Since it’s Halloween, and I have not yet overdosed on Starburst and Snickers, I started to wonder how what role fear has in 2007. We seem to want to be scared, which is why horror movies are so popular, although I am not a fan of torture-porn flicks like Saw and Hostel. Catwoman was scary enough.

But what about using fear for non-entertainment purposes? It can often be used in situations where it may not be the best approach. Like a parent who warns, “Study hard, or you won’t get into the Ivy League and you’ll have no future.” Well, I studied hard, didn’t get into the Ivy League, and am doing OK.

It may sound naïve, but hope really is a better sales pitch than fear. And if all you have to offer is fear, or it’s close relations such as cynicism, paranoia, etc. – you start to become unpleasant company after awhile.

[Part of an ongoing series on Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi. Last week’s entry can be found here. Next week we will skip a chapter, and go directly to Chapter 8, “Home and the World,” which explains how India evolved its “non-aligned” status.]

I’ve actually written a longish post on the idea of “secularism” in the Indian constitution in the past, but of course there’s more to say. The entire proceedings (more than 1000 pages of text!) of the Constituent Assembly have been posted online by the Indian Parliament here. Guha’s account comes out of reading through those proceedings, and is also deeply influenced by Granville Austin’s classic book, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, which is still as I understand it the definitive book on the subject.

As many readers may be aware, the Indian Constitution was worked out over the course of three years (1946-1949), by a Constituent Assembly that contained 300 members, including representation by religious minorities, members of marginal groups (i.e., Adivasis), as well as a small but vocal group of women.

Three of the profound disagreements that the members of the Assembly had to resolve included: 1) the proper role of Gandhian philosophy in defining the new nation, 2) the question of “reservations” for Dalits and Tribals (Scheduled Castes and Tribes), and 3) the status of Indian languages, and the idea of an “official” language.

Think about it. Once a year a bunch of impressionable young children come to your door and give you their undivided attention. This presents the PERFECT opportunity to proselytise. It’s like a reverse Jehovah’s Witness-type situation. While many of the world’s other religions are clever enough to take advantage of this amazing opportunity, Hindus are left behind (mostly due to a lack of creativity it seems). Beliefnet has a great feature that gives us a tasty sampler of some of the divine candy out there, and also provides us insight into why Hinduism faces an uphill battle when it comes to creating converts of the young:

First up is the Christian “Scripture Candy:”

Once you pop, you can’t stop! These scripture-wrapped mints are downright addictive. Not too minty, yet soft enough to melt in your mouth. According to the maker, these mints were created to turn “a pagan holiday into something to glorify God…” [Link]

Why can’t someone make candy with Gita passages?

Next we have Star of David pops:

I’d eat a chocolate Hanuman pop if it existed. I’m just sayin’.

If you are a regular viewer of the Sunday morning news shows then you will have taken note that Bobby Jindal has now graduated into that honored circle. You are not a real politician in this country until you’ve gone a round or two with the Sunday morning punditocracy. Tim Russert’s Meet The Press is the big leagues with This Week with George Snufalufagus coming in second. Slightly more inviting and easy for a first-timer like Republican Bobby Jindal is Fox News Sunday. Here is Jindal’s full interview from this past Sunday’s episode:

He makes a pretty convincing pitch for why he would be a boring (no corruption or titties) governor which is what he says the people of Louisiana have long been waiting for after decades of corruption and mismanagement. He also talks a little about the “Bubbas for Bobby” that helped him win. This was his first big interview since he won so check it out.

In our new and improved news tab, I saw a story posted by Chachaji about how Mukesh Ambani was now, at least temporarily, the richest man in the world!

Not actually the richest man in the world, but he is in the top five.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani today became the richest person in the world, surpassing American software czar Bill Gates, Mexican business tycoon Carlos Slim Helu and famous investment guru Warren Buffett, courtesy the bull run in the stock market.

Following a strong share price rally today in his three group companies…the net worth of Mukesh Ambani rose to 63.2 billion dollars (Rs 2,49,108 crore). In comparison, the net worth of both Gates and Slim is estimated to be slightly lower at around 62.29 billion dollars each, with Slim leading among the two by a narrow margin. [Link]

If this was true, I thought, it was a meteoric rise. In 2006 he was ranked 56th richest in the world according to Forbes, in March of 2007 he was still only number 14. That got Rajni the monkey fact checker curious, so she poked around further.

It turns out that Ambani isn’t the really richest man in the world, although he may be in the top 5 along with Carlos Slim, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Lakshmi Mittal:

Reliance Industries moved swiftly on Tuesday to deny a report that company chief Mukesh Ambani has become the world’s richest man thanks to a surge in stock market. An agency report putting his wealth at $63.2 billion hailed his rise as another triumph for the nation’s booming economy. But Reliance said Ambani was not quite so rich after all, with a net worth of somewhere in the region of $50 billion. [Link]

This is still a huge increase, seeing as he was worth only $20 billion in March, but it doesn’t put him at the top of the heap either.

Honestly though, to me this is all arcane like counting angels on the head of a pin. Once you’re wealthier than Midas, it doesn’t matter to me how much you have. My question is, when will Ambani and Mittal become philanthropists at the level of Buffett and Gates?

Related posts: Today’s Carnegies?, Forbes names India’s richest, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and …

Watching the following video (from the Hindi film Johnny Gaddaar), it occurred to me that Hard Kaur is in some ways the British/Desi equivalent of Missy Elliott:

Like Missy, Hard Kaur depends a lot on the producers she’s worked with. In this case, the song wouldn’t be much at all without the ideas and beat from the legendary Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. In Missy’s case, of course, the wizard behind all of her big hits has been Timbaland. Admittedly, neither Missy nor Hard Kaur could be called serious “auteurs” — but then, they’re not trying to be Radiohead, they’re trying to make money.

Like Missy, Hard Kaur has become a success based on her talent and street swagger, not so much her looks. (Though I really don’t want to get into a “hot or not” discussion of looks if it can be avoided; my point is, there are plenty of pretty pop princesses out there whose careers have gone nowhere, while Hard Kaur is crossing over into Bollywood like a bullet.) Just like Missy, there’s something about Hard Kaur’s rapping that has nothing to do with clever production tricks or computer software; there’s a realness and hip hop confidence (i.e., “hardness”) there that can only come from the street. Finally, both Missy and Hard Kaur have a particular fondness for a) “songs that make you dance,” and b) songs about intoxication (alcohol or drugs).

I’m not saying that Hard Kaur is ever going to make as much money as Missy Elliott, but I don’t think she quite gets the props she deserves for her originality. Is it because she’s too ‘beisharam’ (shameless)? Are people threatened by this Punjabi Kuri who writes songs about getting drunk, and her need for “Sexy Boys” (who should be, as she says, “thora sa lafanga/I need a gangster”)?

In effect, what I’m saying is that I, for one, am a fan of Ms. Hard Kaur — though I concede I may be the only one here. (I also still like Missy, though in my view she hasn’t done anything inspired in awhile.)

His name is Radhakant Bajpai, and he lives in a town called Naya Ganj in India.

Find out why he is special after the jump.

You think that Ashwin Madia is on the young side in running for Congress at the age of 29? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Meet Ytit Chauhan, a 19-year-old Indian-American running for city council in Atlantic City, N.J.:

Picture shamelessly cradle-robbed from his Facebook profile

The first round of campaign finance forms shows that this year’s City Council candidates may spend tens of thousands of dollars to land a seat on the resort’s governing body. While files are incomplete, the candidates raised a cumulative $103,141, while spending $77,578 for the Nov. 6 contest.

Leading the pack is Steve Layman, a Republican running independently who is challenging Councilman Tim Mancuso, a Democrat.

Unendorsed Democrat Ytit Chauhan is also running in that race, but he signed forms indicated he planned to spend no more than $3,500. [Link]

Chauhan has even caught the attention of David Letterman and his company WorldWide Pants. Variety reports:

David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants production banner is spearheading an untitled feature documentary about young adults running for public office. The doc will follow five men and women ages 18-20 who are seeking elected posts in a range of states, including New Jersey and Tennessee.

The film is the first docu and the first noncomedy project for Worldwide Pants. Doc will be directed by Michael Moore’s former assistant Jason Pollock, and “An Inconvenient Truth” producer Lawrence Bender is attached to produce.

The candidates include Ytit Chauhan, 18, a first-generation Indian-American running for city council in Atlantic City, N.J.; and George Monger, 18, who successfully appealed to lower the Memphis voting age from 23 so that he could run for city council. [Link]

Since we’ve already had one depressing story about child slave labor in India today I thought, why not end the day with an…errrrrr, uplifting story about child slave labor? Thank goodness for the Seattle Times for reporting on this gem to take some of the earlier slime off:

As a 7-year-old girl in southern India in 1978, she was taken from her parents and sold into slavery.

At the same time, a 9-year-old boy in Southeast Asia was surviving alone in a cave, after the fishing boat on which he was fleeing Vietnam became shipwrecked.

Rani and Trong Hong would eventually be rescued from their separate childhood nightmares and brought to safety in Washington state. They would meet as adults on a blind date, fall in love and marry…

Now, motivated by the pain of their early years to help others, they are renovating a home exclusively for victims of human trafficking — people recruited, transported and harbored for sexual exploitation or slave labor. [Link]

Talk about a power couple! Click on their names in the passage above to read about their unfortunate childhoods. The non-profit they’ve established, partly on the profits from their lucrative home-building business in Olympia Washington, is called The Tronie Foundation (and it could use your donations):

Rani works with victims who have been abused by all forms of Human Trafficking. Whether the victim was part of a mail-order bride schemes, sold into servitude, sexual slavery or victimized as part of an international adoption ring, Rani because of her own personal experience has a heart for these women and children. She shares openly her own personal story, in hopes that they too can be restored and live a productive life, free from the pain of their past.

“No woman and child should be so severely abused that they end up looking like they are mentally and physically ill. As a survivor of human trafficking, I personally have chosen to speak publicly to give hope and encourage those of you that may be afraid to come forward. [Link]

For the first time that I know of, Desi (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Sri Lankan) workers in Dubai have gone on strike to protest low wages and working conditions. After years of systematic exploitation, it’s about time.

The boom has been possible due to plentiful investment from oil-rich neighbors and armies of non-unionized south Asian workers whose fear of deportation, until recently, kept them from voicing discontent over low wages.

“The cost of living here has increased so much in the past two years that I cannot survive with my salary,” said Rajesh Kumar, a 24-year-old worker from the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh who earns $149 a month.

The laborers ignored the threat of deportation and refused to go to work, staging protests at a labor camp in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Industrial Zone and on a construction site in Al Qusais residential neighborhood. They demanded pay increases, improved housing and better transportation services to construction sites. On Saturday, workers threw stones at the riot police and damaged to police cars.

Emirates’ Minister of Labor Ali bin Abdullah al-Kaabi described workers’ behavior as “uncivilized,” saying they were tampering with national security and endangering residents’ safety. (link)

Uncivilized? In my view, what’s uncivilized is when you’re making billions and your workers (nearly 2 million of them) are forced to live in prison-like conditions for $149 a month. When they have limited civil and legal rights, and are forcibly segregated from the native population. And when you have laws on the books that prevent them from organizing in any way that might lead to a better situation for themselves.

The era when South Asian workers were desperate to go abroad to try and make a little money under these circumstances seems to be gradually ending, and many in Dubai are more than ready to walk away, especially with a growing economy at home, and the UAE’s Dirham linked to a falling dollar:

Companies, however, do not want more workers to leave as they struggle to find enough to complete existing projects following an overwhelming response to a government amnesty program to persuade illegal laborers to leave.

In June, the government offered, no questions asked, a free one-way plane tickets to illegal workers hoping to leave. They have since been swamped by 280,000 workers who, fed up with a rising cost of living and low wages, were ready to go home. (link)

280,000 are ready to go home right now (NB: they can only go home if the UAE allows them to do so).

It’s true, even if many of the Desis leave, others might be willing to take their place. But with one large reservoir of dirt cheap labor drying up, it sounds like the oasis of Dubai’s recent economic boom is starting to flicker. It may have always been a mere mirage — albeit one built with real sweat, and in some cases, blood.

One of the items that has been getting votes on the News Tab today is the IBN Live story (thanks, Raprasad) on The Gap’s decision to pull a contract with an Indian contractor that had been using bonded child laborers in horrific sweatshop conditions in Delhi. (By a strange irony, the clothes the children were working on happened to be destined for GapKids. Oy.) The decision by The Gap was prompted by an excellent article in the UK Observer, which was in turn the product of an undercover investigation. The part that bugged me in the IBN article came at the end of the following passage:

The Observer quoted the children as saying that they had been sold to the sweatshop in Delhi by their families. The children, some of who worked for as long as 16 hours a day sewing clothes by hand, said they hailed from Bihar and West Bengal. They added that they were not being paid because their employer said they were still trainees; nor would they be allowed to leave till they could repay the amount for which they were bought from their families.

