August 28, 2008

DNC Day 4: Strangers in a Strange Land

Our whole time here, while we’ve been blogging, nobody has really asked Ravi or I what we do. I know what I am suggesting is silly. Why should they? We are Sepia Mutiny. We blog. A lot of them read the blog. What else is there other than that we are bloggers here to report? But that is not what we are and there is an important point here so bear with me. Blogging is just a hobby. It was created out of nothing four years ago and my personal objective was to gain access to this convention. Access to “power,” so that we could tell the story from the inside. We are still outsiders here though, both at the fundraising luncheons and in the press room where people keep bitching about how the celebrity press (Couric and Cooper) gets treated better. We are here because we claimed this spot. We wanted it bad enough because we see the potential our community has if they get more involved…and not by simply raising money. A life in politics where money is important isn’t the only way in.

Ravi is about to enter college at Harvard next week and major in applied math. I have degrees in aerospace engineering and geology. We are not bundlers, politicians, or journalists. We aren’t getting paid a dime for any of this and we aren’t asking for a dime for our posts. We are doing what we do because we have something to say and something we believe in. For those of you sitting at home watching the coverage and thinking you have to be rich or an important politician to participate in this process I’d like to point you to an article about the headline speaker tonight. Sometimes you just show up and think on your feet because you believe in yourself and what you want to do:

The Democratic National Convention is akin to a longstanding family reunion. And eight years ago, Barack Obama was not on the guest list… He was drained of money and confidence, fresh from a punishing defeat in a Congressional primary race here. Even the Illinois delegation did not have room at the party’s gathering in Los Angeles for Mr. Obama, then a 39-year-old lawyer, who had annoyed some state Democrats for not waiting his turn to seek a higher office.

Never mind all that. Mr. Obama bought a plane ticket and headed west anyway.

He persuaded a clerk at the car rental agency to overlook the unpaid balance on his credit card, and he made his way to the festivities. He was not a delegate — not even close to being a superdelegate — and without a floor credential he had all the sway of the junior state senator that he was.

“I have no memory of him there,” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, recalled in an interview the other day. “It was a disastrous trip for him…”

When party activists gathered in Chicago to nominate Bill Clinton to a second term in 1996, Mr. Obama was making his first run for political office, but he did not have enough clout to get full access to the convention. Instead, he concluded that high-dollar breakfasts and dinners seemed to lock voters out of the system, grousing to a reporter, “The convention’s for sale, right?”… [Link]

This week I have been repeatedly “taught” that money equals access. And yet, Ravi and I are here with better access than many journalists we’ve met, not because we have money to donate but because we have a mission. I am sitting in the press box at the 50 yard line (pics coming later) waiting to hear Obama accept his party’s nomination 45 years to the day after Dr. King’s “I have a Dream Speech.” Someone pinch me. And then someone tell me to get back on the ball and give you more behind the scenes action so maybe you’ll be inspired by the events here to make your own change.

abhi at 09:06 PM in Blog, Politics · 27 comment(s) · Direct link

August 25, 2008

Another political shirt served fresh

Here is the next t-shirt design released by myself and Manish, just in time for the political season. More to come. You can place your orders here. Hopefully by the dozen!

Need the backstory? See here.

abhi at 06:30 PM in Blog, Politics · 12 comment(s) · Direct link

August 24, 2008

Twas the night before...

I never went to journalism school and I haven’t taken a writing class since my freshman year of college (as I am sure is more than apparent to long time readers). Thus, I’ve been kind of flustered all day today (on the eve of one of SM’s biggest moments) as to how to prepare for THIS. If you know me then you know I am an obsessive, to the point of ridiculousness, preparer (which has actually served me well for my chosen profession). However, I don’t really know how to prepare for the responsibility we now have and neither does our young new blogger Ravi , who has already started blogging from Denver. He hasn’t even been to college yet! What the hell were they thinking letting us crash these gates?

I sat down tonight and started preparing dossiers (well…ummm…index cards) on some of the people we want to interview. We want SM readers to get some firsthand insight into who the South Asian Americans are that are going to this Convention, some serving as delegates. I’m also reading the book all those political types are reading so I can sound somewhat smart when I get there.

The logistics of the convention alone are a total nightmare. Venues are spread all over Denver. Luckily I lived in Colorado for two years so I remember some of the streets and have a place to crash with a friend. My flight gets in too late and I am going to miss the IALI Cocktail hour where all the South Asian Democrat big-wigs are going to be schmoozing, but Ravi will be there. Last Tuesday I put in a request to interview Joe Biden about his views on Pakistan. After Saturday morning’s big news I’m sure that’s not going to happen.

We just want you all to know that we are excited and we hope that you are excited too. We want to make this as participatory as possible so if you have story ideas or things you want to learn then hit us up and we will do our best to chase them down.

abhi at 11:01 PM in Blog, Politics · 6 comment(s) · Direct link

Sepia Mutiny's Tumblr and Twitter go Live

We here at Sepia Mutiny are always working (especially our sleep deprived admin Chaitan) behind the scenes to improve the site’s features, interactivity, and addictiveness. Thus, just in time for the Democratic National Convention, we are introducing two new SM features. The first is the new SM “shorts” site on our Tumblr page. This is the place where you can go to find small tidbits like quotes, pictures and videos that we are interested enough to want to blog, but might now have the time to write a full post about. It is in beta testing right now which means we are aware of a few issues (e.g. font colors, permalinks, etc.) that need to be worked out but we are on it. Both Ravi and I will be using this site A LOT while reporting from the convention so please visit it often this week. If I get to meet Fergie in Denver, for example, there will be a picture of us (but not of me touching any bumps) on our Tumblr site accompanied by a brief quote about how the meeting was a step forward for South Asian Americans in politics. Check us out:

The next feature we have added is an SM Twitter page. What’s Twitter?

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. [Link]

Whenever there is an event of interest to the South Asian American community (and we have a blogger there) we will microblog the event with “tweets.” Anna has been doing this already for a while now. More importantly, if a group of you are headed to an event (independent of each other) SM can “follow” your Twitter pages. Thus, we hope to be able to capture and post a diversity of reactions to the same event via our new Twitter feed. If you are going to be at the DNC or RNC in the next two weeks and want to participate then please create your own Twitter page and then email us (abhi at sepiamutiny dot com). We will “follow” you through SM so other readers can virtually attend through your microblogging.

Lastly, we are finally, seriously, working on a major site re-design. We hope to seamlessly incorporate all these new features and a re-vamped News Tab into a new accessible (yet still mutinous) format.

abhi at 11:36 AM in Blog · 9 comment(s) · Direct link

Denver or Minneapolis bound? Contact SM

If you are a South Asian American delegate, volunteer, politician, blogger, protester, anarchist, whatever and will be at the Democratic National Convention this week or the Republican National Convention the week after, please get in touch with us as soon as possible. Our blogging team is looking to talk to everyone we can find there in order to bring the full experience of these events to the online community. Please email me at abhi [at] sepia mutiny dot com ASAP.

If you know a friend going to either event and they don’t read/know about SM then please forward this to them. This is our chance to maximize the participation of the South Asian American community and every person that attends these events will have a unique experience that we’d like to share.

abhi at 11:27 AM in Blog · 1 comment(s) · Direct link

August 20, 2008

Mutinous Fashion: T-shirts for the political season

A few weeks back I offered a challenge to SM readers: Design t-shirts for me to wear at the Democratic National Convention next week and I’d buy them from you and publicize them:

design a t-shirt that features a political or social (but non-partisan) message and I can order it using Café Press, Threadless, or one of many other internet t-shirt companies. Send me the design at abhi [at] sepiamutiny dot com. I will narrow it down to the best entries and have SM readers vote on the finalists. I will be at the convention for three full days so I will purchase up to three winning t-shirts to wear on the floor. The more clever/funny/relevant/socially conscious your t-shirt, the more likely it is to grab attention and communicate your message to all the varied citizens expected to be in Denver

Well, a handful of you did take up the challenge (and I thank you)…but none to my satisfaction. What can I say, I am very hard to please and my standards are quite high (as the interns at our North Dakota headquarters know all too well). The response was also much less enthusiastic than I had hoped for. Thus, the always creative Manish and I joined forces once again (he did co-found SM in case you forget) to come up with our own original designs to sell to you all. Below are two that I will be sporting at the convention next week. These two are ready for sale now, but a few others will go on sale as early as next Monday, exclusively through SM and Ultrabrown.

