of foreign money. But now it has sprouted this 9,000-student technical college, complete with a sports stadium, an incubator for start-up high-tech businesses and a bio-separation lab.

…The college started out in 1984 with just 180 students…In 2005 India produced 200,000 engineering graduates, about three times as many as the United States and twice as many as all of Europe. But the really astonishing statistic is this: In 2005 India enrolled fully 450,000 students in four-year engineering courses, meaning that its output of engineers will more than double by 2009.

The lesson for other developing nations? The role of private education -

A couple of you (thanks Eric) have sent us an article out today in the New York Times that follows up on the incident of the women police officers beating up on canoodling couples in an Indian park. At first I hesitated to even blog that story because it seemed like on of those “only in India” type off-beat news stories. Apparently though, it has caused a national uproar:

From the political right and left came condemnation of the police action. Brinda Karat, the most prominent woman representing a coalition of leftist parties in government, denounced the police for pouncing on courting couples while violent rapes remain unsolved. Sushma Swaraj, a legislator from the Hindu nationalist opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, took the podium in Parliament and called it a product of “a sick mind.” [Link]

Former SM pin-up girl PG writes not about the story, but about the headline of the article in the New York Times:

This appears to be the rare occasion on which I can criticize the NYT’s India coverage before any of the bloggers at SM does.

“Is Public Romance a Right? The Kama Sutra Doesn’t Say”

has got to be one of the stupidest Orientalist headlines I’ve seen on the Times. The actual content of the story, written by Somini Sengupta with additional reporting by Hari Kumar, mentions absolutely nothing about the Kama Sutra.

Well PG, with Manish (our anti-Orientalist headline critic) out of the country we are glad that you caught it. I wonder if the Times keeps stats on whether it gets more hits on news stories that have “Kama Sutra” in the headline.

…is kindness. A poll last month in Pakistan (conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow) makes even more clear a notion that we have alluded to before on a couple of occasions [1,2]. If the U.S. wants a cost effective way of attacking terrorism at its root, then kill them with kindness. Just look at what happened when we decided to divert a few helicopters from Afghanistan to the quake ravaged regions of Pakistan. New America Media reports on the poll results:

So much for the popularly peddled view that anti-Americanism in the Muslim world is so pervasive and deep-rooted it might take generations to alter. A new poll from Pakistan, one of the most critical front lines in the war on terror, paints a very different picture — by revealing a sea change in public opinion in recent months.

Long a stronghold for Islamic extremists and the world’s second most populous Muslim nation, Pakistanis now hold a more favorable opinion of the US than at any time since 9/11, while support for al Qaeda in its home base has dropped to its lowest level since then. The direct cause for this dramatic shift in Muslim opinion is clear: American humanitarian assistance for Pakistani victims of the Oct. 8 earthquake that killed at least 87,000. The US pledged $510 million for earthquake relief in Pakistan and American soldiers are playing a prominent role in rescuing victims from remote mountainous villages.

Key Findings of Terror Free Tomorrow Poll in Pakistan [partial list]:

• 73% of Pakistanis surveyed now believe suicide terrorist attacks are never justified, up from 46% just last May.
• Support for Osama Bin Laden has declined significantly (51% favorable in May 2005 to just 33% in November), while those who oppose him rose from 23% to 41%.
• US favorabilty among Pakistanis has doubled from 23% in May to more than 46% now, while the percentage of Pakistanis with very unfavorable views declined from 48% to 28%.
• For the first time since 9/11, more Pakistanis are now favorable to the United States than unfavorable.
• 78% of Pakistanis have a more favorable opinion of the United States because of the American response to the earthquake, with the strongest support among those under 35.

The full poll has additional key findings and what the pollsters feel are the critical implications of the results. We now have two dramatic data points in less than a year. When America went in after the tsunami our reputation skyrocketed with the Indonesian people, and now this news from Pakistan.

