I’m a bit of an operahead. (For those of you who have never been to the opera, if you want to try it affordably, I recommend my usual method: standing room tickets at the Met, which go on sale at 10 a.m. on the day of the performance. But I’m going to Ariadne courtesy of Sean. Many thanks, Mr. Panikkar!) Sean was the second opera singer I’d heard of who had some Sri Lankan background. And his tenor has gotten great reviews from the likes of The New York Times’ Anthony Tommasini, as well as a host of others. I asked him if he’d be willing to do a bit of Q&A for the Mutiny. Here’s an edited and abridged version of our interview.

Can you share a little bit about your family background?

I was born in Bloomsburg, PA, which is a small town of about 12,000. My parents are from Sri Lanka and came to the United States in 1975. My mother is Tamil and my father is Sinhalese, which is why they left.

When and how did your striking voice first come to attention? What was it about opera specifically that appealed to you? How did your family feel about it?

I had always been involved in music from the time I was little. I played piano, violin, and trombone while also singing in choirs. I never considered myself musical, but it was one of the things my parents wanted us (my brother and I) to do along with sports. My parents often thought I was lip synching during choir concerts. They never knew I could sing.

When I was in middle school a Juilliard-trained soprano named Li Ping Liu moved into our area…. She had nobody to teach because opera isn’t something people in central PA really know much about. I thought it might be interesting to take voice lessons, but I wouldn’t do it unless somebody went with me so for the first few lessons my father and I had lessons back to back. At the time I was into Michael Jackson and Billy Joel so that is what I brought to sing. She made me sing it like an opera singer and I thought it was the worst thing in the world. Just imagine singing high pitched “hee hees” like an opera singer! Needless to say that didn’t last long.

By this point I had already been accepted to a bunch of top engineering schools and I had chosen Michigan because I wanted a huge school and athletic teams that I could really root for. Ms. Liu had put so much work into getting me ready for competition that she asked me to do her a favor and send in a tape to Michigan. She told me I didn’t have to study music in school, but she wanted to show me that I was actually pretty good. I ended up getting into the music school. As a result of getting to the state level I was asked to sing at my high school graduation. I sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” and received my first standing ovation. It was a really special moment and probably the first time that people, outside of my choir, realized I wasn’t so bad.

At this point I still hadn’t ever seen an opera. I was just learning to sing in a more classical way. My parents were really supportive of the double major when I went to Michigan, but that changed later.

Did your family eventually put up resistance to your becoming a musician? How? How did you overcome that and decide to pursue it anyway? How do they feel now?

My parents were supportive initially because although I was a music major I was also an engineering major. Engineering was an “acceptable” profession. My mother had done some studies in architecture so she was more aware of that field. (She decided to stay at home while we were growing up and has never practiced in the U.S.). When I dropped engineering completely they were not thrilled. I heard a lot about having a backup plan…. I would have rather had a backup plan in music like arts administration or teaching than any job in engineering. My brother Rajiv,who is six years older than me, was extremely supportive and sometimes served as the go-between. My parents never came out and told me I had to do anything, but they let my brother know that they wanted me to pursue more than just music. My wife’s family has always been extremely supportive of my work. They went to shows when I was singing one sentence. It didn’t matter what I was doing, they were supportive. My parents have come around now that they know that this is a career that can pay the mortgage, the bills, and take care of a family.

You were a double engineering and music major at the University of Michigan (go Wolverines!). How did you manage this? Was there ever a real chance of your becoming an engineer? (At what point did you realize you could go professional?)

When I went to Michigan I was 100 percent sure I was going to be a civil engineer. My goal was to finish an undergraduate degree in civil engineering and then do a master’s in architectural engineering.

My first week of school many things happened. I took my first music theory class and thought there was no way I could be a music major. They were playing things on the piano and asking us to write down the notes that were being played. It seemed ridiculously hard to me and I wanted to quit. I also had my first university choir rehearsals and saw a really attractive girl in choir. That first week I got up the courage to introduce myself. She happened to be a pianist so I asked her to be my accompanist for voice lessons. This made me work a little harder at singing. Also that first week my voice teacher, Daniel Washington, gave me a cd of famous helden tenor Jon Vickers singing Wagner’s Die Walküre. As soon as I heard Vickers sing I was hooked on opera.

Balancing music theory with computer programming courses was a challenge, but I took the maximum credits allowed every semester and I took summer semesters. I worked really hard and it definitely wasn’t easy. After summer semesters I would then go off to do summer singing programs. It was at one of these programs, the Seagle Music Colony, where I realized I might have a shot at doing this professionally.

My senior year I dropped engineering and focused just on music. I have to admit that I felt like my brain was rotting since I no longer had math and physics courses, but at the same time I realized I would be much happier doing anything in music than “falling back” on something I no longer loved.