Hopefully everyone understands the references but if not remind yourself here and here. Tell your friends.

abhi at 09:38 PM in Blog, Politics · 74 comment(s) · Direct link

August 13, 2008

Guest Blogger: Mallika

As long time readers of Sepia Mutiny know, we are nothing if not Fair and Balanced in our blogging here. Myself and Ravi are headed to the Democratic National Convention in just two weeks! It is only fair that SM also have a fearless blogger in Minneapolis rubbing shoulders with the elephants at the Republican National Convention. We know you are all equally excited about the happenings there. Thus I would like to introduce everyone to Ms. Mallika Rao.

Mallika is a Master’s Degree student in journalism at Northwestern University and has a temporary gig working for Reuters as well. That’s just the type of hungry young blogger we need to get the juice on why Jindal decided not to accept the VP position (should it have been offered) from McCain.

Please join me in welcoming Mallika to SM.

P.S. If you are a reader of this site and plan to be at the RNC then please contact us.

abhi at 11:40 PM in Blog · 24 comment(s) · Direct link

August 01, 2008

Guest Blogger: Ravi

As of this weekend we have invited yet another guest blogger into the fold of our secret world blogging headquarters in North Dakota. The twist this time is that our new blogger is only 18 years old, making him even younger than our over-worked intern (the intern was not happy about this). Here is the email we received from Ravi. It had a rather interesting proposition in it:

My name is Ravi M and I’m a graduating high school student from Lake Forest High School and I’ll be attending Harvard this fall. I’m an avid reader of your blog, and will be attending the DNC in a few weeks as a member of the Junior State of America’s 2008 Election Symposia, a non-profit, non-partisan civic education program. I’m writing because I’d like to offer my services/be considered to be a guest student correspondent for your blog during the DNC…This could give your blog an opportunity to showcase the viewpoints of a younger generation, and the trend in increasing political activism and awareness amongst my generation of Indian-Americans during this election year. I have experience as Editor-in-Chief of my school newspaper, and have won Scholastic Regional and National Awards for my journalism. In addition, I have served as the governor of the Junior State of America, a student-run debating organization, for the past two years, as well as Debate Team Captain the previous year, giving me a deep understanding of politics and the perspectives of our younger generation….

So now we will have two SM bloggers reporting from the convention n Denver in just a few weeks. Hmmm, maybe I can be the voice of the grizzled old cynic and Ravi can report with wide-eyed optimism. In any case, please join me in welcoming Ravi to SM.

Note: If any of our South Asian American readers has access to the Republican National Convention and would like to blog for SM from there then please email me: abhi [at] sepiamutiny dot com.

abhi at 11:36 PM in Blog · 37 comment(s) · Direct link

July 21, 2008

SM T-shirt contest: Making a Fashion Statement at the DNC

Folks, it is time to get excited about the fact that we will have greater South Asian participation than ever in this year’s Presidential election. Through this blog we also hope to provide a perspective from the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Denver next month that has been missing in previous years. This has been one of the long term goals of this blog after all. I will sniff out every conceivable brown angle I can find once I get there (especially if Huma is there). However, I would like to make this event as bi-directional as possible. I don’t want to show up there and simply write about what I want to write about. I want you all to send me ideas for what you’d like to learn. I’d like you guys to get me in touch with other South Asians you know will be there. I also want to know what you’d like me to communicate to the other bloggers and citizens I meet while I’m there.

In the spirit of that last point, and so we can have some fun with this, I am asking you guys to dress me. That’s right. You, the SM readers get to decide what I will wear on the convention floor next month. It is simple really: design a t-shirt that features a political or social (but non-partisan) message and I can order it using Café Press, Threadless, or one of many other internet t-shirt companies. Send me the design at abhi [at] sepiamutiny dot com. I will narrow it down to the best entries and have SM readers vote on the finalists. I will be at the convention for three full days so I will purchase up to three winning t-shirts to wear on the floor. The more clever/funny/relevant/socially conscious your t-shirt, the more likely it is to grab attention and communicate your message to all the varied citizens expected to be in Denver (the picture below is a perfect example of what I’m looking for). Let’s have some fun with this. My mom (retired from a major department store) has been dressing me all these years. It’s time for you guys to have a turn.

Just a clarification: I am looking for full t-shirt Designs, not merely slogans or catchphrases.

abhi at 08:18 PM in Blog, Humor, Politics · 47 comment(s) · Direct link

July 08, 2008

Where’s the brownz?

Recently, Fuerza Dulce buzzed me on IM to ask me if I was going to the conference on “Blogging while Brown.” A BwB conference? I’d not heard of such a thing, but website masthead was promising, claiming that this was a conference “for, by and about bloggers of color.”

I eagerly looked to see who they had invited as panelists, expecting to see some of my favorite desi bloggers mentioned, and perhaps some new ones I had not yet encountered. But there was not a single desi name listed of any sort, neither ABD, DBD, IBD, PBD, BBD, SLBD, NBD nor BVD.

Nor were there any Arab or Latino bloggers, another possibility for a conference on “brown bloggers.”

In fact, every single blogger listed was African-American. Blogging while brown may well have been true in terms of skin color, since “black” is a misnomer when describing the hue of African-Americans, but in all colloquial meanings of the word, the conference would better have been described as “Blogging while Black.” And while the bloggers on the panel were all bloggers of color, they represented only one slice of the “of color” spectrum.

What puzzles me is why the promoters of the conference aren’t be honest about what they’re doing. Why not just call themselves Blogging While Black? Are we so cool now that even black folks want to be brown?

ennis at 06:06 PM in Blog · 96 comment(s) · Direct link

May 29, 2008

Taking the Long View-Next Stop Denver!

SM began four years ago this summer after I wrote the bloggers who I read every day (who were all more accomplished bloggers than I) a hastily constructed email filled with bad grammar (some things never change). Part of it read like this:

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 21:05:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: “Abhi ”
Subject: My Fellow Bloggers…
To: “Vinod “, “Manish”, “Anna”

Guys,

I have been thinking something over of late and would like to know your thoughts. This is me thinking out loud so don’t worry at all about saying so if the following doesn’t seem like such a good idea or you are not interested. My brain tends to think faster than I can process it all to see if I am actually making sense.

All of us are bloggers and it seems like we all enjoy it as a hobby apart from our careers. We all have different focuses or perhaps no focus at all :) This past week with the Democratic Convention in the news, and all the talk of the bloggers that have been invited and how much power they seem to have, it got me thinking how there is no widely read news/issues/discussion/politics/random musings source target for South Asian Americans on the web. Sure there are lots of magazines like India Abroad and websites like Rediff, but all of these are “old media,” and so diffuse. They all rely on editorial staffs, deadlines, etc. and are not at all dynamic or interactive. There is none of the freshness that a blog can deliver. Plus, most of them lack the perspective of people that grew up in this country. I am convinced that there exists a vacuum out there on the web just waiting to be filled…

I was thinking “what if” all the most widely read South Asian American bloggers joined forces somehow and created a superblog based on the “Menudo” model. This could be the definitive source for South Asian issues/news/opinion/culture/entertainment etc.

All of the bloggers, guest bloggers, contributors, and administrators in our “Menudo” model have worked really hard over the years. Even our readers and commenters have been quoted by major media for their thoughtful opinions. Today, with the arrival of the email below, all of us can say we have a Macaca in the tent:

Congratulations. The Democratic Convention staff has completed its review of blog credential applications and I’m writing to let you know that your blog will be credentialed at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

We’re excited to welcome so many blogs to the Convention (about 3 times as many as 2004). And we know you’re eager to make travel plans for August. We’ll contact you next week with logistical information regarding housing, credential distribution, and other key details. You probably have several questions. Please be patient - as our goal is to distribute this information to all credentialed blogs at the same time.

