Happy Belated Valentine’s Day, mutineers. Hope you lovely folks got all the flowers, chocolates and cards you deserve. I was doing a little post-celebratory research tonight on Valentine’s Day and came across a couple of interesting facts I thought you folks might like to learn a la our good friend, Wikipedia. For instance, did you know that American men spend twice as much money on Valentine’s Day than women? And that in Paris, there was a ‘High Court of Love’ established on Valentine’s Day in 1400 that dealt with crimes against women? And that the judges for that court were picked by women, based on their love poetry? Oh yeah, and finally did you know that in India, Hindu fundamentalists highly discourage the celebration of Valentine’s Day? Of course you do, you read SM. We’ve covered that in the past. Not to worry, Shiv Sena continued its anti-Valentine’s Day diatribes this year, although they were a little distracted. So many grievances, so little time… what’s a violent protestor to do nowadays? It’s gotten so there’s too many effigies to burn.

With most of their aggressive workers identified and picked up by the police ahead of the release of My Name Is Khan, Shiv Sena members have admitted that their annual Valentine Day protests will likely be low-key, if they happen at all.

Every year, Sainiks denounce the concept of Valentine’s Day and warn couples against celebrating it, but this year, they say, the agitation against Shah Rukh Khan and his movie are of more immediate importance. [Link.]

Perhaps they’ve turned their sights to virtual protests? Alongside the other factoids on Wikipieda, I came across this interesting new poster, which was uploaded on Wikipedia’s ‘Valentine’s Day’ this past Saturday. I thought SM readers would find it as amusing as I did.

Freedom of speech. It’s not something I take for granted. I grew up in Zambia during an era when you could say anything you wanted about the country’s president, as long as you had already started the engine of your getaway plane. That’s what I love about countries like America and Canada — freedom of speech has no bounds, as long as you don’t scream “Fire!” in a crowded theater, threaten the president or profess your undying love for Osama bin Laden. Okay, so it does have bounds, but you get the point. I don’t remember the last time a journalist or author had to run away from an angry mob. It’s just not the way things are done, as I learned several years ago when I tried to assemble a mob to chase Ann Coulter.

India allows a great amount of free speech, compared to many other countries. But just ask fans of Savita Bhabhi how free they are to enjoy her sexcapades. The cartoon seductress has been banned in India, perhaps to the delight of many a wife, who remembers the good old days when her husband got his thrills out of Asterix. As S. Mitra Kalita writes in the WSJ, Savita joins The Da Vinci Code, The Polyester Prince, and Royal Magazine as “examples of India’s hindrance of free speech.”

You might never have heard of Royal Magazine, but it’s an example of the squelching of free speech in India that seems more common—preemptive and driven by fear. Editor in chief Ronak Vyas wrote to me and said, “I have been publishing an online magazine that features nudity and had my share of problems in India. To be honest I feel like you can get away with anything as long as you don’t offend a particular person or group on a personal level.”

This being India, offending someone is a given. This being India, also the world’s largest democracy, the government needs to weigh what’s more important and whether it draws the line too soon, too early.

Consider this comment from Gaurav Jain: It’s “not about the internet or Savita alone, its (sic) a general lack of freedom in being able to criticise or comment on our holy cows (leaders, gods, other religious figures) … some mob somewhere will have a reason to protest most likely in a violent manner.”

Like me, he wonders whether the controversy stems from Savita being an “empowered woman making her own choices, perhaps this is a threat to certain sections of society that prefer to see their wives as creatures who should stay indoors and rear the kids (which is ACTUAL subjugation).” [Wall Street Journal]

Savita was banned because she’s an “empowered woman”??? Watch out Indra Nooyi, you could be next.

Fortunately, I’ve already downloaded hundreds of Indra’s pics to my hard drive. Let me know if you want any. And please indicate your preference: business suit or sari.

I have been struggling and failing to find an appropriate way to respond to Glenn Beck’s latest insanity. MediaMatters has the video and the almost unbelievable quotes, which about 1.2 billion people are likely to deem to be offensive and tasteless, from a recent Beck broadcast:

For those not able to stomach watching the actual video, the choice quotes are as follows:

And also, in our research that it took us, oh about 40 seconds, we figured out that some of that money here in America winds up in the pocket of a skilled doctor that helps off-set the 20 years of schooling that he endured and the loans he took out. And - you’re not going to believe this one, Karlyn - some of that money seems to go to the 1 million SEIU workers in the healthcare industry that make slightly more here than in India. Because, you know, they have an American lifestyle, maybe a couple of cars, great union benefits, and homes with something that we in America like to call flush toilets. (link)

Quite separately from the nasty slur about India in this quote, Beck’s logic completely escapes me. If anyone can actually make sense of what he is trying to say, I would be curious to hear it. I think this is an elaborate way of saying Americans shouldn’t do medical tourism in India, but rather pay premium rates for procedures not covered by insurance, because some of the money they might be giving a surgeon will somehow go to SEIU workers? (But what’s all this about loans and so on? Is he aware that Indian students bring millions upon millions of dollars into American higher education?)