I decided to stay at Michigan to do my master’s in music with Luretta Bybee, who now teaches at the New England Conservatory. That summer I applied to the famed Merola training program at San Francisco Opera. It is one of the most competitive programs for opera with applications in excess of 1,000 for 20 spots. I ended up getting into Merola and I loved it. San Francisco Opera thought I had potential so they invited me to join their two-year Adler Fellowship. So from 1,000 I made the cut down to 20, and from 20 I made the cut down to 5, all at the second largest opera house in the United States. At that point I thought this might be something I could realistically do. The Adler program didn’t start until January so during the fall of 2004 I spent three months in the Pittsburgh Opera Center. After two years in San Francisco I had opera engagements lined up and in short order I signed with Bill Palant at IMG Artists, I made my leading role debut as Alfredo in La Traviata for Arizona Opera, I sang the leading tenor role of Gomatz in Mozart’s Zaide for my European debut at the International Festival d’Aix en Provence, and I made my Metropolitan Opera debut as Edmondo in Manon Lescaut with James Levine conducting. Both my European debut and my Met debut have been released commercially on DVD so I have a record of those two milestones.

I know that right now you’re in New York, preparing to sing in the new production of Ariadne auf Naxos. What are the challenges of this role? What are your favorite things about it?

The current production of Ariadne has been around for several years, but it is a really great production. My manager, Bill Palant of IMG Artists, is conservative when it comes to career building. We have tried to do one or two leading things every year and then we fill the schedule with featured roles (a step below leading) where I can continue to grow and develop without having the weight of the show resting on my shoulders. Many tenors my age go from leading role to leading role and burn out quickly. The vocal chords are like rubber bands. You have to stretch them gently and then let them relax. If you keep stretching all the time then there will come a point where they won’t come back. That being said everybody is different. There are many singers that can start their career much more aggressively, but what we are doing works for me.

Since the Met is the top opera house in the world I sing larger secondary roles there and Ariadne fits into this category. I am singing the role of Brighella who is in a commedia del’arte troupe in the show. It’s a lot of fun. I get to wear a gigantic fat suit and the scenes I am in are really ridiculous. It’s a nice change of pace. My role also has some high notes with several top Bbs and two high Cs. It’s a role that is large enough to show people what I can sing without the pressure of being the primo tenor.

The Met has been really good to me and are giving me roles of progressively more importance. I have a nice role next year at the Met, but they haven’t released their season yet so I can’t really say what it is.

How do you prepare? What is that routine like?

The first thing I do when learning an opera role is I sit down and translate everything. If it is a language that I don’t know, like Russian, then I also transliterate it into IPA (International Phoenetic Alphabet) so I can actually read it. If it is something that is really familiar I will listen to a few different recordings. I try not to listen to one person doing it all the time, because you start to imitate what that singer is doing instead of making it your own. I write all of my text, with translations underneath, on index cards and I will walk around everywhere with those cards so I can memorize my words.

I also divide the opera into sections and start working on it vocally. I can usually see where the tricky parts will be and my voice teacher and I will come up with exercises or “tricks” that help me work on those parts. I do still have a teacher (Dr. Robert White in NY) which is very important. You always need a set of ears that aren’t your own because we hear ourselves so differently then the rest of the world.

I don’t know how much time I actually spend singing in a day. When I am not in rehearsal for a specific show, I usually don’t sing more than an hour or so in a given day. It varies depending on whether I need to cram or whether I have some time. I do tend to memorize and learn things quickly which is helpful.

I know you have a rigorous travel schedule and a young family. How do you manage it? What’s the lifestyle of an opera singer like?

The girl that I mentioned meeting the first week of school is now my wife. We will have been married five years in July. When I was training we both were in San Francisco and that was great. The year after I finished San Francisco I started to travel more and that is when it started getting hard. When we knew we were expecting a child we decided to move back to the Ann Arbor, Michigan area. Besides both of us being Michigan alums, my wife’s parents and my sister-in-law and her husband live in the area. They have been the best babysitters we could ask for and since I am on the road so much it has been a huge help to have family around.

The travel schedule was complicated when it was just me and my wife and it is even worse now with a child. I almost missed my daughter’s birth because I was at the Met in rehearsal for Lucia di Lammermoor. They were adamant that I couldn’t come late to rehearsal. On the second day the director had heard my wife was due literally any day and she released me so I could go home. In a miraculous series of events I managed to leave the Met at 5PM, board a flight at 5:45PM and make it to Michigan just as my wife was going into labour.

With a child leaving is hard. At least my wife understands why I am leaving. My daughter just knows that I am here one day and gone the next. My wife sent me a cute video asking my daughter where I was and she responded that ,”Daddy’s hiding.” It is really difficult to say bye to both of them and leave for a job. We do a lot of video Skyping to keep in touch, but it isn’t the same. The other day my daugher asked for a hug and hugged me on the computer. That about broke my heart.