When contacted, Gap gave the official statement that the sweatshop was being run by a sub-contractor. This is a violation of Gap’s policies, said the fashion giant.

Gap spokesman Bill Chandler was vocal in his thanks to the media. “We appreciate that the media identified this sub-contractor and we acted swiftly in this situation,” he told the Associated Press. “Under no circumstances is it acceptable for children to produce or work on garments,” he added.

Correctness-conscious America is very strict about the use of child labour. (link)

That last sentence, “Correctness-conscious America is very strict…” got under my skin. Granted, there are different ways of looking at this particular issue; I know some people justify limited child labor under the argument that families living in extreme poverty need all the income they can get. In this case, however, the kids were effectively slave laborers sold off by their families — an arrangement that in my view can’t possibly be defensible.

The sentence above could also be defended along the lines that the reporter was merely explaining to a readership that may not be that strongly opposed to child labor why this is such a big deal. If that’s the case — that is, if the majority of English-speaking readers of Indian business newspapers and viewers of cable news are nonplussed by bonded child labor in their own backyards — I’m not angry, just sad. It’s not about “correctness-consciousness,” it’s about basic human rights, is it not?

See also: SAJA Forum.

Via Venkig (on our spiffy new News Tab), I see that the Indian car company Mahindra & Mahindra will soon be selling a line of SUVs and pickup trucks in the U.S. Though Mahindra is already well-established in the U.S. as a seller of tractors, there’s a fair amount of skepticism as to whether the company can break into what is already a pretty crowded market:

Mahindra & Mahindra, a conglomerate based in Mumbai, intends to find out. In spring, 2009, the company plans to launch two- and four-door pickups and a sport-utility vehicle in the U.S. This trio of diesel-powered trucks will compete against a big pack of aggressively promoted offerings from General Motors, Ford, Dodge, Nissan, and Toyota. All of these manufacturers have been warring over a domestic pickup market that is shrinking and a SUV market that’s overcrowded.

Skepticism abounds. Trucks in the U.S. are sold with imagery of waving flags, macho companionship, and brawny workers showing off feats of towing strength to the sound of John Mellencamp anthems. Buyers tend to be loyal, practical traditionalists. (link)

The reasons Mahindra trucks might have a chance are 1) they’re aiming pretty low initially, and will come in with a small number of trucks and a modest marketing budget; and 2) gas mileage:

But at a time of soaring gas prices, Mahindra’s vehicles are going to have one big thing in their favor: superior fuel economy. Despite diesel’s historic brown image, it is emerging as a green technology. New low-sulfur fuel, federally mandated in 2006, can produce mileage figures that nearly equal those of more fashionable hybrids. Mahindra estimates that its compact SUV, the Scorpio, and pickups, one of which will be called the Appalachian, will get about 30 miles per gallon in the city and as much as 37 on the highway. That compares with 30 city/34 highway for the $27,000 Ford Escape SUV hybrid and 21 city/27 highway for the gas-powered $23,000 Toyota RAV4. (link)

A cheap SUV that gets 30 miles per gallon city? Sign me up! That appeals to me economically as well as environmentally. (I’m now an official member of the rather absurd class of people who want an SUV for practical reasons — try stuffing a jogger stroller into the trunk of a mid-size sedan — but is ambivalent about actually buying one because of the low gas mileage.)

What do you think, does Mahindra have a shot at selling pickup trucks and SUVs in the American market? Would you consider buying a “Mahindra Appalachian”?

(For readers in India, does anyone have a Mahindra Scorpio? How is it?)

From this time, we’re all looking at a
different picture … ~Portishead

While some of the bloggers went fishing during the summer, some of us were left behind on purpose sigh!. The monkeys have been training us, the new admins, in the ND bunker all summer! After barely getting a passing grade, we set to work and now have something we promised you.

You thought it wasn’t possible anymore to impede your work-day productivity reading Sepia Mutiny. I’ve got News for you. The News tab has been re-designed with new features so that the content can be customized by YOU! Yes, shiny new toys for those fond of the F5 key. Here are the highlights of the changes / new features …

Amrit Singh, the hardworking New York ACLU lawyer who is also the daughter of the current Indian Prime Minister (written about many times here on SM), has teamed up with fellow ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer to author a book which outlines the broad scope of the detention and torture policies practiced by the Bush Administration in its “War on Terror.” [via Ultrabrown]

Administration of Torture is the most detailed account thus far of what took place in America’s overseas detention centers, including a narrative essay in which Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh draw the connection between the policies adopted by senior civilian and military officials and the torture and abuse that took place on the ground. The book also reproduces hundreds of government documents; including interrogation directives, FBI e-mails, autopsy reports, and investigative files; that constitute both an important historical record and a profound indictment of the Bush administration’s policies with respect to the detention and treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad. [Link]

“Awesome” is the first thing that comes to mind. Even though we can’t undo a lot of what has been done to take America way off course in the last several years, it feels somewhat better to know that someone is taking the time to bear witness to and document it all thoroughly. This way, as Bush likes to proclaim, history can best judge his presidency. To get a feel for the book you can download part of a chapter here. You can also listen to a Podcast here where the authors discuss their book, and a recent NPR interview with Singh here.

My cousin Manan (who is also an Iraq War Vet) just forwarded me the news that 29-year-old Marine Corps veteran Jigar Ashwin Madia just announced his candidacy for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives:

U.S. Marine Corps Iraq veteran J. Ashwin Madia announced his candidacy to represent Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District Tuesday.

Madia will seek the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party endorsement.

While serving as a Marine, Madia was also a prosecutor, defense attorney, and legal advisor to a Marine Corps commander.

Madia graduated from Osseo Senior High School. He went on to graduate from the University of Minnesota and New York University School of Law. [Link]

First thought (albeit very shallow)? It isn’t going to hurt him that he looks that good. I have a feeling that the comments section in this post is going to have a lot of female commenters leaving onomatopoeic words like “Rrrrrrr.” But does Jigga-man got the necessary skills to go with those looks? He is currently working at attorney at Robins, Kaplan, Miller, and Ciresi LLP in Intellectual Property Litigation.

Drawing on his experience in Iraq, Madia plans to make the war a major issue in his campaign. He also hopes to focus on balancing the budget and fighting global warming. What he stressed most frequently, however, is his desire for this campaign to be a real dialogue between the candidates. Madia says he wants as many debates and candidate forums as possible, noting that open congressional seats don’t come around very often.

With no elected experience and no history with party regulars, Madia certainly has an uphill climb. He’s seeking to break into politics in a congressional race that is likely to be among the most competitive in the country - and a race that already has an excellent DFL candidate. There is no question that he is an underdog in this race.

“The three issues that I care about most and that form the basis for my campaign are: 1) Ending the Iraq War without leaving behind a catastrophe; 2) Balancing our budget and returning to “pay as you go” principles; and 3) Creating and implementing a comprehensive solution to address global warming. I also want to talk more generally about the direction of our country, and what kind of nation we want to be post 9/11. I don’t believe that we need to have torture chambers, Guantanamo Bay, secret prisons, and spying programs on American citizens in order to be secure. In fact, I think that when we do those things, we tear at the fabric of our country” - said Madia. [Link]

After yesterday’s heavy post featuring the video footage from the masterminds of the Gujarat riots openly confessing their deeds, I thought today I would keep it light — only to find (thanks, Vishal) that the state government of Gujarat isn’t going to make it easy to do so.

Indeed, the state government has summarily blocked all three news channels that were going to show footage from Tehelka’s report. The affected channels are Aaj Tak, CNN-IBN, and IBN-7. The logic is a bit twisted, but somehow predictable:

Subsequently, all these channels went off air in most parts of Gujarat from 1930 hours (IST) on Thursday. The administration claimed it’s a violation of Clause 5 of Cable TV Network Regulation, which deals with broadcasting programmes which could create communal tension.

The state authorities accused the TV channels of spreading ‘more communal discord’ in the state than the people who actually featured on the Tehelka tapes.

For instance, the language used by leaders like Babu Bajrangi, Haresh Bhatt, Dhabal Patel and Madan Dhanraj in the tapes could easily turn the situation far more dangerous than what was being shown, they say. (link)

Obviously, the next step is to block channels that report that channels are being blocked, because that could also create seeds of dissent that could lead to communal tension. Right?

One point of confusion is who exactly is responsible for the order to black out the channels in question. The CNN-IBN article I linked to names the author of the order as “Ahmedabad District Magistrate and District Election Officer Dhananjay Dwivedi,” but also states that the Central Election Commission has “washed its hands,” saying it never issued any such order. I’m not really clear who has the real authority here — is Dhananjay Dwivedi’s action even legal?

I’m also a little puzzled as to why more news channels aren’t showing any of the footage. I checked Star News and NDTV (the two Indian news channels I get at home), and haven’t seen anything. I wonder: does Tehelka have an exclusive arrangement with these three channels, or have India’s other cable news channels made an editorial decision not to cover this?

Blogger Zen Denizen has a post with the following idea:

My next project will be creating and hosting the Desi Hipster Olympics. I’ll post a tip on our favorite kill whitey group blog and let the games begin (or not). Categories to include: Kitschiest classic Bollywood references, best misappropriation of afrocentric or other suitable third world imagery for supposed desi struggles and most ironic use of a kurta. (link)

First of all, I want to say that if Zen is talking about SM I am truly honored we are her favorite “kill whitey” group blog. There is a lot of competition out there, and I’m glad to finally get some recognition. That said, I think it’s a great idea, though I suspect we could add to and/or adjust Zen’s proposed categories before proceeding to actually initiate some kind of meta-desi, pseudo-secular, indo-ironic competition. (I have never done anything very ironic with a kurta, for instance, other than perhaps actually ironing it.)

Readers, what would be good categories for a desi hipster olympics? Secondly, if you wish to prove your own hipness you are now welcome to begin doing so, though you should be warned that it’s always possible that an even hipper desi will come along and point out how passé your knowledge of retro-Bollywood cultural trivia, present-day underground desi musicians and writers, and quasi-desi fusion fashion actually is.

Obviously I’m at a huge disadvantage here in terms of my own personal hipness, being over 30 (bo-ring!), and living in suburban Philadelphia (so, so far from Brooklyn). The best I can offer this morning is the following short video, which does in fact feature a kurta and may also possibly be interpreted ironically. (I have to admit I grabbed it from Manish’s news tab):

And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

Recognizing the religious and historical significance of the festival of Diwali

That’s right folks. The House could not pass that Armenian Genocide Bill today. They are also wrangling with President Bush who is asking for another gazillion dollars for the war in Iraq using our children’s credit. But you know what they did take the time to agree on? That we should recognize Diwali. Hoorah for Congressional efficiency!

A congressional resolution recognizing the religious and historical significance of Diwali, passed the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives by a unanimous vote.
The Indo-American community leaders and political activists who lobbied for it, reacted with praise and cautious optimism as bill now awaits vote in Full House of Representatives.

The bill, H.Res. 747, calls for the U.S. Congress to acknowledge “the religious and historical significance of the festival of Diwali” and was introduced jointly by Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Jim McDermott (D-WA).

“The Diwali festival is celebrated by nearly two million people here in the United States and many millions more around the world,” said Congressman Wilson soon after the resolution passed. “It is an opportunity for Congress to acknowledge the shared values of kinship, knowledge, and goodness celebrated during the five day festival.” He also called upon the full House of Representatives to take up the bill as soon as possible. [Link]

The question this year, like every year, is will Bush celebrate Diwali?

Full text of the resolution is below the fold.

Earlier this week, an article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology detailed some provocative new findings:

Are you happy? Well don’t try to be happier; you might become less happy. That is the gist of a multi-cultural study published recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The study by University of Virginia psychology professor Shigehiro Oishi and colleagues at three other institutions found that, on average, European-Americans claim to be happy in general - more happy than Asian-Americans or Koreans or Japanese - but are more easily made less happy by negative events, and recover at a slower rate from negative events, than their counterparts in Asia or with an Asian ancestry. On the other hand, Koreans, Japanese, and to a lesser extent, Asian-Americans, are less happy in general, but recover their emotional equilibrium more readily after a setback than European-Americans.