We did it y’all.

[The full list can be found here]

abhi at 10:06 PM in Blog · 70 comment(s) · 2 reader(s) linked · Direct link

May 27, 2008

Thank you readers!

After we put out a call for donations to keep the site going last Tuesday, SM readers responded graciously by helping us meet our target for the next year in one week! We appreciate every dollar and will do our best to keep SM as interesting, informative, and relevant as we possibly can. I’d especially like to thank the following individuals who gave extra large sums to put us over the hump:

Alma, Sandhya, Susan, Jayanand, Anunradha, Chaitan (our admin), Rachel, Ansabenazeer

I’ll be writing each of you an email to thank you.

But I want to give a general thanks to everyone who contributed. I know a lot of the people that donated are students. Having been a college student for a total of 10 years I know that every dollar is a big deal.

For those of you who would still like to contribute, we will keep the money in a separate account to only pay for SM server costs. All our labor, including the bloggers and fabulous admins is on a volunteer basis (and if you are a website designer who thinks you can improve SM then let us know).

And in case you are wondering what the point of it all is, keep your fingers extra crossed this week.

abhi at 11:27 PM in Blog · Add comment · Direct link

May 20, 2008

SM Pledge Drive Time: Help us keep blogging!

It is time once again for us bloggers at Sepia Mutiny to extend our empty cups and ask for donations to keep this website running. Remember, every time you visit our site it costs us money. We don’t bother you guys with any money-making ads on this site, nor do we sell out to the man and write what he asks us to write for cold cash (I drive a Honda Accord with 120,000 miles on it). We blog only the truth from our bunker headquarters in North Dakota, shunning the high life.

Much like NPR and PBS hold an annual pledge drive, we are asking you to donate whatever you can via our Paypal link. Keep in mind that we haven’t asked for any donations in 2 years! If you don’t want to use Paypal but would rather mail in a check, then contact us for a mailing address. Donations will keep our website ad-free and crap-free. Our administrator extraordinaire Chaitan, will soon put up a thermometer on the sidebar showing our progress in raising funds. It will disappear once we have met our goal for continuing service. If enough of you give just a few dollars we might be able to meet our goal in under a week like we have in the past. As an added measure (since it is only a trickle in terms of revenue) you can also take Amardeep’s recommendation from earlier today and help us out by buying South Asian literature (or electronics or DVDs, etc.) via our Amazon Affiliate link (we’ll soon put up a permanent widget). It will give us a nominal commission.

Whether you love this site (all you wonderful commenters and lurkers who use us as a time sink) or hate us (you fundamentalists who send us unintentionally humorous death threats) I’m sure you’d like to see us blog on!

Thanks in advance!

abhi at 11:06 PM in Blog · 15 comment(s) · Direct link

Support Sepia Mutiny -- Without It Costing You a Dime

Chuck D once described Hip Hop as the “black CNN,” and he was briefly right. (Nowadays, sadly, it is closer to QVC — i.e., all product placement, all the time.)

Sepia Mutiny was, I think, conceived of by its original members along similar lines: a “desi CNN,” if you will. Over time, of course, it’s evolved, and while nowadays it might occasionally seem more like “Desi NPR” than “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,” we do try and throw in The Great Khali and some ritualized baby-throwing to keep things lively. (Yeah, boyeeee.)

Abhi, who’s planning to formally kick off a fundraising drive in a couple of days in a separate post, tells me that a site with Sepia Mutiny’s level of traffic costs $1200 a year to maintain. Since we don’t use ads (on purpose — being ad-free lets us be more honest & independent), we try and rely on support from readers to help defray that cost.

One way you can help us, if you like, is to use our Amazon Associates account number if/when you shop at Amazon. It doesn’t need to be attached to a particular purchase; as long as you enter the site through a click from a Sepia Mutiny link, like this one, we can potentially get a small commission off of any purchase you make on Amazon following that click-through. And it won’t cost you anything.

(Using Amazon Associates is, admittedly, a form of advertising, but it’s really advertising for Amazon.com, not for a particular product.)

We probably won’t be able to raise enough money to cover all our costs this way, and a direct “PayPal” appeal will probably happen all the same, but we did want to make sure readers were aware of this option. Here, for instance, are some of the books we’ve talked about recently (all the links below are keyed into Sepia Mutiny’s Amazon Associates account): Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World, Manil Suri, Age of Shiva, Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures, V.V. Ganeshananthan, Love Marriage, Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth, Chetan Bhagat, One Night @ the Call Center (which, admittedly, I hated), and Tahmima Anam, A Golden Age.

We do this site for fun. While there is the occasional small perk, the truth is, when we review desi-themed books, movies, plays, the performing arts, and so on, we’re doing it because we’re passionate about it. When we start up discussions about issues relating to politics, identity, economics, science & health, and Washington Redskins Cheerleaders, we’re doing it because we love the conversation with you readers (the cheerleaders, not so much… ok, a little).

And finally, when we talk about life and death matters — such as Bone Marrow drives that could potentially save lives — we do it of course because we care (indeed, this issue hits closer to home for some of us bloggers than most of you know). But it’s also important to talk about those things because the mainstream media would likely never bother to cover something so “particular” to one ethnic group: the South Asian community.

Thanks in advance, guys.

amardeep at 10:47 AM in Blog · 33 comment(s) · Direct link

March 16, 2008

Posts that fall into the cracks

As has been said (by some of the individual bloggers that write here) many times in the past, we don’t always have the time to blog all the wonderful news tips, events, causes, new blogs, etc. that are sent to us via the tip line, email, or the top secret phone line. It isn’t that your tip/cause/event isn’t worthy, it’s just that there aren’t enough hours in the day to blog everything and still pursue a normal, blog-free life. In order to be worth crafting into a post in the first place, some items take a lot more research and individual interest than others. We all attempt to add some value to any item we post. We encourage you to use the News Tab and Events Tab as much as possible.

That being said, I did want to draw your attention to three recent “tips” that I didn’t want falling through the cracks:

1) The fellowship application deadline for Indicorps is fast approaching and I know there are many SM readers who would make perfect candidates:

Who: You! Indicorps seeks to engage the most talented young Indians from around the world on the frontlines of India’s most pressing challenges; in the process, we aim to nurture a new brand of socially conscious leaders with the character, knowledge, commitment, and vision to transform India and the world.

Why Now: We are currently recruiting soon-to-be college graduates and professionals of Indian origin for our August 2008-2009 Fellowship. There are over 50 exciting community-based projects ranging from educating tribal youth in Maharashtra to increasing production of natural dye based products in Karnataka.

2) There is a new blog worth checking out called Out Against Abuse. It is a forum dedicated to issues surrounding domestic abuse in the South Asian community:

Out against abuse is an online blog based forum created to bring together activists, volunteers, survivors, and members of the community to encourage the discussion of gender related abuse and how it affects the South Asian community. We hope through constant dialogue and collaboration we can all learn from each other and work to educate our community on how to end gender related violence in our homes and lives. [Link]

3) Finally, The Kominas have a new album out titled, “Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay.” Taz featured them in a post back in 2006. I hope they get on to the new Harold and Kumar movie soundtrack with that title:

This is the highly anticipated debut release of quite possibly the most popular Taqwacore band in existence. The CD was recorded with the band fresh off the first US Taqwacore tour. The CD includes old crowd favorites like “Suicide Bomb the Gap” and “Sharia Law in the USA,” but also includes newer songs with a more punk edge, like “Blow Shit Up.” [Link]

Keep sending in the tips. We won’t be able to blog each one but we do read them all.

abhi at 10:21 PM in Blog, Music, Non-profits · 5 comment(s) · Direct link

March 07, 2008

Guest Blogger: Sandhya

This morning, I was sleeping late in my hammock in the bunker when Rajni came in and tried to wake me up. I slept through her first and second attempts. Finally she got so annoyed with me that she swung the hammock upside down, sending me crashing rudely to the hard concrete floor. “Silly bugger!” Said she, “Sandhya will be here in 30 minutes and the guest room is still a mess from the party you threw last night and … what are we going to do with Sandhya’s herd of elephants?”