The one saving grace is that when I am at home I am completely at home. I become Mr. Mom and do almost everything. I am with my daughter all day and I love it. It also gives my wife a break because most of the year she is functioning like a single mom. It’s hard on both of us, but we are a very close family and we feel extremely blessed to have other family members around for support.

When I am not singing my life revolves around my daughter. I think that is the experience of most young parents. Everything changed when she was born. She is so much fun. It’s different, but I wouldn’t trade fatherhood for anything.

What operas are your favorites? What might you recommend for a beginning listener?

My personal favorite opera is Verdi’s Otello (based on Shakespeare’s Othello). [Ed: Read the NYT review of Otello in Dallas here—Sean’s a “standout” as Cassio!] I have always been captivated by the music and it was one of the first operas I was exposed to. I also love the old standards like La Boheme and La Traviata. For a beginner I think Don Pasquale or L’Italiana in Algeri are two solid choices. First of all they are comedies, and if you have a good cast they are really funny. The one thing that I tell opera newbies is that you don’t need to read a synopsis beforehand. There are supertitles (or seat back titles if you are at the Met) and it’s nice to discover the story as it happens instead of knowing that the soprano is going to die at the end. You wouldn’t ever read the synopsis of a movie before going, so why do that for opera?

I know opera singers often study a number of other languages… What languages do you speak?

I guess that depends on how you define “speak.” I grew up only speaking English. My parents only communicate in English so I was never exposed to Tamil or Sinhalese. As a music major we were required to study French, German, and Italian. I would say that I have a pretty good grasp of those three. I read French, German, and Italian and if somebody spoke to me in one of those languages I would usually know what they are saying, but sometimes it takes me a little bit longer to respond. I spent a few weeks in Austria in the summer and that helped my German quite a bit, but I wouldn’t call myself fluent.

I met you and your wife backstage at an Itzhak Perlman concert in Ann Arbor, through his accompanist and our mutual acquaintance, the Sri Lankan-born pianist Rohan deSilva. Have you connected with many other people of Sri Lankan descent who are musicians? (I know Danielle de Niese has also performed at the Met…)

When I was at Michigan there was another tenor who was half-Sri Lankan and half-Australian named Angus Wood. I believe he is singing in Europe, but I haven’t kept up with him. I of course know about Danielle de Niese, who is probably the poster child for Sri Lankan classical musicians. I have never met her, but several of my friends have worked with her. [Ed: I saw Danielle in Euridice and she was terrific!] I don’t know if there are that many of us out there. I think culturally music isn’t something that the Sri Lankan community sees as a valid profession. It’s not like being a doctor or a lawyer. I say that because my father is a doctor, my brother is a doctor, and my cousins are all either doctors or lawyers. At family events I am always the one to whom people say, “Oh,that is so interesting that you are a musician.”

Was there any South Asian community where you grew up?

There are a few Indian families in Bloomsburg and we used to get together with them. I was friends with the kids that were my age, but there was nobody in my grade that was anything other than white until about 8th grade. I never thought of myself as different than anybody because everybody around me was white. I sometimes joke that I am the whitest Sri Lankan I know, but that is the result of growing up in central Pennsylvania. I never missed it because I didn’t know anything different. The few Indian kids that were my friends, were my friends just like anybody else.

Has your family been back to Sri Lanka at all? Any plans to go? (Obviously the situation there is, of late, quite different than it was when we were kids.) As a kid, what, if anything, did you know or hear about Sri Lanka?

My family has not been back to Sri Lanka since they left in 1975. My mom went to India with a friend, but my father has never had a desire to go back. I think the racism they experienced left a bitter taste for my father. I have wanted to go back for some time, but it hasn’t worked out yet. The year I got married the tsunami hit so that ruled Sri Lanka out for the honeymoon. At some point I would love to go back with my parents to see where they grew up.

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Three weeks ago, 25-year old Philadelphian and lifelong foodie Abdullah Saeed did something thousands of people around the world were doing that very minute - he wrote a blog post. The post, titled “What a strange new feeling” was the first for his blog, ‘Adventures in Pork: A Muslim eats various pork dishes for the first time in his life and divulges his thoughts.’ Over the next four weeks, Saeed, a DJ and freelance writer tried Wendy’s Baconator, Pork Vindaloo and BBQ pork ribs among other pork dishes. The reaction from the blogosphere was immediate. Phoodie, a Philadelphia food and drink blog had this to say about Adventures in Pork, “Saeed’s almost poetic prose and fresh perspective on swine merge like ribs and BBQ sauce that makes for a witty feast for the eyeballs.” Thrillist wrote, “a scrumptious blog from a guy who realized he could have his pig and eat it too.”

