Author Archives: siddhartha

Global warming withers Shiva lingam

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Not long ago Abhi, fresh from watching Al Gore’s documentary, alerted us to the consequences of global warming for the subcontinent. And they are as dire as he predicted. In a crisis that has mobilized India’s High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) and Snow and Avalanche Studies Establishment (SASE), the Shiva lingam at Amarnath has failed to form this year. The glacier cover of the cave has receded by 100 meters, and there has been insufficient snowfall. At the onset of the annual pilgrimage season, when hundreds of thousands of pilgrims trek up to the cave to see the lingam, temple officials faced a major problem. Consider the two pictures below. The first shows the lingam in a normal year. The second shows the lingam site on May 6, 2006:

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shivling2006.jpg

But when pilgrims and journalists arrived, a full five-foot lingam had mysteriously appeared in place even though there had been no snowfall. It was immediately evident that this lingam was a crude fake:

Continue reading →

Jharkhand minister gives power to the people

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mahto.jpgYesterday Sudesh Mahto (pictured), the home minister of Jharkhand, wed fiancee Neha, a law student, in her home village of Dimbudih. The “VVIPs” were out in force:

Many of the ‘Who’s who’ of the state along with some of the political bigwigs of the country including Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad [Yadav] and senior BJP leader L K Advani graced the occasion but, Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda did not attend the function as he was indisposed.

State Road Construction officials worked overtime to construct new roads, Energy Department employees erected electric poles, intelligence sleuths and senior police personnel made tight security arrangements at the venue, which falls in the Naxal-infested zone, with STF jawans keeping a hawk eye vigil.

The festivities, which continue tomorrow with a reception for 50,000 in Mahto’s village Lagam, have brought a flurry of rural development activity to the area. To accommodate the minister’s 300-vehicle motorcade, an all-weather road was constructed between the two hamlets. Places along the route have received electricity for the first time.

‘Thanks to the marriage of the minister our village got connected with roads and we saw electricity,’ said Ganesh Mahto, a resident of Silli.

The villagers are happy for more than one reason. Besides roads and power, many have also got short-term employment thanks to the construction work. Incidentally, the home minister is also in charge of road and construction, so there was no problem in getting funds.

‘We had been making rounds of offices to get electricity connection for the past decade. But the minister’s marriage brought electricity to the village,’ said another villager.

Indeed, the wedding has alerted villagers to a whole new development strategy:

But the best part of the marriage was the glittering, almost blinding electric lights, which villagers saw for the first time since Independence. “May every daughter of this village be married to a VIP,” prayed one of them.

The villagers should not to count on those lights glittering too often. Jharkhand’s power situation is dire. The state electricity board is mired in dispute over reforms, and its two thermal plants generate no more than 10% of their installed capacity. Even importing power from outside, Jharkhand is plagued with power cuts.

Then again, Mahto, a former footballer, has also vowed to “wipe out Naxalism through games and sports.” So perhaps he has an integrated theory of social progress, not just an over-reliance on pixie dust. Social scientists would be wise to stay on the case. Continue reading →

Gita, R.I.P.

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gitaservice.jpgI absolutely love animals: sometimes I feel that I’ve learned almost as much from animals as from human beings about how to live and conduct myself in the world. So a tip on the News page (thanks, WGIIA) about the recent passing of one of the three elephants at the Los Angeles Zoo has got me deeply saddened. Gita suffered from foot ailments, as apparently many captive elephants do. She’d undergone surgery earlier this year and was making what zookeepers believed was good progress toward recovery. But last Saturday they found her in her area lifeless, with her legs folded beneath her. She was 48 years old and had lived at the zoo since 1959.

The photo shows a priest from the Malibu Hindu Temple (lately of Britney Spears fame), Krishnama Samudrala Charyulu, giving prayers last Wednesday at a service for Gita (she was an Asian elephant) held at the entrance of the zoo. The service was the idea of activists who oppose keeping elephants in captivity and who have been waging a battle against the city of Los Angeles. Apparently Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa failed to veto a $50m improvement in the elephants’ lodgings. The activists believe elephants should be kept in wildlife sanctuaries, not zoos, which seems reasonable enough; so they actually exposed the expansion of the zoo exhibit on grounds that it would still be too small and that the city had more pressing needs for the money.