“We found that the more positive events a person has, the more they feel the effects of a negative event,” Oishi said. “People seem to dwell on the negative thing when they have a large number of good events in their life. [Link]

So in a nutshell, what this article is saying is that “Whitey” is happier than me on a day-to-day basis (which is why he’s always whistling), but that I get over a bad day or a negative life event with greater ease than him. Could it be that since Asian families are likely to be newer to America (i.e. fewer generations removed from Asia) we are instilled with a certain sense of fatalism engrained within the family? When a grandparent or relative died in India and our parents couldn’t be there, we watched them deal with it and recover as best they could from afar. As another example, when we are the victims of racism we have to shake it off and keep going. A European American may not have to deal with some of these things. The study (and take it for what its worth) is essentially saying that Asian Americans have built up a greater immunity to bad news than European Americans.

“It is like the person who is used to flying first class and becomes very annoyed if there is a half-hour delay. But the person who flies economy class accepts the delay in stride…” [Link]

The news-magazine Tehelka has done another spycam exposé, this time with conspirators involved in the Gujarat riots of 2002. The Tehelka website is full of very bold claims regarding the importance of the statements made in the video footage they’ve captured, and thus far they’ve put up three YouTube videos to back up the hype. One spycam interview, with Babu Bajrangi of the Bajrang Dal, is here:

It’s in Hindi (sorry, no subtitles; UPDATE: a close English transcript of the video is here). Much of what he says about his own role is fairly chilling. At the very least this particular guy should probably go to prison for a very long time (as of the present moment I do not know whether any charges have been filed against him … UPDATE: Babu Bajrangi has in fact done eight months in prison, and is now out on bail, according to Himal Southasian).

There are also interviews with Arvind Pandya here and Ramesh Dave here; I haven’t watched them yet, but I thought I would give the links for readers who may be interested. If anyone wants to translate telling lines or sections of the videos for the benefit of our non-Hindi speaking readers, I would be grateful.

Tehelka claims that its spycam videos prove definitively that Narendra Modi gave direct approval for the killings in 2002, but I’m not sure, yet, that they do that (my views may change as I dive further into this). The video I saw does seem to add to the argument, which has been made consistently by Modi critics since 2002, that the killings weren’t a random upwelling of popular rage, but rather akin to an organized pogrom.

It’s also worth noting that the timing of this exposé can fairly be said to be a bit questionable — state elections are coming up in Gujarat in the next few weeks. There Modi may be in trouble not with Congress or Left parties, but because of dissatisfaction within the Sangh Parivar; both the RSS and the VHP have expressed dissatisfaction with him, stating that they aren’t supporting him in these elections. In the end Modi may finally be defeated, not by Tehelka, but by the Hindu right itself.

A hearty SM congrats to Amit Varma of India Uncut who, last night, won this year’s Bastiat Prize.

Pict courtesy of Ultrabrown; Rockstars get bra-throwing female fans; Real rockstars like Amit Varma get Manish Vij as an entourage for the evening.

The Bastiat Prize for Journalism was established by International Policy Network to encourage, recognise and reward writers around the world whose published works elucidate the institutions of the free society.

In the enduring spirit of the Prize’s namesake Frédéric Bastiat, the Prize is given to writers who employ eloquent and witty explanations of complex ideas, combined with a clear understanding of markets and their underlying institutions -property rights, the rule of law, freedom of contract, free speech and limited government. 2007 marks the sixth year of the Bastiat Prize.

Varma’s work has been featured on SM many times before. In addition, his articles have been carried in a number of publications including the Asian Wall Street Journal and, local Indian biz rag, Mint. A collection of his published work can be found here.

Interestingly, while focusing on “old journalism” Varma and at least one other contender for the prize - Jonah Goldberg of National Review’s Corner - are possibly more well known in the blogosphere than they are on dead trees. Varma even credits blogging as the first step on a long path towards press geekdom -

As I mentioned in my post about being nominated, it all began with India Uncut. The blog led to the column, and made me grow as a writer. And I wouldn’t have bothered if no one was reading me. So thank you—you are more a part of this than you realise!

The always interesting Freakonomics Blog, hosted on the New York Times website, asked its readers a very critical question Wednesday (one I’ve laid awake many a night thinking about as I carefully weighed my career options): Why aren’t there more Indian American Professional Poker Players?

Whenever I see a poker tournament on TV or wander through a casino, I am always struck by a particular absence: there seem to be very few Indian-Americans playing poker. Considering that there are so many Indians of poker age in this country who thrive in finance, computer science, engineering, and other fields that incorporate math, probability, risk, etc. — i.e., the kind of fields that produce a lot of amateur and pro poker players — why should this be so?

I guess there are two separate questions:

1. Am I right in my perception that Indians are underrepresented?

2. If so, why is that the case?… [Link]

The author of the post, Stephen J. Dubner, first asks three people, including two “notable” Indians, to break it down for the audience:

Rafe Furst, our poker-playing friend, truth-seeker, and all-around smart guy; Sudhir Venkatesh, our sociologist friend who isn’t a big gambler (as far as I know), but is an Indian immigrant and perceptive observer; and Shubhodeep Pal, an 18-year-old from Dehradun, India, now studying at Singapore Management University (and who just happened to recently send in an interesting question by e-mail, having nothing to do with the topic of gambling). [Link]

Unfortunately, both Venkatesh and Pal give the obvious-half-of-the-answer without digging below the immediate surface. Also, from Pal’s answer it is clear that he is thinking like an Indian (which he is) and not an Indian American, a critical difference to this particular query that I hope is not lost on Dubner or his readers. Here are their responses:

(Part four in an ongoing series dedicated to Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi. Last week’s post can be found here. Next week we will look at chapter six, on the Constituent Assembly and the writing of India’s constitution. )

There are lots of interesting bits in Guha’s fifth chapter, on the resettlement of refugees scattered across India after Partition. The part I will focus on in particular is the status of women who were abducted, forcibly married, and then forcibly returned to their families. But to begin with, here are some general facts on the displaced people who ended up in India:

• Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of refugees in Punjab were temporarily housed in camps. The largest of these was at Kurukshetra, where there were some 300,000 refugees. Over time, a major land redistribution effort was initiated, so that farmers who had been displaced from land in Pakistan were granted land in India. More than 500,000 claims were processed through this effort. (According to Guha, the effort worked, by and large; withing a few years, many displaced Punjabis from farming villages were back at work on new lands.)
• Nearly 500,000 refugees ended up in Delhi, fundamentally changing the character of the city. Some settled in outer districts like Faridabad, while others were given land immediately to the south and west of New Delhi. Many of Delhi’s new residents thrived in trade, and came to hold a “commanding influence” over the economic life of the city.
• About 500,000 refugees also ended up in Bombay, including a large number of Sindhis. Here resettlement did not go as well, and Guha states that 1 million people were sleeping in the streets (even in the early 1950s).
• 400,000 refugees came into West Bengal during and immediately after the Partition, but another 1.7 million Hindus left East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) following communal riots there in 1949-50. At least 200,000 ended up in desperate straits in “squatter colonies” in Calcutta, where the refugees effectively overwhelmed the city. Conditions here were much worse than they were in Delhi or in the resettlement camps in the Punjab. The government may have been slow to respond because it presumed that many of the refugees would be returning — and that communal feelings in Bengal were not quite as bad as they were in Punjab. (A mistaken presumption, Guha suggests.)

Those are some of the general facts Guha gives us. What stands out to me is how effective the new Indian government was, on the whole, in responding to the mass influx of people. There were failures — and again, Guha singles out West Bengal as the worst — but if you think about the numbers involved, it’s astonishing that the process was as orderly as it was. Hundreds of thousands of displaced families were allotted land through a rationalized, transparent process oriented to ensuring their survival. And food relief and temporary shelter was provided to thousands more (not without international help).

However, one area where the state really did fail — astoundingly — is with women who had been abducted, converted, and forcibly married in the Partition. Guha’s account here is quite thin, so I’m supplementing what he says with material from Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin’s book, Borders and Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition.

By now everybody has seen the news that the Deputy Mayor for Delhi, S.S. Bajwa, died over the weekend:

The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys. SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys. [Link]

The coverage I’ve seen has generally been smirking, with photos like the one at right. The caption of that photo reads “Angry animal … a monkey in India”, even though it shows a monkey acting cute, and it’s above an article about Bajwa’s death.

I understand the urge to crack a joke about the matter in part because the whole story sounds implausible. That said, I want to resist the temptation to make light of this. Firstly, a person did die here. Secondly, it’s condescending, as in “Look and the wacky and quaint ways people die in India!” sort of like an Indian newspaper juxtaposing a photo of a cute puppy next to an article about Michael Vick’s Ving Rhames’ groundskeeper getting mauled to death.

Furthermore, this isn’t just about nature red in tooth and claw, it’s the actions of humans as well. Partly, this is the story, familiar in the west, about growing cities encroaching on the natural habitats of wildlife. But the bigger problem would seem to be that the monkeys are being fed by humans, which encourages their population to grow, and makes them far more aggressive:

Baiwa’s house is near a temple dedicated to Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, where hundreds of monkeys gather every day to be fed offerings by devotees…human residents of the capital have long tolerated the monkeys, whose natural habitat is the surrounding forest, and many revere and feed them, believing them to be incarnations of Hanuman. [Link]

People in New York tonight might want to stop by the release party for the Basement Bhangra CD, which is officially coming out today. It’s been 10 years of Basement Bhangra nights at S.O.B.’s — and for all that time DJ Rekha has held it down on the ones and twos. (It’s also, coincidentally, been 10 years since the first ‘Mutiny’ party, and the old gang are coming out of hiatus in a couple of weeks for their own celebration — with guests Talvin Singh, and Shaair and Func.)

Rekha’s approach here is to take some familiar Bhangra anthems (like Lehmber Hussainpuri’s “Tin Cheejha”) and mix them up with solid Bhangra tracks most people probably won’t know (Sunil Sehgal’s “Fakir”). The “Basement Bhangra anthem” that opens the CD is really cool — respect to Wyclef Jean (“Mr. International”) for contributing an original rap, and Queens-based Bikram Singh is as usual great (he was also responsible for the absurdly catchy “American Jugni” song a couple of years ago). Incidentally, you can listen to the “Basement Bhangra Anthem” here.

Many well-known remix masters are represented here, including Panjabi MC, DJ Sanj, Dr. Zeus, and Tigerstyle. There are also a couple of tracks from Hard Kaur, a British Punjabi pop star who has been kind of omnipresent for the past couple of years (see “Glassy”). But alongside some staples there are also some surprises, including a track by the drum ‘n bass influenced Dhol Foundation, as well tracks from producers I hadn’t heard of (Ominous DJs).

I should note that this CD isn’t by itself a “definitive” statement of where Bhangra music is today — but that probably wouldn’t be possible to do in a single hour of music anyway. In the liner notes, Rekha describes it instead as a “cross-section of a living musical culture that connects New York City to the Punjab,” and that sounds about right to me. Some people, including commenters on Cicatrix’s earlier post on this, have criticized the selection of songs here, but I actually think the choices are quite good. Some hard core bhangra downloaders listeners may be tired of “Tin Cheejha,” but I suspect most people — including readers of Sepia Mutiny — haven’t even heard of Lehmber Hussainpuri (though they may have heard his hit song). For them, the Basement Bhangra CD is going to be like a one-hour living room Bhangra party to go.

And doesn’t everybody need one of those every once in a while?

More reviews: here and here. The Basement Bhangra CD is available from Amazon.

The big story of the past week has been that of Bobby Jindal’s ascension to the Louisiana governor’s mansion. As can be gleaned by even a casual examination of some of the comments we’ve received, this has served as inspiration to some and caused nausea in others. As significant a milestone as it is to see an Indian American as the chief executive of a state, this election cycle I am more excited by small time desi politics. Since 2004, when this blog was established, we have witnessed an increasing number of desi politicians running for a variety of local seats. Today as I left work in the Clear Lake suburb of Houston, I saw a few signs urging voters to send Manisha Mehta to the Houston City Council for District E. From her website:

* An immigrant from India who came to America at the age of 10, Manisha graduated from public schools and went on to earn a finance degree from the University of Houston

* Manisha worked in the insurance industry for sixteen years before taking a break to raise her family

* Manisha now runs her own business

* Manisha has continued to be active in her children’s activities and community service

* Manisha has been married to Nikhil for 18 years; he is a former NASA engineer who now is himself a small business owner. They have two children.

You can just tell by that last bullet that she has great decision-making skills and is an exceptional judge of character. Both traits are very important in a candidate for any office.

Oh my god. I’m speechless, have no words, and my brain just froze. So pardon my terrible blogger protocol in just copying over from Wonkette.com:

The CIA has inexplicably come up with a logo for the “Terrorist Buster,” some sort of imaginary Christian cheerleader representing the DCI Counterterrorist Center. Take a better look at the logo, realize that this is actually happening, and then continue reading. We’ll wait for you. [Pause]. Ready?

