In my obliviousness, I almost scheduled a meetup today. [Is it my fault that I celebrated Hanukkah more than Diwali as a kid?] To atone for this earlier oversight, therefore, I bring you the official Diwali greeting from the government of Canada:
“On behalf of Canada’s new government, I would like to extend my warmest greetings and best wishes to members of the Indo-Canadian community as you celebrate Diwali… Every year, this joyous occasion is celebrated by some one billion people of the Hindu, Sikh and Jain faiths around the world. And that includes some one million of our fellow citizens right here in Canada. Friends, as you gather with your loved ones amid a sea of flickering flames, please know that the thoughts of our government are with you. Over the years, the Indo-Canadian community has made a tremendous contribution to our great country. Your work ethic and commitment to family and community serve as an inspiration to all…Happy Diwali to all. Namaste. Sat Sri Akal. Thank you.” [Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada]
Why Canada? Well, Ottawa is closer to North Dakota than Washington DC is, but mainly it’s because Google News brought it to my attention, whereas I had to go rooting around for the American counterpart.
Not to be outdone by their neighbors up north, the White House celebrated Diwali with a party for the fourth year running, although Bush was away and so sent a written greeting instead. Here’s a description of the event:
The White House celebrated Diwali, the festival of lights, in the historic Indian Treaty Room in the Old Executive Building for the fourth successive year. More than 150 guests were in attendance, among them many prominent members of the Indian American community. President George W Bush, who was busy campaigning for his besieged Republican Party in Pennsylvania and Virginia, however failed to be there.Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes keynoted the event as chief guest, and Jay Hein, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, lit the diya. [Link]
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p>BTW, I’m pretty sure that’s the “Native American treaty room” and not the “Brownz treaty room” but I’ll take what we can get especially since Diwali did not merit an official proclamation unlike “Leif Erikson Day, 2006“, “General Pulaski Memorial Day, 2006“, “Gold Star Mother’s Day, 2006” or “National Character Counts Week, 2006“. But who am I to complain – the White House at least knew when Diwali is!
Related posts: A stamp of approval, White House celebrates Diwali, In Barbie’s Closet
UPDATE:
I realize I may not have been clear enough about this originally. The President was unable to attend Diwali celebrations at the White House in part because he was campaigning for Senator Allen’s re-election bid:
President Bush last week helped raise money in two of the year’s most controversial re-election campaigns, stumping for Republican Rep. Don Sherwood in Pennsylvania and Sen. George Allen in Virginia. [Link]
I agree with Ms Fink Nottle. Gori, pronounced like “gorey”, as in a halloween movie, as far as I know means roughly the same thing as Gauri, as in fair,or white, but the latter is pronounced to rhyme with cowrie, and is a name for the goddess Parvati as well as a girl’s name, while “gori” is an adjective or a noun referring to the fact that the person in question is white. So while they may come from the same root and have similar meanings they are pronounced differently and are in fact different words and written differently in Devanagari. Sorry I don’t have any credentials to support this other than my assertion that I have a decent understanding of the language.
Just like the name “Melanie” means dark but there are tons of blondes with the name which comes from the same root as “melanin” , not everyone with the name Gauri has to be “fair”, so the meaning of Gauri as commonly used is really just that it is another name for Parvati.
gori : गोरी gauri : गौरी
I also found this while searching : H गोरी gorī [Prk. गोरिआ; S. गौर+इका], s.f. (see gorā), A fair-complexioned woman;–a beauty, belle; a mistress.
S गौरी gaurī, s.f. ‘The brilliant goddess,’ name of the goddess Pārvatī (the wife of Śiva);–a young girl (prior to menstruation, or of about ten years of age), a maiden;–the vigils and festivities of Bhādra-pad-śukl-paksh in honour of Pārvatī;–name of a rāginī or musical mode:–gaurī-pati, or gaurīś (˚rī+īśa), s.m. ‘The husband or lord of Gaurī or Pārvatī,’ the god Śiva:–gaurī-pūjā, s.f. The adoration or worship of Gaurī; name of a festival on the fourth day in the last half of the month Māgh:–gaurī-śaṅkar, s.m. An epithet of Mahādeva.
