Unlike many of you lucky bastards mutineers, I am at work today, so this might be one of the most compendious posts I will ever write (stop applauding, haterz).

For the last week or so, I kept hearing variations on “I can’t believe the year is almost over!”. I was feeling that way myself until I started to pore through our archives. Now I feel like this has been a very long year, one which lasted at least 365 days.

Can you even conceive of a time before Sanjaya? Believe it or not, there was, way back in the beginning of 2007.

Let that sink in.

NOW doesn’t it feel like January 17th—the last day that the mutiny was papaya-free— was a long time ago? Speaking of Sanjaya, he’s on the list. What list? The list I made of interesting, notable or significant posts from this year.

Without further contradiction of my use of the word “compendious”, here they are, for your procrastination and pleasure:

• Obama
• Sanjaya
• Gigi
• Aish
• Gogol
• Neyyappam
• Grace

I Can’t Stand It I Know You Planned It
I’m Gonna Set It Straight, This Watergate…
Oh My, It’s A Mirage
I’m Tellin’ Y’all It’s Sabotage [bb]

To me, the “sunroof theory” sounded contrived; it was insult on top of murder. A lot of us aren’t buying what Pakistan is selling, with regards to the assassination of Benazir. The NYT has more (thanks, Camille):

New details of Benazir Bhutto’s final moments, including indications that her doctors felt pressured to conform to government accounts of her death, fueled the arguments over her assassination on Sunday and added to the pressure on Pakistan’s leaders to accept an international inquiry.

Athar Minallah, a board member of the hospital where Ms. Bhutto was treated, released her medical report along with an open letter showing that her doctors wanted to distance themselves from the government theory that Ms. Bhutto had died by hitting her head on a lever of her car’s sunroof during the attack.

In his letter, Mr. Minallah, who is also a prominent lawyer, said the doctors believed that an autopsy was needed to provide the answers to how she actually died. Their request for one last Thursday was denied by the local police chief.

Ever since a rare Siberian tiger named Tatiana escaped its enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo (my first zoo!) and mauled two brothers after killing a third man, news sites have listed the story in their various “top ten” boxes, for most emailed, most popular and most blogged. Who knew there was a Sepia angle to this captivating, contradiction-filled tale? An anonymous tipster did, and they just rang up the mutiny; it turns out the two survivors are desi.

First, the deets:

The big cat exhibit at the San Francisco Zoo was cordoned off as a crime scene Wednesday as investigators tried to determine whether a 300-pound Siberian tiger that killed a visitor escaped from its high-walled pen on its own or got help from someone, inadvertent or otherwise.

Police shot the animal to death after a Christmas Day rampage that began when the tiger escaped from an enclosure surrounded by what zoo officials said are an 18-foot wall and a 20-foot moat. Two other visitors were severely mauled…

One zoo official insisted the tiger did not get out through an open door and must have climbed or leaped out. But Jack Hanna, former director of the Columbus Zoo and a frequent guest on TV, said such a leap would be an unbelievable feat, and “virtually impossible.”

“There’s something going on here. It just doesn’t feel right to me,” he said. “It just doesn’t add up to me.”

Instead, he speculated that visitors might have been fooling around and might have taunted the animal and perhaps even helped it get out by, say, putting a board in the moat. [KTVU]

Tatiana is the same tiger who attacked a zookeeper almost exactly a year ago, during a public feeding. In that situation, the Zoo was found to be at fault, not the tiger, which is why she wasn’t put down. As many have pointed out on message boards and in news articles, “she was just acting like a tiger”. In this latest, deadly attack, some have asked why an animal which is extremely endangered wasn’t tranquilized instead of killed. The zoo had a team which was capable of that, but the police responded first and did what they felt they had to:

The body of Carlos Sousa Jr, 17, was found with a slashed throat near the exhibit.

The other two victims, brothers age 19 and 23, who accompanied Mr Sousa to the zoo, were said to be present when the tiger escaped.

It is thought they fled, leaving a trail of blood which the tiger followed…

The four-year-old cat, Tatiana, attacked one of the brothers before police were able to distract the animal and shoot it dead. [Telegraph]

There has been much conjecture about whether a board was lowered to help the tiger (!), whether they dangled body parts over the enclosure to tease it, and whether blood and a shoe were found inside the tiger’s stomping grounds. Finally, there are a few answers:

12.28.07: For those of you who do not read comments and may not know this— there is evidence which indicates that Anu is alive:

Authorities from the Cook County Sheriff’s Department announced they believe Solanki has left the Chicago area with a friend of hers, and that she has gone willingly. [oh, snap]

Developing…

---

I know we’re still shocked about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, but there’s a story about another South Asian woman which deserves attention, in case any of you can help.

We’ve received several tips about a young woman who currently lives in Chicago, who has disappeared under what I think are extra-tragic circumstances. Anu Solanki is 24 years old and a newlywed from Virginia. The last time she was seen was when she was leaving her job at a hotel gift shop, on Monday, the 24th. A few miles from there…

Her car — which was still running with its doors unlocked— was found in a forest preserve parking lot late Monday afternoon.

Forest preserve police used divers to search the river in the Wheeling Forest Preserve on Wednesday, but said they would stay inside the boats on Thursday. [abc7chicago]

This is what makes my heart ache, why I wrote that this story had an extra element of tragedy:

Solanki’s husband said his wife may have gone to the river to place a broken statue of the Hindu deity Ganesh in the water, as they were told to do by a priest, to prevent bad luck. Authorities fear the woman slipped while placing the statue in the current. [abc7chicago]

“There is some concern at this point that this is a rapid current of the Des Plaines River, that it may be wise to check even further,” said Cook County Forest Preserve District spokesman Steve Mayberry. “Miss Solanki is a petite woman, and in fact, the current may have carried her further than initially believed.” [WBBM780]

Who among us hasn’t tried to do the “right” thing, on the advice of someone we trust, even if it seems superstitious? I’m just haunted by the mental picture I have of this girl earnestly, gingerly transporting this broken-but-sacred statue, on her way to the river.

While her slipping and falling while trying to do something respectful is awful enough, there’s the possibility of worse:

Police are checking the validity of a report that Solanki called a relative and said she was being watched, but then called back minutes later to say she was fine. [abc7chicago]

That report says she called a relative, this says she called a friend:

Dignesh Solanki says his wife spoke with a friend by cell phone that afternoon, telling her she was being followed by four men, then called back to say the men had disappeared. [WBBM780]

I hope she will be found soon. Chicago mutineers Neeraj and M, thank you for keeping us posted about this.

Initial reports are coming in and SM will certainly pass on the message. First, CNN Reports -

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (CNN) — Pakistan former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was targeted in a deadly suicide bombing Thursday. Media reports quote her husband saying she suffered a bullet wound to the neck in the attack.

…The attacker is said to have detonated a bomb as he tried to enter the rally where thousands of people gathered to hear Bhutto speak, police said.

Some first guesses at implications..

While President Pervez Musharraf has promised free and fair parliamentary elections next month, continued instability in the tribal areas and the threat of attack on large crowds has kept people from attending political rallies and dampened the country’s political process.

Campaigners from various political groups say fewer people are coming out to show their support due to government crackdowns and the threat of violence.

Today’s violence come less than two weeks ahead of January parliamentary elections and as many days after President Pervez Musharraf lifted a six-week-old state of emergency he said was necessary to ensure the country’s stability.

Stay tuned.

Who hearts the News tab? I totally do and since I had a few moments, I managed to do what I always intend but never get around to— I checked which story was currently “most interesting” as measured by the “top in 24 hr” link. Eleven of us thought the following tip, which was submitted by Condekedar a few days ago, was important:

Indian children boycott school lunches cooked by ‘Untouchable’

Condekedar wrote this rather attention-getting summary…

A sad reminder of the continued existence of caste-discrimination. This story is even worse, because it’s children who are showing their bigotry, not just prejudiced older people.

Via The Independent:

By her own admission, the lunches cooked by Phool Kumari Rawat may not always be the tastiest food the pupils at her school have ever eaten. And with more than 300 students to cook for, getting the proportions right can be a struggle.

But the children of Bibipur Primary and Junior High School near Lucknow have not launched a boycott of Mrs Rawat’s food because of its taste, but because Mrs Rawat is a Dalit, a so-called Untouchable. As a result, they say, the food is unclean.

A whole new generation, India’s best generation yet with regards to opportunity, learning the worst about others. Condekedar is right; it is extra-disheartening to read about such sentiments from little kids.

Such incidents are not uncommon in India, where caste remains a debilitating and divisive phenomenon, especially for those 75 per cent of people who live in rural communities. But the boycott at Bibipur is especially noteworthy because it is taking place in Uttar Pradesh (UP), the state which this year elected a Dalit woman, Mayawati Kumari, as its chief minister. Campaigners say that despite Mayawati’s poll victory, Dalits still suffer widespread discrimination.

First, they did right by the woman:

When the boycott of the meals began last week, local officials stood by Mrs Rawat, a widow with three children, and tried to persuade the students that there was nothing unhygienic about her food. Officials who inspected her cooking said there were no problems and one even ate the lunch – vegetables and rice – in front of the students to persuade them to end their boycott.

…but they didn’t stay strong:

But The Indian Express newspaper reports that with the children not backing down from the boycott, the authorities are now poised to sack Mrs Rawat.

Two issues are being conflated; the quality of the lunches and the hands which cook them. If it were merely about the former, I don’t think anyone would fault the kids. The revolt might even be framed as a cute rebellion by pigtailed and cow-licked children, standing up for their right to yumminess. But…

Tellingly, children who live in Mrs Rawat’s neighbourhood are still eating the lunches, while those involved in the boycott have reportedly made little effort to hide their reason for refusing to eat. “I will not eat anything cooked by that lady. I have heard my family members say that she is from some low caste. So I bring my own lunch box,” said one pupil, Shivani Singh Chauhan.