I first heard about Saeed a few days ago, when I asked Hassan from Sunny Ali & The Kid who ‘The Kid’ was in the band. He introduced me to Saeed’s blog and suggested I read it. I was immediately hooked. I simply had to interview my bacon-brother-from-another-mother (especially given my own current exploration of pork.) Saeed was kind enough to sit down and share his story with SM.

A: I was born in New Hampshire but my parents moved to Bangkok, Thailand when I was an infant and we lived there until I was 13. After that, we moved to Long Island and then New Jersey. We also spent some time in Boston, where I first met Shahjehan of The Kominas. I came to Philadelphia in 2002 to attend Temple University where I majored in marketing.

Q: Marketing, huh? That explains a lot. Is that what you did after you graduated in 2006?

A: I hated marketing. However, I did work for an ad agency after graduation. Then I started contributing to Foundation, a mix-tape magazine based in South Philadelphia that is now defunct. I wrote music reviews for them before I became their music editor, which I did for a year and a half.

Q: When did your interest in music begin?

A: I originally played drums in high school for an old-school style punk rock band, in the Dead-Kennedy’s style. I was listening to Brit electronica, which I got from my older brother (who I later played with during college in a band called Cold Hands Collective). As a DJ in high school, I had no one to rap over my beats. That was about the same time I came up with the name Blame the Kid. I craved having DJs and rappers around me.

My jumping-off point was writing for joshspear.com about music trends. I also wrote about music for the website One Riot. I’ve worked with a lot of websites and there are a lot of web projects I did with decent success, but nothing like the initial response to Adventures in Pork.

Q: Why do you think this particular project, Adventures in Pork, resonated with so many people?

A: Well the idea is so provocative, someone who is Muslim eats pork for the first time. My non-Muslim friends were very excited about how I was getting about this eating of pork. People kept giving me recommendations, telling me ‘You should try this pork dish or ‘You should go this place for pork.’ I saw this as a button that hasn’t been pushed yet.

Q: Your blog is centered around the idea of your Muslim heritage. Is that something you incorporate in your music?

A: In music I never utilized my heritage. I never said to myself. I’m Pakistani, I should listen to Mehdi Hassan because it has to do with my heritage. Actually one of my inspirations was Shajehan from the The Kominas who showed me the Taqwacore documentary. Being a young male musician who is also American Muslim, that documentary really inspires you, even if you’re not playing desi music or Islamic music.

Q: When did you first think about eating pork? In your blog, you write “I drink alcohol, philander with women (albeit only one. I call her ‘girlfriend’), gamble within my means, and duck every regulation that doesn’t fit with my lifestyle, yet I did not eat pork.”

I had no intention of ever eating pork, never even thought about it. One day in May, I grabbed a Vietnamese hoagie, called banh mi from a place in South Philadelphia and went to pick up my younger cousin, who’s like a brother to me. My cousin went to take a bite from the hoagie and I told him, “There’s no meat in it, it’s veg” because 10 out of the 12 hoagie options at the place had pork in them and I didn’t eat pokr. My cousin gave me an incredulous look and said, “You don’t eat pork?” I was shocked. It was like my older brother telling me that he smoked pot. I was excited by that idea.

Q: Tell me about the first time you ate pork.

I went to the Rome for the month of August and just before I left, I had a conversation with my mother, who has never eaten pork herself. My mom is very liberal, she didn’t tell me not to do it, she just said, see how you feel in the moment. I went there and my friend’s girlfriend was cooking a lot of Italian pork dishes and I was just like, ‘To hell with it.’

Q: Do you consider yourself Muslim?

A: Well, when I was younger, I was constantly questioning my faith. I don’t take Islam too seriously. For now, my only connection to Islam is cultural, I don’t practice it. But I know that when people look at my name, they are going to treat me as Muslim.

Q: You and Hassan Malik, formerly of the band POPO, recently started a group called Sunny Ali & The Kid. How did you meet Hassan?

A: I was playing with a band called The Mighty Paradox at the same show that Hassan was playing with POPO. When Hassan started his thing, he contacted me. Before this, the only desi guy I had ever played with was my older brother.

Q: In a recent blog post, you write “I still won’t cook it [pork] at home, nor will I buy it at the grocery store.” Why?

A: I don’t cook pork. I do cook a lot of Thai food at home because it is comfort food for me. Each time I eat pork, it’s an adventure to me. If I’m hungry, I’m never gonna get an Italian hoagie. Even the best pork I eat, I’m like ‘Oh god.’

Q: And if I’m not mistaken, you’re still not a bacon fan. What’s up with that, man? What is wrong with you? I mean, what’s wrong with bacon?

A: I don’t not like bacon, I just feel like it’s not the great thing ever. I’m not sure why. It’s good. I just don’t understand the hype. So far the best thing I’ve had is pork belly.

[Editor’s note: There was a pause before PG could stop weeping and regain her composure.]

Q: What’s your favorite restaurant in Philly overall and what’s your favorite place for pork?

