Monthly Archives: September 2005

Bobby speaks his mind

Posted on by

Congressman Bobby Jindal weighs in on the Wall Street Journal’s editorial section (thanks for the tip Olinda).  The man ain’t happy:

There have already been a number of instances in which an overly inhibitive bureaucracy prevented an appropriate response to the disaster. For example, on Wednesday of last week a company called my office. With only three hours before rising waters would make the mission impossible, they were anxious to send a rescue helicopter for their stranded employees. They wanted to know who would give them a go-ahead.

We could not identify the agency with authority. We heard that FEMA was in charge, that the FAA was in charge, and that the military was in charge. I went in person to talk with a FEMA representative and still could not get a straight answer. Finally we told the company to avoid interfering with Coast Guard missions, but to proceed on its own. Sometimes, asking for forgiveness is better than asking for permission.

The first half of his op-ed seems to rail against big government and bureaucracy.  It’s hard to accept a Republican doing that when his traditionally government-hating party has been in charge for so long.  Maybe this means we should cut even more taxes to make the government even more efficient.  I agree with the other side in believing that years of undermining the importance of the federal government in the lives of people (especially the poor) is what contributed to a disastrous response. 

Spending my days on the ground in Louisiana last week, I did not see much television. But I understand that some media let the violent and destructive acts of a few overshadow the many acts of compassion and heroism.

Contrary to the pictures you may have seen, the vast majority of New Orleanians did not take to the street with weapons–far more risked their own safety to help neighbors and strangers.

I’m glad he set the record straight.  This past weekend while on a long car ride, I had the misfortune to listen to AM radio.  Every conservative crackpot radio show host seemed to be obsessed with the “widespread crimewave” in New Orleans.

As I struggle to explain to my 3-year-old daughter why her prayers that the hurricane spare our hometown were unanswered, we as a nation must make sure that we learn from our initial mistakes and cut through the red tape to help people rebuild their homes, their hopes and their lives.

Ahh the obligatory reference to their young child.  A politician wouldn’t be a politician without this trademark.

Continue reading →

Don’t freak

Posted on by

Immediately after the London terrorist bombings there were plenty of comments left on numerous SM posts that all seemed to express a particular opinion that was VERY distasteful to me, and to some other readers.  To paraphrase, the opinion went like this: “We need to educate the public better so that when a racist or bigoted backlash occurs following a terrorist attack, they will be wise enough to target Muslims instead of people that only look like Muslims.”  I thought that such an opinion would find no support at all but I learned that I was wrong.  Dave at DNSI points to an article in the Guardian that shows just how wrong I was.  Some Sikhs and Hindus facing the prospect of a backlash are taking unusual approaches:

The explanation as to why Sikhs and Hindus are targeted…is quite simple: “your average hate-crime perpetrator isn’t going to stop and ask what religion you are before attacking you – or even care, for that matter, about such distinctions.”

If you travel on London’s public-transport system you may have spotted them: stickers and T-shirts with “Don’t freak, I’m a Sikh” written across them. On the tube, they tend to be greeted with wry smiles, but they have sparked heated debate on Sikh online message boards. “Don’t wear these T-shirts, they’re anti-Muslim,” writes one contributor. “We should wear the T-shirts,” says another. “We need to think of ourselves first – let the Muslims take care of themselves.”

In the weeks following July 7 it was widely reported that hate crimes against Asians had increased dramatically. They were not just attacks on Muslim Asians, of course: they were attacks on Asians of all faiths. The fact is that your average hate-crime perpetrator isn’t going to stop and ask what religion you are before attacking you – or even care, for that matter, about such distinctions. But this point seems to have been lost on the media. There’s been a huge focus on the impact on Britain’s Muslim community, but the plight of Britain’s 560,000 Hindus and 340,000 Sikhs has been largely ignored.

Sure, it’s easy for me to judge.  I sit here safe and don’t have to endure suspicious eyes checking me out on the Underground every day.  Still, this rubs the very heart of me.  I think these t-shirts should all be burned.  Prior to WWII, Hitler forced the Jews to wear the Star of David on their clothes so as to single them out with ease.  Here it seems some citizens are volunteering for that sort of indignity in order to make their lives a bit easier, at the price of a higher ideal.  We shouldn’t be declaring that we are different from Muslims.  If anything we should be educating people on how similar they are to us.  I fully support declaring that you are Sikh, loud and proud.  To do so in order to differentiate yourself from a Muslim, specifically to avoid a potential hate crime, is just loud without the proud.

