Monthly Archives: October 2006

Breaking News: Kiran Desai Wins Booker Prize

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Red Snapper advises us that Kiran Desai was awarded the MAN Booker Prize for her novel The Inheritance of Loss just moments ago. Here is the official press release:

Chair of the judges, Hermione Lee, made the announcement at the awards dinner at the Guildhall, London, which was broadcast live on the BBC 10 O’ Clock News. Harvey McGrath, Chairman of Man Group plc, presented Kiran Desai with a cheque for £50,000.

Hermione Lee comments,

“We are delighted to announce that the winner of the Man Booker Prize for 2006 is Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, a magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and powerful political acuteness. The winner was chosen, after a long, passionate and generous debate, from a shortlist of five other strong and original voices.”

Over and above her prize of £50,000, Kiran Desai is guaranteed a huge increase in sales and recognition worldwide. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer-bound edition of their book.

The judging panel for the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is: Hermione Lee (Chair), biographer, academic and reviewer; Simon Armitage, poet and novelist; Candia McWilliam, award-winning novelist; critic Anthony Quinn; and actor Fiona Shaw.

The press release reminds us that Kiran Desai is 35 and the daughter of author Anita Desai. Also, according to the release, Kiran is currently a student in the creative writing program at Columbia. I’m sure her classmates aren’t intimidated! Salman Rushdie calls Kiran “a terrific writer,” which is more than he had to say about John Updike.

Seriously though: Warm and sepia-tinted congratulations to Kiran Desai and let’s all run out and read her book. Continue reading →

Beauty and the beasts

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There are two types of ABDs – those who live the daily, 9-to-5 grind, and those who live … on the edge. The punk ones, the ones who scandalize the aunties. Well, I’m sure that aunties across America have been doing some tutting about the actions of Jabeen Akhtar, who joins Ravi Chand in the audacious desi animal rights activist hall of fame. [Thanks DJ Drrrty Poonjabi]

Jabeen is an animal rights activist with PETA who “painted tiger stripes on her nearly nude body and sat in a cage in downtown Charlotte, N.C.” to protest the way that circuses treat the wild animals in their acts:

In a letter … Akhtar explained she “appeared caged, nude, and painted like a tiger in downtown Charlotte, N.C., to draw attention to the way animals suffer in circuses like the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

“Although it was uncomfortable to sit on the pavement exposed to the public, the hour I spent sitting on the sidewalk was nothing compared to what the animals go through every day of their short, miserable lives,” she said. [Link]

PETA alleges the circus commits numerous violations against the Animal Welfare Act, backing up the claim with case documentation and hidden video footage. Among the grievances: inhumane storage of animals, torture with electric rods and bull hooks, neglect leading to suffering and death, intentional killing of animals afflicted with illnesses. [Link]

I admire Akhtar. Not only did she take a peaceful yet eye-catching stand for what she believed in, she’s also an employee of the EPA. Now that takes chutzpah. Continue reading →

“Diversity”

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When I first started organizing in the environmental movement, the buzz word was “diversity.” The mostly white movement was trying to extend their base, and just didn’t get understand why people of color weren’t ‘interested in the environment.’ The diversity training I went through back then was effective and has shaped my approach to organizing ever since.

Wilkes University recently had their folks go through a diversity training, and it looks like they were a little more unsuccessful.

Two Wilkes University students say they were offended by leadership consultant Ron Feldhun’s course methods and said that during a weekend retreat earlier this month, several students were called racial epithets.

But Feldhun said his program was used as a scapegoat for the university to fire multicultural coordinator Andita Parker-Lloyd, who filed a racial profiling lawsuit against the city of Wilkes-Barre.

Navneet Virdee, a junior pharmacy major of Indian decent, said Feldhun called her a terrorist when she challenged the veracity of a diversity program meant to teach leadership principles. Virdee said Feldhun encouraged students to chant racial slurs at each other as a way to lessen the words’ impact. [link]

I’m no professional in pedagogy, but even I know that this method may not be the BEST one to encourage open minded discussion on race. Mad props to Navneet for speaking up. I’m all for diversity trainings and think that when done properly they are a great tool for success. But only when done right. It seems though there was internal politics involved in bringing the training to campus.

