The Taqwacores are back with a brand new chapter…

What struck me about this clip was how 9/11 really defined how the guys built their identity. I know it is a significant marker to building the identity for South Asian American of our generation, but it is surprising to see how different people have used the experience to different paths of empowerment. For some it’s voting or service work and others it’s starting punk bands.

Band members of various Taqwacore bands have started an online blog too - The Taqwacore Webzine doesn’t just talk punk, but they write about their perspective on the Lahore bombing, Cat Stevens, or South Asian poetry. But I guess all that is Taqwacore, isn’t it?

One of the first things I noticed while visiting my parents in NYC this weekend an ad (sitting in the junk mail pile) just like the one below:

McD’s is microtargetting tri-state desis with mailers that say “Taste ki baat hai!” While I like to be seen and recognized, I’m afraid the coffee flavored milkshake they call iced coffee really isn’t my cup of tea.

More to my liking would have been the Indian Mysore Coffee (“full bodied and nutty”) being offered at the local gourmet independent coffee place down the street, listed next to Ethiopian Sidamo Coffee and Hawaian Kona Extra Fancy as a Sunday special. That’s very good company to be in for a coffee that gets its flavor by being drenched by the monsoon! While they were out by the time I came by, I’m looking forward to trying an Indian beverage which doesn’t have “masala” in the name.

[Note: these are not my photos and therefore this is not my name on the ad. The pics are from Slice of Lemon, and linked back to the original post.]

Here are two Obama tunes to get you humming as you drink your Sunday morning coffee or chai.

We’ve blogged here about Bollywood Obama and I’ve written about the Japanese town of Obama’s boppy theme song “Obama is beautiful world.” Now, a couple of young musicians in Surat—Chirag Thakker, Jayesh Gandhi and Anita Sharma—have welcomed Obama into their hearts with this catchy song that praises our new president.

We have dedicated this song to Obama and uploaded it on Youtube, so that the world could see our attempts to honor him. His down-to-earth personality, faith in Lord Ganesha and great respect for Mahatma Gandhi made us feel that he is very close to us,” said Chirag, adding that they have used names of Lord Ganesha and Gandhi in the song. [full story]

The song has elements of a bhajan (the lyrics have devotionalism), but also features the djembe, which the artists chose to include in honor of Obama’s African heritage! The video is granted, a bit amateur, but it also has subtitles (so that Obama can understand it) and was shot in various parts of Surat, including the banks of the Tapi river and the city’s municipal gardens. Overall, the three artists devoted three months to it from start to finish.

I was going to wrap up this entry, but then found this Punjabi poem by California based poet and singer Pashaura Singh Dhillon. I was moved. But then again, I get weepy pretty easily these days.

The chessworld is "all agog" about the youngest player to ever upset a Grand Master - 9 year old Hetul Shah -

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." - Mark Twain

New Delhi (IANS): Nine-year old Hetul Shah created history in the first round of the seventh Parsvnath International Open Chess tournament, defeating Grand Master Nurlan Ibrayev of Kazakhstan on Sunday.

...Hetul was a class act Sunday afternoon as he not only recorded his biggest victory but also ensured a name in the record books. Hetul is the youngest ever to beat a Grandmaster, bettering the Indian record set up by Parimarjan Negi by more than a year.

The Hindustan Times gives us this player profile -

A break from politics and world news (and my crazy workday) to share this short, sweet video that I just caught wind of via my daily VSL fix.

It’s called “Rewind City” and is a French TV ad currently airing for Orange’s DVR service in France. Watch as the unexpressed wish of a tearful backpacker comes true when the traffic and people in a Goan village conspire to reverse direction.

Filmed in village of Assonora, 15km east of the town of Mapusa (a hub for bus travel) in North Goa, it’s directed by British director Ringan Ledwidge. The main characters came from Paris, the 250 extras came from Mumbai, and the other backpacker types came from Anjuna, home to the famous Goa hippie flea market.

The ad asks the question, “What if you could rewind a memorable moment in your life?” Not a bad question to ask of oneself every now and then.

Looks like it’s Pakistan day here on SM. So, I figured that Mutineers might enjoy a series of interesting updates on Pakistan from one of my fav milblogs, Strategy Page. My single biggest beef with Stratpage is the lack of outside links so, take everything here with the requisite grain of salt. However, their material does & has generally lined up with info from other news sources over time and it’s very valuable to find it in nice bite sized chunks here.

The stats on Afghan refugees formerly & currently in Pakistan helps frame how intertwined the 2 countries are -

October 9, 2008: In Pakistan, the government has ordered all 70,000 of the remaining Afghan refugees (there since the 1980s Russian invasion of Afghanistan) in Bajaur to return home. In the last few months, some 20,000 have already fled back to Afghanistan. Most of the two million Afghan refugees went home after the Taliban were chased out of power in late 2001…

Pakistan’s internal toll from terrorism (particularly security forces asked to confront lawless regions) gives some context to why they’re sometimes skiddish to putting more boots on the ground in NWFP -

October 8, 2008: The head of the ISI gave members of Parliament a rare briefing. Although secret, and apparently superficial, some details leaked out. In the last fifteen months, over 1,200 Pakistanis have been killed by Islamic terrorist attacks (including 117 suicide bombings). In the last seven years, nearly 1,400 security forces personnel have died fighting Islamic radicals (Taliban and al Qaeda).

I’m playing a new online video game today. It’s called “Homeland Guantanamos” and it has transformed me into an undercover journalist whose task is to unearth clues about the mysterious 2007 death of Boubacar Bah, a Guinean tailor who was held at a detention center in Elizabeth, NJ for overstaying his visa.

“Homeland Guantanamos” is the latest multi-media offering from Breakthrough, the human rights organization which uses media and popular culture to raise awareness here and in India. [Abhi covered their video game “I Can End Deportation” or I.C.E.D. earlier this year. ]

We’ve all heard stories about immigrants (illegal and residents) being detained without explanation or for prolonged periods of time. At the website, I got to see what life might be like on the other side of the fence. I took a tour of a simulated immigration detention center and collected clues to help solve the mystery of Bah’s death (he died of a skull fracture and brain hemorrhages). Along the way, I saw other detainees (eg: a pregnant woman kept in shackles during labor) and witnessed conditions of the facilities, including the solitary confinement room, the bathrooms, and the dining hall. Though this is a simulated experience, the content is based on factual sources such as news articles, court documents, and interviews.

Why call the site “Homeland Guantanamos”? According to Malikka Dutt, executive director of Breakthrough, “the Department of Homeland Security is violating the human rights of legal and undocumented immigrants” and some of the inhumane conditions of detention centers where these immigrants are being held are not all that different from the facility at Guantanamo Bay.

One of those ongoing, identity debates is what term appropriately encompasses “us”. “South Asian” is a little too stuffy, geographic, doesn’t account for some parts of the diaspora, and has a slight of Oriental-ish tinge to it (South of what? Is Europe implicitly the center/norm?). I just don’t go around high-fivin’ South-Asians in da house.

“Desi,” on the other hand, has a nice congenial ring to it and doesn’t seem as loaded with meaning dependent on some relation to the “other”. Plus, it’s “soft” enough that it avoids all those debates about Indian vs. Pakistani vs. Sri Lankan vs. Bhutanese (?) and so on. A 4th gen Fijian Indian is far more easily “desi” than “South Asian”.

But alas, there’s a new sort of Desi out there that might muddy the waters a bit. One use is described here -

If a Desi analyzer can be miniaturized and automated into a surgical tool, a surgeon could, for example, quickly test body tissues for the presence of molecules associated with cancer. “That’s the long-term aim of this work,” Dr. Cooks said.

Say whuh? It’s an acronym -

…a tiny spray of liquid that has been electrically charged, either water or water and alcohol, is sprayed on a tiny bit of the fingerprint. The droplets dissolve compounds in the fingerprints and splash them off the surface into the analyzer. The liquid is heated and evaporates, and the electrical charge is transferred to the fingerprint molecules, which are then identified by a device called a mass spectrometer. The process is repeated over the entire fingerprint, producing a two-dimensional image.

The researchers call the technique desorption electrospray ionization, or Desi, for short.

Everyone knows by now that I love bringing news of “freakish” (in a good way) little Indian kids to SM (see here and here as examples). SM reader Taara tipped us off to this little linguist via our tip line:

It looks like the Videographer returned a few years later to find a “grown-up” Ravi who has added even more languages into his arsenal:

Seriously, this little kid should be doing something other than selling Peacock feathers near the Hanging Gardens!

Richard Fernandez (aka Belmont Club) has a great, link-filled post on the most recent airstrike within Pakistan -

…yet another missile struck al-Qaeda in the Pakistani border area. “One of al Qaeda’s top chemical and biological weapons experts was killed in an air strike by a CIA pilotless drone,” according to CBS News. Abu Khabab Al-Masri is dead, according to al-Qaeda website. Several other men were killed in the strike.

Al-Masri’s central roles in both Al Qaeda and the lives of any frequent flier are pretty impressive -

…The LA Times says al-Masri was behind the failed post-September 11 plot to blow up airplanes en route from Britain to the United States, an event now memoralized in the restrictions on passenger-embarked bottles of fluids.

The innovative techniques required special instruction. Masri envisioned his operatives injecting the liquid explosives, a highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide mix, with a syringe into the false bottoms of innocuous containers such as sports drinks, sneaking the components aboard and assembling bombs after takeoff.

…The Associated Press also credits al-Masri with training the suicide bombers who attacked the USS Cole.

This strike is only the most recent in 5-6 other high profile hits in the past few months. Tellingly, the daily, operational grinding that is being inflicted on Al Qaeda in Pakistan is also evident and likely played a crucial role in finding al-Masri -

…With the decimation of his henchmen, the master bomber was forced to venture out himself and train volunteers who were often of indifferent quality.

Masri assumed more control. … Last spring, he taught bomb-making in compounds in North Waziristan to aspiring suicide attackers, including a 21-year-old Pakistani living in Denmark and a 45-year-old Pakistani-German, according to U.S. and European officials. U.S. anti-terrorism source sees Masri’s role as a symptom of decline. “The fact he trained them himself shows you some of the limitations of the network,” the source said.

A recurring topic for me on SM is how so many of our notions of civilized state behavior get chucked out the window when dealing with technologically- / globalization-charged 21st century terror orgs.

Utterly tragic and cant-peel-my-eyes-away fascinating. A Breitbart story + video tells the tale of Pakistan’s “Rat People” born with a sad heriditary disorder, Microcephaly -

Outside a Muslim shrine in this dusty Pakistani city, a “rat woman” with a tiny head sits on a filthy mattress and takes money from worshippers who cling to an ancient fertility rite.

Nadia, 25, is one of hundreds of young microcephalics — people born with small skulls and protruding noses and ears because of a genetic mutation — who can be found on the streets of Gujrat, in central Punjab province.

…According to local legend, infertile women who pray at Shah Daula’s shrine will be granted children, but at a terrible price. The first child will be born microcephalic and must be given to the shrine, or else any further children will have the same deformity.

…”The myth of the chuhas [rat people] has been exploited by beggar mafias and religious groups,” said Nasiruddaula, a former science professor in his 70s.

“They roam the villages and if the real chuha is born they give them some money and they take them,” he said.

How did the cluster show up here? Well, consanguinity plays a huge role -

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

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

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

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

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

Hold on, let’s get this over with…

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

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

Wait, what?

I do? Meh.

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

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

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

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

Forbes’s annual “100 most powerful women” list names Indra Nooyi, Chairman & CEO of PepsiCo the #5 most powerful woman in the world and the most powerful Desi woman. She edges out #6 - Sonia Gandhi, President of the Congress Party — thus creating a pretty impressive showing in the top 10. The final desi on the list, and a previously unknown one to me - #97 Vidya Chhabria - hails from the UAE.

A hearty SM congrats all around.

Worth noting - Pratibha Patil gets a nod as a “powerful woman behind the woman”; now that will get some SM tongues wagging.

Gregory Clark is quickly becoming the economist du jour due to his recently published (and quite controversial) A Farewell to Alms. Late last year, Sepia Mutiny had a preview of some of the book’s content and, as schedule permits, we will likely cover more of it moving forward. As we said back then, for Mutineers Clark is definitely an economist to watch relative to others due to his outsized focus on Indian economic history.

So, until we get a chance to dive into more of the detail here, GNXP (Razib’s home when he’s not a 1-man comments machine on SM) has a great interview with Clark up right now and question #1 hits squarely into desi territory -

1) In some early work, you wondered why workers in British cotton mills were so much more productive than workers in Indian cotton mills. You discuss this in the last chapter of A Farewell to Alms. You looked at a lot of the usual explanations-incentives, management, quality of the machines-and none of them really seemed to explain the big gap in productivity. Finally, you seemed to turn to the idea that it’s differences between the British and Indian workers themselves-maybe their culture, maybe their genes-that explained the difference. How did you come to that conclusion?

…When I set out in my PhD thesis to try and explain differences in income internationally in 1910 I found that asking simple questions like “Why could Indian textile mills not make much profit even though they were in a free trade association with England which had wages five times as high?” led to completely unexpected conclusions. You could show that the standard institutional explanation made no sense when you assembled detailed evidence from trade journals, factory reports, and the accounts of observers. Instead it was the puzzling behavior of the workers inside the factories that was the key.

What was this “puzzling behavior”? Well, unfortunately, it appears a good chunk of it was IST.

Read the rest, let it whet your appetite for more, and expect to see Clark here on SM in the near future

Oh, we zimbly HAVE to play the caption game with the picture below. It was thoughtfully submitted via a tip to our news tab from Msichana (thanks!)