THIS IS AN OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT LOGO?!

This is not a joke. I can’t believe this is not a joke. The CIA really did create a logo for a “Terrorist Buster” (who the hell would that be anyway? Is this related to those “If you see something, say something” campaigns? Does a counterterrorist center really need a logo? If yes, then THAT?!) and unveiled the logo on the official CIA website. Go see for yourself at www.cia.gov

As Wonkette goes on to point out, the logo looks like some mad, racist twisted version of the logo (after the jump) from the Ghostbusters movie. Goddamn. What would Peter Venkman say??

Thoughtful readers NKN and Daniel sent in this delightful wideo and we are all smilier for it. It’s catchy! Err…wait, I think it’s supposed to prevent that…

Achtung, babies: it is NSFW, especially if you work with Telugu people. ;) Otherwise, it seems so innocent, the stars of the clip reminded me of Boobah or the Teletubbies…well, until they get to the graphically illustrated part about gay sex. But we won’t go there! I mean, hasn’t Tinky Winky endured enough?

Now sing it with me one time, “I am sealed with lubricant!” Ah, this song is going to be in my head, all day. Happy Monday to all and to all, check the manufacturing date.

P.S. The next time you’re blue (heh), make like our dancing friend Nirodh and tell yourself, “Turn a deaf ear to others, I am very good.” I know I will!

Mutineers, we have our first brown Governor. :) Join me, as I bold my favorite parts of the NYT article which declares this history-making outcome.

Bobby Jindal, a conservative Republican congressman from the New Orleans suburbs and the son of immigrants from India, was elected Louisiana’s governor Saturday, inheriting a state that was suffering well before Hurricane Katrina left lingering scars two years ago.

Mr. Jindal, 36, defeated three main challengers in an open primary, becoming this state’s first nonwhite governor since a Reconstruction-era figure briefly held the office 130 years ago.

With more than 90 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Jindal received 53 percent, above the 50 percent-plus-one threshold needed to avoid a runoff in November. He will be the nation’s first Indian-American governor when he takes office in January.

Have I popped champagne? Yes, I have. No, I don’t believe in teaching Intelligent Design, I certainly am not an advocate of getting rid of a woman’s right to choose and I still support hate crime legislation.

I can guzzle bubbly despite all that, because there’s something else stirring within me— recognition that someone who looks like me did something so significant, combined with an uncomplicated thrill over the fact that Bobby made history.

There are so many valid reactions to Jindal; I know about them because thanks to Amardeep’s post, we have hosted a lively discussion regarding his background, his policy positions and the greater implications of his politicking, for “the community”. Amardeep’s thoughts resonated with many of us who are conflicted about Louisiana’s new Governor. The good news is, there are no wrong reactions.

Each of us is allowed to feel how we do, so while some of you gnash your teeth, I’m happy for him and by extension, us. Better than that, the next time some little kid decides that they want to be in government when they grow up, their immigrant parents now have a visual, a template, a precedent to latch on to, much the same way my English minor was suddenly acceptable once Jhumpa won.

There is much to do, much which is owed to the great state of Louisiana and her people; this is just the beginning of that story and I idealistically hope that it has a happy ending. What Jindal can do (and really, whether he can do it) remains to be seen. But I don’t think it’s disrespectful or inappropriate to raise a glass to him tonight and wish him a sincere congratulations.

Doing so doesn’t mean we buy in to his positions lock stock, neither does it mean he’s like, the greatest thing EVAR. It just means that we are happy for someone who accomplished something extraordinary. Congratulating Bobby is something I humbly think we should do, because ideally we should each choose generosity of spirit over bitterness and rancor. Choosing the former and congratulating a winner doesn’t lessen us or diminish our passionate convictions, it just demonstrates our tolerance, equanimity and good faith that we will allow a person’s actions to speak before we do, negatively and presumptously.

Our favorite Sri Lankan world runner played at Terminal 5 in NYC last night, as part of the CMJ showcase. Terminal 5 is cavernous space with two tiers of balconies, a giant bar island, and draconian crowd-control policies. They made you get into lines to go outside for a smoke.

Doors opened at 7pm. So with nothing but a faintly entertaining opening act (“we’re the new Black Beastie Boys!” was probably their best line) that didn’t do much to help kill the time until M.I.A. came on, people got drunk. Finally around 10pm her presence was felt rather than seen - a roaring, sucking noise as people stampeded toward the stage.

I think she opened with “Bamboo Banga,” but I don’t really remember too well. The next 80 minutes flew by in a blur of jaw-dropping energy, radiating charisma, mind-blowing mashups and the surreal spectacle of pretty white girls moaning “ajaa!!”

I have a slightly different take on Bobby Jindal from some of my co-bloggers here at the Mutiny: I know, if I lived in Louisiana, that I wouldn’t vote for him. I just disagree with him too strongly on the social issues — intelligent design and abortion rights, for starters — to let my sense of ethnic loyalty get the better of me.

But I can’t help but be somewhat torn when I see photos like this:

The rest of the very interesting New York Times profile explains what this represents: Jindal is slowly winning over the rural white voters in northern Louisiana, staunch Republicans (can anyone say David Duke?) who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for him when he ran for governor four years ago. He’s also learning how to avoid giving the impression that he is an overachieving policy wonk (which he undoubtedly is), so as to better connect with ordinary Louisianans.

Amit Varma, of India Uncut, has an OpEd up in the Asian WSJ chastising the National Rural Employment Gaurantee Act (NREGA) in India -

Politics is often about grand gestures, and the Congress Party’s 37-year-old new general secretary, Rahul Gandhi, understands this perfectly. Shortly after landing his position last month, Mr. Gandhi demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh extend a massive cash redistribution scheme, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), to all 593 districts of the country…

As wth most political gestures, the goal of NREGA is certainly well intentioned. In many ways, it’s a more energetic / invasive version of the goal pursued by “living wage” advocates in the US. While our economic interventionalists wish to push incomes higher by raising the cost to employers (invisible unemployment be damned), Indian politicians go many steps further, take the nasty employers out of the question altogether, and directly (attempt to) provide 100 days of government employment a year.

The problem, as Varma dutifully notes, is that a nasty bureaucrat can be far worse than a nasty capitalist -

After finally deciphering and then completing the most challenging assignment I’ve had yet, I grabbed my badge and headed out. I wanted to take a little walk…I deserved to…I was done two hours before I expected to be and I felt a tiny sense of “Victory is mine!” because of it. Since I had skipped lunch, now was the perfect time to get some fresh air (and look for turning leaves). Once outside, I realized that today was the the day for our weekly Farmer’s Market. This made me mindful of how there were a finite number of Thursdays left before the weather would end the charming gathering of, oh, all of a dozen artisans and farmers, and that made me determined to appreciate everything even more. Excessive positivity (and the relief which blissfully arrives after meeting a deadline) inspired my lame ankle to try for whatever spring in my step I could muster. This was going to be nice.

I wasn’t looking for groceries, I was in search of a treat. I immediately recognized one when I saw a baker and his assistant arranging a decadent array of breads, scones, brownies, muffins and best of all…cookies. If I could list “home-made cookies” under my interests, I would. “C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me”, indeed. I spotted apple cinnamon, oatmeal raisin…then a few dozen peanut butter appeared…and then something which I couldn’t visually place, it was darker than the PB and didn’t have nuts dotting its smooth surface like so many allergy-inducing polka dots. Chocolate chip, my favorite hadn’t been unloaded yet. I smiled at the three women who were crowding the stand, impatient for the official start of the market. Oh yes, I’m not joking— you cannot sell anything until it is exactly 3pm and a bell has been rung. It’s a fair and thus lovely thing, apparently.

While the three, a duo and a single milled between me and those delectable baked petit morts, I observed the women as they observed the baker. Two were old enough to be my grandmother, and one of them had beautiful skin, bright reddish-orange lipstick and very pretty hair. She was so arresting, I couldn’t even look at the other two. I was fascinated, thinking silly AnnaThoughts like “I wonder what moisturizer she uses” and “I bet she wears lots of hats”. I was so transfixed, I almost missed what was occurring directly in front of us. Almost. Thanks to being perpetually high-strung, even things in my peripheral vision cause me to swivel and investigate, so that’s what commenced my micro-Monk-like-adventure: the gesture I saw, which I wish I hadn’t, while I was looking elsewhere.

Once upon a time, in a land called “college”, I dated a wealthy white boy from Arizona. He was a nice boy, with nice parents who rushed to embrace and accept me. I was young and eager to be embraced. Trouble was, his mom had an odd way of tacking on an explanation (sometimes sotto voce, sometimes not) to anything “cultural” whenever she addressed me. Implicit in every conversation was the assumption that they would refine me, expose me to the better things in life, elevate me somehow. I shrugged it off time and again until the weight of all that well-intentioned condescension finally felt too crushing: for god’s sake, high art to this family meant Monet’s fucking Water Lillies!! They spent gobs of money on interior designer who made them buy a pool table swathed in beige felt!

I would stand there in my thrift or Army-Navy surplus wear and thrill at the fact that I was secretly turning up my unrefined nose at them, a giant thought-balloon screaming “TACKY!!” rising above my head. I didn’t say anything because it was all so deliciously meta. Also? I was a chicken-shit people-pleaser.

So, anyway, it’s been a great many years since I dumped the guy, but seeing Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited brought on some strange flashbacks.

I’m a sucker for cinematography. Great art direction and visual flair can supplant character development, direction, or even plot, as far as I’m concerned. So naturally, I’ve been a rather ardent Wes Anderson fan. His stilted little diorama-like movies were fine by me. I accepted his narcissistic, self-involved characters because I was watching Anderson’s carefully constructed little world, and if the darker/foreign people were always a little goofy, and not really treated all that well by the main characters, well, that’s alright, right? His world, his prerogative, and all that. Besides, the soundtracks were so great!

Benazir Bhutto returned to Karachi today, flying in from Dubai to greet large crowds of supporters.

One is often cynical about Pakistani politics, but it seems to me this is a hopeful event. A lot of things have changed since Bhutto left eight years ago, and I suspect if she ever does return to power she will do things differently than she did earlier. In the short run, of course, she will be an opposition leader, and will have to contend with both President Musharraf and a not-always-sympathetic Supreme Court.

There are, of course, people who doubt this is going anywhere. One such is Adrian Levy, who has a scathing account of the evolution of Bhutto’s power-sharing agreement at Comment is Free (at the Guardian):

(Part 3 in an ongoing series dedicated to Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi; see last week’s post here. This week’s post is dedicated to Chapter 4, “A Valley Bloody and Beautiful”; next week we will look at Chapter 5, “Refugees and the Republic,” which looks at the problem of integrating millions of refugees into the new Indian republic.)

Guha’s first chapter (of three) dealing with Kashmir, I must admit, left me with more questions than answers, but it may be that the subject of Kashmir — even restricted to two years at a time — is simply too complex to deal with in a thirty page overview chapter. Guha’s goal is to provide a balanced account of what happened in 1947-8 with the Accession of Kashmir to the Indian union (October 26, 1947), and the war between India and Pakistan that followed (which is actually well-summarized at Wikipedia). Guha goes with the line that the Pathans who marched on Srinagar in the autumn of 1947 were surely armed by Pakistan, and were not exactly a “liberation” army (they were only too happy to loot Kashmiri Muslims as well as Hindus and Sikhs in the towns they entered). He also stresses the close ties between Sheikh Abdullah and Nehru, and derides Hari Singh as just another useless Maharaja. He also acknowledges that the role of the UN in 1948 was not particularly helpful, and that effectively the whole issue was going to be punted (1965), and then punted yet again (1999).

We could go back and forth on Kashmir forever. The two major, historically grounded positions in the debate, I think, are the following:

• (1) The Maharajah of Kashmir, Hari Singh, legally joined the Indian union in 1947, and therefore the territory belongs to the Indian union, irrespective of whether Hari Singh’s action represented the desires of the majority of Kashmiris. A popularly elected Constituent Assembly, led by Sheikh Abdullah, did unanimously ratify the Accession in 1951.
• (1a) At this point, we should just formalize the Line of Control (LOC), and end the whole thing.
• (2) The people of Kashmir have the right to self-determination. When it signed the ceasefire in 1948, India promised to offer Kashmiris a plebiscite, where they could decide whether to join India or Pakistan, or remain independent. This it has never done. Moreover,
• (2a) Sheikh Abdullah always asked for more autonomy for Kashmir, and was eventually imprisoned for it (correction: he was imprisoned when he started to demand independence). Even if a plebiscite is not granted, the demand for autonomy should be taken seriously.