But of course, the real stunner in this ‘bit’ from Beck is the following:

I don’t want a discounted doctor. I don’t want discounted wages. I don’t want any of this stuff. If I wanted to live in India, I’d live in India. I want not the Indian lifestyle, I want the American lifestyle. I’m sure, no offense to India, I’m sure it’s beautiful and everything. I’ve heard especially this time of year, especially by the - you know that one big river they have there that sounds like a disease? Come on, it does. I mean, if somebody said, ‘I’m sorry, you have a really bad case of Ganges,’ you’d want Cipro.” (link)

While the earlier rant directed at medical tourism, incoherent as it was, had some salience to the health care debate, this bit of assholery is just utterly gratuitous.

I’m looking forward to the day this guy falls back into obscurity. A few months ago, left-leaning activists launched a campaign to get Beck’s advertisers to pull back from his show. While they were successful, it hasn’t done anything to slow him down. Beck’s provocations are working: his rating continue to be high, no matter how many times he’s mocked by comedians and spat at by bloggers. It’s hard for me personally to get newly outraged when this guy has been, for months, comparing President Obama to Hitler and the like.

Still, the level of offense these statements could provoke in India itself, if the comments end up being covered in the Indian media (hint hint), could make things interesting for Beck. (Here’s a tip for any Indian journalists reading this: Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News, also owns Star TV… Hmm…)

The biggest story in India this week appears to be the central government’s agreement to allow a new state to be carved out of Andhra Pradesh, called Telangana. The new state will include the tech-powerhouse city of Hyderabad, and will be predominantly Telugu-speaking. One news article I read put the estimated population of the new state at 35 million people.

Here is what the new state will look like

I have known of agitations for a separate Telangana state for awhile, though I must admit I do not know the history in depth, and would be glad to be enlightened by readers who know the region better than I do. However, Wikipedia does offer a few helpful background facts. First, the region that will become Telangana was, during British colonialism, part of the Princely State of Hyderabad, and was only formally merged into Andhra in 1956 — and even then, the merger was controversially imposed by the central government. The agitations for a separate state have been going on for at least 40 years; in 1969, 400 people were killed in agitations for a separate state of Telangana.

I had earlier thought that language was a factor in the demands for Telangana, but in fact language is not mentioned by supporters of this movement, since Telugu is spoken in the other half of Andhra as well. Rather, the focus seems to be on access to irrigation and economic opportunity (see this interview). Are there other factors that people know of?

The news has resulted in the mass resignation of Congress Party-allied MLAs in the other part of Andhra Pradesh, suggesting that the Central Government may not be able to easily sustain its promise to create Telangana without making lots of new promises to the other half of the state. That, or we might see one of those major regional political realignments in Indian politics that can cause seemingly strong governments to fall. (Incidentally, the BJP had promised to create a Telangana state when it was in power, but was unable to do so. However, during the BJP’s five years in power it did create three new states in northern India.)

The news is also expected to give a new boost to other statehood agitation movements in other parts of India; Gorkhaland is one that is often mentioned.

Do you support the creation of Telangana? Isn’t it possible that acceding to these statehood movements in India might lead to a further weakening of an already weak central government? Also, do you think these movements might feed a sense of monoculturalist ‘separateness’ that could make the region a less inviting place for people from different ethno-linguistic backgrounds who happen to live there?

Sandhya wrote a post last year related to Bhopal last year, so perhaps it isn’t necessary to go through the particulars of a case that most people know about. Still, it seems important to acknowledge that today is 25 years to the day since the Union Carbide plant at Bhopal broke down, resulting in the release of massive amounts of poisonous methyl isocyanate gas, which killed about 30,000 people and injured thousands more (more than 500,000 people claimed damages). For those unfamiliar with the story, here is a detailed chronology of events.

As many people are aware, the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) was an American company. The plant was technically operated by its subsidiary, Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), which was 51% owned by UCC at the time of the disaster.

In one of the strangest, and most fateful, twists in the legal history of the Bhopal disaster, a U.S. District Court decided in May, 1986 that UCIL was an Indian company (“a separate entity, owned, managed and operated exclusively by Indian citizens in India”), and therefore any litigation regarding the Bhopal disaster should be done in India. The decision by the District Court was upheld on Appeal.