Granny, get your gun: Ladies of the Village Defense Committee squeeze off a few AK-47 bursts during training by the Indian army in Sariya, India. [SFgate]

I don’t mean to make light of serious issues like empowering women or self defense and I wish I didn’t have to explicitly declare that in my post, but there you go, in case you needed me to do so. Having reluctantly typed all that, I will return to the gleeful state I was in when I first gazed at this— what a capture! Now you all caption away. :)

Previous editions of caption-palooza: onnu, rendu, moonu, naalu…

So here’s another piece of ammo for your “everything came from India” uncle -

Newton’s Infinite Series: We heard it in Malayalam first

NEW DELHI: A group of Malayali scholars had predated a ground-breaking Newton ‘discovery’ by over 250 years, according a research paper published on Monday.

The team of researchers from the Universities of Manchester and Exeter reveal that the ‘Kerala School’ identified the ‘infinite series’- one of the basic components of calculus - in about 1350.

And thus, by discovering one of the building blocks of calculus first, Mallu’s used the knowledge to, uh, well, uh, I’m not quite sure…. The researchers were quick to note that this discovery shouldn’t be used to reduce Newton’s stature but instead, add some brown names to the pantheon of genius -

[Dr George Gheverghese Joseph, one of the researcher and Honorary Reader, School of Education at The University of Manchester said,] “The brilliance of Newton’s work at the end of the seventeenth century stands undiminished - especially when it came to the algorithms of calculus.

“But other names from the Kerala School, notably Madhava, Valloppillil, and Nilakantha, should stand shoulder to shoulder with him as they discovered the other great component of calculus- infinite series.

However, Dr. Joseph does note that perhaps, just perhaps, Newton wasn’t inspired by the proverbial apple at all -

…there is strong circumstantial evidence that the Indians passed on their discoveries to mathematically knowledgeable Jesuit missionaries who visited India during the fifteenth century.

That knowledge, they argue, may have eventually been passed on to Newton himself.

Let the attribution games begin! (Hat tip - Venkat & Sindhya)

Via my Auntie Valsa’s kid, Jasmin, over at ASATA, news of an upcoming free M.I.A. show at Amoeba Records in Berkeley, this Saturday at 2pm.

I “hella” thought those of you in the yay area who have reconciled your inner turmoil regarding her connection with/representation of/grahpic allusions to the LTTE might want to know. Me? I’m still conflicted, so I’ll keep humming

Let you be superior

I’m flithy with the fury ya

…it’s easy being morally inferior when there’s such a sick soundtrack to feel shame to. I keed, I keed.

A heart-breaking update to my previous post, “On Respect for our Elders”:

A SICK 75-year-old grandmother who was thrown in the garbage by her relatives in India last week has died, officials say.

Chinnammal Palaniappan, died on Sunday in a home for elderly people where she was taken after being rescued from the garbage dump in Erode town, 400km from Chennai, capital of southern Tamil Nadu state.

Palaniappan had told her rescuers that on July 19 she was taken from her home by her grandsons and on waking up found herself among a heap of rotting garbage.

“She was improving after she was fed and given necessary medicines in the facility but on Sunday evening she developed breathing problems and died,” an official said.

Thanks for posting this to the news tab, Anonymous. At least she’s finally at peace.

If anyone hears news regarding the worthless family who did this despicable deed, please let us know. I can’t be the only one who is interested in their fate, and how the TN government proceeds with this tragic case.

Though I have never been a fan of Harry, I have always been an ardent devotee of pop culture, so Potter-mania interests me for that reason. I’m marinating in it here, but I’m tickled by what’s going on there, and by there, I mean India.

By 7 am, Strand Book Stall, Fort, Mumbai, who opened their doors at 6.30 am sharp on July 21, had sold 2,000 copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Queues of excited Potterwallahs, who had been in line since 6 am or earlier, wound themselves around the block in this busy Mumbai business district, where Saturday is usually a very quiet day.

Mothers and daughters, teenagers, young working people, plenty of youngsters with their parents and lot of oldies. all stood in a queue calmly clutching receipts for copies booked up to three months earlier.

The paan wallahs and chai wallahs nearby had seen this phenomenon before. “Yes it is for that book,” they said sagely. “I don’t know what the book is about.” [Rediff]

That is almost exactly what I said to a stranger, earlier today! ;)

And you muggle-borns? Did you skip to the last page, like the rowdy teens in Mumbai did?

The horrible treatment South Asian workers receive in Arab nations has been receiving more and more press coverage of late. Hopefully, the spotlight will ensure that something changes for the better but until then, it’s our job to bring forward stories like this -

The imminent execution of a teenage maid in Saudi Arabia drew fierce criticism yesterday…According to the Saudi authorities, Rizana Nafeek admitted strangling the four-month-old boy while feeding him with a bottle.

But Nafeek, whose job was not meant to include child care, has denied making any such admission. She claims the child had begun to choke before losing consciousness in spite of her desperate efforts to clear his airway.

Tonight is the deadline for appeals in the case.

This criminal trial is especially ghastly on 2 counts —

Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK, said: “It is an absolute scandal that Saudi Arabia is preparing to behead a teenage girl who didn’t even have a lawyer at her trial. The Saudi authorities are flouting an international prohibition on the execution of child offenders by even imposing a death sentence on a defendant who was reportedly 17 at the time of the alleged crime.”

Prior SM coverage here and here and here.

How do you solve a problem like Maria Musharraf? It’s so dang hard to figure out what we should (much less can ) do with him. Lets be clear, by nearly any measure, he sounds like a pretty awful leader. And yet, perhaps he’s a Stalin in our conflicted time — someone we’d otherwise hate but whom other, more pressing international circumstances force us to extend a bit more, uh, courtesy than we’d like. If his umpteen missteps have brought us to the verge of actively “regime changing” him (a great read, BTW!), then perhaps this latest diatribe from the Hitler of our time (no, not Bush, sheesh) wins Mushie back a few more points -

Not in the Musharraf Fan Club Either

I talk to you today on the occasion of the criminal aggression carried out by Musharraf, his army and his security organs - the Crusaders’ hunting dogs - against Lal Masjid in Islamabad, and on the occasion of the dirty, despicable crime committed by Pakistani military intelligence - at the orders of Musharraf - against Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi when it showed him on television in women’s dress.

This is a message of blinding clarity to the Muslims in Pakistan, the Pakistani Ulema, and indeed, the Ulema in the rest of the Islamic world, and this crime can only be washed away by repentance or blood. I call on the Ulema in Pakistan and tell them: this is what you are worth to Musharraf, and this is the treatment that awaits you in the prisons of Musharraf’s hunting dogs, and this is what you are worth to the Crusaders. Musharraf and his hunting dogs have rubbed your honor in the dirt in the service of the Crusaders and the Jews, and if you don’t retaliate for your honor, Musharraf won’t spare any of you, and won’t stop until he eradicates Islam from Pakistan. Lowly Musharraf, who has sold his honor and religion to the Crusaders and Jews, is arrogant with you in the extreme and regards you with the utmost contempt, and treats you like animals and dogs, and only is satisfied by portraying you in the lowliest and most despicable light.

This is an eloquent message [from Musharraf] to every scholar and every free and honorable person in Pakistan: that resisting Musharraf, confronting him and demanding that he adhere to Islam and refrain from worshiping the Crusaders and Jews will only get you the worst types of contempt, humiliation and degradation.

Of his litany of complaints, it’s almost comical that perp-walking Ghazi on TV in a dress ranks quite so highly. Perhaps there’s some insight here into the Honor/Shame dynamic commentators have noted in the shadowy corners of Arab society that breed Zawahiris…. Whatever the case, if the other guys think he’s out to destroy Islamism, then perhaps there’s another twist to this Gordian Knot. A tough problem to solve indeed.

Ultrabrown posted some picts from last weekend’s cheek swab fest in NYC. Vinay Chakravarty and his wife showed up and, as Manish points out, it’s almost weird how much revelry the event managed to create…

Additional events are happening all over the country to help Vinay, Sameer and countless others in the future.

In particular, this weekend, Bay Area volunteers are hosting their MEGA DRIVE spanning over a dozen sites.

So here’s a little game to liven things up & help get the word out — snap a pict or 2 of you and your friends getting your cheeks swabbed and/or holding up your donor cards, send ‘em to ME (vinod@vinod.com), and, in the spirit of the Desi Dad project, we’ll post some of our fav mug shots on SM and Ultrabrown alongside these folks -

An anonymous tipster alerted us via the News tab to a possible racist/scandalous/nebulous slip of Michael Moore’s tongue. I sat through the entire, excruciating 10+ minute video at Breitbart.tv, only to discover that the controversial part is at the end; the video I posted below features the last eleven seconds of the entire segment and contains the relevant moment.

Link: sevenload.com

Well? What do you think? Racist or immature? Mispronounced or intentionally mangled? Or is this much ado about nothing? Comments on Breitbart were hot, heated and divided about whether or not Michael Moore started to channel Apu. What say you?

Meenu Bedi is saving a life she’s never met…

Bedi said she was “honored and ecstatic” when she found out her stem cells were a match.

“It was a privilege to do it for someone,” she said. “I would hope that they would do the same for me, if I was in their shoes.”

…”I know she’s 54 years old and that she has leukemia,” Bedi said. “They won’t release her ethnicity, but, yeah, she’s East Indian.”

Meenu was registered via a Team-in-Training program sponsored by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

As rare as matches are, what’s even more sad is the occasional response to a match (a problem which, sadly, Vinay appears to have run into) -

“We often get a lot of people to sign up,” [Program Director] Vlume said, “but the unique problem is getting people to say ‘yes’ after we’ve made a match.”

She said that sometimes, as many as 70 percent of people deemed matches decline to go through with the process.

“They want to look like they’re doing a good thing, they want to show they support the community, but in the end they never really wanted to do it in the first place,” Vlume said.

Sometimes, attitudes are a far worse problem than numbers. Good luck Vinay & Sameer.

I’m utterly speechless.

One of YouTube’s commentors tries to explain things -

This is a rite of passage in India. It has not fangs and it’s mouth is sewn shut. Also, it has no constricting force so it’s less dangerous then a dog or cat.

… And discussion on urban-mythbusting website snopes.com seems to concur. Any mutineers have insight here? I mean it’s one thing to teach a baby not to fear *this* snake but rue the day he should start fearing all snakes.

Ever vigilant mutineer and desi in NJ Shlok alerted us to a second browning of Post Secret:

The first postcard SM covered was passionately discussed here.

A few of you have sent in tips about Anand Jon’s latest legal issues. Here are some blockquotes about the dirty and disgraced designer, which I ganked from Reuters:

A celebrity fashion designer already accused of raping or sexually assaulting 12 women and girls who came to him as aspiring models was charged on Tuesday with attacks on six additional victims.

Los Angeles prosecutors have now charged Anand Jon, an Indian-born designer who has appeared on the popular television show “America’s Next Top Model,” with a total of 46 counts involving 18 victims, all with ties to the fashion industry and between the ages of 14 and 27.

Anand Jon Alexander, who was notorious for being a douche to our girl Julie Titus during season 3, is out on bail.

The charges against Jon include forcible rape, sexual battery, sexual penetration by a foreign object, sodomy by use of force, forcible oral copulation, false imprisonment by violence, assault with the intent to commit a felony, lewd act on a child, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and sexual exploitation of a child.

Oh, and as for the title of this post…Jon cut his “trademark” flowing tresses. Seventy percent of you had no idea he even had long hair, and I applaud you for your ignorance. Sepia Mutiny: we read TMZ so you don’t have to.

As Abhi points out, one of the key elements of the proposed immigration bill was a Canadian-/Aussie-style points system to allocate immigration spots. The overall bill failed.

The proposed point system, however, was pretty interesting. The general goal was to provide a more systemic, color-blind way of sorting the through the massive pool of applicants. Factors like English proficiency, degrees, and occupations would be allocated values and the sum determined where in the stack you ranked….

Of course, the world being the non-uniform soup it is, the second you start calling some traits more ‘desirable’ than others, you’re going to run into, uh, disparaties in how frequently those traits are found across ethnic groups. Towards this end, the NYT published this very interesting chart which showed how, based on the past 15 yrs of immigration data, a few select groups would have been allocated points. By my eye, Desi’s would have scored rather conspicuously well….

There were several opportunities to join the NMDP’s database today; how many of you got swabbed? Tomorrow, there are drives in Fremont, Torrance and Cerritos— leave a comment and let us know if you went. More drives are planned, all over the country, during the next few weeks. Find more information about that here.

This reminds me of voting; it involves registering and we say we’re going to do it, but then we don’t always follow through. It’s one thing to be aware of Vinay’s situation, quite another to have actually done something about it. Don’t you want to be in the latter camp? :)

Like Tori and some rather old rodents (oh, like any of you are old enough to remember them), “I don’t like Mondays”. I thought you might feel similarly about today; if so, then perhaps you, too, will find this picture irresistibly smile-provoking. Marinate in the exuberance:

England’s Monty Panesar (R) celebrates with Ian Bell after dismissing the West Indies’ Corey Collymore during the fourth day of their first test cricket match at Lord’s in London May 20, 2007.

Now if you wanted to play our favorite caption game with this photograph, I don’t think anyone would object to such fun. And finally, to all the patient-with-a-novice, possibly-in-withdrawal cricket heads out in Sepia-land…I told you I was no fair-weather-padawan. :)

A “crude” bomb exploded at the 17th century-era Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad during Friday prayers, killing five and seriously injuring at least 25 others (Thanks, Red Snapper and Tamasha):

Minutes after the blast, Muslims angered by what they said was a lack of police protection began chanting slogans — a situation that quickly devolved into mobs throwing stones at police, who responded with baton charges and tear gas.

