Recently, I went on a four-day trip to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, with eighteen relatives from India. The group was mainly cousins, uncles, aunts, and a two-year old baby (my cousin’s; I left my own kid at home). Some were from Delhi and Bombay, but others were from smaller towns in Punjab and elsewhere.
The biggest surprise for me was realizing that many of my relatives were awed by the lights and sounds of Las Vegas — and only modestly impressed by the Grand Canyon. You can kind of see why: the New Las Vegas is obsessed with showing off its grand, pseudo-classy facades (i.e., the fountain show at the Bellagio that Steven Soderbergh admires so much), while downplaying both the less glamorous past and the seediness that still exists in the fringes, in places like “downtown” Las Vegas. To a first-time visitor, it might be easy to miss how pseudo the new Vegas really is.
In the casinos themselves, I saw lots of Desis in the older, cheaper casinos on the north end of the strip — where the table minimums are $1 or $2. I didn’t see quite as many in the Bellagio, where the minimum bets start at $20 and go up (considerably) from there. Personally, I am not really that into gambling, so my favorite casino is still Circus Circus: give me Whac-A-Mole over Roulette, any day. At least you’re likely to walk away with a prize (i.e., a teddy bear), rather than a big hole in your pocket where your life-savings used to be.
In terms of cuisine, we went twice for satisfying lunch buffets at India Oven, at the north end of the strip. (Is it the only Indian restaurant on the Las Vegas strip? I didn’t see any others) There weren’t many options at the Grand Canyon, so we ate at Denny’s (which was a flop; my relatives really didn’t like it) and Pizza Hut (better).
Speaking of Desis on the Strip — since there are already so many Desis visiting Vegas, why not a Desi-themed casino? There’s already the lightly Morroccan-themed Sahara and the heavily Egyptian Luxor, the pseudo-Italian Venetian (where you can even go for a gondola ride), and the pseudo-French Paris. Donald Trump already has the pseudo-Desi Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, so maybe we could step out on a limb and call it… Maharajah? (Las Vegas is already completely defined by kitschy appropriations and simulations of real places and cultures — why not embrace it?) If I had $1 billion to invest in a casino in Las Vegas, I would model my Maharajah on the Lake Palace at Udaipur, except in Las Vegas — unlike Udaipur — the lake would actually have water in it.
Indian Oven is trashy, we have Origin India which is the best, ranked one of the top 10 restaurants in Vegas, we have Tamba, kind of so-so and the best pav bhajis at a mom-pop gujju place called Indian Curry for $3.50
What an appropriate article for me – I have an aunt and uncle visiting from India and my parents are booking a trip for them to las vegas. And I’m fighting with my mom to take them on a trip, anywhere else.
They always seem to ship all our Indian visiters off to las vegas. I’m trying to get my mom to send them to Napa Valley – far more beautiful; I just don’t understand why my parents think las vegas is the place to send our relatives.
there’s tabla on the strip .. near the harley davidson cafe … and there’s gandhi off the strip near UNLV …
i’ve been to a buffet at tabla .. and i shud say it was pretty decent … better than india oven by miles ..
There is a very nice Indian restaurant named ‘Tamba’ on the strip. It is in the strip mall themed Margaritaville, on the upstairs level. There is also a couple place on the back side of the strip that are not too bad. One is named ‘Gandhi’.
I am from Delhi originally and puppy culture is big on teen patti. There is the Mahabharata reference but other than that, isn’t gambling not really part of the culture and our history ?
Whack-A-Mole Rocks!!! I along with my friends preferred to play those games instead of getting ripped off at Blackjack. Needless to say we got very unfriendly looks from 4 – 12 yr olds around us.
About Desi’s gambling. My friends dad often repeated this story of how he left the money he won ($50-$100 bucks I am guessing) at the casino. The reason: He did not “Earn” it.
I am unaware of these stats in my family or among other desi’s. Have you guys seen anything similar?
There’s a joint called Tabla that I’ve been to on the Strip, but that’s the only Indian restaurant I can think of. It was alright, nothing to write home about, but not terrible by any means.
Speaking of Desis on the Strip — since there are already so many Desis visiting Vegas, why not a Desi-themed casino?
For my part, I’m glad there’s no such thing in Vegas. I imagine that any desi-themed casino would be some highly Disney-fied conception…complete with elephants, snakecharmers, and people who look like they came out of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
The biggest surprise for me was realizing that many of my relatives were awed by the lights and sounds of Las Vegas — and only modestly impressed by the Grand Canyon.