I don’t know exactly how this works as per the gori/gauri debate… I guess I’m not good enough with Hindi to know the connotations behind words yet… but wanted to provide the Devanagari for Ms Fink Nottle, whose computer is Unicode-impaired. 🙂
Right on. I read and speak Hindi and Marathi and write devnagri and can say 100% the above is true.
Gori other than the obvious “fair girl” also refers to “fair maiden” which emphasises the connotation “lovely” not necessarily the color of the skin. Gauri is a proper nown for a goddess and sorry no one can sell me this Brooklyn Bridge. They are not the same.
Golden could mean several things including Sona or Soniye or a few other words in Hindi I can’t remember now.
PG has an amazing ability to dominate and become the subject of every conversation she gets in on this site. She must be loving this – a bunch of desis swarming around her and giving her all the attention in the world. Including me as I make this post. Sad.
Yeah so lets not get this thread shut down too!!
Although I do see Yeti’s point (and I agree that it is sad), I just want to address the etymology of ‘gori’ provided by Andrea (#152). If that’s accurate, it’s saying that gori comes from the Prakrit ‘goriya’ which itself derives from the Sanskrit ‘gaurika’…confirming the connection between gori/gauri. That is interesting. PG, you do get some props for this, especially because you were also right about ‘rand’ having connotations of ‘widow’ in an earlier thread…it also relates to ‘woman’ and ‘prostitute’. Linguistics is too fascinating (and reveals so much about the collective psyche of a culture) to force into palatable, PC boxes…we have to take the good with the bad even if it offends our sensibilities sometimes.
Y’all,
A number of commenters have also found PG’s contributions to be valuable, and a natural part of a strongly diverse group. I find the gang/herd/lynch mob mentality that quickly swirls around PG – sometimes in response to her most benign remarks (ie desi men are hot) – to be far more objectionable than the things she says. Frankly, I think she’s cancelled out by someone like Shruti, whose utterances – filled as they are with the Other, the Oppressor, Race Politics, Gender Politics, Culture Politics, Exoticism, Eroticism, Esotericism, Sex-Positivism and a whole slough of other ‘isms’ the mysteries of which I have yet to penetrate – are sensitive to the point of banality. Can we just say she’s outweighed by Shruti and co. (Bidi, for one) and consider ourselves a well-balanced lot?
As someone new to this blog, I have to admit I’m somewhat mystified by all the rage directed against PG. I mean, I don’t agree with many of the things she says but isn’t the whole point of this to generate discussion? It’s not very exciting to talk about something when everyone agrees. I guess it’s because she uses her factual knowledge about Indian religion/culture to give her legitimacy that people find her aggravating; knowing about something is not the same as knowing something. At the same time, she can’t possible be the first person like this that any of us has encountered. (Maybe just the first one it’s safe to attack) I am willing to admit I enjoy getting riled up as long as it doesn’t get personal and for that reason I find her comments intriguing if simultaneously unappealing.
The problem is, she doesn’t help create “a fine balance” on this site…quite the opposite, actually. Whatever insight or information she legitimately brings is eclipsed by everything else she says, which is borderline trollery…it results in a terrible signal-to-noise ratio.
I can tell that you’re obviously not someone who cares about being “PC” from your anti-ism list, so perhaps you can appreciate that aspect of this situation– she’s been banned before and she just switches her handle and IP and she comes back. I honestly think that part of the reason this has been allowed to fly has to do with the fact that she’s not desi and that irks me, b/c I’m not PC either.
Anyway, if one guest is ruining the party for enough people, I think it’s a host’s duty (and place) to intervene.
