Conrad Burns, Republican Senator from Montana, recently said the following:

Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, whose recent comments have stirred controversy, says the United States is up against a faceless enemy of terrorists who “drive taxi cabs in the daytime and kill at night.”(link)

Looks like a garden variety anti-immigrant slur — they seem to be coming hot and heavy this year (the theme this campaign season seems to be brown-baiting: Latinos and Middle Easterners/South Asians). I suppose it would be possible to say, “well, he’s just talking about terrorism, he never said ‘immigrants’ or ‘South Asian immigrants.’” First, as far as I know no taxi driver is currently being accused of a connection to terrorism, so he’s not literally talking about taxi drivers, but the types of jobs working class immigrants usually start off with when they reach the U.S. Second, this is in fact a slur because it attempts to demonize those same immigrants by lumping them (us) in with genuine threats to American democracy. According to Conrad Burns’ thinking, immigration is terrorism. Wonkette says it with admirable succinctness: “Racist and Insane!”

By the way, it’s not the only WTF caliber comment Senator Burns has made recently:

He has drawn criticism in recent weeks for calling his house painter a “nice little Guatemalan man” during a June speech. Burns, whose re-election campaign is pressing for tighter immigration controls, also suggested that the man might be an illegal immigrant. The campaign later said the worker is legal.(link)

Hm, I think I might go give my $25 to Jon Tester for Senate. Apparently it’s a close race; I vote we Macacatinate** him.

**Macacatinate: (v.) to inflict a mutinous, internet-based critique than can cause poll numbers to shift once the mainstream media grabs hold of it.

Seems like everyone else got one. DC got one a couple of weeks ago. Even the Bay Area is getting one this weekend. Except for us. What about us? It's been months since our last one. It was all I needed to make my summer vacation the best summer vacation ever.

Well as Sepia Mutiny Temporary Super Star, I'm here to change things around.

You KNOW you just want to go to a meetup with us. Come on, all the cool mutineers are doing it...

It's time for the Sepia Mutiny Los Angeles End-Of-Summer-Blowout MEET UP!

YAY!

I can hardly wait. Unlike L.A.'s last meetup, we are going to shift things around. It will be evening-ish (7:00 pm). And it will be at a Bar. Being the electoral advocate that I am, I will let the Los Angeles Bloggers/Commenters/Lurkers have a couple of votes:

1.) Friday, September 15th or Saturday, September 16th?

2.) Someplace downtown (Golden Gopher) or on the westside (Palomino Euro Bistro)?

Please RSVP and vote in the comment section what day would be best for you, and which "side" you prefer. My personal vote is for Friday night at Golden Gopher. But I'm willing to compromise, especially if it means that one of the following folks can come: Abhi, Shruti, Janani, VMN Rao, Ami, Rajan, Ani, Payal, Anjali, Vivek, Mad Guru, Arun, Rohit, Rahul, and Lata. And of course, I'm sure there are plenty more Los Angeles readers that I've left off who are of course, strongly urged to make an appearance.

There will be a prize for the mutineer With the Longest Drive to come to the meetup- is anyone coming from The OC or The Valley? Prizes will be also be distributed for Best Dressed and Funniest Macaca Joke- it'll be like our own mutinous awards ceremony- tis the season afterall. I'll tantalize you even further because, just like the at the Emmys, no one will turn away from our event without an infamous goody bag. We're going to have to tax you on that though. Come on now, how can you pass up on coming to a meetup like that?

Yup, that's what I thought. We'll be seeing YOU at the Los Angeles End-Of-Summer-Blowout Meetup!

According to an account of the Hindu mythology, Hiranyagarbha, meaning the golden womb, is the source of the creation of the universe. It is one of the Vedic myths which explain the origin and the creation of the cosmos and the universe. The legend states that the Hiranyagarbha floated around in water in the emptiness and the darkness of the non-existence for about a year, and then broke into two halves which formed the Swarga and the Prithvi, and most likely other parts of the universe. It is believed that Brahma was born from the Hiranyagarbha. [Link]

It has been way too long since we have had a nerdy science post to get everyone’s juices flowing. An article this past week in Science Magazine gives us hope that cosmologists are getting closer to understanding where it all came from and where it all might be headed. The Chandra X-Ray Observatory, named for Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, captured images of a smoking gun. Via Science (subscription required):

This composite image shows the galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56, also known as the “bullet cluster.” This cluster was formed after the collision of two large clusters of galaxies, the most energetic event known in the universe since the Big Bang.

A fantastically energetic collision between clusters of galaxies has demolished a challenge to the law of gravity, providing the clearest evidence yet for the existence of intergalactic dark matter.

For decades, astronomers have inferred that unseen matter lurks within and between galaxies. Luminous stars alone, they realized, don’t exert enough gravitational force to explain how individual galaxies spin and clusters of galaxies clump together. Something invisible must be pulling, too.

Some of the extra matter in galactic clusters is just hot gas. But even more mass seems to exist in the form of “nonbaryonic” dark matter, made of something other than ordinary atoms.

A few holdouts have insisted that the observations could be explained by modifying the law of gravity at great distances. But a new result from the Chandra X-ray Observatory satellite offers clear-cut evidence that dark matter really does infuse galactic clusters. “It demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that dark matter exists,” says Sean Carroll, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago, Illinois, not involved in the study. [Link]

I love that there is an invisible physical force (that should be therefore measurable) out there that is stronger than gravity and yet remains invisible to detection by us except by inference. Its just a good mystery (which we all need once in a while).

A bit of military history trivia for the history buffs…

This afternoon I got an email from someone doing research on a World War I fighter pilot named Indra Lal Roy.

Unsurprisingly, I knew nothing about the subject, but through a little digging I did come across a couple of pages in a book called Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History by Rozina Visram that has a couple of pages on Indra Lal Roy. It turns out the interesting thing isn’t that he fought in the war — in fact, there were thousands of Indians on the western front — but that he managed to get into the elite Royal Flying Corps (RFC). He was one of only four, and (at least on the internet) he is the only thing about which anything is concretely known:

A few weeks ago, I put up a monster meetup post outlining social possibilities for my three cities: NY, DC and SF. New York’s Summerstage meetup (soundtrack provided by Talvin Singh…sort of) was epic, DC’s was private and fabulous and San Francisco…um…gosh, this is awkward. It’s not you, it’s me. ;) Two out of three ain’t bad…

Here’s the story, morning glories: originally, I was supposed to be in Baghdad-by-the-bay for the entire beginning of September, from the first through the tenth. We planned a meetup on the 9th and it was good. Unfortunately, we may have to rethink that thought. I landed in heaven Northern California at 11pm yesterday and I’m leaving on Tuesday. Which means that on the 9th, I’ll be in DC, probably at work. We have two options:

1) Meet tomorrow evening (spontaneous! edgy! unpredictable! fun!), since I will be in the city all day.

2) Meet sometime this weekend, i.e. Saturday or Sunday. I had assumed that all of you international bright young things would be out of town because of the holiday, but I’ve heard from a few of you (coincidentally, all my favorite peeps) that I am quite wrong, that you WILL in fact be right here in the bay. Goody!

What do you want to do? Pipe up or forever hold your mattar.

Oh, and because I feel terrible about this calendar cluster #>@%, I’m letting you see a picture which was taken a few days before the LAST SF meetup I hosted; it was never supposed to go public, since it shows two mutineers wackily impersonating an uncle and an auntie…well, that and it’s someone’s proof. Peek the illicit photo after the jump. ;)

I can’t begin a food post without sharing an experience from a few nights ago. A group of us had dinner at Indus Valley, a reasonably well-regarded desi restaurant at 100th and Broadway in New York. At some point the composer Philip Glass walked in, and one of our group, a big fan, went into a state of beatific darshan that threatened to destabilize our meal. It got worse when Glass and his companion sat at the table next to ours. My fellow diner was finally able to compose himself, give Glass props, and return to getting our eat on.

Suddenly another of my companions let out a piercing yell and pushed back from the table with great speed. Yes, there was a big old cockroach crawling up the tablecloth — not the short dark ones you often see in NYC kitchens, but a tropical-quality beast, two or three inches long (though not the flying kind). A minor tamasha ensued, during which Philip Glass turned to me and said, with an air of wisdom, “Don’t worry, they have very small appetites.”

Cockroaches happen; celebrity sightings happen too. But what was truly shocking was that the macacas brothers running the restaurant did not comp us even a round of drinks or dessert, let alone a meal, in recognition of the disgusting insect experience. I guess it shouldn’t have surprised us, seeing that they were already trying to seat a couple at a nearby two-top while the cockroach hunt was still on, but come on, what the hell kind of restaurant management is that? So, folks, if you go to Indus Valley at 100th and Broadway, watch out for big-ass cockroaches and don’t expect a discount.

Which brings me to the subject at hand. Perhaps in response to a desi dining landscape that, except in a few fortunate neighborhoods and towns, consists of the same old slop doled out from the same buffets, plus a few “nice” places that look fancy but aren’t necessarily up to snuff in the hygiene department, the idea of desi fast food — cheap, standardized and franchised — becomes a more and more compelling alternative.

I thought I had eyeballed the future when the first Smart car crossed my eyes, speeding down Sheikh Zayed road a few years ago. In a city like Dubai where petrol is cheaper than pop yet parking mostly comes in either the illegal or the parallel form a Smart car looked like it just might live up to its moniker. I was naive. It is today that I am really peering into that which is in store and yes it is also a small car. I like small cars but I like electric cars better.

Via Popgadget, a Bangalore-based company has been making the coolest little electric car known as the Reva since 2001. According to the site the Reva goes 85 KM on one charge through a 15 Amp socket. It boasts dent-proof ABS body panels, a dual-breaking system, climate control seats, and over 2000 colours to choose from while “elevated seats and a wide door provide excellent ingress/egress especially for ladies in saree and senior citizens”. Much better than having to sit sideways on a scooty.

Last year the Reva Electric Car Company produced a super prototype of the next generation, an electric roadster called the Reva NXG. This bad boy comes equipped with a modem, GPS navigation, MP3 player, and a 125 mile range per charge. Plus it just looks cool.

The Reva has sold 900 units in India and is also on the roads in Malta and the U.K. The base price in India is Rs. 250, 000. Having never so much as looked at a car’s price tag there I don’t know how expensive this is in comparison to other cars on the road. Please feel free to enlighten. Have any Mutineers spotted or driven these vroom-vrooms in their town?

It was a second line and a jazz funeral to mourn the Katrina-dead and celebrate the rebirth of this city. For two hours this afternoon, colleagues and I braved the hot sun and humidity to see … our well-dressed salesman of a mayor, Ray Nagin, his wife and Lt. Gen. Russell Honoré wave at us while a brass band and dancers slid past us on Poydras St.??! “Forget this, next they’ll start throwing beads,” I said while contemplating returning to work. That’s when the fire trucks inched towards us, and the Fire Marshall and his men and women somberly walked behind them, no waving, no music, no fanfare. Hot tears filled my eyes as I put away my camera and thanked them from the bottom of my heart and lungs. The EMS and NOFD were the most hardworking people during the flood, have worked tirelessly since then in a rebounding city threatened by drought and arson, and only recently got a paltry 10% raise.

The Louisiana Military and National Guard vehicles poured forth and the crowd erupted in applause. We are a thankful city, y’all, even with full awareness that such a presence here on the 29th of last year, and not five days later, would have saved many of the thousand dead.

My Katrina evacuation photos weren’t released until yesterday, the first time I was able to relive the gut-wrenching anxiety. Sifting through my pictures, I wondered how many came back that evacuated with us. Was it the last time a number of them saw New Orleans? What a way to close a life chapter. On the other hand, it isn’t simple even for those who remained and returned, especially for the middle-class and business owners whose livelihoods were either damaged by wind and flood or, a year later, may fail due to increasing insurance costs and a dwindling consumer base. With less than half of pre-Katrina New Orleans residents back home, over 70,000 of them living in 240-square foot FEMA trailers, and the rising cost of living, penny-pinching is the norm.

In the high and dry French Quarter, the tourist section is littered with t-shirt and novelty shops owned by families of South Asian descent. When friends show up in town for the first time and want to buy the obligatory Bourbon St. and Mardi Gras t-shirts, I walk them to Decatur St. and to a large store owned by a lovely Sindhi couple and their Oxbridge-educated daughter. On a recent visit, the lack of business was so appalling that I insisted on paying full price, ignoring the loud objections of Aunty and Uncle to the contrary. “Arre, bacchi, how can we take this much from you? It’s not right.” [A note to non-desis: haggling is in our blood and must be conducted, usually at the behest of the store-owner] It is now my personal responsibility to pay full price to Paul (Prakash), Jim (Jahangir), Simon, Kendra, Don and every single small business owner whose store I frequent in New Orleans. “Buy New Orleanian” is the new motto around these parts. But, how long will our activism alone keep these endeavours afloat?

Our ill Hindu points me to an article in today’s Beeb that addresses just this dilemma: South Asians Recall Katrina Disaster

Earlier this month SAALT sent around this statement in response to the following event that took place in Edison, New Jersey:

Community members in Edison gathered on August 2nd, 2006, at a rally to protest incidents of police brutality that an Indian man, Raj Parikh, allegedly experienced on July 4th, 2006, by an Edison police officer. The rally on August 2nd occurred after several unsuccessful attempts by community members to address their concerns with government officials. At the rally, a group of approximately 60 South Asians were met by counter protesters who made anti-immigrant and racist slurs, such as, "How many of you are illegals? You must've slid under the border to come here"; "You're all cockroaches! Go home!"; and "If you behave like animals you will be treated like animals". Mr. Parikh was scheduled to speak at the rally but was unable to do so, because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials appeared and arrested him. Apparently, Mr. Parikh was out of status and had an order of deportation against him.

The statement that was sent out included the following recommendations; a) to ensure Mayor Choi's office leads an investigation that is detailed and public, b) a declaration from the mayor's office and Edison Police Department. to clarify official policies between local law enforcement and immigration authorities, c) to have elected officials and civic leaders commit to community forums to address the racial tension, and d) to require the Edison Police Department employees to receive a diversity training and meet with the South Asian community members. High but simple basic demands needed to be taken in a community with such a large percentage of South Asians (5th on the list of cities with the highest South Asian American population.)

This past Friday, Mayor Choi attempted to address the community, but was met with much disdain:

Holding a microphone, Edison Mayor Jun Choi stood alone Friday night facing Hilltop Apartments, a complex almost entirely populated by Indian-Americans.

The mayor's critics and political observers say Choi, 34, has mishandled the racial controversy over the Indian's arrest. Barely eight months into office, Choi faces opponents on both sides of the dispute. For Choi, who never held elected office before becoming mayor, it has been a test of how well he can maintain the balance between his Asian-American constituency and the rest of the township, which has become increasingly diverse. [link]

It's not just the members of the South Asian community who are disapointed here:

For the past week I have been absent from this website while on an anthropological excursion for SM (like anyone but my monkey assistants even noticed). Sometimes a blogger just needs to get out of their bunker and talk to the real people. The question I was seeking an answer to was a profound one. Do those states…you know, the ones up there near the Canadian border…do they even have any desis that live there? For my excursion I needed a field assistant. My brother (we will call him P to protect his real identity) has lived in Idaho for the past two years and served as a good travel companion.

From L.A. I flew to Portland, Oregon where I had a layover. While walking from one gate to the other I had my first desi sighting. It was a Sikh man with a long flowing beard and an unusually large turban who I spotted in the TSA security line. Upon closer inspection however, two things became clear. First, the man was white and not desi. Second, he was a TSA screener and not a passenger.

Four hours later (damn airline delays) I landed in Spokane, WA where I collected my possessions at baggage claim. I began to re-arrange some of my gear when a woman walked up to me holding a sign.

Woman: Excuse me but are you Mustafa?

Abhi: Heh. No, sorry.

Woman: I’m sorry but you are the only one that looked like he was…lost.

“Lost” of course was a very clever euphemism for “brown.” I didn’t mind though. The name “Mustafa” reminded me of a powerful figure with a glorious mane. For just a minute I forgot about my military short haircut and hummed a little Hakuna Matata as I waited on the curb for my brother to drive up.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported this weekend that Muhammad Ismail and his son Jaber Ismail, U.S. citizens, have been barred from re-entering the United States until they answer questions in Pakistan to the satisfaction of the FBI. The two men were pulled aside during a layover in Hong Kong and informed there was “a problem with their passports.” The elder Ismail is a naturalized U.S. citizen; his son, 18, was born in the U.S. Neither one is a dual national.

The two have not been charged with any crime. They are, however, close relatives of another father and son pair, Umer and Hamid Hayat of Lodi, California, who were tried last year on support of terrorism charges. Coincidentally, the elder Hayat, an ice cream vendor, was just released on time served and fined $3,600 for a minor offence.

Back to the Ismails and their unusual treatment as U.S. citizens denied re-entry into their country without any charge or stated cause:

“We haven’t heard about this happening — U.S. citizens being refused the right to return from abroad without any charges or any basis,” said Mass, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.

McGregor Scott, the U.S. attorney for California’s eastern district, confirmed Friday that the men were on the no-fly list and were being kept out of the country until they agreed to talk to federal authorities.

“They’ve been given the opportunity to meet with the FBI over there and answer a few questions, and they’ve declined to do that,” Scott said.

Mass said Jaber Ismail had answered questions during an FBI interrogation at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad soon after he was forced back to Pakistan. She said the teenager had run afoul of the FBI when he declined to be interviewed again without a lawyer and refused to take a lie-detector test.

Here again, we’re looking at an apparently unprecedented situation, and one that any U.S. citizen who travels outside the country might have grounds to be worried about:

Michael Barr, director of the aviation safety and security program at USC, said the Ismail case appears to be unusual in the realm of federal terrorism investigations.

“You become what is called a stateless person, and that would be very unprecedented,” Barr said.

Last Thursday Javed Iqbal, a Pakistani citizen and longtime resident of Staten Island, New York City (that’s his house in the picture), was arrested under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act after he offered to sell to an informant a satellite TV package that included al-Manar, the Lebanese channel operated by Hezbollah. The government argues that Iqbal’s commercial provision of this service amounts to financing a terrorist organization. However, the act also exempts a broad range of news and publications:

The broadly defined statute, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, is also used frequently to block the importation of goods and services that would directly support terrorist operations.

The law, which went into effect in 1977, was meant to put legal teeth in international trade embargoes with other nations, but once it was amended by the Patriot Act after 9/11, the government began to use it far more frequently against particular groups and individuals.

The use of the law, however, to focus on television broadcasts seemed to fall under an exemption laid out in a 1988 amendment to the act, several experts said, and it raised concerns among civil libertarians and some constitutional scholars about limiting the free marketplace of ideas.

The exemption covers publications, films, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact discs, CD-ROM’s, art works and newswire feeds.

“One person’s news is another’s propaganda,” said Rod Smolla, the dean of the University of Richmond Law School and a First Amendment expert. “It runs counter to all of our First Amendment traditions to ban the free flow of news and information across borders, yet at the same time all nations have historically reserved the right to ban the importation of propaganda from a hostile nation.”

Professor Smolla also said that so far as he knew, this was the first use of the law to block information, as such.

Clearly, a First Amendment versus “War on Terror” showdown looms. Interestingly, Iqbal’s hometown paper, the Staten Island Advance, reports that al-Manar has a readily accessible online presence (although I couldn’t get through when I tried to connect just now):

Even as Iqbal now faces charges of offering access to what has been dubbed terrorism-backed programming, an Al-Manar Web site is available free to the public, with streaming video, news stories and updates on protests and demonstrations.

The site has logged more than 1.1 million hits in the last month and half.

Another interesting note: one of his attorneys says that Iqbal, who supplies a range of satellite TV services, does more than half of his business with Texas-based Christian evangelical channels.