I’ve noticed the same reaction among my own extended family, and I think it’s because you really can’t absorb the splendor of the Grand Canyon by standing at one of those little lookout points. It’s much more impressive when you take the flight over the canyon…or when you watch the IMAX movie on the Grand Canyon. In comparison, the “splendor” of Vegas (such as it is) is immediately accessible and obvious.
I stand corrected — nice to know that there are in fact several Desi restaurants on the strip!
Next time I go (perhaps when I go to sign my billion dollar partnership deal with Donald Trump and the Chatwal family) I will stop by Tabla and Gandhi.
I’ve never been to Vegas, and whenever I’ve been to Atlantic City I’ve never gambled or played the slots. I’ve only ever gone for R&R, the sea breeze, the board walk, the sun, that sort of thing.
But the thing that struck me at Atlantic City was how many desis were working for the casinos – as dealers, cash counters, security guards, and so on. I was stunned by the sheer numbers. Both men and women; and Gujaratis, Bengalis, Punjabis, Tamils (all the main groups) seemed very well represented. Anybody know what the, er, deal is on that?
here were large numbers of desi tourists as well – somehow Atlantic City has got on desi tour-group-from-India must-see lists – but did you find any desis working for the casinos in Vegas, Amardeep?
Isn’t the Aladdin close to a desi themed casino? I know it’s actually more middle eastern/”persian”, but I don’t expect a Las Vegas casino interior design team to be subtle enough to make that distinction; not subtle enough to base a whole new casino on that distinction anyway.
Aladdin’s Spice Market has a veg-friendly buffet. One of the geographically clueless stations puts up a hodgepodge of middle eastern / desi cuisine.
Prof. Amardeep: We were in Las Vegas few weeks ago. I went there after almost ten years. We ate at “TAMBA”. Food was OK but the ambiance and decor were great. Tabla and Gandhi have better Indian Cuisine. Talk about luck. First three days we were down by few hundreds, but I forced my wife to play at Ballagio on the last day and she won Big Time. We came back ahead by few hundreds. I was impressed by the MGM. We even saw nice show at New York New York. There was supposed to be boxing match that weekend, and we saw one of the Boxer. They tell me Las Vegas is the fastest growing city in USA. property values have more than doubled in just few years. I used to go there quite often to visit Nevada Test Site (approx. 100 miles northwest of LV) as a part of my work assignment. I saw the largest man-made crater in the world (formed by mega blast of TNT underground. You should have taken your visitors to see the Dam – by helicopter.
Shodan and dev, Aladdin is gone. It’s Planet Hollywood now.
Yo Dad, we did stop by the Hoover Dam on the way to the Grand Canyon, and spent a pleasant hour there, going through security checkpoints and baking in the sun.
Glad you had good luck at the Bellagio! 😉
I was looking for these downtown, I couldnt find them. I usually kick it old school, when I go to vegas. Binions Horseshoe, the Nugget, etc… I had no idea these tables found their way on the strip. Even the stratosphere didn’t have em last I checked. I use them to practice hi-lo method in blackjack.
Wondering what that Desi kid who helped Bringing Down the House is upto these days …
The level of glits and entertainment that exists in LV doesn’t exist in India so I’m not at all suprised. As one relative once said “What’s the big deal about a bunch of mountains, we have the Himalayas!” I think as the American generation we tend to appreciate the history and the greatness of the Grand Canyon but desis aren’t impressed by Mountains in general.
Come on we all need a little psuedo in our life 🙂 I’ve been going to Vegas for years, don’t gamble a penny but absolutely love it. I enjoy all the things that one can do there and it’s OK to enjoy the superficial too. Life is filled with too many serious realities to not escape from them occassionally.
I hate to say it but Desis don’t bring the dough to LV. And Trumps Taj Mahal is more ‘white man’s fantasy of brownland’ than an ode to the Desis. Have you been there? It’s cheesey as hell. It’s more middle eastern than Indian.
Amardeep that’s an awesome idea about opening a desi-themed casino in Las Vegas. Last year a bunch of my friends tossed around that idea, trying to come up with a name and a theme. I don’t think what we came up with was anything marketable – it was a hodgepodge of stuff: The central theme was around the Himalayas, and we had the idea of having the Ganga flowing down and running beneath the floor, which would be part glass, and all sorts of other weird ideas. You have a great idea about the Lake Palace at Udaipur!
