I’m still high off all the fun I had at Arzan’s adorable apartment, at the Brooklyn Meetup last week, so I feel like having some more meetup-induced bliss.
A week from today, join me at Caffe Greco in North Beach (in San Francisco) for a bit of a survivor’s brunch (since I will be recovering from what is sure to be a legendary Saturday night, filled to the brim with debauchery, mais oui). Two o’clock work for you? That should be perrrfect, to get all your tardy kundis there by Three.
Why will I be at home on the Wessss Saeeeed? To celebrate the vedding of a very special Mutineer, who is precious to a few of us North Dakota-bunking bloggers. If I didn’t have to schlep my mom back home on the Saturday after that blessed event, I would’ve had the meetup on Sunday, November 6. Who knows? If you whine prettily, I might hold office hours at my belowed Greco THEN, too. 😉
VHAT: Meetup!
VHEN: October 30, 2pm
VHERE: Caffe Greco, 423 Columbus Ave
Come painted and coordinated, because ye shall surely be photographed and flickr’d, that much is true. Can’t wait to meet you, and bounce off the walls from the cappuccino drip that Greco always hooks me up with…last time I was there for SIX HOURS, so no carping in the comments section ten days from now about how you were late and we were already gone. I keed, I keed! 😉
I can’t wait for this. I’ve been curious as to what some of you guys actually look like…
my bong auntie told me that bengali brahmins think fish is a vegetable, i.e. they are pesco-vegetarians. 😉
/cough cough
Um, may I interrupt? 🙂
While I am deeply flattered for being mistaken for the great Malayalee beauties of the south, I am, in fact a Bengali. Datta’s dilute their presence by often spelling their name phonetically (Dutta).
And I am, indeed, a life-long vegetarian. There are plenty of vegetarian Hindu Bengalis, just not that many compared to the millions of fish eaters. 🙂
thik achhe, razib? 😉
As they say Bongs and Mallus like their fish, communism and soccer.
Btw, some Mallu Christians do have long ass names too(especially if they include their family name).
Another meetup in SF? I’m sooo going to try! I’ll probably be late, but, if you’re there for 6 hours again…
Just to clarify–no fish for me. 🙂
oh, and no communism either!
However, I do love soccer.
Razib, I’m suprised you didn’t know Dutta/Datta was a common Bengali surname considering GeneXp’s annual breakdown of the Miss Universe pageant.
i always assumed she was from bangalore, ergo, she was from a hindi speaking family down south. gnxp didn’t exist in 2000 btw. also, the only reason i can’t diss on lara is she’s all about A+….
How dare you not have an affinity for communism Saheli, that is almost sacralegious. Though you can be Bengali if you love to sit around and talk endlessly about cultural affairs or books or whatever. A bit like the French really, I discovered over the weekend.
thik achhe, razib? 😉
you know, saurav tried to pull that bengali transliteration on me. i really have a hard time deciphering it, but if i heard what you said i think i’d know what you meant. you might be curious to know that in 2004 when i went to visit bangladesh one of my uncles would laugh at the way i spoke bengali because i preserved phrases and cadences which are peculiar to the comilla district of bangladesh, and, that dialect is really not spoken much anymore, at least around my uncle. he said there were phrases i uttered which he hadn’t heard in 20 years. the reason is that my mother showed up in the USA circa 1980 and she was my primary input of bengali, and to an extent still is, so my speech patterns are rather peculiar. a historical linguist should come study me, i’m really fascinating.
Razib,I was saying, “okay?”—“alright?” but you’re right, transliteration systems are often crappy and indecipherable and I often have no idea how to use or read them. And there is probably a dialect issue—I probably know a more homogenized, western, urban Bangla. I’m assuming that you were a child in 1980, so all you really know is this Comilla district Bengali? That’s cool, you should preserve it somehow. If I ever meet a historical linguist (as opposed to the garden variety computational kind which practically grow wild hereabouts) I’ll send them your way.
Um, I know lots of Bengalis, both American and back in West Bengal, who are not communists. Who, in fact, are not too thrilled with the way the home state has been doing for the last 30 years, or even how the elections are run and the polling works.
