Author Archives: amardeep

Support Sepia Mutiny — Without It Costing You a Dime

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Chuck D once described Hip Hop as the “black CNN,” and he was briefly right. (Nowadays, sadly, it is closer to QVC — i.e., all product placement, all the time.)

Sepia Mutiny was, I think, conceived of by its original members along similar lines: a “desi CNN,” if you will. Over time, of course, it’s evolved, and while nowadays it might occasionally seem more like “Desi NPR” than “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,” we do try and throw in The Great Khali and some ritualized baby-throwing to keep things lively. (Yeah, boyeeee.)

Abhi, who’s planning to formally kick off a fundraising drive in a couple of days in a separate post, tells me that a site with Sepia Mutiny’s level of traffic costs $1200 a year to maintain. Since we don’t use ads (on purpose — being ad-free lets us be more honest & independent), we try and rely on support from readers to help defray that cost.

One way you can help us, if you like, is to use our Amazon Associates account number if/when you shop at Amazon. It doesn’t need to be attached to a particular purchase; as long as you enter the site through a click from a Sepia Mutiny link, like this one, we can potentially get a small commission off of any purchase you make on Amazon following that click-through. And it won’t cost you anything.

(Using Amazon Associates is, admittedly, a form of advertising, but it’s really advertising for Amazon.com, not for a particular product.)

We probably won’t be able to raise enough money to cover all our costs this way, and a direct “PayPal” appeal will probably happen all the same, but we did want to make sure readers were aware of this option. Here, for instance, are some of the books we’ve talked about recently (all the links below are keyed into Sepia Mutiny’s Amazon Associates account): Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World, Manil Suri, Age of Shiva, Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures, V.V. Ganeshananthan, Love Marriage, Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth, Chetan Bhagat, One Night @ the Call Center (which, admittedly, I hated), and Tahmima Anam, A Golden Age.

We do this site for fun. While there is the occasional small perk, the truth is, when we review desi-themed books, movies, plays, the performing arts, and so on, we’re doing it because we’re passionate about it. When we start up discussions about issues relating to politics, identity, economics, science & health, and Washington Redskins Cheerleaders, we’re doing it because we love the conversation with you readers (the cheerleaders, not so much… ok, a little).

And finally, when we talk about life and death matters — such as Bone Marrow drives that could potentially save lives — we do it of course because we care (indeed, this issue hits closer to home for some of us bloggers than most of you know). But it’s also important to talk about those things because the mainstream media would likely never bother to cover something so “particular” to one ethnic group: the South Asian community.

Thanks in advance, guys. Continue reading →

Raghubir Goyal, the only one who still shows up

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Sepia Mutiny has had a long tradition of writing about the exploits of Raghubir Goyal (born on July 6!), a White House press corps member who claims to write for an Indian-American magazine (“India Globe”) that may or may not actually exist. (Does it? Has anyone ever actually seen it?)

Goyal was of interest to us and others because of his status as “foil” for White House press secretaries eager to change the subject over the years, especially when hammered with too many tough questions about things like Enron, Abu Ghraib, missing WMDs, Katrina, civil war in Iraq, the President’s abject failure to privatize social security, and other various and sundry White House failures. Now, however, general interest in the Bush White House is winding down a bit, and reporters are often skipping press briefings. Goyal, however, is still faithful, as we see in a story in this week’s “On the Media”:

(Also see an earlier NPR “On the Media” story involving Raghubir Goyal here.)

I will miss Goyal; I cannot imagine his press credentials will survive into the Obama presidency. Indeed, his will be one of the very few faces from the Bush administration I will really miss. Appropriately, he is an unintentionally comic figure, with no particular qualifications or competency. And yet he continues to do his job as he always has, and no one has seemed to mind, except for a few alienated cynics.

Earlier Sepia Mutiny posts on Raghubir Goyal: here, here, here, here, and here.

Also, see the comprehensive Raghubir Goyal Watchdog site for some choice quotes. Continue reading →

Who’s Fat? 50% of Indians Carry Obesity Gene

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I recently wrote about the worldwide food price crisis, which has the potential to leave millions in the Indian subcontinent malnourished in the upcoming months and years. A number of commenters then wrote in to point out that middle-class Indians, who can afford to eat high-calorie, processed foods, have pretty unhealthy eating habits, and are rapidly growing obese.

