Barack Obama dropped a “bombshell” today, something not mentioned in either of his two books:

According to his campaign staff, Mr. Obama visited Pakistan in 1981, on the way back from Indonesia, where his mother and half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, were living. He spent “about three weeks” there, Mr. Obama’s press secretary, Bill Burton, said, staying in Karachi with the family of a college friend, Mohammed Hasan Chandoo, but also traveling to Hyderabad, in India. [Link]

Whoa. He went to Karachi and probably had Hyderabadi biryani on the same college trip over 25 years ago! If he is elected President might not this learning experience alone help him bridge the divide between the South Asian nations? Remember when he said he was appalled that one of his staffers wrote the D-Punjab memo? At the time he stated an affinity for the South Asian community because his college roommate was desi. Turns out BO rolled at least three deep in his younger days:

In “Dreams from My Father,” he talks of having a Pakistani roommate when he moved to New York, a man he calls Sadik who “had overstayed his tourist visa and now made a living in New York’s high-turnover, illegal immigrant work force, waiting on tables…”

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p>During his years at Occidental College, Mr. Obama also befriended Wahid Hamid, a fellow student who was an immigrant from Pakistan and traveled with Mr. Obama there, the Obama campaign said. Mr. Hamid is now a vice president at Pepsico in New York, and according to public records, has donated the maximum $2,300 to the Obama campaign and is listed as a fund-raiser for it.

Mr. Chandoo is now a self-employed financial consultant, living in Armonk, N.Y. He has also donated the maximum, $2,300, to Mr. Obama’s primary campaign and an additional $309 for the general election, campaign finance records show. [Link]

Clinton (D-Punjab) loves India and Indian food, but as far as I know, on a day-to-day basis she only runs one deep. And McCain? I don’t know if he has any desi friends but his daughter is desi, so I guess that also counts as one deep. All this is important because having desi friends means that you might understand aspects of foreign policy better, as Obama explained today:

“I knew what Sunni and Shia was before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” he said. [Link]

He might have a point. We all know that W. doesn’t have a desi posse and, as you’d expect, he didn’t know what a Sunni or Shia was. Bottom line: Having South Asian American friends = good. That is something both parties should be able to agree on.