Well, that got me off the floor in a hurry. You see, Sandhya is a friend from the days before this blog, heck, since the days before blogging in general. She’s one of those old fashioned writers who writes for publication on dead trees as well as live electrons, and the bunker was an absolute and total disaster. I’d like to report that I have it all cleaned up now, but that would be a lie. Instead, we have what I hope will be comfortable enough temporary accomodations for our newest guest blogger.

One other thing about Sandhya - she’s the most diasporic desi I know. You see, while my parents came from the motherland to here, Sandhya is a third generation African who grew up between three continents. Holy Gogol Ganguly! But I’ll let her tell you her own stories rather than stealing her thunder.

I hope you make Sandhya feel welcome.

ennis at 01:14 PM in Blog · 21 comment(s) · Direct link

December 31, 2007

A Mutinous Look Back at 2007

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

• Rachel
• Hetal
• Kapila
• Lemurians
• Varsha
• DBD
• Scythians
• Anand Jon
• Padma
• Zed
• Whoa
• Vinay
• Sameer
• Kal
• Bobby
• Mushy
• Benazir
• Maya

See how I tried to be all slick and minimalist? Just first names? Yeah, that didn’t work for everything. Por ejemplo, the only post which has ever roared past the 1,000 comment mark: Whoa— is dating White not right? Simplifying that to just “Whoa” probably would not remind you of that infamous comment orgy.

A note about the first two bullets- I couldn’t settle on just ONE Sanjaya or Obama post, so I gave you all of them. You decide which one is your favorite…or don’t, I mean, it’s almost 5pm and some of you are already pre-pre-partying. For those who are interested in getting so contemplative, because this list is incomplete, feel free to comment about what stories stood out to you in 2007. Much happened at the Mutiny, including the spontaneous, natural and collective decision to rename and reframe an epithet and the experience it crudely conjured; FOB was replaced by the more respectful and apposite “DBD”, an acronym which means “Desh-born Desi”.

As this site grows, sometimes it’s difficult to remember that we are still a community; the birth of that acronym is one of my favorite moments of 2007 because despite SM evolving in to something quite different from what it once was, it indicated that change is not the same as an ending. That seems like a wonderful way to regard a day like today, a time like this, and a possibility-laden new year. Mutineers, I wish you beginnings, endings, changes, surprises, bliss and everything else you deserve, in 2008. :)

anna at 04:53 PM in Blog, Humor, Musings, Reviews, Theater · 90 comment(s) · Direct link

December 26, 2007

Guest Blogging from Singapore & Malaysia

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.

If you have been following the recent news, people of Indian and Sri Lankan origin in Malaysia have been protesting the government’s Malay-first policies. In late November, some 10,000 Indian protesters clashed with police in KL and the leaders of HINDRAF, an Indian rights group were detained. Malaysia’s prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has been making the right noises about minority rights, including plans to halt the destruction of Hindu temples, but tensions remain high and the outcome unclear.

It’s a dynamic region, one of the most culturally diverse in the world. In addition to the various South Asian communities and the native Malays, there are large and important Chinese, Thai, and Indonesian populations, a big mix of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, and animists (indeed, it’s often unclear where one ethnicity ends and another begins). There’s a huge amount of money at stake. Malaysia is well integrated into Tom Friedman’s global supply chain for the manufacture of computers by American and Chinese companies. The Straits of Malacca are the most strategic choke point for the global shipping industry (piracy, terrorism). Malaysia still exports rubber and the surprisingly lucrative substance of palm oil. Plus, it makes a lot of the furniture you buy at Ikea.

South Asians have been involved in, and have benefited from, all this growth. In the next few weeks, Sugi and I will be posting about this stuff. Stay tuned.

And a personal request: we’d like to meet Mutineers in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, informally or in an organized meet-up. So if you are interested, send up a flare. You can also post in the thread I started in the SM Facebook group.

preston at 12:30 PM in Blog · 26 comment(s) · Direct link

December 18, 2007

Announcement: Abhi and Amardeep on Houston Public Radio

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?

amardeep at 03:40 PM in Blog · 58 comment(s) · Direct link

December 17, 2007

Meet the Mutiny: SM interviews Candidate J. Ashwin Madia

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.

Abhi: How did your family feel about you being deployed to Iraq? Did you join the military through a ROTC program that helped pay for college or by some other manner?

Madia: They didn’t like it. I think it’s natural for family members to worry, particularly my parents, who of course are from India and had no prior experience with the American military - let alone the Marine Corps - prior to me joining. Mom and Dad initially didn’t even like the idea of me getting in the Corps in the first place, because I think they had an idea in their head of what it was (brainwashing, hazing, etc.) that was based on certain media images but not necessarily reality. They came to love it, though - after I got through basic training and was stationed in Japan, they really came to appreciate it. I didn’t join through ROTC. At the end of college, I just decided I wanted to do it, so I went through a program that let me go through Officer Candidates School, then go through law school, and then go on active duty immediately afterwards and report to The Basic School.

Abhi: Your opponents will probably focus in on your relatively young age in their efforts to sell themselves as more experienced than you. How do you hope to convince the voters that you have enough experience and don’t need to start with a more local position?

Madia: A few ways. First, on the age question. When we make a decision to go to war, it’s young people that end up going. When we make the decision to bust our budget, it’s young people that will end up paying for it. And when we make the decision to trash our planet, it’s young people that will inherit the consequences. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have someone under the age of 50 contributing to our national discussion on these policies. On the experience question, I say that experience is important, but there’s different kinds of experience. I may not have experience sitting in committee meetings, but I’ve got experience in Iraq, and with the military. When I talk about Iraq and the military, it’s not because I read about it in a book or saw it in a movie - I was there. I have experience advocating on behalf of unemployed people, immigrants, disabled children, battered women, and the LGBT community. In fact, I was one of the first marines to successfully defend a gay marine from “don’t ask, don’t tell.” I’ve traveled much of the world: India, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq, and seen some of the effects our policies have on other nations. In short, I haven’t been sitting on my hands for 29 years - I’ve done a lot of living and have plenty of life experience to draw on. Finally, I’d point out that Dick Cheney has plenty of experience, but that obviously hasn’t made him a great vice president. There are other traits that matter: values, integrity, judgment, dependability, unselfishness, courage, and endurance. I’d like people to look at my life and my stances and judge for themselves whether I have these traits.

Abhi: Why are you running as a Democrat? Researching your background one wonders why a lifelong Republican (I’m assuming since you were a member of the College Republicans at the University of Minnesota) would decide to run as a Democrat. Do your ideals now align better with the Democrats and is this primarily because of your experience in Iraq or is it because of a host of issues?

Madia: It’s true that I considered myself a moderate Republican in college, but I wasn’t a member of the College Republicans. When I ran for student-body president, I ran with a liberal Democrat as my running mate, and my supporters (and ultimate governing coalition) were a motley crew comprised of moderate Dems, moderate Repubs, and a whole lot of independents. I stopped calling myself a Republican in late 2002, when the Iraq War resolution was stampeded through Congress - I didn’t understand why we couldn’t give the UN inspectors more time to find out if Iraq really had WMD and I didn’t like the political timing of the resolution (Nov 2002 - just in time for our domestic elections). I also was disgusted by what the RNC did to Max Cleland (triple amputee Vietnam War veteran), comparing him to Bin Laden in its ads. I didn’t want to be associate with them anymore, so I left, and haven’t looked back since.

Abhi: Your first name is Jigar but you go by Ashwin (for the purposes of your campaign I suppose). What does your family call you (feel free to include embarrassing nicknames)?

Madia: I’ve used my middle name for years, but my family and old friends still call me Jigar. Mom also calls me “Jiggie,” “Jiggie-baby,” and of course, “Beta.” Something tells me no election in the world could get her to stop. I wouldn’t want her to stop, anyway.

Abhi: What are the top two changes you’d like to bring to your district? I mean specific policy changes you’d like to implement, not just vague ideals.

