Monthly Archives: May 2006

Early Bengali Science Fiction

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Speaking of Satyajit Ray, I thought I might risk going out on the limb of historical obscurities and share an article by Debjani Sengupta (PDF) I came across that talks about early Bengali science fiction writing.

The article is from the journal Sarai, which is published in Delhi. Some of the articles offer some truly impenetrable jargon -– even with writing on familiar topics (Bollywood, Call Centers, and so on). But there are also a number of well-written and informative articles on things like Parsi theater in Bombay in the 1800s that I would highly recommend.

On to Bengali science fiction. Even the fact that it existed as early as the 1880s may be a little shocking, since most studies of Bengali literature tend to center around Tagore — who was extremely doubtful about modern technology. (Read his account of flying in an airplane here.) But the effects of the industrial revolution were being felt in urban India in the 19th century just as keenly as they were in Europe and the U.S., and at least some Indian writing reflected that. Probably the best, most enduring writing in this genre came from a single family –- Sukumar Ray (in the 1910s and 20s) and his son Satyajit Ray, who was a highly accomplished writer when he wasn’t making making world class art films. Continue reading →

Satyajit Ray’s Haunting Poetry

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If you find yourself a connoisseur of good cinema or have a thing for really good art-house Indie (as in Indian) films, and are in the Washington D.C. area, make sure you try and stop off to see the National Gallery of Art’s screening tomorrow (May 7) of the 1955 Satyajit Ray classic, Pather Panchali, a story of an impoverished family in a Bengali village circa 1919, and the movie that many would say placed Satyajit ray on the international film map. In celebration of the film’s fiftieth anniversary (which would have actually been in 2005), Partha Mitter, research professor at the University of Sussex, will discuss the work of his friend Satyajit Ray. The lecture will be followed by a screening of a 35 mm archival print of Pather Panchali from the collection of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This event is free, open to the public, begins at 4 PM, and should last around 2 hours and 15 minutes. Amazon.com calls this film an “essential video” in its editorial review, and goes on to say,

“this truly remarkable feat of storytelling is a must-see kind of movie. Ray reveals a gift for presenting stories that unfold gently, one engaging scene at time. This film delivers an amazing emotional punch that will linger in your consciousness for some time, not in spite of, but because of its simplicity.”

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That Silver Isn’t Vegetarian

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While I was sitting in the mandap during my wedding a couple of weeks ago now, I was a bit concerned about all of the Indian sweets I was consuming. It seemed that every two minutes another mithai was being prodded in my direction, and the thought of all the ghee, the sugar, the gor (molasses) etc that I must have inhaled was a bit frightening. It wasn’t until last week when I read these articles in India-West (Link 1 and Link 2), I realized that as a vegetarian, I should have been concerned with something else. According to the story,

Varak, that gossamer-thin silver sheet that covers Indian mitthai, is made by placing thin metal strips of silver between the steaming intestines of a slaughtered animal or its hide and hammered into a thin foil. A substantial number of cattle, sheep and goat are killed specifically for the industry, according to animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi.

I used to think it was real silver that was just wittled down, perhaps by a machine? Apparently, there is no such thing as machine-made varak, so chances are, if you are vegetarian and you eat mithai or anything else with that silver gossamer on it, you are unwittingly eating an animal by-product. It pains me to think that many unknowing vegetarians, who perhaps think Indian sweets are vegetarian-friendly, have been consuming an animal by-product all these years. What’s worse is followers of the Jain religion, a religion that holds the notion of ahimsa or nonviolence in high regard, and the strictest of whom will wear a face-mask so as to not kill any living thing by breathing, have been using varak to decorate their “religious idols and the tirthankaras in their temples.”

I was enraged following the McDonalds controversey a few years back in which it was found that McDonalds was wrongfully telling customers their french fries were vegetarian, when in reality, the fries were frozen with a beef tallow additive, and the news in this article doesn’t make me much happier. While we all know that gelatin is found in marshmallows and gummy bears, I was surprised to see that certain cereals like Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats, actually contain gelatin, as does a now-former favorite of mine Lucky Charms. With the increasing popularity of vegetarianism, one would think a vegetarian friendly substitute for gelatin would have been created by now.

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The Hindu cows won’t be coming home

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I was quite sad all day yesterday after I learned that the rights of a Hindu family in a small town in upstate New York had been trampled upon. It seems that in every direction that we gaze these days someone else in America is losing a fundamental right that our founding fathers believed in and bled for. In this case it is the right to bear cows for protection. The New York Times recently reported on this gripping story:

The Voiths lament on their front porch. Their cow may now be fifteen minutes away, but they still have their faith and each other.

To Stephen and Linda Voith, keeping cows at their home on Main Street in Angelica, N.Y., a tiny rural village, is a central facet of their Hindu beliefs.