Continue reading →

I coulda been a contendah

Posted on by

I offer you a roundup of the ovation vocation. Zadie Smith’s On Beauty made the Booker shortlist; she’s a Booker virgin (thanks, Neha). It’s out next Tuesday, but you might find it shelved stealthily in the fiction section as early as Saturday.

Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, an homage to EM Forster’s Howards End, has received mixed reviews from critics. [Link]
Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown succumbed to snark and failed to make the short cut. After winning the Booker of Bookers, it’s ok to let someone else have a shot:
Zadie Smith, On Beauty*
Julian Barnes, Arthur and George*
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Sebastian Barry, A Long Long Way
John Banville, The Sea
Ali Smith, The Accidental [Link]
The George in Julian Barnes’ title was a Parsi (via Punjabi Boy):
It is a story about Sherlock Holmes’s creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle… The George in the title is George Edalji, a Birmingham solicitor and the son of a country vicar from Bombay who was a converted Parsee… in 1903, Edalji was convicted of maiming horses in his father’s parish of Great Wyrley in Staffordshire. The ‘Great Wyrley Outrages’, as they were known, became a cause célèbre when Doyle took up the cudgels in order to correct what he regarded as legal injustice and racism. Doyle became to Edalji what Emile Zola was to Dreyfus. [Link]

M.I.A. lost the Mercury Music Prize to Antony and the Johnsons (thanks, PB). Gayest thing ever recorded? Nuh-uh. It’s gotta be ‘Carolyn’s Fingers’ by the Cocteau Twins. Gayest thing ever recorded? ‘Carolyn’s Fingers’ by the Cocteau TwinsAnything by an artist who’s actually gay is too obvious (sorry, ‘YMCA’).

“It’s like a contest between an orange and a space ship and a potted plant and a spoon.” … His voice has been likened to Nina Simone and gay magazine Attitude described his album as “the gayest thing ever recorded”… [Link]

The drama of defining second gen continues apace. Come on, yaar, it’s a simple vada pav test. If he doesn’t know marmite, fish and chips, bangers and mash, he’s not a true deshi:

Although he holds a British passport… Hegarty, 34, has spent most of his life in America after his parents relocated to California when he was 12. Earlier this month, Kaiser Chiefs accused Hegarty of sneaking on to the shortlist through a “technicality”. “He’s an American, really,” said Nick Hodgson of Kaiser Chiefs, who hail from the rather less exotic Leeds. “It’s a good album, but it’s daft he’s got in on a technicality.” [Link]

Previous posts: one, two, three, four, five, six

* Sepia-fied

Continue reading →

More proof that Starbucks is evil? ;)

Posted on by

foamy rules.jpg I must have something to read near me at all times. On those rare occasions when I have “free time”, before I leave the house, I make sure I have at least a magazine (and my moleskine, and my camera andÂ…) with me, so that IÂ’ll be able to read. Life insists on making us pause unexpectedly when weÂ’d rather be achieving, mischief-making or just crossing another item off of our to-do lists; the only reason hyperactive me doesnÂ’t mind this immutable fact is because it means I get to read.

When I was a child, if I couldnÂ’t find the newspaper, IÂ’d read the back (or side) of the cereal box while crunching away on Rice Krispies. I still do this. IÂ’ll read anything, if IÂ’m desperate enough. When I found a job in a building that sits on top of a metro stop, I was overjoyed. The Washington Post got a phone call and I got a subscription to read during my 16-minute commute, each way. Sometimes, I canÂ’t help myself, I start reading the minute IÂ’m out my front door, on the block-and-a-half walk to the subway (yes, I am aware of how lucky I am to live next to and work on top of public transportationÂ…if you want to gnash your teeth even harder out of envy, know this: home and work are on the SAME metro line. No transferring for me, no siree Babu).