Madia: First, I want to expand Minneapolis’s light rail system to the western suburbs in my district. There are many people in my district who live in the suburbs, but work downtown (and vice versa, as well). If I can get some federal funds to help quicken the expansion of the light rail - everybody wins: it’s better for the environment, it clears congestion on our local highways, it produces jobs to build and operate the new lines, and increases productivity for businesses as their employees will be coming in to work fresh and rested, not having just spent an hour honking their horn in bumper to bumper traffic. Second, I want to help create a fund that will assist some people in my district - particularly the northern part of my district - who have been deeply affected by the sub-prime loan crisis.

Abhi: Reading up on you I got the feeling that running for office isn’t something you just decided to do on a whim, or even mostly because of your experiences in Iraq. It seems (please correct me if I am wrong) as though you’ve been working toward this methodically for years. When you were in 5th grade, what did you say you wanted to be when you grew up?

Madia: When I was in 5th grade, I’m pretty sure I was telling people I wanted to be a basketball player. I used to shoot hoops for hours every day (it was the one sport that I was reasonably competent at, so naturally I should do it professionally, right?). As I got older, I always thought I’d be a doctor, I think. Not because I was particularly interested in medicine, but more just because that’s what I think I felt was sort of expected. I never really thought hard about it and just assumed that’s where I would end up. I was pre-med in college for a couple years, but - I discovered, or maybe was reminded - I’m terrible at science. Organic Chemistry handed me my rear end and I decided it was probably best for everyone if I found another career path. I majored in political science and decided to go to law school. I was always interested in politics, but never really thought of myself as a candidate. I thought I’d do a tour in the Corps and then come back home and maybe try to open up a small practice. It didn’t quite happen that way, but everything happens for a reason.

Abhi: In your opinion/experience do South Asian Americans contribute enough money to political campaigns? If not, then why not? Do you think they are just uninspired by candidates or are they uninterested in politics in general?

Madia: You know, I’ve heard that before but I haven’t experienced it personally. In fact, I’d say the opposite. South Asian Americans have been incredibly supportive and generous to my campaign and I’m very grateful for it. I’m a first time candidate who’s never run for anything before, yet they (and others) have given to me in amazing numbers, and I’m honored by it. Of course, I’d like more - both in terms of larger contributions and larger numbers of South Asian Americans believing in my campaign and contributing, but that’s more a function of just how expensive it is to run. So, if you’re reading this, and you believe in my campaign, please forward my website and your personal endorsement on to people you think might be supportive. Sorry to do that, guys, but I have to. I hate asking for money, but it’s just a necessity for this line of work. I’m a proud man and so is my dad. I could be unemployed and out on the street and I wouldn’t ask anyone for a dime, but since I decided to do this, I spend most of my day asking for money. Ultimately, I think we need to move toward public financing of campaigns to just take the money out of it.

Abhi: To the best of your knowledge are there any particular issues that South Asian American voters in your district care about more than the average voter? Are there any issues that you have a position on that you feel might inspire South Asian American voters from outside of your district to contribute to your campaign?

Madia: I think many care about the bureaucracy and inefficiency at the Dep’t of Homeland Security in processing citizenship applications. I’d like to explore the reasons for the bottleneck there and find out if there’s a way we can make it better, so that it still effectively processes and screens, but without the exceedingly long waiting periods. In terms of specific issues that might inspire South Asian Americans from outside my district to contribute, I don’t know. I think the issues that are the basis of my campaign - ending the Iraq War responsibly; balancing our budget; addressing global warming; making health care more affordable and accessible; renewing the federal commitment to education; and restoring and safeguarding our civil liberties - apply to all of us and I hope and believe that South Asian Americans will be motivated by them. Also, I think it’d be remarkable to have a South Asian American in Congress - currently, there are none in the House and none in the Senate. Bobby Jindal was the only one and he moved on to become Governor in Louisiana.

Abhi: Based on your campaign so far, what one point of concrete advice can you give our readers who might want to run for a Congressional seat of their own someday?

Madia: If you want to run, run. No matter what, just do it. Do not listen to all of the bad odds that people will give you and the reasons to wait, etc. There will always be more reasons not to run than to run, e.g. you have a nice job, it will disrupt your life, you need more time, etc. Don’t listen to those reasons - just get in and pursue it with everything you’ve got. You can either wait your entire life for someone to tap you on the shoulder and say, “Now, it’s ok - it’s time, you should run now,” or you can get in, give it everything inside of you, talk from your heart, and say what you’ve got to say. Run if you have the desire to do it.

If any of you would like to get involved or contribute to Madia’s campaign, you can do so by visiting his website. But first, interview him with your own questions. Like I said, I was just getting him warmed up for you all.

abhi at 07:57 AM in Blog, Politics, Profiles · 52 comment(s) · Direct link

December 13, 2007

And now a couple of programming notes

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.

abhi at 12:34 AM in Blog · 13 comment(s) · Direct link

November 03, 2007

Greetings from SAWCC: (Mistaken) Identity, Panels and Drama...oh, my!

First, a wee bit o’ liveblogging:

Amardeep’s panel: “Politics of writing- act of writing as political”

Who is your audience?

Amardeep: I’ve written for mags/lit crit…very fixed idea of those readers, they’re like me…left, progressive, academic…on SM, I have no idea who is reading, there are so many types, many armchair warriors. Hindu natl’ists tend to respond to me. Even if these are people you don’t like/detest for their views…you have to be willing to work w/them to define what history is, @ this particular juncture. I find it invigorating, even though it’s rancorous/unpleasant. In a sense, I find it more interesting to talk to more conservative people to work out consensus vision, if consensus is possible.

As a Sikh, do you separate your identity…or is it subjective?

People don’t really seem to care about what I think of mainstream authors, in that sense my identity comes through. They want to hear about E M Forster, instead of my thoughts on Graham Greene…enven though thoughts on Greene more relevant/interesting.

On SM, people see my pic and are expecting a certain perspective to inform what I do.

Mira Kamdar (author of Planet India): On internet, there are multiple audiences and things are instantaneous. Rxns rarely come back to me, they come to the blog sites, in comments. Had to create a sep email add for editorial on India lobby, on recommendation of papers editors…ended up needing it. Internet has complicated audience.

As for authorial identification- it’s always strange, my name is very Indian and my physical appearance isn’t. Am I really a desi person, am I not? As a child, I asked “Mommy which way am I half-n-half, up and down or sideways?” I just write whatever I want to, sometimes I put out my ethnic identity. I felt the need to speak out about Gujurat riots…still get death threats and hate mail for my pains.

I’m one of the only women writing about nuke deal…can you think of many others?

(Mod is adorable and so funny. ;) Especially when she’s revising her questions.)

Sita Bhaskar (author of Shielding Her Modesty): (after discussing her short stories) I was told by my brothers, “don’t mess with Jayalalitha!”

Even though I wrote fiction, I was told by my family not to visit India, b/c of (controversial themes).

I’m a computer consultant and project manager, everything we say while working is very right (pc)…my friends say, “you literally take off your skin when you go to work”…so I put a little message/identity in stories.

Audience question: Is there a space where writers and artists can use to put out their work, where they don’t have to comply…commodify…

Moderat: If I can answer that…the internet…publishing is facing what music industry did, where the way artists distribute work has changed…there’s also self-publishing…it’s a negotiated process right now.

Mira Kamdar: I think the internet/blogs are so popular because they are free spaces where people can get around things and say whatever the hell they want…if your book is published by a smaller press…academic press, you’re going to have a totally different experience than if you go through a big house.

Random, confusing, now-forgotten-b/c-I-was-commenting-below question:

Amardeep: On internet, you have to marshal your facts, b/c if you don’t, you’ll hear about it immediately, from everyone, that you were wrong. You’ll hear that it was “okay that 500 people died in this conflict, because of this factor”…you have to be prepared.

Mod: …same with Sri Lanka…the conflict. Your subjective experience on the ground and your ethnic identity you’re bringing to this colors every (news) report…there’s just no way to know.

SALMAGUNDI:

Viagra as recurring joke:

Mira’s new email, the one she created for the India Lobby article— she got lots of viagra offers among the hate and “strong” reactions.