Greetings, Mutineers. Abhi and the gang have graciously allowed me another round of guest blogging, this time from Singapore and Malaysia. As you may recall, I am at work on a photography book about the global Indian diaspora and reported from Kenya last January.

For this junket through Southeast Asia, I’ll be joined by V.V. Ganeshananthan. Sugi is Sri Lankan, a writer, and a newly elected member of the SAJA board. Her first novel, Love Marriage, will be published by Random House in April. She, too, is working on diaspora issues, especially those affecting the Sri Lankan communities around the world.

We’ll be posting here, jointly and separately, during the first few weeks of January from Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and other places in between.

Tamils from India and Sri Lanka, along with Malayalees, Punjabis, and Sindhis have been in the region for a very long time, as traders even before the colonial period. In the late 19th century, Tamils were brought over in great numbers by the British as laborers in the rubber plantations and railroads (the majority of persons of South Asian origin in Singapore and Malaysia are Tamil). Singapore even served as a penal colony for Indian convicts and as a conduit for indenture, as the city was built partially on forced labor. Singapore even had its own Sepoy Mutiny in 1915.

I’m always a bit hesitant to write what might be viewed as a “personal” entry on these pages. I used to have my own personal blog for those types of musings but decided to give it up because of the pressures of a full time job and this blog. I also don’t want to be presumptuous and assume that the vast majority of SM readers care about my life (as opposed to my writings highlighting something of interest or importance to the South Asian American community). That being said, today is a holiday (when SM readership plummets for obvious reasons), and so I figured I’d get away with some personal blogging. Since many of you seemed to enjoy my previous entry about my arduous toils in my basement, I thought I would serve up one more entry based on the booty recovered from the nine tons of refuse we removed from down there over the last three days.

First off, I know some of you don’t believe me when I say I’m a Grinch. Do these pictures finally convince you? I could tell even at a young age that this new-fangled Santa Claus was an imposter:

Leave this one alone. He’s bad to the bone. (Age 1)

And Frosty? Please. The only large snowball I care to associate with is a snow cone with watermelon syrup:

Where is Frosty’s left hand?

India and China are just about to wrap up joint military exercises, 45 years after the border war which put an end to the phrase which serves as the title of this post. The CSM reports:

The decision to hold joint Army exercises, ending tomorrow, in China’s Yunnan Province, is admittedly a small measure. But it is the first time the two armies have cooperated in such a way, and it comes on the heels of rapidly expanding Sino-Indian ties in business and politics…

This being the first Army exercise between the two countries, it has been small. Only 95 Indian soldiers have traveled to Yunnan Province, where they are participating in counterterrorism drills. But the joint exercise is expected to become an annual event, helping each side become better acquainted with the other.

“These are building blocks being put in place,” says Rahul Bedi of Jane’s, a London-based military analysis firm. “It’s a part of the learning process…” [Link]

And what did they name these exercises? Operation Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon? Sadly, no. That would have been the name if only I were in charge. Instead, the name given to these joint training exercises was “Hand-in-Hand 2007.” Hand-in-Hand? These are supposed to be warriors not playmates. For your viewing enjoyment I have posted some of the most exciting pictures from the the last several days:

Chinese soldier teaches Indians that the best way to defend against a sledge hammer to the head is by using the nearest pile of bricks for protection. They swear it works and that Indians should try.

The last two days I have been performing back-breaking, grueling, utterly soul crushing labor…in my own house (well, my parents house). Have you guys ever read a news article about some reclusive old guy who had a lifelong hoarding problem (a.k.a syllogomania) and when police finally entered the house they found a rotting, partially eaten corpse buried underneath a pile of junk that was formerly on one side of the only navigable lane through the house? Yes? Then now you know what my dad is like (known as “Yo Dad” to some who read SM). My dad left with my mom for India earlier this week so I flew home to help my brother clean out the house without any resistance. I wanted to solve this looming crisis before my dad made the local news in the “odd news” segment. Over the last two days we’ve been cleaning out stuff (mostly stored in the basement) that spans back 40 years! I won’t bore you with descriptions of 20-year-old used shower curtains or “Indian luggage bags” filled with spiders. I will take you straight to the good stuff. First, check out these two cricket bats. I remember they were purchased on a trip to India in 1982/3 in Ahmedabad (I was ~7). Notice anything shocking on one of them?

Was I an angry militant batsman as a child?

Can someone please explain this to me? Why would a child’s cricket bat say Hitler on it? I can understand why the one on the right has Sunil Gavaskar’s name…but Hitler?? As best as I can guess, the bat makers meant to spell “Hitter” but misspelled it as “Hitler.” Why did my parents even buy me this cricket bat? This could REALLY come back to tank my candidacy if I ever run for office. This is a closet skeleton right up there with GW Bush’s and Obama’s cocaine use.

The opposition Orissa Congress Party is pissed off and they ain’t going to take it no more. Surely I am referring to some local matter (perhaps involving bauxite), right? Nope. They are pissed off at the online (mostly T-shirt) store CafePress and want to lodge a formal complaint with the United States government so as to put a stop to the highly offensive insanity I am about to describe. We’ve heard this all before from American Hindus, but this one just escalates the absurdity to a whole new level:

Is that a Nehru in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

Insensitivity towards foreign cultures and sentiments has plumbed new depths. A US-based online shop has kicked up a storm by printing images of the Tricolour, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru on undergarments.

The Orissa Congress on Saturday condemned the “cheap publicity stunt.” “This is stupid on the website’s part to malign a world leader like Gandhi and a great national icon like Nehru in such a disgraceful fashion,” Opposition leader, J B Patnaik, said, adding, “They should be told through proper channels to stop it. Since the website is US-based, I urge Indians there to lodge strong protests…” [Link]

Did you hear that? “They should be told…to stop it.” I beseech you my fellow Indian Americans to heed the call of this nobody politician from Orissa and demand that we protest against the First Amendment of these United States. If you remain unconvinced then I must point out that the reputations of Gandhi, Nehru, and the Indian Flag are not the only ones at stake. There is far greater disrespect involved here:

Youth also protested against the derogatory portrayal of Bollywood icons, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, on similar products. Now, it’s the turn of freedom fighters to air their grievances against the “offensive attacks on national leaders”. [Link]

Ruchira sent me a link to a recent Newsweek column by Fareed Zakaria, and it seems like it could use a comment box. Zakaria says he likes Obama, surprisingly, because of “identity.” It’s surprising because, as Zakaria himself admits, he’s not one for identity politics:

Obama’s argument is about more than identity. He was intelligent and prescient about the costs of the Iraq War. But he says that his judgment was formed by his experience as a boy with a Kenyan father—and later an Indonesian stepfather—who spent four years growing up in Indonesia, and who lived in the multicultural swirl of Hawaii.

I never thought I’d agree with Obama. I’ve spent my life acquiring formal expertise on foreign policy. I’ve got fancy degrees, have run research projects, taught in colleges and graduate schools, edited a foreign-affairs journal, advised politicians and businessmen, written columns and cover stories, and traveled hundreds of thousands of miles all over the world. I’ve never thought of my identity as any kind of qualification. I’ve never written an article that contains the phrase “As an Indian-American …” or “As a person of color …”

But when I think about what is truly distinctive about the way I look at the world, about the advantage that I may have over others in understanding foreign affairs, it is that I know what it means not to be an American. I know intimately the attraction, the repulsion, the hopes, the disappointments that the other 95 percent of humanity feels when thinking about this country. I know it because for a good part of my life, I wasn’t an American. I was the outsider, growing up 8,000 miles away from the centers of power, being shaped by forces over which my country had no control. (link)

Zakaria’s approach to “identity” is in some sense negative. He wouldn’t argue that Obama is better because he’s black, or mixed-race, or part-African, etc. But he will argue that Obama has enough of a personal, experiential link to the world outside of U.S. borders (non-U.S.) that it will benefit his judgment.

One could argue that the key distinction here is “experience” vs. “identity,” and that it’s “experience” of the non-U.S. we’re talking about really, not “identity.” But the way Zakaria phrases it (and from some of the other points he makes in the column) I sense that he’s talking about something much more visceral than what one might learn on a semester abroad in college. Perhaps he really does mean “identity” — as in, a set of immutable attributes — not “experience.” What do you think?

As much as left-coast-born-and-raised me loves living on the right side of this vast country, there is one situation which inspires a reaction which is more pathetic than independent— being sick. I’m not talking about the sniffles or an errant sneeze or three, I mean, 102 degree fever, rhinitis which resembles a broken faucet and exhaustion which is so powerful, Ambien is envious of its ability to force sleep. I mean, sick sick.

When you’re sick and at home (or near it, even), parents can do what they love to, they can fuss and scold while they bustle about making clucking noises and shaking their heads. There’s something so comforting about the cadence of a mildly-irritated, slightly-worried parent. I tune out the actual words and just follow along until I’ve reached the portal to that ever-running game of subconscious Chutes and Ladders, and then I slide back to baby-hood in a blissful blur.

Don’t hate. You totally do it, too. When you can, that is. But when you are 3,000 miles away, and you are surveying the destruction which is a charitable way to characterize one kleenex-strewn, studio apartment, there is no such succor. We modern, vesternized children who think we know so much, who move so far from mummydaddy, we do the only thing we can. We wallow during those brief moments we’re conscious, reconsider our stubborn and proud refusal to get married already and then, when it’s 4am and we’re awake because the drugs have worn off, we update our Facebook status with something miserable. What, you don’t? Well, I’m kinda glad I did that last thing. I woke up to a post on my wall which immediately cheered me…

I can only suggest the concoction foisted by many mother on her sick, jaded-by-alopathy children, kashayyam:

…and then there was a fantastic link to the substance he suggested.

