I’m so passionate about telling you to get out to popped-collar-ville tomorrow evening, for the next marrow donor drive in DC, I decided to split my original “Best and Worst of Our Community” post in two, because I didn’t want the details for such an important event to be hidden under “the fold”.
If you are in DC and you have not registered yet– please come by because time is precious. I learned this weekend that if you register online or at your local center, it takes weeks to process your swabs; if you come to one of Vinay’s drives, they overnight everything to the database under his name and processing is expedited. Please, please, please register to be a committed donor.
TiE Seattle disappointed me, but I’d rather focus on the best of what our community can do, because the one thing I’m trying to learn from Vinay is relentless positivity.
First off, a huge thank you to mutineer Seema, who registered people at TANA this weekend until her feet ached. A few of our readers pitched in to help flyer, explain and swab– and I got to witness it.
I’ve never been happier to be a part of this sepia-colored space. Part of my sadness over my “second post” was inspired by what I saw at TANA— people were going without food, standing for hours, bravely facing rejection and apathy…and they did it with a smile on their face and faith in their hearts that it is just a matter of time before we find the one. With such memories playing on my internal plasma, how can I NOT cringe at those who would decline to do far less than what I saw all of you do. Together, you made sure a few hundred more people were added to the database and that deserves to be applauded.
Not all of us are Telugu, so I know plenty of you chocolate city citizens didn’t get to come on down and get swabbed– have no fear, happy hour is here! I heard about the following event at Subcontinental Drift, but have been too busy to post it before. I’m sorry about that because it’s going to be good fun for a great cause:
Join us for a Happy Hour and Show your Support!
Register as a Bone Marrow Donor!
Tuesday, July 10th, 5:30 – 9 pm
Tony & Joe’s Seafood Restaurant (Upstairs Lounge) at Georgetown Washington Harbor
3000 K Street Northwest Washington, DC, 20007
RSVP encouraged: dcdonordrive@aol.com
Drink specials if you register as a donor!!
Already registered? Come to show your support! Everyone welcome!
$7 suggested charitable donation to marrow donor recruitment.
Ultrabrown said (with a twinge of guilt) that the NYC mega-event which was held yesterday was SO MUCH FUN. I am certain that gazing at the Kennedy Center while the sun sets, as we toast to life, love and the pursuit of donors won’t be too shabby, either. I’ll be there. Will you? 🙂
i live in salt lake city but was in dallas this past weekend for a wedding. Lo and behold while at the indian grocery store to get some mangoes there was a bone marrow drive. It is easy, just swab the cheeks, get mistaken for a mexican(?) and fill out a form. Sounds like this thing will be a lot more fun. Sack up people.
Yaaay! I’m so glad you registered. 🙂 I hope everyone takes your advice, because you are right, it really is a brief process…and it’s one that saves lives.
ANNA, just the image of lemon rice sent my stomach into fits of tumultuous hunger. You know what I need? (besides all my friends to be registered in the bone marrow registry) I need a southie friend who is willing to be pimped out to me for good down home cooking. Instead, I will pine 🙁
ANNA, did you ever consider that people would be so dazzled by the sight of luscious lemon rice with urugai that they would not read the post? ok, i’m kidding, but i stared at that lemon rice for a full minute before moving onto the text. i heard that the TNF tamil conference two weekends ago got about 100 donors, and there was also another drive at the FeTNA tamil conference (yes, there are two different conferences for us crazy tamilians) and hopefully that one did well, too.
Haha! My evil plan is working, haha! 😉
COME TO THE HAPPY HOUR TOMORROW! That’s what the lemon rice is whispering in your ear.
Lemon rice with urugai? Urugai? What about appalam? This is what you have to offer me?
Which reminds me… are we doing the Maximum City book club thing sometime soon? Actually, it didn’t, I’ve been wanting to ask, but didn’t know when 🙂
ANNA, I’m going to throw myself in the harbor if you continue to tantalize.
Rahul! Shhh, just b/c you are the teacher’s pet does not mean you have to push!