“My perception is that there was a conspiracy to get rid of a strong Black woman,” he says. “They fired her because she embarrassed the school when she stood up to that White police officer.” […] Parker-Lloyd was arrested for disorderly conduct on Feb. 16 after she tried to intervene on behalf of minority Wilkes students who had been pulled over for an alleged signal violation. [link]

Has anyone in the Mutiny been to one of these diversity trainings? Was it effective? Or was it dreadful like the one above? Really bad diversity trainings remind me of the the diversity training episode of The Office (starring desi-gal Mindy Kaling). Priceless and painfully humorous.

Continue reading →

Brangelina in Trouble? [Updated]

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Pitt and Jolie in Rickshaw Drama!
Jolie-Pitt Photog All Choked Up!
India Gets a Jhalak of Brad & Angelina!

The news wires are all abuzz with desi-related gossip about the couple we love to hate, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Pitt and Jolie, along with their three children, are in India to shoot scenes for the upcoming movie A Mighty Heart, in which Jolie stars as slain journalist Daniel Pearl’s widow, Mariane. Pitt’s Plan B production company is coproducing the film…Relentless paparazzi coverage of the Jolie-Pitt clan’s visit has led the couple to remain holed up in Pune’s Le Meridan Hotel almost nonstop since they arrived by private jet late last week. [link]

Brangelina starring in The Great Rickshaw Escape

Brangelina in India has created all the frenzy that the Hindustan Times Page Six thrives on. First, we had Angelina Jolie wishing she were filming in Pakistan instead, where Daniel Pearl’s abduction had originally taken place.

Meanwhile, Jolie says she and Pitt are disappointed they are not shooting the film in Pakistan. Security concerns there caused officials to suggest they work elsewhere. So with the exception of a few background scenes shot in Pakistan, A Mighty Heart will be made in Pune.

“I am disappointed that we could not shoot the film in Pakistan, a country that I love and have visited three times,” said Jolie in a statement issued on Saturday by Trevor Neilson, an adviser to the couple.

“They talked with people from all levels of the Pakistan Government and there’s certainly no hard feelings. But it became clear that it was preferable to film in India,” Neilson said. [link]

Now, we have Brangelina’s security with an (almost) killer choke hold…

A bodyguard for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie manhandled a British photographer as he tried to take their picture at a hotel in western India, an incident caught on video by an Indian television station. On Saturday afternoon, when Pitt and Jolie tried to leave the hotel, one of their security guards caught a British photographer trying to take their photo, grabbing the man by his neck and verbally abusing him. [link]

And the infamous rickshaw escape…

The couple were chased by photographers, cameramen and reporters, forcing them to turn back after a 20-minute ride that took them past stores in downtown Pune, in western India.[…] Several traffic signals slowed their short rickshaw ride. At every red light, security men traveling in a rickshaw behind jumped out and surrounded the three-wheeler to prevent the media from snapping pictures of Pitt and Jolie. [link]

Oh, Brangelina. Welcome to the motherland. I’m placing bets that the next baby in their internationally adopted clan is going to be desi. Any takers?

Update: You can watch The Attack of the Brangelina Security Guard here! (Thanks, Manish!).

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Not everyone is a "terrorist"

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We will not allow the enemy to win the war by changing our way of life or restricting our freedoms. –George W. Bush, September 12, 2001

As most of you have heard, Congress recently rubber-stamped a bill at the behest of the President that will supposedly “help fight terror.” The Village Voice has a nice summary article:

Right after 9-11, then attorney general John Ashcroft was directing the swift preparation of the USA Patriot Act. He sent a draft to the aggressively conservative James Sensenbrenner, Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee. The bill included the suspension of habeas corpus for terrorism suspects–the right to go to a federal court to determine whether the government is holding you lawfully.

Sensenbrenner angrily recoiled at the proposed disappearance of the Great Writ and forced Ashcroft to strike it from the Patriot Act. Five years later, Sensenbrenner helped shepherd through Congress the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which prevents detainees held by us anywhere in the world, not only at Guantanamo, from having lawyers file habeas petitions in our courts concerning their conditions of confinement.

In 1798, the writer of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson–who insisted habeas corpus be embodied in the Constitution–said to generations to come: “The Habeas Corpus secures every man here, alien or citizen [freedom from arbitrary confinement]…”

But now, the Republicans’ Military Commissions Act can not only remove this bedrock of our liberty from prisoners outside the country but can also strip habeas protections from legal immigrants here, as well as from American citizens.[Link]

In the wake of 9/11 many of us South Asian Americans have dealt with the erosion of civil liberties by joking around about it. “Hey, don’t talk in Tamil at the airport or they might arrest you as a terrorist.” Or what about “Hey, be careful going to Pakistan because they may suspend your 5th Amendment rights and ask you to take a polygraph when it is time to return to America.” Behind all of these nervous jokes is the suspicion that under these new laws perhaps anyone, including U.S. citizens, could be arbitrarily labeled a “terrorist” and stripped of their rights. The Bush administration counters by arguing that we should trust them and that they will only pin the label of “terrorist” on the real bad guys. You see, under the Patriot Act once you are officially designated as a “terrorist” you are in a whole new legal reality.