To local officials, though, keeping the Voiths’ growing herd outside village limits is a matter of law, not religion.

The Appellate Division of State Supreme Court in Rochester recently agreed, upholding a lower court ruling that prevented a lawyer for the couple from raising the issue of religious freedom when the village won an injunction against them. In 2003, an acting State Supreme Court justice found the Voiths in violation of a law against keeping livestock on parcels smaller than 10 acres.

“We’re being denied our right to practice our religion, because it seems like such a threat to the status quo in this country,” Mr. Voith said, calling attention to a dairy farm across the street behind their home.

The village attorney, Raymond W. Bulson, said the law does not single out any religion and described the dispute as a quality-of-life matter.

“You move to a village because you want the amenities,” Mr. Bulson said. “If you move there to have those amenities, you don’t want a cow next door. I’m sure their religious beliefs are sincere, but that was never an issue…” [Link]

Bigots. They aren’t even ashamed. They just come out and say it. “You don’t want a cow next door.” I guess it doesn’t even matter to Mr. Bulson that the cow in question is both young and in love. This isn’t just a story about religious discrimination but also one about forbidden love. Continue reading →

Alas. Poor Ricky

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AmericaÂ’s most celebrated practitioner of ayurveda has fallen afoul of his employer again. Ricky Williams, running back for the Miami Dolphins, has been suspended for a year following a violation of the NFLÂ’s drug policy. To many fans this is a same-old-story: Williams only recently returned from a previous supension, and the court of sports talk radio has found him guilty of self-indulgence, narcissism, and letting down the team.

WhatÂ’s different this time, however, is that the suspension is not for marijuana (“according to a source” — the league won’t give details). Williams was a known pothead at the University of Texas, with the New Orleans Saints (where he alienated teammates and press with his reclusive behavior, before getting treatment for social anxiety disorder), and during his first stint with the Dolphins. It didn’t stop him from barreling through D-lines, and for a moment in Miami he looked on track to become one of the sportÂ’s greats.

But the weed habit finally got him kicked out, and during his year off he hung out in Australia, India, and eventually studied at the California College of Ayurveda in (yes) Grass Valley. Ricky returned to the league not just clean but cleansed – vegetarian, versed in yoga and ayurveda, wearing only white, and apparently pot-free. (He was in India studying yoga when the offending test results came in.)

So if it wasnÂ’t pot, what was it? The buzz is that an ayurvedic herbal supplement may have gotten him busted this time. In 2004 Abhi blogged that these supplements may not be all that pure. Perhaps Ricky should have chosen this supplier:

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Bang bang, you’re alive

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A new theory in cosmology sounds much like the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist concepts of cyclical creation and mind-boggling timescales. I don’t mean to sound like Religious Uncle, rather to evoke a neat coincidence (via Slashdot):

The universe is at least 986 billion years older than physicists thoughtThe universe may be 986 billion years older than previously thought, and creation may be cyclical and is probably much older still, according to a radical new theory. The revolutionary study suggests that time did not begin with the big bang 14 billion years ago…

The standard big bang theory says the universe began with a massive explosion, but the new theory suggests it is a cyclic event that consists of repeating big bangs and big crunches – where every particle of matter collapses together…

“I think it is much more likely to be far older than a trillion years though,” said Prof Turok. “There doesn’t have to be a beginning of time. According to our theory, the universe may be infinitely old and infinitely large…” [Link]

… According to Steinhardt and Turok, today’s universe is part of an endless cycle of big bangs and big crunches, with each cycle lasting about a trillion years. At every big bang, the amount of matter and radiation in the universe is reset, but the cosmological constant is not. Instead, the cosmological constant gradually diminishes over many cycles to the small value observed today… the cosmological constant decreases in steps, through a series of quantum transitions. [Link]

As I’ve noted before, the Hindu concept of time is so over-the-top that it beats even the Chinese long view quoted sanctimoniously by bestsellers on the business shelves:

… the life cycle of Brahma is… 311 trillion years. We are currently in the 51st year of the present Brahma and so about 155 trillion years have elapsed… [Link]
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Come On Ride the Train, Hey, Ride It, Woo Woo

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Urban development in North America is easily synonymous with suburbs, highways and cars but cities like New York and Toronto seem to lie a little differently. Their saving grace – as NY to TO import Jane Jacobs (rest in peace) pointed out – is multiplicity. Variance within structures, streets and neighborhoods in a city creates a sense of community and keeps the downtown core from stagnating…and turning into, say, downtown Miami after dark. No offense if you’re repping Miami, love the vibe overall but that core is scary at night, for real!