There seems to be some disagreement as to how the elephants are protected from foot ailments that stem from walking on hard surfaces. From the Los Angeles Times article:

But she also had become a symbol for impassioned animal rights activists who argued that her crippling problems were the result of treading on concrete surfaces in the zoo for years, and that she would never completely recover. (All the zoo’s elephants now pad around on soft dirt surfaces.)

And from the Last Chance for Animals press release:

It has become evident that the LA Zoo cannot provide the space, exercise or social enrichment needed to preserve the elephants’ health and well being. They are kept in woefully inadequate quarters and are forced to stand on hard surfaces such as concrete or hard-packed earth.

Continue reading →

Queer as a Desi

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In this Pride season, a salute goes out to all the organizations and individuals working for community-building, wellness and recognition of non-heterosexual desis. The queer community is one of the most vibrant sites where today’s culture of the desi diaspora is being developed, just as queer communities, by force or by choice, have blazed new trails for cultures through the ages. And I’m not just talking about better parties and clothes, though I’m certainly grateful for those elements. Over dinner a few nights ago in a group that included four “desi dykes” — one Muslim ABCD sister and her European partner, and a Hindu ABCD sister with her FOB Pakistani partner — I was moved by the way this assembly both reaffirmed and challenged at the same time any number of ideas about the subcontinent and its diaspora.

In a few days the Bay Area group Trikone holds DesiQ: From Visions to Action, a major conference for what the organizers call “the diverse South Asian GBT community and our allies.” The conference will be held on the UCSF campus and has the support of major sponsors like AT&T. The queer Tamil Sri Lankan-American performance artist D’Lo will host the gala on Friday the 23rd. The conferene immediately precedes San Francisco’s Dyke March and SF Pride parade.

The list of workshops to be held at DesiQ offers a powerful picture of the issues at play in the desi queer community. Some workshops are meant to be purely fun, which is great; others look like they will delve into the arcana of queer academic cultural theory, which is an acquired taste but cool for those who dig it. But most illuminating are the workshops with straightforward issue-oriented titles like:

  • Marriage Equality in a South Asian Context: the Debates, the Issues
  • Hidden Voices: The Lives of Queer Muslim South Asians
  • Fuzzy Boundaries: Gender, Sex and Sexuality among South Asians
  • Understanding the Psychological Needs of South Asian GLBT Clientele

The presenters include desi activists, academics, doctors, psychotherapists, artists and others. It looks to be one of the most exciting gatherings of desis around, and anyone who makes it to this and then hops down on Saturday morning to Los Angeles for ArtWallah is sure to emerge drenched in creative and mutinous desitude. The only downside is that you’ll miss a few World Cup games, though I am sure there will be a footie-watching caucus amid the DesiQ participants.

There’s a whole other post to be written on queer and allied desi academics‘ contributions to thinking about the diaspora, and another on queer desis online, but there’s time for that. Just as Black history need not be confined to “Black History Month” in February, the conversation within the community about gender and sexuality need not be confined to the annual Pride season. Still, Pride is about, well, pride, and I’m proud of my sisters and brothers and gender-indeterminate siblings for the growth of their movement(s), their increased visibility, and their contributions to the ongoing desi conversation. Have fun y’all, and enjoy the season! Continue reading →

The World Cup: First Week Impressions

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brazilian.jpgThe people have spoken! And they want more Brazilian hotties World Cup coverage. Armed with this unambiguous mandate, I offer you the Sepia Mutiny update on the World Cup, now that one-third of the first round is over and we have seen every team in action at least once.

First, the Desi Angle (TM): your Great Brown Hope, the Mauritian-Indian French midfielder Vikash Dhorasoo, came on for the final ten minutes of an insipid and stultifying France-Switzerland match that produced the two teams’ third draw in their last three confrontations. Brought on to give France some much-needed energy, Dhorasoo did well in the short time he had, and nearly scored with a searing shot from range that just missed the far post. Watching amid a thin, pessimistic French crowd on the otherwise lovely rear patio of Brooklyn restaurant Jolie, Mr Kobayashi and I nearly choked on our merguez sandwiches as we watched the potential First Desi Goal in World Cup History skim barely wide. It was not to be, but with the French first-stringers not showing much verve, the Hope may well see more playing time in the next two matches against South Korea and Togo.

