Monthly Archives: April 2008

“Satyagraha,” by Phillip Glass, at the Met Opera House

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The New York Times has a behind-the-scenes look at a new version of Phillip Glass’s modernist opera, “Satyagraha,” which is playing at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York until May 1. There is also a companion video piece, which I could watch but not listen to from the computer I’m working on this morning.

The libretto uses the Bhagavad-Gita as a source, and the opera as a whole aims to index some of the key events in Gandhi’s early political awakening in South Africa with the plot and text of the Gita. That alone might be a little confusing, since the central question facing Arjuna in the Gita, as most readers will know, is whether or not to fight — and Gandhi’s signature political contribution (“Satyagraha”) is the philosophy of non-violent resistance. The choice could of course be defended depending on your interpretation of the Gita, and indeed, I gather that Gandhi did his own translation — with commentary — of the Bhagavad-Gita in 1924. I haven’t read Gandhi’s version, though I should note that it has recently been re-published as a volume called Bhagavad-Gita According to Gandhi.

The current interpretation of Glass’s work adds some new elements, including a strong focus on newsprint and newspaper culture as a theme in Gandhi’s story (that at least seems dead-on). There are also towering puppets, made of “newspaper, fiberglass kite poles, light cotton cloth and lots of latex glue,” which symbolize historical figures from Gandhi’s past (Tolstoy), present, and future (MLK).

It seems like an interesting work, though I have to admit I’m not sure I personally would enjoy it. (And most tickets under $100 have already been sold out, so it’s not something where a person would go casually…) Has anyone seen this? Is anyone planning to? Continue reading →

I went to Pakistan with my roommate

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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…”

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.

Continue reading →

Don’t let your desi mom read this post

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Especially if you are a smart, attractive, single desi woman. Seriously. This isn’t about desi women in particular but you’ll see how this information could be used for evil especially by desi parents. I know some of you forward posts to your parents but don’t do it with this one. You’ve been warned. NSFP=Not Safe for Parents.

Ok, now that I’ve cleared my conscience let’s get to the article at hand shall we? Slate.com recently published, The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox, which makes use of game theory to explain why the best women often end up single and alone if they wait “too long” to get married. We’ll save judgement for the end:

The shortage of appealing men is a century-plus-old commonplace of the society melodrama. The shortage–or–more exactly, the perception of a shortage–becomes evident as you hit your late 20s and more acute as you wander into the 30s. Some men explain their social fortune by believing they’ve become more attractive with age; many women prefer the far likelier explanation that male faults have become easier to overlook.

The problem of the eligible bachelor is one of the great riddles of social life. Shouldn’t there be about as many highly eligible and appealing men as there are attractive, eligible women?…

Actually, no–and here’s why. Consider the classic version of the marriage proposal: A woman makes it known that she is open to a proposal, the man proposes, and the woman chooses to say yes or no. The structure of the proposal is not, “I choose you.” It is, “Will you choose me?” A woman chooses to receive the question and chooses again once the question is asked. [Link]

So what have we learned so far? Despite the fact that men usually propose, it is the woman that typically dictates if and when a marriage will occur. In a free and modern society (meaning no forced or pressured marriages) the real power rests with the woman. Let’s go on then:

You can think of this traditional concept of the search for marriage partners as a kind of an auction. In this auction, some women will be more confident of their prospects, others less so.In game-theory terms, you would call the first group “strong bidders” and the second “weak bidders.” Your first thought might be that the “strong bidders”–women who (whether because of looks, social ability, or any other reason) are conventionally deemed more of a catch–would consistently win this kind of auction.

But this is not true. In fact, game theory predicts, and empirical studies of auctions bear out, that auctions will often be won by “weak” bidders, who know that they can be outbid and so bid more aggressively, while the “strong” bidders will hold out for a really great deal. [Link]

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Here’s to Closer Ties Between India and Africa

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Representatives from 14 African nations were in New Delhi for the first-ever India-Africa summit, which just ended today. (The India-Africa Summit follows closely on the heels of the China-Africa summit of November 2006.)

indiaafrica.jpg Attendees signed off on the Delhi Declaration and the Africa-India Framework for Cooperation, pledging cooperation in the areas of energy, terrorism, climate change and UN Reforms. An informal and equally important outcome: India is looking to play a far more prominent role in Africa’s economic development than China in coming years.

My uncle Gobind is a retired World Bank developmental economist who has served as economic adviser to the government of Ghana. I asked him to share his thoughts on this historic summit.

“While India is less prominent than China in Africa today, both in trade and investments and aid,” he said, “it is more respected than China because of its image, its democracy, its presence in education, industry– especially pharmaceuticals and railways, and IT. There is growing interest in Africa in India, but it is not yet a hot issue, except for mining companies and the new private oil companies like Reliance. India is currently big in Sudan, DRC, Nigeria, Zambia and S. Africa. But it’s increasing its presence everywhere.”