Inji kashayam, a medicinal drink made with fresh ginger,pepper,coriander seeds and jaggery.This is mother in law’s famous recipe to make us all feel better when we are down with cold,indigestion or even nausea.Simple and easy to make…[link]

Ginger? Pepper? Jaggery? Awww, yeah. You know, I don’t know anything about cricket, I don’t watch Bollywood, I’ve never seen any of those 2nd gen experiments on celluloid which contain various combinations of “American”, “Desi” or “Chai”, but I’m brown in some very persistent, weird ways and this is one of them; I’m talking about the home remedy, the more random and bizarre, the better.

Back when I was a disdainful ten-year old, if you had told me that one day I’d be drinking, nay, CRAVING Jeera-vellam I wouldn’t have believed it. No way. Eeew. Not me. I was too cool for amber-colored water with icky masses of cumin seeds lurking at the bottom of a glass. And yet, there I was last year, 21 years older and determined to steep this mysterious drink, just so. Yes, I know it’s a brew so simple an idiot can make it, but that doesn’t lessen my anxiety, hokay? I was born here. That fact alone has me convinced that I will never be able to replicate my Mother’s legendary Meenkari-with-no-meen.

Anyway, thanks to a darling friend’s sympathetic post on my “wall”, here was another recipe which required ingredients from a store which probably also stocked ladoos (mmm…ladoos), a recipe which would probably work, if for only one reason (but it’s a powerful one, so one is all we need)— it was desi. And someone’s Mom used to make it. And it has nothing to do with medicine, over the counter or otherwise.

Placebo effect? Sure, I won’t dispute that at all. I also won’t dispute the ridiculously smug sense of satisfaction such a concoction summons, as if we have a secret, cultural-velvet-rope-thang. Those moments, when my brain is being boiled by a fever, and when I’m dazed, crazed and amazed at how good pepper, sugar and something I can’t pronounce which was allegedly smuggled in someone’s suitcase can taste…those are the moments when I am consummately down with my brown.

An update on Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani, the Muttontown Uncle and Auntie who were convicted of mistreating their Indonesian servants (thanks, Mithua), via the NYDailyNews:

A Long Island judge jailed a wealthy woman convicted of enslaving two Indonesian housekeepers - but allowed her co-defendant husband to remain free on bail.

Varsha Sabhnani, who fainted and was hospitalized after a jury convicted her and her husband Monday of 12 counts of forced labor, was ordered remanded to jail by Federal Court Judge Arthur Spatt.

As her four children sobbed, the judge said the jury had found Varsha, 45, to be the culprit who inflicted the most punishment on the housekeepers, including beating them with broomsticks.

I’m going to start counting how many times the word “stoic” is used to describe MahenderUncle:

Her stoic husband, Mahender, 51, who remains out on $4.5 million bail, was allowed to return to the couple’s lavish Muttontown home and is under house arrest.

When sentenced March 28, the couple faces up to 20 years in jail.

I think one of the more interesting, unintended consequences of covering this story on SM has been the Schoolhouse Rock-like legal aid from our impressive roster of law geeks. (Pssst…law geeks, this is your cue to explain how all this sentencing jail stuff works. :D) So she’s in jail now…waiting to find out how long she’ll stay there? He’s wearing an ankle bracelet and then he might be wearing stripes, too?

The jury said the federal government can seize the couple’s 5,898-square-foot home because it was used in the commission of a crime.

And how is he under house arrest if they’re taking the house? That’s my role in this mutiny— I ask the dumb questions so you mutineers don’t have to. You’re welcome for that, by the way.

At the end of the last thread regarding this news story, a few of you wondered about what kind of coverage this was getting in Indonesia, where Varsha is from. Any lurkers from that part of the world want to chime in and let us know?

I have a big deadline right now, but I feel compelled to respond to this bulletin from the Chicago Police that asks people to “immediately report any or all … suspect activity” including note taking, camera usage, video usage and map usage. [via BoingBoing, link to flyer image].

Before 9/11 I would have said that this sort of thing makes me want to explode, but I’ve expurgated such language in the same way that I no longer say hello to friends named Jack at the airport. I’ll simply say that the bulletin makes me sad and upset. You know exactly whose photo taking will be reported as suspicious and whose wont; Chicago has the third largest South Asian American population in the country, there are plenty of browns to drop a dime about.

I’ve been on the receiving end of this myself. Once I took a pad and pen to the courtyard behind my office to try to figure out how to craft a memo for work and was interrupted by the police who said that there had been a report of “suspicious activity” namely somebody “suspicious” “taking notes”.

I showed them my note pad and explained my behavior (which wasn’t unusual for that area at all), but that wasn’t enough for them. They wanted my ID and then they followed me back to my office so that they could verify that I actually did “belong” there. All for sitting around on a nice spring day and writing on a pad. And this was in a liberal town where they actually decided to follow procedures rather than detain first and ask questions later.

For many folks, the most widely recognized pop culture image of Desi soldiers in WWII was Naveen Andrews’ portrayal of Kip, the Sikh soldier, in the film version of Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. Kip was a combat engineer / bomb removal expert for the British army in Italy and his love affair with Hana, the gorgeous nurse played by Juliet Binoche, formed one of the central plot lines of the movie.

Oh bury me at Cassino
My duty to England is done
And when you get back to Blighty
And you are drinking your whisky and rum
Remember the old Indian soldier
When the war he fought has been won!

-Indian 8th Infantry Division
War Song from the WWII Italian Campaign

When I saw the flick, I recall many a female audience member shuddering at Kip’s “hair scene” - much to my progressively follicle-challenged chagrin…

Still, Ondaatje’s use of Kip in such a significant role is laudable not just because Kip is a strong, attractive & clearly desi male in a leading romantic role but also because it implicitly frames the presence of folks like him as relatively commonplace. I recently stumbled across a fascinating, slick, Indian-produced documentary that goes into much more detail on the “real Kips” who participated in the Allied offensive in Italy. Thanks to the magic of YouTube, it appears the entire documentary is online and available for your viewing pleasure after the fold.

Naveen Makes It Look Easy

The facts, sights, and sounds of the video are an impressive testament to an often overlooked chapter in history. Desi losses in the multi-day assault on the Gustav line, for example, numbered over 1000 - a figure comparable to US losses on D-Day. An Italian countryside scene shows a field of Hindi-inscribed tombstones that hits you in the gut. The UK’s highest military honor, the Victoria Cross, was awarded to its youngest WWII recipient during these battles - 19 yr old Kamal Ram. As is common in these sorts of documentaries, snapshots of soldier’s daily lives provide poignant color - such as the Sikhs making Naan on makeshift ovens. Local Italians, some of whom were barely teenagers at the time, discuss their impressions of these “handsome” soldiers from afar who’ve come to fight for their liberation and attend modern day memorial services to commemorate their sacrifice.

I recently posted about a man in Tamil Nadu named P. Selvakumar who was advised by his astrologer to marry a dog to atone for his past cruelty; when he was younger, he had stoned a pair of mating dogs and then hung them from a tree, to die. After his deplorable act, he apparently lost his hearing and became paralyzed.

If only he had been the son of a powerful politician in Amreeka. Then he would have blessed enough to get away with it, grow up and continue to display very disturbing behavior!

You see, once upon a time mutineers, in a state far, far away…okay, it was Arkansas, but still, there was a teen who was wicked. His name was David Huckabee and while he was leading a boy scout camp in 1998, he murdered a defenseless dog.

Do you see where I’m going with this? Of course you do, clever readers. Because while some of you impugned my decision to post about P. Selvakumar’s wedding to Selvi the canine as an “about-as-veiled-as-that-one-belly-dancer-at-Prince-Cafe” dig at Hinduism, most of you realized that what haunted me was how the whole thing occurred because two dogs had been stoned and then strung from a tree. I love dogs. I’ve had three, all of whom sadly are gone. Out of an overwhelming sense of loss, I now stop and pet every pup who will have me; that is how much I love dogs. They are fiercely loving, ever adoring, loyal, fuzzy angels with paws.

Once, when I was a senior in college and considerably angst-ridden (for very good reason), I put “Strangeways Here We Come” on my turntable, dropped the needle and then dropped myself down on the lush, odd red carpet we were infamous for having installed in our ENTIRE Home. It was time for some emotional bloodletting, though I didn’t have any Johnette nearby.

When Morrissey started keening, I went still, except for the unceasing crying, of course. A few songs in to the album, I was vaguely aware of a strange noise but I was too morose to move. My eyes were closed. I was despondent. I really didn’t care.

But my wolf-German shepherd hybrid did. He had broke through the once-sturdy patio screen door in his haste and worry to get to me. I opened my eyes because of the oddest sensation—a very concerned puppy was licking all the NaCl off my face. Torn between being utterly grossed out (it was my first pet!) and utterly in love with such love (it was my first pet!), I chose the latter and sat up, as my dog visibly relaxed at my not-being-dead.

That’s what kind of sweetness dogs contain.

And maybe, just perhaps, the dog that David Huckabee executed had licked away some other kid’s tears. Even if it hadn’t, I’m sure it would have been inclined to, if it hadn’t been hung from a tree and left to choke to death by the son of a Preacher man.

Through some random web surfing, I came across an interesting article by Jayant Bhandari comparing / contrasting his experiences doing business in the Desh shortly after 1991’s economic reforms vs. now. Although we frequently talk about how much the Indian economy has changed in the past 15 yrs, Jayant’s article had some solid anecdotes of just how grinding day to day life really was back in the day -

..I moved to Delhi [in 1993]. To my dismay, no one wanted to rent me a decent place to live in. The landlords mostly refused to talk to me, and had blatantly advertised their property as for foreigners only.

..having a phone was not enough. It usually did not work, and when it did, I usually could not use my fax machine because of the “noise” that infested the communications network. For the next three years, I spent, on average, one day a month to keep my phone in operation by making personal visits to the telecommunication department.