Sita Bhaskar has a short story involving an older couple who come to America— the husband decides he wants viagra, the wife blames this on U.S. Sita sends this tale to her brother, who is one of her “editors”, he said, “No 50-year old Indian male is like that!” Also, in Pakistan, Bhaskar’s cover is criticized but they LOVE the viagra story!

Mira Kamdar: It was Baton Rouge, LA, I was 30 yrs old, a woman with a PhD…I had such a social life let me tell you— there was no need for viagra.

::

Yes, yes drama is coming, please to be patient, it’s HILARIOUS.

::

GETTING KICKED OUT OF BUILDING. :D i.e. no more net! Speaking of…

I was able to do this thanks to the highly awesome Corinne, who helped me get online! THANKS CORINNE. :)

anna at 04:42 PM in Blog · 18 comment(s) · Direct link

October 29, 2007

It is here ... And changed things forever

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

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

Scope: The changes / new features only apply to the News and Events tabs. The blog itself remains unaffected. We know you love it just the way it is, so we dare not change too many things without warning. Some of us may even be too old to cope with change … ummm … ;)

Sign In: Most of the updated / new features now require you to sign in. During sign in, you will be taken to a third party website - TypeKey, an authentication service from the makers of MovableType. After you (freely register if necessary and) sign in, you will be automatically redirected back to our site for us to uniquely recognize you as a sepia user. Hold it, before you say it, we are not trying to track you down, we just want to be able to tell you all apart. And it’s not just us, sometimes you need to tell each other apart. Specifically, we will not publish your email address associated with your TypeKey account. We respect your privacy.

Post Story / Event: You must now be signed in to post a story or event to take credit as tipster. This affects the Enlighten The Mutiny! bookmarklet you use to post stories. You must be signed in, prior to using the bookmarklet, to post a story.

Mutinous?: Sometimes it’s not enough to send us tips, spam our email, call our cell phones and bang on our doors in the middle of the night to tell us you’ve got a new story! Each news story posted can now be voted using the mutinous? link next to the story. This will tell us and fellow brown folk what’s interesting, hot and sizzling andhra pickle hot!

Popular Menu: The popular menu on top will sort the news stories based on what you like.
- New is the default option that shows the latest tips we receive.
- Popular sorts news tips that have been generating a lively discussion in their comments section.
- Top in 24 Hr, 7 Days, 30 Days, 365 Days all sort news tips based on the number of people macacas think it’s mutinous.
- The above sort options can be further filtered by Category, such as Humor, Politics etc.

Profile: You can tell the world who you are, what you do and confuse us with your strange handles, or just tell us like it is and keep it real (simple)! Tell us a little bit (or a lot) about yourself on your profile. Your profile will be automatically linked to your tip or comment handle.
- Stats: The profile page also features a stats section in order to distinguish the regulars from the visitors.
- Stories: The stories sections will show the stories you posted, you liked, and your popular and top submissions.

Comments: We know you have a lot to say about a lot of things, so here is even more room to say it. Each news tip can now be discussed in its own comments section. And plus, heavily discussed news topics make it into the popular section of the news tab, so we and fellow site visitors know where all the ruckus is.

Semi-auto moderation: From time to time (or perhaps most of the time these days) we have the he said, she said debate in comment threads turning into flame wars. Here’s a way to curb that a little bit .
- In the News tab, tell us if a story is a duplicate (or commercial spam) by using the Duplicate (or Spam) link and we will take care of such old or duplicate stories, and ensure the earliest tipster gets credit. Use the buttons, and help keep the News tab clean and interesting with only the latest stories.
- In the News Comments page, tell us if a comment is violating our comment policy i.e., abusive (or irrelevant / spam), by using the Abusive (or Spam) button and we can delete it for you. Use these buttons, and help keep the Comments section stay on-topic.
- Please use these moderation features judiciously. Improper use of these features will be tracked and may result in banning. So play nice. :)

In The Works: We are working on more toys for you to play with. Got suggestions? Feel free to share with me or via our Contact Us page. Pats on the back are welcome too. :)

Credits: Ok, stop rolling your eyes. This took a lot of time and effort in creating.

Abhi has been the driving force behind this. All the time he spent discussing ideas and patiently answering questions about every little detail. Thanks! This project would have never happened without him.

Thanks to Neha for her support. And thanks to Kunjan especially. So many times I’ve come close to breaking things, and thought I had no other choice but to call the governor of ND state and have a state of emergency declared. But he was there to rescue me from myself. Phew! (uh-oh … I hope Abhi doesn’t read that part.)

Thanks to the bloggers for making this place an inspiration. Thanks to the regular readers, commenters for their suggestions, to Payal, Amit and many others who I may not have interacted with directly, but nevertheless deserve credit for pouring in ideas. THANKS!

chaitan at 12:03 AM in Blog · 61 comment(s) · Direct link

October 26, 2007

Something Wicked This Way Comes

It is coming to Sepia Mutiny on Monday. Things won’t be the same.

abhi at 12:26 AM in Blog · 74 comment(s) · Direct link

September 25, 2007

Friend requests and other dilemmas

Writing over at Slate.com today, Reihan Salam breaks down a family of dilemmas that many of us are facing in this increasingly, “I need a cool profile” world:

Last week, I launched the Great Facebook Purge of 2007. In one fell swoop, I whittled down a list of 274 “friends” to a more manageable … um, 258. Even weeding out this tiny amount of people was difficult and unpleasant. Almost every subtraction made me wince. While my intention had been to de-friend every hanger-on and casual acquaintance, I just couldn’t do it. All I could stomach is eliminating everyone I’ve literally never met in my life. I still have three “friends” I know only via e-mail, though given that we’re firmly in the Digital Age, I figure this is acceptable. [Link]

Anna wrote a bit about taking the plunge into Facebook a few weeks back and also mentioned that Sepia Mutiny now has its own group. Like everyone else, SM started with Friendster and then briefly flirted with the idea of that idiotic, EvErYoNe HeRe SpElLs LiKe ThIs, Myspace site. Now it seems Facebook is the place to be. For South Asian Americans, who still number only a few million strong in the United States, a profile of you is that much easier to dig out by anyone looking specifically for you, and therefore more relevant I would argue.

How do you decide whether it’s OK to friend someone?

After all, it’s always better to be the rejecter rather than the rejectee. I will now contradict myself: Friending strangers is permissible. If you are going to approach a stranger, don’t do it out of the blue. Never, ever send a random friend request without undergoing some preliminaries, such as trading a few wry observations. The beauty of this “Facebook foreplay,” to use an unfortunate analogy, is that you can always refuse to respond. [Link]

At this point I face a Hobbesian choice: either evolve or perish. After gathering just over 175 friends on Friendster, I woke up one recent morning to realize that I would have to start from scratch again, this time in a younger man/woman’s world. The pit that left in my stomach was unbearable. In this brave new world the men are funnier with their descriptions of themselves, and the women list themselves as Class of ‘07…just beyond my considerable reach. Then there are all the customized “plugins.” I have to list all my favorite bands and tell people all the countries in the world I’ve been to, etc. It’s hard enough picking up chicks at a bar. Now I have to worry whether my world map plugin is sufficiently full (which is why I already counted Guatemala even though I’m not going for another two months ;)

The problem is it doesn’t just stop at Facebook. There is also a social network for book lovers, one for business folks, and even one for your portly cat. When you come home you have to check them all to see if you are still relevant. Sartre would be able to write a masterpiece about this were he still alive. Ask yourselves this simple question: If you don’t have a profile, do you really exist? If I have a profile does it mean I’m just another one of the baying sheep? If I don’t have a profile that sufficiently distinguishes me, how will people know that I’m not a sheep?