Iqbal is in jail, having been unable to raise the $250,000 bond. [Update: He posted bond today, Tuesday, August 29.] To be continued…

I am often surprised at the propensity of hyphenated identity discussions that we have here at Sepia Mutiny. If you read this blog long enough, it often feels like the topics in the comments are repetitive, and in some ways it does feel like beating a dead horse. But on the flip side, the fact that we still have so many people participating in such a heated discussion on race, being South Asian, and manuevering through the complexities of this uniquely diasporic culture simply proves the need to have this safe space online to have these relatively anonymous discussions that we wouldn't be able to have elsewhere.

In yesterday's Washington Post, John Thatamanil talked about the juxtaposition of being South Asian American in this country, and the lack of ever fully being American.

The Allen incident offers evidence that America is not now or likely to ever be a color-blind country. How are South Asians to live with this truth? Resignation is not the answer. Vigorous political participation is. My youthful intuition that what makes me as American as any Mayflower descendant is citizenship -- not race or ethnicity -- was only partly on the mark. The piece of paper that validates our identities as American citizens can do only so much if we do little to struggle for recognition.

There is also a second lesson to be learned from this incident. South Asian political engagement cannot be driven solely by the private interests of a single racial or ethnic group. America's obsession with color has a long history that South Asians forget at their peril. Indian Americans and other affluent immigrant groups would do well to remember the civil rights struggles of African Americans and others without whom a racially inclusive American nation would have been impossible. The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which opened the door to people from the Eastern Hemisphere, must be recognized as the fruit of a larger struggle to expand the meaning of the term "American," a struggle fought on our behalf before our arrival. [link]

The idea of what it means to be an American, through a South Asian lens is something I probably spend way too much time thinking about- if only because I am constantly challenging myself on the importance of voting and what exactly voting means in the scope of creating a South Asian American political voice. Are citizenship and voting merely parts of a false border created to divide our community? Are we aspiring to honorary whiteness as Thatamanil suggests? Is it true that we'll never truly be American?

The FDA has recently approved two drugs that will have a huge impact to the desi woman community; a) earlier this summer, the approval of the cervical cancer vaccine (or known as the HPV vaccine) and b) last week the approval of Plan B, the emergency contraceptive, as an over the counter drug for anyone over the age of 18. I think that both of these are huge landmark moments for the advancement of reproductive justice in our community.

According to a policy brief distributed by the National Asian Pacific Women's Forum (NAPAWF)...

The vaccine, Gardasil, is 100% effective in preventing the infection of human papillomavirus (HPV) which causes 70% of all cervical cancer cases worldwide. The FDA approved the vaccine for safe use among girls and women ages 9-26. Asian Pacific Islander (API) women will greatly benefit from this new HPV vaccine, given their high rates of cervical cancer, particularly among Vietnamese and Korean women.

In fact, in the U.S. cervical cancer is relatively rare. For many API women, however, lack of health insurance, lack of knowledge about Pap smears and preventive care, and lack of culturally and linguistically appropriate services prevent them from equally accessing the health care system, contributing to their higher rates of cervical cancer.

Although abstinence or faithful lifelong monogamy are the only real full-proof ways to protect against HPV infection, these may not be realistic. Regular Pap smears are perhaps one of the most effective measures to protect oneself against developing cervical cancer. Because HPV is sexually transmitted, experts argue that the vaccine should be administered before adolescents have their first sexual encounter.

To me, it feels like an enormous injustice to know that a disproportionate amount of women in my community will have a higher chance of getting a preventable cancer because of the social stigmas attached to sex in our society, especially as a South Asian American female. When I ecstatically announced the FDAs approval to my mother and declared the need to get all the girls in our extended family here vaccinated, I was met with a, "Isn't HPV sexually contracted? Why would we need to vaccinate then?" I didn't really know how to respond to her. Social stigma of sexuality in our community as a form of birth control and cancer prevention will only take us so far.

I can see the Bollywood movie now. It would be like Swades, but instead of SRK bringing electricity into the village it would be installing an internet connection. Instead of an NRI romance, it would be internet love. What exactly am I talking about? Why, you didn't hear?

An Indian village has uploaded itself onto the Internet, giving the outside world a glimpse of life in rural India.Visitors to Hansdehar village's Web site (http://www.smartvillages.org/) can see the names, jobs and other details of its 1,753 residents, browse photographs of their shops and read detailed specifications about their drainage and electricity facilities.

Most of the residents can't yet surf the Hansdehar Web site as the village is not yet connected to the Internet. [link]

It's cute. These villagers have ideas on how to use the internet- to get better prices for crops by trading online, job hunting, and even, wife searching. The website itself has pictures of the village, tourist attractions, and even a voter list. I think there is great potential with getting Indian villages connected to the web. I really started thinking about this when I bumped into Nipun from Charity Focus, when he was walking across India in an attempt to tie in service with internet in the villages (yes, he blogged his trip). The internet does have it's advantages in connecting villages with the rest of the world, and I see a lot of potential with this.

But what about the privilege associated with getting accessing an internet connection? Seems like an MIT grad at United Villages is trying to take care of that with the advent of 'drive-by Wi-Fi.'

United Villages ...is working with Indian nongovernmental organization Drishtee to network 50 villages in Orissa's Cuttack district, where bus-powered Wi-Fi service begins this month... "You have drive-by McDonald's, and we have drive-by Wi-Fi," says Mr. Hasson. The buses will use short-range radio to pick up electronic messages three or more times per day from Wi-Fi-enabled computers placed in kiosks. Hubs near bus stations will handle traffic via a connection that can be as slow as dial-up.

UV will sell pre-paid cards, with phone number and email address assigned to them, in different denominations (up to 100 rupees, roughly $2.20).[link]

Interesting- so it seems like even though people with television sets won't be able to watch Paris Hilton's too-racy-for-India banned music video, it looks like people in buses with Wi-Fi connections will still be able to download and watch the video. Indian villages online, drive-by wi-fi at bus kiosks, and a banned Hilton video; I can see the Bollywood script now...

While Katrina’s flood thrives in our memories, Debby peters off to the east and TD5/Ernesto enters the Caribbean, New Orleans holds its collective breath. Whether to extract Rubbermaid containers from storage this evening or wait until Tuesday (when many hope that Ernie opts for the Yucatan peninsula)? Uncertainty is the toll of living in New Orleans during hurricane season.

Today’s nola.com confirms the rising cost of living in this city. Surrounded by jacked-up insurance premiums, neighborhoods teetering on the fine line between rebound and abandonment, increasing expenses and a mayor without a plan (or a clue), can the middle class make it during the rebuild? The current answer to this $110-billion-dollar question: We shall see.

Forget stress and money; grey hair is easily painted over and moolah comes and goes. In any disaster, whether natural or humanmade, one that occurs overnight or lumbers along over the course of years, the real price of living is borne by its least-enfranchised. At times of chaos, strife, poverty and socio-economic/political instability, women and children need additional protection. The ACLU investigates violations in New Orleans prisons after Katrina and Spike Lee talks of the overall suffering here; who speaks for the women? As pertains to Iraq, Afghanistan and Darfur, concerns about US military misconduct, extremist violence or the semantics of civil war abound, but why is more light not shed on the real victims - mothers whose rights are decreased or taken away, sisters who are brutalized and raped, daughters who are dehumanized?

A few days ago we received numerous requests on the tip line that we cover the story of the Northwest Airlines plane that returned to Amsterdam airport soon after taking off for Mumbai. If none of us posted on it at that moment, it’s probably because we were waiting to see what came of the incident. Not surprisingly, we now learn that it was a false alarm:

The Dutch ambassador to India has expressed regret for the arrest of 12 passengers whose India-bound plane was diverted to Amsterdam after their behavior triggered fears of a hijacking, a government minister said on Friday.

The 12 men, all Muslims, were, however, cleared of any wrongdoing and released and their families said they were victims of racial discrimination.

The case of the 27-year-old Canadian radiology resident thrown off a United Airlines flight was also a false alarm:

A Winnipeg doctor is demanding an official apology and compensation from United Airlines after being kicked off a flight in the U.S. this week, an incident he has characterized as “institutionalized discrimination.” Dr. Ahmed Farooq, a Muslim, was escorted off an airplane in Denver on Tuesday. According to Farooq, reciting his evening prayers was interpreted by one passenger as an activity that was suspicious.

The Washington Post has a good round-up article of these and similar events today. In it I learned of this excellent new acronym (perhaps not so new to those of you in the UK): TWA. Most appropriately, the initials of a late lamented airline now stand for “Traveling While Asian” — a little like Driving While Black (DWB) only with higher stakes and more exotic rewards.

Now I know some commenters will point out that so long as groups of young Middle Eastern men have the market on airborne mass murder cornered, there is some rationale behind profiling; but perhaps we can all agree that botched, panic-driven and vigilante-led profiling is, like, a general bummer. Exhibit A:

Farooq said the allegation came from a passenger who appeared drunk and had previously threatened him during the trip. …

Farooq said that even officials from the Transportation Security Administration soon realized the flight crew had overreacted, but by the time that conclusion had been reached the trio were forced to stay in Denver for the night and catch a flight the next day — at their own expense.

The gentlemen on the Amsterdam-Mumbai flight were deemed suspicious because they were fiddling with mobile phones and chatting loudly around the time of take-off. Uh, excuse me? Anyone here ever traveled in the Third World? People being loud and fiddling with cellphones is suspicious? More to the point, what about travel in the civilized West? Every khaki-clad, buttoned-down, yellow-tied Joe from sales and Tim from marketing (not to mention Ashok from strategic planning) is futzing with his phone until the moment wheels leave the ground and again from the instant they touch down.

Now comes the news that the Monarch Airlines Costa del Sol fiasco may — just may — have been… a prank. (Thanks Jai for the tip.) IF — and it’s still a big if, so let’s not jump to conclusions here — IF Messrs. Ashraf and Zeb were trying to prove a point, it’s not clear they have been helpful to their cause. It’s one thing to stage a guerrilla theater event to reveal a little-discussed injustice, but it’s another when every few days a dead-serious case like the ones mentioned above comes to light.

In the meantime, my macacas and macacis, stay away from aviation if you possibly can. Personally, I’ve stopped traveling to any place I can’t get to by the Chinatown bus.

Let's see what's on TV this fall...Looks like Kal Penn is joining the cast this fall on "24." Bet he's going to play the typecast terrorist. Oh, my bad...

"Penn will play a man associated with the leader of an Islamic group that may or may not be plotting a terrorist attack."[link]

...and who's that in the America's Next Top Model promo? Looks desi- Neha did say there would be one this season. Also on the reality TV show front, we have married couple Vipul and Arti hailing from the nation's angriest city, Orlando, FL. Aren't they a cute couple? Looks like they'll be competing on Amazing Race, season 10.

Speaking of race...where my desis at on this reality show this fall?

"...the 20 castaways for Survivor: Cook Islands will be grouped by race, with competitors divided into four tribes consisting of whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics.

"The idea for this actually came from the criticism that Survivor was not ethnically diverse enough, because for whatever reason, we always have a low number of minority applicants apply for the show," Probst said. [link]

'There are going to be people looking for stereotypes: Will this tribe be smarter than this tribe, or will this tribe be faster than this tribe?' says Probst. 'That's why I think it's fun. But five people on a tribe do not represent an entire ethnic group.' [link]

Would it be a racist move to start placing bets on what team we think is going to win? Kidding. Kind of...

Bodog.com has made the Whites a favorite to win at odds of 7 to 3 (or $7 paid out for every $3 bet). The Asian tribe gets a price of $13 for every $7 bet. "It seems that stereotypes are already coming into play with Bodog.com assuming that because Asians are often classified by the gambling establishment as big gamblers they get the highest priced odds," comments Payton O'Brien, columnist for Gambling911.com. [link]

But where is my Macaca team in this mix? I looked through the cast and was hopeful with the name 'Parvati Shallow,' but homegirl is on the white team (And it doesn't look like in a Thind Supreme Court kind of way). And the Asian team has no South Asians in it. I say we create a Macaca Mutiny reality team to ambush the survivors on Cook Islands and show them all who the real survivors are. Who's with me?

It looked like it was dying down but it turns out the “Macaca” story lives on, thanks to the two-faced message coming out of Senator George Allen’s camp. Apparently the incident has severely harmed him in the polls, so he’s finally apologized to S.R. Sidarth, the Webb campaign worker whom he twice called “macaca” and asked an all-white audience to “welcome to America.” Allen actually got on the phone:

“He apologized for his comments,” said Mr. Sidarth, who is an American of Indian descent, in a telephone interview from the University of Virginia, where he has resumed his classes. “He took the blame for saying them, and he said he didn’t realize how offended I was until he heard my comments from the media.”

End of story, right? Politician says something stupid, pays price in the polls, apologizes, hopefully learns lesson. Except for one thing. At the same time that Allen is apologizing, his staff is telling Republicans worried that he’s going soft on them that the whole incident was what the papers call “a barnyard epithet” (that’s newscode for “bullshit”) and that it’s Allen who is actually the aggrieved party. [Update: Here’s the campaign manager’s memo.] Here’s today’s editorial in the Washington Post:

[Allen campaign manager] Mr. Wadhams, an itinerant political hit man known for his nasty attacks on opponents, told Republican leaders in a memo sent over the weekend that the Webb campaign and the media had ganged up “to create national news over something that did not warrant coverage in the first place.”

He continued: “Never in modern times has a statewide office holder and candidate been so vilified.” In other words, Mr. Allen is the victim — not the 20-year-old student whom he mocked with an insulting, possibly racist slur in front of scores of chortling supporters and demeaned by saying, “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia!”

Unlike Mr. Allen, whose contrition has become increasingly abject over time, Mr. Wadhams has been consistent. His first pronouncement to journalists, a week and a half ago, was to refer to the “macaca” story with a barnyard epithet and insist that the senator had nothing to apologize for. He has stuck with that assessment.

With Mr. Allen plummeting in the polls and his reelection prospects now in doubt, he and Mr. Wadhams are in damage-control mode. They have dropped their far-fetched insistence that the word “macaca” referred to Mr. Sidarth’s hairstyle. But they ought to get their stories straight. Is the Allen campaign really sorry? Or are the senator’s adversaries just making a mountain out of “macaca”?

We report, you decide.

Jazz pianist Zoe Rahman has been nominated for the Mercury Prize, Britain’s top music award (thanks, Red Snapper). She’s competing with rock bands like The Arctic Monkeys, Thom Yorke (of Radiohead), and Guillemots. All of them are critical darlings, so she might be a long-shot to win the prize.

Her father is Bangladeshi and her mother is British:

With a Bengali dad and a mum from Yorkshire, born in Sydney and raised in Chichester, Rahman has always felt an outsider. “I don’t know many Bengali musicians, but it’s obviously a big part of who I am. The only person I knew who spoke Bengali was my dad, and he never spoke it to us.” She’s been trying to learn Bengali in time for a trip to Bangladesh next week - partly a voyage of discovery into Bengali music and partly an excuse to party with 300 or so relatives. “I’m still on chapter seven of Teach Yourself Bengali at the moment. I’ve got a long way to go …” (link)

Ah well, one does the best one can. There are some Bengali touches in her music — check out the clarinet by Idris Rahman (Zoe’s brother) on “Muchhe Jaoa Dinguli,” which is track 6/9 at her website. But for the most part, her piano-playing is contemporary and quite fluid — think Keith Jarrett (Siddhartha could probably name some jazz pianists who might be an even closer match).

Zoe Rahman’s music doesn’t appear to be available via Itunes or Rhapsody yet, though I wouldn’t be surprised if she were added sometime soon. Meanwhile, online retailers like Amazon.co.uk are selling her recent CD, Melting Pot.

Asian Underground computer whiz Talvin Singh won the prize in 1999 for his CD Ok (Black Star Liner was nominated the same year). Apache Indian was also nominated for the prize in 1993 (for No Reservations). As the Wikipedia article indicates, the prize is somewhat controversial in the UK, mainly because the choice of winners seems pretty idiosyncratic. As with many artistic awards (literary, musical, and filmic), the true value is in the shortlist, not the actual winner.

Who told the clock to spin away time so quickly? One minute I’m grabbing Nina Paley’s kundi in Central Park while grinning shamelessly for the Parsirazzi, the next thing I know, we’re less than three days from the SECOND chocolate city meetup, ever!

We haven’t solidified exactly when we will meet at Amma’s wegetarian or if we will do so pre- or post-debauchery, but that’s what this post’s comment section is for, so hop to it, my little brown bunnies. ;) I can’t remember which of you I’ve spoken to about this, but so far most conversations include the words: drinking, Sequoia, afternoon, waterfront, summer, drinking and “great lighting”. We can all meet at 6pm, toast the mutiny, take pictures and then stroll up to Amma’s by 8pm, where we will eat like panthis and take even more pictures.

So, RSVP below if you are up to joining me, our favorite Barmaid, duologist Sriram and his sister (I think Saturday is her birthday!), Mayur, Kenyandesi and yes, potentially YO DAD in Georgetown for some vada, masala dosa and peppery rasam. Mmmm, South Indian food (that picture is of the actual receipt from the first DC meetup!): you, too, can have plenty but I need to know how many to reserve a table for, so holla. SOON. Last time, we had a mutinously good time— I think you’d regret it if you didn’t hang out with us on Saturday. No pressure, or anything. ;)

Given my affinity for South Asia, monkeys and South Asian monkeys, it is an honor to gain guest access to the ND bunker. I must say – seeing lutefisk placed on the same shelf as mango chutney warms this former Upper Midwesterner’s heart.

Employment ushered me to the other end of the Mississippi. With a choice between Houston and New Orleans, I opted for the city with the most interesting cultural dynamics in the United States. A mélange of European and Afro-Caribbean, New Orleans is 70% non-white, poor in wealth, rich in customs and conventions, and a lot more than the drunken-tourist section of Bourbon Street.

As you know, it has been 359 days since Category-3 Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Buras, LA and laid waste to Slidell, LA and lovely beach towns along the coast of western Mississippi. Whole beachfront streets and homes in Waveland and Bay St. Louis were torn off their foundations by the whipping winds of an unusually angry hurricane.

Thankfully, New Orleans was spared that fate. However, our long-suffering and neglected canal levees could not handle the 25-foot and higher storm surges and the unthinkable happened – the levees broke flooding 80% of this city. Friends who stayed behind were forced to act as rescue workers and witness things no American in the 21st century should. Trapped in their homes for more than five days without food, water, medication and rescue, approximately 1400 New Orleanians, mostly the elderly and little children, perished. Demolition workers find carcasses to this day.

What does this have to do with desi or Sepia Mutiny?

A few weeks ago we discussed a new kind of camp for Indian children adopted by white American parents. Today, via a tip on the news tab, I came across an article on Alternet by a Jewish New Yorker who adopted an Indian baby as a single mother, and was somewhat taken aback by the darkness of her child’s skin:

The first photo I received of Vaishali showed her with fair skin. I was surprised, because from what my adoption agency told me, the child assigned to me would be much darker. After I got over that surprise, I had another: I felt relief. Suddenly — guiltily — it was a comfort to know that she would not look so different from me, and even more important, that her light skin would save her from a lifetime of prejudice.

But ah, the magic of flashbulbs. A few months later I received several more photos and gaped at them in shock. The baby was much, much darker. (link)

Lisa Lerner has, initially, a lot of anxiety to deal with about the gap between her skin tone and that of her adopted daughter (read the whole article for examples: the kicker is the diaper change). She gets over it, but is still often surprised by the fact that no one in her social circle — including her Indian and Black friends — is as dark as her daughter:

Very soon, my daughter will have a lot to process. She’s adopted, she’s the child of a single mother, she’s an Indian Jew by conversion. We spent the summer with my father in upstate New York, and she was nearly always the darkest child in music class, gymnastics and day care. In New York City, even Blacks and Indians in Vaishali’s and my social circle are lighter than she. Over and over I see how light skin equals privilege. Now that I have become Vaishali’s mother, I realize: We need darker friends. (link)

I’m sure there will be some folks who will be offended that Lisa Lerner is publicly stating some of these things she says in this article. I personally am not: she’s expressing the shock she felt along with her embarrassment about that shock, and describing how she got past it. Yes, her initial reaction to her baby’s skin tone betrays “racism,” but it looks to me like she’s recognized and dealt with it.