A: I like the Vietnamese place at 9th and Race and also Phoa Hoa at 11th and Washington. That’s my shit. I can’t decide on a favorite place for pork. I haven’t gone to the same place twice. I’m still waiting for a place like that. If there’s a place that could turn me on to their pork regularly, well…

Q: Let’s get something clear here, you do not, as of yet, actually like the taste of pork, is that correct?

A: When I say something sounds good, when I tell my friends tell me about a new place and I tell them ‘sounds good,’ I mean, it sounds interesting. I’ll try anything. I’ve had kangaroo jerky (it tasted like chicken), brains and beef tripe. Also I’ve eaten frog in Korea.

Q: Your posts often talk about the guilt you feel as you consume pork. Why is that?

A: The guilt is a result of conditioning. The guilt has nothing to do with my beliefs. To me, the idea of eating an animal like the pig has been made real dirty. I don’t ask myself ‘why?’ when I’m eating pork. I’m not thinking about the why, I’m just experiencing it. If you think about ham, it becomes too much. When I think about the parts of a pig [shudders]…

Q: As a foodie, are there any cooking shows you watch particularly?

A: I have to watch more of this cooking stuff and less Seinfeld re-runs, but I do like Anthony Bourdain’s show No Reservations, on the Travel Channel. Eating shows are weird to me, but it’s basically what I do. It’s a strange thing.

Q: Have you ever gotten flack from pious Muslims for your pork-eating adventures?

A: It’s not my place to tell anyone what to do or how to live their life. I’m not encouraging anyone to do anything. If someone can find value in my blog, good for them. If it’s offensive, well…it’s not my responsibility to keep Muslims Muslim. If anything, I’m hoping that non-Muslims will take away more of an understanding of Muslims after reading this. I mean, what really makes you Muslim? Is it the rules? I grew up in both mainstream American and Muslim cultures, I’m trying to play off one of the most interesting dietary restriction Muslims have in a country that doesn’t have any.

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Bobby Jindal wants you to root for the Saints in the Super Bowl, but here’s a reason to root for the Colts: John Singh Gill, son of Ajit and Ann Gill, is a defensive lineman for the team (via Ultrabrown). He was recently elevated to the active roster, so he may see some playing time. Now I know what my friend meant when he said, “I’m looking for 69 during the big game.”

If the Colts win, Gill won’t be the first desi player with a Super Bowl ring. That distinction belongs to Bobby Singh, who won a ring while on the Rams practice squad in ‘99. The Fiji-born Singh is the only player to win a Super Bowl, XFL Championship and a Grey Cup. Other active desi football players include Obby Khan, a center for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and Brandon Chillar, who plays linebacker for the Packers and is perhaps the best desi football player ever (Baichung Bhutia not included).

Gill, a Los Altos, Calif., native, played college ball at Northwestern and answered some questions from NUsports.com:

Q:If you could dine with anyone from any period in history, who would it be?
A: Ghandi (sic)

Q: If you could have a starring role in any film already made, which movie would you pick?
A: The Godfather

Q: What is the greatest lesson in life that you have learned?
A: Always do your best in every aspect of life

Q: Something people would be surprised to know about me is…
A: I am half Indian

Q: My ultimate SportsCenter highlight would be…
A: Returning an interception 100 yards for a touchdown

Q: The person that inspires me the most is…
A: My parents

Q: My favorite food is…
A: Italian food

Q: My favorite pre-game ritual is…
A: Eating

Q: If you were to have your friends attribute one quality to you, what would it be?
A: Loyal

He wants to dine with Gandhi and he likes Italian food? Oh, I get it now: He meant Sonia Gandhi.

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When I saw the headline “U.S. Congressman asks Clinton to demote Rajiv Shah,” I thought that the USAID director had done something seriously wrong. Perhaps Shah had bungled the U.S. relief efforts in Haiti, sending too much rice but not enough beans. Or perhaps he had handed a reconstruction job to an Indian-American Contractor who doesn’t do any contracting. But no, nothing of that sort.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Detroit) is calling on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to demote the official coordinating relief efforts in Haiti, Dr. Rajiv Shah, for a lack of diversity on his staff. [Link]

In his letter to Clinton, Conyers wrote: “As you know, the 42 member Congressional Black Caucus met with Rajiv Shah, the Administrator of the U.S. AID yesterday to discuss the crisis in Haiti. I was alarmed and chagrined to learn that none of the approximately dozen staff he brought with him were African American. This is so serious an error in judgement that it warrants his immediate demotion to a subordinate position at AID. It is well known  that there has long been an under-representation of minorities in key positions within the State Department. I am confident this Administration will immediately begin addressing this problem.” [Source: The Hill]

Poor Shah. Perhaps someone had told him that he’d be appearing in front of the Congressional White Caucus. Perhaps he was under the mistaken belief that race doesn’t matter much in 2010, that he just has to surround himself with qualified people. Or perhaps he took his resemblance to Obama a little too seriously and forgot to speak with the right dialect.