Some reports I’ve read state that the tear gas was used to clear the area, to help ambulances rush to and from the scene.

The bombing and ensuing clash between worshippers and police raised fears of wider Hindu-Muslim violence in the city, which has long been plagued by communal tensions and occasional spasms of religious bloodletting.

Many of those injured in the explosion at the 17th-century Mecca Masjid were severely wounded, and the city’s police chief, Balwinder Singh, warned the death toll could rise.

Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh state, where Hyderabad is located, appealed for calm between Hindus and Muslims.

Reddy called the bombing, which killed at least five people and wounded 25, an act of ”intentional sabotage on the peace and tranquility in the country.” [NYT]

Mecca Masjid, so named because some of its bricks were brought from that holy city, took 8000 masons almost eight decades to complete; it is the largest mosque in Hyderabad.

Developing…

…via SAJAforum. This ran in the WSJ today, as we were still discussing caste on this blog. What excellent timing for a barely-mediocre cartoon.

What do you think? Over at SAJA, commenter Sendhil had the following to say, which left me giggling:

If this is from the WSJ’s “Pepper… and Salt” spot, it’s not unusual that it’s not funny. Those cartoons are funny less often than “Fred Bassett”. I have concluded that they must serve some other, hidden, purpose, like sending coded messages about tomorrow’s Dow performance to the members of the Trilateral Commission.

Fred Bassett? Ouch.

A bomb exploded in the Peshawar restaurant where a “close relative” of Mullah Dadullah—the charismatic leader of the Taliban who was killed this past weekend—had been arrested, though there is no confirmation that said arrest provided the intelligence which helped us find Dadullah. The attack is especially ominous because it indicates that the war in Afghanistan is spreading to Pakistan [via PI].

The suicide bomber’s severed leg, found in the rubble of a restaurant where he killed 25 people, was wrapped with brown tape used to seal packages. On the tape, scrawled in the Pashto language, was an ominous warning.

“Those who spy for America will face this same fate,” it said.

The bomb went off yesterday in the four-story Marhaba Hotel in an old quarter of this frontier city, which served as the main staging point for mujahedeen in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s and is still synonymous with violent Islamic radicalism and political intrigue…

In addition to the warning for those who spy for the United States, provincial police chief Sharif Virk said, the parcel tape bore the Persian word Khurasan - often used in extremist videos to describe Afghanistan.

The timing of the attack is noteworthy:

The bomb went off shortly after the restaurant’s Afghan owner, Saddar Uddin, returned from a trip outside with some relatives, said waiter Hassan Khan. Uddin, his two sons, two other relatives, and seven employees were among the dead, he said.

A local intelligence official said Uddin, an ethnic Uzbek, had links to the party of anti-Taliban warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, part of the Northern Alliance that helped the United States topple the old regime.

A raccoon, a turtle and a squirrel walk in to a bar…and nothin’. But this procyonid, testudine and rodent are a bit more useful than that—they’re amusing. Via Sajaforum:

Sigh. This Sanjaya free-existence is almost unbearable.

Come back, little papaya, with or without those bees. We long to know what directions your tresses could have taken next, what conditioner you use, and whether you ‘poo. No, really…do you? And where do you stand on hair oil? Perhaps we’ll never know…

So Sree emailed me a grin-inducing link to the SAJAforum blog, where once again they are trying to…

test the “all desis know each other” theory and see if one of you can identify this model. [linkaya]

While the Microsoft billboard which inspired our original WTG post is apparently gone, there is no need to mourn the thrill of emulating Scooby-Doo while we attempt to solve a mystery. You see mutineers, we have ANOTHER model to play Kevin Bacon with!

…yesterday, as I walked into the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue and 59th St with my wife and kids, we were greeted by the poster (above)…Come on, folks, let’s ID her and give the theory a second chance.[linkaya]

Sree was basically asking the Mutiny if we were “in” when he sent me that GMail. I was all like, “Oh, we’re HELLA in!”, except I didn’t say that since I’m the only Northern Californian who refuses to hella anything.

What, you thought I was a fair-weather cricket pupil? ;)

Mutineer Sandeep sent in this tip after having one of those, “Hey. What the-? Brown??” -moments in front of his television:

Saw this commercial while watching NBC primetime TV, and thought I recognized that typical Dravid earnestness saying “actually, it’s 229 million…”. was kind of surprised when I paused and found desi cricket ishtars Rahul Dravid and Mahendra Singh Dhoni part of reebok’s new ad campaign…

As for other notables in the ad:

Stevie Williams rides his skateboard. Cricket players MS Dhoni and Rahul Dravid run together. Soccer player Thierry Henry and actress Emmanuelle Chriqui are paired. Tennis player Nicole Vaidišová is on the cell phone. Football players DeAngelo Hall and Chad Johnson run together. Track athlete (heptathlon) Carolina Klüft runs in yellow. Basketball player Allen Iverson and football player Vince Young run together. Track athlete Aries Merritt runs across a skywalk. [splendAd]

Finally, something about Reebok to appreciate. :D

Who dat? Why, that’s your girl M.I.A., doin’ the damn thing in Jamaica during a video shoot last week; a tipster on the news tab blessed us with a link to this and several other photos from the shoot posted at hip arbiter Pitchfork Media. Apparently the sister’s new album, called Kala, drops in August; we’ve already gotten down to “Bird Flu” a few months ago, and now if you check the Pitchfork item you’ll find a link to a MySpace page that offers a stream of another new song (though not on the album), called “Hit That.” The topic is, um, exactly what it sounds like — a pure sex/party jam, containing interpolations of previous classics of the genre like Wreckx-N-Effect’s “Shake Your Rump.” Anyway make of the music what you will, but I’m digging the pan-Third World aesthetic that M.I.A.’s been putting forward of late in her videos and indeed, her choice of settings; she’s a reverse ambassador of mash-up globalization, bringing it back to its multiple sources, and the brown skins, big butts and ramshackle backdrops express a politics far more creative, democratic and satisfying than the tired and tendentious tigers of her first go-round.

What “luscious, incomparable mangoes” you have! Now people can “go mad for the beautiful, supple flesh,” which we have “denied [ourselves] too long.” The subtext of articles and quotes from restaurateurs and political dignitaries about the re-legalization of U.S. imports of Indian mangoes is positively… fruity.

On less sweet a note, it seems that between production and transportation costs and the stranglehold exercised by Mexican mangoes (how dare they!) on U.S. distribution channels, Alphonsos may cost up to 10 times more than the plebeian mangoes currently available at your local yuppie food mart, tropical store or bodega. The pleasure of the Indian mango, it seems, shall be known by elite mouths only.

File this in the short & interesting category. Mohandas Gandhi’s grandson has recently had to turn down an offer to run Gujarat University because of a dress code violation -

Rico Suave: The Next Generation

A grandson of Mohandas Gandhi has turned down a request to head a university established by his grandfather, saying he does not always wear simple cotton clothing as required by the school dress code.

Gopal Krishna Gandhi, the governor of West Bengal state, said in a letter to the vice chancellor of Gujarat University that he does not always wear the hand-spun or woven cotton called “khadi” that is mandatory for anyone associated with the institution, the Hindustan Times reported Tuesday…

‘Tis an interesting observation on cultural relativism that while Gandhi’s bare chest and barely-there bottoms would no doubt violate norms at universities across the West, his grandson’s attire is becoming downright fashionable these days…

UPDATE — an interesting error in the original article that some sharp eyed / knowledgeable Mutineers pointed out - Gujarat Vidyapeeth University is the university in question, not Gujarat University.

HL Menken famously said, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” That’s true not just of customers, but of corporate employees as well.

If I managed a gym and I was hiring somebody to do sales, I would care about how much experience they had, maybe how fit they looked, but I can’t imagine caring about the nationality or religion of the applicant. And this would especially true in a place like Fresno which is one of the most diverse counties in the state of California. Still, that’s just what one Bally’s in Fresno did - out and out discriminated against a Sikh man:

Sukdev “Devin” Singh Dhaliwal applied for a sales job with one of Bally’s five Fresno fitness centers in 2004. An interviewer quizzed Dhaliwal, who was born and raised in California, about his religious and ethnic background, and then denied him a job and hired non-Sikh, non-Indian applicants with less experience, according to the commission.

”He was basically asked where he was born, where his parents were born, what religion he subscribed to and whether he was a Muslim,” said EEOC program analyst Linda Li. “He’s very American.” [Link]

Why bring up news from almost 3 years ago today? Because it took that long for Bally’s to face justice and … lose:

Under the consent decree approved by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White, Bally must pay Dhaliwal $24,000 in damages and provide training in equal opportunity hiring practices to managers at its Fresno locations. Dhaliwal said he plans to donate some of the money to his alma mater, California State University, Fresno, where a business law professor steered him to the EEOC after hearing about the interview. [Link]

It’s not a lot of money, but it should send a message. Sadly, it’s a message that still needs sending.

A fascinating group of news stories discusses the goal many auto companies have of building the next generation of really cheap cars for the 3rd world mass market.

Singing and Dancing into the Future

Renault-Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn is betting that for autos, the magic number is under $3,000. At a plant-opening ceremony in India Apr. 4, he was already talking up the industry’s next challenge: a future model that would sport a sticker price as low as $2,500—about 40% less than the least expensive subcompact currently on the market. Renault-Nissan is the first global automaker to take up the gauntlet thrown down in 2003 by India’s Tata Motors, which plans to launch a $2,500 car next year.

India is target #1 on all fronts — design, manufacturing, marketing, and, of course, the ultimate consumer. Instead of looking outside for economic growth, this is a story of internally sourced, created, and most importantly executed growth.

In further American Idol Idiocy news, Senator Bharat Obama isn’t the only Democratic Presidential contender being linked to our papaya Sanjaya! I am telling you, I can’t make up shit this good:

During a radio call-in on WOKQ-FM, Sen. Hillary Clinton was asked what the United States can do about Malakar, the Fox television show’s underdog candidate who critics say lacks any shred of talent.

“That’s the best question I’ve been asked in a long time,” Clinton said. “Well, you know, people can vote for whomever they want. That’s true in my election, and it’s true on ‘American Idol.’ “ [linkaya]

That’s right, America.

YOU ARE FREE TO VOTE FOR OUR PAPAYA!

In unrelated idiocy, it seems the utterly uncalled-for, haterade-fueled hunger strike against our cutie-patootie wasn’t pathetic enough; someone has exiled themselves to the roof of a car dealership, to protest Sanjaya’s winning streak:

The producer of “Chio In The Morning” on WRDW-FM in Philadelphia has been living in a little tent on top of the roof of a local Toyota dealership for the last week.

He’s battled rain and wind — but swears he won’t leave while Sanjaya remains on “Idol.” [linkaya]

No matter where you stand on Papaya, can we all just send Sanjaya Malakar a rousing chorus of “THANKS, FOR THE MEMORIES”? You must admit, this is ridiculously entertaining.

More power to you SM. And I’m not just saying that because you have bomb initials. ;)

…and obviously, that is why the bunker’s Malayalee Christian mutineer should post about it. ;)

Between Chachaji’s reminder and Ismat’s tip to our news tab (which lead me to this adoooorable picture on the left which I stole from Nirali’s The Daily), I was reminded to show some love to the most visible desis of all— the few, the proud, the hot, the turbaned. :D

The point is, with two Sardars in the bunker constantly bickering over who called which color (Ennis is really protective of his pink!) and bragging about whose dari smells best (we lost our impartial judge), it is incomprehensible to me that today should pass without commemoration from the mutineers. What could be more punk, more mutinous than a turban!

Now, yenjoy these three fast facts about today, as distilled from this BBC article:

1) The point of World Turban Day is to foster awareness.

2) “Traditional, hand-tied turbans” > “casual under-turbans and half-turbans”, i.e. don’t half-kundi it. Tie on a proper one, aight?

3) WTD is celebrated today because it’s the eve of Baisakhi.

Any questions? Kindly post them here, because Amardeep is better at turban-ing than I shall ever be. ;)

I know this is highly random, but ever since I read the email Sree sent out via SAJA, I’ve been curious about “her”, too. That and I truly believe that every brown person in Amreeka is two degrees apart:

You know your wife indulges your South Asia obsessions when she calls you from a cab to alert you to a pretty desi woman on Broadway. A pretty, very tall desi woman - over 15 feet tall, actually. See the photos below to see who my wife called me about (it’s a billboard for Microsoft’s Office 2007 on Broadway between 50th and 49th Street in Manhattan, near Times Square). Now, let’s test the “all desis know each other” theory and see if one of you can identify this model. [SAJAforum]

Bigger picture of our mystery model after the jump. Click to enlarge both images. Or not.

There’s an interesting interview with “Rebel Scientist” Freeman Dyson over at TCS (the longer version of it is here). Desi angle? I particularly liked this blurb where he points out the similarities between the technological mood of India / China today and an emergent US of the 1930’s -

…the western academic world is very much like Weimar Germany, finding itself in a situation of losing power and influence. Fortunately, the countries that matter now are China and India, and the Chinese and Indian experts do not share the mood of doom and gloom. It is amusing to see China and India take on today the role that America took in the nineteen-thirties, still believing in technology as the key to a better life for everyone.

Now, when Dyson speaks of a “western academic world” that’s losing power and influence, it’s really one specific Old Skool corner that brashly found the answer to man’s Tragedy in more / bigger / cooler tech . In its stead, there’s no shortage of academic influence amongst the segment that’s apt to equate economic growth with Global Warming / Consumerism / Corporate Tyranny and that finds the answer not in exuberance but in restraint. Luckily, it appears that message doesn’t sell so well in India.