Did I just get this treatment?
I am from a Telugu family. My dad and some of my uncles have been to TANA in the past. I have never taken part. My sister went for the first time this year and she was underwhelmed. She said the sound system sucked. The food was OK. THe forums were not that interactive. The entertainment sucked. Clinton did show up and speak on Thursday.
I might actually volunteer for the next TANA if it is near Atlanta so that I am not just a complainer. Everything I hear about TANA sounds lame. A lot of egos at work. I want to gear some events for people in their 30s-40s – the generation of Indians that were born here back when Indians were not that common. I don’t know. These are just thoughts in my head right now. I heard there is an ATA too . I fail to see why Telugus are so fucked up, they can’t even keep politics out of their community over here.
The TANA website is pretty lame. All this outsourcing to Hyderabad and we cannot even get a good website????
Rahul, I like to think I am infinitely more attractive than Dr. Evil. You didn’t get zipped, you got a very hip shushing. 🙂
Pravin, this was my favorite part of your post 🙂
Camille, I haven’t clicked on your link, but did you just point me to article 417.34DE?
Oh yeah, you did!
😉
I am curious to know why the difference? Is it privately funded and manned?
I think it has to do with the NMDP’s sensitivity to time, as in the lack of it. Vinay doesn’t have the luxury of months right now. Chemotherapy has stopped working and he needs compatible marrow by a certain date or they will try a less effective (?) procedure to help him, since they have no other option. I could be wrong about some of that– I’m just repeating what I heard at a drive.
The lemon rice and urugai looks effing amazing. I hope you guys have a lovely time and I WISH I could be there. I am cheering on the good cause from a distance.
But now I’m going to turn preachy for two seconds; please just let me say this. I promise it’s not directed to any single person here, but just as a gentle reminder to all readers: We all love takeout and there are times we can’t sit in the restaurant to get our fix of lemon rice/dosa/idli, but please please please, do your best to cut packaging out of your lives. Plastic cutlery, styrofoam, plastic bags — it’s all destroying our world and there will be nothing left for our children. It’s a serious problem. I know this is a desi blog and this isn’t strictly a desi issue — but it does affect us. We all probably get a lot of takeout. And those of us who live in the west too easily fall into nasty American consumerist habits and think nothing of using 6 times more than our share of resources — hey, I’ve been guilty too. I wish we could find a practical way to go back to the old ways of doing things: tiffin carriers etc. for takeout. It was the norm as recently as my parents’ generation! Why can’t we bring back tiffin carriers? I’ve gone on enough and I don’t want to hijack this thread — but it would be cool to see this blog mobilise people for the environmental cause the way it’s doing for the (equally important) bone-marrow cause.
Think of me as your freaky eco-warrior Auntie. Thank you for reading.
Auntie! Was that you on stage at Live Earth? 😉
ITA with what you wrote. Styrofoam is the container of last resort, for me.
Oh don’t be apologetic. This is a HUGE issue in desiland what with no land to bury the junk unseen and all.
TANA rocks, I’m a seasoned veteran. Nowhere else do you feel that sense of camaraderie, comfort and culture.
On a separate note, ATL will be hosting a bone marrow registry this THURSDAY, July 12 at the W in Perimeter. 7pm to 10pm. Oh, and it’s also a singles event (how convenient…flirt, mingle and community service all in one evening!)
Lemon Rice sounds good…my broddahs n sistas…we invite filmstars…we dance to mindless tunes and call it as culture(telugu culture),we idolise fake heroes(read movie stars & politicians)and yeah i forgot to tell you we are still caught up in the mire of caste…(i mean not being proud and all)just being mindlessly fascist…we might have earned money and fame…but you cant…nobody just cant keep us off from being seperatist or being chauvinist or from cheering for caste politics,all the way down in DC….WE are proud of that… Again just another Media Hype…But the Lemon RIce was good I did smell some politics and mindless casteism in it …but Lemon rice was good.