Still, I wonder what people think about the solution she outlines: “We need darker friends.” Is it really damaging to a child (the baby has grown up some now) not to be around anyone who physically resembles her? And wouldn’t it be slightly strange to seek out “friends” on this basis?

[Oh, and one more thing: the Times recently had an interesting article on the growing number of cross-racial adoptions in the U.S.]

On Tuesday it will be one year since Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Spike Lee’s HBO documentary “When the Levees Broke” and Tulane historian Douglas Brinkley’s book, The Great Deluge have recently appeared. Both are extraordinary, and if you vote or pay taxes in the United States, you owe it to yourself to watch and read what collectively we allowed to happen.

If you are stirred to learn more, one of your next ports of call should be the website of Maitri Venkat-Ramani, New Orleans resident and citizen journalist extraordinaire. If you have a lot of work today, you may want to delay checking out her site as you are likely to spend hours rummaging the archives and following links to the testimonials, fact compilations, photo sets, commentaries and other resources that she and her fellow New Orleans citizen-journalists have developed for the past 359 days.

A few days ago, in a reflective mood, the sister wrote this:

A displaced resident of New Orleans and a loud civic voice, I had no stomach for superficial news and what Christiane Amanpour describes well as “happy-camper war-and-disaster-zone travelogue.” I was confused and frustrated from not knowing what was going on with the city, so I pacified myself by stepping in as a reporter and turning VatulBlog into a bullhorn in the NOLA PA system network. This was my catharsis and each time I received an encouraging comment, letter or phone call from an anonymous émigré, it reminded me that I was not alone, others were suffering a lot more and I had to keep writing.

My blog was a single candle. Soon, I found other candles like WetBankGuide, GulfSails and Gentilly Girl and the shining beacon that is Think New Orleans, which shares a lot of my own standards on knowledge work, information, content, archival and sharing. The fire caught from there. Writing about New Orleans over and above their jobs, not as their jobs - the woes, the recovery, the administrative blunders from the federal government on down and our own exploration of identity and the nature of self in a city hit by an unnatural disaster - all of the NOLA blogs linked to from my site share that conscience and that personal touch. A greater free, searchable, linked repository of news, data, research and a somewhat coherent set of thoughts on the re-discovery of ourselves.

She went on to offer this very sweet shout-out:

It was also through this blog that I found Sepia Mutiny, the vibrant and thoughtful salve to that within me which is Indian, Kuwaiti, American and everything in between.

Maitri, the honor is ours, and we are thrilled that you will be sharing for the next month, at this of all times, your perspectives with Sepia Mutiny readers.

Ladies and gentlemen, all the way from New Orleans, Louisiana, put your hands together and make some noise for one strong sister, Maitri Venkat-Ramani.

Last week Toronto played host to the 16th International AIDS conference, a biennial summit that brings together HIV professionals, philanthropists, politicians, artists, writers and victims from all walks of life. It was a week of solidarity, hope and action through future thought for the 30, 000 participants representing the close to 40 million living with the infection/disease today and those 25 million who have died as a result of it. The theme for AIDS 06 was “Time to Deliver”, they should have added a “Now” at the end of that…

Two news items relating to the twin weapons of prevention and cure require mention here while at least two G-8 governments require a duo of tight slaps.

First up, courtesy of a great post on Pass the Roti (Thanks, Ennis!) we have details of a Bangladeshi group ‘Durjoy Nari Shangha’ having to close down sex-worker aid and education centers in Dhaka in order to keep in accord with US funding conditions:

The sex workers collective — its name translates roughly as “organization of women who are hard to repress” — had 20 drop-in centers before December, offering sex and literacy education as well as moral support, toilets and a place to wash and rest for up to 5,000 women. It closed them after signing what aid groups call the “prostitution loyalty oath” that requires groups receiving USAID funding to have a policy opposing prostitution and sex trafficking. The group now has just four centers, geared to children and children’s rights. Bagum said that before the centers closed, the group sold 73,000 condoms a month. That has fallen to 30,000, even though health experts agree that condoms are the best way of stopping the spread of AIDS.[Link]

That precious, happy little girl you see above is Nirali. She has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (Thanks, bean). According to the following,

Despite overall improvements in outcome, the prognosis for patients…is poor. Their estimated event-free survival (EFS) is only about 30%. [link]

her life is very much at stake, so the way I titled this post isn’t sensational or an exaggeration of any kind. After losing an Uncle to Leukemia two years ago and having an even closer family member go to the hospital this week because of the looming possibility of cancer, Nirali’s story makes me want to weep.

She needs a bone marrow transplant.

She needs that transplant from someone who is brown.

There aren’t anywhere near enough desis in the National Marrow Program database.

We have no excuse for this.

I am terrified of needles, I’ve said this many times. I avoid flu shots, because I find them so traumatic, but even I sacked up and then felt like the biggest baby for being afraid of the “typing” process which put me in the database of potential donors. Apparently, they’ve even taken care of THAT obstacle; now you can just get your cheek swabbed and that is enough.

Look here for a desi-centric list of opportunities to join the database, nationwide. Go. Give a tiny part of your physical self. And then pray, if you are inclined to do so, that we follow-up this post with some joyful news.

May I vent? On Sunday I went to the India Day celebration in New York. It was my first one since moving here, after years in a smaller city where there wasn’t much commemoration. Riding the subway downtown I was quite excited. I was also upset that I didn’t have a camera. I wanted to document the event for the mutineers to share in the party. I was annoyed that I’d have to find someone else’s blog or Flickr page to show you images of the day.

So I get down to 28th Street and start walking south on Madison Avenue. The street is empty. That’s OK, I can see the party a couple of blocks ahead. It looks small… but compact, right? Besides, it must spill out onto the side streets that I can’t see from here.

Aha! Here we go. Booths, stands, displays. I’m ready to get my culture on. I’m hoping for musicians, arts organizations, political groups of all stripes, regional and ethnic groups, maybe some cool vendors…

And what do I get?

• Shaadi.com

• BharatMatrimony

• State Bank of India

• Direct TV

• Satellite TV channel #1

• Satellite TV channel #2

• Insurance agency

• Another bank

… and that’s about it.

I mean, this was pathetic. Pathetic! India Day, commemoration of 59 years of Independence and all that, aunties walking around in tricolor saris, kids with face paint, and almost every single organized presence is hawking middle-class consumer services.

The exception was a bone marrow drive, but even that was being promoted by brothers from a desi fraternity. I’m not hating, especially not on bone marrow drives, but the frat-boy flavor certainly didn’t bring any cultural diversity to the event.

Yeah, there was a stage with performances. Just one stage, and the little I saw was, eh… just OK.

And yeah, I missed the parade. I’d been told to watch for the floats. Well, here’s a brother who took pictures: Corporate flatbeds rolling by empty sidewalks. A few Republican politicians.

The most flavor at the entire event was the Hare Krishnas.

Is it always this way?

Every year on the second Saturday in August, the town of Allapuzha (or Allepey), Kerala — the “Venice of the East” — hosts the Nehru Trophy Boat Race. The boats used in the comptetition are traditional “snake boats” or “Chundan Vallam”. The boats have as many as 120 oarsmen, and have a large hood in the rear that rises twenty feet in the air, which resembles a cobra’s head. I’m not quite sure what the function of this hood is from a “boat science” perspective, but these boat races are both ancient and highly ritualized, and I get the feeling no one is thinking about a fiberglass redesign. Anyway, the snake boats look pretty cool; see more snake boat images.

For the first time this year, a team of 10 foreign women of various nationalities came from Dubai to participate in the women’s race. The foreign team was led by a British woman named Julie Amer, who describes herself as an “adventure tourist.” The team from Dubai worked together with 25 local Allapuzha women — and their boat came in first in the women’s race.

Two thoughts: 1) It’s cool that the women race in Saris (or are they Mundus?). 2) I love the umbrella; I wonder if it’s only for the women’s boats?

The winner in the men’s competition, for the third year in a row, was the “Payippad Boat Club.” Threepeat! The “Jesus Boat Club” came in second in its first appearance, according to the Hindu.

About 300,000 people went to Allapuzha to watch the race this year. Among them were about 5000 foreigners.

Thirteen LTTE supporters have been arrested in various parts of the U.S., after some of them attempted to buy arms from a U.S. agent (thanks, tipsters). Others were involved in a bribery plot to have the LTTE removed from the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. One person (the liasion between the group of 13 and the LTTE in northern Sri Lanka) is still being sought.

Sense any irony here? In case not, let me spell it out: if you’re trying to buy bombs to use in terrorist attacks, it may be difficult to “convince” the State Department that you’re not a terrorist organization.

Another thought: this is the first time I can remember that LTTE supporters have been arrested in the U.S. for involvement in terrorism.

The government in Sri Lanka is by no means innocent in the current conflict. It has, to begin with, bombed the Tamil-controlled areas of Sri Lanka pretty aggressively. The LTTE claims one of the recent targets was a home for orphaned girls, and that sixty of the schoolgirls living there were killed, and another sixty wounded. (The LTTE claims have not been confirmed by any neutral observers, so it might not be true. The Sri Lankan government claims the site was an LTTE military facility.) And a Swedish negotiator has criticized the Sri Lankan government for starting military action against the LTTE too soon after negotiations over water ran into trouble three weeks ago. The same negotiator argues that the dispute over water was both overblown and on the brink of being resolved at the time the government started its artillery assault.

But the LTTE has also delivered a number of bombs to Colombo this summer, the worst of which being a June 15 bombing that killed 64 people (civilians). And there have been many others, including a bombing this week that killed seven and injured many more in Colombo. And thus far, it is the LTTE that has resisted returning to the table to resume talks; according to this report, the government has made it clear that it wants talks to get underway again as soon as possible.

The folks at What is Really Going On? point out that the number of dead in Sri Lanka this summer — 800+ — equals or exceeds the number of people killed in the recent Israel-Hezbollah conflict. The site is not a neutral one, but the point they make is valid. Despite the large number of deaths, the news about the conflict has been effectively absent from the U.S. media (and, for that matter, from the internet).

Aaaaaand I'm back! What, you thought they could keep me away from the bunker forever?

It has been a few months since my gig as Mutiny-Wallah has been up, and I have since been in the real world sitting at cubicles writing humdrum policy reports, all the while dreaming of the happy days with the monkeys in the Sepia Mutiny bunker. Boy, did I miss those monkeys.Boy, did I miss those monkeys. When to my surprise, a couple of nights ago while planning my revolution, I was suddenly blindfolded and kidnapped. I was whisked away from Los Angeles on an autorickshaw (we were supposed to fly Jet Blue, but you know...) and when the blindfold was taken off a couple of hours ago, I found myself once again in the Sepia Mutiny bunkers. Yay!

How long will I be a mutiny-wallah this time around? They keep things hushed around me, but rumor has it it will last through November 7th. That is right, Election Day. You see kids, for those of you living under rocks, or not in this nation, we are at the beginning of a heightened election season, for the midterm elections. Here at Sepia, we've already brought you an interview with Raj Bakhta and of course, there was the whole Macaca Mutiny. In anticipation for the upcoming stories surrounding the 2006 elections, I have been brought on to assist you on this path. Think of me as the desi George Stephanopoulos, or the Anderson Cooper of the mutiny. I plan on bringing you investigative Election 2006 coverage, hard hitting interviews with political candidates, and keep you educated with the latest issues that will help in casting your ballot on November 7th. Of course, knowing the work that I love to do, you didn't think you'd get away without a little voter registration, voter education and get-out-the vote, did you?

This is my 9th year working an election, and I know that there must be plenty of you out there working it too. Are you a desi running for office? Let me know. Registering voters? Campaigning on a ballot initiative? Writing a report about the South Asian Vote? Need to know where to register, where your poll is? Let me help and be devoted to getting you the best South Asian American blog Election 2006 coverage. And now, let the real mutiny begin- again.

It’s not the Sepia Mutiny model to just post news items without comment, but sometimes the material doesn’t leave us with much to add. With that said, here are the latest developments in Bombay dining:

NAVI MUMBAI: A new restaurant at Kharghar has actually been named as Hitler’s Cross and it was inaugurated by the who’s who of Navi Mumbai on Friday evening.

A huge poster of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was put at the inauguration function of the restaurant in sector 4 of Kharghar, much to the surprise of the invitees.

Actor Murli Sharma, who has featured in films like Apharan and Teesri Ankh, was one of the guests present at the inauguration. “I found the huge posters of Hitler at the restaurant amusing. That’s all I can say,” he told TOI over phone.

When asked if he felt disturbed by the name of the restaurant, Sharma said: “I am not really agitated as I have not read much about the man (Hitler). However, from what I know about Hitler, I find this name rather amusing.”

Important dignitaries such as Navi Mumbai mayor Manisha Bhoir and former mayor Sanjeev Naik were also invited as chief guests to the restaurant by one Sablok Builders group, who are reportedly behind the management of Hitlers Cross.

A Reuters report picked up by DNA has more:

“We wanted to be different. This is one name that will stay in people’s minds,” owner Punit Shablok said.

“We are not promoting Hitler. But we want to tell people we are different in the way he was different.“…

“This place is not about wars or crimes, but where people come to relax and enjoy a meal,” said restaurant manager Fatima Kabani, adding that they were planning to turn the eatery’s name into a brand with more branches in Mumbai.”

Someone in Mumbai is going to have to do the investigating on this. A field report from Manish, perhaps?

Ustad Bismillah Khan, who played the shehnai at the Red Fort on the eve of India’s independence and brought the instrument to prominence in Hindustani classical music, passed away today. He was 90 or 91 (reports vary). Born in Bihar, he came to Varanasi as a child and remained there the rest of his days, living a simple, impecunious life when others of his musical generation achieved fortune in India and overseas. He was a devout Shia Muslim who also took part in Hindu worship, believing in the unity of pathways to God and in the spiritual role of music. Although he had disciples and his sons all became musicians, he leaves — as far as I know — no single obvious musical successor.

An obituary from the BBC is here. The Indian papers covered Khansaheb’s illness and will presumably have tributes and recollections in the coming days. Here is a 2005 interview with Indian Express editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta that gives a sense of the character and his outlook.

Here is a link to two articles: the second one, which apparently ran in India Today in 1986, includes this description:

His house in Varanasi, in Sarai Harha, is an ample but decrepit structure. His living room which also serves as guest room, is sparsely furnished with creaky wooden benches and a large takht on which, at given time of the day, his children perform namaaz, oblivious of guests and visitors. Still in incessant demand as a player he travels by train regularly with his troupe, often by second class. He hates to fly. And when travel arrangements are being made, the house buzzes with activity as instruments are laid out, ancient steel trunks and torn British Airways flight-bags are packed with clothes and lunch boxes stuffed with rice and samosas. The shehnai player, whose name is familiar even to the international jet set as that of Ravi Shankar, travels by cycle rickshaw. And as he wheels down the city’s streets at the head of a caravan of rickshaws, smiling at well wishers, he looks as happy as a British Lord in a Rolls Royce.

It also includes this quotation:

“I am getting old now. Not in my heart. But in my body. The heart yearns to go on and on but this body sometimes tires and these wretched knees start aching after four hours of playing. And I now have that all-too-human worry. Thirty years ago, I used to think I had conquered or was about to conquer the world. What foolishness! Now I say, Bismillah, you haven’t reached anywhere. The world may know and listen to your ragas, but Bismillah, life will soon finish and your yearnings will still remain. This music is still an ocean. I want to cross it. But I have barely reached the shore. I haven’t yet even taken a dip in it.”

The Indian born artist Anish Kapoor has a major sculpture going up at Rockefeller Center in New York next month, and there’s a detailed profile of him in the New York Times (thanks, Tamasha).

The sculpture is called “Sky Mirror,” and it’s essentially a large, convex piece of highly polished stainless steel, roughly in the shape of a contact lens. From the image at the Times (which is computer generated) as well as images of the same sculpture at other sites, I have a feeling this piece is going to be a bit of a tourist sensation.

This high-profile placing of one of Kapoor’s sculptures is a coup for the artist, but hardly the first time he’s been given pride of place in the western art world. Major pieces of his are on display in the MOMA and the Tate Modern in London, the most famous of which might be Marsyas, a massive construction that filled the Tate’s vast Turbine Hall four years ago. Kapoor is one of the most important and influential practitioners of a movement in abstract sculpture called either minimalism or post-minimalism, depending on how exact we’re being.

It’s a long way to come for a Doon School boy.

It’s been a little while since we last had a good dust-up about illegal immigration. Thankfully the U.S. Government’s Office of Immigration Statistics has some fresh material for us to chew on. (Thanks to SAJA for the tip.) It has just released a report estimating the number of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. in 2005 by period of entry, state of residence, and country of origin. Here are the big-picture findings:

Mexico was the leading source country for unauthorized immigration with nearly 6.0 million residents in the United States in 2005. El Salvador, Guatemala, India, and China were the next leading source countries, accounting for a combined total of nearly 1.4 million unauthorized immigrants. Among the 10 leading source countries, the annual average increase in the unauthorized population from 2000 to 2005 was greatest among Mexican immigrants (260,000). However, the greatest percentage increase in the unauthorized immigrant population from 2000 to 2005 occurred among immigrants from India (133 percent) and Brazil (70 percent).

Interesting! Illegal immigrants from India more than doubled in the last five years, the fastest growth of all source countries; and it’s not a trivial number, since India ranks fourth, ahead of China, in total number of illegals. Of course these estimates are complicated to produce — the study gives details of the methodology — but clearly we are looking at a substantial trend.

Back in April when the big immigration marches were taking place, we noticed that South Asian organizations, especially Indian-American ones, didn’t seem to be much involved, and a number of commenters argued that, by and large, illegal immigration wasn’t much of a desi issue. At a minimum, these numbers suggest that we think again.

Here’s a key question: Who are these new illegal immigrants? Where do they live, what do they do for work? Where in India do they come from? I know we have plenty of readers who work “in the trenches” who could share some insight, even if it’s imcomplete or anecdotal.

Beyond that, what does this massive rise in illegals from India tell us about the Indian economy, given that it occurred during the much-vaunted time of “India Shining?”

And what about the desi community and the organizations and leaders who claim to represent it? It may serve the public image of Indian immigration to keep the rise of the illegal population out of view, but does that serve the community as a whole?

In Spain recently, 150 passengers on board Monarch’s Malaga-Manchester flight staged a revolt, refusing to board the plane until two Asian passengers were removed [thanks Chickpea]:

The trouble in Malaga flared last Wednesday as two British citizens in their 20s waited in the departure lounge to board the pre-dawn flight and were heard talking what passengers took to be Arabic. Worries spread after a female passenger said she had heard something that alarmed her. Passengers noticed that, despite the heat, the pair were wearing leather jackets and thick jumpers and were regularly checking their watches. [Link]

As the revolt spread, more and more passengers either refused to board or left the airplane. The staff responded, not by allaying people’s suspicions, but by removing the two men. They were not detained or charged, and flew back to the UK on a later flight:

… the aircraft was cleared while police did a thorough security sweep. Nothing was found and the plane took off - three hours late and without the two men on board. Monarch arranged for them to spend the rest of the night in an airport hotel and flew them back to Manchester later on Wednesday. [Link]

Conservatives in the UK called the passengers’ actions a victory for the terrorists:

Patrick Mercer, the Tory Homeland Security spokesman, said last night: “This is a victory for terrorists. These people on the flight have been terrorised into behaving irrationally. For those unfortunate two men to be victimised because of the colour of their skin is just nonsense.” [Link]

Can you imagine American conservatives defending the two men who were removed and criticizing the passengers for acting crazy? I’d plotz if I saw that on Fox News.

An excerpt of an excerpt:

Sartaj walked stiffly to the window. Beyond the fizzing yellow lamps in the compound of the neighbouring building, there was the darkness of the sea, and far ahead, a sprinkling of bright blue and orange that was Bandra. With a good pair of binoculars, you could even see Nariman Point, not so far across the sea but at least an hour away on empty night-time roads, and very far from Zone 13. Sartaj felt a sudden ache in his chest. It was as if two blunt stones were grinding against each other, creating not fire but a dull, steady grow, a persistent and unquiet desire. It rose into his throat and his decision was made.