The transfer of legal authority — in effect, the U.S. justice system saying, “hey, this is not an American company, so it’s not our problem” — significantly weakened the damages that were likely to be rewarded. Indeed, the final damages, reached in an out of court settlement, was only $470 million. When all was said and done, that came out to $2,200 for each person killed, and about $500 for each person injured. Neither UCIL nor UCC ever had to acknowledge culpability, or take responsibility for cleaning up the still polluted site of the Union Carbide Plant. A Dow Chemicals executive later stated that the amount “is plenty good for an Indian.” Even with the conversion to Rupees, I can’t see how $500 is a significant help for a person who may be living with a debilitating injury, with children who are born, even years later, with serious congenital birth defects associated with (still) poisoned groundwater. It’s not “plenty good”; it’s laughable.

A commenter on Sandhya’s earlier thread mentioned the Sambhavna Clinic, which was built specifically to care for victims of the disaster. There is a “donate here” button; if you have a couple of bucks to spare, you might use it.

Finally, Suketu Mehta has a column up in the New York Times today. He does lament that Dow Chemicals hasn’t done anything to help clean up the site. But what he doesn’t mention is that the reason for that is that the U.S. justice system washed its hands of the mess in 1986, and the Indian Government, which is the only entity that today has any legal responsibility to do anything for anyone in Bhopal, meekly accepted it.

What are your thoughts today? Have you read anything insightful or enlightening with regards to the Bhopal disaster in recent days?

Eid Mubarak, Mutineers! There are two Eids that Muslims celebrate, one marks the end to a month of fasting and another marks the end to pilgrimage to Mecca, called Hajj. Today we celebrate the latter one, Eid-al-Adha. This Eid in particular is the one where a sacrifice is supposed to be made of a goat or cow (the meat is to be eaten later and donated), in remembrance of the story of Ibrahim being asked by Allah to sacrifice his son and his son being replaced by a goat.

It was for this reason, my friends and I joked around about how we needed an Eid goat. Easter has the bunny rabbit, Christmas has Santa Claus. But growing up as a Muslim kid in the U.S., we didn’t really have anything equivalent. I was always told Eid was my version of Christmas, but then, why did all the other kids get presents and we didn’t? As we got older, it seemed like the Eid goat would have been the perfect solution.

Thus, I had already goats on my mind when maitri tweeted the following “I Want a Goat” video [NSFW]. It’s promoting a program, I Want a Goat, where you can design and donate a goat to a village in India. The modern twist is that this video has hipster charm splashed all over it.

I realize the tie between this video and Eid is tenuous at best. I found the the song amusing and the cause seems legit. The project was started by a woman Debbie who volunteered in the village for seven months and saw a similar program run successfully in India. For only a $20 donation, you will be donating a goat to a village in Koraput. Why goat?

For tribal people who are landless, raising goats is a great alternative source of income. Families who breed goats can earn a good profit selling the kids in the local market. The extra income provides a safety net for families that can be used for things like medicine, food during lean periods and farm equipment.

As most SepiaMutiny readers know by now, I work for MTV Iggy. And I don’t mean to keep pimping that stuff over here, but whenever something that might interest you comes up, it seems a shame to not share it. A new special feature just went up on the rock music scene in India, with interviews, live performance footage, music videos, slideshows, and more. Arjun S. Ravi, the editor of a Mumbai-based site that tracks the Indian rock scene, contributed fascinating article on the highs and lows of being a rock music fan in India:

The easiest way to sneak alcohol into Rang Bhavan was to hide it under a girl’s jacket. The notoriously long queues of people waiting impatiently to enter Mumbai’s legendary open air theatre were predominantly male, which meant that the security guards at the gate would only frisk guys. A girl, depending on her stature and the size of the jacket, could slip in anywhere between four to eight cans of Kingfisher beer. Inebriation was as crucial to the Rang Bhavan experience as the Metallica-inspired, ’90s metal cover bands.

[snip]

In India, rock is a much maligned genre, mostly because it is totally misunderstood. India’s Bollywood-loving masses generally accept and believe the particularly damaging stereotype that rock music is overrun by dudes with knee-length hair screaming into microphones and groaning like cats being tortured by pitchforks. And until the late ’90s, Indian rockers did very little to change that impression.

He goes on to trace the changes (fan attitudes, new kinds of venues, advent of the internet, bands stopped noodling around) that contribute to the fact that Indian rock bands were recently invited to the Glastonbury Festival in the UK, and SXSW in Austin, TX. It’s long(ish) but you can read it in full here. The full special feature is here.

An video introduction to some of the bands (Jalebee Cartel, Shor Bazaar, Them Clones, etc.) is after the jump.

