I’m waiting in line at the “secret” coffee place I mentioned in a post once, on the phone with one of my closest friends.
“How are you? How’s the ankle?â€, he asks.
“Blue and mediocre.â€
“Wait, WHAT?â€
“Well, I’m wearing a blue dress and it still hurts. Actually, I officially sound like an Ammachi/Naniji now, because my hip hurts constantly. Apparently, three months of limping will do that to you!â€
“Smartypants, here I was worried you were ‘blue’ as in sad.â€
“Tiny bit. Always am around the holidays.â€
“Are you going home for Thanksgiving?â€
“No. Mom’s traveling, no one’s there.â€
“What timing for a trip!â€
“Well…we never really celebrated the holiday. My parents had that typical snarky comeback, you know, ‘only Americans would need a special day to be thankful for everything. Hmmph! We’re thankful daily!’…like that. So it was just a regular day at our house…with slightly different TV programs.â€
“So you have not had this…tofurkey you sent me, on Facebook?â€
“No. I don’t eat tofu.â€
“You sound sad.â€
“I guess I am, a little bit. Everyone’s rushing off with a suitcase and while I don’t really want to travel THIS week, it reminds me that they’re going to be with their family, and that does make me miss home. This is my first Thanksgiving when I’m not going anywhere. It’s a little depressing.â€
“Well, now you know what a FOB feels like.â€
Hey, I went to the American School in Delhi and while I never dressed up as anything but Pitti Sing in The Mikado (bad enough, esp as the mother of the Japanese girl in our class had us comeover one morning to be measured for kimono on the namuna they gave the darzi to make everybody costumes, and we did a water ballet of the Ramayana) I do remember cutting and tearing out big collage Pilgrims and Injuns and turkeys each November to decorate the plate glass, one big happy family.
Camile brings up the other thing– out on the Left Coast I too have friend who is part Sioux. I went to the big Pow-Wow at Stanford last year, and am going to one here in NYC at the Museum of the American Indian (preferred name, I gather) which is all the way down at Bowling Green. It is a very grand and deeply sad museum. There are often contemporary art exhibitions there by AI artists.
sorry, had us come over one morning to be measured for kimonos to be made on the namuna– I’m going blind from working at my screen all hours.
Would any DBD’s/FOB’s like to join me, on this special day, in offering America our heartfelt thanks for the following bounties? 1. For giving us a first-rate college education, at least compared to what we would have received at most desi institutions. 2. For allowing us to develop our professional skills and careers relatively unencumbered by corruption, favoritism, casteism, and most other “isms.” 3. For giving us an economic environment where an FOB can advance from a Corolla to a Lexus in five short years. 4. For teaching us certain “western” values such as equality, greater acceptance of alternate lifestyles and beliefs, stronger work ethics, self-reliance, and a host of others. 5. And finally, for giving us the opportunity to produce a generation of desis who have the brains and sensibility to write SM, because at your age, we sure as heck couldn’t have written (thought) like this.
I know gratitude towards America does not come easy to the highly educated, mostly mainstreamed DBD’s, and in my younger, more arrogant days, I, too, used to believe that I made the difference, not the country. But then you compare yourself to your peers back in the old country, and you realize that their aspirations and hard work weren’t any less than yours. The conditions were.
So I lift my single-malt to America and thank the natives for sharing their bounty with an Indian.
I don’t know Floridian, I’ll go with the nifty education, and a bunch of things you’ve left out, like the water supply, modern dance, great dentists and Silicon Vallry, but I’ve encountered the corruption of the matrimonial courts here, and especially of the attorneys, and so my vision is blurred and even bloodshot, both literally and figuratively. Also, plenty of my compadres back in Desh are doing fine, in fact doing things with gusto, and without.
Word
hey, muhammed ali is on counterpunch…now that makes sense.
hindrance, and hey
that’s not funny.
I’m not making light of your personal situation, but are you seriously comparing the Indian justice system with the American ?
floridian, i lift my bourban towards your single malt. Corolla to a Lexus in five short years…nice.
159 · Manju on November 23, 2007 02:40 PM · Direct link “floridian, i lift my bourban towards your single malt.”
Maker’s Mark or Daniels?
The Corolla-Lexus reference was just a figure of speech.