Twelve minutes of fast driving took him through the underpass and on to the highway. The open stretches of road and the wheel slipping easily through his fingers were exhilarating, and he laughed at the speed. But in Tardeo the traffic was backed up between the brightly-lit shops, and Sartaj was suddenly angry at himself, and wanted to turn around and go back.

And with that, Sartaj Singh is back. He is the police inspector whom you might remember from “Kama,” one of the five novellas that make up Vikram Chandra’s superb second book Love and Longing in Bombay. Chandra’s new tome Sacred Games, a Big Bombay Novel about cops, the underworld, and the meaning of life, was released in India earlier this month. From the excerpt at Rediff.com, which is taken from the first two chapters, it seems Chandra is back in full form: the tone, the pace of the writing feel very much like those of Love and Longing. The big question will be how it all plays out over nearly 1,000 pages. I found Chandra’s first novel, Red Earth and Pouring Rain, too long: the stories within stories within stories, the jumps back and forth from medieval to modern times, from Mughal battlefields to American college campuses, got overwhelming and messy. Love and Longing, by contrast, had a formal structure that disciplined the plot lines and helped the writing soar. It’s my favorite of all the post-Midnight’s Children wave of Indian writing in English.

There are not many reviews out yet: Apparently everyone is still digesting the book. Here’s the bottom line according to Suchitra Behal in The Hindu:

The funeral has taken place in Dhaka of the country’s most famous poet, Shamsur Rahman, who died on Thursday of kidney failure after several days in a coma. A large number of Bangladeshi government ministers, politicians of both major parties (BNP and Awami), and cultural figures attended the funeral, although there were also questions why Rahman was not given official state honors.

Described in today’s New York Times obituary as the “unofficial poet laureate” of Bangladesh, Shamsur Rahman was the author of sixty collections of poetry in Bangla, of which only a small fractions appears to have been translated in English. I barely speak any Bangla, let alone read it, and I imagine many Sepia readers have like me only heard of Rahman without ever reading him. It would be great to hear commentary and criticism from anyone versed in Bangla poetry or who has some of this work in translation that they might share with us.

Rahman was the victim of an extremist attack in 1999:

An outspoken opponent of religious fundamentalism, Mr. Rahman was attacked in January 1999 by a group of young men who talked their way into his house and tried to behead him with an ax. Mr. Rahman was unharmed, but his wife, who came to his aid, was seriously wounded.

Hearing screams, neighbors rushed in and caught the attackers, who were members of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, a militant Islamic group. The attack led to the arrest of 44 members of the group.

There is an homage by Syed Manzoorul Islam in the Bangladesh Daily Star:

An anonymous tipster sent in a news story which has haunted me since I read it. Sick, sick, sick:

A group of television journalists gave a man matches and diesel to help him commit suicide in order to get dramatic footage which was later broadcast on the news, police said on Thursday.

The man died from severe burns to his body in hospital in Gaya town of Bihar on August 15, Independence Day.

These people aren’t journalists, they are criminals.

Footage of the man, screaming and writhing in pain as he ran with his back on fire, was aired on several television channels. Police identified the man as Manoj Mishra.

“We have seized footage clearly showing a group of journalists handing over matches and some inflammable substance — which we later verified to be diesel — to the victim,” acting Gaya police chief P.K. Sinha told Reuters by telephone.

It’s really depressing that people could be this callous, this heartless. Taking advantage of someone troubled, for what? Sensational footage?

Mishra, who worked as a delivery man, was upset over what he said was a large sum of money owed to him by a state-run dairy farm whose milk he transported to customers, police said.

They handed him a flammable substance and matches, filmed this atrocity and then…

The TV crews left the scene without aiding Mishra who suffered burns to over 70 percent of his body, Sinha said.

Why would such cold-blooded bastards do this in the first place?

There has been an explosion of private TV news channels in recent years in India, each competing aggressively for exclusive stories and dramatic footage.

These channels often show graphic footage of victims of bomb blasts and other violence as well as partly blurred pictures of sex acts while exposing scandals as part of sting operations.

Gautam Malkani, the author of Londonstani, has an Op-Ed in today’s New York Times that contrasts the atmosphere at the recent London Mela — a Brit-desi music festival — with the narrative of British South Asians as disgruntled and uninterested in assimilation. Malkani describes a desi culture that is truly British, and the improvements in understanding and exchange between Brit-desis and non-desi Brits — points that are often made here by members of the Sepia Mutiny UK massive like Jai, Bong Breaker, Red Snapper, Midwestern Eastender, and esteemed visitors like Sunny from Pickled Politics.

You’ll want to read the whole article: it’s short, well-written and chock full of observations and interpretations that I am sure will provoke many reactions. Here are some of the key paragraphs:

… When I was growing up in Hounslow in the 1980’s, these festivals used to be parochial, ethnically exclusive events. But in recent years they have become racially diverse. More important, they are no longer really festivals of South Asian culture; they celebrate British South Asian culture.

Those who stayed at home, however, were given a very different view of the state of multicultural Britain. The weekend newspapers were crammed with apocalyptic warnings about Britain’s failure to integrate its South Asian youth into mainstream society — a failure that, in light of the recent foiled terrorist plot, again appears to have left young, British-born South Asian men so disenfranchised that they are prepared to carry out mass murder against their fellow citizens.

Since the London bombings of July 7, 2005, conventional wisdom has held that when it comes to racial integration, Britain has botched it, and that our long-standing policy of promoting multiculturalism has kept us from sustaining a common, over-arching culture and national identity toward which different races and religions can feel loyal. Today it is widely accepted that there has been a trade-off between the promotion of diversity and the nation’s social cohesiveness.

It’s a pity that so few of these columnists ever attended a summer mela or have any feel for our thriving desi beats scene.

It may seem absurd to focus on British South Asian hip-hop artists in the context of the threat of planes being blown out of the sky, and there are of course differences between the experiences of British Pakistani youth and British Indian youth. But because our policy of multiculturalism sometimes appears to have failed so spectacularly, we need to recognize the underappreciated — and underreported — ways in which it has succeeded.

Again, do read the whole piece. It’s an important perspective to put forward, not least for Americans who are just now tuning into the dynamics of South Asians in Britain and doing so through the lens of “homegrown terrorism” and media reports on extremist imams and alienated youth. I will be curious to read the reactions from our UK contingent to this article, as well as from everyone else.

After threats in a handwritten letter from some al-Qaeda fan indicated that one of the world’s most famous and beloved monuments was in danger yesterday, the Taj Mahal was surrounded by paramilitary soldiers on 24-hour guard (Thanks, DJ Drrrty Poonjabi).

“Police are verifying the source of the letter,” said Ashok Kumar, a senior government official in Uttar Pradesh state where the Taj Mahal is located. “The letter could be false but we cannot afford to be complacent. We are not taking any chances and have enhanced security at the Taj.”

…The state government has asked the federal civil aviation authorities and India’s air force to declare a no-fly zone within a 2.5-mile radius of the Taj Mahal, said N. C. Bajpei, Uttar Pradesh’s highest official.[link]

After recent events, security-based prohibitions against carrying liquids of any kind don’t really surprise me, but what does shock me is how an iconic structure which I associate with Islam is being targeted. WTF?

In similar head-scratching developments, details about the letter are…interesting:

“The letter is written in Hindi. The writing resembles either that of a junior class student or may have been written with the left hand,” Juneja told TOI on Friday evening.

How sinister.

“As the writing is similar to that of the two previous letters, it can be safely said that it has been sent by the same person. We have picked up matching fingerprints from the three letters,” he said.

“Though Thursday’s letter bears a local postal stamp, the earlier ones had no such identification and may have been delivered by hand,” said another senior police officer, adding, “in place of the sender’s name, the letters carry the term ‘MM009’.”[link]

Smile, you’re on a not-so-candid camera:

“We have also launched an extensive drive to photograph every individual who has access within 500m radius of the monument,” said Juneja.[link]

So, one of the greatest physical manifestations of love the world has ever known is now endangered because of hate. Everyone says the former is sightless, but I think the latter is what’s blind. How else could anyone aim such evil at something so magnificent? :(

The last time we met Saqib and Susan Ali of Maryland was when Anna blogged a long Washington Post feature on the couple’s experience bringing to term a baby that they knew had no chance of surviving outside the womb. Deciding how to proceed after learning of their baby’s condition, and enduring all that followed, was a trial beyond the imagination of most of us. And yet they made it through.

Here is part of the article’s presentation of the couple:

The two were as opposite as could be. Saqib is tall, olive-skinned and athletic. Susan is tiny, fair-skinned and delicate. Saqib is Muslim, the son of immigrants born in India. Susan was raised in a conservative Christian family from a small town in Pennsylvania. He’s a door-knocking community activist who hopes to run for public office someday; she’s soft-spoken and cherishes her privacy.

Well, not only did Saqib and Susan make it through, but they are pursuing their dreams. Saqib Ali is running for the Maryland House of Delegates (the state legislature). And in his capacity as a candidate, he had this experience a few days ago:

A demonstrator sat down Saturday near the home of a Muslim candidate for the Maryland House of Delegates with a hand-lettered sign bearing a crude denunciation of Islam.

The sign was apparently aimed at Saqib Ali, a Gaithersburg resident who is running in the Sept. 12 Democratic primary for a seat in House District 39.

The demonstrator, who wore a T-shirt reading “This mind is an Allah-free zone,” planted himself near the house in the Quince Orchard Estates development that Ali also uses as a campaign office. Ali, a software engineer who is challenging three incumbents, said he went out into his small cul-de-sac to look at the man but said nothing to him.

“I knew he was there to bait me,” Ali said.

According to Ali, the man began saying, “‘You are a terrorist … You guys are violent extremists.’”

The campaign blog has photos of this individual sitting in front of Ali’s house. He also displays a handwritten sign that says “Islam Sucks.”

Here’s how the man, identified as nearby resident Timothy Truett, explained his actions:

An Associated Press account said Truett, 46, of Montgomery Village, called the demonstration “basically an experiment.”

“I had heard that Muslims were generally intolerant of views other than their own, and so I thought I would put it to the test,” the AP quoted him as saying. “I wanted to see what would happen.”

Sadiq was born in 1975 and works in software; surely lots of our readers can relate to that part. What’s less usual is that he had the courage to marry outside his community, the patience and love to get through personal tragedy, and the call to service to run for local political office. His reward is to get this fool sitting in front of his house calling him a terrorist. No wonder so few good people run for office.

Today is Friday and on most Fridays at the Mutiny, we write flash fiction. Co-ink-i-dinkily, today is also August 18th and thus, a very special holiday. It’s Bad Poetry Day!

Bad Poetry Day is a day to create some really bad verse. But, why you ask? Perhaps, the answer is simply “because you can”. Maybe, it exists to allow us to better appreciate good poetry. Or, perhaps it is to be written to irritate someone…the intention is to gather a group of old high school friends, and write some really bad poetry. Then, send the poetry to your old high school teacher. Wow!, That sounds like a lot of fun…[linkage]

Indeed, it does, especially if you ignore that part about sending it off to a teacher— I mean really, who has the time?

The last time the Mutiny did anything collaborative with poetry, it was Valentine’s day and we invited you to submit haikus; since you enjoyed that so much, I thought I should encourage you to write more of those spare, elegant poems, especially if it means that people who normally don’t 55 can participate in our creative corner of Sepiadom.

Many of you ask me either in person or via email, “but how do you write one of those 55 things?” To which I generally and unhelpfully respond, “You just…do. MS Word. Wordcount. Before you know it, you’ve got 65 words and then you find yourself doing some careful pruning.” The reaction to this incoherent response is almost always further confusion or frustration. Well, it may seem daunting to tell an entire tale using less than five dozen words, but what about a three-line work of art? You could manage that, right? It’s a mere 17 syllables (arranged thusly: 5-7-5), you can so do it.

Annnnnd, I think I’m done here. I have one of the most addictive college rock hits EVER happily lodged in my head, you have TWO options to get busy in a thoughtful, literary way and we all have fantastic reading material to look forward to…right, Kobayashi-san? Any mentions of

• snakes
• the Confederate flag
• planes
• macacas
• noose-lovin’ Senators
• Tunisia
• hairstyles which are all "business in front, party in the back"
• fake-ass-cowboys
• Palos Verdes
• the power of the interweb (in both of those situations!)
• Samuel L. Jackson

Yesterday I went on-line to check out all the hype behind the new movie that opens tomorrow, Snakes on a Plane. Not many reviews to go by so I don’t know how good it actually is. While watching the trailer however my sepia radar started howling as the following face splashed onto my computer screen. Who was that cute desi girl and how come I’ve never sat next to her on a plane?

Apple should totally make her a spokeswoman. She “speaks to me” at least.

Turns out that the name of her character in the movie is “Ipod girl.” The actress who plays her is Canada’s own Agam Darshi (born Agamdeep Darshi in Birmingham, UK):

She was born Agamdeep Darshi in Birmingham, England, but her family soon moved to Canada. At the age of 14 she moved to Calgary and began to pursue her dream of acting, a passion that, as a small child, would manifest itself as impromptu plays at any family gathering. She studied theatre at the University of Calgary as well the visual fine arts, earning a BFA in art and theatre in 2002. This passion for being on the other side of the camera has lead to several photographic shows and art publications. Besides acting on both stage and screen, Darshi has also written numerous plays and has recently work on several film scripts, producing two of her projects as independent films.

She is also an avid traveler and has backpacked through Europe and across Australia. [Link]

Abhi and I have both independently been thinking about the same problem, but we’ve come to slightly different solutions. Imagine for a second that Representative King and conservative talk show host Mike Gallagher and other wingnuts are right. Maybe it’s time to overcome our politically correct scruples and embrace overt profiling of all Muslim males. Maybe what we need is a screening policy that makes sure that every single Muslim male is scrutinized, and not one gets by without close examination.

How would we implement this?

None of those in favor of the plan have thought about implementation. For example, this is what one Republican congressional candidate said:

“Well, you know, if he comes in wearing a turban and his name is Mohammed, that’s a good start” [Link]

Yeah riiiiiight. That would be around as effective as looking for men with “Terrorist” signs around their neck.

King calls for special treatment of all travellers of Middle Eastern or South Asian origin, but that clearly would be insufficient to accomplish his goals. 25% of all Muslims in America are black, and his plan ignores all of them. There have also been several serious plots involving both South East Asian Muslims and African ones, so we would need something far more extreme than the wimpy measures King suggests.

No, if we’re going to be real men about this, we have to overcome our squeamishness, adapt a rigid approach and realize that all Muslim men have only one physical attribute in common - they’re all circumcised.

That’s right - I think there should be one line for men with foreskin, and another for men without. Uncut males get expedited boarding, while the circumcised get extra scrutiny.

Yesterday someone posted this clip (on our News Tab) of conservative radio host Mike Gallagher’s appearance on Fox News.

GALLAGHER: It’s time to have a Muslims check-point line in American airports and have Muslims be scrutinized. You better believe it. It’s time. [Link]

Today the House Homeland Security Chairman, U.S. Congressman Peter King (R-NY) said the following (thanks for the tip AM):

Declaring that airport screeners shouldn’t be hampered by “political correctness,” House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King has endorsed requiring people of “Middle Eastern and South Asian” descent to undergo additional security checks because of their ethnicity and religion.

Discussing the recent revelation of an alleged plot in England to blow up U.S.-bound airliners, the Seaford Republican said yesterday that, “if the threat is coming from a particular group, I can understand why it would make sense to single them out for further questioning…”

Despite King’s endorsement of such a process, it is a technique that has been widely dismissed as a legitimate law enforcement tool. [Link]

This, by the way, is the same Peter King who said that supporters of Senate hopeful Ned Lamont were “bigots” and the same Peter King who is set to appear with Sen. Hillary Clinton on Sept. 11th at a “National Spirit of Unity” rally.

I have been thinking about this idea for a week now (even before King spoke out) and I fully support it. I think we should single out all arabs, middle eastern looking people, and South Asians. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing and if we play our cards right we can greatly benefit from it. The “Macaca line,” as it were, might actually move faster and more efficiently than the “American line” since brownish looking people are still a small minority in America (unless you count the Mexicans too). We could even lobby for a door to door airport shuttle that was guaranteed to be explosives free and would have dogs on board that we could pet and play with on the way to the airport (once they were done sniffing us). All of our tickets would be stamped with SSSS to ensure 4S service (“S” is like the new “Star”). We would have curbside check-in and our bags would all go through more advanced machinery (the kind airports can only afford one of). So that we wouldn’t get germs from the other passengers, our security screening area could be completely walled off. It seems that every time I travel I catch a cold, and so this would definitely be a perk. The other people would never even have to see us.

I already know what some of you are going to say to all of this (haters):

“You can’t tell a Muslim by the color of their skin or their appearance. There are black muslims, Asian muslims, and white muslims. How are we going to figure out who is Muslim so that we can give them this VIP treatment if they don’t want their identities revealed?”

I thought I’d take a moment to lay out for our readers how individual action in the context of a community CAN help change the status quo, particularly when it comes to political power and representation in the U.S. Here is step-by-step look at the BIG PICTURE.

1) First, let me take you back to July 31st (just two weeks ago) when Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. released its poll regarding the Virgina Senate race:

U.S. Sen. George Allen leads Jim Webb for re-election but may be threatened by voter distaste for the Iraq war and President Bush, according to The Times-Dispatch Poll.

Popular and well-known, the Republican senator is favored for a second term by 48 percent, while Democrat Webb, still struggling to get out his name and message, is backed by 32 per cent. Twenty percent are undecided.

That the support for Allen, the state’s dominant Republican for more than a decade, is under 50 percent suggests he is handicapped by anti-GOP sentiment, much of it attributed to uncertainty over Iraq…

As an early snapshot of a race that could help decide control of the Senate, the poll suggests Allen is using the advantages of incumbency, including a huge edge in fundraising, to navigate potential hazards. [Link]

2) When that first domino fell, the Democratic leadership decided to strategically cut their losses and run. They wrote off both Webb and Virgina:

To hear national Democratic party leaders tell it, Democrat James Webb has a solid chance of ousting Republican Sen. George Allen this fall.

“You might find Cinderella in Virginia,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told Congressional Quarterly this spring. “Allen’s numbers are not very strong.”

But in the first major spending decision of the fall campaign, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee - which Schumer heads - took a pass on Virginia.

The committee, which helps elect Democratic senators, has reserved a reported $25 million worth of television ads in states where Republican incumbents are considered vulnerable. Virginia is not one of them.

The spending plan, first reported by The Associated Press, came within days of a Mason-Dixon poll showing Allen leading Webb by 16 percentage points. [Link]

When the UK authorities brought various accused terrorists into custody, American sources said that the bad guys had been mere days away from a dry run. That is, a 9/11 type event was narrowly averted. But how close were they, really?

Some critics say that the evidence from the UK is weak, and the evidence from Pakistan unreliable:

Imminent threat? They had no bombs, no labs, no tickets, and no passports.None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn’t be a plane bomber for quite some time. What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year … Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries… Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn’t give is the truth. [Link]

Much to my surprise, even security hawks like Andrew Sullivan have voiced skepticism:

So far, no one has been charged in the alleged terror plot to blow up several airplanes across the Atlantic. No evidence has been produced supporting the contention that such a plot was indeed imminent. … Remember: the British authorities had all these people under surveillance; they did not want to act last week; there was no imminent threat of anything but a possible “dummy-run,” … How could they even stage a dummy-run with no passports? [Link]

[UPDATE: It is easy to donate to Webb if you wish. Give him $20.01 or an amount of your choice w/ an added one cent at the end to mark the donation as coming from the blogosphere. ]

Allen has changed his story in a small but important way. He no longer claims that he made up the word Macaca on the spot, instead he repeated something that he heard his staff say:

… several Allen campaign aides and advisers are telling allies that the word was a made-up, off-the-cuff neologism that these aides occasionally used to refer to tracker S.R. Sidarth well before last Saturday’s videotaped encounter. According to two Republicans who heard the word used, “macaca” was a mash-up of “Mohawk,” referring to Sidarth’s distinctive hair, and “caca,” Spanish slang for excrement, or “shit.”