Hey, remember when Google’s motto used to be “don’t be evil?” Vaht, you thought they still had it? I did too, but this…might not be evil, but it certainly seems a little unfair:

Google India had launched a ‘Doodle 4 Google - My India’ contest in August. The Doodle is the logo design you see on the Google homepage. The theme of this competition was ‘My India’. On November 12, Google India announced at Taj Ambassador Hotel that tech hub Gurgaon based 4th standard school kid Puru Pratap has won the competition…a laptop computer for himself, a t-shirt with his doodle and Rs. 1 lakh (approx 2100 US dollars) for his school.

But his counterparts in USA and UK won substantially more. According to Google their US winner “will win a $15,000 college scholarship to be used at the school of their choice, a trip to the Google New York Office, a laptop computer, and a t-shirt printed with their doodle. We’ll also award the winner’s school a $25,000 technology grant towards the establishment/improvement of a computer lab.”

So let’s see: Indian winner = laptop + T-shirt + $2100 (for his school) + $0 (for himself)
US winner = laptop + T-shirt + trip to NY + $25,000 (for his school) + $15,000 (for himself)

Let me see…let me do the math…I dunno, maybe you need a special algorithm or something to make these two things equal? Because to my eyes, it looks like the Indian kid is getting royally screwed. It looks like the same contest, run by the same company, is rewarding a far lesser prize to the winner from one country than to the winner from another country.

The writer of the quoted piece goes on to point of various other prizes that are awarded equally to winners from all countries. She concludes:

Are we children of a lesser Google? Or is the Indian market less important? Perhaps Bing has the answer.

Dammit. I like Chrome.

Imaad Wasif worked with Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) on the Spike Jonze directed Where The Wild Things Are movie. (Btw, excitement level for that movie? So incredibly high. But are only hipsters hyperventilating over it? Thoughts in the comments, please!)

Anyway, back to Imaad. From the Iggy blog:

Wasif grew up in Palm Springs, California, transplanted by two Indian parents who had eloped. They were both artists, natch and in the boat from India, their classical Indian records got drenched. The covers all melted together-but they still played. In the desert, he grew up listening to those and all the pop tunes that would warble in faintly over an old Sears radio. It’s those aesthetics that Wasif has since sought to combine-classical trills, pop weighed down by static, and the psych-folk inherent in a hippie-dippie desert upbringing.

His new album is due on October 13th. Check out his video for “Oceanic.” He’s backed by Two Part Beast:

Uh, so that mask is pretty terrifying. Photos of his uncovered face and other videos here.

So naturally the comments in the Oprah/Ash/Abhi thread devolved into an argument about skin color. Naturally. It’s like the Godwin’s Law of all things desi-related.

I don’t know about you, but I’m heartily sick of the topic. But listening to dark-skinned model talk about it? A dark-skinned desi model? A famous international dark-skinned desi model?

[OMG. Before you even think about arguing whether she’s dark or not, just. stop. She thinks she is, mmkay?]

From the MTV Iggy blog archives:

If you’re a non-white woman, how many skin whitening products have you come across? Quick, GO!! (You all thought of Fair & Lovely, didn’t you?) Want to know what a fabulous international supermodel thinks about this?

Meet Lakshmi Menon, runway star, fashion editorial darling, face of Hermès, and a native of Bangalore, India. When it comes skin color and beauty, she would know of what she speaks. And sweet heavens above, does she ever!! Post-colonial hangups, “wheatish” complexions, Lakshmi lays it out:

Yeah. TMBWITW is now one-half of TMFCITW. Ash and Abhi flew in from Mumbai to chat with the talk show Queen today, and sadly, it was still a clusterf*ck of embarrassment:

It was as if she didn’t believe in the Bollywood titans’ fame. Or had to put it in terms that Westerners understood.
“They’re the world’s most famous movie-star couple. More famous than Brad & Angelina, anybody…”
Some pictures flashed onscreen of Justin Timberlake skirting paparazzi as he flung himself into an awaiting limo.
“Now imagine that kind of attention times 1000.” She showed footage of them with some Dutch girls in the stereotypical peaked Dutch caps. “They have FIVE! BILL-YON! fans. In Asia, Europe…” etc.
Then, of course, she had to explain that Julia Roberts had called Aishwarya the most beautiful woman in the world, as if only the opinion of a white celebrity could mean anything to her audience. And she couldn’t let them on without mentioning the issue that tickled her last time Aishwarya was on. “Here’s the best part,” Oprah said, gleeful. “They live at home with his parents.”

Aishwarya was wearing a sari and was gorgeous, etc. Abhishek was his handsome self in a velvet suit. Behind them, Oprah’s set background showed an image of shooting stars, upon which the phrase: “Famous Around the World” had been printed. It looked like the banner you sign at someone’s bat mitzvah. When she tried to make a big deal of how this was their first American national TV interview, Abhishek wasn’t buying it. “We sit together all the time.”

He explained how he had proposed to her on the same balcony where he had first longed to marry her. You could hear the “ahhhh…cute” sighs in the audience.