Q: What should one do if one really needs to get laid?

A: Go to Kerala, of course! ;)

Via the Mumbai Mirror:

Nine months after he went on a rampage while in heat, destroying his enclosure at Byculla zoo, Rajkumar, the 18-year-old elephant, is finally leaving town today to mate with his chosen partner, a similarly-charged teenager at Thiruvananthpuram zoo, appropriately called Rani.

No having the sex before the marriage, thank you:

In the best Indian tradition, their relationship will be duly solemnised and the two are to get married after Rajkumar completes his five-day journey on an open-back Tata truck.

Unlike most of my manwhores, Raju does NOT dig older vomen:

However, the road to love has not been easy for Rajkumar. Though the two other elephants at Byculla zoo were females, they are 45 and 50 years old each, and no match for the young stripling. When zoo authorities resolutely ignored mild sulks and tantrums, Rajkumar decided that a full-scale rebellion was called for and in June last year the mast haati went on a rampage, breaking open the steel gates of his enclosure and running amok through the botanical gardens, before coming out on the open road.

This bit reminds me of Madagascar, one of my favorite animated movies, ever:

He was caught by the desperate mahaout and the zoo authorities near Byculla station.

He’s from the North, she’s from the South…can they make it work? Language might be an obstacle:

Rajkumar will be accompanied by chief mahaout Jamal Khan and an assistant. At Thiruvananthapuram they will apprise the zoo keeper there of his hobbies and also train them how to give order, for Rajkumar only follows orders in Hindi.

Well, well, well…looky here at what gossip blog Wonkette done uncovered:

There’s growing evidence that American Idol sensation Sanjaya Malakar and Decision 2008 sensation Barry Hussein Obama are the same person. If it’s not obvious that “Sanjaya” (right) is the same dude as Obama (left), here are some other striking similarities:

Both are accused of being all style and no substance.

Both are far better looking than normal Americans and the normal fugly contestants in their respective fields.

Both are “really cute kid[s] with a unique look and an incredibly dreamy smile that can get thirty 12-year old girls to vote a million times apiece on speed dial.”

Both are competing in a “silly, fun, really well-produced talent competition and you never quite know what’s going to happen.”

Both will end up outrageously rich, whether they win the talent show or not. [wonkette]

Wonkette forgot to add “Both of them have white Mothers” to that list; we’ll go ahead and do that for them, since we are Brown and we’re allowed to get down all incorrect and naughty like that.

Somewhere, “Everything-is-Indian”-Uncle is crowing about this surprising discovery to a long-suffering friend or relative like so: “I told you Bharat Obama was Indian! He went to the Harvard Law school, didn’t you know? Of course he is Indian!”

Since a few of you mutineers adore the artfully tressed, usually well-dressed, remarkably unstressed SANJAYA, perhaps one of you would like to create an online shrine in his honor? The perfect domain is still available (but act soon!). Via UberDesi and eBay:

Do you love Sanjaya Malakar from American Idol?? In almost every broadcast Ryan say’s “Malakar Mania” and NOW YOU CAN OWN IT on the WEB!

This URL / Domain name is guaranteed to get 1000’s of hits!

This Domain name / URL has been appraised at over $2,500 due to the popularity of Sanjaya, thanks to Howard Stern and the craze called American Idol!

Bidding starts at ONLY $9.95

Have at it— and don’t say we didn’t get you anything for Christmas/Channukah/Diwali/Eid/Nowruz/Onam. ;)

It’s not the timeliest bit o’ World Cup mutinousness (oy, I meant to have it up last Wednesday…sorry Anonymous Tipster), but once I realized that a) the cricket stadium I’m about to discuss had already been mentioned on SM almost two years ago, by one of our earliest readers and b) it dealt with Guyana, a part of the diaspora we don’t get a chance to cover all that often, I couldn’t resist blogging it, tardy though I may be. :)

Read all about India and Guyana’s construction-lovechild, via this article in the Malaysia Sun:

Inaugurated by Indian Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat during his official visit to Guyana in November last year, Guyana’s new international cricket stadium, which will hold as many as half a dozen matches in the Super Eight stage, has been billed as the stadium of friendship between India and Guyana.

India gave the Guyanese government a grant of $6 million and a concessional line of credit of $19 million for the purpose.

The new facility was built by Mumbai-based firm Shapoorji Pallonji.

It sounds impressive:

The new picturesque Guyana National Stadium is set on the east coast of the majestic Demerara river, which flows into the mighty Atlantic just a few miles away.

The new stadium seats over 10,720 spectators and accommodates another 4,280 on a grassy mound…The wide area around the stadium has seen hotels sprouting up which are expected to boost Guyana’s tourism industry.

Even numismatists get some love ;)

The Bank of Guyana has also issued a special gold coin to mark the opening of the new stadium.

Sanjaya-kutta,

Why?

You make it so hard to cheer you on, when you do ugly things with your pretty, pretty tresses. It’s just not okay. At all. Don’t you care about the greater desi community? How will THEY be affected by your reckless decision to have bad hair? You represent our hopes and assimilative aspirations— be careful out there. We’re counting on you and if you fail, we will never forgive you. Ever. Unless you go to medical school.

Sanjaya Malakar performed “Bath Water.” Randy Jackson said “Listen, the hairdo is definitely interesting. I like the kind of Mohawk look.” Paula Abdul said “To watch it on stage and not go for it, it’s kind of like we’re going ah, come on.“ Simon Cowell said “I presume there was no mirror in your dressing room tonight.” Sanjaya replied “You’re just jealous that you couldn’t pull it off.” Simon said “I couldn’t I agree. Sanjaya, I don’t think it matters anymore what we say, actually. I genuinely don’t. I think you are in your own universe and if people like you, good luck.” [linkosity]

Still, I wish you only the best— I just do so with my eyes closed, until someone tells me it’s safe to open them again.

Sanjaya zindabad,

A K K A

…for they shall all be spermy. (Thanks Anonymous tipsters!)

My Stewie-like plan to flood the world with my genetics is even MORE likely to be successful than I previously fantasized. HA! From MSNBC:

U.S. women who eat a lot of beef while pregnant give birth to sons who grow up to have low sperm counts, researchers reported Tuesday.

They believe pesticides, hormones or contaminants in cattle feed may be to blame. Chemicals can build up in the fat of animals that eat contaminated feed or grass, and cattle are routinely given hormones to boost their growth.

“In sons of ‘high beef consumers’ (more than seven beef meals a week), sperm concentration was 24.3 percent lower,” the researchers wrote in their report, published in the journal Human Reproduction…

Of the 51 men whose mothers remembered eating the most beef, 18 percent had sperm counts classified by the World Health Organization as sub-fertile.

Score ANOTHER one for Team Vegetarian. I’ve never TOUCHED red meat. w00t!

What a World Cup. And I say that as a cricket neophyte.

Stunning upsets, out-of-control fans, stocks in effigy companies spiking…and murder?

Bob Woolmer, 58, is dead. They found the unconscious coach of Pakistan’s team in his hotel room this weekend and he died soon after that at a hospital. At first, I was told by my cricket tutors that it was probably a heart attack; after a bruising defeat, it seemed entirely plausible. Woolmer’s family seemed to agree, from various reports that I had read. But what really happened to him? Did he die of unnatural causes (Thanks WGiiA, Anon and Anil)?

Police are now treating Bob Woolmer’s death as suspicious, Mark Shields, the deputy commissioner of police, told a news conference in Jamaica. A full-scale investigation has been ordered.

…”Having met with the pathologists, our medical personnel and investigators, there is now sufficient information to continue a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr Woolmer, which we are now treating as suspicious.”

However, unconfirmed reports suggested Woolmer might have been murdered because marks were found around his neck. [Link]

Hmmmm. I’ll keep you posted. Well, you’ll probably keep ME posted, but you know what I meant. The education of this dilettante cricket fan continues…and really, it doesn’t need to be THIS interesting.

Via Uberdesi, your home for American Idol-related everything.

What perfect timing— some of us were just talking about both Sanjaya AND the utility of hunger strikes! I’d write more but I’m rolling on the floor, laughing my callipygian rondure off.

Shilpa Shetty blah blah racism blah reality show winner blah. ;)

…Shilpa was in London to meet Elizabeth II at Commonweath Day on Monday, celebrated at Westminster Abbey.

The actress delivered a speech on — you guessed it — racism.

Shilpa — reportedly wearing an intricate purple velvet Tarun Tahiliani sherwani — curtseyed before the Queen, and then almost slipped in her high heels. Apparently Prince Philip smilingly told her to be careful about the shoes, averting the fall. [linkypoo]

In other news, yesterday, Pakistan should have stuck with spinners, but decided otherwise. ;)

In other other news, Since I don’t talk cricket walk cricket and laugh cricket, I have no clue what the previous statement involving Pakistan means. I’m just shamelessly flirting with all you cricket-fiends.

Finally, for those of you who might be wondering why on earth I posted this if I was obviously sooo not interested in it, it’s really just because I thought sherwanis were for boys and I wanted to consult my kitchen cabinet. Well?

I am not, I repeat not, calling him a ho. Hey, $200,000 to me sounds like a perfectly fair price to make an appearance at a Sweet Sixteen birthday party. Even when you’re already on a $100 million contract with a $34 million guaranteed signing bonus. Yeah, yeah, I know, maybe the dough wasn’t that much, and maybe it all went to charity, or something. But that gets us to the more important question: Who the hell spends that kind of money on their daughter’s 16th birthday party? And if Peyton cost two hundred grand, what was the total bill for the event considering that Cedric the Entertainer and Mallika Sherawat were apparently also in the house?

Either way, the whole thing was lampooned yesterday on both PTI and ATH on ESPN; you can find the video by digging around here. The consensus view was: Tacky. Offer your own thoughts on the matter here, or if you prefer a more down and dirty environment, check out the comment threads at Deadspin (which broke this story) or AOL Sports, where the proportion of terrorist and camel jokes is actually refreshingly low.

I was thinking about the fact that, as an over 30, I am now officially old. I mean, James Bond is now a 30-something, which makes this the first time in my life that I have been in the same decade as a Bond actor.

However, between popping arthritis medicine and obsessing about the fact that I have to settle down before it’s too late, I remembered something. Old folk can still dance. I don’t just mean gorgeous professional dancers like DesiDancer, I mean ordinary uncles and aunties. I’m not saying that they can grind, freak or krump (although I’ll bet DD can krump like a clown) I mean that they can dance which is to me a far more beautiful thing.

Herewith, exhibit A [via Vinod], Gurdas Maan’s Babe Bhangra Pounde Ne:

If I can dance like that, when I’m that age, I’ll be a happy man.

UPDATE: Comments from people who say they know Sidarth indicate that this is not him. Thank you very much for the correction.

[Via TPM ElectionCentral]

Ranjit Bhatnagar of moonmilk.com just got a solo photography exhibit at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue subway station, showcasing his art in 8 4’x6’ lightboxes.

What makes this exhibit extra cool is how it came about:

The MTA’s curator found my photos by searching Flickr and we used Flickr to choose and narrow down the photos for the exhibit. [Link]

Without LonelyGirl15 to satiate our YouTube obsession anymore, the viral video land has been somewhat quiet. That is until The Avon Lady hit the inter-waves (thanks, MadGuru).

That's right kiddies, starring in this insanity of a rap opera video with a dinosaur Avon lady is our very own Kal Penn (as well as Superman Brandon Routh as the cop). There is a perfectly good explanation why the video is trying to be the next 'Lazy Sunday'-- because it is housed out of the same group of filmmakers of said SNL fame, The Lonely Island.

The Lonely Island is a group of filmmakers, founded in 2001 by Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone and Andy Samberg... The Lonely Island has created numerous comedic films, shorts, parody songs, and music videos. They have made three full-length pilots, all of which have been rejected...The site also includes a blog from Chester Tam, often referred to as Chez. The blog, titled "Chez Chat", gives humorous summaries of the site's updates. [wiki]

Watch, comment, enjoy. As for me, Chez's you tube videos and podcasts are my new inter-addiction. I cannot wait for Part II and some more Kal Penn in speaking roles.

Erstwhile Guest Blogger Ads finds the ultimate in pimp rides, on Craigslist of all places; I totally understand her desire.

I realize that this is completely impractical, but I still kind of want it. [link]

I want one, too. What a beaut. Classic red with tan top, street legal, meets strict emissions standards for my home state, a mere 400 miles old…book it, I’m sold.

Mutineer anti-favorite Toral Mehta is on the Apprentice again tonight. Joy. ;) Actually, I should’ve seen this coming; Rebecca had the most ridiculous soft shpot for her friend Toral, a.k.a. the woman who established herself as a righteous defender of the Hindu faith with her refusal to don a costume.

Were any of you watching while I was? I thought Carolyn’s eyes were going to turn Rebecca to stone when she made such a controversial pick for her team of three assistants, but that’s just me. Mais oui, the only female contender left resumed her familiar stoic, I-might-be-wrong-about-this- but-I’m-going-to-nod-emphatically schtick. Oh yeah, since the finale is a two-parter, you get some Toral NEXT week, too. Chrismukkah comes early this year, truly.

Related: Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro

Blog Quake day came and went, but so much more still needs to be don(at)e(d).

Mushie was on NBC’s Today this morning, as Ann Curry asked him how much more his country needs; his answer was measured in the Billions.

My cousin Lisa sent me a forward with an easy way Mutineers in DC can help TOMORROW:

BEN & JERRY’s in Dupont Circle has graciously agreed to donate 25 % of your tab towards the South Asia Earthquake Relief Effort. The money will go directly to the Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America (APPNA). Please mention the cause when you purchase your ice cream.