Said one Republican close to the campaign: “In other words, he was a shit-head, an annoyance.” Allen, according to Republicans, heard members of his traveling entourage and Virginia Republicans use the phrase and picked it up. It was the first word that came to his mind when he spied Sidarth at the weekend’s event, according to Republicans who have been briefed on Allen’s version of the event. [Link]

Allen wants to shift blame because coverage of this story brings up his long history of racial insensitivity / insult towards blacks which could torpedo his chance at the Presidential nomination:

As governor Allen had a stormy relationship with African-American voters in Virginia, many of whom criticized his policies and his embrace of the Confederate flag, which the NAACP condemned as a symbol of racism and hate. As a lawyer, Allen also had a noose hanging from a ficus tree in his office, a decoration critics have charged was racially insensitive, but which Allen has explained as a symbol of his tough stance on law-and-order issues…
In 1995, 1996, and 1997, Allen proclaimed April as Confederate History and Heritage Month and called the Civil War “a four-year struggle for independence and sovereign rights.” The proclamation did not mention slavery and was subsequently repudiated by Allen’s Republican successor, Governor James Gilmore. [Link]

Under educational guidelines proposed by Allen’s administration, which were revised after an uproar, students would have been taught that slaves were “settlers…” [Link]

“Stormy relationship” is an understatement. The man is completely obsessed by the confederate flag:

By now, most readers probably know that Indra Nooyi is being promoted to the CEO of PepsiCo, a company with $38 billion in revenues. She’s been mentioned several times before on Sepia Mutiny, mainly in response to comments she made at a graduation ceremony at Columbia Business School last year. (There are several other posts on her as well.) And Manish had a solid post on her recent promotion this past Monday on Ultrabrown.

I draw two conclusions from her success. First, you can be a working mother and climb the corporate ladder while raising kids (Indra has two, who are I believe in their early/mid teens). Second, you can get ahead in the American corporate environment without sacrificing who you are culturally.

On the first point, there have been many recent stories about the difficulties facing powerful women. Maureen Dowd, for instance, recently published a book called Are Men Necessary?, where (among other things) she talked about the difficulty some women face in dating and/or marrying men who are less powerful or successful than they are. But a growing number of “power moms” are also flat-out powerful. And they do it without sacrificing their connection to their kids, as I think Indra Nooyi’s Nintendo policy proves:

She views PepsiCo as an extended family and everybody at the company is there to help in every way possible. Sometime ago, when Indra was traveling, her daughter would call the office to ask for permission to play Nintendo. The receptionist would know the routine and ask: “Have you finished your homework? Have you had your snack? OK, you can play Nintendo for half an hour”. She then left a voice message for Indra saying “I gave Tara permission to play Nintendo”. (link)

Have you had your snack? Ok, go play. Momma has to go acquire a multinational or two and pacify the Indian media regarding the recent pesticide allegations.

Secondly, you don’t have to sell yourself out and tell everyone your name is “Bob” if it’s really Balwinder. Nooyi’s story about getting her first job in the U.S. after completing her Master’s at Yale is illustrative:

Apparently, a flight from London to Washington, D.C. just landed in Boston instead, because the pilot was concerned about a passenger’s actions:

A flight from London to Washington, D.C. was diverted to Boston Wednesday morning after the pilot declared an emergency because of a passenger disturbance, the airline said.

United Flight 923 with 182 passengers and 12 crew members landed safely at Boston’s Logan International Airport, United spokesman Brandon Borrman said.

A Logan spokesman said three passengers had a confrontation with the flight crew. State Police took control of the plane after it landed. All the passengers were being taken off the plane and their carry-on luggage was being checked, said spokesman Phil Orlandella.

What got MY attention was the clip NBC just showed— passengers slowly exiting the plane in Boston. To be expected, right? Sure, except all of those shown during the few seconds of footage were wearing Salwar Kameez. Way to zero in on a visual, there.

Developing…

I saw a group called Indian Ocean last night at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia — and they rocked. I’ll review the concert in some more detail below, but before going any further I wanted to mention that they are doing a small North American tour right now. Upcoming venues include Stamford, Connecticut, Chicago (this weekend), New York (early next week), Houston, Phoenix, Minneapolis, and Missisauga, Canada. If you live in one of those cities, go buy tickets!

Indian Ocean are based in Delhi, and have been together since the early 1990s. Though they’ve flirted with crossover commercial success, the band has built up a devoted underground following without selling out to the demands of the market. (The audience at last night’s concert seemed to know all of their songs.) They play a unique style of music that fundamentally defies categorization. A phrase on the Indian Ocean Wikipedia site takes a stab at it: “Indo-rock fusion with jazz-spiced rhythms that integrates shlokas, sufism, environmentalism, mythology and revolution.” Another phrase they use is, “organic fusion.” Whatever it is, it works.

Putting aside his politics for a moment, I think most of us are capable of agreeing that Congressman Bobby Jindal has accomplished several things which would make any brown parent gloat; a quondam Rhodes Scholar, he was appointed Secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Health before serving as President of the University of Louisiana. Later, he was an Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Just one of those titles would make my family faint with joy, but I happen to think his latest accomplishment is the coolest of them all (via CNN):

Rep. Bobby Jindal barely had time to call 911 when his wife woke with labor pains Tuesday. Minutes later, he helped deliver his own son.

Slade Ryan Jindal arrived before the ambulance did at about 3:25 a.m. Jindal, coached over the phone by a nurse at the doctor’s office, put the baby in the arms of his wife, Supriya, and tied off the umbilical cord with a shoestring.

Supriya Jindal had been to the hospital twice in the last week with pains thought to be contractions, her husband said. She was at the doctor’s office as recently as Monday and was told there were no signs the baby would be coming as soon as it did, he said.

Mother and baby were resting comfortably Tuesday at a nearby hospital.

“We were very fortunate. There were no complications,” said Bobby Jindal, 35.

Two days early and weighing a healthy eight pounds, Slade Jindal entered the world on a very special day. His older siblings were typically oblivious (when my little sister was born, I looked at her for four seconds before requesting Baskin Robbins):

Slade’s 4-year-old sister, Selia, and 2-year-old brother, Shaan, were at the house and slept through the birth, Jindal spokesman Trey Williams said.

Nothing riles me up more than blatant, plain-for-all-to-see, lapdogism (another word to add to the Urban Dictionary please). Stay with me a moment. Dr. Raghavendra Vijayanagar (who goes by “Dr. Vijay”) is the chairman of the Indian American Republican Council (IARC) which was formed in 2002. Their purpose:

The IARC is a 501 (c)(4) organization, and is the only national organization in America representing Indian American Republicans. While we come from many parts of India and live across the U.S., we are united in our belief that less government, more liberty, and a strong national defense are in the best interests of our country and we share these values with the Republican Party. [Link]

After Senator Joseph Biden (D) made a comment earlier this year which stereotyped Indians as being in every donut shop and 7-11 in his state of Delaware, this is the statement released by the IARC:

“Joe Biden has a history of making insensitive and inappropriate remarks,” said Dr. Vijay. “But even for him, this recent gaffe is clearly over the top. But this isn’t the first time a Senate Democrat has insulted Indian Americans. In 2004, Senator John Kerry referred to Sikhs as terrorists and Senator Hillary Clinton jokingly referred to Mahatma Gandhi as a gas station owner. A clear double-standard in the mainstream media will likely ensure Senator Biden gets a pass over these comments that would get a Republican in deep trouble if he ever made a similar statement…”

“Senator Biden will be surprised to hear that I am a cardiothoracic surgeon, leading a national association of Indian Americans who are physicians, attorneys, and small business owners. It’s amazing to know we don’t all work at Dunkin Donuts or the local 7/11. The contributions to America by Indian Americans in the fields of medicine, education, science, and business have been well-documented. We’re not asking Senator Biden to apologize for his embarrassing, stereotypical comments. However, we do appreciate knowing what he really thinks of his Indian American constituents in Delaware…” [Link]

And what did Dr. Vijay have to say after Senator George Allen (R) hurled an alleged racial slur at an Indian American this past week?

That’s just one of the memories and opinions that DJ Rekha, tireless queen of the NYC desi dance scene, shares in an interview out today in the Village Voice. Aside from the Voice’s Tricia Romano asking a question about Bollywood “blowing up” in an interview that she says was conducted on the day of the Bombay bombings, it’s a nice bit of back-and-forth; Romano more than redeems herself by designating Rekha “one of the city’s true treasures.”

One reason I wanted to post this was to give Rekha props for her straightforward and democratic opinions about nightlife:

Basement Bhangra’s stayed in one place; it hasn’t really moved around.

Well, I fortunately have a really good relationship with SOB’s. I’ve been preempted once, by Celia Cruz, which I gladly gave up my night for. But outside of that, clubland sucks. It’s hard to get a space where the venue gets what you’re doing musically. Now it’s like, if you don’t have a bottle crowd … I mean, I could have a bottle crowd, but I don’t want to. I don’t want those pricks at my place. I don’t want anyone who’s dumb enough to buy a bottle at my party. Can you quote me on that?

I’ll even blog you on that, sister Rekha! She’s also got a comment on the desi integration into American cultural life that you might find interesting:

The success of it all used to be more surprising, the whole success of Indian-ness as a cultural phenomena, everything from Deepak Chopra to yoga to this music. It’s not a spike. It’s more integrated, in subtle ways. Like before it would be a big deal if you saw anything Indian anywhere. And now, it’s like, ‘Oh, big deal. They’re playing some lounge track in a bar.’ Or ‘Big deal, there’s an Indian character on that reality show,’ America’s Next Top Model or whatever. It’s not as much of a shock. I think that just means that we’re here to stay.

I don’t mean to go all ‘jumping jack’ on you at such an early date with craptastic image quality and poor sourcing to boot but these circumstances cannot be helped.

Take a long look at the ANTM Cycle 7 contestants and tell me you haven’t been this excited since Cycle 3:

Name: Anchal, Occupation: Sales Clerk, Age: 19, Hometown: Homestead, Fla. [Link]

I just wanted to get that off my chest. Blood pressure normalizing.

Like peas in a pod.

The picture above (emailed to us as a tip) was snapped at the “Stop the U.S.-Israeli War” rally in San Francisco on August 12, 2006 (via Zombietime). It features a large mpuppet of Gandhi holding up a poster carrying perhaps his most famous quote. To the right is a large picture of Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. One of these men called for a long non-violent struggle against a military oppressor and a colonial economy, and the other calls for unguided rockets to be rained down upon the enemy and civilians. I keep hoping that at least some people at the rally may have been disgusted by this. I believe protesting the war of the past month is a very worthwhile activity but this kind of image just undermines the cause and negates the relevance of some of these protests.

Happy Indian Independence day, everyone!

In the comments of some recent posts at Sepia Mutiny, some readers have questioned why India needs “secularism,” and even just what secularism means in India. Similar questions were also raised in response to Abhi’s “jingoism in the blogsophere” post from a few weeks ago. Since I have researched the issue of secularism as part of my academic work, I thought it might be interesting to look at the Indian and American approaches to secularism in comparison as a thought-exercise. Instead of focusing on recent issues such as the train bombings in Mumbai last month, or almost-current events like the Gujarat riots of 2002, I wanted to back up a little and take a brief look at the texts of the respective Constitutions themselves. I think this comparative exercise might shed some insight on the value and importance of secularism in both countries.

Yesterday the state supreme court in Arizona commuted to life without parole the death sentence of Frank Roque, the man who killed gas station owner Balbir Singh Sodi after 9/11 because he thought he was Muslim (thanks Atul for the news tip):

The high court unanimously agreed that Frank Silva Roque’s mental illness and low IQ were mitigating factors and should have resulted in the lesser sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole.

“We have such a doubt in this case, and therefore conclude that the death penalty should not be imposed,” Vice Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch wrote. “Because of the serious nature of Roque’s crimes, however, we conclude that he should be imprisoned for the rest of his natural life and never be released.”

A gracious reaction from the victim’s family:

“As long as he is away from society and our family, it’s fine,” said his brother, Rana Singh Sodhi, though he questioned the high court’s assertion that Roque is mentally ill.

“I don’t think mentally ill people can make those (deliberate decisions about) targets,” he said.

Not much to add here, but the news — a victory for justice, since the conviction was upheld, and (in my opinion) for humanity, since another life won’t be unnecessarily taken — seems significant enough to disseminate. Here’s Ennis’s post on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of Balbir Singh Sodhi’s death, last September.

A wise man once said, “When the world around you is full of shit, it is a good idea to pick up your shovel” That man is probably my dad, it sounds like something he would make up on the spot and in turn attribute it to some credible source (“Confucius said it”). The words do ring true but anyone who has ever picked up that shovel will know that between shovel and shit there exists a whole barrage of questions. Where do I begin de-shiting? Will this shovel do OK for all this shit? It is too much shit, how should I get others to help me in getting rid of it all? Snakes on a plane?

Twenty two year old British Columbia native Dev Aujla’s organization Dream Now appears to have some answers. Dream Now is a great initiative that helps youth organize their efforts in creating and running grass roots non-profit projects. They provide management tools and, more importantly, mentorship to participants around the globe. It all starts with an idea and rest is made easier with step-by-step guide from brain storming to project completion.

Dev’s younger brother, Aaron Aujla has also begun spreading the good word through his clothing label Auj. Every cashmere tee has an access code which, when entered, will result in a phone call from a Dream Now mentor. Cashmere tees? Yes. Preppy? Most def. Making saving the world sexy? Hopefully. Current customers include students who patented a free water purification system in Uganda, a “future dentist” who is starting an organization to bring relief to children, and Simon Jackson.

The two brothers, who have relocated shop to the centre of the universe a.k.a. Queen St. West, Toronto, have been featured in CBC’s new docu-series ‘Make Some Noise’. The series chronicles the efforts made by young people to create change in the world around them. Watch their segment. Watch it! Makes my cynical bones itch with enthusiasm.

Big ups to the Aujlas for their energy and dedication to making and helping make do-good dreams come true.

Our next president?

See this man? You should become familiar with him. Many pundits think that he has a pretty decent shot at becoming the next President of the United States. Even though McCain of Arizona seems to be more popular, Allen, currently a Republican senator from the state of Virginia, is more popular with the base of the Republican party and his ambitions are well known. The first thing he has to do however, is hold out against upstart Democrat James Webb who wants to strip Allen of his senate seat.

Today’s Washington Post has an interesting article (thanks for the tip Sanjivani) about Allen’s remarks to a young staffer that Webb had hired to shadow the Allen campaign:

Democrat James Webb’s Senate campaign accused Sen. George Allen (R) of making demeaning comments Friday to a 20-year-old Webb volunteer of Indian descent.

S.R. Sidarth, a senior at the University of Virginia, had been trailing Allen with a video camera to document his travels and speeches for the Webb campaign. During a campaign speech Friday in Breaks, Virginia, near the Kentucky border, Allen singled out Sidarth and called him a word that sounded like “Macaca.”

“This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He’s with my opponent. He’s following us around everywhere. And it’s just great. We’re going to places all over Virginia, and he’s having it on film and its great to have you here and you show it to your opponent because he’s never been there and probably will never come.”

After telling the crowd that Webb was raising money in California with a “bunch of Hollywood movie moguls,” Allen again referenced Sidarth, who was born and raised in Fairfax County.

”Lets give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia,” said Allen, who then began talking about the “war on terror…” [Link]

So seriously. What is a “Macaca?” This could hurt me if I ever make it to Jeopardy and I don’t know that answer.

Wadhams [Allen’s campaign manager] said Allen campaign staffers had begun calling Sidarth “mohawk” because of a haircut Wadhams said the Webb staffer has. “Macaca was just a variation of that,” Wadhams said. [Link]

Good to know. Will one of you readers please add that definition to the Urban Dictionary? The etymological debate raged on though:

Depending on how you spell it, the name Allen gave Sidarth means different things.

If spelled M-a-c-a-c-a, the term refers to a species of monkeys in the Eastern Hemisphere. “Is he saying Sidarth is a monkey?” Todd [Webb’s spokesperson] asked.

The word M-a-k-a-k-a refers to a town in South Africa. [Link]

Today, August 14, Pakistan marks the anniversary of its independence. Over the weekend the Pakistani diaspora celebrated, although this report from Devon Street in Chicago suggests the party was a muted and anguished one.

This morning, I took a tour of the Pakistani blogosphere and found it, as usual, disappointing. A few bloggers offered bombastic statements of national pride. Others commented on the party preparations, or lack thereof. There don’t seem to be that many Pakistani bloggers to begin with, nor Pakistani-American bloggers for that matter (a fact that we deplore here at the Mutiny), so I wasn’t really expecting anything in particular; even so, the paucity of offerings, in both quantity and quality, struck me as symptomatic of, well, something.

We get a lot of anti-Pakistan mudslinging here on the comment threads, and though we try to keep up with and get rid of the most egregious and bigoted statements, the best way Pakistan’s image could improve would be through a flood of free, contentious, provocative, educative speech by Pakistanis and their friends. The Web is only one venue, of course, and it is obviously biased toward those with access to computers and the Internet, but to not make better use of such a ready resource is really a shame.

So it’s with pleasure that I introduce you, on this Pakistan Independence Day, to Watandost, the weblog of Hassan Abbas, a Pakistani former government official and writer who now lives in Boston. It’s a one-stop shop for news stories and web links that will be of interest to anyone who wishes for a democratic and peaceful Pakistan within a democratic and peaceful South Asia.

Abbas doesn’t write original content at his blog: he posts useful stories and lets them do the talking. However, he is the author of a book that I wish I’d heard of earlier. It’s called Pakistan’s Drift Into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America’s War on Terror, and here is part of the review in the Boston Globe by Farah Stockman:

With eerily apposite timing, Gallup released the results of a new poll on anti-Muslim sentiment in the US on Thursday, the same day that the British government announced that they had foiled a new home grown plot. Most news reports on this poll emphasized that 40% of Americans admitted prejudice against Muslims but that this prejudice was less amongst the 40% Americans who personally knew a Muslim. This is a positive, almost pollyanish spin on the data, one that emphasizes the precepts of the “contact hypothesis” [an argument that prejudice is rooted in a lack of daily interaction between two groups].

Other portions of this survey, however, are far more troubling. Remember that this poll was taken before the latest plot was exposed. [Both the graphics presented below are from the Gallup Organization’s own press release. To gain access, you just have to watch a brief ad.]

Americans are deeply suspicious of Muslim loyalties, with only half seeing Muslims as loyal to America, and a third seeing them as sympathetic to Al-Qaeda! This means that a sizable minority of Americans see all Muslims as a fifth column of subversion.

Given that one of the objectives that led to 9/11 was Al-Qaeda’s desire to prompt a Clash of Civilizations between the West and Islam, is this evidence that the terrorists are winning?

From today’s New York Times, this lede:

SHE was Glinda in a sari. Early that morning, she had glided ethereally across the courtyard with her fellow healing goddesses, their feet bare, their flowing white garb edged in gold. The bird trills reverberated off the palace walls.

“Please sit,” she said prayerfully. Soon, thick warm sesame oil infused with medicinal herbs began to permeate my meager muslin thong. She breathed heavily, karate-chopping the oil with the edges of her hands. She gently pummeled me with poultices, hot bundles of herbs resembling bouquets garnis. In the background, I heard oil sizzling. I felt a strange compulsion to go fry myself in a wok.

Pummel me with poultices! Stay me with flagons! Gag me with a spoon! What on Lord Krishna’s blue earth is going on here?

It’s just San Francisco-based writer Patricia Leigh Brown receiving treatment, for research purposes, at the Kalari Kovilakom Palace for Ayurveda in the hills of Palakkam, Kerala, where “ayurvedists — longevity-seekers who are already deeply into the present moment — come … to detoxify and purify with ayurvedic doctors, the new yogis, for whom mind, body and spirit have been fused for more than 3,000 years.”