That’s just it– this has been going on for FAR too long and the people who are angriest were those who were here when she started visiting. What a waste of time and space– I could be reading something interesting you contributed, instead I’m trying to explain the “PG” issue. No more. I’m done. We have valid reasons for what we do, whether they are obvious or not. This isn’t an echo chamber where we ban those who oppose us (WTF?), in fact we bend over backwards to NOT ban people, b/c we want this to be a vibrant site. If someone is too much of a distraction, however…
Anna,
I don’t know what she was banned for before, so can’t come to a definite conclusion about her I guess. The question that comes to mind is – what sort of party is this? There was (is still?) a time when a party of all whites would have been peeved by the presence of a black, a party of straights annoyed by the presence of a gay person, a party of Republicans by the presence of a Democrat etc.
If she were figuratively spilling her drinks on people, making lewd remarks to individual commenters, insulting people, I’d see it…but as it is, all she’s guilty of, from my perspective, is having a tin ear, the hide of an elephant, and a simple-minded approach to things.
In its extreme, that can be enough. Not playing well with others, no matter what the motive, has the same result as intentional trollery. Threads get repeatedly derailed as everybody pays attention to the same one person. It’s worse when that person comments heavily, across a variety of threads.
Usually if somebody doesn’t mean to do it, they’ll take a hint when they are given feedback. In this case, she isn’t listening.
Look – I actually don’t have much of a problem with PG. I’ve defended her in the comments before. But her presence is disruptive, and she’s not listening to what people are telling her. That makes it harder to include her in these discussions that we’re having.
It’s not like that at all, in fact, it’s so not like that, it’s concomitantly funny and offensive. There are PLENTY of unbrown regulars here, people whom you’d never guess, people whom we love b/c they bring the wit and the knowledge, all while not being passive-aggressive, disingenuous or anything else annoying. My contention was that she was being given a pass because she’s white, that we would’ve banned someone desi for doing similar, which is not cool. That’s all. It’s not a bunch of us brown people chasing her with pitchforks and flaming torches.
…who were here when she started visiting.
too true.
Cheap Ass Desi was in some way similiar. Sad that I know so much about the history of the blog to judge that. What kind of discussion went into that period of time? I think she often was on a tangent as well, and all that.
I think this blog has in some way taken a life of its own, but maybe we can remember, its just a blog. Sorry if that offends. None of us can be wrapped up in words on a screen. I think rather than make this about some random commenter, maybe we can analyze how difference is handled among a group, and how a certain kind of priviledge has been handled.
I don’t think that Pardesi Gori had the power to make every thread about her. I think people wanted to react to what she was saying and did so. I think ethnicity and priviledges are still an unspoken thing and so people like PG serve as maybe unwitting (or witting) touchstones, triggers for underlying thoughts people don’t express.
Actually I think this harkens in a way to the PostScrets thread. I think that was a really brave thread where some of the issues that underly the controversial PG threads were made more explicit. Explicit is a lot of times better, but also uncomfortable
I think it would be totally wrong to blame the SM crew for any reaction they had. It would be another kind of scapegoating, and also insensitive. The simple fact is, PG’s threads brought a lot of drama, most of it negative, and that alone is almost always reasonably sufficient for a moderator to come into play, isn’t it?
Love to all y’all
So maybe I understand a little…is it the fact that she just ignores anything said to her and goes about posting non-sequiturs in an unabashed manner?
Although it does seem like there is something therapeutic about getting to chew someone out about their cultural insensitivity as opposed to just griping about someone out of their earshot, which is what I generally do when faced with moronic misconceptions about desi-ness, even if they choose to ignore said chewing out. But as pointed out earlier, I am new to the blog and therefore probably missed a lot of what went down to make people so bitter.
I would actually be more interested in why you, desishiksa, see yourself wanting to defend PG. Not in a rude way, but to put some of the focus on us, the rest of the people commenting. I think one of the sad parts of these situations is, other people get lost in defending one or the other side. Isn’t it as interesting why you or I or anyone else has a position on this “issue” (as it were)?