An estimated 70,000-80,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million left homeless in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake that hit Pakistan, Kashmir and India on October 8th. With the harsh Himalayan winter rapidly approaching, death tolls are expected to double.

You CAN make a difference. Your contribution will be used on the ground in Pakistan to assist doctors and nurses treat the injured and prevent the spread of disease.

When: Wednesday, November 16th, 7:30-8:30p

Where: Ben & Jerry’s, 1333 19th Street NW

This is a wonderful idea— if any of you are coordinating similar fundraisers, please let us know. Mo’ notice, mo’ betta.

We go from the strangely disturbing to the just plain strange today on the Mutiny. Right on time for dinner!

An Indian boy considers his rare birth defect to be an advantage. Devender Harne, 10, was born with 25 fingers and toes — six fingers on each hand, six toes on one foot and seven on the other.

Video of the child here. Of course he’s going to take the brown view of things:

Though it would be considered an abnormality to some, Devender says it allows him to work faster than the average child.

Despite his super powers, Devender is a pretty ordinary kid:

The extra digits on his hands and feet don’t hinder his daily life. Like any normal 10-year-old, he goes to school, plays sports and spends time with his friends.

As tipster BJ said— another one twenty-five for the world of Guiness. Brilliant!

The Guinness Book of World Records has contacted the boy’s family and is investigating whether he has the most useful fingers and toes in the world.

India Uncut points us at a series of fun blog posts over at Minor Scale.   Manoj has translated some choice South Indian film songs into anglais.  Most translations are just text but this one had pix and made me smile.   Next time some cultural elitist snob rants about how every piece of media was better in the original Tamil, Uyghur or !Xóõ, I’ll point ‘em here -

Proof that if you can’t have the pix, some folks really do listen to the lyrics.

When it comes to music in the diaspora, there a few names that of course come to mind (Talvin Singh, Panjabi MC), but one of the most consistent and visible musicians evolving from the South Asian diaspora, and who is not universally from the UK Bhangra or the Asian Drum and Bass scene, is without a doubt, Nitin Sahwney.  DJ, producer, musician, and activist extraordinaire, Sawhney whose most recent studio-album Philtre, which has to be listed amongst his best work, is now slated to score Mira Nair’s production of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, and is reported to be working as a producer on Indo-Canadian British transplant pop-star Raghav’s unfinished second album.  In fact, Bobby and Nihal, on their October 12 radio show on the BBC offerred up a bit of a preview of the Raghav/Nitin collaborative work entitled “Seasons,” which draws heavily on the heavenly ‘Mausam’, which appears on the Philtre album.  After having heard the original Mausam, the version featuring Raghav admittedly sounded a bit cheecky, but knowing that Nitin is producing some of the record makes me dizzy with anticipation.  Well, maybe not dizzy, but excited for sure.

Incidentally, Sawhney, who has also worked with Sting and Spanish collective Ojos de Brujo among others, seems to be in demand lately. Former Beattle Sir Paul McCartney, in an interview with Rolling Stone published earlier this month, said he initially wanted to make a record influenced by Nitin’s sound, 

“I liked the idea of toying with a kind of Asian thing, a one-chord thing. There’s an artist called Nitin Sawhney who I like — he’s a British-Asian guy. It was just a vibe I was into at the time

More SM on Nitin here.

“43” hosted an Iftaar dinner at the White House yesterday, the fifth time that Bush has held one in the State Dining Room. Ambassadors Ronen Sen and Bernard Goonetilleke attended, as did other diplomats and prominent Americans who practice Islam. After the Imam’s prayer, the President announced a “first” which seemed especially appropriate; a Koran is now part of the White House Library.

The President used the occasion to express his gratitude towards Muslim nations who have assisted in the WoT. As for the rest:

“I believe the time has come for all responsible Islamic leaders to denounce an ideology that exploits Islam for political ends and defiles your noble faith,” he said at the White House, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). [link]

Well, this is delightfully unexpected. A technology support services company called SlashSupport just announced that it’s outsourcing—to America. Yummy globalization.

Here’s information from the press release, via SAJA’s email discussion list:

SlashSupport, the technology support services company announced today the opening of a new support center in San Jose, California. It is SlashSupport’s sixth center (adding to its existing four locations in India and a redundancy center in Singapore). SlashSupport is a part of Cybernet Software Systems ( CSS ) Group.

SlashSupport’s core support delivery backbone at India employs over 2000 representatives, at four distinct support centers spread across 180,000 sq. ft. in Chennai, India.

This might only be the beginning?

The new San Jose support center will help SlashSupport meet some of the local support needs in providing complete range of support services, significantly strengthening its support infrastructure outside India. Depending on the needs of the business, SlashSupport has the option of expanding its North America operations.

Jason Alexander, erstwhile-Costanza and current…um…outsourcing guru was unavailable for comment.

Desi-related snippets in American TV ads:

• M.I.A.’s ‘Galang’ is the soundtrack for a flying Honda Civic (1MB DivX), previous post here
• T-Mobile wireless ad, ‘Rajni Gupta!’ (1 MB Divx)
• Aasif Mandvi in Honey Nut Cheerios ad (0.7 MB Divx), previous post here
• Random desi actor in Kellogg’s Honey Crunch ad (2 MB Divx)

I don’t understand the practice of hiding women away somewhere dirty while they’re menstruating. Men say a woman’s “impure” then. Hello? If she didn’t bleed, you never would have been born. If you’re going to have a segregation practice, shouldn’t it at least be something nice for a woman, like a Mikvah?

Women’s rights activists in Nepal have hailed a Supreme Court order to end discrimination against women during their menstrual cycle. 
Women in poor villages in much of western Nepal are forced to stay in dirty cow-sheds outside the home for four days during their monthly period. They are often given unhygienic food and suffer verbal abuse.
The Supreme Court has ordered the government to declare the practice as evil and given it one month to begin stamping the practice out. [Link]

That’s plain wrong, just like hitching a woman to a plow. You’ve still got a long way to go baby, and honestly, a legal change is just the first step.

p.s. Take it from me, Nepali men, yelling at a woman who has the cramps is just not a good idea.

If you’re on the east coast, consider turning off the Emmies and switching to Turner Classic Movies, right now. Sabu’s “Black Narcissus“— I wrote about it in May— is on! Maybe some of you on the west coast will be able to catch it…

IMDB provides a plot summary:

Anglican nuns, led by the stern Sister Clodagh, attempt to establish a religious community in the Himalayas, and must battle not only suspicious locals and the elements, but their own demons as well.

Enjoy the “exotic” accents. They sure as hell ain’t South Asian.

I know nothing about cricket. In fact, whenever someone mentions it, I’m sorely tempted to chirp, “Now THAT was a wicked googly!” a la Seinfeld repping for AmEx. Forgive me for writing this post anyway? ;)

From the Beeb:

India thrashed Zimbabwe by an innings and 90 runs in Bulawayo despite a brave lower-order resistance from the hosts on day four of the first Test.

Resuming on 67-6 and still 208 runs shy of making India bat again, Zimbabwe managed 185 in their second innings with skipper Tatenda Taibu making 52.

Harbhajan Singh finished off the tail to return figures of 4-59.

The match was over when the off-spinner trapped Gavin Ewing lbw for 34 to end the hosts’ last-wicket stand of 47.

SM reader tef sent in a story from the BBC about a woman who plowed a field, while harnessed right next to a bull. Sigh. :(

The move was ordered by village elders who said she had angered the rain god by breaking a taboo on women touching ploughs, thus risking a drought.

Apparently, this taboo has existed for hundreds of years; some villagers saw the 25-year old woman touch a plow at the end of last month and my goodness, it hasn’t rained since. Obviously, there’s a connection between the two events.

Predictably, the woman is from a minority caste and refuses to press charges. Police can’t do anything unless she does.

Police have been seeking legal opinion on whether a formal criminal case could be framed under a law which bans witchcraft and such activities in the state, the police chief said.

My inner cynic doesn’t believe that a criminal case will change such ingrained superstitions, but it’s a good first step. What else can you do?

Uncleji’s comment about “A boy named Sue” led me to Wikipedia, one of the sites I adore most on the interweb.

Whenever someone leaves a wiki-fied link, I gleefully click through and then I always check the “main page” to see what’s up. Without fail, I find something fascinating to read and learn. Today? No exception. :)

Raj Ghat, a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi is a simple black marble platform that marks the spot of his cremation on 31 January 1948. It is left open to the sky while a flame burns perpetually at one end. It is located on the banks of the river Yamuna in Delhi, India. A stone footpath flanked by lawns leads to the walled enclosure that houses the memorial. Two museums dedicated to Gandhi are located near by. The memorial has the epitaph Hey Ram, the last words uttered by Gandhi, meaning, Oh Lord!

Read the rest here, if you desire edification. :)

She had to lose him, to do him harm:

Police in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh have detained a mother who they accuse of drowning her adopted son. The mother tied the baby to a heavy stone and threw him down a well after villagers told her that he might be suffering from Aids, police say. [BBC]

The ten-month old child didn’t have a chance; coughing and feverish, he was in the coastal village of Gurripudi, a place full of idiots whose idle, tragically incorrect speculation carried more authority than, oh, I don’t know, ACTUAL HIV TESTS. Gurripudi, which is in the East Godavari district, is an area where HIV is rampant, where it would be easy to stupidly, hysterically assume the worst about a baby who isn’t yours.

The murderess is in police custody, her husband hasn’t been charged. The couple adopted the little boy from a nearby village to complement their family, which already included three obviously lucky daughters.

Also, I urgently require that you not be so “Jim Crow” (Thanks, Al Mujahid).
This is outrageous, y’all:

Posted On : 17 August 2005

URGENTLY REQUIRED

A leading company in the automotive business requires the following personnel to be located in Abu Dhabi and Beda Zayed city branch

DIESEL MECHANICS
ELECTRICIANS
MECHANICS
PAINTERS
DENTERS
LIGHT & HEAVY DRIVERS

Applicants should have a relative Diploma with minimum 3 years experience in Automobiles industry.

UAE D/L is a must for drivers.

Indians are not preferred to apply.

Fax: 02-6767708
P.O Box 29699 Abu Dhabi

Just one more reason why it’s a part of the world I’m not fond of…the minuscule silver lining is, less jobs for brown people means less brown people in the gulf, which means less stories like this.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences revealed the nominees for the 57th Annual Emmy Awards today…and would you look at who got props:

Supporting Actor, Drama Series : William Shatner, “Boston Legal,” ABC; Oliver Platt, “Huff,” Showtime; Naveen Andrews, “Lost ,” ABC; Terry O’Quinn, “Lost ,” ABC; Alan Alda, ” The West Wing,” NBC.

Can our boy beat Captain James Tiberius Kirk? Does the latter pronounce “I’m Denny Crane” a lot on Boston Legal? ;)

Eeeek, how exciting— “Lost” is also up for “Best Dramatic Series…and before you ask, no, I don’t know what the other nine noms are for. :D

The only even remotely un-fun part about this is the fact that there are dueling-“Lost” nominees in the same category. I hate it when that happens, though I’m not exactly torn about whom I prefer in this instance. Now if it were the “Lead Actress” contest…

Earlier, somebody asked if the incidence of hate crimes in the UK was worse now than in the past. The short answer is yes, immensely so:

In the three days after the bombing, police in London recorded 180 racial incidents. A total of 58 faith-related crimes were recorded, compared with one in the same period last year.

Attacks have also been reported on mosques in Tower Hamlets and Merton, both in London, Telford, Leeds, Bristol, Birkenhead and Gloucester, and on a Sikh temple in Kent. [Guardian]

Today’s BBC Worldservice radio broadcast indicated that there have been additional reports of backlash related violence, but gave no further details. Before some of you start frothing at the mouth and comparing this to the violence of the bombings, there is no comparison. I was livid when the bombings occurred. Since then, it has only become more personal - my cousin was one of those lucky enough to dodge the bullet, passing through only 10 minutes before the bombs went off. There is no reason to mix the two issues though. The bombing does not justify anti-brown violence afterwards.

From the verdant paradise of my ancestors comes a story that has my head ringing with "You put your WEED in it!"-- apparently, a needless slaughter of innocent, Idukki-dwelling Cannabis plants took place in Kerala...I ask you, where's the outrage? ;) Oh, and what next?

The Kerala government will convert part of an 8,000-acre forest that used to be dense with cannabis plants into a tourist adventure and herbal park.

"Apart from the adventure park, we propose to convert the place into a herbal park as several species of herbal plants are growing in the area," Forest Minister T. Radhakrishnan told reporters here Tuesday.

What's an herbal park...without HERB? Sheesh.

If I had to guess, I would speculate that the park will be full of Karriveppilei, that sacred, venerated Malayalee houseplant that my mom would save from a burning building before any thought of me, my sister or my dog.

About 114,000 cannabis plants were destroyed.

Omg, they killed cannabis. Those bastards. ;) Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go veg to more Comedy Central, lest I run out of cute ways to blog things. :D

Monkey got props for his actions, too. (Thanks, bl00t!) A simian devotee of Shiva showed up bright and early in Orissa the other day:

Said Aniruddha Behera, a village resident: "The monkey folded his hands, observed silence, put vermilion on his forehead and also took the prasad from the devotees."

"When we saw the monkey joining us we were surprised. We did not try to drive it out and it continued praying for nearly an hour amid hundreds of devotees," Behera told IANS.

Villagers from Junia, Balasore district placed a garland on the spiritual simian before he left for a forest. Apparently the monkey was not familiar to those who witnessed the surprising scene, which went down on the day that a symbol for Shiva was being "formally inaugurat(ed)".

