Monthly Archives: September 2007

Dear President […]

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Well, you did it again, President […]

Your opponents are flummoxed, perhaps even a little humiliated after your latest political demonstration. They thought they had you in a tight spot, but you played your cards carefully, and you showed everyone you know how to use your authority. You used your people well. Yes, you say, you’re a little diminished now, but who wouldn’t be, after so many years in charge of a large and fractious country?

You certainly know the art of political self-preservation, and you have a talent for putting on a show. You have little interest in democracy, but you have always known how to use the media when it suits you, and the latest incident is no exception. Your opponents call you all kinds of names, but they have always underestimated your talent.

Of course, there are the courts. The lawyers and judges will come after you and your friends — they have been doing so already — and you may lose a few important allies along the way. Necessary sacrifices! And yet in the end, judges merely wear robes, and their words of condemnation do not carry force by themselves. (Judges can also easily be replaced, as you have shown.) Justice, in short, is merely a word, a debating point for powerless intellectuals like myself. Unqualified, absolute Power — that is where you deal.

It comes down to this: you have the support of the military, and the military is everything. The needs of security and the projection of strength carry great emotional force for most citizens. The fact that you have weakened your country’s democratic institutions does not particularly worry you. It is doubtful that your citizens will demand their return; democracy can always be sacrificed in the name of security, can it not? The simmering resentment of the masses, in all except extreme cases, can be managed, can it not? (That is what tear gas is for.)

You may win this round — indeed, by quieting your opponents, it is hard to see how it could be otherwise. You may or may not stay in power much longer yourself, but you have a good chance of seeing a friendly successor continue your policies. If you are as smart as you have seemed to be thus far, you will avoid the disgrace that ended the careers of many of your predecessors.

History, however, will still judge you. It will always be there, staring back at the waste of these years, casting an unblinking eye on the mess you’ve made.

[Which President, of which country?] Continue reading →

September 11: Everlasting be their memory.

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Six years ago, after the attacks, a Humvee rolled up to my apartment building, which was seven blocks from the White House; we were not allowed to leave, for our own safety.

Six years ago, we entered an age of terror which we are also not allowed to leave, ostensibly for our own safety.

Six years ago, 3,000 innocents boarded a plane or went to work, as if it were any ordinary day; they never returned home.

reflecting pool.jpg

At 8:46 a.m., the moment the first plane struck the North Tower, a bell was sounded, as it has for six years now, and the gathered masses bowed their heads. [NYT]

Let this be a space for remembrance, for respect and for grieving, if you need. Everyone who reads this blog lost something six years ago, even if they didn’t “directly” lose someone in New York, D.C. or Pennsylvania; this space is for your thoughts, on this appositely grim day. Continue reading →

Boss, you don’t have to be vellathu to be “cool”.

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Longtime Mutineer Desi Dude in Austin left a tip on our news tab, which immediately got my attention:

Rajnikath don’t need no Fair and Lovely…not when he has 25 CGI artists lighten his complexion frame-by-frame for a song-and-dance sequence in his latest sambaar-mix potboiler Sivaji.

Say what?! I neither know nor care about either Sivaji the fillum or its rotund ishtar, but following the link DDiA left took me here: Rajnikant is white.jpg

If you have watched Sivaji..You have observed the fair complexion of Rajinikanth in the song Oru koodai Sunlight.Everyone thought it was make-up that made Superstar Rajinikanth look like a European in that song, but the secret is something else. [Naachgaana]

Yindeed, the secret is far more time-consuming and technologically advanced than some pancake from Max Faktor.

The secret of actor Rajinikanth’s ‘white’ tan in the song sequence “Style” in the ‘Sivaji’ was not the result of any fairness cream or cosmetic touch-up but an entire year of Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) work by city-based firm Indian Arts.
The colour tone of one of the U.K.-based dancers in the background of the song was used to turn up the tone of the actor, frame by frame. The post-production for the 6,000 plus frames took a year to complete, as computer graphics artists from Indian Arts toiled to make Rajinikanth the “Vellai Tamizhan”. [The Hindu]

According to the article from our new tab, a total of 6,700 frames were painstakingly altered, to give the second-highest paid actor in Asia skin as pale as the complexion of one of his Gori backup dancers. Okay, that sentence was awkward as kundi. I’ll just quote something, instead, yes? Continue reading →

More fun than a highway full of monkeys.