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I became a little more surprised when I noticed that some of my friends had changed their profiles more than once a day and that each update was accompanied by either accolades or criticism. Despite reading, “that totally looks like you!” a few times, I didn’t immediately figure out that this was a meme or a game, and that people were doing this to participate in some greater movement until one of you spelled it out, in the comments section under your newly-changed picture. Don’t blame me, unlike you MIT-alums or Ivy Leaguers, I went to a state school. Suck it, with your superior deductive skills. At least I figured out the “bra color in FB status” thing without googling it. Go me!

Obviously, I’m not writing this to tell you about a “hot, new trend!”. I’d be more than two weeks late for THAT. I’m writing because I noticed something very interesting occurring in my feed, and many of you are responsible for that. It started simply enough, with this:

“I’d participate, but there are no Hollywood celebrities who look like me. :o(“

And with that, so much was conjured. Memories of being at Disneyland or airport souvenir shops, standing next to my sister as I excitedly snatched a license plate or key chain emblazoned with, “A N N A”…while she glumly turned the display to “V”, where there was nothing which read “Veena”.

“Is someone feeling left out because they are Brown?”, I wondered. “Because THAT’S a post!”. I had no idea how much of a post it could be until my own Facebook profile became a hotbed of discussion about why people were participating, what it meant to participate, as well as questions of representation, inclusion and “passing”. The original point of the game may have been to simply change your profile pic to that of a celebrity whom you allegedly resemble, but I sensed that there was more here than a mere meme.

“I’ve noticed that most of my friends of South Asian descent have changed theirs to Kal Penn when they don’t resemble him in the least… “all look same” syndrome, perhaps? :(“

“A number of the South Asian women posting doppelgangers apparently think they look like Priyanka Chopra.”

“I’m only half-brown, and I hate that my doppelganger is white. I feel like I’m insulting my Dad with that picture. I’m not just white, even if I look it. I’m Indian, too!”

“I don’t look like Apu or that girl from the “Office”, so I guess I can’t play. Bummer.”

“lnitially I’d posted mine as Disney’s Jasmine (but) I’ve got Sridevi posted right now…sadly many of my non-desi friends haven’t noticed that it isn’t me. I guess we all look alike… ;)”

And then this, from someone who is usually mistaken for African-American, Dominican or anything but Desi, who decided not to participate in all the wackiness:

“The only time in recent memory I felt South Asian was after 9/11 and at Russell Peters’ recent show in DC when he made a joke about my nose as the dead giveaway that I was Indian.”

More, from Mutineers who opted out:

“I haven’t had a moment to figure out which Bolly-celeb I look like. (I didn’t even consider finding a mainstream/Hollywood celeb.)”

“I know I do not resemble anyone in the small group of desi celebs familiar to most Americans (e.g. Mindy Kaling, Padma Lakshmi, etc.). I couldn’t instantly think of a Latina/Persian/Arab/other brown-skinned celeb familiar to most Americans that I might resemble. (This is a small pool too! How many can you think of? The Kardashians don’t count ;)! Therefore, the number of potential possibilities seemed much larger in celebs more famous in South Asia than in the US. “

“Racially ambiguous looking, that’s my excuse. My growing list of what people think I am: Latina (but depending on my shade at the time anything from Argentine to Mexican), Native American, Filipina, Mongolian, Greek, Spanish, Italian, Turk, Arab, Chinese… “

All of this because of a Facebook meme? Wow. And I didn’t even include the people who emailed me privately to bemoan how this silly game made them feel like losers because they don’t look like ANY celebrity, from either Bollywood OR Hollywood, and yes, they know it’s a teeny, tiny problem to have, so there’s no need to judge them for their dismay, because they feel lame enough. Whatever, Desis. Once again, many of us were on the outside, looking in. Hello, fifth grade. Right? And ironically, it was a BROWN PERSON named Bob Patel who came up with the whole damned thing (thanks Disgrasian and Nayantara)! We were doing this to ourselves.

With all of this consternation, you’d think we’d avoid this meme as if it were H1N1. Not. Even. Close. Someone I met almost twenty years ago wrote to me to say that she had proudly changed her picture to one of Preity Zinta’s. Why?

It seems like fun and it was simple enough so why not. I picked someone based on whom I’ve been told I look like by others…otherwise I wouldn’t know where to start! It’s interesting to see who people are coming up with (for their own). At first I don’t see the resemblance but slowly you get to see a small glimpse. I guess I’m hoping that people agree with my choice!