It’s true, but it’s not only diet. The BBC has a recent article summarizing the findings of a recent study suggesting that 50% of people of Indian descent carry a gene that predisposes them to obesity.

The gene is located near the MC4R sequence, which has been linked by some scientists with binge eating:

The gene sequence sits close to – and possibly influences – a gene called MC4R, which regulates energy levels in the body by influencing how much we eat and how much energy we expend or conserve, and which has been directly implicated in rare forms of extreme childhood obesity.

The researchers discovered that the sequence is associated with a 2cm expansion in waist circumference, a 2kg gain in weight, and a tendency to become resistant to insulin, which can lead to type 2 diabetes. (link)

(Incidentally, a while ago we wrote about the growth of Type II diabetes amongst South Asians: here)

New Kerala actually gives a much more technical summary of the results of the study, for those who are interested: Continue reading →

The Great Khali Returns

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A few weeks ago I did a post on The Great Khali, an Indian WWE wrestler, who has recently risen to stardom of a sort on American TV.

Last week he visited India, and generated a fair amount of excitement and interest from Indian fans. No one seemed to be bothered by the way the WWE exploits orientalist mythology to cast The Great Khali as the bad guy. No one seemed to mind the bowdlerization of Hinduism represented by his name, “Khali,” which is a kind of tweak on the feminine “Kali,” or the anomaly of a male wrestler naming himself after a female deity.

No one, as far as I can tell, used the words “anomaly” or “orientalism” at all.

Mostly, they just cheered on the 400 pound behemoth who eats five full chickens a day (how many calories is that?). In Himachal Pradesh, where Dalip Singh Rana is from, they honored him. In Bombay, he met with underprivileged school children. T-shirts with his face on them have been selling wildly. Even the great cricketer Sachin Tendulkar found himself taking his family to pay homage to Khali at the wrestler’s hotel room. Finally, a visit to his former employers, the Punjab police. I was surprised to learn from some of the coverage that Rana, when he left India in 2006 to join the WWE, did not quit his day job. In fact, though he is surely making much, much more money now than he ever did before, he is technically only on “sick leave” from his job as a policeman in India.

Of course, the most intriguing article on The Great Khali’s Return I’ve come across is this one, on CNN-IBN: “Is it sport? Is it fake? What is WWE?” The journalist seems to be under some confusion as to whether the fighting in WWE is real or not:

But every wrestler in the business has to be classified under two categories. He is either a babyface or “good guy” for whom the crowd cheers — like Hulk Hogan — or he’s the bad guy or a heel as per wrestling terminology — someone like our very own Khali — whom the crowd loves to hate.

And just like in the movies when a babyface is pitted against a heel, the fight is on.

But what makes pro-wrestling really interesting is that with time, the characters keep evolving — good guys turn bad and vice versa. Interesting storylines, heated rivalries and unexpected twists in the show keep the viewer hooked.

A character’s popularity is determined by the amount of POP — a wrestling term for the reaction that a wrestler gets on his entrance — he gets.

And no, most of the fighting is not fake. (link)

Not fake, huh. You could have fooled me.

Continue reading →

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Food Price Kerfluffle: “Why Do Americans Get to Eat More than Indians?”

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On May 2, George W. Bush explained that the current spike in food prices worldwide is primarily a consequence of rising demand from China and India: “when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.” The quote was widely seen in the English-language Indian media as “blaming” Chindia for the problem, and was met with outrage.

Some of that outrage is collected in a recent IHT article on the President’s controversial statement. Some of the best, most snarky comments are by Pradeep Mehta, who works for a private economic research organization in India:

The food problem has “clearly” been created by Americans, who are eating 50 percent more calories than the average person in India, said Pradeep Mehta, the secretary general of CUTS Center for International Trade, Economics and Environment, a private economic research organization based in India with offices in Kenya, Zambia, Vietnam and Britain.