For some reason, the host thought it would be a good idea to keep talking not about the content of their work or Bollywood versus Western cinema types, but just about how amazingly famous they are.

More on the Oprah Bachchan segment on the MTV Iggy blog, and a full recap of the show (the Julia Roberts/Daniel Craig of every country!) in a second post.

Oh, sh*ts. I’ve been remiss about so much. I’ve got a backlog of things both shiny and smart to share with you, so please bear with me as I suddenly haunt the mutiny.

The first thing on my list: MTV Iggy’s special feature on Bollywood’s “new wave” of filmmakers. The idea is that, much like the French new wave of the 50s, Indian cinema is facing a radical change, with auteur directors leading the way with a new influx of talent, money, professionalism and creativity. And the audience in India is ready for it. Anuvab Pal (friend of Sepia alum Manish Vij) is now a screenwriter in Mumbai, and his funny, engaging, and very revealing article is a must read:

In fall 2003, I was asked by a friend of mine, the director Manish Acharya, to co-write a film with him. It would be about a Bollywood singing contest in New Jersey. We were influenced by the movies of Christopher Guest and Woody Allen, and had lived in New York for a numbers of years. At some point, in various coffee shops in Manhattan, as we wrote, I asked Manish who our audience might be. He intelligently remarked that we shouldn’t write with audiences in mind but just try to tell a good story. That’s the sort of answer auteur film directors give at film festival Q&As and grave audiences nod in agreement. It had a sort of nobility to it. I was far more interested in a petty middle-class answer.

“Still, who?” I insisted.

“Whom” he corrected, adding, “New India. This is a film for new India.”

As someone whose own family is dispersed over several continents (my husband often jokes that we can’t visit any new country without discovering that some distant relative lives there), I’ve often asked myself many of the questions that Minal Hajratwala did: How were choices made? What were the journeys like? How do they reflect the diasporic experience? That’s what I loved about “Leaving India” (soon to be reviewed here at SM by our very own Cicatrix). I thought it would be interesting to speak with the author about how she tackled the mammoth task of “deftly exploring … the unprecedented late 20th-century dispersal of Indians to every corner of the globe and their rapid rise in the places they landed” (see Washington Post review).

Q. You write in your introduction that you wrote this book to “find whatever fragments remain here, to trace the shape of our past and learn how it shadows or illuminates our present.” Was there an experience, an event, or some defining moment when you knew that an interest of yours had to become 7 years of your working life?

A. Not at all, it was a slowly growing awareness that somewhere in the midst of my dozens of cousins spread over nine countries was an untold story. The vague ideas swirling in my brain about migration, family, and the new visibility of Indianness in popular culture crystallized when I took a book proposal class with Sam Freedman at Columbia University, who gave me amazing guidance and editing, and asked a lot of smart questions. As I shaped it into a narrative spanning a hundred years, I became more and more curious about how all this happened, and then the questions themselves shaped my journey.

I was also naive; I thought I could research the book in a year and write it in another year. If I had thought it would be a seven-year process, I might have gotten cold feet at the beginning.

The rest of the Q&A follows below the fold.

Some emails can be downright scary, such as the one saying that the IRS wants to audit us. And this one that has been landing in some inboxes and even appears as a news item (seemingly) on the website of India Journal, making it available through Google News.

NEW DELHI – The Government of India announced April 22 imposition of a flat 5% tax on all NRIs over their world-wide income.

Income that is already taxed in India has been kept out of the purview to avoid double taxation. No double taxation benefits would be available for this 5% tax, meaning even if you are paying tax on your income in a country with which India has double taxation agreement, the benefit would not be allowed against this 5% tax.

All those Indians who are holding Indian Passports and have been out of the country for more than 180 days during the year are under this requirement. Income proof would have to be submitted in form of employer certificates, foreign tax filings etc.

The Indian government is also coordinating with Australia, Europe, America, UAE and other countries on collecting Income data for its citizens as part of data sharing initiative on terror prevention measures. This has been hailed as bringing in compulsory participation in development of India from Non Resident Indians. This means NRIs can no more just continue to retain their Indian citizenship without paying taxes in India. …

Having recently filed my taxes, the thought of having to hand over another piece of my income almost gave me a lump in my throat. Thankfully, Fawaz Iqbal put me at ease when I came across a post on his blog that confirmed the email’s hoaxity (is that a word?). But I’m still a little concerned and join a commenter named Guru on Fawaz’s blog in asking — even begging — the creator of the email “not to give such ideas to our Indian politicians.”