Exempted from the resort’s two-week minimum stay rule, Brown was able to pick and choose her treatments, avoiding the “stamina-challenging sequence of enemas” and secretly brewing Peet’s Coffee in her room.

The article is long, and not entirely as ridiculous as would appear from the opening. By the end, in fact, some interesting cultural analysis has crept in. En route, however, you get lines like “My spine was a cobra unfurling,” and the apparition in Brown’s mind, during treatment, of a vision of Dick Cheney. Surely that can’t be therapeutic.

A coworker sent me a link to this toy (thanks, Abi!) and I can’t resist posting it, if only because I wonder how much of “us” Mattel got right and wrong. From Barbie Collector (where it’s cheaper, if you’re about to make some little girl or boy really happy by buying it for them):

The most important and magical festival celebrated in India is Diwali. Homes are decorated with marigolds and mango leaves, thousands of oil diyas or lamps are lit as auspicious symbols of good luck, and everyone enjoys sweets to the sound of firecrackers and revelers.

Diwali™ Barbie® doll wears a traditional teal sari with golden detailing, a lovely pink shawl wrap, and exotic-style jewelry. The final detail is a bindi on the forehead—a jewel or a mark worn by Hindu women.

Mango leaves? Really? Since I’m a 2nd Gen (and a Syriani Christiani) penne I’m not going to claim that I know much about either that or the festival of lights, but I do have an opinion on Barbie’s ethnic dress. I don’t think that is a “traditional sari”. Perhaps it’s half-of-one? Honestly, I think it’s more of a lehnga, since I’ve never worn a duppata with my very traditional (can it get more old skool than kanjeevaram?) outfits.

I was curious about the “exotic” jewelry so I started fruitlessly looking up words after AIMing an equally clueless friend who insisted that the chain and pendant which decorates Barbie’s hair is called a “tikka”. I associate this word with murgh, but whatevs. After reading an entry in Stephen Colbert’s favorite online resource, I was concomitantly disagreeing with her and picturing 55 word nanofiction written by Jai. Here’s what was so evocative:

* When Rajput men married, they are said to have cut their thumb on their sword and applied a tikka of their own blood to their brides. This custom evoked the Rajput values of courage and indifference to pain.

Yesterday on the radio I had the pleasure of interviewing a young desi brother by the name of Imaad Wasif. He’s a guitarist and singer who is currently touring as an additional band member (and occasional opener) for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and who released his first, self-titled solo album in April. Although Imaad can rock out with the best of them, his own music is of the introspective, quiet kind, a little minimalist, a little gothic, maybe a little fey at times. Listening to the album before the interview, I really enjoyed the first half, and found the second half a little slow and less compelling. Perhaps it would have benefited from a bit more time in the Nashville studio than the week-and-a-day session that the promotional materials boast about.

Having said that, I really enjoyed Imaad’s in-studio performance: he played one song from the album, “Out in the Black,” and a new song called, if I remember right, “Spell on Me.” He’s got a great touch and a lot of sincerity. Another interesting aspect was that he came in with his guitar and an electronic drone machine called a Raagini. It’s an Indian-made box that generates a drone in the manner of a tampura. He showed me the different settings before the show and it would have been cool if we’d had more time to talk about it on the air.

Imaad is another hyper-diasporic desi — his parents come from Bombay and Hyderabad but he was born in Vancouver and grew up mainly in Palm Desert, California. There’s nothing particularly desi to his trajectory as a musician. Yet at the same time, he credits as an influence the old Indian records from his father’s collection that got damaged in a flood, so that the labels all peeled off, leaving him to listen to the vinyl without knowing who was playing; and also, here he is with this Raagini machine, weaving the very Indian drone into his live performance, even though he hasn’t — yet — used it in recordings. Hybridity: it operates in mysterious, wonderful ways.

For those who enjoy introspective indie rock, or those simply looking to hear some new sounds, check this brother out. You can hear/download our conversation and his live performance here (scroll down second segment).

Tipster Adnan alerts us to the case filed this week in Manhattan State Supreme Court by Pakistani-American pilot Faisal Baig against JetBlue, which revoked his hiring the eve of his start date:

Baig said he asked for an explanation and was told JetBlue considered him “a security risk.”

“I asked if it’s my name or my religion,” said Baig, who had been a pilot for Independence Air for nearly six years, beginning in 2000, before applying to JetBlue in January. “The woman on the phone said she didn’t want to go into it, but basically she said yes.”

“I was shocked,” said Baig, who was not born in this country but came here with his family when he was 7 years old and is a U.S. citizen. “I was devastated. I don’t know how to describe it to you. Her words more or less told me I wasn’t an American.”

Jenny Dervin, a JetBlue spokeswoman, confirmed that the airline had been advised the lawsuit was filed but said the company does not comment on pending litigation.

Now this suit was just filed, so we shouldn’t jump to conclusions about its merit. But I thought I might take a look at the reactions on the popular right-wing site Free Republic, just to check in on the state of the discourse. Here’s a sample:

Tipster Aliya alerts us to this breakthrough in British jurisprudence: This week a London judge offered a convicted sex attacker a suspended sentence in exchange for a letter of apology to his victim. The judge felt this was appropriate as the perpetrator was “unsophisticated by Western standards,” being instead a poor little rich boy from India.

The perpetrator, 33-year-old Prashant Modi, travels frequently to Britain for his father’s oil business, the court learned, which no doubt explains his lack of sophistication. He was also unsophisticated enough to go clubbing with three Swedish women ten years younger than him, and unsophisticated enough to take them to his hotel room and order room service in the early morning. At some point the women fell asleep in his room. Mr Modi’s (female) defense attorney argued that her client was too unversed in the ways of the West to make sense of this situation in any but the most primal, dare I say primitive way:

She added: “It was a situation he had never come across before. I am told in India it is not heard of. Mr Modi was simply unable to know how to behave. Not surprisingly, he was aroused.”

The judge concurred:

After sentencing Modi, Judge Roberts said: “I suspect that this situation of having three women asleep in his bed and sofa would have been somewhat confusing. It was, of course, that situation that led him into temptation.”

“Temptation,” in this situation, meant undressing and mounting one of the sleeping women until another one woke up, saw what was going on and screamed. All in a night’s good time, the judge opined:

He added: “I don’t suppose it occurred to any of these four people that there was anything dangerous in going back to the hotel room. There is no suggestion that he lured them back with any dishonourable intentions. All four were affected by alcohol. It is unfortunate that having had their food, the women did not go home.”

I guess they should have know that their host was a sheltered Indian ruled by animal passions. Amazing how the celebrants of the oh-so civilized West can trip over themselves in a rush to denigrate entire religions for not respecting women’s bodies and rights, then use this sort of noble-savage argument to excuse crimes against women. Hey, here’s a thought experiment: what if Prashant had been — oh, nevermind.

Yesterday, our eyes were on the UK as British police prevented two dozen suspects from using airplanes for perfidy; today, I woke up to more disturbing news, via Reuters:

The U.S. embassy in India warned American citizens on Friday of likely terrorist attacks, possibly by al Qaeda, in or around New Delhi and Mumbai in the run-up to the country’s Independence Day celebrations next week.

Just in time for August 15th!

“We have urged U.S. citizens to keep a low profile, be alert and attentive to their surroundings,” an embassy spokesman said.

“The embassy has learned that foreign terrorists, possibly including members of al Qaeda, allegedly intend to carry out a series of attacks,” he said, adding the attacks might occur in or around New Delhi and Mumbai.

As if Mumbai hasn’t been through enough, after last month’s terrorist attack which murdered 200 people and hurt 700 more.

The information was gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies and the embassy was working closely with the Indian government, he added.

“Likely targets include major airports, key central Indian government offices, and major gathering places such as hotels and markets,” he added.

Likely targets include all of us, in some way. This is an extra depressing week…

After you’ve been blogging for awhile, it gets easy to ignore new blogs — you get kind of wrapped up in the little circle of blogs you read every day. But while it’s completely understandable, it’s really too bad one tends to get “settled” in one’s reading, since the circle of good blogging is always growing steadily, and new writers are always coming out of the woodwork, trying to find readers.

There is a great deal of really intelligent, moving writing out there, not to mention good music and video links — and humor. So here are links to about half-a-dozen blogs I’ve been reading recently. In the comments, please feel free to link to other blogs that you think highly of that other people may not know about. And if there’s a particular post on the blog you would recommend, give the link to that too.

First, the return of Teju Cole: Modal Minority. Teju is a New York-based African brother who knows Indian culture quite well. And he’s a damn good writer. Here are a few rockstar lines describing his experience listening to a fusion jazz CD called Sangam:

To start with, there was the sound of the tabla, on which was soon layered an expertly played drum kit. This went on for a while, until some kind of saxophone came in, a modal sound, somewhere between late Coltrane and South Indian carnatic reed music (it turned out to be a tarogato, a Hungarian folk instrument), in a rapid and airy melody. The sax wove around, making clear references both to the jazz tradition and to the Eastern folk influences. The whole time it was underpinned by the seamless and joyous interconnection of the tabla and the drum set. (link)

Read the whole thing.

Second, Raza Rumi. Raza Rumi is a Pakistani writer who focuses on South Asian art and literature from sort of a Sufi perspective. Check out this great post on the Bhakti poet Kabir (who was born a Muslim, was influenced by Hinduism, and later became one of the non-Sikh poets whose works is included in the holy Sikh scripture).

This newest terror alert and the ensuing security lockdown has come at the most inopportune of times for me. Tomorrow morning at 8a.m. I have to catch a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina to attend my friend Seema’s wedding. First, let’s take a quick look at what I cannot bring with me:

Advice if you’re flying:

1. Liquids are banned from carry-on luggage and cannot be taken through security checkpoints. That includes drinks, toothpaste, perfume, shampoo, hair gel, suntan lotion and similar items. Drinks purchased in the airport cannot be carried onto flights.

2. Baby formula and medications will be allow but must be presented for inspection at security checkpoints.

3. All shoes must be removed and placed on an X-ray belt for screening.

4. Passengers are also asked to arrive at least two hours early to allow for additional screening.

5. Passengers traveling to the United Kingdom should contact their airline for information about any extra security measures or precautions that might be required. Laptop computers, mobile phones and iPods were among items banned on British flights. [Link]

I’m a 30-year-old single male. There are fewer opportunities for me to meet eligible women (according to my parents). A desi friend’s wedding is supposed to be a money venue. But just look at my predicament. I cannot shampoo my hair (hotel shampoo doesn’t count) or apply even a modest amount of styling gel to my hair in order to achieve that proper look between sophistication and slackerdom. Even worse, without my contact lens solution I will have to keep my contacts in my eyes the entire weekend, which will in turn cause me to spastically blink (to prevent the increasing dryness) every time I go to talk to a girl. Even if I make it this far, who will want to talk to a guy that hasn’t been able to brush his teeth because his toothpaste has been confiscated? I didn’t even mention the lack of shaving cream (stubble makes me look like a terrorist) or the lack of aftershave lotion that will make my face itch and burn all night even if I use the hotel provided shaving cream and blade. Also, wearing a suit makes me sweat, a fact that will be obvious since I won’t have any cologne to mask the scent.

I’ve decided to split the speculation concerning the science that may have been involved in the plot into a separate post since it is getting long.

Some experts think that the bomb might have involved TATP, the same compound used by the 7/7 bombers.

While there are several liquid explosives that could be used to bring down an aircraft, chemists believe it is more likely that terrorists planned to mix liquid materials that are not themselves explosive but can be combined into a bomb. The liquid explosives that are sufficiently destructive in their own right to blow up a plane are generally too unstable or too easily detected to be readily smuggled aboard.

A more subtle approach would be to combine two or more liquids that are stable by themselves, but which form a powerful explosive when mixed together. A prime candidate for this would be triacetone triperoxide (TATP), the explosive used by the July 7 bombers. Its two raw ingredients are both liquids, which could potentially be carried on board in sufficient quantities in containers such as bottles of shampoo or contact lens solution.

These could then be mixed in a toilet to make TATP, which is a crystalline white powder. The problem here is that the solid has to be dried before it becomes a reliable explosive. It can also be difficult to detonate, as attested by the failure of the attempted suicide attacks on London on July 21 last year.

The problems of assembling and then detonating an improvised bomb of this sort in an airline toilet could explain why the terrorists targeted so many aircraft. It is likely that many of the devices would have failed, so attacking 10 flights would have greatly increased the chances of blowing up one or two. [Link]

There have also been at least two prior terrorist attacks planes using liquid explosives, KAL 858 and PAL 434. [Details follow after the fold]

(Alternate link to the video) Aasif Mandvi is an Indian-American actor and one-time playwright who has had small parts in many movies and larger parts on a number of major TV shows (like CSI). His Daily Show appearance — as a “Middle Eastern Affairs Correspondent” — is pretty clever; he riffs on Condoleezza Rice’s claim that the current wars in the Middle East are merely the “birth pangs” of emergent democracy in a “new Middle East”. Mandvi gets a couple of big laughs, but also possibly loses the audience at the end with an ironic line about 9/11.

Right now the UK is on very high alert. Security is at its maximum and Heathrow is closed to all new flights. On those flights that are now leaving the UK, passengers are neither allowed to have any hand luggage nor carry any fluids on board.

According to the BBC:

A plot to blow up planes in flight from the UK to the US and commit “mass murder on an unimaginable scale” has been disrupted, Scotland Yard has said. It is thought the plan was to detonate explosive devices smuggled in hand luggage on to as many as 10 aircraft. Police were searching premises with 21 people in custody after arrests in the London area and West Midlands. [Link]

At this point we know very little, and the ” War on Terror” has gone on long enough that I personally will withhold judgement until there is more evidence. I cannot find any news about who the detained suspects are, but sadly the odds are that there might be a very straightforward brown angle to this story.

Update 1:

What little we know about the plot indicates that it is a home grown conspiracy, like 7-7, involving British Asians [thanks AMfD]:

According to BBC sources the “principal characters” suspected of being involved in the plot were British-born. There are also understood to be links to Pakistan. [Link]

The mechanism apparently involved multiple liquids or gels that were inert separately but were explosive in combination. These would not have been detected given current mechanisms.

Update 2:

At this point, we still know very little about who was involved and exactly what they were planning to do. Here are some of the newer reports concerning the alleged plot.

The authorities claim that they had been investigating the conspiracy for a year before they acted:

The secret investigation into the plot has already lasted a year. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, the Met’s head of anti-terrorism, said that intensive surveillance had been carried out of the meetings, movements, travel, spending and the aspirations of a large group of people, both in Britain and abroad. [Link]

“Sources” claim that the Pakistani government was working with the British in the investigation:

Pakistani intelligence agencies helped the British authorities foil the terror plot to blow up aircraft travelling between Britain and America, highly placed sources in Pakistan said today. The agencies have been working closely with British anti-terror police in monitoring the activities of the suspected terrorists for some time, many of whom have links with Pakistan-based Islamic militant groups, The Times has learnt. [Link]

We are still awaiting confirmation concerning who was involved. They are believed to be all British citizens, many of whom are of Pakistani origin, but this has not been confirmed by the authorities:

Mr Reid [the home secretary] would not comment on claims that the detainees were British-born Muslims of Pakistani descent… [he also] refused to be drawn on whether the apprehended individuals suspected of terrorist activities were foreign or “home-grown”. [Link]

Initial reports based on one of the raids suggest that North Africans may also have been involved:

[a neighbor]… said he believed two north African men had been living in the flat for about a month. He said: “I saw a couple of north African-looking men about three weeks ago. They were in their mid 30s. They were dressed quite normally in T-shirts and trousers. “I haven’t seen them in the last couple of weeks. There is not often anyone there at that house.” [Link]

Nor do we know for sure how many planed were targeted. Some reports say up to ten, while other reports say up to twelve:

Officials also declined to confirm the number of flights believed to have been targets - sources said up to 10 - and the home secretary would only say the alleged intention was to carry out a “wave” of attacks. [Link]

In sum, we know very little for sure at this point.

Update 3:

The US claims that the plot was days away from being executed and that most of the plotters were of Pakistani decent. However, this is still not official confirmation (I have no trouble believing it, I am simply noting that there is a difference between official and unofficial confirmation, the latter has been given several times already):

According to a U.S. intelligence official, the plotters were “days away” from going through with their plan. Searches last night turned up airline schedule information in their possession, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. All of those arrested were British citizens, and most appeared to be of Pakistani descent, the official said. [Link]

Update 4 [Thanks Jai]:

Five suspects are still being sought, more information concering the possible identity of the conspirators:

Five of the suspected London terrorists are still at large and are being urgently hunted, according to U.S. sources who have been briefed on the airplane bombing plot. Officials tell ABC News 24 people now have been taken into custody. Twenty-two are believed to be of Pakistani descent. One is Bangladeshi, and another is of Iranian descent, according to the officials. [Link]

Pakistan officially confirms its involvement in foiling the plot:

A senior Pakistani security official told the AFP news agency that Pakistani intelligence agencies helped British authorities foil the plot. Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said: “Pakistan played a very important role in uncovering and breaking this international terrorist network. “There were some arrests in Pakistan which were co-ordinated with arrests in the UK…” [Link]

Update 5:

ABC news claims it has the names of three of the suspects, and links them to recent travels to Pakistan:

Three of the alleged ringleaders of the foiled airplane bomb plot have been identified by Western intelligence agencies involved in unraveling the plot. Two of them are believed to have recently traveled to Pakistan and were later in receipt of money wired to them from Pakistan, reportedly to purchase tickets for the suicide bombers.

Sources identify the three, who are now in custody, as:

• Rashid Rauf
• Mohammed al-Ghandra
• Ahmed al Khan. [Link]

Update 6 [Thanks Vikram and RC]:

More information on exactly how far along the plot was, and the presence of an inside man:

An undercover British agent infiltrated the group, giving the authorities intelligence on the alleged plan, several U.S. government officials said. The men had not bought plane tickets, the officials said, but they were in the process of perusing the Internet to find flights to various cities that had similar departure times…

Among those arrested were a Muslim charity worker and a Heathrow Airport employee with an all-area access pass, according to Britain’s Channel 4.

The suspects were planning to stage a test run within a couple of days, said a U.S. intelligence official. [Link]

I love that my roots are in Kerala. :D Via the Beeb:

The Indian state of Kerala has banned the production and sale of Coca Cola and Pepsi following a report that the drinks contain harmful pesticides.

It said it was taking the step because the drinks pose a health risk. Both soft drinks manufacturers have said their products are safe.

Though other states have decided to ban the soft drinks in schools, hospitals and the like, only a state which possesses that legendary literacy rate, enviable amounts of religious harmony and my marathon-runnin’ 80-year old Aunt could do something so hilarious draconian singular.

The move by the communist government in Kerala in southern India is the most severe reaction to a report released last week by an Indian non-government organisation, the Centre for Science and Environment.

It said tests carried on samples of the drinks across 12 Indian states revealed dangerously high levels of pesticides.

The Indian Soft Drinks Manufacturers Association is taking its sweet yindian standard time:

The Indian Soft Drinks Manufacturers Association issued a statement on Wednesday after the Kerala ban was announced.

“Our products manufactured in India are absolutely safe and meet every safety standard set by food health and regulatory bodies in India and all over the world,” it said.

It said it would only comment on the Kerala ban once it had been told about it by the authorities.

Three years ago, the Center for Science and Environment told the Indian parliament that Coke and Pepsi most certainly weren’t it, if by “it” we mean healthy and pesticide-free; they “recommended that India set purity standards for soft drinks”. Of course, the government is on IST for that, too.

In other news, three out of my 219 cousins have cancelled impending trips home, out of concern for a lack of mixers with which to garnish their Johnny Walker Black. Oh, Kerala…look what thou hast wrought!

Today is Raksha Bandhan (or Rakhi), the Indian holiday where sisters are supposed to tie a bracelet around their brothers as a symbol of sisterly devotion. The basics of the holiday are at Wikipedia:

The festival is marked by the tying of a rakhi, or holy thread by the sister on the wrist of her brother. The brother in return offers a gift to his sister and vows to look after her. The brother and sister traditionally feed each other sweets.