But please, don’t let any of this useless pontificating dissuade you from befriending Sepia Mutiny, or me. Even baying sheep need friends.

abhi at 10:45 PM in Blog, Humor · 63 comment(s) · Direct link

September 11, 2007

Introducing KXB

Please join me in welcoming the latest guest blogger to Sepia Mutiny, frequent commentor KXB. Unlike previous guest bloggers who’ve generally had their own prolific personal blogs, KXB’s presence has mostly been felt in his numerous, well-thought comments as well as his *several times a day* posting to the SM News Tab.

vinod at 08:50 PM in Blog · 13 comment(s) · Direct link

August 16, 2007

Stop stepping on books, Payless, BOGO be damned [UPDATED]

[Update: Uberdesi kindly sent us the link for the ad which inspired it all. Now you can freak out, too!]

The commercial barely disturbed my reverie; I’m thinking about how much I hate moving, and that is exactly what I’ll be doing at work tomorrow, as we prepare for some renovating which couldn’t come at a worse time. At first, I can’t figure out what this spot is advertising, it looks like college kids, seems to focus on shoes and just as I decide that it must be something to do with the latter, I see it.

A girl, in somewhat cute, patent, MaryJane-esque shoes, in a library like setting…using a stack of exactly and approximately half-a-dozen books four books to step on, to reach a higher shelf. Or something. My brain shorts, because I’m so shocked and my inner pragmatist is all, “That’s so unstable! You’re asking for a sprained ankle.” The thought which immediately chases that maternal scolding is, “Eeeek, that’s not very respectful.” And that is why the shoes are “somewhat” cute; I can’t disassociate their shiny happiness from the taboo, the disrespect.

It wasn’t always like this.

Believe it or not, despite all the other random Hindu-lite rituals I grew up with, I never was scolded for touching a book with my feet. I think this had to do with two things:

1) I loved books so much to begin with and was very careful with them, since I’m vaguely OCD about things getting dirty or ruined

2) My room wasn’t so cramped that books were ever on the floor. They were on shelves. Or my desk. Or my bedside table. The floor was for my clothes, much to my parents’ disgust.

I’m surprised that this is also something I didn’t learn from my sundry collection of Hindu ex-boyfriends, though I vaguely remember hearing about it once in a while. For whatever reason, it wasn’t expanded upon or elucidated.

It was you who informed me of this prohibition against disrespect, and it is you whom I think of, in my tiny studio apartment, when I’m trying to re-organize my bookshelves. I take everything out and stack it on the floor, because there’s no other place to put anything and then I dust, rearrange, etc…but once in a while, especially now when I’m hobbling so awkwardly, if my feet even graze the tiniest part of a book or magazine, I freeze, feel guilty and then think of these cultural mores.

Thanks, mutineers. You’ve given me one more thing to get neurotic about…aww, you shouldn’t have. ;)

My high-level point is, this website has changed how I consider or interpret things, in a significant way. I will never think of the Sepoy Mutiny, the word “mutineer”, paneer dosas, Lemurians, ketchup, Scythians or a thousand other things without being reminded of this space.

That’s why when one of you emailed us a tip, which said:

A quiz on Indian independence and the first question is quite, ahem, mutinous.

…which pointed us to a brief, enlightening quiz in the Economist, I smiled and had to see it for myself. Indeed, the first question was special and it’s why I wrote all of this, because I love words and I find them powerful.

When a word’s definition is altered so dramatically, it’s not trivial, not to me. The last word of the first question of that quiz now means something very precious, and it always will. I thought you should know that, because I’m grateful to you for amending the dictionary in my brain, to accommodate such a delightful mutation.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I got a “seven”. ;)

anna at 12:30 PM in Blog, Humor, Identity, Musings, Video · 168 comment(s) · 1 reader(s) linked · Direct link

August 01, 2007

Obituary: WIDWNR

MUTINEERS,

I am saddened to report the sudden and unexpected demise of our beloved friend, Whoa— is dating White not right? (July 28, 2007 -August 1, 2007).

Right was born in an indie coffee shop, in the heart of Washington, D.C., via the twin modern miracles of a stickered, 12” iBook and wifi. In his short life, he profoundly affected many mutineers; Right challenged long-held assumptions, enlightened us about dozens of subjects and was a welcoming, tolerant figure in our community. He will be missed.

In lieu of flowers, Right’s grieving family humbly requests that when SM does its annual plea for donations to keep the site going, a la PBS/NPR, you contribute a rupee or two in his memory, especially since his Mother HATES ADS AND WILL NEVER AGREE TO HAVING THEM ON THIS SITE.

::

I had to close the uber-thread. :(

Many of you are writing to me, letting me know that you can no longer access it. Not sure what’s going on, but I can’t see new comments, either, which means I can’t moderate…so unfortunately, the party is over…not that I needed to do a lot of moderating in the first place. :)

I am delighted; considering the provocative subject material, there was far less ickiness, trolling or flaming than one might expect. All credit for that goes to you.

Thanks for one of the most lively, fascinating and relevant discussions we’ve ever had— and don’t fret, my pets…plenty of you left comments which could be spun off in to so many different threads, about queer dating, seduction via bharatnatyam, evaluating what’s worse— emasculation or exoticization, outting Iyengars, South Asian inter-religious/regional relationships, where to find B-Boy/punker Punjabis, how to procure puliyodarai, internalized self-hatred as evidenced by externalized comment-stupidity, whether I-Bankers are evil, where to find the mythical straight-haired, hyper-maintained desi goddesses whose knickers disintegrate for private equity types, San Francisco’s alternately sucky/fantastic dating scene and of course, HAIR.

More of all that, soon. In the meanwhile, pour a little sum’n out for “Right”, the next time libations are flowing. Sigh. Time to cue Tupac:

Rest in peace young homie, there’s a heaven for a G…

anna at 12:22 PM in Blog, Humor, In Memoriam · 302 comment(s) · Direct link

July 30, 2007

Now We Are Three.

“Put up a post, please. Now, if possible.”

“Like…a test post?”

“Yes. A post. Any post.”

“Um…okay.”

I leaned back, then giggled. I was in a silly mood. A few moments later…

i’m brown irish, actually.

there once was a group of brown nerds
who spent all their time toying with words
they all loved to blog
(some from a city with fog)
b/c let’s face it, a social life’s for the birds.

(mc sharaabi, out)

“Ta-da!”, I trilled, to my late German Shepherd, Rani.

A few moments later, a terse reply appeared: “thanks.” Don’t ask me how, but I knew that his trebuchet-lettered, monosyllabic response had been punctuated by one mighty eye-roll, instead of just a period.

And that’s how it all began, on July 30, 2004

::

It was dizzying, the start of this thing, this “project”, this labor of love, loathe, learning and light.

Political ads were everywhere, constantly reminding us that we were cynical spectators at the race to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; so were news stories, about outsourcing, racism (clumsily cloaked as wit), and profiling. Three years ago, we were outraged over the very same things. Normally, this would depress me, but I can’t despair, not now, not over this. This is extraordinary. The issues may be the same, but everything else is different, because we are different. We are here.

::

July, 2004.

I wrote a post on my original blog, HERstory.

Manish wrote a post on his original blog, vij.com.

Abhi emailed us, plus two more.

“Guys, I can’t believe so many of my friends are still undecided about whom to vote for…yet when I show them your story on Mamta, Anna, or yours on Michigan’s GOP, Manish…then they’re suddenly more decisive. You know what we need to do? We need to centralize this, all of this information…because the conventions are coming and what is at stake is so important…we need to reach more people.”

There were murmurs of agreement and empathy.

“Guys, I think we should create a group blog for this stuff. Think about it— all of our readerships overlap a little bit…the same people who might read Anna, sometimes read Manish or me….it’s great that we’re raising awareness about these desi news stories that get no attention otherwise, but we should focus our efforts, so people aren’t going to different places. This is the first year they’ll allow bloggers at the convention! We need to do this. Now.”

And we did.

For approximately six hours, furious rounds of emails passed, a few instant messenger chats popped and one phone call was made…then, we paused. The most difficult decision we had faced yet stymied us, putting a consummate, thudding halt to our spectacular telesis.

Uh, what would we name this goo-covered thing, which was “crowning” and about to force its debut any minute now?

Desirati?

Indian Ink?

Blogwalla?

Tamarind.

Amar Akbar Anthony?

Dishoom Dishoom?