Speaking of having to pause when I’d rather be “achieving”, Wednesdays are for staff meetings. Over the last few weeks, it’s become a tradition to get overpriced yuppie beverages in preparation for such events. Unfortunately for indie-coffee shop lovinÂ’ me, there are no less than four Starbucks within a half-mile radius, combined with three Cosi and not one damned other choice in sight. While I go out of my way to avoid the mer-mascotted former, the latter (RIP: x and o) isnÂ’t even worth that effort, since their coffee tastes like punishment for wasting money.

Truthfully, some of the best coffee IÂ’ve had on the right coast came from my old bodega in midtown, on 8th avenue in the theater district. IÂ’d be tickled to the point of swooning right now if I could still hand the smiling, wordless Korean guy who owned the place (and whom I adored) a single dollar for a cup that would magically never spill though it was placed in a humble little paper bag vs in one of those fancy, carefully molded egg-carton-y drink holders. That freshly brewed, unpretentious elixir was brightened with my choice of parmalat milks (which were nestled in the ice of the salad bar) and sweetened with an open pot of sugar (which offered a communal spoon); there were no sleek nissan flasks or individual packets of white dust which give lab rats cancer, nor were there little shakers for cinnamon, nutmeg and pixiedust. THAT coffee tasted like love, and it was served in an iconic container which became even more famous when SJP caressed it during every other ep of SATC. IÂ’m 225 miles from THAT perfection, hours away from a city that doesn’t frown at me when I insist on ordering with quaint adjectives like small, medium, large. Sigh. Continue reading →

Underneath Bangladesh’s success story

Posted on by

An article in the Christian Science Monitor takes a closer look at the 500 bomb blasts that rocked Bangladesh last month:

For years, they gathered in hidden training camps, mosques, and madrassahs, learning how to use weapons and build bombs. In their diaries they scrawled slogans of political alienation. On Aug. 17, their ideology culminated in a series of nearly 500 bomb blasts that shook the nation and killed three people.

 In the aftermath of the attacks, Bangladesh is confronting a realization long suspected but consistently overlooked: Islamist militant groups have taken firm root here, demonstrating a widespread, highly coordinated, and well-funded network. The government, after consistently denying the threat, recently blamed Jama’atul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB), for the attack.

Bangladesh is not supposed to be a breeding ground of extremism. Although one of the world’s poorest countries, it is often lauded as a development success story. Poverty rates have declined, life expectancy is up, and the economy has consistently grown by 5 percent annually for years – above average for most developing nations.

But remarkable development and extremism are not mutually exclusive.

I feel a bit ignorant right now.  I didn’t know that the word on the street was that B’desh was considered a “success story.”  The only time I ever hear about it in the news is when some Typhoon wipes it out.  Seriously, I’ve always felt that it’s one of the most underreported on countries.

Abdur Rahman, the spiritual head of the organization, told the press last year that he admired the Taliban and had traveled to Afghanistan. He claimed his organization had been operating underground since 1998, with the aim of founding an Islamic state. His network was active across the country, he said, with 10,000 trained full-time operatives, and 100,000 part-time activists, funded with a payroll of more than $10,000 a month, a huge sum by Bangladeshi standards.

I’m sorry did he just use “admired” and “Taliban” in the same sentence, and then say that he went to Afghanistan?  People are going to start calling for his assassination real soon now.

Continue reading →

Oh Oh. It’s a Patel wedding

Posted on by

One of my closest friends is getting married this Thanksgiving.  We went to the same high school in Maryland and were roommates at the University of Michigan.  I know his lovely fiancé as well (she coincidentally has the same last name).  With two months to go I was starting to look for a present for them.  Then, both FOBish and Neha sent in this tip.  In Neha’s words “Kaliyug  is upon us for sure.”  The Telegraph reports:

Young Patels getting married in Britain apparently expect the most expensive wedding gifts from their guests, according to research conducted by John Lewis, the Oxford Street department store.

On their “wish list” are items such as plasma television screens — they alone cost £5,000 each — Royal Doulton crockery, champagne stoppers and top-of-the-range fridge-freezers.

John Lewis picked four of the most common surnames in Britain by consulting the Office of National Statistics — Patel, Jones, Smith and Cohen — and compared their wedding gift lists.