One of my favorite things about camping is that I get a chance to break out my Petzl MYO 5 Xenon Head Lamp. It has five tiny Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) as well as a larger flood light (in case a companion falls down a bottomless pit). When I first attach the unit to my head some people smirk and comment that I look a little silly. Inevitably, they are all begging me for use of its luminosity by the end of the night. But here is the best part: I bought my headlamp three years ago and have used it on countless camping trips and all night hikes, and it’s STILL running on the original set of 4 batteries. The Christian Science Monitor reports on the great benefits that the tiny LED could bring to rural India:

As many as 1.5 billion people - nearly 80 million in India alone - light their houses using kerosene as the primary lighting media. The fuel is dangerous, dirty, and - despite being subsidized - consumes nearly 4 percent of a typical rural Indian household’s budget. A recent report by the Intermediate Technology Development Group suggests that indoor air pollution from such lighting media results in 1.6 million deaths worldwide every year.

LED lamps, or more specifically white LEDS, are believed to produce nearly 200 times more useful light than a kerosene lamp and almost 50 times the amount of useful light of a conventional bulb.

“This technology can light an entire rural village with less energy than that used by a single conventional 100 watt light bulb,” says Dave Irvine-Halliday, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Calgary, Canada and the founder of Light Up the World Foundation (LUTW). Founded in 1997, LUTW has used LED technology to bring light to nearly 10,000 homes in remote and disadvantaged corners of some 27 countries like India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, and the Philippines.

As the article mentions, at least one village has already been transformed by Grameen Surya Bijli Foundation (GSBF), a Bombay-based nongovernmental organization that has created a solar powered LED unit that costs only $55. Once installed the energy is obviously free of charge. The key to this is to convince the Indian government that this is much more cost effective than spending money to light India in the conventional way. To do this you would have to lower the $55 per unit cost. This can be done if the solar cells were locally manufactured. This in turn could provide employment benefits in the communities doing the manufacturing.

In a tongue-in-cheek sting operation by the Times of London, major publishers recently rejected two Booker-winning manuscripts submitted anew, one by Sir Naipaul. It shows publishers are terrible judges of talent… or does it?

Publishers and agents have rejected two Booker prize-winning novels submitted as works by aspiring authors. One of the books considered unworthy by the publishing industry was by V S Naipaul, one of Britain’s greatest living writers, who won the Nobel prize for literature…

Typed manuscripts of the opening chapters of Naipaul’s In a Free State and a second novel, Holiday, by Stanley Middleton, were sent to 20 publishers and agents.

None appears to have recognised them as Booker prizewinners from the 1970s that were lauded as British novel writing at its best. Of the 21 replies, all but one were rejections. [Link]

Naipaul even got the dreaded cold shoulder by form letter:

“We … thought it was quite original. In the end though I’m afraid we just weren’t quite enthusiastic enough to be able to offer to take things further.” [Link]

Naipaul got in his usually cranky licks against the critics, but in this case he earned it:

“To see that something is well written and appetisingly written takes a lot of talent and there is not a great deal of that around. With all the other forms of entertainment today there are very few people around who would understand what a good paragraph is.” [Link]

Yesterday in Sevilla, I saw Christopher ColumbusŽ purported tomb and learned that locally, ‘las Indias’ means the Indies, i.e. the Americas. Only ‘la India’ qualifies as the name of the country. ‘Indio’ means Native American, while ‘Hindú’ is the word for desi, even if you aren’t. That man was confused, confused, confused.

Quickie book review – I’m-on-the-road edition

Kiran Desai’s new book, The Inheritance Of Loss, soft-launched last month, and I picked up a copy at Barnes & Noble. It’s a good tale with a globalization undercurrent connecting IndiaŽs Nepal border with New York City.

Her previous book, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, was a well-written magically realist vignette on the line between a novel and a novella. Despite the fruitarian title, it was excellent. Her new one is far more ambitious. Rushdie has a highly complimentary but generic blurb on the back of the new one, which I take to mean he hasn’t read the new one yet. Only having read her mom Anita Desai’s Booker-nominated work Fasting, Feasting so far, I’d say I enjoy her writing more than her mother’s (whose work I also enjoy).