The Emerging Economy report, released yesterday, underlined the role of Indian corporations in driving new technology usage in Africa. From the Earth Times [full story link]:

Chinese corporations have made significant investments in Africa over the past decade. For example, China’s Civil Engineering Construction Corporation is building the $8.3 billion railroad linking Lagos and Kano. However, the Report also points out that Indian entrepreneurs have long enjoyed trading relations in Africa, particularly along the continent’s east coast, running from Kenya down to the tip of South Africa. In the early part of the 20th century Indian engineering and consumer brands were considered as reliable as those coming from Europe. Bilateral trade between India and Africa increased from less than US$ 1 billion in 1991 to over US$ 9 billion in 2005. Today, the Government of India is aiming to achieve a trade turnover of US$ 500 billion by 2010.

My grandfather might be one of those Indian entrepreneurs referred to above. In the 1930s, Dada came to West Africa as apprentice to an Indian trading company. He ended up placing his roots down in Ghana where he opened a chain of movie theatres and imported movies from India and China for a rural audience. Continue reading →

Amit Singh Sits Down With the Mutiny

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p>Election 08: The Mutiny Inquires and the Candidates Respond. Well, one of them anyway .

Last month, we profiled Amit Singh who’s running for a congressional seat representing Virginia’s 8th district. To get there, he’s first fighting for the GOP nomination against Mark Ellmore on June 10th. The winner of that race will in turn do battle against long serving Democratic incumbent, Jim Moran in November.

Amit recently (and quite graciously) took some time out of his busy campaign and day job to answer some questions via email. The Q&A is below the fold and spans the gamut from his positions, to why he’s a Republican, to his observations on Desi-American politics, down to some of his thoughts on controversial national issues like illegal aliens and Iraq.

In addition to answering our questions, Amit also pointed me at a few of his other, recent interviews including this video and some updates on his website including a WaPo profile. For example, he recently took a position similar to McCain in pledging to avoid the widespread practice of earmarks – a cornerstone of pork barrel politics, and particularly so at the local congressional district level.

His video interview on Darshan reveals him to be a well spoken, thoughtful individual in RealTime and he gives us some tantalizing clues about his “intelligence community” job –

“the rest of the world is adopting free market principles… including India and China and the United States seems to be going in the opposite direction.”

“we have a very young district, I myself am 33 and our average voter is 32”

“my niche is building prototypes for the intelligence community… we do a lot of work for soldiers that are deploying out to Iraq and Afghanistan that have an evolving threat. IEDs, for example, are consistently changing and maturing so we have to stay ahead of the game…”

– Amit Singh on DarhsanTV.com

Continue reading →

Get up, Stand up TONIGHT in SF

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I heart our readers. I do:

Anna,
Hi I live in SF, and was planning on attending the rally tomorrow voicing concerns around China’s various human rights abuses.
I believe you live in SF? In any case are you aware of a Mutineer Team gathering to protest tomorrow?

For Tibet.png

Dear Mutineer,

I actually live in Washington, D.C. (that’s why Chocolate City gets all the meetups), but you aren’t the only one who thought otherwise; I frequently receive emails, FB messages, and tweets from people who think I still live in Baghdad by the bay. 🙂

Since I am 3,ooo miles away from tomorrow’s action (and since I haven’t been well enough to blog), at this point, I am unaware of any organized effort to mutiny– but I’m thrilled you thought there could be. If I were home, I’d be there, with extra Ricola, in solidarity with you and other people of conscience. Since I can’t be there, I thought I’d put up this post to help you connect with potential co-protesters; it’s the least I can do for a reader like you.

Well? Who’s in? 🙂 Continue reading →

What Microloans Miss… and then some

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James Suroweiki of “Wisdom of the Crowds” fame has a piece that tries to reality check the current enthusiasm for micro-loans.

Mohammed Yunus. Good vibes.

Suroweiki clearly agrees that loans are a Good Thing by nearly any measure, BUT their ability to solve problems of the scale required in India is doubtful –

There’s no doubt that microfinance does a tremendous amount of good, yet there are also real limits to what it can accomplish. Microloans make poor borrowers better off. But, on their own, they often don’t do much to make poor countries richer.

This isn’t because microloans don’t work; it’s because of how they work. The idealized view of microfinance is that budding entrepreneurs use the loans to start and grow businesses–expanding operations, boosting inventory, and so on. The reality is more complicated.

The core issues are 2 fold. First, Microloans generally don’t go into job-creating ventures. Second, the ventures that really do create jobs are often far outside of micro-loan territory and subject to many other local constraints (for ex., corruption, infra, etc.)….