"We have not seen any monkey around for the last two years. This is a miracle for us," Behera said.

Over forty years ago, my mom's family in Kerala had a parrot that famously prayed with everyone every day; in fact, if "evening prayers" didn't commence exactly on time, the much-loved bird would chide my heathen mother and sonorously begin them for her. Yeah, I love stories like this.

We've been accused of a lack of lowe for Guyana, so I thought I'd point out that serendipitously enough, today is Guyanese Independence Day. Wikipedia says so on its main page, under selected Anniversaries. By the by, did you know that Guyana is half desi?

the three major groups are the (East) Indians or Indo-Guyanese (50%) who have remained predominantly rural, the Africans or Afro-Guyanese (36%) who constitute the majority urban population, and the Amerindians (7%) who live in the country's interior...

Christianity (50%), Hinduism (35%), and Islam (10%) are the dominant religions in Guyana, with the latter two concentrated in the Indo-Guyanese community.

Word. SM is down with ALL brown, y'hear? :)

Separatists in Manipur shot a man in the knees because he violated their ban on chewing zarda:

Arun Thakur is battling amputation at an Imphal hospital after he was shot at close range on his legs by suspected separatists on Wednesday. One of the assailants reportedly shouted at the barber from Bihar, who has made Imphal his home: “You are punished for chewing paan.” The attack comes a day after the outlawed separatist Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF) imposed a ban on the sale and consumption of chewing tobacco products in Manipur…

Tobacco products locally known as khaini and zarda are a common form of addiction among many Indians, including a vast majority in Manipur… “The ban is meant to counter India’s evil designs of getting the younger generation hooked to such dangerous substances,” an RPF statement said.

Encouraged by the rebels, frustrated desi readers worldwide have threatened to ‘bust a cap in Random House’s ass’ if they publish one more book with mehndi on the cover.

The abnormally chubby baby about whom Apul posted did not survive his encounter with an Indian hospital:

Eleven-month-old baby Lokman Hakim, who weighed over 20 kgs, choked to death at SSKM Hospital on Sunday…

Lokman’s mother Ganera Bibi was feeding him mashed boiled rice on Sunday afternoon… But he started getting hiccups soon after his meal. Doctors suspect the baby had “overeaten” and food particles had got stuck in his trachea due to the lack of muscular co-ordination.

“I don’t know what happened. My son had never been given rice before. We brought him all the way from Murshidabad for treatment, and now he is no more,” said the shocked mother.

Somewhere, a bench is about to have a really famous butt on it:

Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar will be out of action for at least four months after undergoing surgery on his troublesome elbow.

The 32-year-old batsman had the operation in London on Monday.

Karunakaran Nair, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, said he could not say how long Tendulkar would be out for...

He first suffered what was originally described as "tennis elbow" while batting in the nets in the Netherlands last August.

Wordsmith Dawesar presents her electrifying Babyji in DC tomorrow night:

Reading from BABYJI
Olsson's Books @ Penn Quarter
418 7th Street NW
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Thursday May 26th, 7 PM.
202-638-7610

I'm almost done with it and it's fantastic; Babyji may accomplish what even my father couldn't-- it might persuade me to study physics. Intrigued? You should be. What other novel contains a come on like, "I want to collapse my wave function into you." Now that's hot. ;)

Professional Indian women are trading one type of pleated garment for a far less attractive substitute (unless they're choosing "flat-fronts", that is):

A survey of Indian women's preferred daily clothing has shown that more female professionals are choosing trousers over the traditional sari. The study results show that sales of women's trousers have surged by almost 10% over the last two years.

Why all the drama?

"Let's face it, the sari is not an easy garment to deal with. Women find it difficult to work in it with all the pleats and it does tend to be cumbersome," fashion writer Hindol Sengupta told the BBC.

Worry not, traditionalists. Regular old Indian clothes still account "for three-quarters of the women's apparel market". Huzzah.

Amazon on both sides of the pond has posted cover concepts for the new novels by Salman Rushdie and Zadie Smith (thanks, Sapna). Rushdie fires first on Sep. 5, Smith the following week. As anyone in mass marketing will tell you, new products crowd the first weeks of autumn. Books and babies are best launched after the summer doldrums.

Previous posts: 1, 2

A while back, SM profiled Mr. Hemant Lakhani, a Brit national accused of trying to sell missiles to Islamo-fundi-fascists. When asked Do You Feel Safer, one SM commenter noted -

I again wonder whether the government will be engaging in similar efforts to target White Christian populations in Michigan

Well, rest a little easier gentle reader, in what appears to be a near perfect copy of the Lakhani "sting", a 68 yr old PA man (presumably a white christian?) has been arrested trying to sell bombs to an undercover agent posing as an Al Qaeda operative -

A 68-year-old Pennsylvania man was arrested on charges he tried to build a bomb and sell it to an agent he thought was a member of Al-Qaida, officials said Monday.

Ronald Allen Grecula of Bangor, Pa., was arrested Friday in Houston during a meeting with undercover FBI agents...

If only Mr. Grecula had read Sepia Mutiny, he'd know that this particular line of biz - esp. if you're an amateur - isn't one you wanna dip your toe into... BTW, Mr. Grecula, the racial profiling defense didn't work too well in Mr. Lakhani's case, I doubt you'll have better luck with it.

Karthik explains that Bollywood villains and temptresses are auspiciously named:

… [Saul] Bellow famously gave his characters physical traits that seemed to describe their characters… Indian movies, on the other hand, turned names into characterological maps. Pauls and Peters always had ill-fitting goatees, and took orders from their boss to do bad things, while Ritas and Sonas wore glittering, pointy boobed costumes that showed off a lot of thigh (and there was a lot of thigh to show off) and danced badly.

The Bollywood conception of the bad girl, the westernized one with a kicky English name, bobbed hair and go-go boots, always tickled me. And villains got the best names.

Sith, they’re no worse than ‘Bail Organa’ — felonious prick? And ‘General Grievous’ has no pretensions above pulp. You’d expect General-ji in the WWE.

The Gray Lady’s reader advocate shows the back of the hand to a NYT reporter who dissed Padma Lakshmi and Indian fashion (thanks, akhan):

“A semicelebrated hustler Ms. Lakshmi may be.” - Fashion writer Guy Trebay on Padma Lakshmi, Feb. 8.

… gratuitously nasty, and inappropriate in a newspaper that many of us look to as a guardian of civil discussion.

If gratuitous snark were banned, blogs would go begging for want of readers.

Cruel and unusual punishment? From NRI-worldwide (scroll down past the article about the bobbitised penis):

In confinement for the last two years on charges of theft, inside cell number 11 of the Ghaziabad district jail his only companions were the 120 white pigeons whom he met once a day to feed grains and corn.

But not any more.

Bringing an end to what many inmates believed was “an immortal friendship”, perverted jail authorities caught 100 of Chandra’s pigeons and broke their necks, one by one, in front of him on May 16.

This was done by jailer R.C.Singh and his men on instructions from the jail superintendent Rajesh Kesarwani, as a way to make Chandra admit to his crime.

The 1957 Indian film Pyassa (which I have neither seen nor even heard of) has made Time Magazine’s “All Time 100 Movies.” This isn’t surprising given that reviewer Richard Corliss is a Bollywood fan:

Like Japan, India had a golden age in the 1950s. Independence from Britain sparked a robust, questioning artistry. While Satyajit Ray was pioneering the nation’s art cinema, commercial filmmakers such as Raj Kapoor (Awaara), Mehboob Khan (Mother India) and Bimal Roy (Do Bigha Zamin) were grafting influences from Hollywood melodramas and Italian neo-realism onto the Indian tradition of musical narrative. Pyaasa, which means thirst, is the most soulfully romantic of the lot. Vijay (Dutt) is an unpublished poet, dismissed by family and office colleagues but befriended by a prostitute (Waheeda Rehman). In a twist out of Sullivan’s Travels, Vijay is believed dead and his poetry “posthumously” lionized. The writer-producer-director-star paints a glamorous portrait of an artist’s isolation through dappled imagery and the sensitive picturizing of S.D. Burman’s famous songs. And Rehman, in her screen debut, is sultry, radiant—a woman to bring out the poet in any man, on screen or in the audience. —R.C.

Other Indian films that made the list included The Apu Trilogy, and Nayakan.

The Hindustan Times reports on the first Asian mayor of the England’s second largest city, Manchester.

Afzal Khan who came from Pakistan to Britain at the age of 12 had nothing to look forward to. He had no education and no money, but now 35 years later at 47, he has become the first Asian Mayor of Manchester, the second biggest city in Britain.

He said his appointment reflected the diversity of Manchester’s ethnicity and demonstrated the contribution immigrants can make. “They can provide a city with an infusion of energy and creativity,” he said.

There was this one line that caught my eye,

Khan has a reputation for taking firm stands on ethnicity. He has supported the idea of celebrating Englishness through a patron saint as a way of enforcing community cohesion and, although he is a former assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, he has not adhered to its policy of boycotting National Holocaust Day Remembrance services.

Here’s the European title of Harold and Kumar. The subtitle reads ‘Harold & Kumar - Let’s Get Retarded,’ which is maybe redundant.

There are actual castles instead of White Castles out there, so they didn’t want people getting all confused. And unlike us Americans, those Euros gleefully tolerate cheesecake.

Nope, no cheesecake on this here blog ;)

Hopefully this is the last installment in an unfortunate story & we can put it all to rest. Indra Nooyi posts on PepsiCo's website -

Following my remarks to the graduating class of Columbia University’s Business School in New York City, I have come to realize that my words and examples about America unintentionally depicted our country negatively and hurt people.

I appreciate the honest comments that have been shared with me since then, and am deeply sorry for offending anyone. I love America unshakably – without hesitation – and am extremely grateful for the opportunities and support our great nation has always provided me.

Over the years I’ve witnessed and advised others how a thoughtless gesture or comment can hurt good, caring people. Regrettably, I’ve proven my own point. Please accept my sincere apologies.

Initial SM coverage here. Manish's survey of "wingnut" reactions here.

An operation to rescue endangered sharks from poachers went horribly wrong recently when the rescuers…oh I can’t even explain it. From the BBC:

An effort to save nearly 50 live sharks from poachers in the Sunderbans area of the Indian state of West Bengal appears to have gone disastrously wrong.

Wildlife officials say that although the sharks were initially recovered alive, several mishaps meant that they all died as the poachers were arrested.

Okay so here is the ridiculous punchline:

They say that the raiding party which intercepted the poachers - afraid of the dangers posed by the sharks - ordered them to throw the sharks from the deck of their vessel onto the sand by a jetty.

Ummm. This is what happens when you sit in front of the television and watch Shark Week all…week. Then the officials try to play it off all smooth like:

“The raiding part made a mistake. In the chaos that followed the seizure and the arrests, they were busy with other things, and forgot to preserve the sharks,”

In news that shocked Edna and Wilbur Johnson of Beulah, North Dakota, it’s been discovered IITians are really, really smart. Mitra covers the big IIT reunion in DC:

… [IIT] alumni say American friends are starting to rank the institution with Harvard and MIT… Shenoy related that when his son, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student, was asked by a professor where his parents went to college, he replied: “My dad went to IIT and my mom went to MIT.”

In turn, his son’s MIT professor said, ” ‘Your dad went to IIT?’ ” Suresh Shenoy recounted, mimicking an incredulous yet impressed inflection. “My wife hates it,” Shenoy said.

No, I bet their son hates it. IIT + MIT = unholy geekiness. Or perhaps your mom helps you install Linux on your iPod. Hey, that’s actually kinda cool…

Tonight on ABC's Nightline with Ted Koppel for May 20, 2005: South Asian American author Asra Nomani. Nomani left Pakistan shaken by the brutal murder of her friend Daniel Pearl; citing that as the catalyst for her transformation from devout Muslim to devout Muslim Activist, the iconoclast returned to her home state of West Virginia--where her father had helped start Morgantown's Mosque-- and chose to sit with the men of her congregation. Nomani pointed out that this is allowed in Mecca, but the leaders of her mosque want to banish her anyway. Begin: drama.

From Mecca to Morgantown: Questioning Islamic Traditions will probably air at 11:30pm.

StrategyPage has an interesting description of how the F-16s will impact the Pakistani Air Force -

May 20, 2005: The American decision to sell new F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan comes not a moment too soon for the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). PAF used to have technological superiority over it's Indian counterpart as recently as the 1980s, when PAF received some 40 state of the art F-16 Block 15 fighters. These aircraft were were a cut above the warplanes of the Indian Air Force (IAF).

However, all changed in the 1990s, when the US sanctioned Pakistan for nuclear weapons development and stopped delivery of more F-16s. What's worse, the spares for PAF's existing F-16s dried up as well and the air force had to effectively ground its F-16 fleet for a few years. Meanwhile, IAF began to induct the powerful Sukhoi-30 MKI air superiority fighter, even as it added new capabilities to its existing Mirage-2000 and MiG-29 fighters by equipping them with Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missiles. This posed a particular threat to PAF, which lacked BVR capability.

(quoting in full b/c of StrategyPage's non-existant permalinks)

A small bit of press for a hugely awesome event in New York this weekend:

C H I A S M A T A May 20-22, 2005 A three-day literary festival celebrating South Asian writing

The South Asian Women's Creative Collective (SAWCC) invite you to our
third annual literary event, celebrating the works of South Asian
writers.

Participants include Amitava Kumar, Abha Dawesar, Ginu Kamani, Mary
Anne Mohanraj, Meera Nair, Tahira Naqvi, S. Mitra Kalita, Bushra
Rehman, Shahnaz Habib, Prageeta Sharma, Alka Bhargava, Anna Ghosh,
Pooja Makhijani, Sangeeta Mehta and Neesha Meminger.

