This past weekend I returned to NYC for an event I knew would be too good to miss: Writers Speak Out for Obama, featuring an all-star line-up.

Considering this blog’s longstanding interest in matters both literary and political, I figured SM readers would want to see the scene. So here we go. Six literary giants came out to read for the benefit, which was the brainchild of Meera Nair (the writer) and emceed by Mira Nair (the director). It was not an official Obama event, but rather, as Meera noted, “community organizing.”

Above, the luminaries themselves. Thanks to Preston Merchant for letting me use his pictures, which, predictably, are awesome. Left to right: Mira Nair, Kiran Desai, Jhumpa Lahiri, Suketu Mehta, Salman Rushdie, Akhil Sharma, Manil Suri. Yes, really. All of them. Together. Continue reading →

Earlier this year, wedding bells in California started ringing for people in the gay and lesbian community when the California Supreme Court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violates the promise of equality in the California Constitution. But all that might change on November 4th.

Proposition 8 eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry. Changes California Constitution to eliminate right of same-sex couples to marry. Provides that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.[NoOnProp8]

Desis in the GLBT community in California have been getting organized. Down here in Southern California, Satrang has been taking the lead and showing up at events and handing out educational materials to push for no on Prop 8. Bay Area based Trikone has stepped it up and taken it further. They took out an ad in India Currents with the following poster:

The Mutiny is a a sucker for the advocating Nanis/Dadis and this poster of the the grandmother holding her granddaughter is just too adorable. Her message?

My grandkids, Mira and Kabir bring so much joy to my life. Our desi traditions have flourished with my son, Inder and his partner, Ken. But Prop 8 threatens to take away our right to a happy home by banning my son from marrying his life partner. Please help us protect our family and the rights of my grandchildren.

Inder and Ken and their family were profiled in India Currents earlier this year.

Inder, a dermatologist, and his partner, Ken, a Corporate Officer, first started talking about children in Spring 2003 when they became domestic partners. “We are both from large families,” Inder explains in his considered, correct way, “and it seemed like a natural progression to have our own kids.” Today they are a family of four: Inder, Ken, Kabir—who is two and a half—and Meera.[IndiaCurrents]

Their families have have been very supportive in the raising of the children.

“Our families are our biggest support groups,” [Inder] says, “We both have large, extended families. Here’s where the embracing, extended Indian family—with its Aunties who want to fatten you up for your own good and third cousins whom you have to see every month because they are family—can actually be a powerful support structure. But often, in South Asian communities, [Bay are psychologist] Amlani explains, there isn’t much support from the family for same-sex partnerships.[IndiaCurrents]

There are other rights that the couple have to struggle with outside of the right to marriage – the access to immigration. Inder is an immigrant whereas Ken isn’t. Continue reading →

Last week Nina Shen Rastogi at Slate asked the question, “If we’re in the midst of a financial collapse, why aren’t executives jumping out of office buildings?”

Because the current situation hasn’t had nearly as devastating an effect on people’s personal finances. The Great Crash of 1929–and, to a lesser extent, the crash of 1987–did lead some people to commit suicide. But in nearly all of those cases, the deceased had suffered a major loss when the market collapsed. Now, due in large part to those earlier experiences, investors tend to keep their portfolios far more diversified, so as to avoid having their entire fortunes wiped out when stocks take a downturn. In addition, some of the worst declines in the past week have been limited to a smaller number of companies (such as Lehman Bros., Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs), further limiting the potential damage to individual investors. [Link]

Sadly, we may be about to see people’s personal finances affected if things keep going bad. This afternoon there was tragic news out of the San Fernando Valley. An out-of-work Indian American financial advisor killed his wife, mother-in-law and three young sons before turning the gun on himself:

“We believe this to be a murder-suicide,” Moore said. “It appears [the gunman] killed his family and then took his own life.”

The bodies of the man’s 39-year-old wife, 70-year-old mother-in-law, and three sons — ages 19, 12 and 7 — were found inside the home’s various bedrooms. Authorities had earlier said that one of the victims was the gunman’s mother but now say it was his mother-in-law.

Friends and neighbors identified the couple as Karthik and Subasri Rajaram, who had lived in the neighborhood for a few years.

Moore said police believe that the gunman shot the victims sometime after 6 p.m. Saturday, and that he had left behind three letters indicating that he had carried out the killings. One letter, addressed to law enforcement, confessed to the shootings. He wrote a second letter to friends. The third letter, police said, appeared to be a will.

Moore said Rajaram had previously worked for Price Waterhouse and Sony Pictures and “had attested to some financial difficulties,” Moore said. “He had become despondent over his financial” situation…

One of the young victims, Ganesha Rajaram, 12, was a 7th grade honors student at Alfred B. Nobel in Northridge, which he had attended for the last two years, said Principal Robert Coburn. His parents were very involved in his education, frequently interacting with teachers and never showing any signs that anything was amiss, he said. [Link]

Of course it is pure speculation at this point to assume that Mr. Rajaram’s financial woes are directly related to the current bear market, but the San Fernando Valley was one of the hardest hit in the sub-prime debacle. Hopefully this remains an isolated incident and not a national trend.

Continue reading →

With both the Obama and McCain campaigns now in their “end-game” phase we will be seeing lots of kitchen-sink campaigning in the coming weeks by both sides (anyone watch the news today?). The vast majority of YouTube ads you see released on the campaign websites, on various internet blogs, or especially reported on in the news, are never really even aired as paid advertisements on television. The campaigns rely on the free publicity provided by blogs and the media to circulate those ads. In short, more pundits and bloggers talk about or report on the ads then actually see them spontaneously. This is because television advertising is damn expensive, even for these historically wealthy campaigns. A huge chunk of advertising is actually being done “sub-rosa” via the radio and direct mailers. Here, for example, is a direct mailer being sent out by the Obama campaign [via Politico]:

“American jobs to India” reads the bottom box. Clearly the Obama campaign isn’t afraid to play the outsourcing/xenophobia card as long as it flies well under the radar in a battleground state (probably Missouri in this case). I wonder if South Asians for Obama will be in touch with the campaign about this mailer now that the desi community has shown it can bring “resources” (the buzz word I kept hearing at the Democratic National Convention) to the table and therefore has a voice at said table.

Continue reading →