Monthly Archives: August 2004

Boy, that’ll show ’em

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The underlying logic here is probably just too complex for this ABCD to decipher –

AMRITSAR, India (AP) — Villagers in northern India briefly detained 37 foreign tourists, most of them British, to protest the kidnapping of three Indian workers in Iraq, police said Friday.

The tourists, traveling in two buses, were stopped Thursday night near the village of Santoshgarh, the home region of two of the three Indians who are among seven truck drivers, who all work for the same Kuwaiti company, being held hostage by unknown kidnappers in Iraq.

The tourists — 22 Britons, two South Koreans, a Japanese, an American, a Canadian, two Swiss, two Poles, a Dutch citizen, three Tibetans and two others of unknown nationality — were returning to New Delhi from the Himalayan town of Dharmsala, said police officer Bimal Gupta.

To protest foreigners taking our people hostage… we’ll take other foreigners hostage?

Kamat’s Vege’s

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Kamat posted a few picts of fruits / veges that may wax nostalgic for kids who grew up at an Indian table. I for one tried dang hard back in the day to explain to my non-desi friends what a Bitter Melon was and they’re probably still wondering why someone would eat one.

Now is it me or is there something extremely lewd about Curvaceous Carrot

he’s not a racist, he just dislikes niggers

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Fox and other major news organizations are reporting that a straight-up bigot will be reppin’ the right in the race for Tennessee’s 8th Congressional district. James L. Hart–an erstwhile real estate salesman who states that he was “forced” to resign from his job due to the attention he received via his campaign–has unsuccessfully run for this Congressional seat before, but this time he was the only republican on the ballot. Dennis Bertrand, a write-in candidate who is a former military officer lost his bid to “Help restore dignity” to the GOP by a landslide. See what happens when you blindly vote by party line, people?

Some choice quotes from the website of the man who counters claims that he is racist by pointing out that he’s okay with Asians:

“We in the Eugenic movement are not interested in competing against Adolph Hitler or Karl Marx for some minuscule little 1,000 year reich. We are interested in competing with Jesus Christ and Buddha for the destiny of man.”

“Equality is man’s most dangerous myth. All men do not have an equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Only the ethical, moral and law abiding have a right to liberty; only the productive and creative have a right to life; and only the wise have a right to the pursuit of happiness.”

and my personal favourite:

“Why does Detroit look like it was hit by a nuclear bomb and Hiroshima look like it was on the side that won the war? Everyone knows the answer but is afraid to say. Because genes have a more devastating effect on civilization than nuclear bombs, and the reason for Detroit’s decline is that there are less ‘favored races’ in Detroit with an average IQ of 85 and more ‘favored races’ in Japan with an average IQ of 104.”

Wow. Continue reading →

Om Malik outs a tech startup

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Veteran journalist Om Malik of Not Really Indian outed a tech startup on his blog, to great effect:

Kathy Rittweger, CEO of Blinkx, was on what she thought was just a normal trip to the offices of Business 2.0 magazine to show the editor her new search software. Om Malik, one of the journalists in the meeting, was so impressed that he immediately wrote about it on his blog. “He called me to say he’d done a ‘blog’ on us, and I have to confess I was disappointed as it didn’t sound as good as an article,” Rittweger reflects. “Within a couple of hours we were being mentioned on thousands of sites and I had venture capitalists calling me left, right and centre. The blog made us so popular that we had to bring forward our launch from autumn to June.

Nice job, Om. (Btw, I’m writing about a guy writing about himself writing about a startup. Death by echo!)

Jay Sean to Open for N.E.R.D.

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British Asian pop-star in the making Jay Sean will be one of the two opening acts for American Hip Hop Producer/Musician extraordinaires, N.E.R.D. for their upcoming fans only London show reports nme.com.

Sean, whose latest single “Eyes on You,” entered the British charts at number six, is one of the many rising British Asian stars “making tings happen” for desi music in the UK. Others to look out for are, Jay’s record label mate and fellow Rishi Rich project member Juggy D and Indo-Canadian phenom Raghav (V2 Records), among others. Continue reading →

Amardeep breaks down ‘The Namesake’ for you

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Amardeep Singh, prof at Lehigh University, finds an invisible man in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. I normally wouldn’t point at a piece referencing Gayatri Spivak and other jargon-filled lit academics, but this was so worthy.

For Sikh men of course, the misnaming is much more aggressive: “Osama” and “Bin Laden” are the most common mis-names one hears. One South Philly man (a caucasian), in a moment of inspired racist efficiency, recently referred to me simply as “Bin,” thus saving himself the expenditure of five syllables he no doubt did not have to spare…

“Jhumpa” is her pet name rather than her good name… Growing up in America, however, she has chosen it as her official, public name… Asserting the name “Jhumpa” is at once a misnaming and a refusal to be misnamed…

And he dissects the lack of a handle for the desi community in the U.S., while those in the UK have long since usurped the term Asian.

…desi may work, but it remains a name like a Punjabi or Bengali pet-name, a name used around the house rather than recognized by a broader public. In this case, there is a chance that the term will reach a critical mass, but it is not yet broadly available. I find it hard to imagine the word rolling off the tongue of someone like Charlie Rose…

“India” (like Calcutta and Delhi) is itself is an Anglicization of “al-Hind,” the Persian name for the area around the Indus River… What was India before it was misnamed? The confusion of the community-without-a-name is merely the latest extension of a permanent historical crisis in naming.

Sikh cops can wear turbans in NYPD

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Amric Singh Rathour, a New York cop who happens to be Sikh, can now wear a turban as part of his official uniform. Sikhs have a long tradition of police and military service in the Mounties, UK police forces and regiments during the British Raj. Congrats to attorney Ravi Bhalla, a friend from UC Berkeley, for the legal victory, one of a ceaseless tide for religious freedoms.

“It’s the first time New York City will see turbaned Sikh officers,” said Amardeep Singh, the legal director for the Sikh Coalition. “This is like our Rosa Parks, our first big civil rights victory in this country.”

Continue reading →

Dangerous liaisons

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Let your chai tea latte runneth over.

______ has graying temples with a thin patch at the back, rimless eye-glasses and a satisfied masculine air. He smells faintly of cigarette smoke and late nights in the lab.

And then, like Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, she completes the story.

But he orders gnocchi anyway, saying in his slightly raspy from smoking too many cigarettes voice, “This could be dangerous.”

The desi head shake

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Delhibelly chronicles the ambiguous desi head shake and other deep native mannerisms. Brilliance.

Indians do not nod yes and shake no… This may stem from some aversion to committing too completely to any one course of action, since all things are fated and one can never be sure what one will do, or because it’s never prudent to make promises, or because a betrayal of eagerness is the worst way to begin negotiating… Facing forward, with your head in a relaxed position, tilt your head loosely from side to side, as though it is wobbling on the topmost vertebrae of your spine with the springy motion of one of those sad-looking dogs people fix to the dashboards of cars…

Customer: …“Kitna hoga, Bhaisahib?”
Autowallah: “Pifty rupees.”
Customer: “Pifty! Er… Fifty! Bis dengey” (IÂ’ll give you twenty).
Autowallah: “Porty.”
Customer: (He is like that only).
Autowallah: (You are like that only!)