For upper middle class divorce, yes, it’s very very bad– read Karen Winner’s Divorced from Justice— if only you knew what goes on, esp in NYC….
something to be thankful for if the DBD then immediately discards the Lexus for a last-gen Supra Turbo.
Add a meantime to that toast.
Why are you people drinking hard liquor at three in the afternoon? It’s about a harvest, you should at least be drinking Napa Valley Brut.
For upper middle class divorce, yes, it’s very very bad– read Karen Winner’s Divorced from Justice– if only you knew what goes on, esp in NYC….
Can you elaborate? How exactly is the system corrupt? The Judges and Clerks are being bribed?
162 · muralimannered on November 23, 2007 02:50 PM · Direct link “Add a meantime to that toast.”
If the stuff is half as delicious as its ad copy, I will give it a swig.
Camille@ 150: “I also think the method behind how public school students are taught history (in general) is deeply problematic…”
As others before you have posted, I think this is spot on. The number of people I know who’ve been through school here that did have to engage in dumbed-down and sugarcoated, spectacles on Thanksgiving (among other holidays) far outnumber those who did not, and systemically speaking, the former is clearly mainstream. I personally feel it is completely nonsensical and without any positives that could not be gained from alternative methods.
Here are some things people here might find a bit interesting. As a desi, I’ve been ruminating a bit on the connections between subcontinental “Indians” (pre-partition), and native Americans/”Indians”. It seems that there are several historical connections of which I was previously unaware. For example, the first S. Asian immigrants to the US were Punjabi farmers who settled in California. Because of anti-miscegenation laws which prevented them from marrying other groups considered “white” at the time, and because many of them were men who wanted to start families, many married Chicano or other native American women and actually started communities together. If you go to Cali today, I’m told there are still remnants of this lost part of history in the form of the descendents of these small communities who still practice a mixture of their subcontinental and their native American culture, and live and farm on the land today.
Another interesting connection is that of the name “indian.” Because Columbus and others were looking for India when they set sail, the term got tacked onto the native peoples of this continent. The frightening atrocities commited on those people by the Europeans makes me wonder just how the situation would have turned out if they had actually made it to India instead. I definitely don’t believe it would have been the same and that subcontinental people would have been treated in exactly the same way, and I also don’t wish to make it seem like the native Americans suffered instead of the s. Asians, but I do feel that in some sense we have a certain obligation to mourn the injustices heaped upon the various native people (not that anyone shouldn’t), as a strange sort of historical connection was forged through those colonial expeditions. Finally, I’ve found that the events in the Americas actually did have a small influence on European expeditions to s. Asia in a few different ways, but I don’t have all the sources in front of me so I won’t pretend to be able to form a coherent explanation of that.
Ultimately, I think there are a few connections that desis have to both this holiday and to the associated history. Sorry for being so long-winded!
MM, but JD single barrel is really something.
and great use of the indian brands…i still have a soft spot for johnny walker red.
There are many stellar judges,viz., I think if it weren’t for the fourteen good ones I had, I’d have been living under a bridge long ago, with my children.The lawyers are without exception a very corrupt bunch, will invoice you tens of thousands for work they never did, and pass money from richer clients into judges election funds to sway them, which works with some. Then there’s the whole nother game going on with shrinks, but I never had that happen to me because I avoid them like the plague. But one bad-apple judge can really mess up your life for months or years. Yes, there are overall logistical problems too, no enforcement of enforceable court orders, settlements very far wide of statute … since matrimonial is in state court, anyone can just keep their money in another state to escape juriadiction. It’s crazy. I tell you, Karen Winner tells it better.
The lawyers are without exception a very corrupt bunch, will invoice you tens of thousands for work they never did, and pass money from richer clients into judges election funds to sway them, which works with some.
Wow! Without exception! Guess who works for $14 – $20 an hour with legal aid? I think you are so off the mark here that it makes no sense to even contradict you.
Manju on November 23, 2007 03:07 PM · Direct link “i still have a soft spot for johnny walker red.”
Love you for confessing to Red. It is one of my favorite brands,too, though desi customs dictate serving Black or else I would be the laughing stock of the diaspora. Black, and Chivas Regal before that, have that blandness that the real scotch connoisseur in me absolutely despises. So I drink Red a lot (well, not a lot of it in any one sitting) and drink single-malt only the Dow is up, or it’s my birthday, or our anniversary, or Thanksgiving, etc.