If Americans were to slim down to even the middle-class weight in India, “many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates,” Mehta said. The money Americans spend on liposuction to get rid of their excess fat could be funneled to famine victims instead, he added. (link)

And somewhat more measured comments, along with some more statistics on caloric consumption, are here:

Americans eat an average of 3,770 calories per capita a day, the highest amount in the world, according to data from the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, compared to 2,440 calories in India. They are also the largest per capita consumers in any major economy of beef, the most energy-intensive common food source, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The United States and Canada top the world in oil consumption per person, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“George Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics,” Jairam Ramesh, the minister of state for commerce, told The Press Trust of India after Bush’s remarks, which he said proved again how “comprehensively wrong” Bush is.

“To say that demand for food in India is causing increase in global food prices is completely wrong,” Ramesh said.

Politicians and academics in India cite various other reasons: diversion of arable land in the United States and Europe into ethanol production; trade subsidies by the United States and Europe; and the dollar’s decline. (link)

Those latter factors (ethanol production, trade subsidies, dollar’s decline) have also been cited by a number of economists in the west. Still, the President and Condoleezza Rice (who made a similar statement a couple of weeks ago) are presumably right when they say that there has been a rise in global demand, though I have a strong feeling that that demand started to rise more than a decade ago. It’s those other factors that, as I understand it, have really converged this year to drive up prices. (Does anyone really know? Is this an economics problem that can be solved?)

Consumption-wise, I admittedly look like an ordinary American: my own caloric intake is probably closer to 3000 than 2000 (though I’ve admittedly never been able to count it out… how many calories in roti? rajma-chaval? chicken biryani?). Still, on this issue, I can’t help but see things from the Indian point of view: “Why do Americans think they deserve to eat more than Indians?” Continue reading →

“Vote Both”: Sam Arora

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Many people have been dismissive of a Democratic “dream ticket,” with Barack Obama as the presidential candidate and Hillary Clinton in the VP slot. For example, DailyKos, which is strongly pro-Obama, has been sharply dismissive of the idea, for a number of reasons. First, Obama has been putting himself forward as the “change” candidate, and the Clintons represent the opposite of “change.” Second, as a Senator from New York, Clinton doesn’t deliver “geographically” the way someone like Governor Bill Richardson (New Mexico) might [but what about Arkansas?]. Third, she is way too big a personality to be comfortable sticking to whatever message and strategy the Obama campaign is likely to devise. Fourth, all this talk of Hillary supporters defecting to McCain seems rather suspect — when it comes down to it, are committed Democrats really going to vote for someone who is pro-Life, pro-Iraq War, etc.? And finally, most people presume the two of them, by now, can’t stand each other.

Sam Arora thinks otherwise. Sam-Arora.jpg He was, until recently, a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton, and is still described as a “Hillary-ite,” though he is no longer with the Clinton campaign. He and some other Hillaryites have started a site called “Vote Both,” to promote the idea of a Democratic dream ticket, with either of the two candidates on top. Their project has gotten some media attention, and profiles in articles like this one. Sam Arora was also interviewed on TV here (check it out — he’s a pretty smooth talker!).

SM had a post on Sam Arora (the same Sam Arora?) here, when he was a contestant for a reality TV show. Sam was also one of the “50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill” a couple of years ago (see this). (I will leave it to others to ascertain whether Sam Arora really is, in fact, “hot,” as he has often been described.)

I was earlier skeptical about the joint ticket idea, but now I’m starting to think it could work, as long as the two of them can come to agreement on strategy and message (and agree that Bill should go back to Chappaqua, and stay there until January 2009). Obama is still a “change” candidate, but after Reverend Wright, he no longer seems quite as fresh or revolutionary as he once appeared, and I don’t think working with Clinton will tarnish his image. Finally, any personal bitterness the two of them might feel for one another would undoubtedly go out the window if they were to win the election in November. Continue reading →

Fareed Zakaria’s Latest: “The Post-American World”

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Though I’ve often disagreed with Fareed Zakaria on specific policy questions, I’ve always been challenged and interested by his way of thinking about big issues. Like some of my colleagues here at Sepia Mutiny, I found his book The Future of Freedom stimulating, if imperfect. Zakaria seems to be especially good at synthesizing complex issues under the umbrella of a signature “big idea,” without choking off qualifications or complexities. He still may a little too close to the buzzword-philia of Thomas Friedman for some readers, but in my view Zakaria’s book-length arguments are a cut above Friedman’s “gee whiz” bromides. (Zakaria’s weekly Newsweek columns do not always rise to this bar.)