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andar bandar.jpg

If it’s Monday, it must mean that it is time to caption a vaguely funny photograph. Yes? Yes.

Please be nice, children. Akka doesn’t know what was in the “Bohemian lemonade” she had at Subcontinental Drift last night, and now her head hurts, despite several liters of water and two rapid-release tylenol. Shhhh. Be good. Caption quietly. And if you can hit the lightswitch on your way out, I’d be sooo grateful. 😉

Regarding the picture, which I ganked from the BBC…read on:

On the Jammu-Srinagar highway in India people feeding the local monkeys has become a real problem. The animals now swarm towards vehicles, causing many road accidents.

Previous editions of captioning fun: ein, zwei, drei, vier, funf, sex…yes, I know I counted in German last time, but I’m easily amused by the fact that the word for six, “sechs”, sounds like…well, you know. That and I’m not sure we decided what the proper spelling of “ein/eins” is. Yenjoy! Continue reading →

… finish last

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I’ve known for a while that India does poorly in the Olympics, but I had never realized exactly how poorly:

The world’s second most populous nation … ranks dead last worldwide in the number of Olympic medals won per capita. Paraguay, Niger and Iraq have done better. [Link]

This statistic seems to only count countries that have won at least one medal, which leaves India better off than countries without medals, but that’s slim consolation.

Now it may be unfair to compare medals on a per capita basis since that pits India against countries much smaller in population size and Olympic winnings are hard to scale up. However, even if you look at the two largest countries in the world, China has won over 100 times as many medals as India in the past few decades:

Since 1984, when China rejoined the Olympic Games after decades of isolation, the Asian superpower has won 320 medals. India, its political and economic rival, has won three… [Link]

And in a century of Olympics, India has won just 16 medals (fewer than that other nation of a billion, China, typically wins at a single [sic] Games) and only eight in the last 50 years. [Link]

But, you object, China has a communist-era olympic medal factory which even tries to breed athletes. Fair enough, but even amongst Commonwealth countries in general, India lags so far behind that the officials of the Commonwealth Games have scolded India for not doing enough to avoid embarrassment when it next hosts the games in 2010 [Link]. No matter how you cut it, India is at the bottom of sporting countries worldwide.

It is true that India does better in some sports than in others, but India’s best sports all require little physical exertion:

“India is doing very well in chess. And pretty well at cue sports like billiards and snooker. And for the past couple of years, Indian golfers have done very well on the Asian circuit…” [Link]
Continue reading →

WSJ On Bobby Jindal

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The WSJ has an interesting (and somewhat fawning) interview piece with Bobby Jindal, desi front-runner in the Louisiana Governor’s race. The now standard intro on Jindal lauds his technocratic skills –

WSJ’s famous thumbprint pix are so last century. Now a watercolor portrait signals you’ve made it.

Mr. Jindal, 36, is an affable policy wonk with a quick mind and a fascination with the details of governance. Before our interview, an aide emailed me a series of press releases announcing his 28-point anticrime agenda, his 31-point anticorruption agenda and his 25-point agenda to curb spending.

And significant time is spent on his wonkish roots, which include a tale familiar to many ABCD’s –

…In high school, Bobby aspired to be a doctor. But he sought out a well-rounded education, and this eventually led to a change in plans. As an undergraduate, he served an internship in the office of Rep. Jim McCrery, a Shreveport Republican. He earned a master’s in political theory, then went to work as a health-care consultant at McKinsey & Co. While there, he read an article in the Washington Post about Louisiana’s troubled health-care system. “It seemed to me that they were going to make a bad problem worse. They were going to have more government-run health care, more spending. So I wrote up an analysis of what I thought they should do.”