“Wondering what that Desi kid who helped Bringing Down the House is upto these days …”
He might be teaching seminars along with
Seminars like this one:
http://www.blackjackscience.com
Chachaji, I think what they do down there is provide the workers with everything, food, board, plus pay, so it’s perfect for people who have just come over to settle in the US. My relatives were actually trying to find something in AC when they came over a few years ago. It’s a perfect arrangement because the casinos provide food and board (I’m not sure of the details on housing though), so people can save all their earnings till they have enough (money and skills) to find other, possibly more desirable, jobs.
I too have noticed my relatives’ utter lack of interest in natural landscapes like the Grand Canyon, El Capitan etc. Only Niagara Falls seems to be on people’s travel agenda. I LOVE America’s natural beauty and don’t fully understand my family’s fascination with modern urban environments. Not sure the Himalayas have much to do with it, since most Indians I’ve met have never hiked or camped in the mountains.
I find Vegas weird mainly because of the juxtaposition of a completely fake and over-the-top city in the middle of such natural splendor.
Thanks, Preetalina. Food, board and pay would be quite a good deal. I did talk with a few of the desis (and the non-desis too) but they did not mention this.
Atlantic City as an introduction to America – hmm… well, life’s a gamble anyway, and more particularly immigration is – so maybe it makes sense from that pov!
Okay, I’m ‘electrically’ challenged…Vegas consumes just over 5 gigawatts to power its glitter. The entire Chennai metropolis (residential industrial etc.)consumed 3900 Million Units through a recent year. Is that even comparable? 3900 MU = 3900 000 000 kwh = 3900 gigawatt hours??
If i had a $1 billion i would call mine Kamasutra, an adult theme oriented hotel/resort. The hotel will be filled with statues of various poses u see on temples. suites will be based on a theme from the kamasutra. Indian bar tenders all around. Bring all the jobless dancers from the banned bars in bombay on H1’s. I think i am on to something here…gotta go, find $1 billion.
My family visited Wisconsin Dells back in the day and I was pretty impressed with the rock formations and the beautiful scenery on our 1 hour boat ride but my parents were completely bored. My mom grew up in the backwater region of Kerala so for her it was looking at rocks and water for an hour. On the other hand,we went to a Tommy Bartlett show in the evening full of loud music, water skiers doing acrobatic tricks and a laser show. My parents loved it! I have to admit, I did too.
There are plenty of natural wonders back home. One doesn’t have to be an outdoorsy type to appreciate them. Naturally 🙂 modern manmade wonders like Empire State, LV strip etc. are high on a desi tourist’s list.
There was an NPR piece on GC couple years ago. The park authorities were irritated w/ the fake GC on the strip. It actually managed to put a dent in the real GC’s tourist numbers. It was pure comedy.
whats the fake GC?
Lame replica of Grand Canyon
I think there are certain manmade wonders that just rank higher on the desi “must see” list than others. On a recent trip to England, I noticed that my husband and I were the only South Asians at Westminster Abbey, but Madame Tussaud’s was just crawling with desi tourists. Go figure.
atcg, i don’t know the stats. but if you say vegas is powered by 5 GW, it means that in one hour it consumes 5 GW-hours. Therefore in about a month it consumes as much as Chennai metropolis does in a year.
Basically this is the dichotomy between “Japanese” type tourists and “German” type tourists…Japanese people are notorious for flocking to places like Disneyworld, and taking a thousand pictures of Mickey Mouse. German tourists are famous for heading straight to our national parks, and going hiking and camping for two weeks. Desis obviously veer far closer to the Japanese model than the German one. And after all, Vegas is Disneyworld for adults.
vegas generates (gdp) 6.6 billion $ a year with the energy used. considering the state of tn generates abt (gdp) 25 billion$ a year, it is quite likely chennai metropolis generates as much economic output with 1/10th the energy. what a big f*&^ing waste vegas is. another stat to shame people who want to visit vegas into not going when i don’t want to. 😉
Nothing particularly desi about “ooh-ing” and “aah-ing” over Las Vegas after all tourists from all over the world come there -don’t they?
Personally : I found that a trip to Nevada to see Las Vegas and the GC is in actuality a trip from the ridiculous to the sublime.
Amardeep :glad you called the Taj Mahal pseudo-desi .Its obvious that whoever designed it has only peripheral and confused knowledge of India and its all irretrievably mixed-in with the Arabian nights 🙂 Karthik : #6 :My dad says/does exactly the same with money won in casinos.