..One of the several laws I broke in those days was the law restricting the fax machine itself. I should have sought a license to use it; but getting it would have meant tens of visits to the telephone office, more hefty bribes, and the certainty that if I was refused a license, I would not have been able to communicate. This meant that the government employee responsible for keeping track of my telephone connection got a particularly heavy bribe…I spent the equivalent of one day a month depositing my telephone, electricity, and water payments.

..Getting money from the UK was another bureaucratic nightmare. The money came to the foreign currency department of a public sector bank. Once the bank got the money it would take about two months to give it to me — the check just traveled around and around inside their office.

It’s important to note that every single one of the issues he encounters were premised on good intentions at first. Why did landlords treat foreign vs. native rent money so differently? Because the latter couldn’t be evicted if they were late in their payments. Why the flimsy phone network? Because the telecoms saw their duty to provide jobs first, service a whole bunch of socio-political mandates second, and provide actual phone service perhaps 3rd. Currency controls? The goal was to prevent the twin scourges of capital flight and foreign takeovers. etc. etc. etc.

Of course, much turns around in a scant 5 years…

Abhi and I will be on a Houston-based radio show called Border Crossings Wednesday night (12/19) at 10 PM Central time (11 PM EST). If interested, you can listen live via streaming audio here, or download a podcast of the show later here.

The topics? I just had a chat with one of the show’s organizers, and topics that came up were things like: the ABD/DBD identity question, the question of the meaning or value of “South Asia” (yes, that old chestnut again), globalization (especially the changing nature of the diaspora), the rise of Bobby Jindal, and the elections in Gujarat. Other topics will likely come up, and some of those topics might well be skipped if inspiration doesn’t strike (I get the feeling that this show is very free-form in nature.)

There will also probably be a some amount of “meta” discussion about blogging, the relationship between new and old media, and the nature of internet community.

Since a big part of what makes this blog work is the feedback and insight from readers, I wanted to ask you: are there particular posts or topics we’ve covered in the past few months that stood out to you as things to possibly discuss on the radio? Or particularly good comment threads, perhaps?

Back in May, I wrote a post about the Muttontown/Long Island couple who were accused of treating their Indonesian maids like “modern-day slaves”. It is time for an update (thanks, various tipsters):

A jury on Monday convicted a millionaire couple of enslaving two Indonesian women they brought to their mansion to work as housekeepers.

Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, and his wife, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 45, were each convicted of all charges in a 12-count federal indictment that included forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude, and harboring aliens. [MSNBC]

In addition to grueling 18-hour days, Samirah and Enung were “fortunate enough” to receive discipline and opportunities like those detailed below:

Allegations of abuse included beatings with brooms and umbrellas, slashings with knives, being made to repeatedly climb stairs and take freezing-cold showers as punishment for misdeeds that included sleeping late or stealing food from trash bins because they were poorly fed.

Samirah, the woman who fled the house in May, said she was forced to eat dozens of chili peppers and then was forced to eat her own vomit when she failed to digest the peppers, prosecutors said… [MSNBC]

This next bit is clearly a misinterpretation of actual events; I’m sure that Mrs. Sabhnani was merely trying to assist with hair removal. That’s quite thoughtful of her!

Enung testified that Samirah’s nude body once was covered in plastic wrapping tape on orders from Varsha Sabhnani, who then instructed Enung to rip it off. “When I pulled it off, she was screaming,” the housekeeper said through an interpreter before breaking down in tears on the witness stand. [MSNBC]

These disposable women should have been grateful that they were allowed to come to America, so that they could live in a mansion— and be stashed in a 3’x3’ space whenever visitors came, lest they embarrass their generous employers with their bruises and scars. If they hadn’t been so gluttonous as to sift through the trash for scraps, then they wouldn’t have been punished. Makes perfect sense…if you’re EVIL. But wait! There’s MORE!

The Sabhnanis’ defense attorneys contended the two women concocted the story of abuse as a way of escaping the house for more lucrative opportunities. [CNN]

You know, when I’m on the prowl for more lucrative opportunities, I always make sure that I rush in to a Dunkin’ Donuts with naught but a towel for a shirt and then fake abuse while pleading for help. Works every time.

At the end of October I profiled Jigar Ashwin Madia, a “Democrat” (or DFLer) who is running for Congress in the 3rd District of Minnesota. An important thing to note here is that, as I understand it, in order to compete in the general election as a DFLer in Minnesota, you have to first obtain an endorsement from the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) is a major political party in the US state of Minnesota. It was created on April 15, 1944 when the Minnesota Democratic Party and Farmer-Labor Party merged. Hubert Humphrey was instrumental in this merger. The party is affiliated with the national Democratic Party. The nickname “DFLers” is often used in Minnesota by both members and non-members of the party as an alternative to “Democrats”. [Link]

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party will base part of its decision (a long process) on which candidate has raised the most money by the end of the year, since money in the war chest is an indicator of general election viability (an unfortunate fact about politics in America today). Therefore, the month of December is critical to Madia’s campaign if he hopes to contend for this seat. One of Madia’s staff explained the process to me back in November:

“…the fundraising period that matters most ends December 31, 2007. That period matters most because the results from that time will be what voters know going into the endorsement process that begins on February 5, 2008. (Ashwin has agreed to abide by the results of the endorsement process, so if he does not receive the endorsement from the Democratic Party, the campaign is over.) The next round of fundraising numbers will not come out until April 15, 2008, and at that point, the endorsement process will be almost over.”

Asking for your effort as a volunteer or for a monetary contribution, just like asking for your vote, demands that a candidate explain his positions clearly and thoughtfully enough to satisfy you as a voter or donor. I asked Madia a few questions that I was curious to know the answer to (some of them just to warm him up for you all). I am counting on our smart readers to vet him some more with thoughtful questions. If you like what he has to say, consider supporting him. If not, this is still a chance for one-on-one participation in the political process. Here we go:

Abhi: Tell us a little about your experiences in Iraq. What are the top three things you learned over there that you feel helps make you a better candidate now that you are back in Minnesota?

Madia: While in Iraq, I worked with the military, the State Department, the Justice Department, the European Union, the United Nations, and Iraqi judicial officers to strengthen Iraq’s legal system and establish the rule of law. I learned that: 1) Iraq is a beautiful country with some of the most gorgeous sunrises I’ve ever seen; 2) the Iraqi people (at least those that I dealt with - primarily lawyers and judges) are brave and very kind; and 3) we, the Americans, need to do a better job of establishing unity of command of our military and State Department efforts, to ensure cohesion and maximize the effectiveness of our efforts. I believe these understandings make me a better candidate because they will give me the foundation to help reestablish Congressional oversight over the conduct of the war through probing questions and initiatives. I can draw upon my experiences to push the military and State Department when necessary about their planning and execution of long term strategy in Iraq.

I recently got a chance to see an excellent documentary called I For India (thanks, Kate!). It’s a kind of family documentary that spans nearly forty years. When Yash Suri moved to England, in 1965, he decided to buy two Super 8 film cameras, two tape recorders, and two projectors. One set he kept, the other he sent to his family in Meerut. He filmed and recorded his family’s life and growth through the 1970s and 80s, his family in India did the same — and they sent each other the tapes, as a way of staying in touch. The result is an amazing archive of what happens to a family when one part of it goes abroad. Yash’s daughter Sandhya Suri assembled and edited the material into a unique 70 minute statement. Here is a brief clip:

(You can also supposedly see a clip from the film at the BBC, though when I tried it I couldn’t get the video to play.)

A simple way to take the pulse of the Mutiny is to pay attention to tip volume and composition. When the same story is sent in (and for a period is the ONLY story submitted to the tip line), it’s a powerful indicator of what you want to talk about…today, it’s tragedy at a major American public university:

Two students were found shot to death in a home invasion at a Louisiana State University apartment, and officials decided to keep the campus open Friday while police searched for three suspects.

The victims, Chandrasekhar Reddy Komma and Kiran Kumar Allam, both Ph.D. students from India, were found inside an apartment at the Edward Gay complex late Thursday night after authorities received an emergency call. [yahoo]

That emergency call came from Allam’s pregnant wife, who discovered the murder scene at her apartment.

The 911 call was made by Allam’s pregnant wife, who returned home and found the men dead. Authorities said both men had been shot in the head once in what is described as an area with one of the highest crime rates in the city.

Komma, who was studying biochemistry, was found bound with a computer cable, while Allam, who was in the chemistry programme, was near the front door. Initial reports said nothing appears to have been stolen from the house. [TOI]

The apartments are a vulnerable, easy target:

The apartment building where the shootings took place is designated for married and graduate students, and is near a field on the 2,000-acre campus where the university’s band practices. A cluster of pale yellow cinderblock, three-story buildings, it sits on the edge of the campus…

The complex has a tall fence separating it from the off-campus neighborhood, but the apartments have no gates or surveillance cameras…attempted break-ins and holdups are common at the complex. [yahoo]

Logically, TOI zeroed in on the anxiety most of you conveyed in your emails:

Phani Mylavarpu, a 26-year-old Indian student pursuing a mechanical engineering Ph.D., told the local Times-Picayune that he was an acquaintance of both victims, having met them at social events of the Indian Student Association, which brings together Indian students on the campus.

Mylavarpu, a former president of the group, said Indian students have spent much of the day talking with each other talking with each other about the crimes and fielding telephone calls from concerned relatives and friends from India.

I guess MC Vikram and Ludakrishna aren’t the only dynamic desi duo doing creative reinterpretations of hip-hop:

I can’t get over their names, Pari and Harvin…sorry, allow me to be accurate—I can’t get over ONE of their names, because I always thought it was a very bad word in Malayalam.

Random Uncle: Molay, what did you get for Christmas?

Three-year old me: Pari!