Ha!  Patel is the new Jones.  I’m a bit skeptical of the so-called “research” cited in this article though.  To be fair, my friend and his fiance are not at all like the couples described in this article.  If they secretly are then they are going to be sorely disappointed by their broke-ass friends.

… research done by John Lewis reveals that Indians are becoming as shameless as the English. Young Patel couples come into the store before the wedding and draw up their ideal list by choosing from the 500,000 goodies that are available. They think nothing of sticking the priciest gifts on their list…

Mr and Mrs Jones tend to ask for cheaper gifts such as hammocks, champagne buckets and coffee makers, with a £500 barbecue the most expensive item asked for.

Mr and Mrs Smith go for sofas, board games and microwave equipment for the kitchen. Although John Lewis would not dream of saying so, they seem even duller than the Jones.

Mr and Mrs Cohen request items such as fondue sets, Le Creuset pans and egg poachers from their wedding guests. Again, their taste leaves much to be desired.

I’m sorry but I’m with the Patels on this one.  If someone brings me a board game or a fondue set then they are dead to me.  Here is the take-away message:

McCulloch said: “Our latest research has highlighted some fascinating insights into wedding list preference, including the fact that couples with the same surnames are more likely to have similar wedding gifts. If you are after the ultimate and most opulent wedding lists, full of luxury goods and sensational extravagances, then it’s keeping up with the Patels that really counts.”

The Kali Yuga is upon us all.

Continue reading →

‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’

Posted on by

Here’s yet another story, this time in the NYT, about Malayalees tutoring American juvenile delinquents using porncams instant messaging and headphones. Where’s the fire button in this game? It ain’t real until desi teachers can simulate stabbing you in the head with a pencil. It’s not the Montessori method, it’s the belan method:

Greeshma Salin swiveled her chair to face the computer, slipped on her headset and said in faintly accented English, “Hello, Daniela.” Seconds later she heard the response, “Hello, Greeshma.” … Ms. Salin, 22, was in Cochin, a city in coastal southern India, and her student, Daniela Marinaro, 13, was at her home in Malibu, Calif…

They must go through two weeks of technical, accent and cultural training that includes familiarization with the differences between British English, widely used in India, and American English… “They learn to use ‘eraser’ instead of its Indian equivalent, ‘rubber,’ and understand that ‘I need a pit stop’ could mean ‘I need to go to the loo…’ ”

… she was “floored at first when 10-year old American students addressed me as Leela. All my teaching life in India, my students addressed me as Ma’am,” she said.

Fussy Americans, we shall school your haraam zaday spawn in ye olde English:

Dr. Marinaro said that he had misgivings when he first considered enrolling his daughters for English tutoring. “I thought, how could somebody from India teach them English?”

There’s something very reverse colonialist about this. Now instead of wealthy families importing teachers to provide a proper English education, we have… wealthy families importing teachers to provide a proper education in English. I can just hear the anti-Macaulay bruting about over Skype: ‘Your native culture is worthless! Jonathan Safran Foer, I spit on him! You sawdust-for-brains natives– read Rushdie, Roy, Khushwant Singh if you want to be proper Indian gentlemen.’

This part is actually true — we probably get more 1st gen – 2nd gen interaction on this blog than face-to-face, because it’s in text and only the essence remains:

Eliminating factors such as skin color, appearance, gender and accent made the Internet “more egalitarian than most classrooms,” he said.

Previous post here.

Continue reading →

‘Curry’ in no hurry

Posted on by

Vikram Chatwal’s One Dollar Curry finally posts a trailer and makes its lumpy appearance in London Sep. 23rd, a full year after its Paris debut (via AiM). Nip-slip dictates that we pixelate, you pervs.

Chowhounds take note — the concoction this character vends is true Punjabi-style curry. The plot is a Paris-based, cooking-centric takeoff on The Guru, the trailer features ‘Kamasutra’ body oil nestled in a leopard-print bikini, the site uses a cloying, annoying faux-Indic font, and Chatwal seems to have both a cross and ‘waheguru‘ tattooed to his right arm.