Zakaria’s latest big concept is The Post-American World, a just-released book whose argument he summarizes in a substantial essay in this week’s Newsweek. The basic idea is, the world is becoming a place where the U.S. is not a solo superpower, but rather a complex competitive environment with multiple sites of power and influence. Even as China and India (“Chindia”?) rise, it’s not clear that the U.S. or Europe will fall; rather, everyone can, potentially, rise together — or at least, compete together. Zakaria argues that despite hysterical anxieties figured in the mass media regarding the threat of terrorism and economic crisis, the world has rarely been more peaceful — and that relative peace and stability has created the opportunity for the unprecedented emergence of independent and rapidly expanding market economies in formerly impoverished “Chindia.”

There’s more to it (read the article), but perhaps that is enough summary for now. There are a couple of passages I thought particularly interesting, which I might put out for discussion. First, on India:

During the 1980s, when I would visit India—where I grew up—most Indians were fascinated by the United States. Their interest, I have to confess, was not in the important power players in Washington or the great intellectuals in Cambridge.

People would often ask me about … Donald Trump. He was the very symbol of the United States—brassy, rich, and modern. He symbolized the feeling that if you wanted to find the biggest and largest anything, you had to look to America. Today, outside of entertainment figures, there is no comparable interest in American personalities. If you wonder why, read India’s newspapers or watch its television. There are dozens of Indian businessmen who are now wealthier than the Donald. Indians are obsessed by their own vulgar real estate billionaires. And that newfound interest in their own story is being replicated across much of the world. (link)

This last insight seems dead-on to me, and it’s the kind of thing I think Zakaria appreciates precisely because he was raised in India (no matter how many times he says “we” when talking about American foreign policy, he still carries that with him). This is one of the spaces where Zakaria’s status as an “Indian-American” is a real asset, as it gives him a simultaneous insider-outsider “double consciousness” — he has the ability to see things from the American/European point of view, but also know (remembers?) how the man on the street in Bombay or Shanghai is likely to see the world. [Note: I did an earlier post on Zakaria’s complex perspective here]

(As a side note — for the academics in the house, isn’t the narrative Zakaria is promoting in the passage above a “pop” version of what postcolonial theorists have been talking about for years — what Ngugi called “The Decolonization of the Mind”?)

Secondly, another passage, which I think addresses what might be the biggest hindrance to the multi-nodal global society Zakaria is interested in: Continue reading →

Hot Breads = Teh Yum

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A few weeks ago we were in North Jersey, and went with friends to a new restaurant called “Hot Breads,” in Parsippany. I thought the idea of a cafe style restaurant along these lines was great, and I immediately thought, “hey, someone should open one of these down in Philadelphia!” When I got home, I hit Google, and discovered there are already two within 20 miles of my house, not to mention numerous franchises in California, Georgia, Maryland, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Virginia. [UPDATE: Abhi also gave his own take on this place two years ago, in this SM post]

Hot Breads specializes in stuffed croissants (tandoori chicken, paneer, etc.), but also offers a menu of other light foods (wraps, chaat, desi-style pizza) as well as dessert pastries. (See a typical menu here [PDF].) The format itself is a nice change from a typical Indian restaurant — with the year-round Christmas lights and sometimes shoddy service.

After the Parsippany experience, we went to the one in Lansdale/North Wales, and liked it even better. I particularly liked the Dabeli, a kind of Gujarati version of Vada Pav. I also found my Chicken Tikka wrap quite satisfying, and the chutney free version of the “Bombay Sandwich” we got for Puran was also good. We got stuffed Croissants to go, though perhaps they suffered a bit by being not quite as fresh when we actually ate them the next day. Next time, I’ll be curious to try the “Alu Chilli Pizza” — or perhaps the “Pav Bhaji Pizza.”