Random Uncle: *thud* (falls over in horror)

My dad: She’s so funny!

Beyond that, I must say that I was somewhat impressed with the quality of the video (though I’m rarely on YouTube, so I’m sure all the youths of today have ridonkulous video editing skillz of which I am unaware).

Once the backup dancers started..um…cranking…or light bulb-changing specifically, I was surprised at the level of thought put in to this lunacy. Backup dancers! It must have been fun to walk by all THAT. Where’s the “Making the Video” for this, complete with confused non-desis watching on the street corner?

Anyway, it’s Friday and we’re (read: I’m) stressed, so a bit of light-hearted spoofery seems apposite. It was cute enough that I’m willing to forgive Harvin (whom I assume put it on the News tab) for bringing this wee bit of awareness of Soulja Boy in to my world; I was proud of the fact that I had never heard “Crank Dat”, but for you excessively mustachioed kids, I’ll make this very good exception. Oh, who am I kidding. My motive for posting this was zimble—after you watch, I will not be the only one who has the words I used for my title STUCK IN THEIR HEAD all day.

With Mango Jooooooooose,

a

Every year the media floods us with stories about the “war on Christmas.” On one side are liberal secularists, multicultarists and minority groups who wish to undermine this nation’s proud Christmas tradition by saying things like it’s really a pagan solstice festival, Christ wasn’t born in the winter, early Christians and early Protestants banned Christmas, St. Nick was a heretic, and modern Christmas is heavily influenced by Charles Dickens. On the other side are muscular Christian conservatives who grab their Christmas balls in sympathetic pain every time they hear the holiday being castrated by store clerks saying “Happy Holidays”.

Over in England, Christian conservatives are claiming a major victory - the support of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and even liberals for more Christ in Christmas:

Muslim leaders joined Britain’s equality watchdog Monday in urging Britons to enjoy Christmas without worrying about offending non-Christians… Muslim Council of Britain spokesman Shayk Ibrahim Mogra said, “To suggest celebrating Christmas and having decorations offends Muslims is absurd. Why can’t we have more nativity scenes in Britain?”…
Sikh spokesman Indarjit Singh said: “Every year I am asked ‘Do I object to the celebration of Christmas?’ It’s an absurd question. As ever, my family and I will send out our Christmas cards to our Christian friends and others.” [Link]

What they’re missing here is that by making Christmas more Christian, religious minorities no longer need to worry about their youth being seduced away by Santa’s siren song. Uncles and Aunties want more Christ in Christmas because then it becomes the holiday of funny looking white folk who say things like “wassailing” and drink things called “eggnog” and spend all month listening to music you can’t even dance to. It becomes the holiday of other folk, but without the coolness of forbidden fruit.

Of course, not everyone agrees with me. GGM tells the story of some desis eager to reclaim the lost role that Punjabis played in the original Nativity:

If you’re a non-Christian desi, how did your family deal with the holiday? If you’re a Christian desi, did your family embrace American Christmas or distance itself from it?

Meera Nanda has a detailed summary and analysis of the most recent Pew Global Attitudes report from the Indian point of view:

The Pew poll asked people in 47 countries if they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: “our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others.” Indians topped the list, with a whopping 93 per cent agreeing that our culture was superior to others, with 64 per cent agreeing completely, without any reservations.

Now all people have a soft spot for their own culture. But to see how off-the-charts our vanity is, let us compare ourselves with the other “ancient civilisations” in our neighbourhood. Compared to our 64 per cent, only 18 per cent of the Japanese and only 20 per cent Chinese had no doubt at all that their culture was the best. Indeed, close to one quarter of Japanese and Chinese — as compared to our meagre 5 per cent — disagreed that their ways were the best.

The U.S. — a country universally condemned for its cultural imperialism — comes across as suffering from a severe case of inferiority complex when compared with us. Only 18 per cent Americans had no doubts about the superiority of their culture, compared with our 64 per cent. Nearly a quarter of Americans expressed self-doubts, and 16 per cent completely denied their own superiority. The corresponding numbers from India are five and one per cent. (link)

The obvious question to speculate on (and please, speculate away) is where this discrepancy comes from. I personally don’t know though I’ve definitely seen some evidence of it in the hyper-patriotic way many Indians cheer for the national cricket team.

A bit more:

The strange thing is that for a people who think so highly of our own culture, we are terribly insecure. A startling 92 per cent of Indians — almost exactly the same proportion who think we are the best — think that “our way of life needs to be protected against foreign influences.” Here, too, we beat the Japanese, the Chinese, and the Americans by about 25-30 percentage points. When it comes to feeling embattled and needing protection, we are closer to our Islamic neighbours, Pakistan (82 per cent) and Bangladesh (81 per cent). Indeed, we feel so embattled that 84 per cent of us want to restrict entry of people into the country, compared with only 75 per cent of those asked in the U.S., a country where legal and illegal immigration is of a magnitude higher than anywhere in the world.

So, paradoxically, our vanity is matched only by our persecution complex. (link)

It is kind of surprising that more Indians want immigration controls than Americans, especially considering how hot the immigration issue is in the U.S. right now. (Perhaps India is like Iowa; the fewer immigrants you actually have, the more you worry bout immigration?)

Nanda also summarizes the report’s findings on Indians’ attitudes to the role of government on helping the poor, and the proper role of religion in government (Indians are personally religious, but they also strongly support separation of church and state). The entire report can be found here (PDF) and the Pew Center’s brief summary is here.

Anti-Semitism is alive and well, even in New York. But so is good Samaritanism: the other day, a Bangladeshi named Hassan Askari stepped in to assist a group of Jews who were being attacked by a gang of ten thugs on the subway.

What’s slightly amusing to me about this headline is how small Askari is (140 pounds), and how big (and intimidating) Walter Adler seems to be, what with the leather coat and all. But I suppose in these situations there’s a lot of power even in the symbolic act of stepping up and challenging the mob — even if you’re just going to get pummeled by guys who look like this. (Apparently, Askari’s intervention gave Adler time to pull the emergency brake, which alerted the cops.) According to the New York Post story on this, afterwards Adler invited Askari over to his house to celebrate Hanukkah. A nice touch.

Incidentally, before people start speculating, the goons in question are Caucasians; two of them have even been charged with hate crimes—against blacks—before.

(Earlier desi hero story here. Apparentely Amarjit Singh hasn’t been doing so well, but the NY Daily News started a fund to help him out.)

From my Facebook inbox:

Hi,

So… I have no idea why I’m sending you a message. Yes, I do. I’m freaking out right now. I’m freaking out because I failed my Accounting exam (meaning I’m one step away from being dropped from my Business program), and I’m going to make what seems like a radical move in my academic move in my career.

I remember a post you did a few weeks (maybe months) back where this girl had such a similar situation. She was basically doing a major for her parents, and I have for the past year and a half been doing Business. I know I hate it. My friends know I hate it. But somehow I rationalized it in my head to make it work so that I was making a sacrifice. But the truth is probably that I’m scared shitless at my parent’s reaction if they knew I was even CONSIDERING switching to become an English major. They will freak out, and consequently, I’m freaking out right now.

I’m sorry if I’m rambling. I just got done with an hour long convo with my best friend who kept trying to reassure me that being an English major is not so bad and my parents will just have to deal. I don’t feel any better. I have no idea how to determine if this is the right decision. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore with people close to me, hence, I’m leaving you this incredibly long message, partially in an attempt to get it out, and partially because for some reason, you’re like my Indian Dear Abby.

You really don’t have to reply… I know I must sound strangely pathetic right now. But again, I’m freaking out. I don’t know if I should tell them or if I should just graduate and have it be a surprise (joke… kind of). They might pull me out… I’m not sure what will happen if they find out. Right now, I’m thinking I don’t tell them. Do you think this is a good idea?

I don’t really have that many Indian friends, and I find it hard to find people who relate to my freaking out. It’s always been the same old “do what you love and fuck the rest” little miss sunshine philosophy with them… which is fine when you don’t have two extremely strict and not-so-forgiving parents. (My parents) mean well, and that’s why I didn’t mind doing business, because I feel they’ve given me a lot and I should give back. But now, I’m at the point where it’s impossible for me to do that. I don’t know…I’ll end it here.

First off, this coming Monday we will be having the first of several “Meet the Mutiny” posts for the 2008 election cycle. That means that on Monday you all will be interviewing J. Ashwin Madia, the congressional candidate from Minnesota right here. He will be periodically checking SM through the entire day to answer your questions (in the form of comments) below the post I put up Monday. You can ask him about his stance on local or national issues, advice about what it takes to run as a candidate, or any other reasonable questions you might have. If you’ve been watching Iowa and New Hampshire from the sidelines thus far, wondering what this election fuss is all about, now is your chance to get involved and educated about some of the issues that our country is facing, including the war in Iraq (of which Madia is a veteran).

Second, the new Indian magazine TrafficLife is featuring a SM post each month, starting with Amardeep’s post in their inaugural issue. Gosh, I never thought I’d see the day when SM was openly distributed below a highway overpass. Pages containing SM blog posts might potentially even be used as part of the home of someone living under than overpass. Now that is deep.

The Christian Science Monitor carried an article last week detailing the rise of Sufism in the Middle East and South Asia, focusing particularly on its potential role as an “antidote” to the extremism preached by many others who claim to act in the name of Islam:

Images of Islam have pervaded the news media in recent years, but one aspect of the faith has gotten little attention - Islamic spirituality. Yet thousands in America and millions in the Muslim world have embarked on the spiritual path called Sufism, or the Sufi way. Some see its appeal as the most promising hope for countering the rise of extremism in Islam… In the West, Sufism has appealed to seekers attracted by its disciplined spiritual practices as well as its respect for all faiths and emphasis on universal love…

But Sufi practice faces intense pressures in Islam’s internal struggle. “What the Western world is not seeing,” says Akbar Ahmed, a renowned Pakistani anthropologist who teaches at American University in Washington, “is that there are three distinct models in play in the Muslim world: modernism, which reflects globalization, materialism, and a consumer society; the literalists, who are reacting, sometimes violently, against the West and globalization; and the Sufis, who reject the search for power and wealth” in favor of a more spiritual path.