Suroweiki touches only a bit on a more subtle issue, however — the “meta-narrative” and lessons learned from microfinance on capitalism and charity. This last issue has sorta been nagging at me since I saw Muhammed Yunus speak in San Francisco back in January (its worth ipod-ing the MP3) and I’ve been reading up on microloans quite a bit since Yunus won his Nobel Prize. Continue reading →

On Getting a Tan

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What does it mean to get tanned when you’re brown to begin with? This is a question particular in some ways to South Asians living in northern countries — where you don’t get much exposure to sunlight much of the year, and where you are surrounded by friends and colleagues who do take pride in “getting a tan.” (In India, home of “Fair and Lovely” ointments, there is no culture of tanning.)

This came up for me because I recently went on a short vacation with my family in the Caribbean. We went to the north coast of the Dominican Republic (a major tourist destination, I know). We rented a small villa near, but not in, one of the massive resorts that dominate the “Silver Coast.” Quite nice, overall, and restful.

I didn’t actively seek to get a tan, but I definitely came back a lot darker than I was when we left. My wife also got quite dark, and even my 18 month old son got a bit darker, though we were careful to keep his delicate skin protected wherever possible from direct sunlight.

Now, I generally like getting a bit tan — it seems to bring out some rich orange tones in my “brown” complexion. And I’m certainly not one of those people who would ever say that fairer skin is more appealing than darker skin. There are many different ways of being beautiful, and I find the desi obsession with skin tone (especially as it indexes with the matrimonials culture) tedious and embarrassing. (And sometimes tragic, as in this recent story posted on the News Tab)

Nor is it the case that getting tanned is new to me: living on the east coast of the U.S., one generally finds one’s skin tone in August to be a few shades darker than it was in May, even if you’re one of those people who tends to hide indoors in front of books and/or a computer 95% of the time.

But here’s the odd part. On occasion, over the past couple of days since coming back, I’ve found myself feeling slightly embarrassed to be so tan — as if part of me is thinking, “wait, everyone, this isn’t my normal skin tone!” And then I’m immediately embarrassed to be embarrassed — because what the initial embarrassment perhaps reveals is an unconscious skin tone bias that comes out if and when one’s skin tone does in fact become darker. (More forgivingly, it might simply be that one is always embarrassed to look a little different from how one normally looks.)

Has anyone else ever been embarrassed to be tan? Or conversely, are there desi readers who particularly enjoy seeing their skin get tanned? Continue reading →

Jana Gana Mana sung two ways

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One of the things that marks me as an ABD is the fact that the Indian national anthem leaves me cold. Largely that’s because I don’t identify as an Indian politically, but it’s also in part because most national anthems don’t move me. The Star Spangled Banner, for example, is a horrible song. I feel something when I hear it only because I am an American and am conditioned to do so, but honestly I’d far rather have a song like the Marseillaise which is actually catchy.

The first rendition of Jana Gana Mana is sung phonetically by Kenyans who make it sound a bit like church music – it loses the rhythm that it has when Indians sing it, but it becomes etherial and quite haunting (courtesy Chick Pea):

The second rendition is A.R. Rehman’s bombastic cover, as if John Phillip Sousa decided to set a lullaby to 24 tubas:

Do you guys have a favorite version of the anthem? How about the other regional national anthems (none of which I know) – Pakistan? Bangladesh? Lanka? Nepal? Afghanistan? Feel free to share youtube links but no rickrolling please …

Continue reading →

Art Without a Frame

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The Pulitzer Prizes were announced today. The book I previously gushed over won the fiction prize. A Pakistan-born photojournalist named Adrees Latif of Reuters won for his picture of a journalist shot and killed by the military in Myanmar. What moved me deeply however, was reading the article that won the “Feature Writing” award. I need to provide some background before we get into that.

Normally I wouldn’t blog about a story that was one year old and has no explicit desi angle. Many of you probably already read it. However, there is something universal about the…incident…chronicled in this article. One of the things I have come to appreciate about a blogging community like SM is that we (bloggers and commenters) get to share our appreciation (or criticism) of art with each other. Whether it is via the comment section of a book review or in the form of a heads-up about some upcoming event, blogs make great forums to share thoughts which may be incongruous with the rest of our days. Regardless of why you visit SM in particular, I think the bloggers here feel pretty honored that you would “waste” part of your day on our site, reading what we produce (even if you know you could do much better). Just this morning I was visiting Unclutterer to figure out how to waste less time during the day and to streamline my chaotic life. Sitting here typing this now (instead of packing for a business trip tomorrow) I’ve changed my mind. We should stop and waste time during the day if it so moves us.

And that brings me to the year old article from the Washington Post that won a Pulitzer today. You can’t read it yet, however. First you have to play this audio file. Once you start listening to it you can move on to the next line.

It’s an old epistemological debate, older, actually, than the koan about the tree in the forest. Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?… [Link]

Writer Gene Weingarten helped orchestrate a brilliant “stunt” on commuters passing through L’Enfant Plaza last January in order to take a stab at settling the debate above. He took one of the most gifted violin players in the world, dressed him up as a humble busker in jeans, and asked him to play his 3.5 million dollar violin on the metro platform. Who would recognize brilliance? Who would even stop?

Continue reading →