Do I love to sit around and talk about cultural affairs and books? Er, have you been reading this blog? 😉
so all you really know is this Comilla district Bengali?
no, i had pretensions and spoke calcutta dialect when i was little 🙂 (i also refused to eat with my hands and always ate with utensils) in fact, to this day i rag on my brother who converts the janee into zanee or korechee into korsee. so i have a mild ability to go diaglossic.
but in any case, one thing i’ve noted is that though i can’t understand hindi very well aside from a few common words that are easy to note, i have read transliterations of colloquial argot from eastern uttar pradesh (i.e., this would never be a written language) which i could understand pretty easily. that suggests to me that the substrate language on the north indian plain is a lot closer than the “high” languages. but i don’t know about this, just my observations.
“okay?”—“alright?”
oh, and i see that totally now. i wasn’t pronouncing it right 🙂
Bong Breaker, I keep checking my email for a hummerous set of biodata, but nothing’s arrived. You must be too busy in your studies.
–Leddy On The Left.
Oh, Sunny, sorry, that comment on communism was in answer to you. 🙂
The Desi Nole,
It was a very very long time ago back in my teens when I was just getting the hang of this flirting malarky….I’m a little better at it these days 😉
I live in the UK so I’m afraid I won’t be coming to the party in Atlanta; the only advice I can give you is to make sure you label your car keys properly so that you can identify them amongst all the others in the bowl. Anna will explain 😉
Razib & Sirches,
Lara Dutta is Punjabi, not Bengali.
Jai: Happy to know that your flirting skills have improved.
And the question about meeting in ATL was for everyone (who live in and around ATL), but hey, now I know where you are from and nice to know that I have a place in the UK to stay at, if and when I visit.
You drop your car keys in a bowl ? Where does that tradition come from ? Or is it just Anna’s way of making sure that people do not leave before she decides to kick them out.
Desi Nole,
I’m no expert on that practice nor do I have any, er, “hands-on” experience in that particular extracurricular hobby (apparently indulged in by respectable couples everywhere), but I believe it originated sometime during the 1970s. Don’t worry — like I said, turn up to the party and you’ll find out for yourself.
Hmm, not quite. My God, are you in for a shock 😉
Jai,
Its a good thing that I am not meeting these guys in San Francisco. That will give me enough time to research and find out everything about “the bowl”. That is if curiosity does not kill the cat.
Ps: Still waiting for Anna to expalin the whole “ritual”
You’re right, Anna, Saheli’s very pretty!!
The fattest fellow Bengali I know is a human tank and is a no-fish veggie. I was always confused as to how gargantuan his girth got on a diet of vegetables, until we went out for lunch in Banglatown. My God the man can eat.
Saheli, I shall endeavour to electronically envoy a fine set of biodatas thank you please.
I am Bengali. I am an extreme right left winger. Perhaps that should be whinger. I am quite fond of soccer but I prefer FOOTBALL. I eat fish and love talking about Bengalis being great, politics and art and er..stuff. I blindly defend Ganguly and hate Bollywood. I enjoy sitting down. I am a stereotype.
And you know, that photo is representative of India’s 2nd best looking couple – Bipasha and John.
Why?
They have both been signed up for a shampoo ad together. Bipasha said:
John & Bipasha are the hottest, hippest couple since Dwayne Wayne and Whitley. Mutineers of a certain age will know who I am talking about 😉
Who’s the number one best looking couple ?
Punjabi Boy and ANNA, of course… cho chweet, jodi #1…
Duh, have you NOT realised how arrogant I am yet?
John & Bipasha are the hottest, hippest couple since Dwayne Wayne and Whitley. Mutineers of a certain age will know who I am talking about 😉
Listen, I’m 27 and I know who you’re talking bout (I’m assuming you’re older). Even my sister, who’s only 24 remembers that show. That show came right after the Cosby show on Thursday nights when I was a kid, although I didn’t find it all that exciting cuz they were all “old” characters. I could never understand why princess Whitley would go for a goofball like Dwayne Wayne with “high-tech” flippy glasses (dual sun/reading glasses).
you’ve said it so often, we thought to ourselves, “the Bong doth protest too much.”
😉
They sort of bonded after a trip to New York where Dwayne met a (now married) Lisa Bonet, ie. ‘Denise’, and realised that he really had lost her forever.
Whitley only began to really fall for Dwayne once he’d ditched the flip-up shades and nerdiness in his character, and had begun turning into an all-round, smooth-talking cool guy. Although the fact that he was also on his way to a high-flying career at some prestigious software firm probably helped too 😉
I remember way too much detail about that show….It was great while it lasted, though.