It is not necessary that the rakhi can be given only to a brother by birth; any male can be “adopted” as a brother by tying a rakhi on the person, whether they are cousins or a good friend. Indian history is replete with women asking for protection, through rakhi, from men who were neither their brothers, nor Hindus themselves. Rani Karnavati of Chittor sent a rakhi to the Mughal Emperor Humayun when she was threatened by Bahadur Shah of Mewar. Humayun abandoned an ongoing military campaign to ride to her rescue. (link)

Though the holiday is strongly associated with Hinduism, in my experience it is somewhat of a secularized, “cultural” holiday both in India and the diaspora, where other religious groups participate. (I’m not sure if it’s absolutely universal — do Indian Christians and Muslims celebrate Rakhi? Is there Rakhi in Bangladesh or Pakistan? Based on this article, the answer to the second question is maybe.) Indeed, these days, it isn’t surprising to see Rakhi designs that contain references to Indian and western superheroes (check out this cool Spiderman Rakhi), alongside the more traditional designs.

In Haryana, a group of women tied Rakhis around trees, as an environmental gesture. (“Her other brother is a tree,” one bystander quipped.) Apparently the best-selling brand of Rakhis (“Laloos”) in the state of Bihar are named after the current Railway Minister, Laloo Prasad Yadav. (“But these Rakhis are only available on the black market!” the same bystander wryly noted.) And Indian PM Manmohan Singh recognized the holiday in a typical fashion.

The Kumars at No. 42 will be back on BBC America starting this Friday at 9pm ET for its sixth season. Personally, I am looking forward to it because it’s the first time since the show started being broadcast in the U.S. that I actually get the BBC America channel in my cable lineup.

North London’s most famous and eccentric Indian family is back and would like to welcome its U.S. viewers into their home for an all-new season of celebrity chat. Think sitcom meets talk show with a little improv thrown in for good measure!

On the guest list this season are David Hasselhoff, George Hamilton, Elvis Costello, Alice Cooper, Joanna Lumley, Jane Seymour and Zoë Wanamaker. The Kumars have indulged their spoiled son, Sanjeev by installing a state-of-the-art TV studio in their backyard where he attempts to host a talk show. (link)

I’m not sure who some of those people are (brit-celebrities, I presume), but certainly it should be interesting to see what they do with/to David Hasselhoff and Alice Cooper in particular.

Sepia Mutiny (mostly via Manish) has posted on the doings of Sanjeev Bhaskar (OBE), Meera Syal, and company many times, so this is more of a heads-up post than anything new for long-time readers. There are of course innumerable Goodness Gracious Me clips of varying hilarity (GGM was Bhaskar’s earlier gig) available on Youtube. However, despite the ready availability of GGM on the internet, it’s odd that the only sketches from the more recent Kumars at No. 42 one finds online are on the BBC website. (Perhaps the BBC is more vigilant in patrolling its current content than Comedy Central?)

Incidentally, Meera Syal, at age 45, is a new mum, an experience which, she says, leaves her feeling “really knackered.” (She has a 13 year old child from a previous marriage.)

No, not Star Trek — across the Himalayas. Xeni Jardin, a freelance journalist who is on the Boing Boing blogroll, recently went to India, China, and Tibet for NPR, as part of a four-part series called “Hacking the Himalayas”. The Boing Boing post introducing the series is here; the main focus is on how technology is transforming the lives of Tibetans, both in Tibet and in exile in India.

The first two parts in the series have links up at NPR, though as of now only part 1 has audio (part 2 is expected to go up later today). The first story is actually not on the Tibetans themselves, but on a partially-nomadic local tribe called the Gaddi, who are based around Dharamsala and various villages in Himachal Pradesh. Most of the story is about their local folk traditions, which are apparently somewhat in decline. I’m not quite sure what technology (or Tibet, for that matter) has to do with it, but at least the story is something other than the usual, “look, they have Cyber Cafes!” type of thing.

Xeni has started a blog dedicated to providing auxiliary material to the stories that air on NPR. Among other things, she has a short post there on the popularity of hip hop amongst Tibetan-in-exile teens in Dharmsala.

(Link via Desipundit)

Oy, it is already Tuesday the 8th, which means that the NYCSM meetup is merely days away. There is much to plot and despite what a few of you have commented to me privately, I do NOT think that whatever we have come up with thus far is either “complicated” or, ahem, “a mess”. ;) Really, since those of you who raised such concerns are NEW YORKERS, if you would like to throw in your randa paise, FEEL FREE. It’s your time to shine.

To refresh your drinks memories, the meetup is occurring this Sunday because Talvin Singh, Asha Puthli and a few other amazing types are performing for FREE at Summerstage, in Central Park. The show is from 3-7pm but “doors” open at 1:30; that is when a few hyper-dedicated souls have offered to mark our territory stake out a prime spot in the shade, slightly away from all the craziness. I would just like to state here that as a quondam sunbather (UC Davis quad…holla if ya hear me), I am abiding by this arrangement because I want to hang out with as many of you as possible; I am in no way buying in to Ignorant Auntie and Cruel Auntie’s bakwas about how if I let myself get a tenth-of-a-shade-darker, no boy will EVER look my way and I will die alone, my corpse half-devoured by wild dogs (yes, that last bit is from a much-loved film…but sadly, S + C Auntie are NOT similarly fictional). I reject all of this colorist stupidity. ;) However, I wholly support a pleasant day spent getting faded in mutinous company.

Here is what we need to know, somewhat urgently:

• WHO is coming on Sunday? This directly affects…
• WHAT to bring, as well as how much of it.

Once we sort all of that out, memorize this: sadly, we have decided NOT to rendezvous at the bar around two. Instead, please meet us at 1:30pm at the park entrance at 72nd and 5th. The sooner you arrive, the sooner we can meander over to one hell of a picnic. Throwing the keys to Lil Cease is probably not necessary since they won’t allow us to bring alchohol to this event.

Joan, Zimbly, Pooja and I are all going to be there, as far as I know. I have linked to our pictures, so if you get there late, peer at all the Summerstage fans anxiously until you locate us (or our doppelgangers). Alternatively, just listen for the loudest, most obnoxious group possible and follow the sounds of laughter and screaming (not that I am in ANY way endorsing ice fights or similarly immature lunacy).

Do you have any other comments or questions? That is just what the thread below is for—- NYC meetup-related shtuff.

p.s. You DCers and EssEffites will each get your own posts in the next few days, that way we can keep this, um, organized (as if such things are possible with the brown). Now who is in and what are you packing in your “dry” pick-a-nick baskets?

My mom is always worried about her two sons who live on the opposite side of the nation from her. Before cell phones were common I would return home to find messages like the following on my answering machine (I am paraphrasing):

“Abhi, beta. Please tell me that you aren’t eating beef. You will get Mad Cow disease, you will become a vegetable, then you will die.”

After hearing this message on half a dozen occasions I pretty much gave up beef. Why? Because this is how the messages usually ended:

“Promise me beta, ok, love mom, bye.”

Or what about this more recent one on my cell phone:

“Abhi, I heard there are fires all around Los Angeles, be careful, stay away from the hills.” [note: I am nowhere near the hills]

My favorite to date has been:

“Abhi, do you drink water out of plastic bottles that you re-fill? The plastic leaks chemicals into the water. You will die.”

Since the World Trade Center attacks and the terrorist attacks that have followed in other parts of the world (like the recent Mumbai Train attacks), many people have established a new dichotomy in their minds. There was before 9/11 and there is after 9/11. “Everything is different now.” I find such sentiments bordering on delusional but until now I have had no really substantial counter-argument to point to that was any more cogent than me calling the person an “idiot” . That changed this week when John Mueller of Ohio State University published this paper for the Libertarian Cato Institute. Titled, “A False Sense of Insecurity?” the paper takes a look at how ignorance of statistics allows entities (or my mother) to use fear inappropriately. This article (only five pages) is a must read and something I wish every American was exposed to.

For all the attention it evokes, terrorism actually causes rather little damage and the likelihood that any individual will become a victim in most places is microscopic. Those adept at hyperbole like to proclaim that we live in “the age of terror.” However, while obviously deeply tragic for those directly involved, the number of people worldwide who die as a result of international terrorism is generally only a few hundred a year, tiny compared to the numbers who die in most civil wars or from automobile accidents. In fact, in almost all years, the total number of people worldwide who die at the hands of international terrorists anywhere in the world is not much more than the number who drown in bathtubs in the United States.

Until 2001, far fewer Americans were killed in any grouping of years by all forms of international terrorism than were killed by lightning, and almost none of those terrorist deaths occurred within the United States itself. Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (which is when the State Department began counting) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reaction to peanuts.

A biography creates a record of a life, but it must also attempt to assemble many divergent strands and seemingly incoherent fragments of that life into a semblance of a story for a reader. It’s hard to do even half-comprehensively with any one life — it requires, for one thing, intimate access to the person him or herself, as well as a pretty good paper trail. Vikram Seth, in Two Lives, had such access to not one but two people, who were extraordinary individually but even more so as a couple. It’s the story of Shanti Behari Seth, the author’s great uncle, and Hennerle Caro (Henny), a German Jewish refugee from the Nazis. The two of them met during the early 1930s, when Shanti was in Germany to do a doctorate in dentistry, and he rented a room in the Caros’ house. In 1937 and 1939, respectively, they left Germany and settled in London.

When the war broke out, Shanti enlisted (on the British side, of course), and served as a dentist for the troops in the African campaign, and later in Italy (where he lost an arm at Monte Cassino). Henny, for her part, lost her nuclear family at Auschwitz: unlike them, she was able to get out in time. Henny and Shanti became a couple, and eventually married. When Vikram Seth went to England initially in 1969, he didn’t know much about his uncle or his foreign wife. But as he stayed with them and then continued to visit over the course of more than twenty years, he became quite close to them. They even helped him learn German, a skill which turned out to be indispensible for this project.

This morning on Sepia Mutiny we are going to try something new. One of the reasons we started SM was to see if we could get more members of the South Asian American community involved with politics and in shaping the national agenda/discourse. One of the many ways to try and accomplish this is for some of you to run for elected office. As you know, we often feature desis from both sides of the aisle who are seeking elected office at a variety of levels from very local to national. Today we are interviewing the Republican congressional candidate for Pennsylvania’s 13th District (near Philadelphia), Raj Peter Bhakta. Most of you are familiar with Bhakta as a former contestant on NBC’s The Apprentice. He is running against first term Democratic incumbent Allison Schwartz. Bhakta’s website lists the campaign issues most important to him and he also has a blog where he writes down thoughts about the race and his district.

So here is the twist. SM isn’t a newspaper nor do we want to be. I am not going to just ask questions and have Bhakta answer the few that I think are relevant. His campaign is asking for help from all quarters including the South Asian American community. He needs both money (his opponent has way more than him) and volunteers. So why don’t you all interview him. Questions from Philly area mutineers are especially welcome. He has kindly agreed to check this website several times today and answer some of your questions directly. Myself and the other bloggers will moderate. This means please be polite and respectful to our guest. Hopefully we get this kind of direct interaction with others in the future and it would be a shame to set a bad example here.

Last week I sat down with Candidate Bhakta (and when I say “sat down” I mean I emailed him some questions and he emailed me back) just to get us started. Think of this as our own version of Meet the Press.

The New York Times has a long and interesting article (thanks to Nux2 on the News Tab) on a subject that seems to have been largely neglected in the years since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began: how do Muslim Americans who have returned from the war deal with the fact that they are returning to a community that is at best unsupportive and at worst hostile to their service?

It has been 20 months since he returned from Iraq after a roadside explosion shattered his left foot. He never expected a hero’s welcome, and it never came —none of the balloons or hand-written signs that greeted another man from his unit who lived blocks away.

Mr. Althaibani, 23, was the last of five young marines to come home to an extended family of Yemeni immigrants in Brooklyn. Like the others, he grew accustomed to the uneasy stares and prying questions. He learned not to talk about his service in the company of Muslim neighbors and relatives.

”I try not to let people know I’m in the military,” said Mr. Althaibani, a lance corporal in the Marine Corps Reserve. [Link]

Two of the most common reasons why people join the military is 1) it is a way to get out of a small town or an urban area with few economic opportunities; and 2) to see the world. It must be hard to be viewed as a traitor, sometimes by both sides, even though you are just doing your job and don’t necessarily agree with the policy behind it. Of course, the same can be said for many soldiers who aren’t Muslim.

But for Muslim Americans like Mr. Althaibani, the experience has been especially fraught.

They were called upon to fight a Muslim enemy, alongside comrades who sometimes questioned their loyalty. They returned home to neighborhoods where the occupation is commonly dismissed as an imperialist crusade, and where Muslims who serve in Iraq are often disparaged as traitors.

Some 3,500 Muslims have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan with the United States armed forces, military figures show. Seven of them have been killed, and 212 have been awarded Combat Action Ribbons.

More than half these troops are African-American. But little else is known about Muslims in the military. There is no count of those who are immigrants or of Middle Eastern descent. There is no full measure of their honors or injuries, their struggle overseas and at home.[Link]

Los Angeles Times reporter Claire Hoffman has a must-read article this weekend in that paper’s West magazine on Joe Francis, who may be the most repulsive individual in America. He is the founder of the “Girls Gone Wild” soft-porn franchise, advertisements for which have been polluting cable television for nearly ten years. Those who, like me, believe that this sort of barely-legal exploitation is a lot more dangerous than is hard-core porn will find here a cornucopia of material to bolster their view. The way that Francis and his crew prey on drunken 18-year-olds and induce them to debase themselves on camera (there’s even a $1,000 bonus for recruiters who get a girl to bare herself right after midnight on her 18th birthday) is vile beyond belief. What goes on in the crew bus is even worse. Francis clearly hates women: whenever he has to deal with a woman on a professional basis he becomes vulgar and threatening, as the reporter learned when he pinned her to a car and nearly twisted her arm off, and later when he called her a c**t and threatened to kill her. This is the kind of article that a paper runs only after its lawyers have pored over every comma. Even Defamer, the LA Gawker franchise, calls the piece “jaw-dropping.”

So what’s the desi angle? Well, the farther I read the more I got riled up that Francis’s company is called Mantra Entertainment. Now I’m a writer and I believe in playing with words, and I don’t think any word is ever absolutely off-limits. But come on, this is disgusting. Mantra?

A mantra is a religious syllable or poem, typically from the Sanskrit language. … They are primarily used as spiritual conduits, words or vibrations that instill one-pointed concentration in the devotee. … They are intended to deliver the mind from illusion and material inclinations.

I’m sorry, calling your porn and degradation company Mantra just ain’t right. After searching a little for other business misuses of common Indian spiritual terms, I found that mantra is by far the most-abused. Sure, there’s a Karma Digital Corporation, at least one Karma Entertainment, a Nirvana Corporation that builds real estate in Costa Rica, a Nirvana memorial park in Malaysia, a Juggernaut Entertainment (oh no, not again) in Chicago, the Ashram Galactica Grand Hotel at the annual Burning Man festival, and of course the sinister Dharma Corporation of the TV series Lost. But mantra is on a whole ‘nother level:

• Mantra Restaurant (Boston)
• Mantra Lounge (Milwaukee)
• Mantra Lounge (Seattle)
• Mantra Brand Consulting
• Mantra Vibes
• Mantra Recordings
• Mantra Lingua bilingual children’s books
• Mantra Resort, Spa, Casino (Punta del Este, Uruguay)

What is it about this word that has spawned so much commercial use? Am I over-reacting when it makes me feel queasy? And what other egregious (or amusing) uses of desi cultural terminology have you run across in the business world?

Time Magazine’s Asia edition has a cover article this week that details the life and travels of Marco Polo in the context of today’s emerging economies in China and India:

If history has taught us anything, it’s that Eastern and Western perceptions of one another are thoroughly unstable, an uneasy blend of fascination, fear and greed that lends itself to exaggeration. That all started with Polo (1254-1324), who left a detailed, and still controversial, account of his journeys and the years he spent in the service of the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan, a descendant of Genghis Khan. Polo’s Description of the World is the world’s first best-selling travelogue. He set off to the Orient from his native Venice with his father and uncle in 1271. For them it was a return journey; they had already been to what is now Beijing, where the Great Khan had given them a letter to the Pope, and asked them to return with learned men who could teach his people about Christianity. The route, as described by Marco Polo, took them through the Caucasus, Persia, Afghanistan, over the Pamirs and along the Silk Road to Cathay, as he called China. Hardship and danger were balanced by wonder, especially once he arrived at Kublai’s court, where he claimed to have become a court favorite who was sent off on diplomatic missions. He dictated his book, years later, long after his return to Italy, while in jail in Genoa in 1298. Some of the descriptions—from the miracle oil that cures skin trouble in the Caucasus to the giant griffin birds who pick up elephants and drop them into the Arabian Sea—earned him a reputation even in his day as a fairytale spinner rather than a credible witness. [Link]

Also in the issue is an article on western Big Pharma’s attempts to patent knowledge that Indians have been actively using for millenia:

It started with turmeric. An essential ingredient of most Indian curries, the spice was paid tribute by Marco Polo; he compared it favorably to saffron, and noted its importance in traditional medicines. Indeed, Indian doctors have long reached for the knobby yellow root to treat a variety of ailments from skin disease to stomachache and infection. So when two U.S.-based researchers were awarded a patent in 1995 on turmeric’s special wound-healing properties, a collective howl of outrage arose from the subcontinent. “Housewives have been using turmeric for centuries,” says V.K. Gupta, director of India’s National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources in New Delhi. “It’s outrageous that someone would try and patent it.” The patent was eventually revoked, after a decade-long battle in which the Indian government and private sector spent millions of dollars in legal and research fees to prove that turmeric’s qualities were well documented in ancient medical textbooks. Gupta scrolls through a list of some 5,000 applications currently pending approval by U.S. and European patent offices, jabbing a finger at the most egregious examples of what he considers to be outright theft. He estimates that at least half of those scientific “discoveries” are established remedies in India’s ancient plant-based medical system, called Ayurveda. To Gupta, each application is a jewel plundered from India’s vast trove of medicinal knowledge. “If this isn’t piracy, I don’t know what is,” he says. [Link]

The Washington Post has an article today on the changing face of the Hare Krishnas. No longer are American Hare Krishnas predominately “crazy white people” as many of us had been taught to believe .

What became of the Hare Krishna devotees whose saffron robes and chanting once graced many a street corner? In the Washington area, they wound up in well-heeled Potomac, an appropriately mainstream location for a movement that has been transformed over its 40 years.

In the mid-1960s, when the movement began on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a Hare Krishna service would have been filled with robe-wearing, twentysomething Caucasian converts, who likely lived at the temple or on an ashram.

Today, the typical worshiper is an Indian American who lives in mainstream America and shows up weekly for services, in khakis and with a kid wearing an NBA tank top along with his tilak (the sacred stripe that Hare Krishnas display between their eyebrows, symbolizing the footprint of God). [Link]

I have been to the Hare Krishna temple in Potomac, MD that this reporter visited. At the time (probably like 8 years ago) it was still mostly white with a smattering of Indians (such as my family on that day).

Most notable among the changes are the Indian American faces — 90 percent of worshipers at the Potomac temple, compared with 50 percent in 1980 and 20 percent in 1970s, Dasa said. This is attributable partially to recent Indian immigration to the United States, he said. [Link]

Right now I live on the same block as a Hare Krishna temple in LA. At night when I open my windows I can sometimes hear Hare Krishna rock (imagine Christian rock but with fewer lyrics ). There are devotees all around my neighborhood who go for walks together every evening. In the same neighborhood we have several churches and sometimes you have to park in front of the church to go to the temple (which I find kind of cool).

As the drums and harmonium rocked on, the priests circled the bejeweled brown, gold and white-faced statutes with incense and presented them with gifts of water and orange-yellow flower garlands and peacock feathers.

Soon the room was quiet and people took seats on cushions on the floor for a 30-minute lecture about the nature of happiness and worship.

