Author Archives: manish

O Henry

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It’s Columbus Day here in the U.S., or Indigenous People’s Day in the republic of Berkeley. Let’s toast Amerigo Vespucci and Cristóbal Colón: the former for lending his name to the continent, the latter for one of the biggest geographic cockups of all time.

As we all know, Columbus was horndoggin’ it to the land of mirch masala. Like some lecherous old geezer, he ran across a couple of prepubescent bumps in the sea and mistook them for the Himalayas. Always happy to compound a mistake, he then foundered upon the continental shelf and called its inhabitants Indians.

Contrary to popular belief, most educated individuals in the 15th century, and especially sailors, already knew that the earth was round. What was not realized by Columbus, however, was just how big a globe it was. Columbus seriously underestimated the size of the planet. [Link]

He believed the peaks of Cuba were the Himalayas of India, which gives one a sense of just how lost he was… [Link]

Not just bad at math, he was a poor businessman to boot. You’d think he’d notice they had no jewels, silk or spices. And hello, no turbans? It apparently didn’t occur to him to ask the Arawak what they called themselves. No wonder Rome fell — the Italiano was Mr. Magoo playing with sailboats in a bathtub.

We live in the United States of HenryBecause of Columbo, we suffer the same irritation as when someone nabs our handle on Gmail. We suffer the same pain as being given a dorky nickname that stuck. We’re not Indians here but rather East Indians, we’re all Oriya here. We’re not Asians but rather South Asians, running on IST relative to the Chinese. We’re Asian Indians, dot not feather. Searching the card catalog at research libraries sucks. We did not get a neat moniker like As-Am. We’re stuck with rickety contraptions like South Asian American or Asian Indian American or just fuckin’ desi, yaar.

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Harriet the Pious

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Harriet Miers, the latest SCOTUS nominee, is involved with a Texas-based missionary church which trolls for souls in Madhya Pradesh (via SAJA):

… [Harriet Miers’] longtime congregation [is] Valley View Christian Church in Dallas… She also served on the missions committee and took a deep interest in its programs in central India, according to minister Barry McCarty, inviting him and an Indian mission director to lunch at the White House last March. Miers also served on the board of Pioneer Bible Translators, which has missions worldwide… [Link]

McCarty serves on the board of Central India Christian Mission, which was meeting in Washington, D.C., in March. Miers knew of the meeting, and hosted McCarty and missionary Ajai Lall for lunch at the White House. [Link]

The Central India Christian Mission is part of the Texan-xtian nexus:

The primary task of the mission is evangelism and church planting… It is the need of the hour to train the native leaders in India as much as possible. The Mission Center… is located on about 15 acres of land in Damoh District of Central Province [Madhya Pradesh], India. [Link]

The missionaries, Indu and Ajai Lall and their Bible college-trained brood, are apparently the Johnny Appleseeds of Indian churches

Over 400 churches have been planted in central and northern India, in the country of Nepal and along the northeast India/Bhutan border. [Link – PDF]

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The yellowcake affair

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An Asian-American college student cries brutha-on-brutha violence:

Who are Asian girls dating? Whites and South AsiansIn one of the discussion classes I taught last year at Berkeley, half of the Asian girls in the room stated that they do not prefer to date Asian men… who are they dating?… The most obvious [answer was] white men… The second most common answer from the girls was Indian men (South Asians).

… their responses centered around… economic status and physical attractiveness… the Asian girls said that both white men and Indian men in our society (especially here at Berkeley) were viewed as successful, intelligent, and confident….

… the girls said that they found these two groups of men to be physically attractive… My conjecture in this case would be that both groups tend to share the same sharp features (Greco-Roman noses/eyes) that the media tends to value.