(Is that a fair characterization of the two major positions, and the ancillary points that follow from them?)

My goal here — and I hope you’ll go along with me — is not to reaffirm my own position, but rather to find out something I didn’t know before, and explore new ways of thinking about a very old subject. From Guha’s account, the figure I’ve become most interested in is Sheikh Abdullah, a secular Muslim who saw himself as the natural leader of all Kashmiris. He sided with India in the conflict with Pakistan, but was later imprisoned by the Indian government for continuing to demand autonomy for the region. His complexities are perhaps emblematic of the extraordinarily complex political problem that is Kashmir.

As those of you who are fans of House M.D. know already, Kal Penn will be joining the series as a regular next season. This is positive news all around - more screen time for the Penn brother from another mother, which is great because even though he can headline and sell a movie, young actors need all the exposure and steady acting gigs they can get. And this should be good for audiences, because his character seems like a real pataka, and Mr. Modi has no problems keeping viewers amused when you give him material like this:

Bend over and laugh

… [Penn’s character] caught House’s attention in the episode by resuscitating a patient and suggesting that they get her drunk to better diagnose her rare neurological condition. “… [The character] is a fan of trying random methods of exploration and life saving, and isn’t afraid to break the rules a little bit,” [Link]

Lastly, this should be good for brownz all around because we’re finally getting another desi doctor on TV to match the high number of desi doctors in the real world:

By mid-1997 it is estimated perhaps 4% (22,000) of the entire nation’s medical doctors are South Asian immigrants from India or of South Asian descent. It has been claimed that many inner city public hospitals simply could not function if South Asian medical personnel were unavailable as they can constitute as high as 40% of the staff physicians and 50% of the nurses. In Ohio, one out of six physicians is South Asian and several other states approach that ratio. [Link]

Except that I don’t think his character is desi. I haven’t seen the show, so I don’t know for sure, but his character’s name is Lawrence Kutner which doesn’t sound desi to me. In fact, there were two desi actors in the “try out for House’s team” episode — Kal Penn and Meera Simhan — and their characters were named “Lawrence” and “Jody.” Neither one had a clearly desi name, both were probably cast for a character of unspecified race.

Renu Khator is about to become President of the University of Houston [Hat tip: Ruchira Paul]. While this isn’t an issue I’ve followed closely, I suspect that there are few desi, or even asian university presidents in America. Given that female presidents of major (co-educational) academic institutions is a fairly new thing (Harvard just appointed its first), this is a major step forward, even if it is only in Houston .

Khator held the number 2 job at University of South Florida for four years, during which time she turned down offers from 3 different universities. She was the only candidate at University of Houston, basically because she’s a stud:

Khator recruited top faculty and more students from diverse backgrounds while raising millions from government and private sources. During her four years as provost, South Florida’s sponsored research grew by 22 percent, from $255 million to $310 million. She also took the lead reeling in the university’s largest donation ever, a gift worth $34.5 million from a Tampa couple. [Link]

I’m not surprised that she rose through the ranks at major public universities. Private universities are very conservative places because they’re run by wealthy, moneyed alums and their administrators have to get along with them. This results in nepotistic admission policies at elite private universities that try to regenerate the last generation of elites by giving less qualified students from the right families a hand up:

Researchers with access to closely guarded college admissions data have found that, on the whole, about 15 percent of freshmen enrolled at America’s highly selective colleges are white teens who failed to meet their institutions’ minimum admissions standards… White students who failed to make the grade on all counts [GPA, SATs, recommendations, and extracurricular activities] were nearly twice as prevalent on such campuses as black and Hispanic students who received an admissions break based on their ethnicity or race… Leaders at many selective colleges … instruct their admissions offices to reward those who financially support their institutions, because keeping donors happy is the only way they can keep the place afloat. [Link]

Hopefully under Khator’s guidance, University of Houston will cultivate the next generation of elites, a more meritocratic one.

It’s pretty much a staple of Econ Development 101 that all economies start with crap jobs and that, overtime, competition for workers grows, productivity grows, and thus salaries grow. The amazing thing about India is how quickly we’re seeing it work right before our eyes -

Young people say it is no longer worthwhile going through sleepless nights serving customers halfway around the world. They have better job opportunities in other fields.

…As recently as four years back, the choice was pretty clear,” Karnik said. “Either you got a high paying, good job at a call center or no job at all. Today, not only are there other options, but they are pretty close to the call centers [in terms of salaries].”

“Earlier it was considered cool to work at a call center,” said Nishant Thakur, 19, after the group had dispersed. “That died out quite quickly.” Added Thakur’s friend, Vishal Lathwal, 19, “If you work at a call center today people will think you don’t have anything else to do or were a bad student.”

From wired to tired in 4 years…. wild stuff.

I had a relatively traditional Punjabi wedding 4+ years ago; gold was involved. Not a lot, mind you (we’re no Chatwals). But my wife did get some heavy-looking gold necklace-and-earring ‘sets’ from both her own family and my extended family at the time of the wedding. Later, I came to wonder about the point of it all, since the majority of that jewelry simply can’t be worn ever again. (You’d look silly wearing such heavy jewelry at anything but your own wedding.)

Amongst urban Indians, gold is going out of fashion in general:

“My daughters keep saying, ‘Nothing yellow, nothing yellow.’ For them, gold is old,” Bhardwaj said in her living room while sporting three gold rings, bangles, a chain and earrings. A painting of a 16th-century Mughal empress embellished with 24-karat gold decorated the wall.

Her 21-year-old daughter, Sonam Bhardwaj, has had it up to here with gold. “I think it is too gaudy and chunky,” she said with a look of disgust. “Look at my mother.”

In India, where an economic boom has taken hold and tastes are noticeably shifting, Sonam represents one of the newest consumers on the block — a young urban woman who has distanced herself from India’s deep-rooted gold tradition.

Today there are legions of young Indians whose eyes twinkle not at the sight of gold but at the sight of luxury goods. Sonam, for example, is hoping for a new Nokia Nseries phone next month for Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. She already has a pair of Versace sunglasses and a Guess bag in her collection of fineries. (link)

For me, this transition seems to be an interesting case of a changing economic structure leading to unconscious changes in cultural values and practices. Insofar as most Indians used to be suspicious of banks and credit, gold was the central denomination in life’s most important rituals. New brides were given jewelry in gold partly because the gold itself was a rock-solid economic asset, and I gather the jewelry was usually considered a part of the dowry ‘trousseau’ as well. In a more “liquified” consumer driven system, on the other hand, gold seems dull — static and dusty, like the Gold Standard itself.

Am I speculating too much here, or is there really some sort of unconscious connection between the psychology of the change in fashion and the changing macroeconomic paradigm?

Secondly, does anyone want to defend gold wedding jewelry, and the traditionalism it represents? (Would you rather have gold, diamonds, or something entirely different — say, a Blackberry ‘Pearl’ — as a wedding present?)

Fox News Channel launched a new Business Network today, creatively named Fox Business Network (FBN), and available in almost 30 million homes. In the ever-competitive cable news market, Fox is trying to fish for viewers in a most unusual way:

Fox News Executive Vice President Kevin Magee, who’s in charge of FBN’s day-to-day operations, says it doesn’t want to trade blows with CNBC, (GE) or even Bloomberg TV, the current channels of choice for financial market watchers…Instead, his new business channel aims to draw viewers “from soap operas, game shows — any place we can.”
FBN executives hope to do that with personality-driven programs heavy on personal finance and with stories offering business insights into general interest news. There is some traditional market news, along with an on-screen crawl showing the latest stock prices.link

But you know what they really have? What they’re using to chum the waters?

Hot chicks, duh.

Almost all of the on-air talent that’s plugged on the site are skinny, youthful beauties like Shibani Joshi (a former model in India), Cheryl Casone (a former flight attendant), Jenna Lee (she played Division One softball in college), and Nicole Petillades (she loves slalom waterskiing!). link

Of course, the foxy ladies are also quite talented. Take Ms. Joshi, for example:

Shibani Joshi, based in New York, joins from her role as a reporter covering breaking news for News 12 Westchester. Before this, Joshi was a producer for Reuters Television and TIMES NOW, the joint venture news channel with The Times of India, where she was responsible for producing news packages and interviews broadcast all over India. Joshi has also served as a contributing writer for ABCNews.com and ABC News Now covering business and technology stories. She began her journalism career as a news production assistant at CNNfn where she contributed to Lou Dobbs Moneyline and CNN Money Morning. link

I think I read about an MBA from Harvard to cap that sweet resume, so, you know, I’m not hating the beautiful. Much. And networks are notorious for playing up the youth and sex appeal of female anchors. But this crew is exceptionally young, and Fox is blatantly plastering their glamor shots everywhere. Is this sort of business plan a harbringer for Naked News (NSFW!!) on network TV? Doesn’t seem so far-fetched, does it?

More on the the FBN at Adweek, USAToday, Forbes, DealBreaker, etc.

Indolink.com carries a good article highlighting a study by Samir Patel, Nausheen Rokerya and Maneka Singh at Cornell University titled, Switchovers: Indian American Drinking Culture at Cornell. The study claims to be the “first academic survey of ‘Indian American drinking culture’ in a college campus [setting].” The study sought to lock in on incoming desi undergrads who saw a particularly significant shift in their attitudes about alcohol (from something viewed as strictly taboo to something very normal and even necessary to have a good time).

Who were the subjects of this study? They were 12 Indian-American Cornell undergraduates - five male, seven female - who began drinking only after their freshman year of college. Demographically, nine were from the northeast, one was from the Midwest, one was from the west, and one was from the south. When questioned about their religious affiliation, three students identified themselves as being Jain, and nine as Hindus. [Link]

Since most of the people that read this site have graduated from college, the rest of this will be a bit nostalgic (and may even make some of you nauseous). If you find yourself getting angry or thinking, “kids these days…” it means you are getting wiser (AND possibly that kids are getting dumber).

First of all the study reveals that all of the freshman students were shocked upon arriving at Cornell and witnessing the heavy drinking atmosphere among their senior Indian counterparts. All interviewees also indicated a struggle between a desire to maintain roots and yet still get the full experience of American college life.

The authors argue that the “switchovers” adopted mainstream American culture and that the “adoption of this culture and consequent ideological shift was caused by a combination of socialization needs, avoidance of fears, and academic pressures,” including the desire to be popular among the opposite sex.

The study begins by claiming that the abstinent culture of the average Desi student can be attributed to the strong Hindu background and their parents’ primarily educational immigration motive.

However, upon entering college, the same Desi students realize that the culture found at Cornell is radically different from that which they were used to at home. They were particularly surprised that this culture, which so heavily promoted drinking and partying, was so willingly embraced by the college Indian community. One student did not “expect that this many Indian kids would drink” and was stunned as to how much Desi students did drink. They found that this new culture assigned significant value to “having fun” and recreation, as well as doing well in school: the “work-hard, party-hard” mentality that many of their non-Indian high school friends embodied, was also a value for many Desis at Cornell. [Link]

It looks like the U.S.-India nuclear deal, that was greeted with such fanfare 2 years ago, is going to be put into cold storage until 2009, disappointing Americans who hoped for a new strategic partnership and demonstrating again that India is not ready for the world stage. PM Singh announced:

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, even though he has forcefully staked his legacy on a landmark nuclear agreement with the United States, made it plain on Friday that his government would not invite early elections by confronting its Communist allies in Parliament over their opposition to the deal. “What we have done with the United States — it is an honorable deal, it is good for India, it is good for the world,” he said at a conference here. “I do attach importance in seeing this deal come through, but if it doesn’t come through that is not the end of life.”

When it comes to “hot fields of scientific research”, obviously desis are at the forefront of discovery and innovation; that’s not chauvinism, that’s just logic. Millions of brown people exist and a solid chunk of them are in science, so the odds are just stacked in our favor. But I digress. And there’s exciting stuff regarding Proteome Research to get to, so let’s get back on topic! [Via MSNBC]:

A small study links the type of bacteria living in people’s digestive system to a desire for chocolate. Everyone has a vast community of microbes in their guts. But people who crave daily chocolate show signs of having different colonies of bacteria than people who are immune to chocolate’s allure.

That may be the case for other foods, too. The idea could eventually lead to treating some types of obesity by changing the composition of the trillions of bacteria occupying the intestines and stomach, said Sunil Kochhar, co-author of the study. It appears Friday in the peer-reviewed Journal of Proteome Research.

This study isn’t biased at all:

Kochhar is in charge of metabolism research at the Nestle Research Center in Lausanne, Switzerland. The food conglomerate Nestle SA paid for the study. But this isn’t part of an effort to convert a few to the dark (or even milk) side of cocoa, Kocchar said.