Via that brother at Ultrabrown, here is a YouTube video of Dhorasoo’s entrance and shot. I couldn’t find a still photo — if anyone out there has found one, holla at me.

And that concludes the Desi Angle (TM). Now for the true heads, here’s an appreciation of the tournament so far, with a Daljit Dhaliwal tie-in for those who read all the way to the end. Continue reading →

It’s On !!!

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bagan-1911.jpg On July 29, 1911, the gentlemen to the right lifted their first IFA Shield as Mohun Bagan defeated the East Yorkshire Regiment by two goals to one. Founded in 1889, Calcutta’s Mohun Bagan are Asia’s oldest football team, and to this day a major force in Indian soccer, along with perennial in-town rivals East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting. Calcutta remains a hotbed of Indian football, with the most famous clubs and the most ardent and knowledgeable international football fans.

A memory: Midway through the US-hosted 1994 World Cup, I learned that my grandmother was ill and unlikely to survive. I flew to Calcutta from Boston, where I had attended two 1st-round matches and one 2nd-round (the Nigeria-Italy of tragic memory). For two weeks, my father and I held death watch in the family house. Our sole distraction was the World Cup matches that beamed in to the ill-tempered black-and-white television at ungodly hours of the night. In this nether state we saw the heroics of Romania’s Georghe Hagi, Sweden’s unlikely run, and Branco’s 30-meter free-kick that broke the Brazil-Netherlands tie. At 8 a.m. the armada of doctors would appear. They too had risen at 3 to watch the games. We’d analyze Colombia’s strange collapse or Brazil’s atypically dull style as they hovered over my grandmother, our own drama sadly easier to predict than, say, the fact that Brazil would beat Italy in the final on, of all things, a missed Roberto Baggio penalty.

Costaricafan.jpgMinutes away as I write this, Germany and Costa Rica will kick off this year’s tournament. In Calcutta, LCD and plasma television sales have doubled, says the Telegraph. The paper provides its readers with an invaluable feature on World Cup viewing tips which will be useful to sepia aficionados worldwide.

It covers dress:

The price may be a little steep at Rs 2,700, but Adidas is seeing team jerseys of Argentina, Germany, Spain and France fly off the shelves in city stores. Ditto for Nike jerseys of Brazil, Portugal and Holland, priced at Rs 2,495.

Posture:

The TV set should be at eye level, at a distance of at least five to six feet. Sit upright in straight-backed cushioned chair with head and lumbar support….

That Calcutta is becoming more conscious of the cramp and the cringe is clear from the queries reaching gyms about what to do during World Cup viewing.

“An erect posture should be maintained while sitting for such long hours because if the posture is faulty back trouble is inevitable. Reclining chairs are not advised,” says Divya Himatsingka of Gold’s Gym.

Exercise: Continue reading →

The Dirt on Brother Paul

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paulplane.jpegOur invaluable H-town correspondent technophobicgeek alerts us on the News tab to a Houston Press exposé on K. A. Paul, my favorite Indian religious huckster of the moment. Brother Paul, né Anand Kilari or by some accounts Kilari Anand, was blogged here not too long ago, and I see a lot of you have checked out the article, so I’ll limit the priceless quotes to this one, on how Paul’s church conned a pro-Israel group (“Friends of the Israel Defense Forces,” yikes) out of $850,000 which it used to repair the leader’s decrepit 747, Global Peace One:

In the e-mail to FIDF Chairman Larry Hochberg, Dodson [Paul’s factotum] writes: “Israel’s arrogance toward us stands in stark contrast to the 51 presidents who have attended our rallies or have come to meet Dr. Paul in other venues. A perfect example is Israel’s neighbor Ethiopia, whose 80 year old president, His Excellency President Girma, broke all rules of protocol to come to personally meet us at the airport with a red carpet welcome.” (According to one passenger on that voyage, it was Kilari who brought his own red carpet.)