Feeling under siege, the average Muslim today is in turmoil, Dr. Ahmed says. To which of these answers will he or she turn? He believes that the spiritual hunger is deep and resonates widely. [Link]

I think that in a world where the average Muslim finds violence in the name of Islam abhorrent, and yet can’t accept a solution which counters violence with more violence, a path like Sufism has the potential to grow exponentially in the coming years. This can only have a positive effect in places where religion, as it stands, has led to a stagnant or despotic society.

While Sufism has been persecuted in Saudi Arabia, it is thriving in such places as Iran, Pakistan, and India outside the modernist cities, says Ahmed, who traveled throughout the Muslim world in 2006. During a visit to the Sufi shrine at Ajmer, India, he encountered a throng of thousands worshiping there.

“Just last week, when former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned to Pakistan, where did he go? To the Sufi shrine in Lahore,” he adds…

Yet, according to a survey Ahmed took of some young people in Turkey last year, their top choice as a role model is a Sufi intellectual, Fetullah Gulen, who has built a large system of schools and is known for his promotion of interfaith dialogue. [Link]

A gravely unique story out of AhmEdabad (I can’t hear you groaning, so ha!):

In India, death is a part of life — and, at one restaurant in western India, a part of lunch. The bustling New Lucky Restaurant in Ahmadabad Ahmedabad is famous for its milky tea, its buttery rolls, and the graves between the tables.

It’s a spot where old men page through newspapers and argue politics in the morning while young couples share candlelit meals and hold hands at night. That the candles sit atop graves only adds to the ambiance.

Krishan Kutti Nair has helped run the restaurant built over a centuries-old Muslim cemetery for close to four decades, but he doesn’t know who is buried in the cafe floor. Customers seem to like the graves, which resemble small cement coffins, and that’s enough for him.

Sure, the customers like it…unlike me, they are apparently not haunted by MJ’s Thriller video! Anyway, trust a desi to bring it all back to auspiciousness:

“The graveyard is good luck,” Nair said one recent afternoon after the lunch rush. “Our business is better because of the graveyard.”

The graves are painted green, stand about shin high, and every day the manager decorates each of them with a single dried flower. They’re scattered randomly across the restaurant — one up front next to the cash register, three in the middle next to a table for two, four along the wall near the kitchen.

I think business is good because the waiters seem fantastic:

The waiters know the floor plan like a bus driver knows his route, and they’ve mastered the delicate dance of shimmying between graves with a tray of hot tea in each hand.

“We’re used to it,” said waiter Kayyum Sheikh. “There’s nothing odd about it.”

Check out the following video, which is currently in rotation on MTV India:

Who are all these people? I hadn’t heard of any of them: the producer and male rapper calls himself Deep (he seems to be an ABD rapper). The woman singing in Hindi (with the short hair) is Pratichee (she is definitely a DBD). The woman singing R&B style, in English, is Janina Gavankar (who has had a role on “The L Word”; she was also featured in an earlier Sepia Mutiny post by Abhi). And the woman rapping — ferociously! — in Punjabi is Navraaz (could not find any links; I have no idea who she is).

I won’t try and translate the Punjabi rap (any takers?), except to say that the English chorus (Back the ** off me) makes a good summary. (I might also add that the lyrics might make even Ms. Hard Kaur blush…)

Incidentally, the label responsible for this track, IndiAudio, has made an MP3 available for downloading here.

What say you?

Musharraf Resigns, Narendra Modi to Replace Him

Advani Resigns BJP, Plans To Take Up Gardening, Play With "Wii"

Vikram Pandit, Enthusiastic About New Job, Changes Name to "CitiPandit"

New Citigroup CEO Demands Subordinates Address Him as "Panditji"

Sources: Dem Anti-Outsourcing Campaign Outsourced to India

Indian American Athlete Wins Heisman Trophy

Impoverished By Writer's Strike, Simpsons' "Apu" Returns to India For Good

Rushdie Marries Older Woman, Adopts Large-Nosed Infant Named "Saleem"

Sonia Gandhi Disowns Rahul and Priyanka; Monica Bellucci To Join Cong.

(Feel free to add your own, or spin off/tweak one of the above.)

Sadly, suicide bombings in Pakistan (and to a lesser extent, India) have become so commonplace that we don’t really report on ‘em much anymore. Sure there was some interesting coverage of the bomb that altered the political landscape by nearly killing Benazir Bhutto (and the fact that it may have been strapped to a 1 year old baby makes the details even more chilling). But that was just one of perhaps a half dozen bomb blasts that have rocked the country in as many months.

Given that media glory is, in many respects, exactly what the bombers are looking for, there is at least one morose advantage to this state of reportage. Most Pakistanis live quiet, peaceful, productive lives and would certainly prefer other aspects of their society get highlighted in the global media.

However, a bombing in the past few days is significant because, as with Bhutto’s attempted assassination, it has tremendous implications for the geopolitical order far outside of Pakistan. In this case, the target was a suspected nuclear weapons facility -

As the Pakistani military continues the slow push to regain control of the settled district of Swat, suicide bombers struck in two locations, one at a sensitive weapons facility near Islamabad.

…the attack at a Pakistani Air Force base in Kamra, while only injuring seven, has far more serious implications. The Kamra complex is a likely location for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. The suicide bomber targeted a bus filled with 35 children of Pakistani Air Force officers. The driver, a conductor, and five children were wounded in the strike.

…While Taliban and al Qaeda suicide bombers have targeted secure military facilities over the past year, it is unclear if the suicide attack was a target of opportunity or a demonstration of the groups’ capacity to penetrate security at sensitive locations.

Back when nukes were a *really* tough thing to build, a society had to achieve a rather high degree of coordination and thus consensus to pull off construction of these beasts. As the march of globalization and technology steadily lower the cost of proliferation, expect more and more fractured societies to reach for them….

The NYT ran a story yesterday about how aspiring Ivy league parents are trying to get their children admitted as athletic recruits … in squash:

Squash pros and coaches say that in the last few years the sport has seen a sharp increase in participation by children and teenagers, some of whose parents seem to have one eye on the ball and the other on college applications. [Link]

Grey lady, please. This is so Opal Mehta meets the Spice Girls, that is, this is old news for subcontinental strivers. Here’s an article from the TOI from 5 years ago:

Do you know the easiest way to book a free seat in an American Ivy League college? No, you do not have to secure the highest marks in your GRE/GMAT examinations. Just being a good squash player, should suffice… over a dozen squash players from Mumbai have made it to the American Ivy League, purely on the strength of the racquet sport…Indians stand the best chance with squash, because, there is little competition in this sport. [Link]

Siddhartha Suchde is the top player at the top Ivy School (Harvard has won 13 out of the last 16 squash championships) where he squashes his opponents with gusto:

Siddharth Suchde ‘07 has played at number one in every Harvard men’s match since his sophomore year. Last season he went undefeated in all his regular-season matches and was named Ivy League Player of the Year…

“A turning point came when I was 16 and I got a call from the Indian Squash Federation asking me to play in the world junior championships,” he says. He trained hard and became captain of the Indian junior national team, which finished fifth at the tournament, the best result in India’s history. Suchde has remained on the Indian national team for the past five years. Last December he played at number three for the Indian senior national team at the world men’s team championships in Islamabad, Pakistan. (It meant missing three weeks of classes.) India finished eleventh in the tourney, one of its best performances ever. [Link]

If squash becomes an Olympic sport in 2016, we’d finally have a sport that either India or Pakistan would have a chance of medalling in! w00t!

Via 3 Quarks Daily, I read a profile of Noon Meem Danish, an Urdu-speaking poet from Karachi who is of African descent. The author of the piece, Asif Farrukhi, makes reference initially to some places I hadn’t heard of:

Whether you think of Lyari as Karachi’s Harlem or Harlem as a Lyari in New York, for Noon Meem Danish places provide a context but not a definition. ‘I am what I am’; he explains his signature with a characteristic mixture of pride and humility. Off-beat and defiant, he was a familiar figure in the literary landscape of the ’70s and ’80s. His poems expressing solidarity with the Negritude and the plight of blacks all over the world were referred to in Dr Firoze Ahmed’s social topography of the African-descent inhabitants of Pakistan. Karachi’s poet Noon Meem Danish now makes his home in the New York state of mind, and feels that he is very much in his element there. (link)

Lyari, one learns, is a town in/near Karachi where many of Karachi’s Africans (an estimated 500,000 of them) live. Their ancestors came to Balochistan as slaves via Arab traders (Noon Meem Danish defines himself ethnically as “Baloch,” which was confusing to me until I made the connection).

The Afro-Pakistani community, perhaps not surprisingly, hasn’t been treated particularly well, according to this essay in SAMAR magazine (skip down towards the end for some disturbing references to the extra-judicial killing of African youths). It’s not surprising that Noon Meem Danish, given his penchant for poetry, would consider leaving.

Danish is pretty forthright about the difference in how he is perceived in Karachi vs. New York:

More than home, Karachi was for him the city of the torment of recognition. ‘I was black and in Karachi it was always a shocking experience when people would ask me where I came from. They would ask how come you are speaking saaf Urdu. I had to explain myself each time.’

Karachi University wouldn’t hire him, but NYU did, and now he teaches at the University of Maryland (in the foreign language department — teaching Urdu, I presume). It’s interesting to think of someone of African descent emigrating to the U.S. because it’s less racist than the place where he grew up, but there you have it.

You can see Noon Meem Danish reciting at a Mushaira on YouTube (he’s at about 2:30 2:10).