Oh, and everything tastes better with Limca!

Continue reading →

“The Age of Shiva” — a Review

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I was surprised by how much the others in my book group didn’t like Manil Suri’s The Age of Shiva. The biggest complaint was from the mothers in the group (including my better half), who didn’t like Suri’s use of a first/second person narrative method (the novel is written in the voice of a woman named Meera, addressed to her son, Ashvin). Several people said they didn’t think Suri really pulled off the trick of writing about the intimate space of family life from a woman’s point of view.

Reading as a man, I didn’t notice anything implausible or false, though obviously I can’t be the judge. Certainly, some of the intimate passages regarding things like Meera’s breastfeeding of her son are quite risky (starting with the opening paragraphs of the novel; you can hear Suri read them aloud here). I find the opening a bit stylistically overwrought (the novel quickly shifts to a more conventional style), but it’s still, I think, plausible.

(Chandrahas Chowdhury, reviewing the novel in the Guardian, wasn’t bothered by this aspect, but by the novel’s use of Indian history. Jabberwock, whose opinion I respect greatly, loved the novel, and found Suri’s attempt at a woman’s point of view convincing. Then again, both reviewers are men. The only review of the novel by a woman I’ve come across is by Caryn James, in the New York Times — and she doesn’t take issue with Suri along these lines. Still, I wonder what readers thought?)

Though I suspect some other readers may share my book group’s distaste, I did think The Age of Shiva had some real strengths. Continue reading →

You Will Go To “Nether Region” For Watching “The Love Guru”

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These people are actually quite serious, when they inform us of the punishments we are likely to receive for making, viewing, or thinking about the upcoming Mike Myers’ comedy, The Love Guru. One of the groups leading the protests is the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti, which has, based on the trailer, judged the film as offensive to Hindus because it mocks the sanctity of the Guru-Shishya relationship. They have drawn up an open letter of protest to the MPAA, and sent out press releases, generating straight-faced coverage like this (thanks, PremiumSchlock).

Unfortunately, while many news organizations have been attending to the budding protests against The Love Guru, few news stories have been paying attention to other creative documents by the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti relating to the film, such as the following table:

            Act

Demerit

   Means

Making the movie, ‘The Love Guru’

30 units

2nd region of Hell for 1000 years

Watching it for entertainment without knowing the spiritual science/significance

2 units

Nether region (Bhuvaloka) for 100 yrs

Watching it for entertainment even after knowing the spiritual science/ significance

5 units

1st region of Hell for 100 yrs

Being a seeker of God/on the spiritual path, knowing about the Movie, but doing nothing to stop it

5 units

1st region of Hell for 100 yrs

(Source for the above table.) And how many demerits do I get for finding this table hilarious? (I must admit, I am rather curious about this “nether region” idea.)

Their open letter to the MPAA is also unintentionally comic:

The trailer released by Paramount pictures shows utter disrespect for the deep spiritual significance of the Guru. It shows the Guru in a very poor light and encourages the audience to laugh at the Guru. I could not believe my eyes when the trailer revealed Mike Myers playing a Guru through a whole range of denigrating scenes, some of which are quite lurid, such as the Guru wearing a chastity belt, having an erection, involved in bar brawls, accepting money to playing cupid, etc. In the trailer the character Pitka is proclaimed as the second best Guru in India. Was this a calculated statement or was this pulled out of some juvenile script writer’s repertoire? For a country that has produced revered Gurus and Saints such as Swami Vivekanand, Ramkrushna Paramhansa and Yogi Arvind, does Paramount Pictures actually believe that Mike Meyer’s portrayal of a Guru will join the ranks of the most illustrious Saints/Guru’s of India? Was your research team / script writer not aware of the sanctity of the Guru prior to making the movie? Did they even consult leaders in Spirituality (apart from Mr. Deepak Chopra of course) if the script was potentially hurting? (link)

“The script was potentially hurting” — indeed.

The protests to this film might turn out to be funnier than the film itself. Continue reading →