Monthly Archives: August 2004

Happy Independence Day

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For the Indians among you, freedom for trysts with midnight’s children and so on, old chap. Happy day. Off to the big NYC parade in the morning.

Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge… At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.

–Jawaharlal Nehru

Were Harold and Kumar smoking desi doobage?

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It seems that desis are a “model minority”, entrepreneurial in spirit, and drawn to excel in all spheres. Even criminal life.

In the past 13 years, police have reported 76 young men killed in the Vancouver area in gang-related violence. The authorities blame drug deals gone bad and local turf wars, mostly involving well-to-do young people of Indian descent.

The gangs deal mostly in marijuana, according to police, and specialize in a popular variety grown in the province called B.C. bud. “B.C. bud marijuana is highly sought after in the United States,” said constable Alex Borden of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

In Blaine, Wash., Joe Giuliano, assistant chief at the local U.S. Border Patrol office, said 23 Canadian smugglers have been arrested on the U.S. side of the border this year. “Virtually all marijuana smuggling in the past fiscal year is either directly or indirectly tied back to the Indo-Canadian community,” Giuliano said.

Somehow, I don’t think this is what was meant by swadeshi.

Dumb and dumberest

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Comment on Political Animal:

I’m not at all surprised by #4 [most popular blog language] being Farsi. Yes, a lot of people have never even heard of the Faroe Islands, but they are VERY net-savvy there.

<

p dir=”ltr”>From Dumb and Dumber:

Lloyd Christmas: That’s a lovely accent… New Jersey?
Lady at bus stop: It’s Austrian.
Lloyd Christmas: Austria! Well, then. G’day mate! Let’s put another shrimp on the barbie!

Mohini Bhardwaj’s Olympic TV schedule

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You can catch gymnast Mohini Bhardwaj and the rest of the women’s gymnastics team in the Olympics by following this TV schedule (all on NBC):

  • Sun, Aug. 15, 7pm-midnight ET
  • Tue, Aug. 17, 8pm-midnight ET

In case Raj Bhavsar gets bumped up from his alternate spot, or you otherwise want to partake in some chiseled bicep action, here’s the men’s gymnastics schedule:

  • Sat, Aug. 14, 12-6pm & 8pm-midnight ET
  • Mon, Aug. 16, 8pm-midnight ET

Gujarat massacre still unpunished

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The killers who participated in recent, government-sanctioned anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat will likely get away scot-free, says the Economist. There have been no convictions to date. None.

…not a single murderer has been convicted, although perhaps 2,000 people died. The state government is under pressure from local activists, human-rights groups and India’s staunchly interventionist Supreme Court to see that justice is at last done. But it continues to act less like a scourge of illegal violence than its sponsor.

In retaliation for the deaths of 58 Hindus who burned alive in a train under suspicious circumstances, 2,000 Muslims were massacred in Gujarat:

Atal Behari Vajpayee, the BJP’s leader and, at the time, prime minister, seen as a moderate, asked “Who lit the fire first?”. That foreigners and the liberal English-language press in Delhi largely ignored the Godhra massacre, concentrating on the killings of Muslims—some 9-10% of Gujarat’s 50m population—heightened the sense of grievance.

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DRUM beats on Harold & Kumar

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Thus far I have managed to avoid controversy. This post may result in the creation of a new orifice on my body, but I felt like it was time to mix things up.

In an “Open Letter to the Asian American Community” members of NYC based DRUM (Desis Rising Up Moving) write:

Correction: DRUM is just a listserv which people post to in the NY area. The open letter below was written by the South Asian Sisters

We went to watch Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle because we genuinely wanted to support our Asian American brothers. After all, the media coverage told us that this movie was supposed to break stereotypes and be a positive step for Asian Americans. Asian websites raved about the film, and so we were all excited to rally around this film with the rest of the community. We entered the theater and immediately noticed that the audience was comprised of predominantly Asian Americans. We wondered if a movie based on the same premise featuring white boys would draw a bigger crowd. The movie started, and we sat back, waiting to be empowered.

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Team Brown works for YOU!

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Hilarious…

teambrown.gifBehind every sucessful and powerful Whitey, there is a team of brown actually getting the shit done. In the 1800s that meant tea for the British Raj, in the 1900s that meant fighting in the Burmese jungles, and in the 21st century, it means we run the Net, the banks, and everything in between… I gotta tell you, I once had a serious conversation about how it was inevitable that Indians would pretty much be running the world by 2025.

‘Fatwa’ in Manhattan

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Anuvab Pal, one of my most favorite playwrights, is unleashing a new play upon the world at the NYC Fringe Festival tomorrow. The Fatwa synopsis:

A comedy about two elderly men who try to take advantage of the current American political climate to fulfill lifelong artistic desires. Both men have famous names, but are not famous themselves. They are failed writers who in attempting to promote a blasphemous novel, attempt to engineer a fatwa…

More here:

Pal compares favorably to Salman Rushdie in verbal pyrotechnics and Tom Stoppard in barbed wit, and he’s starting to get mainstream recognition… like Woody Allen minus the neuroticism… Fatwa is a thinly disguised satire of Rushdie’s horrific hide-and-seek with the mullahs.

Pal’s work is a treat, go see the play!

Fatwa by Anuvab Pal, NYC Fringe Festival, Players Theater, Studio 3C, 115 MacDougal St, New York, NY, Aug. 14-15, 20-22, 25, 26, tickets at TicketWeb

Manmohan accepts, then declines Harvard invite

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The Harvard Crimson now reports that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will not be speaking at Harvard this September.

The Indian Express wrote last week that, following a phone call from University President Lawrence H. Summers, Singh accepted Lamont University Professor Amartya SenÂ’s invitation to speak at the University.

Why the reversal? What gives?

Well according to an article on Rediff.com:

The Indian Express had also reported that India’s ministry of external affairs had advised the prime minister not to speak at Harvard as the timing of the lecture would clash with bilateral negotiation appointments. The article had that MEA officials felt that a “meeting with Summers, who was treasury secretary in Bill Clinton’s Democratic administration, could jeopardise relations with the current Republican White House.”

Sigh. Will things never change?