Thanks, bytewords for breaking it down…you went exactly where I wanted to. 🙂
There’s also a selection bias here: Indians who are looking for natural beauty do not come to the United States. They usually go to Europe (Switzerland), or simply the Himalayas. This has a lot to do with how the US markets itself, which is largely through Hollywood(at least in India). I may be wrong here as I don’t watch a lot of movies, but the last Hollywood movie I can think of set in an American natural wonder is North by Northwest. When Hollywood wants snow-peaked mountains, they move the action to the Alps. Ditto for Bollywood, where the movie might be set in NYC, but all the dancing is done in Switzerland.
Amardeep, to be fair, most Americans seem to be awed by Vegas as well. The place is certainly not running on desi money :D.
Just last week there was the huge JCK jewelry convention in Las Vegas for 10 days. There were tons and tons of desi’s in for the show and trust me, they weren’t all gambling at the $1 and $2 dollar tables. they were all over the Wynn, the Venetian, and the Bellagio (the three most upscale casinos in Vegas in my opinion.)
The desi’s were also all over the nightclubs, including Tao, Pure and Tryst.
fun times! vegas rocks!
But Madame Tussauds has a waxwork figure of Amitabh Bhachan! Sir Christopher Wren’s architectural masterpiece, or an Amitabh Bhachan made out of candles? No competition.
Sir Christopher Wren’s architectural masterpiece, or an Amitabh Bhachan made out of candles?
That’s St. Paul’s, not Westminster. But point taken! 😉
Make that numerically challenged… 1. you are comparing apples to oranges. 5 gigawatts is a unit of power. gigawatt hours is a unit of energy consumed (power times a duration of time), and 2. 3900 MU = 3.9 Giga units. So in one hour, Vegas consumes 5 GU of energy, Chennai does 3.9 GU.
Ofcourse, there is no talk about Chennai having a population that is several times the size of Las Vegas. If you’d rather talk in more fundamentally economic terms, what is Las Vegas’ energy efficiency in terms of contribution to GDP/energy consumed? How does that compare against India’s 3rd largest metropolis?
I was just testing you! 😉
Did you go inside parliament?
Thank you!
Did you go inside parliament?
Nah. Not in session + heavy security = bummer
Indians who are looking for natural beauty do not come to the United States. They usually go to Europe (Switzerland)
Yes, I think you’ve got a point here. After all, my family have done a lot of travel in India, for natural beauty sites or temples. And then in Kerala, when I go for short trips with my family, I am always being taken to places with such natural beauty .
I guess something Las Vegas can’t be found in India (thank goodness) ; well I know nothing like that exists in Kerala. And even if you are from the cities in India, I would think that the sites of Las Vegas are a far cry from the congested Indian cities where poverty is stark.
true, but i don’t think this was a numerical mistake by atcg, rather a typo in the first part.
3.9 GWh a year seems too low, 3900 GWh seems more likely. for eg, the sharavathi hydro power station (doesn’t supply power to chennai, but for a ballpark) generates a GW, so it is very inconceivable that in a year, chennai consumes what that station produces in 4 hours.
About 12 years ago you could walk in off the street and after a most cursory airport style smiling security-guard check walk straight into the public gallery of the House of Commons, except for Prime Minister’s questions.
The number of Indian tourists in London these days has increased a lot from even a few years back — spend ten minutes at Marks and Spencer’s in Marble Arch or anywhere else on Oxford Street and it’s like Connaught Circus in the summertime.
see here.
Which reminds me, anyone visiting Vegas, should put Tao on their to go list. I did not have a chance to go to the club, but they have a restaurant / lounge on their lower level and it was the best food I have tasted hands down. Too bad, I went back to being a vegetarian.
I am also told that Tao has a restaurant in NYC.
we are both numerically challenged as well :). this and this are correct. vegas consumes 5MU an hour. 3900 MU=3900 GWh, don’t know why i agreed with you that it was 3.9…
Indians looking for an outdoors experience are a rarity.
As for a desi casino in Las Vegas, fuggedaboutit. Desis in general just dont have the disposable income or the inclination to gamble. Which is not such a bad thing. Gambling is a vice after all. On the other hand the chinese are notorious gamblers and high rollers which is why Macau has replaced Las Vegas as the gambling capital of the world:
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/220698
“Last month analysts confirmed Macau had overtaken the Las Vegas strip as the gambling capital of the world at the end of 2006, raking in more than $7.2 billion compared with Vegas’s $6.6 billion.
Even more astonishing is that Macau has only about half the number of casinos at 22, compared with Las Vegas’s 40 plus, with many more projects in the works.
More than 20 million visitors arrive every year in the only place gambling is allowed in China.”