When you’re visibly pregnant and riding the NYC subway with a book titled “Family Planning” in hand, you’re bound to draw stares and curious gazes. Such was my experience earlier this month as I traveled on the downtown 1 with 25 year old Karan Mahajan’s laughter-inducing yet tender first novel in hand. In this Brooklyn-based, New Delhi-born author’s debut work (HarperPerennial, 2008) set in contemporary New Delhi, family life, politics, adolescent love, and prime time soap operas intertwine in entertaining and unexpectedly moving ways.

At the heart of this story is the chaotic household of Rakesh Ahuja, a hard of hearing, America returned engineer who holds a prestigious position as New Delhi’s Minister of Urban Development. Apart from the bureaucratic and political challenges that face him at work (he’s in charge of a laborious flyover construction project and part of a political party that sponsors intolerable bills such as the Diversity of the Motherland Act which calls for the compulsory registration of all Muslims “for reasons of diversity and national security”), Rakesh is beset by his own personal dramas at home.

The father of 13 children (and one more en route), he must deal with the trauma of having had his teenage son Arjun walk in on him having sex with his wife in the baby nursery. Understandably, Arjun asks, “Papa, I don’t understand—why do you and Mama keep having babies?”

While he has to figure out a way to explain himself to his son (“Obviously, Mr. Ahuja couldn’t tell his son that he was only attracted to Mrs. Ahuja when she was pregnant” reads the first line of the novel), this is not the only secret Mr. Ahuja has been keeping from his son, master babysitter and eldest of 12 younger siblings and darling of his mother, Mrs. Ahuja, an unattractive woman whose days are spent changing diapers, managing her vast household, knitting, and recovering from the loss of her favorite TV character Mohan Bedi from Zee-TV soap opera, “The Vengeful Daughter-in-Law.” There’s also the bit of information about Rakesh’s first wife, Arjun’s mother, who suffered a tragic death and who continues to haunt his unhappy existence. Meanwhile there’s Arjun, an awkward teen so madly in love with Aarti, a Catholic school beauty who rides the morning bus with him that he’ll do anything to get her attention—even start a rock band with a bunch of classmates.

Yes, there’s a great deal happening in Mahajan’s novel; many competing heartbreaks and dramas. And yet, as a reader, I was pulled in just as much by Mahajan’s observant and sensitive eye as I was by his ability to create satirical scenarios that reflect some of the complexities and paradoxes of social and political life in today’s India.

Read the rest of this review and a Q&A with Mahajan, whose sense of humor is as refreshing in the interview format as it is in his prose, below the fold.

It used to be that Indian men working in America, whether citizens, permanent residents or H-1B holders, could go to India and have their pick of a bride. They were considered good catches, the type of fish you don’t throw back in the lake. Not anymore, apparently, according to Shefali Anand of the Wall Street Journal.

Concerned about the flagging U.S. economy, parents of brides are reluctant to betroth their daughters to someone whose job may evaporate. Rahul Tamraker, 32, a consultant in Chicago, learned this firsthand during his fruitless bride search in India. Potential in-laws were worried that “consultant” was another way of saying “unemployed.” One parent wanted to see Tamraker’s income tax return, paying heed to the age-old matchmaking principle: “Good income, good outcome.” Tamraker declined and the marriage talks fizzled.

Poor guy. He’s got a hefty salary, but no bride. Which may be better, of course, than having a hefty bride, but no salary.

Then there’s Vikas Marwaha, a software enginer who’s only 27 and earning more than 80 grand a year.

During a two-week wife-hunting trip to India in December, Mr. Marwaha interviewed 20 potential brides in 10 days. He says several parents asked him, “How has the recession impacted your job?” Mr. Marwaha says he assured them he hadn’t been affected at all, but still he returned to the U.S. brideless. [Link]

Indian engineer: “I went to India for some wife-hunting last month. What did you do?”

American engineer: “I went to Indiana for some deer-hunting.”

Indian: “Really? Did you get one?”

American: “Yes, I got one and mounted it. What about you?”

Indian: “No, I didn’t come close to doing any mounting whatsoever.”

A few hours ago, a mutineer who covers the Executive Branch sent me this:

For Immediate Release
January 25, 2009
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

Message on the occasion of India Republic Day

As the people of India and people of Indian origin in America and around the world celebrate Republic Day on January 26, I send the warmest greetings of the American people to the people of India. Together, we celebrate our shared belief in democracy, liberty, pluralism, and religious tolerance.

Our nations have built broad and vibrant partnerships in every field of human endeavor. Our rapidly growing and deepening friendship with India offers benefits to all the world’s citizens as our scientists solve environmental challenges together, our doctors discover new medicines, our engineers advance our societies, our entrepreneurs generate prosperity, our educators lay the foundation for our future generations, and our governments work together to advance peace, prosperity, and stability around the globe.