… Asian women are “up for grabs”… Asian men are getting the axe on two levels here. First, they are only seen as being able to date their own kind… At the same time, their own kind, at an increasing rate, tends not to prefer them sexually. [Link]

… the Asian male as sexually impotent voyeur or pervert is a reoccuring icon, appearing throughout American cultural history and especially in film. Notable examples of this include Mickey Rooney in “yellowface” as the bucktoothed Japanese landlord who sneaks peeps at Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) or the pathetically asexual nerd Long Duk Dong in John Hughes’ adolescent classic Sixteen Candles (1984). [Link]

 
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Big one hits Kashmir

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A big earthquake epicentered in Kashmir hit northern India and Pakistan around 8:50 am local time. At 7.6 on the Richter scale, it’s bigger than the California quake of ’89 (7.1) which took down the upper deck of the Bay Bridge and sent cars plunging into the ocean.

A powerful earthquake centered in the Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan on Saturday morning sent tremors across South Asia, killing more than 18,000 people… [Link]

The quake in Kashmir had a magnitude of at least 7.6. The epicentre was 80km (50 miles) north-east of Islamabad…

Two buildings of the Margalla Towers residential complex collapsed in [Islamabad]… there is a small hill of broken concrete over which and under which rescue workers are desperately trying to dig out survivors… In Indian-administered Kashmir, 157 civilians and 15 soldiers are confirmed dead and more than 600 people injured. [Link]

Qaiser Abbas, a receptionist in the building, said he was sitting in his office when the building suddenly began to shake. ”After five seconds, I heard big sound, and then about 40 apartments collapsed,” he said. He said some of the residents were foreigners, including Westerners and Central Asians. The building is in an upscale neighborhood of Islamabad…

”It was so strong that I saw buildings swaying. It was terrifying,” said Hari Singh, a guard in an apartment complex in the New Delhi suburb of Noida. Hundreds of residents there raced down from their apartments after their beds and couches started shaking. [AP]

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Nanda wins ignominious Ig Nobel

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Mahatma Gandhi may never have won a Nobel, but Gauri Nanda makes it all ok.

The Ig Nobels are the Hasty Puddings of the science world. They’re given out for the most pointless or humorous scientific research, like one winning paper on how leeches react to beer and sour cream. (Like humans, I’m guessing they swell up and die.)

Nanda won last night for her annoying, you-must-get-out-of-bed alarm clock. She’ll make a perfect desi mom someday Congrats, Gauri!

ECONOMICS: Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for inventing an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring that people DO get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding many productive hours to the workday.

The 2005 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded on Thursday evening, October 6, at the 15th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre… [Link]

Note that last night was their 15th ‘First Annual’ ceremony, like it’s my friends’ tenth 21st birthdays  Here’s more on Nanda. Past South Asia-related winners:

MATHEMATICS: K.P. Sreekumar and the late G. Nirmalan of Kerala Agricultural University, India, for their analytical report “Estimation of the Total Surface Area in Indian Elephants…”

PHYSICS: Deepak Chopra of The Chopra Center for Well Being, La Jolla, California, for his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness. [REFERENCE: Deepak Chopra’s books “Quantum Healing,” “Ageless Body, Timeless Mind,” etc.]…

PEACE: Lal Bihari, of Uttar Pradesh, India, for a triple accomplishment: First, for leading an active life even though he has been declared legally dead; Second, for waging a lively posthumous campaign against bureaucratic inertia and greedy relatives; and Third, for creating the Association of Dead People…

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Never a Nobel man

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While we’re in the thick of Nobel Prize season, Sree over at SAJA reminds us that the peace prize commitee never recognized Mohandas Gandhi, its greatest omission of all time:

… Reuters reported in early 1998 that the reason for not selecting the leader of India’s struggle for independence was Norway’s friendship with Britain after World War II. Hundreds of documents in a basement safe at the Nobel Institute in Oslo… showed that Gandhi was nominated but did not win in 1937, 1947 and 1948.

