Author Archives: manish

Powerball: Sania meets Serena

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18-year-old Hyderabadi Sania Mirza beat her Australian Open opponent yesterday to become the first Indian woman to make the third round of a Grand Slam tournament. She won her first round 3-6, 6-3, 6-0 against Aussie Cindy Watson and her second round 6-2, 6-1 in an upset against Petra Mandula of Hungary.

The best performance by an Indian woman on the Grand Slam so far had been a second round appearance, by Nirupama Sanjeev… in the 1998 edition of the Australian Open… this is the first time any Indian had progressed this far in a grand slam since Leander Paes made it to the round of 32 at the US Open in 1998…

That’s the good news. The bad news is that she’s about to be fed to the wolves: her Friday matchup is against Serena ‘100 mph’ Williams.

In the tennis world, if you can read this, you’re already too late. Mirza started early:

“The coach at the club in Hyderabad was reluctant but after a month he went back to my parents and said he had never seen a six-year-old hit the ball so well…”

But she seems to lack a bit of self-confidence:

Most women players, especially from Europe and America, are tall and very strongly built… Sania looks fragile in comparison. When asked whether she could match the power play of Venus and Serena Williams, she says, “I am not awestruck. Undoubtedly, we Indians have a distinct disadvantage in that we are not built that way. I will have to work harder to win against them.”

The height issue is real, but the muscle concern is hogwash. It’s more about strength than about being ripped; they’re related but not identical.

Mirza entered the Australian Open as a wildcard. The last desi to hit one of the Williams sisters was Shikha Uberoi at last year’s U.S. Open. She walked out in front of the Transit of Venus with predictable results.

Update: We do not know how to get in touch with Mirza. Chances are pretty high that she doesn’t read this site.

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Indian PM tongue-tied over tongue-twiddling

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Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh was stumped by a question about gay marriage yesterday (via India Uncut):

What is your view on same-sex marriages? Manmohan Singh seemed at a loss for words. “I am sorry, I don’t understand your question,” he told the [CBC] journalist… she elaborated. A Sikh religious head has issued an edict against Ottawa’s decision to allow marriages between people from the same sex. Singh again took a minute or so, perhaps to hide his embarrassment…  “I don’t think such a thing will have wide acceptance in our country,” the Prime Minister replied.

No same-sex, please, we’re Sikhs. Canada’s Sikh MPs are divided on gay marriage more or less along party lines. But the religious guardians in Amritsar were clear: they would snub PM Paul Martin over his pro-gay marriage bill if he tried to pay his respects at Harimandir Sahib (via Amardeep Singh).

Martin toured tsunami-stricken areas instead and remanded the former premier of British Columbia, Ujjal Dosanjh, to Amritsar to apologize for the change in plan. Their excuse for the preemptive counter-snub?

“… if Guru Nanak had been consulted — Guru Nanak who was the founder of the Sikh religion — Guru Nanak would have said that the Prime Minister should go to Phuket and to Sri Lanka.”

Oh, that is smooth. Claim better divine guidance than the clerics — Hitch has nothing on Dosanjh.

Familiarity breeds…

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Sajit posted about a version of Bombay Dreams set to open in Bombay itself.

The show may have the opposite problem in Bombay from the one it had on Broadway. Would it seem the least bit novel in the city that serves as its muse? Or would Bombayites give it a collective shrug, like Delhiites did with Monsoon Wedding: ‘That’s a documentary, not a musical’?

I had the damnedest time getting my cousins who grew up in India to see Bombay Dreams with me. ‘This is a play about Bollywood?’ they said. ‘But we watch that every day only. Isn’t it?’

An Englishman in New Delhi

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I don’t drink coffee, I drink tea, my dear… Sting is giving a concert at Delhi’s Nehru Stadium on Feb. 6th. Be still my beating heart.

On the occasion of his concert, a special Limited tour Edition of his latest album Sacred Love , which contains his rare singles, is being put together. The single, Sacred Love also has an Indian touch since it features Anoushka Shankar on the sitar.

With Sting’s long-standing interest in yoga (he owns a studio in New York) and professed mastery of tantric sex, it’s surprising he doesn’t play India more often. Maybe his Englishness gets in the way.

“… I mentioned to Bob [Geldof] I could make love for eight hours. What I didn’t say was that this included four hours of begging and then dinner and a movie.”

Please don’t label this the highlight of his career:

Sting’s career hit a real high note in ’94, when he, together with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart, performed All For Love for the film, The Three Musketeers… [ToI]

What a repugnant thought. Sting, like Bono, is that rarest of birds, a thinking rocker with fractal lyrics that unfold. I spent many delicious hours on a bus through the USSR listening to ‘Russians’ and ‘Fortress Around Your Heart.’ U2’s ‘Vertigo’ has bite, but they’ve both been putting out geriatric stuff lately which makes the young’uns look askance when you admit to being a fan. Plus there’s the whole megagroup thing, hipster ammo; screw it, I sometimes drink Starbucks.

A still life: the family of fruit

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Shashwati tells a railroad tale:

The last time I was on a train in India was a few years ago, traveling from Baroda to New Delhi, in an unreserved “Ladies” compartment. It was terribly crowded, and I had to share my berth with a rather plump housewife from Karol Bagh…  It turned out she came from a family of fruit merchants, and told us proudly, “My son has married into Apples, my daughter has gone to the Bananas, and we are thinking of a Guava family for the youngest son.”

