I so called this story (thanks, Jai!) a few weeks ago and not one of you Mutineers took me up on the friendly wager…
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Angelina Jolie is adopting an Indian baby to add to her growing international brood, according to US reports.Sources say the big-hearted actress and partner Brad Pitt have already applied to adopt a tot from an Indian orphanage. An insider said: “They hope to be able to bring the child home by Christmas.[…] She has said: “I want to create a rainbow family. That’s children of different religions and cultures from different countries.” [link]
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p>And the disturbing cherry on top…
The source told US magazine Globe: “Whichever they end up with, they’d like to name the child India to honour its homeland.” The pair are rumoured to have visited the Priva Darshini orphanage in the last month. [link]
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p>Seriously?!?! It’s not like they went around and named the other kids ‘Cambodia’ and ‘Ethiopia.’ How come they get cool names like Maddox, Shiloh and Zahara, and you want to name the desi kid ‘India?’ Like she isn’t going to be teased enough…
I once had this girl in my class, a Latino woman, whose name was Asia. I found it confusing. Now that I think about it, I may have met an India or two in my lifetime and I was always left feeling a little … put off. Being named after a country just never seemed, um, meaningful. But INDIA, really? Brangelina, don’t you think you could name the desi kid something else, while still honoring his birth land? Those poor children will be raised with such identity issues…
How about Iran and Iraq?
going all exotic? What about, say, Ohio and Kansas Kobayashi? 😉
Fantastic. Sounds like a first draft pick. Or that football player “Tylenol Jones” from Updike’s recent novel.
Too open to mispronunciaton. Don’t want my kid being called Eye-Ran.
I’m immoral, not crazy.
No, that’s not weird. I know it means the same thing, but Bharat and Bharati feel more patriotic to me (maybe because they’re not in English?), whereas India feels like just the name of the country. It’s subtle, but makes all the difference to me.
Was I the only one who giggled when hearing the late Steve Irwin’s daughter’s name – Bindi? As cute as she is, I couldn’t help but imagine her as a walking piece of Okra.
i thought she was a dot on the forehead not bhindi—the okra..
although there are walking pieces of okra around like this ;)….delta delta delta..may i help ya help ya help ya?
i’m getting really sick of their “let’s adopt babies from all over the world” act. why don’t they adopt some poor white kids from the appalachian region or inner cities?
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my point exactly from above (#35–which also talks about sarah’s brown and hot hubby)
where the hell is compton in all of this?
If Brangelina is really serious about connecting their adopted child to his/her motherland of India should they use the name Hindustan/Hindustani?
It’s one thing to use the name India or Asia on kids not from those countries, but it would seem really weird to name an Indian kid India. Then again you have the actress America Ferrera, shew as born in the US and I don’t know if America is a common name in Latino culture.
57 and #58
This preference for exotic locales is almost always access and relative ease. There are many more children available for adoption. It is almost always a closed adoption. The birth parents are rarely involved in the baby’s life by the time the adoptive ones show up (Madonna seems to have picked the one child with “entanglements”).
Not to say that adoptions from India are easier. Unless they cut a few corners (as most rich folk are wont to do), they will not have a baby with them by Dec. If everything is according to the book it should take about 9 months to claim a year baby girl. If one of the parents are of Indian origin the children are younger. Otherwise they will 1 year and older. Those were the rules when I was involved.
A white celebrity couple adopting from Compton? Do you realize the complications?
Don’t these complications also stand when it is a white celebrity couple adopting from the third world outside our borders?
Obviously not.
maddox is sucha cool name. cool Indian name for a girl would be Dhanno, for a boy Gabbar.
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Ever heard about AILF?
guys… there’s enough need out there for everyone here to chip in, and still not make a dent. and it’s not need as in mortgage or fashion but basic human expectations like – clothes, food, shelter, education… and love. my parents volunteer at an orphanage and they tell me the kids just crave affection and it cant get more fundamental than that. they tell me they arent sure who’s adopted whom. when i visited – i had more random hugs than i could count and they brought out their prized cycle for me to spin around the park.
net net… the celebrities are doing a good thing and i hope it gets more people to explore these options and take the perceived stigma of inter-racial adoptions away (remember the blog about the dark indian baby). i am down this path myself regardless of a partner – canada is pretty liberal that way. dont know what the perception is in the US.