Historians say the five-man jury in the 1930s and ’40s was pro-British and had a patronizing attitude to candidates from the developing world. “If I were to guess, one factor which made it difficult to give the prize to Gandhi was the very strong pro-British orientation in Norway’s foreign policy,” said Geir Lundestad, director of the Nobel Institute. [Link]

Something is rotten in the state of Norway, and it ain’t just the lutefisk. The peace prize endowed by the inventor of dynamite later covered its ass with vim and bluster:

There is no hint in the archives that the Norwegian Nobel Committee ever took into consideration the possibility of an adverse British reaction to an award to Gandhi… when the Dalai Lama was awarded the Peace Prize in 1989, the chairman of the committee said that this was ‘in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi.’

… it seems clear that they seriously considered a posthumous award… they decided to reserve the prize, and then, one year later, not to spend the prize money for 1948 at all. What many thought should have been Mahatma Gandhi’s place on the list of Laureates was silently but respectfully left open. [Link]

It’s all clear now. They really did give it to Gandhi, see. In their heads. Without telling anyone. Poor Nobel committee, always on the wrong side of history. Then they gave Yasser Arafat the peace prize in 1994. Can you say ‘overcompensate’?

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A Mumbaikar on Delhi

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A Mumbaikar takes a dig at Delhi, where my family’s from, in a long-running intranational rivalry (thanks, Amardeep). It’s more bare-knuckled than Suketu Mehta’s usual measured style, I like.

Most Indians think about Delhi as a place where women are never completely safe, where the pollution is a large mattress over the city in the winter, and where crazed ministers’ sons pull out guns at the slightest provocation… [Link]

Of course, many Dilliwale think of Delhi quite prosaically as home, and of Bombay as debauchery central: gangsters, bar girls and filmi melodrama. For those stereotypes, we can thank Mr. Mehta

Many Indians, especially in the Northeast, consider it the citadel of the new Indian imperialism… Bombay and Delhi, in particular, have never quite adjusted to the fact that they share the same country. They are India’s New York and Washington, tolerating each other…

When people say nice things about Delhi, it is usually about North Delhi–a very Indian city, with Punjabi families living in ramshackle houses with multiple new additions, sitting on cots under tubelights thick with insects and the lizards feasting on them… [Link]

Or those compliments are about Delhi’s new subway.

I’ve spent many pleasant hours in barsaatis drinking cheap rum with expensively educated friends. And I’ve gone to many a cocktail party at Problem Row… the World Bank, the United Nations… Save the Children, where everybody discusses what problem they specialise in. “I’m in malaria, what about you?”…

Delhi, unlike Bombay, is not an island; people can live very far from their inferiors… I came to think of Delhi as an Endless City… When it is very quiet you can hear the screams of the slaughter of Timur the Lame, blending into the screams of the slaughter of the Sikhs just 21 years ago. [Link]

Melodramatic much? And when it’s quiet in Bombay, you can hear the whine of starlets. It’s blood-curdling, I tell you.

Here’s more on Timur Leng / Tamerlane, the sacking of Delhi and Timur’s capital city, Samarkand (now in Uzbekistan).

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Boo shankar

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Just in time for All Hallows Eve, here’s the story of an unnaturally thin Indian man who makes a living playing a ghost (via Boing Boing). He weighs just 52 pounds — if there’s an Adnan Sami in this world, there must be a Gopal Haldar:

Measuring a mere 1.21 meters (four feet) and weighing a slight 24 kilograms (52 pound), Haldar — now near to retirement age — says he has been malnourished all his life… He says it takes him only 10 to 15 minutes to do his makeup and transform his emaciated self into a ghost-like creature — mainly by painting his sunken face, protruding ribs and skeletal limbs with soot…

A doctor at a local government-run hospital said Haldar had likely suffered acute malnutrition as a child which had resulted in hormonal imbalances. [Link]

The man from the psychedelic jungles of the Sundarbans carries on a proud carnie tradition with his herbivorous habits:

He mainly does his shows during the festive seasons and earns 40 to 50 rupees (about a dollar) a time, said his wife Malati, adding resignedly, “But he is addicted to smoking hemp and spends all his money on this habit.” Lighting up a hemp cigarette in front of his wife, Haldar acknowledged his love of the herb. [Link]

Emaciated, smeared in ashes and tolerant of chemical penances — is he a spook, or is he a Shaivite sadhu?