… Squashed in a corner was a skinny, quiet woman… The woman came from a village in Karnataka… and had been abandoned by her only son and daughter in law. She was going to Delhi in the hope of… perhaps working as a domestic.

The next morning, the plump fruit merchant’s wife, after loudly cursing the world… gave the woman a generous amount of money so that she could fend for herself till she got on her feet. Then the merchants wife farted loudly and left with the youngest son (promised to the Guava family)…

I actually do know a desi fellow who ‘married’ into a family of Apples.

Open skies and Air India

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India and the U.S. finally drafted an open skies agreement. This means $700 airfares, more direct flights, more flights from smaller airports, and more flights from U.S. carriers, so you don’t always have to fly via Lufthansa, KLM, Singapore or Air India. The agreement eliminates all kinds of crufty protectionism dating back to the national carrier-dominated era of air travel: Air India is not currently allowed to fly to both Los Angeles and San Francisco, for example, and only three carriers are allowed direct flights; all others have to route via a third country. India’s domestic air travel is surging 20% a year, international at nearly the same rate. The agreement will probably be signed next month.

(Note to the savvy: Turkish Airlines from NYC to Delhi is beautiful and inexpensive; you fly in nearly a straight line, plus you get to see gorgeous Istanbul and the palaces and mosques of the Ottoman Empire.)

While we’re modernizing air travel, will someone please update Air India’s hokey, ill-conceived jet paint? The tagline in goofy Curlz script reminds me of the shabby Indian restaurant in Where’s the Party Yaar? (‘When you can’t afford the Palace, come to the Place!’)

The Mughal arches surrounding the windows are cute, but ‘antique’ is the last thing you want to associate with an airplane from a developing country. Think modernist. Think Virgin Atlantic. Maybe use the stylized Air India centaur . Graphics department — futtafut!

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Punjabi in political Pizzagate

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The Canadian immigration minister resigned yesterday, accused of offering asylum to a desi pizzeria owner in exchange for feeding her campaign staff. Harjit Singh of Toronto, a devout Mennonite convert, is also an alleged credit card forger subject to deportation. He says the minister, Judy Sgro, approached him for free food for her campaign volunteers last year in exchange for blocking his deportation, then reversed herself when word leaked out. Sgro denies all.

As scandals go, anchovies-for-asylum is so very… Canadian. No worries, we’ve got your back. Sgro was also accused of fast-tracking a Romanian stripper’s visa. Canadian women aren’t flocking to high-paying pole positions any more, so an exotic dancer visa is now an automatic ticket into Canada.

So while we’re bringing over Romanian quants for Wall Street, Canada’s importing Romanian strippers for Queen Street. Gee, I just noticed I bleed maple red 😉

CIA has India surpassing Europe in 15 years

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A new CIA report titled ‘Mapping the Global Future’ projects that India will overtake major European countries by GDP within 15 years:

By 2020, China’s gross domestic product, the total value of goods and services, will be greater than that of any Western country except the United States, and India’s GDP will have overtaken or will be about to overtake European economies.

The National Intelligence Council, a division of the CIA, makes some very interesting comparisons:

… the NIC said China and India, probably along with Brazil and Indonesia, should emerge as “new major global players,” comparing their expected impact to that of a united Germany in the 19th century and the United States in the early 20th century. “In the same way that commentators refer to the 1900s as the ‘American Century,’ the 21st century may be seen as the time when Asia, led by China and India, comes into its own…”

The NIC is confident in its projections:

“Barring an abrupt reversal of the process of globalization or any major upheavals in these countries, the rise of these new powers (China and India) is a virtual certainty,” it predicted.

There will be a geopolitical realignment…

As India’s economy grows, governments in Southeast Asia — Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and other countries — may move closer to India to help build a potential geopolitical counterweight to China, it said… Dubbing China, India, and perhaps others such as Brazil and Indonesia, as ‘arriviste’ powers, the report said they “have the potential to render obsolete the old categories of East and West, North and South, aligned and nonaligned, developed and developing.”

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Salt ’n peppa yo’ mango, live

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M.I.A. is playing NYC on Feb. 5, along with partner in crime Diplo (via SAS). Tickets are just $12. She’s also rockin’ L.A. on Feb. 3. I think I’m having an Arulpragasam.

From the last time she performed in NYC:

… her super-limited debut UK single featured fuzzy, electro-tinged dancehall beats, vaguely political raps, and one of the most unexpectedly catchy hooks in recent memory. Completely modern urban music that didn’t sound the slightest bit forced or space cadet about itself (sorry Dizzee); I was captivated on the first listen…

Check out the ‘Sunshowers’ video and the remix MP3s. Here’s a previous post on M.I.A./Maya.

Boing Boing discovers paan

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The normally reliable cypherpunk cool-hunters at Boing Boing discover a strange new delicacy called ‘paan.’ They’ve linked to bloggers who, in typical geek fashion (I mean that as the highest compliment), have catalogued its production with step-by-step photos and reference objects for scale. Spitting contests with laser ranging can’t be far behind.

In related news, I’ve spotted an obscure Western dessert called ‘canoli.’ A mass spectrographic analysis will follow.

Here’s what I say: leave the paan, take the canoli.

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