Sir Esha,
I wanna know how does TANA rock? Bunch of Andhrite people trying to show their muscle power to Chandrababu and run for office in AP. I am not questioning your veteran status but IMHO TANA is nothing but a TDP support camp and ATA is a congress camp. In other words, TANA is predominantly kamma and ATA is predominantly Reddy. We all know the history of the fights. I am not discounting the efforts of some people who have really helped Government General Hospitals, Public Schools in AP. Of late, TANA and all the sister orgs in the local DC area are becoming orgs to gain political strength in AP. CBN came on a tour and raised 250,000 USD and most of the contributors are people like HTC INC and other big shot TANA members. There are some people who really want to run for office here with out any grass roots efforts. If you don’t know, most (not all) of the Andhrites who got into the GC lines ahead (purely out of luck) run consulting businesses and live off of people who are struck in GC process. No wonder they does not want to help by raising money to streamline the GC process. Any ways long story short, For me TANA/ATA what ever does not rock. Most of the people behind have personal agendas to run for office either here or in AP or caste based preferences and the culture part comes last. Oh B T W, Do you know how much Bill and Hillary were given to grace the occasion, exactly 1 mil USD. While I am not saying that its wrong to raise funds, lets get some community issues to the fore front instead of own personal agendas in the name of community.
S_M right on. I am from a kamma family. Our family has a lot of Reddy friends including a couple of intermarriages. And I cannot see a single difference in subcultures between the families. It is a disgrace our parents generation was so fucked up that they would pretend caste is no big deal to their American colleagues, but be caste centric in their homes. For TANA to split into TANA and ATA gives me all the clues I need to realize why Telugu is such an unknown world language. Does TANA do anything concrete to actually fund Telugu teaching in foreign colleges? How about getting Telugu producers to actually subtitle their DVDs in English so the next generation can understand. Maybe TANA can initiate a program on that. TANA, as far as I can tell is an insignificant organization. The guy who donated 1M to Clinton was for what purpose?
And the disorganized way the show is run, I wonder if they realize what they project becomes how they get respected by each successive generation in their family.
P.S.: What do the million other Telugu castes do? Do they just randomly pick and choose between TANA and ATA based on their schedules. FWIW, for outsiders to the Telugu community, there is some crossover between TANA and ATA attendees according to my relatives. So it’s not a real segregated affair.
It is a disgrace our parents generation was so fucked up that they would pretend caste is no big deal to their American colleagues, but be caste centric in their homes.
Cant agree more with you. People come all the way to US looking for better prospects in life, report into bosses with whom they pretend like they don’t know what discrimination is. Its just a irony that people don’t want to come to terms with what the bitter truth is. They just live in their own disguised world. As long as people from AP immigrate to US, orgs like TANA will have a good existence. Its both good and bad as we will have more people who share similar culture, but at the same time too much of caste centric stuff. I hope the coming generations will be devoid of the caste based crap.
I dont know why the guy raised 1 mil for clintons. Apparently, he or his related would run for office sooner or later. Their pick in the current race is Hillary.
It is a disgrace our parents generation was so fucked up that they would pretend caste is no big deal to their American colleagues, but be caste centric in their homes.
It is not just the parents but many generations before them too. Our parents just had to keep the momentum going. It isnt easy to beat a system that has evolved over 1000’s of years. And I dont think it is over with the last generation, dont we still have racial segregation in US? We work with all people very amicably and productively in the corporate world but still tend to mate within the race. Probably the second gen Indians in US find it easy to look over the caste system bcos they are forced to. There must be some critical population for any segregation to survive and the caste doesnt meet this critical population in US, so they expand their limits to include all desi population. Back in India we dont yet have the need to look beyond caste as each caste has a population greater than half of the worlds countries. So caste is thriving big time even in the current generation and will probably survive well beyond my existence. elections are fought and won based on the caste identity, lots of people conveniently fall in love with ppl belonging to the same caste (like americans falling in love with ppl from the same race). If you are on orkut, u can see many communities and people who are so obsessed with their caste that if they were born on the other side of Pakistan, they would have made good Taliban warriors.