She also gets in a bunch of wicked jabs at non-vegetarians, Brits, upper-class New Yorkers, 2nd genners and so on, she’s not playing safe here. It’s mutinous that way, just like The Red Carpet: Bangalore Stories by Lavanya Sankaran.

(Desai is a far better show-not-tell writer — I liked Carpet because it’s sassy, and I could completely relate to all the jabs at 2nd gen dating; itŽs like an American version of Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee. Also, sheŽs an ex-WSJer and seems to be a conservative, which I mention only to boost sales in the Vinod - Razib segment. SankaranŽs biggest f*-you goes out to Mumbaikars who look down on Bangalore, but sheŽs riding the outsourcing publicity wave, so it isn’t quite the declaration of independence it seems.)

My complaints:

• The usual gender one — I often like male authors better, they move plot faster (Vikram Chandra, Rushdie); this book lacks motion, and is sometimes PG-rated where it should be R (a scene where an auntie receives the mildest of insults from a guerilla chieftain) and R where it should be PG (explicit booger jokes)
• Like just about all American 2nd genners, the thrust of the story focuses on the motherland on the assumption that that’s the biggest market; she’s borderline 1-1.5 gen, so she has a small excuse
• Which editor allowed through the hundreds of sequential question marks and exclamation points???!!! Makes the editing look amateur and is a pain to read.

Otherwise, highly recommended. Flippant, funny and mutinous as all hell. Sometimes a treatise rather than a novel, but much less so than Carpet, and that makes it all the more entertaining— frankly, there’s a lot to be said.

Desai is reading in Manhattan Feb. 1 at the Rubin Museum of Art, a major Himalayan art collection (via SAJA).

The New York Times today examines Playboy’s designs on India in greater detail. In order to penetrate the Indian market they must tread carefully. There definitely isn’t going to be any kissing on the first date but I’m sure the end goal will remain the same.

…there is another story behind Playboy’s discovery of India. The magazine once saw itself as America’s gateway to a sexual revolution. Now, with that revolution won and its societal impact fading, Playboy has a chance to renew itself as a magazine of high living in a country that celebrated sex in antiquity, then grew prudish, and is now loosening up again.

Ms. Hefner has said that an Indian version of the magazine “would be an extension of Playboy that would be focused around the lifestyle, pop culture, celebrity, fashion, sports and interview elements of Playboy.” But the magazine would not be “classic Playboy,” she warned. “It would not have nudity,” she said, “and I don’t think it would be called Playboy.”

In the U.S., Playboy Magazine’s fortunes have been declining for quite some time because their content isn’t considered “daring” enough anymore. Americans aren’t really shocked by anything on the pages of Playboy when compared to its raunchier competitors. If they want to find success with this magazine in India I would think that the name “Playboy,” and all the heritage the name carries, would help it compete with Maxim India and some of the filmi magazines which are already fairly risque. If there is no nudity then what can Playboy offer besides its brand name? Therefore, it makes no sense to me why they would name the magazine something else in India except to fool the censors.

Indian law prohibits the sale or possession of material that is “lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest” and that is without redeeming artistic, literary or religious merit. Soft-core pornographic magazines are available in India, but are taboo. They lurk behind other publications at newsstands, available only by whispered request. They also attract few lucrative advertisers.

“There would only be a few brands that would look at these magazines,” said Paulomi Dhawan, who runs advertising for Raymond, a leading Indian apparel maker. “We would probably be more in the business or news magazines or the male-oriented serious magazines.”

There is another problem: if you are 26, living with prying parents, where do you hide your stash?

Author Gurmukh Singh is set to release his new book this month titled: California Dreams - India shining in the land of Hollywood:

Four British Army Sikh soldiers who landed in San Francisco April 5, 1899, were the forerunners of a massive wave of Indian migration to southern California - the region that is home to a staggering 200,000 of the over 1.5 million Indian Americans in the US.