Another Mutineer volunteered why she had participated: it required no extra effort. Apparently LiveJournal had been infected with a “Who would star in the movie of your life?”-meme before Facebook became a sea of celebrity. For this frequent commenter, it was easy to shift her “star” to her “doppelganger”. It didn’t hurt that her doppelganger was a point of pride, someone with whom she identified, a woman she genuinely liked.

Until I found this image, I hadn’t found anyone desi that looks like me. I’ve a bit of a nose, and I’ve danced. While I’m by no means a breakdancer or street (hah!), I feel that this image captures me perfectly: posed, poised, colorful.

I asked her if it mattered that the woman was Brown?

It definitely matters…because growing up in the hinterland of the USofA, there weren’t any good contemporary brown iconic images, other than from the desh. And those were mostly Bollywood, and completely disconnected from my reality…

She went on to say that she probably wouldn’t have participated in this strange little FB game, unless her doppelganger were Brown. I don’t blame her. I’ll confess to feeling the same way. I’ve been told that I resemble various people, throughout my life. My extra-pointy chin reminds people of Reese Witherspoon, but her pale skin, blonde hair and bright blue eyes have nothing in common with my brown, brown and brown…everything.

Aside from her, I often got compared to Princess Jasmine from Disney, mostly because of the waist-length hair, large eyes…and well, whatever else. I saw “Aladdin” when I was 17, and immediately after, the toddlers in front of me in the movie theater all turned around to stare and point, “She’s Jathmine!”. I know, I know…I recognize that THAT occurred half a lifetime ago, when I was in my teens, so I tried to think of something more recent. Hmmm.

Well, I occasionally have someone tell me that I look like “those girls from ‘Sister, Sister’”, so when I first realized what was transpiring on Facebook, I thought about changing my picture to one of either Tamera or Tia Mowry OR Princess Jasmine. I was reluctant to do so, and I immediately felt ashamed. PJ was a cartoon, what was my excuse for the other two? Was it because they were “African-American”? I called myself out. I’ve been surrounded by stupid “White is right”-prejudice my whole life; was I secretly in agreement? Was it worth even playing along, if it inspired all of this angst?

It was, if it meant keeping myself honest and hyper-aware of the bullshit with which we are conditioned. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been told, “If only you weren’t so dark…you’d be so pretty.” Eeew. If I was really honest with myself, the truth is, I’ve had people compare me to a different celebrity two to three times more often than I get the Mowrys or anyone else.

That’s why I ended up updating my Facebook profile with her image (even if my “white” friends and sorority sisters had no clue who she was), because merely based on the numbers, it seemed like the right choice to make if I were actually going to play along. Who was my “doppelganger”? I am chagrined and ashamed enough to admit that I compared myself to the luminous Hema Malini, but in my pathetic defense, there is no celebrity I’ve evoked more comparisons to, more often, for my entire adult life. Maybe to Northies, all South Indians look the same. ;)

Even with all that empirical data, my choice left me feeling guilty. Hema was pasty, y’all. Was I secretly wishing I were paler, even as I scolded my little sister—who is currently in Kerala— for believing what my cousins told her: that “Fair and Lovely” was merely sunblock? I hoped not. And so, my compromise was to create a collage. Three pics of Hema and one photograph of me. You decide. I couldn’t take this anymore. All of this navel-gazing and reflection was exhausting, if you were Brown. My paler friends hadn’t spent anywhere near as much time worrying about what their choices might signal; conversely, they weren’t gifted with treats like “You ain’t THAT light” in their comment feeds. Ah, white privilege. Will your power know no end?

No matter. Facebook has already moved on to a new meme. See, now you’re supposed to look up your first name on Urban Dictionary and post the first user-submitted “definition” as a comment under the status which proclaims that you are participating in such shenanigans. What’s that you say? Your very South Asian name has a horrid, racist definition, which mentions tech support, which contrasts uglily with all the other, far more benign results like, “The name for the most awesome person ever, It is impossible to fit so much awesome into any other person.” Hmmm, I smell another post…

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There are exciting happenings going on in the bunker nowadays for those interested in all news Bollywood and Hollywood. Taz just came back from Sundance (where she met Aamir Khan and Sendhil Ramamurthy) and today Cicatrix and I will be around in NYC, covering the My Name is Khan press conference featuring Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Karan Johar. If you’ll remember, we talked about Khan’s new movie back in August, where we found out he was going to meet President Obama (played by Christopher Duncan). And of course there was that whole Newark airport incident (which some of you suspected was a publicity stunt done to promote the movie, much like his joining Twitter).

I’ll also be live-tweeting the entire conference this afternoon and posting my video and pics later tonight. Want to be a part of it? Keep checking our Twitter account and make sure you post your questions to SRK, Kajol and Johar in the comments section. Gimme something good, mutineers. I’m counting on you. I’ll pull the best ones and add them to my list. Now back to my SRK research. YouTube music videos await me! (My life is so hard, I know.)