No more liquor commentary from me!
I think she forgot to add the ‘divorce’ qualifier to the ‘corrupt bunch’ statement.
I am starting an ambulance-chasing/divorcee-screwing uber-firm, however, and I would love to have some legal-aid warriors on board. Individuals still retaining their souls need not apply.
and yes, there was a clerk at 60 Centre Street until a few years ago (he was found out) who would put forward divorce decrees for a particular judge for for her signature for a fee, and of course the signature would cut off all negotiations. But that is minoe, althogh there must be more of him.
What I give thanks for is Stephen Colbert, Sheri Oteri and my kids.
there are all sorts of odd discrepancies in the way history is taught. i grew up mostly in america very much aware of slavery and the holocaust, but much less so re the native americans. i guess i grew up in a moderately progressive school, as malcom x’s autobio was taught early in high school and maos cultural revolution was somewhat contextualized w/i the greater good, but stalinism as not.
the ukrainin famine however was never mentioned but it may not have been completely recognized fact at the time. and somehow this whole armenian genocide thing was hidden from me until a few months back. guess the turkeys got their revenge.
I said upper middle class divorce.
Al Chutiya, muralimannerd is right I mean the eleanor alters and such of this world, eat you out of house and home, I’m talking fees now $600 an hour for doing nothing,but that;s th eleast of it, you should see what they do to make you liquidate to get their paws on what you thought belonged to you and your spouse. I represented myself for months at a time to get anything done correctly on motion,
Thats a great line. and Amen to what you said in #153.
Amrita: I have represented divorce clients before (though thats not my area of practice) and I have done some work on child support cases as well plus I know a lot of attorneys who practice in this area. I cant speak for NYC but divorce attorneys are not anymore corrupt than any other attorneys. I think a lot of divorce clients get frustated (understandbly so) when the Courts dont give them what they want and they blame the attorneys, judges and the system.
I am well aware of Karen Winner’s arguments. She does have a few good points (I dont agree with her that the Family law is loaded against women) The US legal system is adversarial and that is the nature of the beast.
What you kids do, with a fluffy, semi-open thread…
Thanks, Floridian, for your comment.
I suggest that everyone read “The Divorce of Pocahantus and John Rolfe: Thanksgiving….Not !” by Chomsky,Zinn and Arundhati Roy. That will school you star spangled desis…
Would any DBD’s/FOB’s like to join me, on this special day, in offering America our heartfelt thanks for the following bounties? 1. For giving us a first-rate college education, at least compared to what we would have received at most desi institutions. 2. For allowing us to develop our professional skills and careers relatively unencumbered by corruption, favoritism, casteism, and most other “isms.” 3. For giving us an economic environment where an FOB can advance from a Corolla to a Lexus in five short years. 4. For teaching us certain “western” values such as equality, greater acceptance of alternate lifestyles and beliefs, stronger work ethics, self-reliance, and a host of others. 5. And finally, for giving us the opportunity to produce a generation of desis who have the brains and sensibility to write SM, because at your age, we sure as heck couldn’t have written (thought) like this. I know gratitude towards America does not come easy to the highly educated, mostly mainstreamed DBD’s, and in my younger, more arrogant days, I, too, used to believe that I made the difference, not the country. But then you compare yourself to your peers back in the old country, and you realize that their aspirations and hard work weren’t any less than yours. The conditions were.
So I lift my single-malt to America and thank the natives for sharing their bounty with an Indian.
Best comment ever on Sepia Mutiny.
The courts saved me more than once or twice, both trial court and appellate division when the other side was busy taking ridiculous appeals. But I only got the facts before the court when I represented myself, Let’s have this chat elsewhere.
louiecupher, that sounds like my kind of book.
BWAHAHAHAHA!
floridian, nice comment. but i have a quibble about at least two of the “western” values you mentioned (and i suspect some other non-western cultures might have quibbles about some of the other values you mentioned). but in my opinion “stronger work ethics, self-reliance” are not exclusively western/western-invented by any stretch of the imagination. thanks.:)
I don’t know what the Indian family court system is like (the necessity of having different laws based on parties’ religion must make it more complicated than the U.S. version), but I’ll put the American justice system over the Indian one for ensuring that the most despised accused criminals get representation.