“This relation between servant and served is the most congenial form of intimacy,” said the acting temple president, Anuttama Dasa. As he spoke, a woman spotted an ant scurrying across the floor, scooped it up with her sari and carried it outside. [Link]

Note to reporter: When writing an article about Hinduism it is not necessary to describe a woman saving an ant. We get it already. Also even better than the article is the video clip with a good commentary that the Post attaches to the article (click picture above).

“Pakistan expels Indian diplomat”, the headline on our News Tab read…five minutes later, another alert mutineer (Thanks, 3rd Eye) let us know that India returned the disfavor. Just what is going on? According to The Hindu, a LOT.

In further down-turn in bilateral ties, India and Pakistan today expelled each other’s diplomat in a tit-for-tat action after Islamabad handcuffed and detained a senior Indian High Commission official and asked him to leave the country by Monday.

Retaliating swiftly to the “outrageous treatment” meted out to Deepak Kaul, Counsellor (visa), by the Pakistani authorities, India declared Syed Muhammad Rafique Ahmed, Counsellor (political) at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, persona non grata and asked him to leave the country within 48 hours.

DRAMA! India obviously denies that it was spying or doing anything else untoward.

Pakistan Deputy High Commissioner, Afra Siab, was summoned to the External Affairs Ministry and a strong protest was lodged by Joint Secretary, Dilip Sinha, against the “blatant violation” of diplomatic norms.

“Such action could not but undermine the bilateral relations between the two countries,” a statement issued by the MEA said.

This is unfortunate; last month’s tragic terrorist attack on Bombay left those “relations” in quite a fragile state. This is just what two nuclear-armed nations need.

No wonder India was upset:

A group of about eight to nine people pounced on Kaul when he was having tea at a kiosk on Islamabad-Lahore Highway at 7:30 am IST, while on his way to Wagah border to receive his family, officials at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad said.

“He was stopped by Pakistani security agencies and taken, hooded and handcuffed to some unidentified location where he was interrogated intermitently for about five hours,” MEA spokesman, Navtej Sarna, told reporters.

Kaul is okay and headed back to India on Monday. This conflict is deja vu for these two:

The last such incident of expulsion of diplomats between the two countries was in February 2003 when India sent home Pakistan`s then charge d`affairs Jalil Abbas Jilani and four other diplomats after allegedly finding them involved in financing separatists in Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan also retaliated by expelling the same number of Indian diplomats.[link]

Just a reminder, the next SF meetup is tomorrow:

Vinod and I will be there for sure. He has promised me that SF meetups are far more rocking than those in NYC, because left-coasters are just so much more hip than those on the right coast.

I don’t know about V, but personally I’m counting the minutes.

I think this is the second time I’ve had to reach beyond my treasured, “120 Minutes”-era musical fetish to find a tune which fits a Flash Fiction Friday. I blame Siddhartha, for the Parisian prose in his post, since it reopened that festering debate about how cringe-inducing cliches which brown writers seem to sweat (henna, silk, spices, MANGOES) make us all want to vomit…curry. Or something. I’m not too broken up about this, though; if I had to use something other than excellent alternative music for our theme song, ain’t no shame in my Nina Simone-soundtracked game.

It’s the second time for something else, as well. Today, I invite you to create 55-word stories which sound like they were taken from “The Arranged Marriage of Crazy Curry-lovers in Marin” or whatever disposable lit you care to mock mercilessly. The December 16th, 2005 “Why Can’t I Be You?”-edition of 55Friday nominally used a similar theme, though what I really asked for then was for you to borrow the voice of someone famous for us to later guess…Sajit made a special request for some tamarind-flavored 55age and you came through like champions. My favorite two from that edition are below.

The Ill Hindu himself contributed this miniature masterpiece, before he was a Mutineer:

His tigress.
Desire crowded his mind like pilgrims at Benares. Her silken lips, cinnamon eyes, lashes like Assam tea. Her breasts, twin Taj Mahals at sunset.
How exquisitely she played his shehnai. The taste of her mango lassi.
A monsoon of sadness flooded him.
“It’s been fun,” she’d said. “But I’m having an arranged marriage.”

GENIUS. After that, Badmash dropped the J-bomb (sorry, Saheli):

The elephant in the newsroom was her use of cheap metaphors in foreign assignment pieces from exotic locations. The juggernaut of letters to the editor from offended Sepia readers concerned him enough to call her in for a meeting. How would he ask her to tone down the spice without invoking the wrath of Kali

Weren’t those fab? I expect no less from all you ardent members of the Anti-Mango Brigade. I know that Red Snapper may not forgive me for exhorting you to do this, but cliche away!

Abhi left a fluffy tip on our news tab, which indicated that the most famous rondure in Hollywood will no longer grace Gurinder Chadha’s (struggling?) remake of Dallas. Like I could let THAT go without a post:

Jennifer Lopez has dropped out of the big screen remake of the hit 1970s TV series ‘Dallas’.

The ‘Wedding Planner’ star was set to act opposite John Travolta in the movie to be directed by ‘Bend it like Beckham’ director Gurinder Chaddha.

Lopez had been cast for the role of Sue Ellen – the alcoholic wife of Travolta’s character JR Ewing.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, my parents loved to reminisce about how I’ve adored Dallas since I was a tot. According to them, and usually while at parties where the possibility for my humiliation is quite high, I used to hum the theme song to the ultimate primetime drama while standing in my crib, waiting for a parent to wake up. So I obviously dig the show sum’n fierce and only want the best for it. On the other hand, I must confess that to my undying shock, I have mildly enjoyed every movie I’ve seen which starred Jeniffer Lopez (four come immediately to mind: out, planner, maid, monster…). I know. I am wincing in anticipation of your derision.

My point is, I actually could see her as Sue Ellen Ewing. I wonder why she left? Is there trouble in Chadha-ville?

Lopez is not the only one to pull out of the movie, for ‘Legally Blonde’ director Robert Luketic quit the project earlier this year citing “creative differences”.

Innnnnteresting. Incidentally, someone infamous ALSO opted out of this flick, which might just be the BiLB’s waterloo— I’ll give you a hint as to whom: “raccoon”

Paris Hilton has declined the offer to enact the character of Lucy Ewing in the upcoming Dallas movie, as she considers herself a novice in the field of acting…

“But the truth is the role is too demanding for me. I told them I need to make a few more smaller movies first, then take it from there,” she added.

Ugh. Guess what I have in common with the nocturnal omnivore?

“I was a huge fan of the show and never missed it when I was a kid - more for the hair and fashions than the storylines,” Contactmusic quoted the hotel heiress, as saying.

In other news, I am going to require confession for finding a certain part of the following paragraph so amusing:

Hilton launched her career in Hollywood with ‘House of Wax,’ but despite being lucky enough to bag such a prestigious role with only one hit in her kitty, the budding actress took no time in turning down the chance, as she wants to cut her teeth in smaller films before she hits the blockbusters.

Perhaps the Gurinder should stick to films where ve brown vomen get rescued by the not-brown man?

The prosecution has just scored a major victory in Operation Meth Merchant (previous SM post here):

U.S. District Judge Harold Murphy refused Wednesday to toss out cases against dozens of South Asian merchants accused in the methamphetamine sting, rejecting the American Civil Liberties Union’s argument that police intentionally targeted South Asian merchants while ignoring white-owned stores.

As a reminder, here are the key objections the ACLU raised about this operation:

* Operation Meth Merchant resulted in the arrest of 49 people, 44 of whom are South Asian, and 33 of whom have the last name Patel.

* Operation Meth Merchant targeted 24 stores for investigation, 23 of which are owned by South Asians. This, despite the fact that approximately 80 percent of area stores are owned by whites or other ethnic groups, according to the ACLU’s investigation.

* The officials directing Operation Meth Merchant had evidence that at least 16 white-owned stores in the area sold products used to manufacture methamphetamine, and yet failed to investigate any of them. These stores include Avaco, Bell’s Smokeshop, Bi-Lo, Breezy Top, Citgo Quikmart, Dollar General, Family Dollar, Food Lion, Fred’s, Home Depot, Jerrell’s Food Mart, Lowe’s, Sam’s Club, and Wal-mart.

* The officials directing Operation Meth Merchant have failed to disclose the existence of any evidence against the vast majority of the 23 South-Asian-owned stores prior to targeting them for investigation.

The ACLU’s summary sheet is here. The motion for dismissal with details of the argument is here.

The judge saw it differently:

His 38-page ruling noted that the defense lacks even basic evidence showing discrimination, citing a magistrate judge’s earlier order that said allowing the group a chance to dig through more evidence would be authorizing a “fishing expedition.”

… And he echoed a previous ruling that “simply pointing out that most of the individual defendants are of Indian national origin is insufficient.”

The ruling is here (August 3, second item). The crux seems to be that according to the judge, the defense presented no evidence that the non-Indian-run stores above sold the items in question (e.g. cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine) in the specific knowledge that buyers intended to use them to make meth. In the sting on Indian-run stores, the buyers made statements about “cooking” that referred to meth. The defense argues that this does not mean the sellers understood the reference. In any case, since there was no sting on the non-Indian-run stores, how would one get the evidence either way? To me this still looks like a clear case of selective prosecution on an ethnic basis, but perhaps legal minds can pore over the documents and give us their more considered views.

Khushwant Singh was someone I naturally gravitated towards as a young literature scholar, as he was one of the very few modern, secular Sikh writers with an international profile. (Now we have Brit-Asians like Nirpal Dhaliwal — though judging from this, I’m not really sure that represents progress.) But while I did read everything I could find by Khushwant Singh early in graduate school, I ended up not writing about him, barring one seminar paper that my professor at the time didn’t particularly like.

The truth is, from a literary perspective Khushwant Singh’s novels really aren’t that great. They aren’t as adventurous as G.V. Desani’s All About H. Hatterr, and not quite as carefully controlled as the novels written by his contemporaries in the 1950s — i.e., R.K. Narayan. Train to Pakistan (1956) sold very well in the west, and was in print for years and years. It isn’t bad — it’s actually a well-plotted, suspenseful partition novel — but it’s just somewhat unremarkable. I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale and Delhi, by contrast, aren’t very readable at all.

After the 1950s, Khushwant Singh focused less on creative writing and more on journalism, which is where, I think, he’s made his greatest contribution. Between 1969 and 1978 he was the head editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India, an ancient institution that lasted for more than 100 years, and was, until the 1980s, the biggest English-language news-magazine in India (perhaps in all of Asia). Under the British, it was effectively a colonial society magazine, and it didn’t change much under its first two Indian editors. Khushwant Singh was the third Indian editor, and he turned the ethos of the magazine on its head.

I grew up in Paris. Many years later, this experience continues to earn me oohs and ahs: It must have been so… exotic! Cool! Parisian! I never know what to say in response. I mean, all I did was grow up. I rode the Metro and went to the movies a lot. I had long school days and lots of homework. After high school I came to the US, and for better or for worse have stayed here ever since.

It seems that by leaving so soon I missed all the fun:

IN “Weekend in Paris” Molly Clearwater, a 21-year-old British secretary with long blond hair and gorgeous breasts, impulsively sheds her dull life in London and heads to Paris, where she finds “a dizzying carousel ride of passion, excitement and self-discovery.”

In “Paris Hangover” Lauren Klein, a 34-year-old New Yorker with long blond hair and gorgeous breasts, abandons her glamorous job as a fashion consultant, gives up her TriBeCa triplex and plunges “into the mysterious world of Gallic men.”

And in “Salaam, Paris,” a Bollywood version of the story, Tayana Shah, a sheltered 19-year-old Indian Muslim with long legs and gorgeous breasts, arrives in Paris to meet the man to whom she is betrothed, becomes a supermodel and finds true love.

Since all these stories are clearly based on common real-life experiences, I am left to conclude that had I stayed in Paris, I too could have become a mysterious Gallic man, my life’s work devoted to the emotional liberation of perfect-chested beauties from multiple continents. I suppose it would have made a worthy career, but hey, so is blogging. Life is about choices.

Still, I wanted to learn more about Miss Shah. Who is the literary mastermind who brought this creature to life? Why, it’s old friend Kavita Daswani, whose prior oeuvre includes The Village Bride of Beverly Hills and For Matrimonial Purposes, of which one SM regular’s concise review follows:

I’ve read For Matrimonial Purposes. (don’t ask)…vomit!

Now I don’t mind a little chick-lit. I unabashedly enjoyed the original Bridget Jones. Salaam, Paris intrigues me, if only to see the treatment of the city of my youth, even if it bears as much relation to the actual Paris as my current ghetto surroundings do to Carrie and Miranda’s New York City.

Desi reviewer Reeta Sinha gives Salaam, Paris the business, however:

Kavita Daswani seems to know a bit about stereotypes. Her first book, For Matrimonial Purposes, was full of them and things haven’t changed much with this, her third and most recent work. If anything, the storyline provides room to expand, adding stereotypes about Muslim women to the usual desi chick-lit mix of arranged marriages, overbearing parents and the promise of glitz, glamour and happiness as soon as you leave India. …

It’s hard being a virgin, teetotaler supermodel, flitting between New York, the Caribbean and Paris, pretending to be hooked up with a rock star and being mauled by her handlers. It’s even worse when in between raking in fame and money, all you want to do is see your grandfather. … All’s well that ends well, of course. A fairy godmother in the form of an aunt helps Tanaya reconcile with her dying (of course), grandfather and Prince Charming does finally show up and they live happily ever after, in Paris (of course). …

Every imaginable cliché about Muslims and western perceptions has been thrown in, sadly, quite casually. So, you have references to Rushdie’s fatwa, four wives (Tanaya clarifies that she’s an Indian Muslim, not an Arab), she explains she’s not the “terrorist kind” when asked if she’s Muslim…

In conclusion, Sinha says:

But, then this is a beach-read. A fantasy. No bearing to the real world or real people whatsoever.

Or, as Entertainment Weekly puts it (via Amazon):

The culture-clash dilemmas ring heartbreakingly true.

Five minutes ago I finished watching the film Two Brothers on cable. This movie which came out in 2004 is about two tiger cubs that become separated when they are young and then reunited in adulthood. It is only a fictional account but it totally makes you root for the tigers.

Set not so long ago in a distant land, the film follows the adventures of twin tiger cubs—one shy and gentle, the other bold and fierce—who are born among the temple ruins of an exotic jungle. However, on a fateful day, the brothers are separated by fate. The bold brother is sold off to a circus, where homesickness and living in a cage rob him of his spirit. Meanwhile, the shy cub becomes the beloved companion of the governor’s lonely young son, until an accident forces the family to give him away to a man who resolves to break his gentle nature and turn him into a fighter for sport. When they are fully grown the brothers find themselves reunited—but as forced enemies, pitted against each other. [Link]

At the end of the movie, just before the credits roll, the filmmakers relate the message that a century ago there were 100,000 of these beautiful cats in the wild and that today there are fewer than 5000 remaining. I turned off the television, turned on my computer, and within two minutes I randomly found this new article in Time Asia that describes how a bad situation is getting worse:

One of the difficulties with killing tigers is that they scream. Snaring them is simple enough, says Nitin Desai, a conservationist at the Wildlife Protection Society of India—you set a few iron traps near a game-park watering hole, then wait for a tiger to take a wrong step. But when the trap’s jagged metal teeth sink into its paw, the tiger howls—an alarm that can rouse a sleepy park ranger. So, a smart poacher will plunge a spear down the trapped animal’s throat and tear out its vocal chords; then, at his leisure, he can poison or electrocute the cat—or, if the buyer doesn’t mind a bullet hole in the pelt, simply shoot it. [Link]

I felt that coming across this article just minutes after seeing the movie was a sign, and so I thought that blogging it was the next logical step :)

It’s hot outside. So hot, these days, you want to curl up next to a fan with a cup full of ice water and allow your brain to regress to an almost womb-like state of slushee-induced, heat-transcending peace. The local papers here in Philly have had nothing very exciting to say about the curent heat wave, but the BBC has an amusing article on the rest of the British media’s penchant for “climate porn” (the BBC, of course, only participates in the phenomenon by discussing how everyone else participates in it). Still, “climate porn”: you might want to rethink how much time you spend at work checking the weather.

Speaking of returning to the womb, or something close to it, did you hear about the new, designer desi-themed baby food?

HappyBaby, which sells colorful cubes of frozen vegetable and fruit purées through FreshDirect and Gourmet Garage, flavors puréed peas with fresh mint, and potatoes and red lentils with coriander and cinnamon in their savory dahl, an Indian staple.

“This is how my parents fed me,” said Shazi Visram, co-founder of HappyBaby, which began on Mother’s Day and is expanding its line this month. “Why shouldn’t babies, of all people, get to eat delicious things?”(link)

No more vanilla, canned Gerber for today’s stylish babies. At HappyBabyFood, you get organic Baby Dhal. It comes in frozen, baby-sized cubes, and is sold at health food places in the New York City area. (Because it’s frozen, they can avoid having to put in preservatives.)

Not everyone is thrilled with the masalafication trend:

But some parents remain skeptical. “Moms ask me, ‘Can babies really have that?’ ” said Anni Daulter, co-founder of Bohemian Baby, which delivers meals like Vegetable Korma, made with coconut milk, for 12-month-olds, and purées of fruits like pomegranates and figs for infants. “And I say, of course! What do you think they feed babies in India?” (link)

Wait, you mean they feed babies in India something other than American baby food?

For more frozen organic baby food porn, click on this image, from New York Magazine. And a bit more on HappyBaby Food co-founder Shazi Visram, who has an MBA from Columbia and has worked in real estate in Brooklyn, can be found here.

There’s quite a controversy brewing (thanks, Scott Carney) over the pesticide content in Indian soft drinks. The vast majority of these are owned by the multinational Coke and Pepsi companies, and are of course manufactured and bottled locally in India using all local ingredients.

The controversy actually began three years ago, with a report from the Centre for Science and the Environment that alleged high concentrations of pesticides in soda samples. The government at the time attacked the findings aggressively, and questioned the credibility of the scientists who conducted it. But as a result of the study, strict standards for pesticide content were put in place for the water that is used in soft drinks, though standards for the sugar and other ingredients that go into the soda still haven’t been finalized.

Now the CSE has done another study, and published the findings in its magazine, Down to Earth. The actual numbers, and notes on methodology, are available on this PDF. (I haven’t found a more formal, “science journal” style article indicating the methodology of the study in detail anywhere.) The CSE says it is testing the soft drinks using methodology developed by the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

There are stories floating around of farmers using Coke and Pepsi drinks as low-budget pesticides, which would be a rather grim confirmation of this finding if substantiated. Of course, it’s unlikely that the amount of pesticide in these drinks is actually killing any bugs (the study finds pesticides in the drinks in the range of 11 parts per billion); it might well be the citric acid or the phosphoric acid (on the other hand, wouldn’t bugs be attracted to the sugar?). As a commentor on Scott Carney’s blog points out, it’s not clear whether this is a widespread practice, or a bit of an ‘urban legend’.

As much as I love Bollywood and the genre’s dance sequences, it is definitely important to recognize that Indian cinema encompasses more than just mainsteream Bollywood film. Not only is arthouse cinema on the up-and-up, but regional language film has always been a strong contributor to the entertaining of the masses. So, it is with great pleasure (thanks flats) that I present to you one of the coolest examples of a brownsploitation-film dance sequence EVER. It’s from a Tamil film entitled “Ellam Inba Mayam” (1981) and the song is Solla Solla Enna Perumai. Enjoy.

Click for the BEST. VIDEO. EVER.

Dolomite, eat your heart out. Can any of our Tamil speaking readers tell us what the song is about?

A new coffee table book illustrates the architecture of, and the sculptures of deities within, temples across America. The Hindustan Times reports:

There are 53 Hindu temples in 33 American states, says a just published coffee table book that details the history, architecture, deities and other salient features reflecting the growing spread of Hinduism in this country.

Titled Bharat Rekha In America, the book by former Indian management consultant K. Panchapakesan, was released by Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, a member of the House of Representatives’ committee on international relations at the Capitol Hill.

Recalling his close personal ties with India and the role he played in the establishment of a Hindu Temple in South Carolina, Wilson lauded the efforts of the author to meet a long felt need of the Indian American Community. [Link]

Very kind of Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) for backing this effort. It