Mutinously Yours,

PG

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Businessman Aku Patel watched as two workers installed the orange-trimmed Mahatma Gandhi District signs atop a Harwin Drive street sign.

The owner of Karat 22 Jewelers on Hillcroft Avenue and other members of the South Asian community have waited seven years for these temple-shaped signs to go up in southwest Houston.

“It’s a great feeling,” Patel said proudly as he stood in the drizzling rain and watched Zane Frazar and Ron Mitchell install some of the 31 signs that will decorate street signs along Hillcroft Avenue, Harwin Drive, Fondren Road and Westpark Drive.

Leaders of the India Culture Center and Indian merchants have long wanted to rename Hillcroft Avenue Mahatma Gandhi Avenue, but municipal rules require 75 percent of commercial property owners on a street to sign a petition in support of changing the name before the City Council can consider it.

More than 76,000 people of Indian descent live in the Greater Houston area. [Link]

Two weeks ago I was in Mexico City. A waiter realized my companions and I weren’t Mexican and he said, “Indios como Gandhi, no?”

“Si, como Gandhi,” I thought, silently defeated. Don’t get me wrong. I admire Gandhi greatly. He’s my om boy. But how many Indians have lived on Earth since the dawn of man? And yet the most expedient way to describe us is that we are “como Gandhi.”

And on the way to Chapultapec we passed…a Gandhi statue.

Lesson learned: Mexicans dig Gandhi.

So returning to the topic at hand, the Gandhi District in Houston. Although too late, I have a few alternative suggestions for Mayor Annise Parker. All of these will help diversify “thought association” when it comes to Indians. People have to associate us with something other than just Mr. Gandhi.

1) Curry District/ Curry Town

2) Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar District

3) Jindal District

4) Nahasapeemapetilon District

5) Tom Haverford District

6) Samosa (or Pakora) District

7) Shah Rukh Khan District

8) Sanjay Gupta District

9) The Priest from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom District

10) Doctor District

Merchants also had their own ideas for a district name.

Shri Krishna Center, in honor of the Hindu deity, is a more spiritual name, said Dilip Mulani, who owns Silk India, a shop stuffed with Indian purses, saris and fabrics.

“Gandhi was a very special person,” said Mulani, who added there should be a Gandhi statue in the area.

Some considered naming it after Pakistan’s founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, said Shah Moghul, the Pakistani owner of Bismillah restaurant, with its roti rolls, beef samosas and other foods piled in its heated display case. He said the name signifies it’s an Indian area but he will still refer to the area as Hillcroft so he doesn’t have to pull out a map to explain to people its location. [Link]

The reporter in the clip above couldn’t even pronouce his name correctly.

I guess I shouldn’t complain about this. There is an MLK Blvd in every U.S. City. Maybe one day there will be a Gandhi Blvd too.

But people, we need to seriously get together and find a second hero (preferably pan-South Asian so he has wider appeal)! This is just too much pressure to put on one man’s shoulders.

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HUSH is a secret supper club in the U Street neighborhood of Washington, DC, offering Indian vegetarian meals you won’t find in any restaurant. At HUSH, the meals are sumptuous, fresh and organic. At each supper, the chef will give a spice tour and explain the origins of each meal.

Both the salon and dining room are designed to please the eye and relax the mind. Reserve a seat at the social table where strangers become friends, or request a table in the Salon for an intimate meal. [Link]

How it Works

Hush is run by a chef named Geeta who claims to be well versed in topics such as Jainism, anthropology, and food politics (a topic that combines my two favorite…topics). That’s all she is willing to reveal, although if you follow her tweets you may uncover more.

NEXT SUPPER CLUB DATES
Saturday, February 6 at 8 PM - FULLY BOOKED
Saturday, February 13 at 8 PM - FULLY BOOKED
SINGLE HEARTS - Sunday, February 14 at 7 PM [Link]

I like her Single Hearts concept:

‘Single Hearts’ - Sunday, February 14 at 7 PM open only for singles unburdened by love or lawful bliss (No married cheats on the prowl, please) Noah’s Ark Style - one man for every woman at the table.

Alright hordes. Go do your thing. Book her solid. And while your at it, ask her what she thinks about blogs.

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(h/t Anil)

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After he performed “Down” and “Do you remember , Williams exclaimed to her guest, “You are, STUNNING!” She followed up with “You’re exotic and spicy, what is your background??”. Mr. Jhooti let her know that his “heritage” was Indian and immediately clarified that he did not, in fact, live in a “wigwam”, i.e. that he wasn’t THAT kind of Indian.

Other scintillating bits from the show included Jay swatting down rumors about Ashley Tisdale, a mention of how the New York Post named him one of NYC’s most eligible bachelors and Sean’s confirmation that he’s already got a bird. So all you single ladies (all the single ladies)…and single men (all the single men), if you were in to him…you’re tatti out of luck. :)

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