Five years ago, I attended my first and last HOKANA FOKANA, the conference which is held every other year for Mallus who really want to marinate in Malayaleeosity. At the time, I was working for a non-profit and one of the organizers was interested in some of the post 9/11 stuff I was doing, so I was invited to speak at three of the week’s “Youth” panels.

Since they offered, and the woman who had contacted me was just wonderful to work with, I accepted. Thanks to her, I was treated to one of the strangest experiences I’ve ever had, once I arrived at the hotel in downtown Chicago, only to find myself among the most Malayalees I’ve ever seen in one place. It was a little bit bewildering, but it was edifying and fascinating, too.

There was so much to absorb: the regional cliques, the cousins from different coasts squealing as they spotted each other among the crowds, the Uncles strutting about, moustaches in full effect, declaring random things in voices so loud, the three or four white people who dared venture in to this quagmire jumped each time another Malayalee shout rang out. The energy (and scent of Drakkar mixed with Chivas) was potent. I’m glad I went. Everyone should, at some point.

I’ve often referenced my relatively “isolated” childhood— which so many of you share, according to what you confide via meetup and Gmail— and how unlike the other Malayalee Christian kids who grew up here, I never attended the Jacobite or MarThomite religious conferences which seemed to happen every few months, in different regions of the United States. Twenty years after my parents consciously blew off all of my Uncles’ recommendations that we attend that year’s FOKANA, my mother had a Eureka! moment in our kitchen, when during the one and only fight she and I ever had about my “settling down”, I shouted at her that if it were THAT important to her that I marry someone who was Malayalee and Orthodox, then perhaps they should have exposed me to actual Malayalee people while I was growing up.

“You never took me to FOKANA!”, I snapped and there it was, the look of recognition and acceptance. “How was I supposed to find this elusive dream son-in-law of yours, Ma?” I had a solid point. Every wedding we had attended in the two years preceding that argument had one thing in common besides parents who were attempting to one-up the last event by inviting an additional 100 guests; the bride and groom had met at church, at one of the regional denomination-specific conferences or yes, FOKANA. My mother never broke it down like that again. Yindeed, instead of the now familiar barrage of “Is he Jacobite? Marthoma? CATHOLIC?? Ehm…Malayalee at least???”, I was greeted with, “Found a nice boy yet?”

So these strange mega conferences, they have their place in our imperfect, carefully negotiated lives lived in on the hyphen. Sometimes, they can be an opportunity for pure good, like when one of you coordinated a massive effort to “Get Out The Marrow” at the TANA convention which was held in DC this year. What better place to rep Sameer and Vinay’s cause, than at an event which had several thousand potential matches?

Despite the fact that I’m a total Grinch during the holiday season, I have to acknowledge that this time of year isn’t only about consumption (monetary and culinary) and bad music. It is also a time for helping out those less fortunate. With that in mind I’d like to recommend two holiday parties to our readers (and I shall be at both). The first is tonight at 10 pm. in Washington D.C. at Cafe Asia:

In the years past we have worked with many organizations in the Greater Washington area to help bring local children a wonderful holiday season and give them encouragement and assistance in bettering their lives. We have also worked with a number of international organizations to help bring children hope who have been orphaned, affected by natural disasters, displaced by war and or have been born with disability. These organizations through our generous donations have been able to help build schools, provide education and sustenance for kids and provide hope for those that may have had none.

The Sumil Shah Foundation for Children is looking for your support this year for the seventh annual toy drive. Through the Toy Drive we are able to collect numerous toys that are further distributed throughout the local DC area by way of our network. We also collect cash donations which we rely on greatly to help many unfortunate children locally and internationally. We welcome you to visit our website at sumilshah.org to get more information on these wonderful organizations.

The second charity party is in Houston next Saturday night at 9p.m. at Zimm’s Martini and Wine Bar:

Join us on Saturday December 15, 2007 for a fabulous night! We are throwing a charity party benefitting the DePelchin Children’s Center - a Houston area orphanage.

Zimm’s is ours for the night! All we are asking is you bring a toy for the kids or an item off of the orphanage’s needs list. If you prefer you can donate money and we will buy the items for you.

If you guys know of any other charity parties thrown by desi organizations or individuals, please throw them up on our Events Tab (and mention them as a comment in this post). Please remember to drive responsibly when leaving these parties. And remember, if not us, WHO will think of the children?

If the pop culture ref I used for my title didn’t float your yacht, try this one from tipster Raj, who single-handedly ruined my afternoon by sending us the bad news:

“Oh my God !! They killed Asok, you Bastards!!”

A moment of silence, please, for the adorable, paavam*, wide-eyed IIT alum who will no longer be available for scapegoating and abuse. Wait a second…maybe he’s better off away from Wally, the Pointy-haired Boss and everyone else he (got) worked (over) by.

Asok (pronounced “a-shook”) is an intern in the Dilbert comic strip. He is a brilliant graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology…Asok often solves difficult problems in a few keystrokes, but he is still naïve to the cruelties and politics of the business world. As a result, he often ends up being the scapegoat for his coworkers’ antics. Despite many years as an intern, and performing the functions of a senior engineer, Asok has been denied permission to be a regular employee and the usage of company resources for his work.

It has been mentioned that Asok once lived in the handicapped stall of the bathroom; he later moved to a storage facility (but was only allowed an hour leave for moving by the Pointy-Haired Boss). Asok is also trained to sleep only on national holidays, a trait that he allegedly carried over from his alma mater. In addition, he was trained during his time at the Indian Institute of Technology in telekinesis, using it once to vaporize an obnoxious Texan and more recently to stealthily steal donuts in a meeting, and remove asbestos from the office. As well, he has mentioned that he has the ability to reheat his tea by holding a cup to his forehead and think about fire. Asok appears to be a fan of Indian music: in the animated episode “Art” he is shown listening enthusiastically to a female vocalist singing in Hindi. Recently, the Pointy-Haired Boss announced that Asok died while on a test of a moon shuttle prototype. Asok had planned to reincarnate into his clone, unfortunately Carol had used the jar containing his DNA as a candy jar. It is not known how Asok will return. [viki]

If you are one of the three people reading this post who has not been exposed to the charm of Asok, read on:

Asok: You can use my key to open the box with its teeth.

Dilbert: To open this box I’ll need something stronger than a key.

Last week several commenters criticized my post on Mitt Romney’s “Muslims in the cabinet” comments. Romney’s apparent gaffe quickly faded from the headlines, but Romney’s recent speech on his idea of the role of religion in politics might be a good opportunity to briefly revisit my earlier post, and take a look at some issues with Romney’s attitude to religion in politics that come from directly from Romney’s statements “on the record.”

First, on the previous post. In hindsight, I regret not taking seriously the people other than Mansoor Ijaz who say they heard Romney say he would rule out people of Muslim faith from his cabinet. At the time I wrote the post, there were two witnesses saying that; by the following day there were three. All three individuals work for one libertarian magazine based in Nevada, which does pose a concern (that is to say, it’s possible they’re part of a right-wing anti-Romney movement).

That said, four witnesses (including Mansoor Ijaz, who in my view is not very credible) is enough: Romney probably did say (at least once, possibly twice) “Not likely” when asked whether he would have Muslims in his presumptive cabinet. The biggest problem with that statement, of course, is that it’s discriminatory. And those of us who aren’t Muslims should be equally concerned: if he’s not having any Muslims in his cabinet, he’s probably not having any Hindus or Sikhs or Jains either.

Another unfortunate aspect of Romney’s statement is that it reveals his seeming lack of awareness of people from a Muslim background who might in fact be qualified for certain cabinet posts. One such person is the Afghan-American Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been serving as the U.S. Ambassador to the UN — one of the few high-level Bush political appointments that hasn’t been a total flop.

In the end, I do not think the Romney “Muslims” gaffe is a significant political event, partly because it seems no one caught it on video, which means Romney has “plausible deniability” (damn you, deniability!). Pressed on the question by the media, Romney finesses it, and argues that what he meant was that he wouldn’t have Muslims in his cabinet just to placate critics of America in the Muslim world. That explanation works just fine with the mainstream media.

Still, Romney’s recent speech on religion probably isn’t going to win him many Muslim friends:

“I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life’s blessings. (link)

Muslims have “Frequent prayers” — that’s the best he could come up with? Oy, vey. (I think Jews might also be a bit troubled that his praise of Judaism is for its ancientness, a quality which has sometimes been invoked by anti-Semites. It’s also untrue that the religion is unchanged; ever hear of Reform or Conservative Judaism? But I digress.)

Of course, what’s really wrong with Romney’s speech, beyond that absurd paragraph, is the way he completely flip flops on secularism.

For folks who study immigration flows, one of the interesting phenomena has been the tremendous success of the Overseas Chinese. In just about any country with a significant Chinese population, we find substantial overrrepresentation of Chinese folks at or near the top of the income distribution. Interestingly, this is the case even in countries where the Chinese were subject to both historical and on-going discrimination. Nevertheless, their ability to swim these currents results in interesting theoretical debates about “why”, what it means for other minorities and poses significant real world problems. Amy Chua’s groundbreaking book World on Fire does a great job of diving into these issues and extending Thomas Sowell’s scholarship in understanding the ebb and flow of different minorities in the economy.

In contrast to the Chinese diaspora, the Desi diaspora has a far wider distribution of socio-economic outcomes. While Sepia Mutiny regularly catalogs success stories in the US and occasionally across the pond in the UK, the Desi diaspora is unique relative to many in the world in that we can find different countries where “Desi” invokes different stereotypes at every rung of the ladder. At one extreme, in Fiji and parts of Africa for example, Desis are/were practically viewed as nouveau colonial overlords who unfairly “control” a disproportionate share of the national economy much like the ethnic Chinese in the Phillipines.