I thought she was into him because of the glasses. Oh, Dwaaaayne, so resourceful, so sexy.
That only works if you say it in a really nasal, “Gone With The Wind” Southern belle accent 😉
jai,
Yes, I assumed with that classic Bengali name, she must be. (I know Dutts (Guru) are Punjabi, but did not know know they shared this surname with the Bongs (like Chaudhuri/Chowdry). But my extensive research reveals you might be half-rite. The internet seems to say L.D. sprang fully-formed from a Punjabi father and a Scottish mother. And let’s not forget the pioneering role Marisa Tomei played in historically black Spellman college: a percursor to all the token white characters in evry UPN sitcom.
Sirches,
Divya Dutta and JP Dutta are also famous Punjabis with an apparently Bengali-sounding surname.
Hillman College ! I think it was supposed to be based on the real-life Howard College (or am I wrong here).
Marisa did go on to achieve some great things, especially her Oscar-winning performance in My Cousin Vinny. It’s a real shame Kadeem Hardison, Jasmine Guy etc haven’t really hit the big-time to that level — the acting capabilities of all the major characters in that show were excellent.
Hillman was based on Morehouse and Spellman colleges in ATL.
Yes, Hillman. slip of tongue/keyboard. I shall take place in the back of Col. Taylor’s calculus class.
HA! The Christians Mallus I know are the ones with the long ass names (A and Triple V, I’m looking at you here.) I’m from a Hindu Malayalee family and have a 5-letter first name, and a 5-letter last name.
Razib – were you thinking of Tamilians perhaps?
D, true, three-Wee and other mallus have long names but that’s b/c they have their family names. i don’t think that’s quite as common as some of us think. i think razib is referring to the ubiquitous “tessy jose” or “john george” vs “sethumadhavan balasubramaniam” or “jaganathan karunakaran”. i.e. it’s usually YOUR team that wins this one. 😉
Ah, fair fair. If I were to unleash my house name (actually, a double name), I would experience Total Letter Domination(tm).
Jasmine Guy had pursued some dance work as well as a very prominent role in “The Violet Hour” on broadway. The industry rumor mill alleges that she has a crazy drinking problem… but she’s been doing legit theatre for years, since ADW ended.
she was also in the revival of the musical “Chicago”…
I am a Gujarati and my first name and last name add up to a total of 19 letters. Maybe my parents secretly wanted to join you in the league of long names. 🙂
In every sit-com, there is one character who breaks out. Everyone else is usually forgotten. I always wonder… what happened to Tempest Bledsoe (Vanessa on ‘Cosby’), Danielle Fishel (Topanga on ‘Boy Meets World’), Jodie Sweetin (Stephanie on ‘Full House’), Karyn Parsons (Hillary on ‘Fresh Prince’)…
(I am dating myself, aren’t I?)
when i first met Abhi, i couldn’t figure out “what” he was, but guju didn’t even cross my mind, b/c “Tripathi” threw me. i hesitated and finally muttered something like, “are you, um, south indian?” and he laughed. apposite response. 😉
DesiDancer,
Good to hear that Jasmine Guy’s been in such high-profile work, especially something as respected and famous as ‘Chicago’.
They were all part of a show that was a milestone in some ways — and it’s still being shown on the Paramount satellite/cable channel here in the UK.
Dwayne & Ron’s apartment became so familiar it was practically a home-from-home 😉
I know Muslim Malayalees with long surnames. eg. Riyaz “Puthiya Purayil” Ashik “Koorimanniyil Pattiyil”
No, those are not middle name and surname together. It’s typical Malabar(North Kerala) sytle housename surnames. Common among Hindu Malayalees too. I know the meaning of the first one[ Puthiya (new) pura(house)] but not sure of the second one.
I am aghast that I did not make the invite list. Brimful, Maisnon…y’all can kiss my transplanted ass!
Hmph.
This is what I deserve for not updating BI regularly, I suppose. I’m such a has-been.
Anyway, I’ll see you on Sunday, punks.
Desi, puh-LEEZE! Do you not recognize Girls’ Night Out when you see it? Don’t worry, we’ll spend the whole time talking about you 🙂
pls dont upset. I am always 4 u. when ever u upset remember me.