Got to put in my 2p here..
Take on the name – guess the name raises some controversy due to the fact that India is a name coming from the outside rather than the inside like Bharat, Hindustan. So if they want to honor the homeland shouldn’t they use a name which originated in the homeland? Just my take, maybe I should email my thoughts to Angelina 🙂
Take on adoption – why not? my dad used to always tell me, if you can’t make things better at least try to leave things in status quo. I think they making things better for the kids and not exactly trying to harm anyone or anything in the process of trying to show their affection for kids. Now even if it is just a show these kids will get a lot more than they would at an orphanage and I am sure the media will hold them up to high standards just in case the celebrities loose interest and slack off.
BTW, anybody got a take on the history of adoption? I am thinking there might be something interesting there.
Too funny. But didn’t Angelina at one point have a growing collection of knives at one point? And a collection of vials of blood? Ah stability.
If we were all judged by what we did in our youth…
true. I was just being tongue in cheek. I actually think that it’s comendable that she goes out of her way to use her wealth to benefit others. It seems a little wacky to name your desi kid “India” but she could be doing much worse things with her time/money (ahem…lindsay lohan, paris hilton and a long string of weird celebs) She may not be perfect, but she seems interested in learning about her children’s cultures and makes more of an effort to educate herself than many other actors. Mad props to taz for totally predicting this one 😉
Ya, I guess. Though I must admit to a slight weakness for Ms. Jolie. Reminds me of some ancient wisdom my grandmom loves to share: “khoobsurat logo ko sau khoon maaf hote hai.” (roughly:beautiful people are forgiven a hundred sins).
Shades of Josephine Baker…
Haha, that’s awesome 😉
What?! This coming from the AILF lover?
Poor Brangelina. They’ve probably used up all their creative talent on the other kids that they just aren’t willing/able to think of another name.
PS. There must be some law against adopting so many children that one is not able to provide each one the love and affection he/she requires. no?
Hairy, That wasn’t an editorial comment from me. That was an observation of what would happen if a high profile rich white couple were to go in to Compton and start talking about the beautiful black babies there that could use a loving home. This is not unique to the adoption experience here. There are enough people in India that are not fans of adoption by non-indians, that they seem to have changed the priority listing for prospective parents. NRIs used to be equivalent to residents. Non-indian folk usually go to the bottom of the list. I think the descending order is mom: mom’s family: extended family: resident indian : NRI then non-indian. I am not sure about the extended family preference. And I think it is 2 or 4 weeks at each stage. The agency we worked with didn’t even take applications from non-indians for indian adoptions.
I admit the “rainbow family” concept is a bit much, but who cares if she names her daughter India? People have way worse names. At least they are not giving her an Indian name and mispronouncing it. I don’t think the name is going to be the source of identitiy issues for the child. And anyway there is a story in the Jataka tales about how what your name means has no impact on your life, involving a character named “lowly” who was a monk unhappy with his name.
Every day the kid grows up it would be ‘What’s the matter with Kansas?’
This story is bullshi#! You honestly think this couple can visit a orphanage in India without the whole world knowing about it?
And if they do call the kid India, then so what? Would you people feel a more authentic name like Ramakrishingineheramputha would be better? Could I end any more sentence’s with question marks?
And if they do adopt, do you think that they should get a light skinned one or a more authentic looking Indian?
Maddox has an awesome hairstyle. I totally dig the bad ass punk look. I wanted to get the same, but was afraid it wont go well with the boss. If India gets a cool haircut like that, she will have no identity crisis because cool kids dont have issues 🙂
It’s all got to be better than naming your kid Ashanti. I mean, why would you name your child “unrest”?