The debate between strip mall and neighborhood market, in growing cities like Toronto, often turns into an outright cars vs. public transit fist fight. The main point of contention that puts public transit at a loss is money. So it’s about time someone paid heed to successful transit systems in cities where skrilla is not only scarce but is only a portion of the problem. Toronto’s one-stop read for all things concerning public space, Spacing mag, has a new transit issue out and they are beefing it up with special transit-related articles on their site. The first of such articles is a report by Robin Rix on the things Toronto can learn from amchi Mumbai. This piece is 100 % curry free! Oh, wait, there is a cow but it’s…charming:mumbai.jpg

Can you imagine buying a cup of chai for 11 cents while on your morning commute from Finch to King? Clutching a handrail while sticking your head out of the Lakeshore GO train? Waiting on the Dundas streetcar for a cow to pass? While such occurrences are unimaginable in Toronto, they’re a part of everyday life in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), India. Here in Toronto, we tend to look to such cities as London, New York, or Tokyo when coming up with ideas for improving our own system. But is that necessarily the best approach? If we’re looking for innovation and resourcefulness, wouldn’t we be more likely to find them in cities where they must make do with much less? [Link]

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Fun With The Reviewers: Deepa Mehta’s Water

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deep mehta water 5 5 06.jpg You might have decided to skip this one, perhaps on the basis of Sajit’s negative review from a couple of months ago. Or you might go with the positive reviews in half a dozen respectable newspapers (and USA Today) as well as the 88% reviewer approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and risk your $9.50 to support a highly respected Desi filmmaker. Personally, I will probably go see it.

Meanwhile I’ve been surprised by some culturally clueless and simply inaccurate comments from reviewers.

First, the hands-down most facile, offensive, goofy comment I’ve seen in any movie review this year comes from “Metromix,” affiliated with the Chicago Tribune. At the tail end of an almost laughably abbreviated summary, the reviewer tries to gear up readers for the film with a fashion-oriented tagline: “Bonus: Gear up for that summer ‘do: The widows all have buzz cuts.”

“The widows all have buzz cuts.” Wow. That one sentence couples the triviality of the film review business with a shocking level of ignorance. I know these folks have short deadlines for copy, but could they at least look up something on the subject of Hindu mourning rituals before publishing a review of a film on Hindu widows?

On the other hand, it might be offensive, but at least “All the widows have buzz cuts” is pithy and sharp — the kind of outlandish thing you expect the “naughty” character in a Salman Rushdie novel to say. I’ll leave it to readers to give the final verdict. Continue reading →

Mattress shopping with C.

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Yesterday I went mattress shopping with C., a Bombay blogger who swore I would forever impair his prospects of sex and progeny if I posted this story with his actual name, which is Chandrahas. This dude is stylish and brilliant in all respects except his choice of blog friends, who are apparently complete bastards. We didn’t mean to go mattress-shopping together. I needed furniture; he had the day off; he was young and needed the money.

We ended up at Foam Palace, a typical Bombay roadside shop where they make custom mattresses. This was a novel concept for me. The salesman dragged a pad onto the sidewalk and made a great show of squeezing the soft edges sensuously. But my ideal mattress has sturdy edges like a grilled cheese sandwich. The mattress was still covered in plastic like all good Indian appliances years after purchase. I lolled around under the stars next to some bemused pavement dwellers while dirty water dripped out of a drainage pipe overhead.

I asked C. to try out the mattress. The salesman looked on skeptically. ‘We’re not, uh, together,’ I said. C. flopped backwards and concocted a story about how some competitor made them twice as soft at half the price. It was only good for a few bucks off. You only lie convincingly when it’s your own money you’re defending.

Down the street was a shiny new American mattress showroom — let’s call it Kinky Koil. The sales guy pretended his system wouldn’t let him give me a discount.

‘What system?’

‘The spreadsheet is password-protected.’

It was Excel. ‘Dude, I designed that feature,’ I said, exaggerating a bit. ‘I’ll unlock it. Now give me that discount.’

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The Keymaster

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The FBI’s king techie, Zalmai Azmi, is an Afghani-American who got the job after gigs as an auto mechanic, military intelligence in the Marines, the DoJ and the Patent and Trademarks Office:

Zalmai Azmi is CIO of the FBI. He was born in Afghanistan, but emigrated to Germany with his family as a teenager in the early 1980s… He attended a vocational business school, which helped him find a job as an auto mechanic. Azmi joined the Marines in 1984, working in the IT-intensive areas of radio communications and military intelligence. He served for seven years. [Link]

Azmi talks about how people looked at him differently after 9/11:

Have you found your Afghan background to be a deterrent or a problem in any way?‘They were showing pictures of the terrorists on TV and they looked something like me’

… I’ve probably experienced that kind of problem less than five times since I’ve been here.

One of the toughest times was just after 9/11. I put a taskforce together to go to New York and help get our offices there back on line. I spent ten days there, and all the time they were showing pictures of the terrorists on TV and they looked something like me. My face was a constant reminder.

That was probably the only time I noticed that people were looking at me differently, and fortunately it didn’t last long. [Link]
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