It is in southern California that people like Dilip Singh Saund began the Asian struggle for equal rights; it is there that Indian mystics and yogis like Paramhansa Yogananda and Jiddu Krishnamurthy started preaching the wisdom of the East; it is there that transcendental meditation and yogis gained global recognition.

“California Dreams - India shining in the land of Hollywood” (British Columbia Books) traces this magical journey as author Gurmukh Singh skilfully chronicles the contribution of 24 Indian Americans in propelling the Sunshine State to a major economic powerhouse within the US. [Link]

One of the selling points of this book seems to be that it is filled with lots of pictures (some rare) which would make it a good coffee table book even after you’ve finished reading it.

“The inspiring life stories of these most remarkable Indian Americans are a testament to ever growing enterprise and ingenuity,” notes Stanley Wolpert, professor emeritus of South Asian history at UCLA, in his foreword to the 208-page, profusely illustrated book priced at $20 (Rs.999 in India). [Link]

This weekend, almost one thousand people were rounded up in Colombo by Sri Lankan police officers and military personnel, during a massive security operation. After being questioned, hundreds were let go:

By the end of the day, only 53 remained in custody; the police said 5 were members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam guerrilla group. The rest, charged with minor crimes, were released on bail.

…The house-to-house sweep on Saturday was carried out primarily in the Tamil enclaves of Colombo by about 2,400 police officers, backed by 2,000 soldiers, sailors and air force personnel. “The operation was aimed at preventing future L.T.T.E. attacks and to ensure the security of Colombo,” said Pujith Jayasundere, deputy inspector general of the police. He said the police were also looking for organized crime figures.[nyt]

…the police were cordial and explained why they were there. “But it did bring back memories of the frequent searches we were compelled to go through before the cease-fire,” Mr. Joseph said. “I guess we may have to go through more of these in the coming days.”

…”It was a little inconvenience, but it is our duty to cooperate, especially under the present security situation,” said Sonali Silva, an ethnic Sinhalese and also a resident of Wellawatte.[nyt]

The nation’s current events are worrisome (from the BBC):

The recent wave of violence is the worst since the February 2002 ceasefire, which was called after a two-decade conflict had claimed more than 64,000 lives.

On Sunday, Joseph Pararajasingam, a Tamil MP representing a party with close links with the Tamil Tigers, was shot dead in the eastern city of Batticaloa while celebrating a Christmas Mass.

On Tuesday, international peace monitors overseeing the truce said they were “very concerned about the future of the ceasefire agreement”.

Reentry can be disintegrating. I’ve lived London but reminders are for thanks giving: London’s public face, its point of initial contact, is desi, from the cleaners to the flight attendants and ticket agents to the young passport control dude asking fresh questions about my New Year’s plans with a wink in his eye. Did Southall grow up around Heathrow or was it waiting to yield up lovely X-ray screeners barely out of their teens? No matter, there are countries I love for their culture and hate for their food— being vegetarian in Spain means picking bits of ham out of hard, dry baguettes. Good food can only enhance the emotionality of a place, Italy obviously, and I might like Thailand. London Delivers. Samosas, aloo tikkis, paneer wraps, mango lassi at any old cornershop. God shave the queen.

Happy new year or, as we say here in North Dakota, (smack) ‘More rum, in-tern!’ Inspired by a Rushdie fable, I’m spending a couple of days traipsing around Moorish country without a Moorish girl.

I have lost count of the days that have passed since I fled the horrors of Vasco Miranda’s mad fortress in the Andalusian mountain-village of Benengali; ran from death under cover of darkness and left a message nailed to the door. [Link]

True melodrama. Take that, writing workshop.

Orangedrinks. Lemondrinks. CocaColaFantaicecreamrosemilk… In pointy shoes and a puff… With his Fountain in a Love-in-Tokyo… [Link]

May all your Orangedrinks Lemondrinks dreams come true.