Despite these less-than-stellar atmospherics, the soundtrack is catchy, and the movie doesn’t seem as bad as it so richly deserves to be given the hackneyed plot and inexperienced cast. It’s got an adorable, Ganesh-painted three-wheeler, the incantation of a six-degrees family tree is dead on, and Gabriella Wright is surely one of the cutest English-Irish-Portuguese-Mauritians out there.

Watch the trailer or listen to the soundtrack. Here’s the official site. Previous post here.

Continue reading →

She’s not cowed by anyone

Posted on by

savita is fierce.jpg Almost a century ago, my great grandmother was married to a boy of her family’s choosing. This would be totally unremarkable (not to mention irrelevant to the post I’m commencing) except she was a seven-year old bride. When she was eighteen and suitably “womanly” (read: able to reproduce), she went to live with her husband of more than a decade; though he is now gone, she still loves him very much. I remember being very disturbed by this story the first few times I heard it. My mother would always soothe me and say that it all occurred during another time, that the practice of marrying off children wasnÂ’t a part of modern India*.

*When I was a bit older, she explained the asterisk which was visible only in the guarded look her face took on whenever she said the phrase, “Modern India”; that fleeting change in her eyes represented the inevitable and unfortunate truth that “bad things” might still occur, but “only in rural, backwards places” which were still living in the shade of ignorance.

I was reading yesterday’s WaPo when I thought of all of this. The article I knew I’d write up for SM was about Savita Chaudhry, a striking 22-year old who at age 3 was arranged to marry a five-year old. Her matchmaking grandfather sealed the deal with a coconut and perplexed toddler-Savita spent the night with her new in-laws, to “consummate” the marriage symbolically before returning home with her parents. Everyone expected that Savita would willingly stand by her man once she was an adult, like my great-grandmother did.

I wonder if there were signs, when she was a wee three, that two decades later she’d grow up to be someone fierce.

Last year, the willowy young woman with the flashing dark eyes refused the entreaties of her “husband” and his family to join them in their village, several hundred miles from this small city in western India where she runs the family grocery shop. She is paying a steep price.

Continue reading →

The Next Apprentice?

Posted on by

The Romans pioneered today’s victory and ticker tape parades in their Triumph ceremony.  Post-war, a long procession of captured loot, slaves, musicians, and, of course, the Legion in its finest regalia marched through the city for all citizens to lavish their praise.  The victorious General followed this procession in a priceless chariot waving to the audience like the beauty queen of his day.  Ever cognizant of human nature, the Roman council enlisted a slave who stood by the side of the general whispering the reminder that “all glory is fleeting”.  

Perennial SM television favorite Raj Bakhta may have to hang up his golden leaf crown as he confronts the newer, younger model this fall.   The latest season of the Apprentice will unveil the newest Desi reality-TV star, Ms Toral Mehta –

Toral, 29, currently a Vice President in the Capital Markets group of a major investment bank in New York City, is among the handful of officer level women in her group responsible for originating, structuring, negotiating and closing multi-million dollar business deals. Fluent in French, Hindi and English, Toral has traveled to more than 15 foreign countries over the course of her career, working with top business leaders in both the public and private sectors. A graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Toral has worked for some of the country’s leading financial institutions including Goldman Sachs and American Express. In addition, Toral is a skilled day trader and self-made multi-millionaire. Her recent investments include luxury real estate and upscale restaurant projects in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Toral now resides in New York City, and likes to spend her free time at her homes in Miami Beach and London.

A few Penn alums who know her mentioned that Toral has the chops to give Omarosa a run for the money in the drama and tension category.   Delicious.   Her interview Q&A certainly reveals she’s a PC-be-damned type –

When will you consider yourself “a success”?
I already do.

Have any previous Apprentice winners motivated or inspired you? If so, who and why? If not, what did you think of the winners?
No, and I don’t think about them.

Would you rather be stranded on a desert island with Donald, George, or Carolyn, and why?
I would take my chances floating at sea.

Heh.   She sounds charming.   Unlike Raj, for whom charm appeared to be just about the only thing in the show he had going, Toral’s victories sound rather less fleeting.  Let history and the history about to be made be the final judge whilst the denizens of Sepia Mutiny lavish ratings.

Continue reading →

Posted in TV