It was 1995, and Republican Mike Foster had just been elected governor. Rep. McCrery and then-Sen. John Breaux were impressed with Mr. Jindal’s report and recommended him to Mr. Foster’s transition team. Eventually he met the governor-elect, who proclaimed Mr. Jindal a “genius” and offered him the top job in the state’s Health and Hospitals Department. He was 24. “I realized: ‘Well, I guess I’m not going to medical school anymore.’ “

The remainder of the piece goes into more detail on the origins of Jindal’s politics, religion, Louisiana’s political & economic history, and perhaps most importantly, his program for post-Katrina Louisiana. An interesting read indeed.

Continue reading →

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The Subcontinental and the Furious: D.C. Drift

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Is it already that time again? As if my weekend couldn’t get any better, Subcontinental Drift, DC’s singular South Asian music/dance/open mic night, is back this Sunday.

If Subcontinental Drift sounds familiar, it’s because I wrote about this rapture on SM before, here. If you live in DC, you are fortunate that your comrades in browndom have come together to create such a fantastic event; support their considerable efforts, come out and play, you’ll be thrilled you did.

For Vinay.jpg

This Sunday night a recently-hatched event is descending again on the district. If you’ve been before, you know it is not to be missed; if you haven’t, don’t miss it. It was born early in 2007 when a handful of the District’s desis (Mona, Munish, Nabeel, Nina, Sophie, Surabhi & Vishal) graciously took it upon themselves to fill an artistic void in our community. Thus was born Subcontinental Drift: a creative experiment in open space(s) where artists, poets, songwriters, lyricists & others can share and showcase their talents with the local South Asian/South Asian American diaspora.
Join us this weekend. Observe, absorb, listen, learn, encounter, experience, perform (really, you can – email subdriftdc@gmail.com)! Indulge. [quoted from an awesome email]

Every edition of SD is precious, but this one is more so– Seema Patel, a.k.a. SM commenter “SP”, a.k.a. one of the forces behind Team Vinay (and the heart of their DC operations) is leaving the right coast to go home. Join me, Sunday, as I gnash my teeth at our misfortune. Baltimore/D.C.’s loss is California’s gain. Sigh.

Subcontinental Drift
Sunday, September 9, 2007
6 PM – 11 PM – (Cost: Free)
Bohemian Caverns
2001 11th St. NW
Washington, D.C.
Metro: Green + Yellow- U Street station

It wasn’t just standing room only, last time– we took over the street. This event, let’s do the same. Finish your Art…there are kids starving in cities with less Desis. Continue reading →

Betting on Brown for the Booker?

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Literary bettors rejoice for the shortlist for the 2007 (Man) Booker prize is out. Last year, Kiran Desai won for Inheritance of Loss. This year there are two brown authors, both expats like Desai, on the shortlist: Mohsin Hamid for The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Indra Sinha for Animal’s People.

My book is not recommended in-flight reading

The authors on the shortlist this year are unusual. The only big-name author on the list is Ian McEwan, who is on the shortlist for the fifth time (he has won once before). His book On Chesil Beach is less than 200 pages, and therefore would usually have been considered a novella, which would not have been eligible. No other big name author even made the longlist:

When the Man Booker longlist was announced last August, pundits were somewhat surprised that many of the year’s biggest authors – Sebastian Faulks, J.M. Coetzee, Michael Ondaatje – were left off. [Link]

The remaining four books have sold an average of less than one thousand copies a piece in the UK, so they are hardly popular favorites. Other than On Chesil Beach, The Reluctant Fundamentalist has sold the most copies, with 1,519 books moved, and Animal’s People has sold the least, with only 231 copies sold in the UK, despite the sales boost from longlisting it. [Link]

I once translated the Kama Sutra

Both of the desi authors wrote books anchored in current / historical events that were major international tragedies:

The Reluctant Fundamentalist … explores the conflict experienced by a young Muslim who has been educated in the US, worked on Wall Street and fallen in love with an American woman, who finds himself treated with suspicion in the aftermath of 9/11. [Link]

Animal’s People … draws on the real-life events surrounding the Bhopal chemical plant explosion, seen through the eyes of Animal, a boy whose spine was twisted and so must walk on all fours. When an American, Ellie Barber, arrives to seek justice for the victims, he investigates her motives. [Link]

Continue reading →

Anjay of the Flies

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Do you know which Indian dude’s debut is the most hotly anticipated one of this Fall’s television line-up? No, it isn’t Sendhil “I can’t figure out how to speak in an Indian accent even though I’m Indian” Ramamurthy of Heroes. Nor is it Naveen “torture solves everything” Andrews of Lost. The dude that South Asian Americans have their collective eyes on is 12-year-old Anjay Ajodha of Texas. The question is, can he succeed in wresting the reigns of power away from the simpletons within a newly created society known simply as Kid Nation?