Without the multi-entry visa, Dodson wrote, the Jewish group had three options: Get off in Poland and find its own way to Israel, fly with Kilari to Syria before going to Israel, or cancel outright. The group called the bluff and chose Door No. 3. Because the $850,000 was a “donation,” Global Peace Initiative refused to refund the money, which was sunk into the plane. Less than a month after Kilari stood up the Jewish group, the plane took a last-minute jaunt to Canada, where it confused officials at the tiny Thunder Bay, Ontario, airport, which hadn’t serviced a 747 in years. It sat there for about a week, at which point the Federal Aviation Administration deemed it unairworthy. Yet for some reason, the administration permitted Kilari to fly the plane to Tijuana, where it is now collecting dust in a vacant lot.

Classic stuff. OK, one more, from the Press‘s attempt to interview the holy man:

This is why he shouts, “You’re asking stupid questions!” and adds, “You write that story, boy, you write that story and you wait for the response…Benny Hinns and TD Jakes are becoming millionaires and billionaires, and you’re now talking to a village preacher, broke completely, can’t even pay his own salaries anymore, and doesn’t own a $100 property anywhere in the world–“

At which point we had to ask Kilari, “You don’t own a $100 property anywhere in the world, but you own a freaking 747?”

“No, I don’t own freaking 747, you idiot. I don’t own!”

“Who owns it?”

“It is the organization owns it, you chicken!”

Continue reading →

Another Hijra-Visit Candidate

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temple-nytarticle.jpg Ah, mysterious India, ever in flux yet steadfastly the same! While greenbacks, terabytes and bushy-tailed MBAs woosh back and forth between Bangalore and Wall Street, the eructations of Tom Friedman speeding them across the Flat World like some kind of ill pneumatics, the doings of the superstitious masses still supply orientalists correspondents with fare for cutesiness and condescension. As Henry Chu sat barricaded at the crib contemplating his balls, Jonathan Allen of the New York Times was bravely setting off into Delhi’s diesel dawn to document the queer customs of the Hindoo:

the creators of the new Swaminarayan Akshardham temple complex that towers over east Delhi thought to include several features not commonly found in Hindu architecture, including an indoor boat ride, a large-format movie screen, a musical fountain and a hall of animatronic characters that may well remind us that, really, it’s a small world after all. There are even pink (sandstone) elephants on parade.

After noting that the temple is inspired by Disneyland (“We visited five or six times. As tourists, I mean,” the temple’s PR officer clarifies), Allen goes on to, let’s see, analogize Indian temple-goers to people waiting for the toilet, and Indians in general to dogs, amongst whom he is like an unflappable elephant…

Wait, you think I’m making this up?

Here are the toilets:

The appeal of this might at first be lost on visitors to India, who are usually coming to see the country’s abundance of genuinely ancient buildings [say wha…? – ed.]; Indians, who are surrounded by them, will generally grab any opportunity to escape from all that decrepitude for the afternoon, ideally to a place with musical fountains. The crowds here aren’t pilgrims; they’re day trippers. (…)

And so, although Western tourists are welcome, they can expect to receive the occasional look of benign giggly bemusement, the same kind a gentleman receives upon joining the line for the ladies’ toilets. (…)

The dogs:

Sometimes the allegorical power of elephants is overestimated, as in the tableau which, according to the caption, claims that: “One problem elephants never face is the generation gap.”

The one that most strikes me is the creature shown “equipoised and nonchalant amidst barking dogs”; for the tourist sometimes overwhelmed by the colorful chaos of India, this could well be the most relevant elephant.(…)

Portrait of the author as a patient pachyderm:

People cut in line and tread on my toes, which strike me as things Bhagwan Swaminarayan would not do. It seems the combined efforts of the Akshardham’s robots, elephants and talking boats in relaying BAPS’s essential message of humble compassion may still not have been enough.

As I leave the temple, a horde of rickshaw drivers surrounds me, loudly and physically hustling for my business. I again try to adopt the posture of the unflappable elephant.

But unlike Henry and the hijras, this elephant has balls. Jonathan gets all New York on motherfuckers:

Then it occurs to me that that elephant must get ripped off all the time, and I argue furiously with the drivers until one of them relents and agrees to take me back to central Delhi on the meter.

Balls and all! Continue reading →

Do Hijras Dream of Saffron Balls…?