Now consider for a few minutes the case of Luis Posada Carriles. 30 years ago last week he masterminded a bomb plot that brought down a Cuban jetliner off the coast of Barbados. 73 people aboard were killed.

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Sunday55: The “Black Dog” Edition

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One of my best friends sent me a virtual pep talk at 5:15 pm; he had no possible way of knowing that the words he borrowed from Winston Churchill to make his point were already on my mind. Reading his GMissive on my august, semi-blinged phone’s meager screen while parked in traffic at M St + Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown reaffirmed my belief that nothing is accidental and that especially in my life, continental, oceanic and ironic plates clash together to create quaking moments which belong on celluloid. What are the odds? I get that email when I’m already pondering the British Bulldog, while “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin blares through every straining speaker of this zippy red morsel of German perfection, which is mine for the evening? G-d is one hell of a director; I dig all the synchronicity.

Currently, I’m being haunted by the spectre of a black dog myself, as I reboot my entire life and go it alone, in every possible sense of the word. I desperately wish that I had just one pair of my venerable Docs with me in this cocoa city, to stomp through all the omnipresent ick with…alas, every set of bouncing soles lives with Moms, 3000 miles to the left. Incidentally, that picture you see above was taken the day I met Sepia Wizard Paul for the very first time, in North Beach, for a day of molesting Harry Potter (that was me), being confused by elderly Asian people (both of us) and mais oui, espresso at Greco (that SHOULD be everyone). I’m always a sentimental old bat, but I think tumult like this makes it even easier to conjure the past, as if to remind myself that this, too, shall pass, just like everything else has.

We haven’t held a festival for 55-word nanofiction in several weeks, so this Sunday, write about your black dogs, your love of fog, your fear of being a cog. Whatever floats your clove-smoking, black wet-n-wild nail polish-wearing, Gothic boat. If you’re not too black and blue to do so, that is… Continue reading →

Childbirth in the U.S. and India

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Though people have children all the time, when I went through it it was still astonishing. Even in the merely supporting/cheerleading role of the father, I can’t remember ever experiencing anything quite as frightening and, in the end, exhilarating. The everyday can still be mindblowing, when it happens to you: giving birth to a child is still difficult, painful (even with local anesthesia), and dangerous. So many things could go wrong, and yet somehow they don’t, most of the time. And at the end of the day you have in your hands the most uncanny result of all: new life.

In a way I was lucky that S. went into labor last Friday, before I came across the latest issue of the New Yorker, with a typically excellent Atul Gawande piece on the evolution of obstetric medicine. In effect, the story Gawande tells isn’t really an alarming one, though it still might have filled my mind with thoughts better avoided. Childbirth in the U.S. has become fairly safe over the years (though the threat of infant mortality and maternal mortality is still real). But what is a bit disturbing is that until fairly recently so many women (1 in 100) and newborns (1 in 30) died going through this. Interestingly, it was a woman doctor named Virginia Apgar who formulated a rating system (the Apgar scale) which gave doctors a set of criteria by which to evaluate newborns who seemed a bit iffey immediately after delivery. According to Gawande, the Apgar scale has dramatically reduced the infant mortality rate and revolutionized neo-natal care. The procedure that has made the difference with maternal mortality is the modern Caesarian section:

In the United States today, a full-term baby dies in just one out of five hundred childbirths, and a mother dies in one in ten thousand. If the statistics of 1940 had persisted, fifteen thousand mothers would have died last year (instead of fewer than five hundred) —- and a hundred and twenty thousand newborns (instead of one-sixth that number). (link)

It’s worth noting that there are disparities along racial and ethnic lines; infant mortality rates for African Americans and Native Americans are appreciably higher than for other groups. The statistics in India aren’t quite as good, though they have also improved dramatically in recent years. Continue reading →

Two plates of curly fries, please

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Sajit mentioned comedienne Vijai Nathan in his post. She is that doubly rare breed, a female desi comedian. However, she didn’t spring fully formed out of Robin William’s forehead onto the stage. Her origin story involves a past as a copywriter until one day, her comedic talents were unleashed by a comedy workshop. The moment when she quit her day job to pursue comedy full time became a part of her act:

“… her father was furious: “He said: ‘Vijai, how could you do this to your family? I have struggled in this country for 25 years and you’re going to disgrace me this way?’
I said, “But dad, I just want to make people laugh, you know, be a comedian.’
He said ‘Oh, your mom told me you wanted to be a Canadian…” [Link]

Audiences also have a hard time getting it sometimes, too:

“This guy shouts out: “Woo! Keep it going for the Cherokee. Yeah!”
I said, “Sir, I’m not the kind of Indian with bows and arrows. I’m the kind with unlimited access to nuclear weaponry...” [Link]

She actually started out “really bad Clinton impressions” and much more mainstream jokes before developing some very desi material:

… my parents were always worried that I was becoming too American. My Dad would say: ‘So you want to wear pants, eat cows, have minty fresh breath. That’s it, you’re going back to India.'” [Link]

… her mother overheard her singing along with Madonna, and put a stop to it by insisting, “Vijai, you are not like a virgin, you are a virgin!“… [Link]

Continue reading →

Sunrise to Moonrise

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It isn’t so often that South Asian cultural events happen in DC, but when they do, it reaffirms to me how much I love living here. Today is one of those days.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Charles Lang Freer’s gift (Freer’s money led to the creation of the Freer Gallery here in Washington) to the American people, the Smithsonian Institutions are putting on a day’s worth of Asian-American themed cultural events. Starting at 4 pm today, the Rudresh Mahanthappa quartet will perform on the Freer Steps, and because it is raining the show will likely be shifted to the Gallery’s Meyer Auditorium. The quartet is led by Saxaphonist extraordinaire and Pi recording Artist Rudresh Mahanthappa and will feature a blend of South Asian and Western Jazz improvisation.

If that isn’t enough FREE entertainment for you, starting at 8 pm, female Indian-American comedian Vijai Nathan, of “Good Girls don’t, but Indian Girls do” fame, along with Frank Hong, will be entertaining the crowds with their ethnic comedy at the Meyer Auditorium. And to make the night a bit more festive, there will be a sake tasting for two hours immediately before the show in the Freer courtyard.

So if you are in Washington D.C. today, and are willing to brave the first signs of fall here in DC, make sure you head out to the Freer today.

The Freer Gallery is located at Independence Ave at 12th St SW here in Washington D.C.

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Battlestar Galactica is desi friendly

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I apologize in advance for the geekery that may ensue on this website but I feel obligated to a certain segment of our readership to point out that tonight (Friday night-when all the cool people will be out) marks the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica, a show that one Newsweek writer recently called “indisputably, hands-down and without question, the best show on television.”

About a year ago, I tried to pitch NEWSWEEK’s arts editor on a “BSG” story. He said something along the lines of “Get out of my office, nerd,” which neatly sums up the challenge of getting other people to watch it. The title unfortunately evokes its predecessor, a 1978 “Star Wars” clone that presented humanity fleeing through space, pursued by robots with the same blinking red LEDs that was later adopted by the talking car in “Knight Rider.”

I was never a big fan of the original, but I became an instant convert to the Sci Fi Channel version…

At the center of the maelstrom is the ethically challenged Colonel Tigh, the show’s biggest hawk and best character. In his portrayal of the squinting Tigh, actor Michael Hogan brilliantly channels Donald Rumsfeld. Tigh despises all things soft, and anything that smells of compromise or weakness. When he’s told in this week’s episode that a suicide bomber will inflict many casualties, both human and Cylon, he barks: “Don’t avoid them. Send a message. There are no boundaries for the Cylons and there are no boundaries for us!”

Beyond the Rumsfeldian Tigh, the show blatantly co-opts the visual imagery of the current conflicts in the Middle East. Prisoners are marched into jails with hoods draped over their heads and sit alone in cement block cells–shades of Abu Ghraib. [Link]

I am sure many of you are still wondering why I am writing about this on SM. Well, for one thing the show’s opening credits are Hindu friendly, set to…the Gayatri Mantra. Also, late last season Indo-Canadian actress Rekha Sharma joined the cast as Tory Foster, an aide to outgoing President Laura Roslin. I am expecting to see her role grow this season. Or she may be killed off like the President’s former aid. This ain’t like Star Trek, even the non-randoms gets whacked.

And for the record, I won’t be home tonight. I have TiVo.

Continue reading →

Posted in TV