Here’s my favorite part of the study:

In fact, the study was delayed because it took a year for the researchers to find 11 men who don’t eat chocolate.

BWAH! In your face, people who think chocolate craving = pre-menstrual misery and weakness. MEN! They couldn’t find eleven MEN who don’t indulge.

Kochhar compared the blood and urine of those 11 men, who he jokingly called “weird” for their indifference to chocolate, to 11 similar men who ate chocolate daily. They were all healthy, not obese, and were fed the same food for five days.

The researchers examined the byproducts of metabolism in their blood and urine and found that a dozen substances were significantly different between the two groups. For example, the amino acid glycine was higher in chocolate lovers, while taurine (an active ingredient in energy drinks) was higher in people who didn’t eat chocolate. Also chocolate lovers had lower levels of the bad cholesterol, LDL.

That does it. I’m having red wine and Cadbury for dinner tonight. What to do? It’s the healthy choice.

The levels of several of the specific substances that were different in the two groups are known to be linked to different types of bacteria, Kochhar said.

They’re still not sure if it’s the bacteria that wants to be startin something, gots to be startin something or if diet affected the bacteria blah blah chicken egg.

How gut bacteria affect people is a hot field of scientific research.

I think my tummy is always warm, but that is based on highly unscientific rubbing of it, while attempting to pat my head simultaneously.

Wots this? A reference to my bellowed alma mater? GO AGS!

If you’re South Asian and live in New York, you’ve probably heard about Basement Bhangra, maybe stopped by a few (every month) times, and possibly brought all your friends to boot. It’s ridiculous to think that the monthly bhangra party at S.O.B’s has been going on for over ten years. Clubland years are like dog years - this thing should be arthritic and/or dead by now. But instead, DJ Rekha (disclaimer: I’m a friend) still brings live-wire energy and mad-scientist enthusiasm to the party as she continues to expand her empire (Basement, Bollywood Disco Mutiny, NYU Artist-in-Residency), relentless in her determination to bring joyous bhangra to the masses.

To that end, Rekha’s releasing a Basement Bhangra CD. According to the press release:

This 17 track album is a mix CD – with four exclusive tracks including two original productions… DJ Rekha has collaborated with an array of incredible artists including Wyclef Jean, Panjabi MC, and Bikram Singh – to name a few. The album skillfully weaves together Punjabi folk traditions and dancehall rhythms from Jamaica and DJ techniques that are 100% New York.

The album comes out on October 23rd. More info, track listing and ordering here.

I was in New Orleans earlier this week and it was interesting to see a Desi (sur-)name so broadly plastered throughout the city… Apologies in advance for the grainy cameraphone pict -

Jindal Also Holds a Commanding Lead in Signage on Convenience Stores ;-)

With just over a week to go, Reuters reports that Bobby’s on track to a historic, no-run-off victory -

Republican Bobby Jindal holds a commanding lead in the Louisiana governor’s race heading into the October 20 primary, close to the 50 percent majority needed for an outright win, two polls showed.

…In Louisiana’s open primary system, candidates from all parties compete in the primary. If no candidate receives more than half the votes, the top two contenders meet in a runoff.

…The WWL-TV poll of 500 registered voters released on Thursday showed Jindal leading with 50 percent and the nearest of three top rivals, Democratic state Sen. Walter Boasso, at 9 percent, while 22 percent of voters declined to indicate a choice.

Some previous SM Coverage of Jindal - here.

Any email which has Bowmp chika bowmp bowmp-Zindabad! for a subject line is guaranteed to be a good time. SM Reader “HappyNoNoPlace” didn’t disappoint with the content [Via TOI]:

Indians have emerged the third busiest love-makers in the world, with the most exciting and satisfied sex lives much like the Nigerians and Mexicans, who took first and second respectively in a global survey.

w00t team brown!! We’re number three! We’re number three! Wait a second…I’m remembering something. Oh, yes…this one time, when I was in high school, my father said, “Third? There’s a trophy for third? Third place means YOU LOST”, after a speech and debate tournament. What a halcyon childhood.

According to the Durex Global Sexual Wellbeing Survey, Indians have also emerged the most expressive lovers than most of their global counterparts while the Chinese made the shyest lovers.

Noooo, that’s incorrect and one swiffer of a sweeping generalization. You see, it’s just the Bengalis and Malayalees who can’t shut up. Ever.

Indians came third on the sex index with 61% of the respondents saying they were fully satisfied with their sex lives. Nigerians were the most satisfied at 67%, followed by Mexicans at 63%. Japanese at 15% are the least sexually fulfilled.

How is that final fact possible, when this fantastic thing exists [NSFW]?

The survey also indicated that nearly 74% of Indians don’t hesitate to tell their partners about their preferences in bed. The Chinese, on the contrary, emerged the coyest in the bedroom — as 44 per cent do not talk with partners on how they feel and what they like in bed.

Now if the following is not considered “synchronicity”, I don’t know what can be— last night’s rerun of SATC was the episode wherein Miranda is nonplussed by her special friend’s constant request that she be more vocal. Maybe the Chinese are like, the Mirandas of the world. Omigosh, they could all get that stupid tank top which states, “I’m a Miranda!”

The survey further showed that nearly 68% of Indians find their love lives stimulating, which is again higher as compared to 38% for English lovers and 36% for those living in France.

Again, I think this study is flawed. You see, the French cultivate that impressive ennui like it’s a cherished Kari Patta/Kari Bevu/Limda/Karivepaku/Karuveppila plant. Silly Durex! They should have probed more deeply.

In the sex frequency category, Indians again stood third, with 53% saying that they had sex as frequently and as often as they liked, trailing behind Nigeria and Mexico, with 58 and 56%.

Who says the news is always negative? More than half of India is gettin’ some. Isn’t that a happy way to start your weekend? Go forth, my brown brothers and sisters! Let us celebrate our third place standing (if that’s what works for you)!

As everyone has presumably heard by now, Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this morning for his work on climate change, in conjunction with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The head of that panel is an Indian scientist named Rajendra Pachauri, who formerly worked for the Tata Energy Research Institute. (As an aside, if you’re the head of a panel that wins a Nobel Prize, do you get to say “you” won the prize? Probably not, I suspect. One would have to find a nuanced way to put this kind of thing on one’s CV…)

According to the BBC, Al Gore and Pachauri had a brief conversation after the award was announced:

The two men spoke on the phone after the announcement. “This is Pachy… I am certainly looking forward to working with you. I’ll be your follower and you’ll be my leader,” Dr Pachauri said. (link)

(Pachy? Oy.)

As many of you might have already heard, the Jena Six incident found an odd resonance at Columbia University in NY. A noose was hung outside an African-American professor’s office door on Tuesday morning. The past two days have seen student protests, press conferences, and emotional meetings with university officials. The NYPD hate crimes unit is testing the rope for DNA.

The professor, Madonna G. Constantine, whose specialty is race, racial identity and multiculturalism, stood before protesters at midday and thanked her supporters… “I think we are all pretty much mystified as to why it happened,” said George A. Bonanno, a professor of psychology. “This is an institution that prides itself on having open dialogue about race and fairly progressive ideas.”

At an afternoon news conference, Deputy Inspector Michael Osgood, commander of the New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force, said, “Right now we have no suspects, but we will go down all investigative pathways.” He ruled out any possibility that Professor Constantine had hung the rope herself. link

So amidst the uproar, why has Columbia University refused to turn over security video tape to the police?

Police and students remain baffled as this move only ignites conspiracy theories. Not to further fan the flames here, but the Associated Press, New York Magazine, and that bastion of rational thought, The New York Post, have already named another professor at Columbia involved in a legal tussle with Constantine:

Court records show Constantine filed a defamation lawsuit in May against another professor of psychology and education, Suniya S. Luthar. The one-page filing in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court also accuses Luthar of libel and slander and asks for $100,000 in damages. The single page was signed only by Constantine and does not indicate if she had a lawyer. Luthar declined to discuss the lawsuit. She wouldn’t say if she had spoken with police about the noose. “I think it is an unspeakably ghastly, horrible incident,” she said Thursday.link

Any current of former students at Columbia care to comment on this? Ever had Constantine or Luthar as teachers? This case grows murkier by the day, but no matter the outcome, it’s dismaying to realize we’re so far from ever becoming a race-blind society.

Anticipating joy, a doting mother suffers a horrific tragedy, while on her way to a friend’s house to prepare for Eid:

Radiant, content and at the pinnacle of her life, Syeda Arif held her 2-month-old daughter in her arms as she plucked out a baby bag from the trunk of her Honda.

It was 3 p.m. Tuesday and she had just pulled up to a friend’s home along Sherman Way with her daughter, Ikra, and 5-year-old son, Ayman.

Less than a block away, strangers Armando Gamboa Ayon, a Pacoima teen, and Brian Gilbert Barnes, a porn star and self-proclaimed pot smoker, were taunting each other, zipping west through heavy afternoon traffic on Sherman Way in a show of bravado, pushing the speedometer to 90 mph, police said….

In a chain-reaction crash, Ayon plowed into a parked car, which then slammed into Arif’s, crumpling it like a tin can and crushing her and her son. Her daughter flew out of her hands. [LA Daily News]

I’ve read differing reports which suggest that this was either road rage or a street race. Whatever it was, it was wrong. Ayon stayed, the porn star fled the scene, both have been arrested (the latter turned himself in).

LAPD Detective Bill Butos said the motorists were “cutting each other off, they were jockeying for position. They were tapping on the brakes, one of the vehicles was tapping on the brakes, trying to cause the other vehicle to ram into the vehicle. They cannot point to the other individual and say, well, that person started it.” [KTLA]

Madlib is a prolific California-based hip hop producer who normally works with alternative rappers like Talib Kweli. Recently he released an album called Beat Konducta in India, and I finally got my hands on it a couple of days ago. Here’s a track that has been posted at Imeem:

And here’s the YouTube video montage, which is also an album promo:

What do you think? I love the video, but I’m still trying to decide whether I like the album as a whole. I feel like this album should come attached to an hour-long video montage, edited as sharply as the two minute promo above. That way you get the hip hop sensibility and the sense of filmi nostalgia (and kitsch) all wrapped up together. The music by itself is ‘cool’ (like the track ‘Movie Finale’ above; or ‘More Rice’, which you can sample at Amazon); with video, there is something schizophrenic and exiting happening. There is certainly an art to remixing and reworking old music (and Madlib certainly knows what he’s doing on this score), but with film music in particular it seems somewhat incomplete if the video isn’t ‘remixed’ in parallel.

(Or we could just can the whole thing and sit around watching old Rajnikant videos on YouTube all day.)

As Amardeep mentioned, the bunker is exceptionally quiet these days, because a few of us are consumed with our day jobs (as opposed to this, our beloved virtual one). For me, holidays like the one we just had are difficult to enjoy, because it zimbly means I’m going to be forced to squeeze five days worth of work in to four. No, I’m not bitter at all, despite how that read. :) I’m swamped, but I’m not salty. Do you know why? Perspective.

I am constantly reminded of how I am one lucky person; other people have real problems, challenges which threaten their very lives.

Many of you remember Vinay, who needed a marrow donor, whose friends and family coordinated an extraordinary operation which found him (and a few others!) matches, even though his wasn’t “perfect”. SM constantly posted about the drives which were happening everywhere, and so many of you stepped up to give a little bit of yourself, for someone who could have been your little brother, your best friend, your cousin.

Well, we need your help again.

Another young person is fighting for his life, and despite the outstanding increase in South Asian donors in the national database thanks to Team Vinay, there is no match for him…yet. His name is Bevin and in the picture above-left, he is (of all things) wearing a “Gimme ur spit/get registered” tee-shirt in honor of Vinay. You see, as someone who was in remission, he took Vinay’s cause to heart and felt it was his obligation to do all he could to help spread the word, donate funds, convince people to get swabbed, since he knew first-hand what Vinay was up against.

Scrap the past tense; now, he is facing the same adversary Vinay is. Bevin needs our help and he needs it soon. But I’m not going to lose hope; if there was one thing I learned from Team Vinay, it was that negativity should be banished. Let’s focus on what’s good: Bevin’s friends are holding drives in New York City, within the next few days. Info on that below, the link to Bevin’s facebook group is here.

I’m sorry this post is so rushed, but I wanted to publish it ASAP, because the first drive is tomorrow. GO. PLEASE. HELP.

SWAB FOR BEVIN

All it takes is 12 seconds and you might be a match for Bevin…..

Please join us this Thursday at Bar 13 and/or Saturday at Katwalk for a Bone Marrow Drive for our dear friend Bevin Varughese. Below are the details of the events.