...and ME! ;) Well, only on Sunday. But I live in DC, so I have an excuse. Did I mention that the Saturday and Sunday events are FREE?

What: Literary festival including two evenings of readings and discussion, a writing workshop for emerging writers, and a panel discussion of south asians in publishing

When: May 20, 21, 22

Where: the Asian American Writers' Workshop, the Village Quill, and the Queens Museum of Art

Please visit the event page for further details.

See you there, if you know what's good for your soul. :)

Two new Desi cities added to the Craigs List family (they added Bangalore last year): Delhi and Mumbai.

Enjoy.

Kollektiv, my favorite party night is bringing the Asian Massive sound to DC and nationwide in the next few weeks, touching down in DC for it's third installment @ Bossa Lounge (2463 18th St. NW in Adams Morgan) on Friday, May 27th. Taking place monthly in six cities nationwide, Kollektiv brings together the asian electronic stylings
of some of the key players bringing the Asian noise: Karsh Kale (Six Degrees Records),
Zakhm (Mutiny), DK aka bollygirlNYC (Avaaz/Gen-Om) and Dimmsummer
(Ethnotechno). They will be joined on paint and canvas by DC's own
V:shal Kanwar (Imperfections).

Apparently these guys are -

Two tribes living on India's Andaman islands may be direct descendents of the earliest modern humans who moved out of Africa 70,000 years ago, scientists reported last week.

...The Great Andamanese and Onge tribes have remained isolated in the Andaman and Nicobar islands for tens of thousands of years. This helped the scientists to search for signs of origin that erase quickly when populations intermix.

...They found the Onge and Great Andamanese -- both Negrito tribes -- resembled the African population more closely than east Asians or the mainland Indian population of today...These tribes still survive as hunter-gatherer communities using primitive tools and living in the jungle.

And, of course, an obligatory "blame it on the Brits" angle -

Their populations have also decreased steadily with about 20 Great Andamanese and 98 Onge surviving today. It is believed that before British colonizers reached the islands in the mid-18th century, the Great Andamanese population numbered over 5,000.

India's most polluted city is full of talk AND action:

Authorities in the Indian city of Calcutta have ordered all vehicles manufactured before 1990 off the roads unless they convert to green fuel...by the end of the year.

"9,587 taxis, 7,464 buses, 6,784 auto rickshaws, 1,164 minibuses and nearly 30,000 goods vehicles" could be affected. Why a ban?

A recent study by the Calcutta-based Chittaranjan Cancer Research Institute and Calcutta University indicated that close to 50% of the city's residents suffer from major respiratory disorders.

Cases of lung cancer are also increasing throughout the city because of the high level of air pollution.

Hear, hear! The first Los Angeles Carrom Open is hereby called to order (via Hollywood Masala):

First Prize $501, Entry Fee: $5 Per Person

11335 East 183rd Street
Cerritos, CA 90703
(562) 865-9892

All preliminary rounds will Start at 10:00 AM on Saturday, June 4, 2005
Quarterfinals, Semi finals and Finals will be on Sunday, June 5, 2005

A striking idea. I have a feeling that ‘Big Middle Finger’ Nooyi and her super-slippery talcum powder have this one in the pocket.

From my much-beloved section on Wikipedia which highlights new articles:

Did you know...Palwankar Baloo was a Dalit (also called Untouchables) who helped break down the Indian caste system with his prowess at cricket?

Another fave line, apposite for this day of good-natured one-upmanship about regional pride:

A Hindu club in Poona challenged the Europeans to a cricket match, creating a dilemma over whether or not to include the obviously talented Baloo in their side. The Brahmins in the Hindu side were against it, but some Telugu members argued for his inclusion...

w00t progressive Southies! ;)

In the romantic comedy Fever Pitch, a Red Sox fanatic named Mr. Sehgal runs a deli and supplies cold cuts for the other fans. Older and bespectacled, he’s treated well and gets one onomatopoetic line, which he still flubs endearingly in an uncle-like way. He doesn’t seem like a professional actor, but Jimmy Fallon gets his name right.

Fever Pitch has the same problem as Kingdom of Heaven — when did they stop casting men and start casting boys? Pretty though they may be, they can’t carry a movie. But Drew’s leaner Barrymore profile is shaping up like Renee Russo, and she still casts charm like few others. The movie’s flat, with no romantic chemistry between the leads. But it’s surprisingly sweet, probably because Mr. About a Boy wrote the book on which it’s based.

The Red Sox may have won last year, but the Yanks just pinched Manchester United. It’s a feat just as improbable, and probably more relevant to Hornby’s memoir about soccer.

SM reader Manoj directed us to Conan O'Brien's 2000 Harvard Commencement Speech. There are two desi references right up front.
First Paragraph:

I'd like to announce up front that I have one goal this afternoon: to be half as funny as tomorrow's Commencement Speaker, Moral Philosopher and Economist, Amartya Sen. Must get more laughs than seminal wage/price theoretician.

I especially miss Harvard Square - it's so unique. No where else in the world will you find a man with a turban wearing a Red Sox jacket and working in a lesbian bookstore. Hey, I'm just glad my dad's working.

Irshad Manji published an interesting discussion on the sanctity of the Quran in response to the "Newsweek Lied, People Died" brouhaha for the uber-left Huffington Post -

Last week, I was interviewed by CNN International about the Quran desecration report - and in particular about the riots in Jalalabad. I said that if the allegations were proven true, then we're dealing with a gratuitous provocation of Muslims. I stand by that answer. But TV doesn't give you the space that a blog does, so now's the time to say something else: Why riot violently over the mistreatment of a Quran? It's not as if one's basic human rights have been transgressed...

...For centuries, Islamic philosophers have been telling the story of the "Satanic Verses." These are verses that the Prophet Muhammad reportedly accepted as authentic entries into the Quran. Later, he realized that these passages deify heathen idols rather than God Himself. So he belatedly rejected the verses, blaming them on a trick played by Satan...

Abuse of trust-- it's not just for Catholics anymore:

A Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka has tried to commit suicide after he was jailed for raping a nine-year-old girl.

Bellana Pannaloka Thero, of the Sri Vimalarama temple in Nugegoda, near Colombo, drank a substance from his pocket shortly after sentencing.

...Monks play a highly influential role in Sri Lanka, whose 19m population is about 70% Buddhist.

The 42-year old insecticide-guzzling perv is in critical condition after his cowardly attempt to avoid spending 20 years in prison.

Apparently the Miss Universe contestant from Denmark, Gitte Hanspal is half-Indian. Does this matter, besides the fact that it proves to the doubters that there are Indians in Denmark? No. I just needed the thinnest of reasons to put this picture up [tip from Pooja Makhijani]. The Miss Universe contest will be on May 31st in Thailand.

Occupation: I am currently working part-time as a student at IBM Software. My job is to assist the sales staff in different areas and on different projects, in order to relieve their workload.

She’s beautiful AND on her way to becoming and IT geek. Oh, and please let’s not forget about Miss India, Amrita Thapar.

Are you expecting a child soon? Since it’s a well known fact that all Indian kids in the U.S. look alike through college, do your kids a favor and heed the following advice so that they have at least a minor shot at individuality. DO NOT name them Arjun or Maya. The Hindustan Times reports:

Arjun, the warrior-prince of the Mahabharata, and Maya were the most popular names given to baby boys and girls respectively by Indians in the United States.

The name Arjun was given to 247 boys last year, ranking it 741 in the list of 1,000 most popular baby names in the US, compiled by the Department of Social Security Administration.

I now await hate mail from Arjuns and Mayas worldwide. Please, don’t hate the messenger.

StrategyPage offers it's analysis of what the first stages of a war between India and Pakistan might look like -

May 14, 2005: Can India ever fight a war against its nuclear armed neighbor and rival Pakistan without provoking a nuclear holocaust? The Indian Army (IA) thinks it has an answer to this question. Until now the India's doctrine for war against Pakistan consisted of combat divisions advancing across the Rajasthan desert border into Pakistan, eventually cutting off Pakistan's population centers in the north from the only port and economic lifeline of Karachi...

(click quickly! Stratpage's permalinks are notoriously not so permanent)

Interesting reading if you're of a macabre / war-nerd sort. Personally, I'm an optimist and believe that, short of an improbable Pakistani state implosion, a Hamiltonian peace will be the long term outcome between the 2 nations. Of course, the path from here to there is rarely a straight line.

Tyler Cowen @ Marginal Revolution, has the following quote about Indonesia which could just as easily apply to India -

Then Suharto looked at [James] Wolfensohn. "You know, what you regard as corruption in your part of the world, we regard as family values."

That is from Sebastian Mallaby's The World''s Banker: A Story of Failed States, Financial Crises, and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations.

Overlawyered reports -

The Lost Coast Brewery in Humboldt, Calif. says it will take off the shelves its Indica India Pale Ale, whose label currently depicts the Indian elephant-god Ganesh "holding a beer in one of his four hands, and another in his trunk". Although brewery co-owner Barbara Groom said her Hindu friends don't mind the label, a California man named Brij Dhir sued the brewery, along with other defendants such as the Safeway supermarket chain, claiming that it is offensive and intimidates Hindus from practicing their religion. "Dhir seeks at least $25,000 and his lawsuit mentions that $1 billion would be appropriate to compensate Hindus around the world." "It's a hate crime", Dhir told the Contra Costa Times.

Thanks to Ennis for the pict pointer!

Blinkey the death tank, the preferred steed of Lt. Neil Prakash, took friendly fire outside Fallujah in November:

A round exploded 50 meters in front of our front slope. “HOLY SHIT! BACK UP BACK UP BACK UP!!!!!. JUST GO GO GO!!!!!” The concussion knocked the air out of my lungs. I felt the soft punch of the air on my face. I didn’t know if more rounds were coming in but the effective kill radius of a 155mm artillery round is 50 meters. And if it was a V/T round (variable time), then it would detonate right above our heads and liquefy us…

The whole back left side of the tank exploded. Grey. Black. Smoke. Dust. Sand. It all happened so fast. I see Langford sitting up on the turret with his legs dangling in the hatch like normal. But against a wall of debris at his back. The image is fleeting. He either fell or got blown forward and down into his hole. Langford and I both fell into our hatches at the same time. My seat went into my back as I looked up at the sky through my hatch…

… where we had just been, my left track was laying out in all of its glory. Broken. With only the right side of track on, the tank could only turn left…like being in a rowboat with just your right oar.

Luckily, Prakash survived to deliver a can of whoop-ass to whomever was calling artillery.

Update: It was an anti-tank mine, not artillery.

The earworm-inducing classic Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge just completed its 500th week of showings in India (thanks, Ennis):

Bombay audiences are some of the toughest in the world, and a bad movie can be pulled before the end of opening weekend. Most films bloom for a week or two and disappear. But “Dilwale” has become a Bombay institution, a perfect masala of location, entertainment, and low price. Young men and women, but mostly young men in their untucked white shirts, wait every morning outside the cinema. The box office sells balcony tickets - the choicest seats - for 15 rupees… On busy weekends, the 1,000-seat theater sells out with visiting families… The audience snuggles down in the dark, ready to make jokes, applaud the hero’s arrival, and urge the lovers to “Kiss! Kiss!”

I’m surprised they don’t throw rice. Desi film audiences apparently share a geeky obsessiveness with fans of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Star Wars. It’s not surprising, really. All three genres are high camp.

Photos of ornate trucks in Pakistan (via CSF). Also, an Om-ified Padmini auto (via Neha). The desi aesthetic: sometimes Gaudí, sometimes just gaudy. Horn Please.

If I tell a white man to go back where the came from, will he have to travel to Africa via India?

A team of geneticists ... conclude that there was only one migration of modern humans out of Africa - that it took a southern route to India, Southeast Asia and Australasia ... because the mitochondrial lineages of everyone outside Africa converge at the same time to the same common ancestors ... people from the southern migration, probably in India, must have struck inland to reach the Levant, and later Europe, the geneticists say. [NYT]

A couple quick notes for SF-based Mutineers -

• MIA will be playing a sold out show @ The Independent theater in downtown SF this Friday night (May 13) followed by a show at the Fillmore on Sat (tix still available?). If you go, drop us a note @ the tipline with your review and/or cameraphone picts.

• Geek mutineers take note -- Tiecon takes place this weekend down in Santa Clara. Registration is still open. The annual conference afterparty is @ Monte Carlo in Mountain View starting @ 830pm on Friday. There's a guestlist and this stuff has been packed to the gills in years past. I guess if you couldn't get tix to M.I.A., partying up (or standing in line) with a few hundred desi engineers / entrepreneurs is some sort of a consolation prize.

• Finally, a certain mutineer will be celebrating a b-day w/ some friends @ Roe / Prive in downtown SF, this Sat night starting around 10ish. Come by and say hello. MIA - if you're reading this, you're more than welcome to drop by after your Fillmore gig.

DNSI links to an article that says that the Jersey Guys’ advertisers are starting to pull out:

The Star-Ledger (NJ) is reporting that Cingular Wireless and Hyundai Motor America have pulled advertising from WKXW-FM. The station has been embroiled in controversy almost immediately after hosts of the station’s “The Jersey Guys” program, Craig Carton and Ray Rossi, offered racist and offensive commentary aimed at Asians and Indians.

Blogger Lester Gesteland is also keeping up with the minute by minute.

Yesterday, Ennis reported that NPR had featured yet another story on hot chocolate MIA. A few of us wondered about the identity of someone mentioned in the "teaser" for today's story, "the man who helped to spark the MIA Buzz."