It is our shared values that form the bedrock of a robust relationship across peoples and governments. Those values and ideals provide the strength that enables us to meet any challenge, particularly from those who use violence to try to undermine our free and open societies. As the Indian people celebrate Republic Day all across India, they should know that they have no better friend and partner than the people of the United States. It is in that spirit, that I also wish Prime Minister Singh a quick recovery.

Incidentally, if you were unaware of the latest regarding the health of Prime Minister Singh, here you go (thanks, Manoje):

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday successfully underwent a coronary bypass surgery at the All India Institute of Medical Science in New Delhi as doctors removed 10 blockages in his heart…

Dr Ramakanth Panda, the chief of the Asian Heart Institute in Mumbai, headed the surgical team comprising doctors that performed the beating heart surgery. The prime minister had undergone his first heart surgery in 1990 and then had an angioplasty in 2004. This week, he complained of chest plain and the angiography revealed 10 blockages, which prompted the doctors to opt for a surgery. [rediff]

I am ridiculously delighted to learn that the surgical team was headed by a panda. I love pandas.

For those who crave some learnin’ about the reason for the thoughtful press release:

Am I the only one who thinks of an infamously disturbing Borat quote whenever Pamela Anderson is mentioned: “She had golden hairs, teeth as white as pearls, and the…”. I am? Sigh. Okay, fine.

Via the Beeb:

Stray dogs in India’s financial capital, Mumbai (Bombay) should be sterilised not killed, says former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson.

Animal lover Ms Anderson intervened on the dogs’ behalf in a letter to the city authorities.

“Dogs cannot use condoms but… they can be ‘fixed’ painlessly,” she wrote.

The star learnt of the dogs’ plight after Mumbai’s High Court recently said strays should be killed as they were a “permanent nuisance” to the public. [BBC]

Hmmm. That same BBC article states that “Despite several sterilisation programmes, the population of strays has not been controlled”, so I’m not sure if the Baywatch Babe’s solution is an effective one.

More:

The court gave the ruling in response to a public interest litigation filed by a Mumbai-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), In Defence of Animals, challenging the validity of certain provisions of a law that permits killing of dogs under certain conditions. It said animals had as much constitutional right to life as humans and had a “right to expect compassion from Indian citizens”.[ST]

The court interpreted “nuisance” in this instance as “anything that endangers life or is injurious to the health of the public at large”.

While it noted that mere barking could not be cause for killing a dog, “dogs that have the habit of chasing moving vehicles, especially two-wheelers, may be treated as a public nuisance as they could lead to accidents”. [ST]

If all else fails, they could consider one Delhi politician’s innovative solution to his city’s problem with strays. ;) But back to Bombay.

Animals rights activists say that as many as 70,000 strays in Mumbai and many more across the states of Maharashtra and Goa may be disposed of if the High Court’s ruling goes ahead.

The decision has been stayed until the end of this month.[BBC]

According to the Straits Times article I quoted, those 70,000 stray dogs are responsible for 25,000 dog bites, annually. So while some fed-up residents have taken to poisoning dogs, animal activists caution that cleaning up the city is a better solution, since the dogs tend to forage through the garbage for food. I’ll close with a quote from “Medical professional Samir Guliyani”, whose name delights me to no end, and who went beyond the obligatory, understandable and predictable “Who does she think she is?”-sentiment:

“The way they suddenly pounce on bike riders is dangerous. Something has to be done and they have to be off roads.”

On the subject of Pamela herself, Mr Guliyani said: “She is hot but why is she writing to the municipal commissioner[BBC]

Duh, that’s what hot people do.

I should create a category called, “NOW you tell me…?”, for situations like this. I just woke up 30 minutes ago, checked my email and what did I see?

Make it a priority this weekend to see the highly acclaimed exhibition, “Garden and Cosmos.” The exhibition named the “great Asian show of the year,” by Souren Melikian of the International Herald Tribune closes this Sunday, January 4 at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.

Closes this Sunday?! Well, happy birthday to me!

This groundbreaking exhibition of newly discovered Indian paintings from the royal court collection of Marwar-Jodhpur (in the modern state of Rajasthan) has three sections devoted to the garden and cosmos leitmotifs, with an introductory gallery about the kingdom of Marwar-Jodhpur and the origins of its court painting traditions in the 17th century. Produced for the private enjoyment of the Marwar- Jodhpur maharajas, virtually none of the 60 works on view in “Garden and Cosmos” have ever been published or seen by scholars since their creation centuries ago. Strikingly innovative in their large scale, subject matter, and styles, they reveal both the conceptual sophistication of the royal atelier and the kingdom’s engagement with the changing political landscapes of early modern India.