Date: Thursday, October 11th, 2007
Time: 6:30-9:30pm
Location: Bar 13
35 E 13th Street (Corner of University Place)
New York, NY 10003

————————————————————————————

Date: Saturday, October 13, 2007
Time: 6:00pm-9:00pm
Location: Katwalk
2 West 35th Street (Btwn 5th & 6th Ave)
New York. NY 10001

Amarjit Singh is a 56 year old chef at a restaurant called Texas Smokehouse at 34th St. and 2nd Ave. in Manhattan. A few days ago he was preparing for another day at work when someone broke into the kitchen, stole a bunch of knives, and then slashed him as he tried to resist.

Singh ran outside to get help, but didn’t see anybody initially. Instead, what he saw was the same guy who slashed him, stabbing someone else:

Then Singh gazed back up Second Ave. toward the Texas Smokehouse restaurant, where he had been preparing for another long day as a chef when the bare-chested madman came in and grabbed at least four knives from the kitchen.

The madman who had slashed Singh and sent him fleeing down to E. 34th St. was now up at the next corner, repeatedly stabbing a 67-year-old woman outside the Gemini Diner.

Singh instantly made a decision that proved him one of our city’s very best and bravest. This chef from Queens by way of India became New York royalty as he forgot his own wounds and dashed straight back into the mortal danger he had just been so lucky to escape.

The madman looked up from the bloodied woman and rose on seeing the courageous Singh approach. A 25-year-old onlooker named Antionette Brown watched amazed as the madman slowly backed up. He was clutching at least four knives but seemed unnerved by Singh’s uncommon courage and selflessness, as if Evil were being vanquished purely by the power of Good. “He probably saved her life,” Brown later said. (link)

So let me get this straight. The guy was slashed, bleeding profusely, and UNARMED — and he faced down a knife-wielding psycho with four sharp knives? I’m speechless.

(An off-duty police officer later shot the assailant in the stomach after he refused to drop his knives. The woman who was stabbed survived, and was well enough at least to be interviewed by a reporter. And there are some other choice, “Only in New York” details in the New York Daily News Story… Thanks to Rajath Vikram for the tip.)

Part 2 in an ongoing series. Last week we talked about Chapter 2 of Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi. This week’s topic is Chapter 3, which deals with the accession of the Princely States. Next week is Chapter 4, on the turmoil surrounding Kashmir in 1947-8

When they think about 1947, most people naturally think about the tragedy of Partition, which left millions of people dead and displaced. Partition resulted in the creation of two states, but what is left out of this story is an alternative history where instead of two new nations, independence might have seen the formation of three, or five, or five hundred independent nations.

For there were more than five hundred Princely States in existence in 1947. Each of these had its own ruler and court, and many had the trappings of fully independent states (such as railroads, currency, and stamps). All the same, they had to pay significant taxes to the British crown, and none were allowed to maintain their own armies. The Princely States were also, one might add, the most backward in India when it came to the situation of ordinary people. While British India had begun to build schools and universities, and develop the foundations of democratic governance (i.e., property owners could vote), the various Maharajahs were perfectly comfortable keeping their subjects in total, feudal subjection.

Very quickly, between the fall of 1946 and the summer of 1947, the vast majority of Princely States signed “Instruments of Accession,” whereby they agreed to hand over their sovereignty to India. The chief architects of this development were Vallabhbhai Patel and his agent, V.P. Menon. While Patel and Mountbatten did much of the formal negotiation from Delhi, it was Menon who went to hundreds of different Maharajahs all over India, and worked out agreements. According to Guha, because of his indefatigability and his remarkable competence, Menon is one of the unsung heroes of this story.

After Kashmir (which we’ll talk about next week), the state that gave the most difficulty in agreeing to Accession was Hyderabad, which was governed by a Muslim Nizam, but with a Hindu majority.

The following video has already been viewed 3.2 million times on YouTube, so it hardly needs a link from me. But what the hell, it’s funny:

Penn Masala have a new CD out, and they were recently featured on NPR. But why do I have the feeling that they will now be best known — and beloved — by college students everywhere for “The Facebook Skit”?

The question comes up again and again when I talk to friends and colleagues about U.S. foreign policy. The question is most urgent when discussing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but equally valid when the topic is the Indo-U.S. Nuclear deal, or even what is happening right now in Myanmar.

The question is this: is the U.S. acting in ways that are true to the credo of supporting and spreading democracy around the world, or does it merely do this when it is clearly in its own interests? Is present-day U.S. foreign policy governed by a “realist” philosophy (do what you have to do) or an “idealist” one (spread democracy)?

Noah Feldman has a think piece on this in a recent New York Times Magazine, where he gives special attention to the situation in Pakistan. To begin with, this is how Feldman frames the question:

As ideal and slogan, though, the creed of exporting democracy differs from the creed of expanding empire in one important respect: When we fail to follow it, we look hypocritical. An empire that extends itself selectively is just being prudent about its own limitations. A republic that supports democratization selectively is another matter. President Bush’s recent speech to the United Nations, in which he assailed seven repressive regimes, was worthy of applause — but it also opened the door to the fair criticism that he was silent about the dozens of places where the United States colludes with dictators of varying degrees of nastiness. (link)

The obvious examples of “realist” collusion are Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where the U.S. hasn’t pressured for democratization, since in these cases more “democracy” might mean more anti-American Islamists. Regarding Burma/Myanmar, President Bush recently took a strong stance of condemnation, but in Feldman’s view this may not be especially convincing:

The problem is that our support for dictators in some countries tends to undermine our ability to encourage democracy elsewhere, because it sends the message that we may change our tune the moment an immediate interest alters our calculations. The monks of Yangon have put their lives on the line; if our embrace of their cause is conditional on, say, our not needing any favors from the ruling junta this week, why should they trust us? Double standards are not merely hypocritical, but something much worse in international affairs: ineffective. (link)

In Feldman’s analysis, the U.S. support for Pervez Musharraf is a little trickier.

Via a tipster, the Telegraph (UK) has something on The Compulsive Confessor, a Bombay-based blogger:

In breezy postings, the 25-year-old girl-about-town – India’s answer to Bridget Jones – told thousands of readers of her partying, smoking and binge drinking, along with candid musings about sexual techniques and escapades. Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan writes her Sex and the City-style blog under the pseudonym “EM”, aware that although her material would not seem outrageous to a British audience, in India sex remains a taboo and anti-obscenity laws are strict. (link)

This particular article tries to play up the salacious content of the blog, and seems hell-bent on finding “controversy,” though this angle falls a little flat at certain moments:

Madhavan, a Delhi-born writer for a news magazine, Outlook, launched The Compulsive Confessor during a dull day at the office in 2004.

While her critics grow daily more scandalised, her thousands of fans believe she is changing the face of modern Indian womanhood. Her blog is among the most popular in India, receiving 400-500 hits a day, although only two per cent of India’s 1.1 billion population have internet access. (link)

(I would make a comment about how “400-500 hits a day” is actually not a lot of hits, but I’m sure that number has spiked since this profile appeared.)

The most interesting part of the article, of course, is in the concluding paragraphs, where it’s revealed that The Compulsive Confessor now has a book deal with Penguin India:

Unsurprisingly perhaps, the publisher Penguin India has commissioned Madhavan to write a semi-autobiographical novel, hoping she will rival the success of Candace Bushnell, the American author of Sex and the City, in giving voice to a new generation.

Meanwhile, Madhavan is apprehensive that news of her real identity will spread even further when the book is published, making it harder to be frank in her internet journal. “It will be harder to write when you’re no longer anonymous,” she said. (link)

Hm, she’s worried about news of her identity spreading after her book’s published? What about when she’s profiled by a major British newspaper, where the reporter uses her real name?

(Note: I hope this isn’t one of those situations where the reporter used Madhavan’s name against her wishes, thereby outing her… Something about this profile doesn’t quite smell right…)

Take a look at The Compulsive Confessor; what do you think? Is she the next Shobha De? Or merely the next Amy Sohn?

The Rupee has been surging against the dollar again (it’s approaching 39:1; see an earlier discussion here), and according to the New York Times, the instability in the U.S. market in recent months has led investors to pour money into Indian corporations:

Fueled in part by overseas investors seeking refuge from America’s subprime mortgage mess, share prices in India’s markets have outpaced other Asian markets in recent weeks. The Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex index set records on 10 of the last 11 days, before closing slightly lower on Thursday at 17,777.14.

The Sensex is up 14.6 percent since Sept. 17. That follows months of somewhat slower gains — the index is up 28.9 percent so far this year, according to Bloomberg Data, and up 102 percent (0r more than double) over the past 24 months.

The real estate company DLF, for example, which had a $2.3 billion initial public offering in July, now has market capital of more than $37 billion — making it roughly the size of Marriott International and Hilton Hotels combined. On Thursday, the company said it would consider overseas acquisitions and offshore fund-raising at its next board meeting.

Reliance Industries, the largest publicly traded company in India, reached a market cap of more than $85 billion this week, up from $6.5 billion in January 2003. Reliance, an oil, chemical and manufacturing company, is now about double the size of Dow Chemical. The market cap of Bharti Airtel, a telecommunications giant, nearly reached $46 billion this week, making it triple the size of Qwest and larger than Telecom Italia. (link)

Those are undeniably impressive gains — and it’s interesting to see companies most Americans have never heard of reaching “blue chip” valuation levels (for more on market capitalization, see Wikipedia).

But — am I right to be worried about a possible bubble?

Via Nirali, check out Shaair and Func. Shaair (think “Shayr”) is a desi girl who grew up in the DC area; Func is a Goan from Mumbai who grew up listening to Metallica. What you get when you mix the two is something that sounds like this:

She reminds me a little of Nikka Costa… what do you think? The best part of the profile at Nirali for me were these paragraphs:

And so began a relationship—”We fell in love with each other’s person first,” stresses Dogra—based on the mutual desire to make accessible music, free of the pressure to impose a contrived “Indian” sound (think twangy sitar solos and misplaced tabla beats). “Before I met Randolph, producers would be like, ‘Write a line in Hindi’,” says Dogra. “I can’t even speak Hindi! I’d listen to it and think it was so insincere.”

Give their debut CD a listen, and it’s obvious that Shaa’ir and Func are staying true to their mission of keeping themes universal. “We want to pave a better way for the next generation of not just Indian kids, but kids the world over who want to put out an idea. They can do it without having that ‘Who are you?’ pressure on themselves,” explains Correia. It’s increasingly apparent that the two are committed to their goal as they sing about everything from illegal-alien ancestry to the downsides of long-distance love. (link)

A video with higher production value than the one above is “Oops”. Lots of eye candy, but I’m not feeling the song as much as “Hit,” which I linked to above. Another one to check out is “Government,” a spoken word poem over music.

Via SALDEF, a report on a local Fox affilate about a probable hate crime that occurred in Burtonsville, MD, on September 15. (Warning, the images below are a bit graphic. You might want to finish your breakfast first.)

This particular story caught my attention because, first of all, the area is very close to where my parents live in Maryland. It’s a very safe area, and my folks go out for walks all the time, sometimes around dusk — this could have been someone I know (though in fact, I don’t know this particular family). Secondly, the gentlemen who were attacked are in their 70s, close to my grandfather’s age — and I’m particularly disgusted at the twisted version of national pride that might lead a group of teenagers to attack the elderly in this way.

The day after the two Sikhs were attacked, a Muslim man was attacked by a group of teenagers in the same town. That incident has not been detailed in the media, and I don’t know how badly the man in the second attack was injured.

Luckily, two arrests have been made. I’m not sure yet how they found the kids responsible, or whether further arrests are in the offing; we’ll probably hear more in the coming days.

Recently, Thomas Friedman wrote a column entitled, “9/11 is over.” I wish it were true — I gather he does too — though sadly that is clearly not the case.

USA Today recently reported that the CIA has seen a boost in its minority hiring in the last few years. Ordinarily this might be great news, however, the Agency may not be recruiting the “right type” of minorities to come down to their Farm for training:

More than one in four recruits offered jobs as undercover spies by the CIA this year are members of racial or ethnic minorities — a record high percentage, the agency’s top spy says.

But the CIA continues to lag in fielding spies from the Middle Eastern and South Asian backgrounds deemed most critical to the war on terrorism, said Jose Rodriguez, the outgoing director of clandestine intelligence gathering, in an interview with USA TODAY. Only about 5% of the agency’s current undercover spy force is from an Asian background. [Link]

I know plenty of South Asian Americans who would be a perfect fit at the CIA. Almost all of these folks would say “no way” to the idea, however. The problem is glaringly obvious. How is the CIA supposed to recruit from a pool of much needed, patriotic South Asian Americans (or anyone else for that matter) when that pool of recruits is worried that they will be asked to de-humanize (potentially innocent) suspects by order of the Executive Branch. From today’s NYTimes:

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures. [Link]

Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal carried an interesting profile of Atul Nakhasi. The 19-year-old pre-med (of course) college student from Iowa proclaims: “They’re sucking up to me…” But just who is “they?”