XDesi?

BrownAmerica?

Desispiracy?

PanDesi?

Desinfect?

Desified?

Shotgun Rishta!

Desintegrate?

Blogging While Brown.

We each had submitted close to a dozen names; we ranked and re-ranked, and then calculated which idea had what percentage of support. It was exhausting. It reminded me of sorority rush, when prospective pledges ranked the houses they liked and we did the same on the other end, hoping that without too much delay or effort, everything would get sorted and everyone would be happy.

Uh, no.

After blazing through vision, expectations, concepts and possibilities, unanimously agreeing, almost immediately, on all of it (No meetings? GREAT. No deadlines or assigned stories? Awesome! No expectations or rules, beyond the barest minimum of guidelines, which all seemed to pop out of our heads identically and simultaneously? FANtastic. Some of us have never [and still never!] met? Who cares?)…we were stuck.

“What about Sepia Mutiny?”, I blurted out.

Silence.

“You know, like the Sepoy Mutiny? But…brown. Old-fashioned, sepia pictures are brownish, right? Brown mutiny!”

“It’s…different.”

“Hmmm.”

“It’s not bad…”

“Sepia Mutiny??”

I took a deep breath. “Look…it has one major thing going for it— it’s weird. No one else has a name that’s even close to it. Unlike “desirati” or “XDesi” or even “Indian Ink”, it’s not likely that anyone will choose similar. It will be ours.”

“I like “desirati” and “Indian Ink, Anna.”

“I do, too. In fact, I loooove Indian Ink. But what will our Sri Lankan/Bong/Pakistani friends think? ‘Yay! More Indian dominance?’ There’s a reason why schools go with SASA vs. ISA, right?”

“I’m down.”

“Me too.”

“Fine.”

“Let’s do it.”

“Really? YAY!”

::

Within a day, this site was up. It was real. It had rotating banners— just a few, but there they were, with the same formatting you see now. All of them depicted the Sepoy Mutiny, even if via toy soldiers.

The background was decided upon and a color scheme was designed. Our shiny, new name granted us a goof-proof theme. I was delighted that Manish was playing technical wizard to Abhi’s visionary, because I had fallen in love with the aesthetics of vij.com, back in the day. Everything suddenly drifted in to place, the way a jigsaw puzzle ends, when there are just a handful of pieces left, and it’s obvious what to do with them.

It was miraculous and perfect…and funny. You see, my stupid rhyme was still up. I understood why. It had nothing to do with affection for me, of which there is always an excess— my boys, they indulge me— nor was it appreciation for my skillz, noooo. That test post was up because it was SO us. It was silly, sarcastic, snarky, self-deprecatory, sassy and not at all serious.

It was apposite.

This was not a newspaper or a magazine.

This was a mutiny.

And we’d be damned if we didn’t have as much fun with it as possible. Cosa nostra. Our thing. Who said uprisings had to be somber? When you’re fighting the good fight, battling the ignorance and apathy that we were, you realize you have nothing left to lose. So you laugh. You shout (Boring, serious posts? These are the things I can do with out, come on…I’m talking to you, come on…)

And you thrill to every mutineer who stumbles upon your mob; you smile as you see them joyfully recognize what they (and you) had always been looking for, as they lustily join in the chant, contributing their brilliance and their devotion and in some cases, for those who no longer bless us with their goodness, their memory.

The movement grows, and you realize that no matter what sacrifices were required or whatever temporary setbacks had you muttering, “Charlie Foxtrot” bitterly at the time, nothing this amazing came easily.

Every moment spent fussing over this space during these past 1,095 days, for more than 4,025 posts, couldn’t have been offered to a better cause. After all, some of us waited for years for a room of our own. A place that was ours. And many of us didn’t know how long the door would remain open here, which makes what I’m about to type even sweeter:

Happy Birthday, SM.

Stretch marks and permanent destruction of obliques be damned, you are one fantastic baby and I’m glad we had you. Now smash your face in the cake and have some fun— Mama’s got a 2 gig memory card with your name on it, burrrday boy.

anna at 11:59 PM in Blog, History, Musings, Profiles · 96 comment(s) · 1 reader(s) linked · Direct link

5000

It’s poor form to leave a party without saying goodbye. And though for a while now I’ve done little more than relax on the porch and watch the revelers come and go, it’s time now for me to head back out into the city. I’ve had a rich and productive experience here and I thank you all for the insight and the perspectives; you’ve helped me through changes and contributed to my growth in ways you don’t know. I don’t have time to blog at this point, but there are other ways to maintain and contribute to online communities, and I look forward to running into some of you in those future settings. To everyone: Go forward with honesty, kindness, and joy in our complex and ambiguous diasporic lives. PEACE.

siddhartha at 09:30 AM in Blog · 81 comment(s) · Direct link

June 25, 2007

Maybe a DC Meetup This SUNDAY? [Updated]

[Instead of Saturday at noon, the meetup will be on SUNDAY at 12:30. It is still at Amma. Please be noting date and time change— thanks. :)]

But first, a rushed write-up of what went down last time:

• Icebreaker: The battle of the Jessicas- who is hotter, Alba or Biel? There were two poultry-submitted abstentions.
• Adorable Munish changed his vote when he realized he was, in fact, supporting an Alumna of Seventh Heaven: “I thought you meant the woman from Flashdance!”
• Once we started playing, “Who has the tiniest apt” after one of you suggested having meetups in our homes, Jay said we should have used THAT as the icebreaker—“Hi, I’m ___ and I have 400 sq ft!”
• It was the reverse of our college years— Southies Reprazent!
• There was a minor TamBrahm crisis when we discovered that Amma had run out of vada, for the first time in nine years.
• I was smacked. Thrice. By our waiter. You can’t put a price on that kind of abuse.
• Two of the above three spankings occurred as THIRTEEN more people than the sixteen we expected showed.
• Once we ran out of table space: “Start sitting on laps. Sigh. I guess I’ll begin.” Plop.
• What is UP with the lack of RSVPing, meetup-crashers: “This isn’t a wedding, people!”
• Murthy’s Law: Next time, we should reserve the entire restaurant. That way no one will show.
• We actually had to turn people away, for lack of space. :(
• Can’t make it to the bathroom to wash your hands? Use the “Indian Faucet” a.k.a. a poorly-approximated finger bowl via drinking glass
• Subcontinental Drift (we love you!)‘s MySpace page might induce seizures.
• Me to Jay (of the blog Weaselplasty) “All our friends are apparently stand-up comics (and they performed at SD)”
• Said one, “Tortoise porn is available on YouTube.” Said the Terp, all dismissively, “I know about THAT”, as the rest of us exhibited the proper reaction to that statement, which is shock and horror.
• One attendee confessed that while this meetup was fabulous, they had “hobbit envy” about Houston.
• Library Science: it gets no respect
• Second Best line of the meetup: “Why are men always giving me money and then leaving?”
• A Tamil girl who was raised in Bombay tried to reconcile her identities by saying…she was like a “paneer dosa”
• Paneer Dosa has said she will be at the June meetup; that way you can mock her for her metaphor in person! ;)
• I ordered two Salt Lassis and four Madras Kappis.  I received ONE Madras Kappi.
• Lemon Rice for me, dosas for EVERYONE ELSE
• Best line of the meetup: “Your picture on Shaadi.com was so much better!”
• More on Sunny Leone and the greatness of snuff films.
• Despite our most obnoxious attempts to be porntastic in order to clear the restaurant, so more of us could be seated, the packed place wasn’t bothered at all by our antics. Contrast this with Heritage India, where we sent them screaming out the door. It would appear that South Indian families are immune to our offensiveness. :)

Now, after reading the merriment-filled minutes of our last meetup, who feels like getting together again for more? :) I’m craving dosa and you, well, after I published this post, I learned that you are ALL craving dosa, ALL the time.

WHERE: Amma’s Vegetarian Kitchen, 3291 M St. NW, Washington, DC 20007, 202-625-6625

WHEN: SUNDAY, JULY 1. 12:30 PM.

WHY: Because you nosy little monkeys want to pepper