Let me kill your non-existent suspense: it's Diplo, the 26-year old producer/turntablist out of Philly, whom MIA apparently "fancied". ;)

Here are my futile attempts at transcribing NPR as fast as I can (clip here):

Maya called last year and asked (Diplo) if he would produce a cut for her debut record...he wound up producing two tracks for the album and they started dating.

From the baile funk-consumed DJ's mouth, about the mixtape "Piracy funds Terrorism, Vol. 1", which started it all:

"This is me and Maya, two artists doing it from the street, we didn't have like her manager with a bright idea, her label with a bright idea...this is purely, like, in the hands of the artist which is where it should be anyway. It's like the perfect music because it's everything, you know?"

Yup, I know. ;)

35-year old Nusrat Parsa died in Canada, a few hours after being involved in a fight which lead to a deadly fall down the stairs.

Parsa was approached by fans outside his hotel after the performance at Vancouver's Queen Elizabeth Theatre and scuffles broke out, police said.

The singer is reported to have fallen downstairs after being punched.

He sustained head injuries and died in hospital a few hours later. A man has been arrested in connection with the incident late on Sunday.

...Mr Parsa's brother, Najib, told the BBC the attack followed trouble at the concert, when some in the audience called for faster, livelier songs.

A singer from childhood on, Parsa recorded a total of ten albums; he had studied music in India.

Wow, the folks at WaPo must love sharing my city with a stellar pub like the The Moonie Times...

Parliament in Pakistan is urging the government to seek an apology from The Washington Times newspaper over a cartoon that depicts Pakistan as a dog.

The cartoon shows a US soldier patting a dog holding Libyan al-Qaeda suspect Abu Faraj al-Libbi who was recently arrested in Pakistan.

"Good boy... now go find Bin Laden," the soldier urges the dog.

Cartoonist Bill Garner says he meant no offence and the misunderstanding was caused by a "cultural gap."

..."We are disgusted with the insensitivity of the editors of the Washington Times," Pakistan's charge de affaires in Washington, Mohammed Sadiq said on May 6, the day the cartoon appeared.

via the Beeb.

Photos of the Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee three-part TV series are now up (thanks, Sapna). The first part will be broadcast in the UK tonight, lucky sods.

Here’s a roundup of the characters: the author’s voice Sunita, played by… the author. (Nobody said Meera Syal was big on subtlety.) Her husband Akaash, played by… her husband Sanjeev Bhaskar. The bad girl Tania, played by Moroccan-Indian actress Laila Rouass. The naïf Chila, played by Queen of Naboo Ayesha Dharker. And the playa from the Himalaya Deepak, played by Ace Bhatti. That cast reads like the Bombay Dreams unemployment list.

Watch the clip of Tania getting hassled by clucking aunties. It’s pretty choppy — can’t the Beeb afford bandwidth these days?

Previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

My favorite radio show, This American Life, had a riveting and humorous, true story this past weekend. It involved a twenty-something Afghani American who only wanted to impress his girlfriend by spray-painting some “frogmen” on the sidewalk outside of her apartment. By the end of it all he was in jail and on several terrorist watch-lists. The story even personally involves Donald Rumsfeld. It sounds dire but it all turns out well in the end. The many twists and turns in the story make it worth every second of its 40 minute recording time.

Coming soon, to the purse of an auntie near you, a hot sauce so hot it could literally kill you:

Ultra-concentrated “16 Million Reserve” is the hottest science can make. The sauce is 30 times hotter than the spiciest pepper and 8,000 times more fiery than Tabasco.

Diners must sign a disclaimer recommending “protective gloves and eye wear” — but even sweating testers in safety gear were blinded by tears for 30 minutes.

Medical experts fear it could kill asthmatics or hospitalise a user who touches a sensitive part of the body afterwards. It is made of pure capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers “hot”. [UK Sun, via BoingBoing]

Oliver Wang gave a discerning review of MIA's CD Arular on NPR's Morning Edition, sidestepping the political hype and keeping the spotlight firmly on her music. He's no slouch of a wordsmith either:

"Many music critics have played up her exoticness as she was the love child of Neneh Cherry and Che Guevara or the prodigal daughter of the third world returning home to soundbomb the empire"

The magnate behind Kingfisher beer is launching an airline today which uses part-time models as flight attendants (thanks, Sapna):

Models work as flight attendants on the airline while its planes have seat-back entertainment systems… “We have a brand new fleet of aircraft. We have individual entertainment systems where every single seat has video screen…” India’s newest budget airline operates its first flight on Monday from Mumbai (Bombay) to hi-tech hub Bangalore.

Kingfisher Airlines is following the lead of Hooters Air. I suppose models will be able to shoot a beer commercial, then hop on a plane and get straight to work. They’re saving money, really. I think Van Halen did a video about this once.

The New York Times reports that Jack Abramoff, the same lobbyist whose shady dealings with Congressman Tom Delay have been all over the news recently, has been brokering shady deals for many years:

Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of a federal corruption investigation, led a Congressional delegation to Pakistan in 1997 but failed to tell the group’s sponsor or the lawmakers that he was a registered lobbyist for the Pakistani government, according to the sponsor and the two House members on the trip.

Lobbyists for foreign governments are required to register with the Justice Department. Disclosure statements filed by Mr. Abramoff and his former firm, Preston Gates & Ellis, show that the firm was retained by Pakistan in May 1995 to lobby to overturn sanctions barring delivery of American weapons to Pakistan if its government continued to pursue a nuclear weapons program. The initial six-month lobbying contract paid the firm a retainer of $165,000, plus expenses. A spokesman for Preston Gates had no comment.

Earlier I posted about Dell opening an office in Mohali, by Chandigarh. This photo of the billionaire proprietor wearing what is either a tika or a large, fleshy mole, standing next to a jolly sardarji who’s Chief Minister of Punjab, is priceless:

Amitabh Bachchan said on The Charlie Rose Show last week that Bollywood has crazed fans in Africa and Russia:

… very surprisingly… the entire northern belt of Africa. So Morocco, Algeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, down to Egypt… And Russia. Massive. Massive… When I first went to Moscow for the first time, I was received by Russian female fans, who were actually dressed in our Indian dress and wore the bindi and the jewelry and everything, and spoke Hindi… and said that they were going to university to study the language so that they could follow our films. Remarkable.

When I visited Mockba, a young couple I had dinner with proudly opened a video drawer with nearly a hundred Hindi movies filed meticulously.

Winds of Change does some number crunching from the recently published National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) report -

Iraq	30.8%
Afghanistan	2.8%
India	45.9%
Israel/ Palestine	8.4%

Where? Mostly in J&K. Times of India notes -

More than half the attacks reported for 2004 were in South Asia, which recorded 327 incidents that produced 502 deaths. The bulk of the incidents were reported in the divided Kashmir state claimed by both India and Pakistan.

I just got used to calling it K3G, I am not calling it CSCD.

TTG reminisces about the good old days before liberalization:

Option 2 was a bribe at the beginning of it all, a one year wait, and then a monthly bribe (usually in the form of a bottle of ‘Old Monk’ rum, presented to the local linesman) to ensure the smooth working of your phone. Everytime it rained, you knew your phone would die, along with your connection to the outside world. And every once in a while, somebody would bribe the linesman, who would then… allow the briber to make calls on your line, for free.

Who knew it took rum to lubricate the Indian phone system?

And old-ish, but new to me article by Daniel Drezner posits questions about a hypothetical country called Badistan - a rather thinly-disguised Pakistan -

Pop quiz: You're in charge of protecting the national security of the United States. There's a pivotal country--let's call it Badistan--that plays a crucial role in advancing American interests. But elements within that country--including some who work for the government--are abetting actors that virulently oppose America. The leader of this government has pledged to cooperate with the United States, but the two attempts on his life over the past month suggest his domestic position is precarious.

What approach do you take to Badistan?

I used to wonder why the bridegroom’s grandfathers, his uncles, took the gifts while the bride looked to her painted toes… Men who took these gifts made a list, who gave what. And today, after years, I found the answer in legal text…

THE DOWRY PROHIBITION… RULES, 1985

… The list of presents which are given at the time of the marriage to the bride shall be maintained by the bride.

Yazad Jal of AnarCapLib got a piece published in Rediff about market liberalization and it's quantitative and qualitative impact on Indian poverty -

...We've had cell phones in India for around ten years only (started in September 1995). At that time, it was looked upon as be an expensive toy made for the rich to indulge it, one more luxury. Just a decade later, there are more cell phones than land lines in India.

... India's GDP per capita in 1990, before liberalisation, was $1,300. Today it's $2,830, more than double. It's increased at around 5.33 per cent per year.

A fav, non-desi blog of mine, Winds of Change looks to India for a model for Iraq -

When India was trying to fight separatist Sikh terrorists in Punjab, a Sikh police officer named KPS Gill played a pivotal role in giving the anti-terrorism effort legitimacy among Punjabi Sikhs and among all Indians.

...Who can play the role of Iraq's KPS Gill?

We never got Indian food at Microsoft, I’m a little jealous.

Want navrattan korma with raita, chutney and naan? $5.29 at Cisco Systems’ [cafeteria.]

The new Whole Foods in NYC’s Union Square serves hot Indian food. And one of the big selling points of London is that you can get mango lassi and 20 kinds of Indian meals at any Sainsbury’s.

Hey, man. You’ve got your reasons, I’ve got mine.

The Daily Show speculates how the Singh-Musharraf man date turned out. Watch the clip.

Yes, that really is the two of them in a hot tub. Like all good Daily Show graphics, it’s completely undoctored.

The Statesman reports that even with two years to go, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is preparing to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the Sepoy Mutiny, which he will refer to in a more contemporary fashion:

Mangal Pandey and his men will live again, and not because of Ketan Mehta’s feature film The Rising. The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, has constituted a Group of Ministers to celebrate the Revolt of 1857. Only, the government will regard it as the first war of Indian independence.

That the Centre has started planning the celebrations a couple of years ahead could be borne out of the concern that the Opposition parties, in power in some states, do not steal the thunder and take over the “nationalist” agenda.

I haven’t seen Fareed Zakaria do explicit shout-outs that often, unlike Gurinder Chadha:

India is still a poor third-world country, but if you read [Thomas Friedman’s] book you would assume it is on the verge of becoming a global superstar. (Though as an Indian-American, I read Friedman and whisper the old Jewish saying, ”From your lips to God’s ears.”)

L.A. Mayorial Candidate Antonio Villaraigosa has pandered to pretty much every ethnic minority in L.A. in his bid to unseat incumbent Jim Hahn. Why not South Asians? Indiawest reports:

If elected mayor of Los Angeles in the May 17 election, city councilman Antonio Villaraigosa pledged that, in making Los Angeles more “open” to South Asians…His administration would also seriously consider making appointments from within those communities

In fairness though, you have to excessively pander in L.A. to win.

The Voice thinks M.I.A. needs to coin a genre:

Fannypack are like M.I.A., who hops her own scotch and shakes her own jumprope, and they’re in a similar predicament, which is that they don’t quite fit pre-existing genres, dance or hip-hop… Fannypack and M.I.A. should hold a joint press conference and simply declare themselves a genre, invent some name, Jumprope or Streetrope or Boohall or Favela Bratty Beats or Bow-Wow Booty Bop or something… M.I.A. and Fannypack are in dance-club bohemia, which means on the one hand that they’ll be surrounded by preciousness, but on the other that, being bohos, they might stick to their vision, keep doing the jumprope not just for fun or for the moolah but for the art of it, persist long enough and obstinately enough to still be jumping when the world is finally ready to jump with them…

Budding interior designers now have a new way to decorate: have your custom furnishings made in an Indian factory:

[Cornelia] The other fusion element—the Swedish-looking candleholder that I found. I wanted to get 40 made for our wedding. I sent out an Internet request to a consortium of Indian manufacturers: “Can anybody make these?” A man with a factory outside Delhi e-mailed: I can do it!

[Mikael] We use candles a lot in northern countries… We’re a pale people.

Turbanhead brings our attention to an album of Hindi ABBA covers from the 1970s with puzzling translations of song names:
Ho Jayegi Badnami (Money, Money, Money), Mitha Maze Dar (Dancing Queen), Pehil Pehli Preet (Super Trooper), Toba Toba (Mama Mia), etc

Karthik tells a droll story about borrowing a library book in India:

“Do you have The Spy Who Came in From the Cold?”
“Who is the author?”
“John Le Carre.”

… she scribbled something in the note, and left it on her desk… Stuck to the notice with cellophane tape was the make shift post-it note. It said, in Tamil:

Karthik
John
Book with a long name

Shashwati explains murderer Charles Sobhraj’s escape from a Greek prison:

One day he managed to purloin a syringe. He drew some of his own blood, and spat it out during an inspection, and collapsed feigning illness… While in hospital, he lay his hands on a bottle of perfume… Charles and some other inmates were put in a van to be taken back to the prison… Charles threw the perfume on a bunch of oily rags and lit it, starting a fire in the van… Sobhraj escaped in the confusion.

Suketu Mehta wrote this sensuous take on the Great Northeast Power Outage (via Green Channel):

As it got dark, the texture of the city changed. The street lights were out, and people strolled about with flashlights, lanterns. Street vendors were selling glow-sticks and phosphorescent necklaces which would save you from being run over at intersections… It was a steamy night; men walked around without their shirts; women came out in their shortest skirts. People trying to catch the trains to the suburbs realised they couldn’t make it, met other commuters, and made impromptu dinner plans with them; ate pizza by candlelight and slept together in the parks… For one night, the city shed its load.