Commentary by the Maharaja of Jodhpur, who lent many of the paintings, and Debra Diamond, the curator who organized the exhibition, is included on an audio guide available at the Garden and Cosmos entrance. [si]

There’s a link to some of that audio guide, here. I’m going to finish blogging about this later; I’d rather put up a blurb now (so that those of you who are awake and in DC have a shot at making this) vs. blog about it later today when I’ll have more time…and a whole day to see these gorgeous works will be gone. The Sackler gallery is open from 10:00am to 5:30pm, daily. Remember, admission is FREE.

If my phone works in the exhibit, I’ll try and tweet about what’s going on via SM’s twitter account. More soon!

Several of you have sent in (thanks, Art Vandalay) Suketu Mehta’s op-ed piece “What They Hate About Mumbai”, so it’s no surprise that it is currently the second-most emailed article from the New York Times. In an essay which reminds me of everything I read about our own maximum city seven years ago, Mehta outlines all the ways Mumbai shines, while exhorting us to not be deterred by tragedy.

Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim man living in a shack without indoor plumbing what kept him in the city. “Mumbai is a golden songbird,” he said. It flies quick and sly, and you’ll have to work hard to catch it, but if you do, a fabulous fortune will open up for you. The executives who congregated in the Taj Mahal hotel were chasing this golden songbird. The terrorists want to kill the songbird.

Just as cinema is a mass dream of the audience, Mumbai is a mass dream of the peoples of South Asia. Bollywood movies are the most popular form of entertainment across the subcontinent. Through them, every Pakistani and Bangladeshi is familiar with the wedding-cake architecture of the Taj and the arc of the Gateway of India, symbols of the city that gives the industry its name. It is no wonder that one of the first things the Taliban did upon entering Kabul was to shut down the Bollywood video rental stores. The Taliban also banned, wouldn’t you know it, the keeping of songbirds. [link]

I didn’t know that last bit about the Taliban banning songbirds; there’s something very poignant about such an act. This morning, I randomly surfed through a wiki page about Osama, who once was so annoyed by music at a race track in Sudan, he subsequently stopped attending races.

But back to Bombay, where a seemingly indestructible Big B (who is a blogger, dontcha know) slept with a loaded revolver under his pillow, for the first time, ever.

Mumbai is a “soft target,” the terrorism analysts say. Anybody can walk into the hotels, the hospitals, the train stations, and start spraying with a machine gun. Where are the metal detectors, the random bag checks? In Mumbai, it’s impossible to control the crowd. In other cities, if there’s an explosion, people run away from it. In Mumbai, people run toward it — to help. Greater Mumbai takes in a million new residents a year. This is the problem, say the nativists. The city is just too hospitable. You let them in, and they break your heart. [link]

That bit I bolded made my heart crack, a little. So did this:

In the Bombay I grew up in, your religion was a personal eccentricity, like a hairstyle. In my school, you were denominated by which cricketer or Bollywood star you worshiped, not which prophet. In today’s Mumbai, things have changed. Hindu and Muslim demagogues want the mobs to come out again in the streets, and slaughter one another in the name of God. They want India and Pakistan to go to war. They want Indian Muslims to be expelled. They want India to get out of Kashmir. They want mosques torn down. They want temples bombed. [link]

Last week, SM reader “S” emailed us a tip about the October issue of National Geographic:

Just wanted to send a quick link to a story I worked on for ngm.com (National Geographic magazine). It’s a story about India’s highway project and has some amazing photography. The photo map has photos submitted to our site by readers.

The highway project is called the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ), and it is

…the brand-new, 3,633-mile expressway linking the country’s major population centers of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata. [ngm]

Some history behind the project:

Announced in 1998 by then Prime Minister Atal B. Vajpayee, who is credited with giving the project its grandiose name, the Golden Quadrilateral is exceeded in scale only by the national railway system built by the British in the 1850s. For decades after its 1947 independence, India practiced a kind of South Asian socialism in keeping with the idealism of its founders, Gandhi and Nehru, and its economy eventually stalled. In the 1990s the country began opening its markets to foreign investment, led by a pro-growth government and staffed by an army of young go-getters who speak excellent English and work for a fraction of the wages paid in the West. Yet India’s leaders realized their decrepit highways could hobble the country in its race toward modernization. “Our roads don’t have a few potholes,” Prime Minister Vajpayee complained to aides in the mid-1990s. “Our potholes have a few roads.”

Ten years after Vajpayee’s announcement, the GQ is among the most elaborately conceived highway systems in the world, a masterpiece of high-tech ingenuity that is, in many ways, a calling card for India in the 21st century. Seen on a 48-inch flat-screen computer monitor at highway administration headquarters in Delhi, the GQ seems as beautiful as a space capsule. Its designers describe it as an “elegant collection of data points,” or a gleaming, “state-of-the-art machine,” a technologically advanced conveyor belt moving goods and people around India with seamless precision.