The Washington Post has a rather odd profile of Congressman Dennis Kucinich and his wife, Elizabeth. It’s essentially an account of how a 61 year old midwestern Congressman with political views considerably left of the American mainstream (and, yes, a history of spotting UFOs) got together with a 30 year old British woman who, in the reporter’s words, “looks like Botticelli’s Venus, only with clothes on.”

It’s a bit weird that people are paying all this attention to Elizabeth Kucinich’s looks, rather than her husband’s political views. The WaPo piece acknowledges the oddity of the hype (including the bit that ran on The Daily Show a few weeks ago), but in some ways this piece adds to it instead of moving past it.

The style of the writing does get on my nerves at times:

He says: It was an ordinary day in May 2005. There he was, Dennis Kucinich, congressman, twice divorced, looking for love, as always. He was on the floor of the House, doing ordinary congressman things.

“Tell her about the morning,” Elizabeth says helpfully.

“Ooh! That’s right!” Kucinich says. Here’s the amazing part. (Things involving Elizabeth generally tend to be amazing.) That very morning, believe it or not, guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who teaches peace through meditation and rhythmic breathing, had come to town. Dennis and Ravi have known each other for a long time. Ravi asked about Dennis’s love life. Dennis said he was still looking for that special someone.

“And his response was, ‘Stop looking and then she will appear,’” Dennis says. “And I said, ‘Okay, I’m going to stop looking.’ I said that. And that afternoon — “

“I walked through the office door,” Elizabeth finishes. (link)

On the one hand, this reads like political coverage as filtered through Danielle Steel (“looking for love… and doing ordinary congressman things” ?! Is this the same Washington Post E.J. Dionne writes for?).

On the other hand, if the Kuciniches really do say stuff like this in public, it’s a bit hard to truly feel sorry for them.

There’s more India a bit further on:

Between the snow, the looming holidays, sundry drama and Keeping up with the Kardashians marathons, it’s gettin’, it’s gettin’, it’s gettin kinda hectic these days. It’s been heavy in addition to hectic, depending on which thread you’ve been marinating in (despite Abhi’s heroically adorable post about every college male’s dream sitch). Time for some high jinks and hilarity, I say.

The link to this wideo has been sent to me so many times, all that copying, pasting and emailing should be put to good use, right? Who cares. You’re gettin’ some Bharath und Bollywood, whether you want some or not. Don’t blame me, blame SAFO; this concoction has the manicured fingerprints of those over-educated hipster doofuses all over it.

If this mesmerizing mash up doesn’t inspire you to…um…do…something, then perhaps the crushing pressure of high expectations will— soon after Denton-offspring Wonkette posted this vid, a commenter thither wondered what we were thinking, here at Sepia Mutiny. Don’t disappoint everyone now— it’s bad enough that you didn’t go to med school, you sepia slacker. What’s that? Oh. Well if you did go to med school, it’s bad enough that it was overseas. And if you…ad absurdum.

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MAJOR KUDOS to our administrators (particularly Chaitan) for fixing this post, recovering the comments and making the universe just a bit more whole ; they fixed my screwup.

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The FBI recently released its latest statistical roundup of hate crimes throughout the United States. These stats are maintained as a result of a congressional mandate and provide an interesting time series analysis of crime against specific races and / or religions -

Statistics released today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed that 7,722 criminal incidents involving 9,080 offenses were reported in 2006 as a result of bias against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or physical or mental disability. Published by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Hate Crime Statistics, 2006, includes data from hate crime reports submitted by law enforcement agencies throughout the nation.

…Analysis of the 7,720 single-bias incidents by bias motivation showed that 51.8 percent were motivated by a racial bias, 18.9 percent were motivated by a religious bias, 15.5 percent were triggered by a sexual-orientation bias, and 12.7 percent of the incidents were motivated by an ethnicity/national origin bias.

Because racially- and religiously-motivated crimes are frequent topics on Sepia Mutiny, I thought it would be intersting to do some number crunching to make the stats available for future discourse….

If you’re a scientist, you say that your own understanding of the world comes from standing on the shoulders of giants. If you’re a doctor, it turns out that your knowledge comes from standing on the pilfered graves of dead Indians:

Alas poor Yorick

Medical students across the world rely on anatomical models to become informed doctors. What many don’t realize is that a large number of these models are stolen from graves in Calcutta, India. For 200 years, the city has been the center of a shadowy network of bone traders who snatch up skeletons in order to sell them to universities and hospitals abroad. In colonial times, British doctors hired thieves to dig up bodies from Indian cemeteries. Despite changes in laws, a similar process is going strong today. Throughout parts of Calcutta, many of the cemeteries have been empty for generations. [Link]

Last week Scott Carney broke the story of the human bone trade in West Bengal, with accounts at Wired, NPR and his own blog [Photos here].

Why Indian bones? Well, skeletons are hard to get in the west, so medical schools look elsewhere:

In the US, for instance, most corpses receive a prompt burial, and bodies donated to science usually end up on the dissection table, their bones sawed to pieces and destined for cremation. So most skeletons used for medical study come from overseas. [Link]

In 1985, the Chicago Tribune reported that India had exported about 60,000 skulls and skeletons the year before. The supply was sufficient for every medical student in the developed world to buy a bone box along with their textbooks. [Link]

See, everything really does come from India!

Does stuff like this happen in real life? I thought these scenarios only played out in mid-summer B-movie comedies. From the Globe:

To many women, he is simply “the boy.” They know who he is, even if they do not know his name. They know his story, even if they have never spoken to him.
more stories like this

In the small, all-female world of Wellesley College, Mohammad Usman is famous in this way. He is literally a man among women - about 2,300 women. Usman, 19, is the only man attending Wellesley College this fall.

“A lot of people don’t know his name, really,” said Johanna Peace, a Wellesley junior and the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, the Wellesley News. “They’re aware that there’s a boy on campus. And if they see him, they’ll say, ‘Oh - there’s the boy.’ “

The boy in question has been living in a dormitory on campus since September, showering in his private bathroom, and, perhaps predictably, becoming something of a folk hero among his male friends. [Link]

You got that? He’s becoming a folk hero. Desis have arrived when some of us begin to achieve folk hero status. So what is it about Usman that let the Wellesley administration let this rooster in the hen house? They actually have an exchange program. Some people want to be exchanged to a foreign school. Those people are stupid. Why go abroad to meet a cute Euro/Australian/South American girl for the summer when you could attend an all-girl school (with more favorable odds) right here?

He wanted to come for the educational experience. (And the women.) He was looking forward to living near Boston. (And lots of women.) To him, this was a chance of a lifetime.

“I thought it would be really fascinating to be the only male at an all-women’s college,” said Usman…

“I want to try new things, and the greatest part of a liberal-arts education is experiencing a wide variety of things. It’s important to me to get the most of my 50 Gs…” [Link]

Brother, we all want to try new things and get the most. I admire your educational ambitions. Once more we are the model minority. But…what do your parents think?

Usman, the fourth child of Pakistani immigrants who own a variety store in the Bronx, enrolled at Wellesley for the fall semester like everyone else. His parents, who dropped him off on campus, were surprised to see so many women, mostly because Usman had failed to tell them that Wellesley was a women’s college. [Link]

Last week, I wrote a post about ABC’s Notes From the Underbelly (which, btw, is on tonight at 9:30) and most of the comment thread was as fun and fluffy as I expected it to be. In light of that, I am half-willing to apologize for my bromidic attempt at virtually playing the right and left sides of the audience off each other, like it was an old skool rap concert or a pep rally, but most of you resisted my super-smack talk about Sunkrish vs Sendhil so all’s well that ends well…or is it?

One of the last comments on my post was left on Thursday, and it has bothered me since:

Punjabi Sikh kudis prefer clean-shaven men sans turban. They are quite vocal about that on all the Sikh dating and matrimonial sites. It has reached a crisis level in Canada and US with many Sikh men having to go to Desh to find a woman willing to take them with beard, turban and all. [link]

The handle this person chose (Broken Hearted Munda Looking for Kudi) made me extra sad. One of my closest friends is in this exact situation. He’s brilliant, hilarious, considerate and one of the sweetest people I have ever met—and he’s still single. And in his mid/late 30s. What would “normally” make a non-trivial number of girls gasp or pick out curtains— i.e. every attribute I listed in the last sentence PLUS two ivy degrees— seems to come second to the fact that he is a rather Orthodox Sikh. I don’t think the issue is his tee totaling/clean living; I think it’s his turban and beard.

Today, we received another pained comment, from a different person (Munda Still Looking for Kudi), on the same thread:

These women also cite 9/11 and subsequent discrimination against turbanned men as an excuse to avoid us like the plague. They say they don’t want to attract unneccessary attention and inconvenience and do not want to see their men and future children placed in possibly dangerous situations. Is this a cop out? [link]

Oh, 9/11. You changed everything. Now you consistently inspire nightmares like last week’s violence against an innocent Sikh cabdriver in Seattle, who was just trying to help an inebriated person get home, per the police’s request:

Trying to escape the attack, the 48-year-old victim stopped in a car pool lane Saturday night on Interstate 5, near Columbian Way, and scrambled out, state troopers said. His attacker had punched, choked and bitten him, calling him an “Iraqi terrorist,” according to police reports…

The suspect knocked off the victim’s turban and tore out clumps of his hair, according to reports. The beating continued as the victim fell onto the road. The victim briefly was hospitalized at Harborview Medical Center for injuries that included a concussion and bite marks on his head, according to police and acquaintances.

State troopers were called about 8 p.m. A Metro bus stopped next to the cab to block traffic after seeing the suspect attacking the victim in the road. Witnesses aboard the bus made dozens of calls to 911, Merrill said. [MSNBC]

The only comfort I take from that story is that the bus stopped while its riders frantically called 911…to report a crime which was inspired by those very numbers.