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I’m not from around here

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This billboard of TMBWITW sits at the corner of Dundas and Yonge St. in downtown Toronto. Ironically, I was in that city attending the wedding of a man who’s infamous because of the same kind of billboard.

My buddy ‘Milind Das’ (not his real name, for reasons which will become clear) is a Canadian-born desi living in London. He used to work in India as a toney management consultant with an expat package. He often flew between Delhi and Bombay for business meetings at dawn. Early one morning, before sunrise, Milind witnessed an ethereal phantom in a white sari emerging from the fog at Indira Gandhi International. She was a young woman with large eyes, pleasant-looking but not overpoweringly so. She’d covered her hair and much of her face with the end of her sari and was accompanied by an elderly, glowering Cerberus.

Milind settled into his first class seat, pulled out his laptop and began working on a spreadsheet. The watchdog positioned herself grimly between him and her ward. Over the next two hours, her expression changed. At first it was, ‘Don’t even think about talking to my daughter.’ As the minutes ticked by and Milind remained oblivious to her beauty, it became, ‘Why the hell aren’t you talking to my daughter?’

Milind noticed the flight attendants were especially attentive that morning. When the flight ended, he shared a ride into town with one of the attendants whom he’d befriended. (Modesty forbids us from asking about that tale.) She asked him excitedly whether he’d seen the actress.

‘What actress?’

At that very instant, the cab was passing below a supersized Bollywood billboard. The aeronymph stared at him incredulously and pointed up in the air. And that’s how our young swain met The (Second) Most Beautiful Woman in the World.

I trust it’s clear why we must mask Milind’s identity. Otherwise, half a billion desi men would hunt him down for his Bolly ignorance. Of course, he found his own TMBWITW and, 96 hours ago, married her. I’m happy to report that ‘Mrs. Das’ lives up to the name.

Related post here.

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Cabbie hartal in Naya York

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NYC cabbies, the majority of whom are probably desi, threatened to strike over rising gas prices and GPS tracking at a rally on Monday:

Both groups claim drivers are paying upwards of $20 more per day for fuel. Drivers at the rally, who called yesterday for the ouster of TLC chairman Matthew W. Daus, complain that the spike in gasoline prices have chipped at savings and forced delayed vacations… “We want to be prudent,” Daus said. “These guys just got a fare increase — the biggest ever… They’re still making a lot more money based upon our data than before the fare increase.”

In one positive sign for advocates of the surcharge, Daus said he has talked with representatives from several cities where fares are tied to gas prices. [Link]

You run into this problem regularly with government-mandated price caps — the price doesn’t keep pace with real-world costs, and you’re stuck waiting for slow bureaucrats to recognize the new cost structure. A dynamic fare component which tracks fuel prices is an obvious solution.

Drivers wanted
[GPS tracking] eliminated, charging it would be used to track MuslimsBut the more interesting complaint is about mandatory GPS tracking:

Drivers say they don’t want to be tracked and do not need the expense (estimates range from $3,000 to $5,000 per vehicle) of installation. They also claim the devices could be used to monitor speeding and other activities, violating their rights… The commission maintains that the tracking equipment would help drivers navigate traffic, provide efficient routes, and help passengers recover lost property. [Link]

… representatives of the New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance, a union of more than 6,500 New York taxi drivers, decried the monitors as a tool for the state to spy on them… [Link]

… drivers also wanted the GPS plan eliminated, charging it would be used to track Muslims, [Bhairavi] Desai said. [Link – PDF]

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