40 Kids have 40 days to build a brave new world without adults to help or hinder their efforts. Can they do it? These Kids, ages 8-15, will turn a ghost town into their new home. They will cook their own meals, clean their own outhouses, haul their own water and even run their own businesses including the old town saloon (root beer only). Through it all, they’ll cope with regular childhood emotions and situations: homesickness, peer pressure and the urge to break every rule they’ve ever known.

Will they stick it out? In the end, will these Kids prove to everyone, including their parents, they have the vision to build a better world than the pioneers who came before them? And just as importantly, will they come together as a cohesive unit, or will they abandon all responsibility and succumb to the childhood temptations that lead to round-the-clock chaos? Don’t miss this intriguing series. [Link]

SM readers, let me be blunt. Anjay is the best chance we currently have to demonstrate to the American public how utopian our society might become if super smart desi people were in charge of everything. The governor’s mansion in Louisiana just won’t cut it. More people will tune in to Kid Nation than will pay attention to Louisiana. The question on all our minds is, “will a group of young children between ages 8-15 allow a kid (that reminds us a lot of ourselves at 12) lead the way when left on their own?” Just look at Anjay’s answers to some questions CBS posed. I dare anyone to find more concise and honest answers in any recent Presidential debate:

Who have been some of the best U.S. presidents, and why?
George Washington – he managed to lead a young nation, and headed the conventions to develop the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. Abraham Lincoln – he abolished slavery, and led the nation through the Civil War. Franklin D. Roosevelt – he established the New Deal which got the economy working during the Great Depression and instilled confidence in citizens during his fireside chats.

Who have been some of the worst U.S. presidents, and why?
The US president that comes to mind, due to recent events, is George W. Bush, because I don’t agree with the way he is handling the Iraq war. [Link]

Also, is Anjay Libertarian? And does he know more about government than Fred Thompson?

If you had the power to change one or two things about our country right now, what would it be?
I would create a law that eliminates all budget earmarks – useless bits of spending. If earmarks are eliminated, approximately 78% of the US budget will be freed up to be utilized in areas where there is a more urgent need, such as the national deficit. I would also eliminate paid lobbying in an effort to give all parties involved in a dispute an equal voice. [Link]

Holy crap. 78%? Draft Anjay (or the parents that helped him write this stuff).

Continue reading →

A Potpourri of NPR

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moraygan.jpg Not that you care, but I almost named this post A Salmagundi of NPR. However, I’m smitten with the way some Desis say “potpourri”, so I couldn’t resist the allure of that word. Oh, how do they say it? Like so: pottu-puri

None of these stories feels substantial enough to merit their own post; what does feel significant is perking up FOUR times during Morning Edition, because there are four different sepia-colored stories! That’s almost a fifth of the program! Here is what I (and undoubtedly fellow NPR-phile-Abhi, as well) heard:

1) Moray Eels are toothy!

Scientists in California have reported that Moray eels have a set of teeth within a second set of jaws, called the pharyngeal jaws, that help them capture their prey.
Once the Moray eel secures its prey with its first set of jaws, the pharyngeal jaws reach up from its throat, grabbing and pulling the prey down through its esophagus.

One of you already has an itchy-trigger-comment finger, I know it, so stop it– the brown angle is a-comin’…

Rita Mehta is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California Davis who studies the evolution of diversity in eel feeding behavior.

Like, whoa. Not only is there a female scientist to celebrate, this has to do with my alma mater as well! w00t Davis! We study Moray Eels!

“What we discovered is that the pharyngeal jaws of Moray’s have the greatest mobility of any pharyngeal jaws ever documented,” Mehta says.

Continue reading →