Monthly Archives: May 2005

I bet their kids are geeks

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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…

Want to see a righteous Muslim feminist? Watch Nightline tonight.

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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. Continue reading →

Those darn f-16’s

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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) Continue reading →

Helloooo Nurse!

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Sheba Mariam George, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, is set to release a book next month titled, When Women Come First: Gender and Class in Transnational Migration:

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With a subtle yet penetrating understanding of the intricate interplay of gender, race, and class, Sheba George examines an unusual immigration pattern to analyze what happens when women who migrate before men become the breadwinners in the family. Focusing on a group of female nurses who moved from India to the United States before their husbands, she shows that this story of economic mobility and professional achievement conceals underlying conditions of upheaval not only in the families and immigrant community but also in the sending community in India. This richly textured and impeccably researched study deftly illustrates the complex reconfigurations of gender and class relations concealed behind a quintessential American success story.

When Women Come First explains how men who lost social status in the immigration process attempted to reclaim ground by creating new roles for themselves in their church. Ironically, they were stigmatized by other upper class immigrants as men who needed to “play in the church” because the “nurses were the bosses” in their homes. At the same time, the nurses were stigmatized as lower class, sexually loose women with too much independence. George’s absorbing story of how these women and men negotiate this complicated network provides a groundbreaking perspective on the shifting interactions of two nations and two cultures.

I think this might be a good stocking stuffer during Christmas for many Mallu moms. Apparently it wouldn’t be a good idea to let any men in the house see it though. You know, bruised egos and all. Continue reading →

Air India more efficient than ever

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A rookie air traffic controller just earned a medal for narrowly preventing an Air India disaster (thanks, Ennis). On July 24 last year, an Air India pilot landing at Newark Airport forgot to extend landing gear and came within half a mile of crashing the 747 on its belly. Was anyone you know on that flight?

I love it when desis take the initiative to cut through red tape, such as landing checklists with exaggerations like EXTEND WING FLAPS and LOWER LANDING GEAR. Bah, more unnecessary government regulation. You go, tiger!

One afternoon four years ago… out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a Comanche coming over the threshold and preparing to land. The aircraft’s landing gear was still up… my trainer told me, ‘Look for feet (landing gear). Always look for feet on the (propeller-powered aircraft). The prop guys don’t have the warning systems, but the jets will always have feet.'”

Fast forward to the afternoon of July 24, 2004… “We had a (Boeing) 747 coming in,” he said. “You can point out a 747 easily on a clear day.” It was Air India Flight 145, with 409 passengers aboard.

“He was on five-mile final approach,” Dittamo remarked. “I saw him but I couldn’t see gear.” With his Fort Lauderdale trainer’s instructions in his head – ‘Always look for feet’ – Dittamo glanced in a different direction and then turned back to the 747 to look again. No gear. “I thought, ‘something just doesn’t seem right,'” he said. “In my mind, I said I would pick it up in my next scan. But then I looked up and the plane definitely had no gear.”

By this point, Flight 145 was on a half-mile final at an altitude of 600 feet. “I was surprised he didn’t go around,” Dittamo stated. “I was going to let it go for one more second, because this was a critical phase of the flight for the crew. But then I just said to myself, ‘I’m not going to let this go for any longer.'”

Dittamo keyed the mike: “Air India 145, check gear down. Gear appears up.” The pilot acknowledged the transmission with a calm, “Air India 145.” Down came the gear and the 747 landed safely on Runway 4R.
Continue reading →

This is what you’re doing this Weekend

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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. 🙂 Continue reading →

Muslim like me

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In 1959 journalist John Howard Griffin published Black Like Me. The book revealed his experiences as a white man disguised as a black man in the segregated south.

In 1959, Griffin, a noted white journalist, decided to try an experiment. He felt that the only way to determine the truth about how African Americans were treated by whites, and to learn if there was discrimination, was to become one. After a series of medical treatments that darkened his skin, he began his travels in the Deep South. Made up primarily of his journal entries during that time, Black Like Me, read by Ray Childs, details the experiences he had while passing for black. He finds that the people who saw him as white days earlier would not give him the time of day. He suffered even more as he rode buses in New Orleans, discovering how whites would no longer sit next to him. Listeners will be fascinated by his bus trip to Mississippi during which the driver would not let any of the African Americans off at a rest stop and how some of the passengers decided to deal with this slight. A fascinating view of life before the heyday of the Civil Rights movement, showing the difficulties of being black in America.

Perhaps inspired by knowledge of this book, Morgan Spurlock (yes, THAT Morgan Spurlock) will document what it is like for a Christian man to live as a Muslim for 30 days. [via DNSI]The BBC reports:

Morgan Spurlock, the director of the cult fast-food documentary Super Size Me, has filmed a Christian living as a Muslim for 30 days for a new TV series. The show is part of his new TV series 30 Days, which puts people in unfamiliar situations for a month.

The shows sees the Christian dealing with “what’s it like to be a Muslim in America … who is seen every day as a threat to our freedom.”

The new series starts in the US on 15 June on the FX network.

Other episodes of the new show include a conservative man living with a gay flatmate, and a woman embarking on a binge-drinking spree as a warning to her daughter.

I want Spurlock to do an episode on what happens to a perfectly reasonable and well adjusted young man, who starts blogging for thirty days straight. Here is what I envision: He loses fifteen lbs., he has no time for anything, and the veins in his head start to bulge. Like this. Continue reading →

Posted in TV

Currying favor

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The last time I was subjected to the water-boarding called looking for a Manhattan apartment, I cast a covetous eye on a beautiful midtown loft. This place had a sunny balcony facing the art deco fantasy of the Chrysler Building, and a motormouth roommate who talked like she was on cocaine. I’d almost convinced myself I could handle the roommate, but one thing she said stuck sourly in my head.

She asked me whether I’d be cooking. ‘I can’t stand that curry smell,’ she said.

Let’s put that trope out of its British Raj-induced misery. Indian dishes as a whole are not called curry. They’re called sabzi or khana in Hindi, or just plain Indian food. In Punjabi cooking, curry is one specific dish: a thick yellow sauce made with yogurt and garbanzo flour, spiced with turmeric and eaten with rice. Some stir munchies like vadas, chicken or mutton into this base.

Calling all Indian food ‘curry’ is like calling all American food ‘Jello’: it’s nonsensical. If you tell me, ‘Let’s get some curry!’ and then order saag paneer, I’m going to laugh at you. Loudly.

Is this just semantic quibbling, when cheap Indian restaurants themselves perpetuate the corruption? Forget Curry in a Hurry, try ordering a Chinese dish by the wrong name. I did that at the tiny takeout place on the corner and got a stern lecture. ‘That not chow mein,’ the owner said. ‘I make you lo mein.’ Damned if it wasn’t better, just like he said.

Continue reading →

Kollektiv…Coming to DC and Nationwide

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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). Continue reading →