Best comment ever on SM by Floridian.
I would like to add also chance to work with more intelligent peoples as one of the benfits that the USA give us. Something I cannot get in India.
Why would you choose to say something so degrading in a house full of Indians?? Really, I’m speechless.
Anyway, Floridian thank you so much for your comment it made me remember to count my blessings!
Floridian, I raise my glass of Talisker to you and sentiments. Amen.
anantarupa, it’s a troll – they shouldn’t be fed. Elephants keep walking, unperturbed by barking dogs.
I (as a DBD) decline your offer after giving a serious thought. Though a couple of your points are valid, others are not. They are based on inaccurate generalisations.
Anyways, belated “Happy Thanksgiving”.
floridian,
Its good to show gratitude, etc. but one should also remember that what the America did to you is not generosity, as you make it sound. They just paid you for the job you took up. During this process, I am confident that no American ever sacrificed personal gain for all this good that happened to you. You just happened to be a part of their optimization process or workforce needs. Thinking that its their generosity is deluding oneself into an imaginary world.
More importantly while all your points do strike me as too idealistic and a bit odd, I am surprised you forgot the most important thing to be thankful to the US for – and something which not just you or americans, but everyone on this earth should thank the United States for (well, more precisely, thank the large body of scientists and intellectuals in the US – both foreigners and americans) for playing such a prime role in most aspects of scientific/technological progress the world has made from the mid 90’s till now. Thats the core. I don’t think there was anything particularly remarkable about the US apart from this aspect. (oh, that and its beautiful landscapes :P)
corrections: 1) “the america” – “the US” 2) mid 90’s —- mid 19th century.
Got a little more to add – of course, in comparison to India on an average, its obvious that you do get paid a lot more, have a nicer house, better cars, have much better roads, seasons change colors, places are far less crowded, all buildings are temperature controlled, etc. etc. with some minor but eventually manageable negative points like a pretty bad public transport, etc.
But really, please reserve your thanks to the scientists. Attributing all the credit to the “work ethic and self reliance” of the general US workforce is being too idealistic. I don’t think the situation would change at all if you replace the general workforce with any other set of people. Take away the scientists and the US is basically toast.
well, i didnt mean to sound that way. Take that sentence back.
So scientific progress was made only after mid 90’s ??? Thats just nuts.
Is that why so many Indians come up with their best ideas in India??
Dude, I corrected the typo to mid 19th century. (-_-) And I meant in this context, the US taking over leadership of scientific progress.
Maybe I’m being a little slow, but I dont understand how this is a logical response to what you highlighted in my comment.
But the Indians in the house are mostly Indian-Americans, or Indian-Brits or other such hyphenated Indians, so they would also fall within the “intelligent” category, thus there is no insult intended to the people in this house.
What the poster is getting at is that you will not find as many educated people in India as you will find in America because a majority of the citizens of India cannot afford a good, decent, pro-longed education. If they could then you may find even more percentage of intelligent people in India than in USA.
“If they could then you may find even more percentage of intelligent people in India than in USA.”
a lack of formal education and intelligence are not mutually exclusive and one (and that too, how do you define intelligent?) does not necessarily flow from the other. education is important, but don’t dismiss all uneducated people as unintelligent or equate all educated people to intelligent people.
Muralimannered, you grew up in an ashram in Virginia? What was the name?
True. I also wanted to add that “awareness” more than “education” makes someone “intelligent” in my opinion. Oftentimes, even a highly educated person can be “unaware” of many issues and subtleties of life, especially if they are raised in a closed environment or culture. Travel and exposure to ideas you were not raised with often expands the mind and one’s outlook. But again, if you are poor and unexposed, how “open-minded” can you be? Not to equate povertry with stupidity or vice versa, but we are often limited to what we are exposed to.
Let’s keep a Thanksgiving thread thoughtful and thankful and positive. Why can’t we have a holiday from the usual arguing? I complimented Floridian because I liked his comment and hoped it would set an example for others to do the same. Instead, you’re picking apart what he said.
What are you thankful for?
I’m thankful for all the love in my life. For all the loving people. For my health. For my wealth. For my life partner who is giving me a second and better chance at creating an ideal and dynamic relationship full of love, happiness, acceptance and gratitude!
I am thankful. I am.