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…or just of wads of rupees?

This one is so easy I’m (almost) embarrassed to blog it, but our duty of chronicling the ongoing encounter of Western and South Asian cultures requires that we note this first-person piece by the Los Angeles Times‘ new India correspondent, Henry Chu:

On a recent afternoon, as I stood surrounded by a dozen workers hammering, sawing and drilling in my new apartment, they materialized out of nowhere, two sari-clad women with suspiciously mannish features.

The taller one had a broad face, a big nose and a purple sari — a color I like, but not on her. The other was thin, almost bird like, in every way: face, body, voice. Something about their manner, or their rather harsh, heavily made-up look, put me on guard.

I’ll let you read the piece, noting only that although it certainly possesses a sensationalist edge, the author does note the historical background of hijras and recent status victories, such as the third-sex option on government forms. (How many other countries offer that, I wonder?)

In any case, Henry was shaken up by the shake-down:

The short one continued to appeal to me directly, gazing at me meaningfully and sprinkling her Hindi with unmistakable English phrases like “a thousand rupees” (about $22). At one point she knelt down and touched my feet in a sign of obeisance or importunity. Then, growing frustrated by my stinginess, she drew up the hem of her sari, perhaps to warn me that she was ready to flash her mutilated parts, a common tactic among eunuchs to hurry horrified partygoers into forking over cash to get their uninvited guests to leave.

I won’t spoil the ending. But I will issue a politically-correct tsk, tsk, at Chu’s sign-off line:

When I see them through the peephole, I don’t answer the door.

Instead, I tiptoe back and huddle quiet as a mouse, praying that they’ll go away, while an annoying voice in my head snickers, “Who’s the eunuch now?” I don’t answer that either.

Stay long enough in India, brother Henry, and you’ll surely grow a saffron set of your own!

Flame away, people. It’s a rainy day where I am right now, and we could use the heat. Continue reading →

NYC Desi Youth Activists Get Props

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Many thanks to the tipster who posted a link on the news tab to this column by Errol Louis in the New York Daily News. Louis, whose columns often focus on ear-to-the-street developments in New York’s immigrant communities and communities of color, devotes today’s piece to the launch, this afternoon, of a report on safe learning for immigrants in the NYC public schools. It’s a broad, holistic understanding of safety that means fewer cops, more resources, and protection from immigration authorities.

What’s remarkable is that this report, based on two years of fieldwork supported by a prestigious non-profit called the Urban Justice Center, is the work of desis — the young brothers and sisters in DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving) Youth Power. These young desi activists are taking on subjects that are important to all immigrant families and indeed to any family with kids in the New York schools.

It’s an encouraging example of identity politics used for inclusive, coalition-building purposes: the desi identification gives a group like DRUM its base and stability, but the work reaches far beyond the narrow interests of that base.

You can agree or disagree with this approach, or for that matter with the overall “Education Not Deportation” umbrella theme of this action, but it’s nice to see the DRUM Youth Power work give an opportunity for a major tabloid columnist to educate the city about desis:

The slang term Desi refers to immigrants from South Asia – including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and parts of the diaspora including Africa, England and the Caribbean.

They are part of the backbone of our city – including the cab drivers, domestics and restaurant workers who collectively form our largest and fastest-growing immigrant group.

Working-class Desi kids, according to a survey summarized in the DRUM report, are sick of seeing metal detectors, armed cops and bullying administrators prowling school halls.

“A climate of fear is being created,” says Refat (Shoshi) Doza, a 20-year-old Queens College student. “That’s not the way to teach a child.” Raquibul Alam Nayeem, a 17-year-old student at William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens, agrees.

To Louis at least, the sisters and brothers in DRUM are setting an example for all to emulate:

The Department of Education should listen closely to DRUM’s youth leaders, particularly the explosive allegation that some schools, in violation of longstanding city policy, may be turning over students’ citizenship information to immigration officials.

By standing up and complaining, these kids are learning lessons that will prepare them to be the kind of outside-the-box thinkers our city and nation need.

The report launches this afternoon at 5 PM at a community meeting in Jackson Heights, for anyone interested in attending. Congratulations and Big Up! to the DRUM crew for their hard work. Continue reading →