Looks like LaJolie’s been reading Babyji…
Hey folks, Bharati is the name for Saraswati Ma.
and also the statement “they’d like to name the child India to honour its homeland”-sounds bizzare-did they mean that they’s like to name the child India out of respect, because if they didn’t then it really sounds strange. aha, so we would be honoured if the great Brangelina named their child after India.
i worked at an orphanage for abused children in costa rica– the rule in costa rica at the time (2002) was that no foreign couples could adopt costa rican children. the government actively searched for good costa rican families in which to place the children. i was lucky enough to be there when the oldest girl, 11yrs, was adopted by a family– a moment i will never forget.
brangelina should name the kid “confused 4th child” because that is what she will be.
Well, I have a pretty clear sense of identity, so maybe I don’t understand what identity issues are all about, but is it really that bad? I mean the girl now has a shot at opportunities that could never have been possible had she had to stay on in the orphanage in India. A few identity issues seem to be a reasonable price for that.
hi all re:#34 my partner and i are in the process of adopting a child from india, and hopefully from w. bengal. we’ve just started, but the whole process should take about 1.5 years (this is canada i’m in BTW). we go through a home study (our social worker conducting it is desi, she used to work at the indian adoption agency CARA) which takes about 4 months. i am applying for my “overseas citizenship of india” which i can now do since i think 2005. the adoption agency head says that orphanages in india have to offer the child for adoption to indian families first, and 3x. then NRIs (both parents) then one desi families. if both parents are not desi they don’t even bother anymore. there is also a program that would allow me to adopt the child myself as a hindu—there is a religious ceremony and everything. but we are not taking that option b/c a)this child is supposed to be both of ours, and b)i’m a musician and i don’t make any money. just fyi for everyone. d
Godspeed luv!!!
if and when you get the chance please do put up a blog on your experiences – good and bad.
Happy Birthday to Brad & Angelina’s baby Shiloh yesterday! She had her birthday cake in Cannes. Here’s something fun about Shiloh…an astrology reading on video that predicts who her future husband will be and when she’ll get married. http://www.flownetworkproductions.com/shilohjoliepitt.htm
I predict that the bad boyfriend at 18 will be Michael Joseph Consuelos (Kelly Ripa’s son), and that the good husband at age 28 will be Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr. (Michael Jackson’s son). I figure by that time Mike Jr. will have had enough therapy that he will make a good husband. Both of these guys are ten years older than Shiloh. (When you watch the video, this will make more sense.) What does everyone else think?
I CAN NOT BELIEVE HOW JUDGEMENTAL SO MANY OF YOU SPOILED AMERICAN ARE!!!!!! I AM AMERICAN MYSELF BUT HAVE BEEN TO COUNTRIES WHERE THE PARENTLESS CHILDREN SLEEP ON THE STREETS WITH THERE BONES RUBBING AGAINST THE GROUND(not to mention their all to often empty stomachs). I THINK THAT WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT HONORABLE AND COMPASSIONATE. SHE IS INSPIRING PEOPLE TO ADOPT AND THAT IS AMAZING. TO INSPIRE PEOPLE TO DO SOMETHING OF WORTH RATHER THAN THE INSATIABLE SEARCH FOR MEANINGLESS OBJECTS,SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ON THE “WONDERS OF THE WORLD”. I ALSO THINK THAT IS A REALLY COOL NAME. I SHOULD LET ALL YOU JUDGERS GET BACK TO YOUR MEANINGLESS LIVES AND VIDEO GAMES! P.S. I AM TRYING TO ADOPT FROM INDIA. I WAS TALKING WITH A WOMAN LAST NIGHT WHO HAS ADOPTED THREE CHILDREN FROM INDIA AND SHE SAID THAT THEY ARE SO GRATEFUL. FOR INSTANCE CHARLIE BROWN WAS ON LAST NIGHT AND HER YOUNGEST DAUGHTER JUST KEPT THANKING HER BECAUSE SHE WAS SO HAPPY. I HOPE YOUR SOME WHAT ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES BUT PROBABLY NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey brangelina, That’s an awful thing to do naming your new chid India. What if people started calling you Angelina USA and you Brad USA. The same way you should think about your own child and name it something that for goodness sake won’t make you’re child be made fun of.
The onion post (quote #8) is funny.
I wonder if Brangelina are still going to adopt from India.