A hand-written thank-you from Bill Clinton and a private lunch with Sen. Joe Biden are becoming normal fare for college junior Atul Nakhasi…

The ambitious, energetic president of the University of Iowa Democrats has cleverly plotted to turn his once-moribund organization into a sought-after player in the Iowa caucuses, where the first delegates in the 2008 presidential campaign will be chosen. Today, Mr. Nakhasi will be on the stage when Barack Obama speaks to the campus…

“He knows every single organizer of the campaigns,” marveled Mark Bowers, 19, president of Hawkeyes for John Edwards, “and they all, obviously, want him to support that candidate…” [Link]

I have to say I’m a bit jealous of young Atul. If I could devote all my energies these days to Sepia Mutiny, I’d be using it for such utterly Machiavellian purposes myself ;) The fact that young Atul can work the system as efficiently as he does has everything to do with the crazy primary and electoral process we now have. Candidates have to suck up to him (and the vote he can potentially turn out) because if they don’t take Iowa they are facing a standing ten count in their fight to become the nominee. Having to win in a state like Iowa or New Hampshire (who let’s face it, no one cares about) is bound to enable some smart and enterprising kingmakers such as Atul.

Mr. Nakhasi, who unsuccessfully ran twice for student body-president, is a year younger than most of his fellow juniors and a year ahead of them in credits; he could graduate in May. This summer, he turned his energies to reviving the [University Democrats].

Mr. Nakhasi created an executive board for the leaders of the candidate-support groups. He gave them titles and positions and established the University Democrats as the umbrella organization, to which all the other groups report. “Who wouldn’t want a position on an executive board?” he said with a laugh. The University Democrats would also take a prominent role in all candidate visits.

Mr. Nakhasi recruited representatives by claiming the other groups were already on board, even those that didn’t like one another. The groups that support Hillary Clinton, Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards all joined when Mr. Nakhasi told them the others had committed. “We played them against each other, and it worked out wonderfully,” he said. [Link]

That dear readers is mutinous. We need more cowbell like that. This last part is my favorite because it shows how to properly reap a reward from what you have worked hard to create:

Mr. Nakhasi announced his most ambitious event to date: a discourse at the university with the top six Democratic contenders, set for Nov. 11. Mr. Nakhasi says he will give each of the candidates 22 minutes to speak, including 18 minutes for Q&A from students. He also wants to include a lightning round, letting students fire quick questions. “Maybe I’ll ask Hillary what the state bird of Iowa is,” Mr. Nakhasi joked. [Link]

Via Instapundit, ‘twas interesting to see an old name pop up again. I love writing about desi’s in non-traditional corners of the world and the story of Sameer Parekh is no exception.

Good Luck & God Speed

One favorite mailing list of mine was Cypherpunks where a strange band of folks saw techno-libertarian-utopia at hand in the form of ubiquitous, consumer cryptography. Reading some of my old posts there really brings back the memories…. Ah what a world it would be .

Now, unlike moi who was more or less a lurker on the list, one of the king pins of the cypherpunk list was a guy named Sameer Parekh…

Hold on, let’s get this over with…

Okay, now that I’ve stood in the corner and thought about what I’ve done during my time-out, I half-heartedly apologize for being so insensitive as to vaguely reference a politically incorrect, wayyy-before-your…and-really-my time cartoon character/mascot.

My bad. If it helps, it’s a rather obscure ref and I did change the “first name” to something browner (shout out to my friend Surjeet, who is sure to be THRILLED about this). Anyfoo. Monday came and went, with nary a caption game in sight; I blame you. What, on top of everything else in my disorganized, estrogen-powered day, I need to discover non-existent time with which to ferret out funny pictures?

Wait, what?

I do? Meh.

Well, if we’re relying on ME, then prepare for tardy everything (including me). I saw this on the BBC website yesterday and that is why we have an uber-late* CG today, which is THURSDAY for those who are either hung-over, a disciple of Rip Van Winkle or too confused to keep count.

So, now that you’ve seen the amusing picture, kindly be doing what some of you do best— caption away. Why should you expend such effort? Because a photograph like that deserves more than this (you know there’s no-o-o-othing):

Indian cricketers pose with turbans, before a one-day international against Australia. [Beeb]

Perplexed? Bemused? Constipated? Consider previous editions of the Caption Game, awailable for procrastinating purposes here: éka, dvá, trí, catúr, páñca, s.as., saptá , as.tá, náva…

Most of the ideas of Neela Banerjee’s recent New York Times article on Indian-American lobbying were actually covered in a blog post by KXB here a couple of weeks ago.

But what caught my eye was the bit about an India Community Center in Milpitas, California:

The India Community Center in Milpitas, Calif., represents the nonsectarian approach many Indian-Americans take to replicating the experience of American Jews. When Anil Godhwani began talking to other Indians in Silicon Valley about opening a center, “more than one person talked to us about making this a Hindu community center — sometimes in very strong terms,” he said. That was never his intention, though he was raised Hindu.

A Silicon Valley millionaire who sold his company to Netscape in the late 1990s, Mr. Godhwani said he and his brother envisioned a place that promoted the variety of Indian culture to Indian-Americans and non-Indians alike. The Godhwanis canvassed other ethnic centers and the Y.M.C.A. But the Jewish Community Center model resonated with them. It celebrated Jewish culture while avoiding the divisiveness of politics and religion. And it welcomed outsiders. The India Community Center occupies a 40,000-square-foot building that offers, among other things, free medical care for the uninsured, Indian language classes and Bollywood-style aerobics but keeps out religious activities. (link)

I would have loved to have something like this growing up — too bad there isn’t anything similar on the east coast.

More generally, I’m not surprised by the opposition Godhwani encountered as he was trying to put this thing together, though I am disappointed. Most people tend to presume that a South Asian community organized around entirely religion is an inevitable fact of nature, but does it have to be that way?

I’m not saying that Mandirs, Gurdwaras, Masjids, and indeed, Churches don’t have their place; they do. There are things our Gurdwara did well when I was growing up in Maryland, but it was pretty poor when it came to producing a sense of community oriented to aspects of life other than religion, which is what a community center like this is trying to do. They were also quite poor (back then) in language instruction — I learned very little Punjabi even after years of Sunday school. And very few non-Sikhs ever came in, even though Gurdwaras are technically supposed to be open to anyone.

There’s also strength in numbers, especially in parts of the country where the South Asian community might be smaller than it is in the Bay Area or New York/New Jersey. An India-, or perhaps even a “Desi” Community Center, could be a place with more critical mass.

I know, I know — I’m being idealistic again.

Yesterday I received an email from the Sikh Coalition, letting me know that there is an opportunity for a Sikh model (male) in or around New York City:

If you are interested in modeling for Kenneth Cole, here is what they are looking for: A Sikh male, about 25 to 35 years old, who is “attractive.” If this works for you, please e-mail your picture to xyz@xyz.com at the very latest by 10:00 a.m. on Thursday morning [Update: The deadline is passed now]. As an incentive, the person they choose will get a “couple thousand” dollars. The shoot will be half a day, here in the city and will be on either the 18th, 19th, 25th, or 26th of this month.

The email got some funny reactions from friends, including one woman who asked if it was a hoax organized by a very desperate and resourceful New York City sardarni .

Obviously I like the basic impulse - standards of beauty are drawn in such a way as to usually exclude Sikh males: clean shaven, waxed chests, short hair, etc.

I know of only a few cases where Sikh men have tried to make a career of modelling in the west - one was Vikram Chatwal who had a spread in Vogue, another was a caucasian Sikh who modelled with his hair open. Both were from wealthy families, and in neither case did their modelling career last long. This isn’t surprising - if African female fashion models are still struggling, Sikh men will have a far harder time.

Still, for all my enthusiasm, there was a part of this effort which brought me up short:

A casting director, working for Kenneth Cole, is looking for a Sikh male to be part of an advertising campaign that dispels stereotypes about marginalized people in our society.

My response to this was pretty clear: “Dang - why we always gotta be exotic? Can’t we just be you know … gorgeous men without qualification? Why we gotta be marginalized?” It’s better than nothing, but we’re a far way from having our “look” accepted. [More photos after the fold]

I’ve had Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi on my shelf for a couple of months, waiting to be seriously cracked. Why not read it together? It’s not a book club that I’m suggesting, or at least, not exactly — since anyone who proposed an 850 page historical tome as a book club selection would have to be out of his mind.

What I propose is this: we’ll look at a chapter or so a week, and go in sequence. In each case, I’ll try and present some of the main ideas in each chapter in a blog post, so readers can participate in the discussion even if they haven’t read that chapter of the book. The idea is to do a survey of post-independence Indian history with emphasis on the conflicts that have occurred in various states. Guha tends to be much more pro-Nehru than is fashionable these days (since liberalization, many people blame Nehru for keeping India behind; I think this is mistaken). He is also scrupulous in looking at “marginal” communities such as the tribals, who are often left out of major histories. From the chapters I’ve read, Guha seems to be quite fair in his approach, and his style of writing is accessible without being ‘dumbed down’ in the least.

If all goes well, and there’s interest in this approach, next week’s topic will be chapter 3, “Apples in the Basket,” where Guha looks at how the Princely States were incorporated into the union — sort of a neglected topic. For now, however, I wanted to look at a controversy that has come up around one of the earlier chapters (Chapter 2), where Guha talks about the events leading up to Partition.

Periodically, we see stories about how folks in India involved in the global economy are taking accent classes to work on their English accents. Thomas Friedman wrote about the accent training many call-center workers undergo in The World is Flat. And today there was a typically fluffy piece in The Times of India about people who work on “regional” accent-training within India.

But it seems to me there hasn’t been enough coverage of accent problems that go the other way around. Watching Aliens in America the other night, it occurred to me that ABD actors and comedians who play immigrants in comic roles in Hollywood sometimes need their own accent training. You wouldn’t expect it, but most ABDs can’t really do a perfect Indian English accent. It’s either overdone (too musical), or inconsistent (those American ‘D’ and ‘T’ sounds creep in at telltale moments, as do those flat American ‘A’ and ‘E’ sounds) — or both. Adhir Kalyan doesn’t have many obvious flaws, though in my view something isn’t quite right with his accent (check it out at 1:45-2:00 in this clip). Kal Penn’s “Taj Mahal Badalandabad” character in Van Wilder has an accent that I find more convincing (see this clip), and it becomes funny when he says things that are particularly obscene or outrageous (as he does in that somewhat NSFW clip). And Russel Peters is quite good — accents are his particular strength. But there’s a host of lesser-known actors and stand-up comedians in parentally-financed movies like American Desi (and its various clones and imitations), who sound like they learned their Indian accents from Apu on The Simpsons, rather than real Indians.

Somehow Brit-Asian actors don’t seem to have this problem. The accents on Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No. 42 always sound perfect to me. Why is that?

At any rate, I’m hereby calling for an accent-accentuation school for aspiring ABD actors and comedians trying to get a break in Hollywood. The staff, incidentally, will be entirely composed of Indian call center workers fired because their accents were too thick (or indeed, too regional). Classes will be held exclusively via videoconference (the instructors, of course, will all be based in India).

You’ve sent the bunker so many tips and emails about it, I obviously had to check it out. CW debuted “Aliens in America” tonight, a sitcom about a Pakistani exchange student named Raja. Upon learning about this…interesting concept, several of you were skeptical, while some of you were uneasy in that vague way we all are familiar with, when we hear about something and imagine the worst.

A few of you couldn’t get over the fact that the protagonist was named “Raja”, since that’s so, like, NOT a Pakistani name. Yes, this offended you more than anything else. :) Let’s leave behind the small fact that there’s no official, international governing body for judging names or anything— I get what you meant, you were worried that this was sloppiness on the part of the creators, in a “Diwali Barbie is not wearing a sari!” sort of way.

Well, the first boy I had a crush on in high school was Pakistani AND named Raja, so I was the perfect choice for this non-assignment, since I’m not bothered by that detail, at all. ;)

Here’s wiki’s first blurb about the program:

Aliens in America is an upcoming American situation comedy created by David Guarascio and Moses Port, who also serve as executive producers alongside Tim Doyle. Luke Greenfield directed the pilot. The show is about a Wisconsin homemaker who arranges to host a foreign exchange student, believing the visitor will help her shy son become more popular. When the student turns out to be a Muslim teenager from Pakistan, her plans go awry. [wiki]