If someone poked you with a stick and you said, “Ow, that hurt.” Hopefully, they’d say “What was I thinking? Sorry! Won’t happen again.”
PG keeps poking. No matter how many times she hears “ouch.” That’s just mean. If I weren’t so civilized I would fling poo at her. Why won’t she stop poking us???
I wonder if from her perspective she sees (saw?) herself as having relatively little power, and I took her over the top approach to be more about having less, not more, of an ability to poke. Without knowing who a person really is, its hard to know how they approach their comments
Actually, I’m not defending her at all. I think I mentioned that I find her comments unappealing. But like picking a zit, I can’t help reading them. They goad me into wanting to respond. Maybe because she represents all those people I would like to chew out and don’t. I was not defending her, just was wondering what it is about her that makes her cross the line from someone with disagreeable opinions to bannable.
Sorry if you thought I misattributed the reason for you comment. I see your point
I wouldn’t agree that she was similar to PG: I found CAD’s comments to be witty, insightful, and in the very least, coherent and germane to the topic at hand. (cough cough) I can’t help but wonder why PG keeps returning after being banned and told to put a lid on the ignorant comments. If you have so much to teach us, why don’t you start your own blog so we can read and learn what it really means to be Indian?
Speaking, of whatever happened to CAD? I try to read SM religiously as possible but I can’t recall why she stopped posting here, if for any reason at all.
I don’t think she was trying to teach anyone a thing, I never got that sense. I got the sense she’d say something she knew would be controversial, and then spend the rest of the thread being oblivious to the controversy she generated. The fact she was “Gori” made her comments different in some way, and stood out. To me anyway.
But this thread is about Diwali. So I yield the rest of my time. 🙂
Aye, but therein lies the problem, DQ. You don’t see it.
And yet, I made only two, relatively short and succinct comments on the Paris Hilton thread, whereas PG made…how many? You equate my style and conviction with BidiSmoker’s and you think the few uninflammatory comments I make on race and gender cancel out all of PG’s??? Wow. If I didn’t know better from previous experience, I’d try to engage in a respectful dialogue with you. But I do, so I won’t. Peace.
Yeah, I know, that’s the first thing I thought of when I saw the turn this thread had taken. Must. fight. provocation.
just got some ladoos straight from india for deepavali, albeit a little late. guess the best way to round up this thread is hope that everyone had a good diwali/deepavali, and for those of you that it’s the new year, may it be a prosperous one. oh, and make sure not to overindulge in any leftover snacks!
Anna,
My examples weren’t the best, perhaps – I wasn’t implying this blog is closed to other races, but that the majority in any scenario can take issue with an individual/minority for all the wrong reasons. Irritation on the part of most ‘guests’ at the party, on its own, shouldn’t be a sufficient thread to throw someone out…if the party is truly open.
As Kush Tandon said a while ago, in a bizarre way PG knows a lot about India…more than many people here in certain aspects, including myself. She certainly knows a lot about rural, Hindu, Hindi-speaking culture and mentality, which many consider the ‘heartland of India’ (in the way the Midwest is arguably the cultural heartland of America). She also seems to have some insight into Bengali culture due to her religious persuasion. It’s not easy to get a grip on these cultures, especially for 2nd gens but even for middle to upper class westernised folks in Delhi and Kolkatta, which are geographically right there but a mental universe away. The girl has clearly spent years observing, experiencing, and learning. At the same time she is immature, very often completely wrong in her conclusions, and often offensive in the way she states things…and kind of a nympho. I think it’s our specific 2nd gen/ABD sensibility which finds her offensive. It grates some of us to read the ‘exotifying’ and what not, and many of her comments have little to no understanding of our lives/experiences growing up here in the West. She has really pissed me off with some of her posts, and I understand why the moderators want to ban her permanently, but I have enjoyed the tamasha she’s provided, and I’ve learned a thing or two from her. I hope she’s not banned permanently now from this site.
Ditto to what Amitabh said.