Author Archives: siddhartha

Flippin’ the Bird

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seattle.jpgI am quite sure many of you macacas have had some version of this experience, recounted by Mukta Tripathi of the Napa Valley Register:

During my first fall in the United States, someone asked me what Indians do for Thanksgiving.

Faced with this sort of inquiry, there are three basic approaches you can take.

1) A thorough, sensitive explanation that Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday unfamiliar to desis-from-desiland or any foreigners for that matter, augmented if you care to, by a description of meals consumed at holidays of the desi tradition of your choice, and if you need to, by a patient clarification that you are not one of those other Indians, you know, like that nice lady Pocahontas;

2) A petulant riposte that you are, by birth or longstanding residence, as American as the questioner, and how dare they suggest you would mark Thanksgiving any differently than they;

3) Simply invite the questioner to sit down with you and get your eat on.

My personal preference goes to option 3, as does Tripathi’s, who contributes in that spirit a menu of desified Thanksgiving delights:

I have put together a list of dishes using some traditional American Thanksgiving ingredients: green beans, pumpkin, turnips, potatoes and even cranberries. The sweet and sour pumpkin dish and the turnip, tomato and pea curry can be served with rice pilaf or rolled in a flour tortilla or flatbread as a wrap. I can guarantee that your vegetarian friends will be happy with these alternatives to turkey, and even the non-vegetarians may be inspired by these recipes.

They include Sweet and Sour Pumpkin with Indian Five Spices, Turnip Tomato and Peas Curry, Rice Pilaf; and Ginger and Cranberry Chutney with Five Spices.

You will have noticed that one key item is missing: the turkey. That’s fine if you’re vegetarian — you get to avoid the chore of preparing this fundamentally boring bird in a way that’s fit to eat — but if you or your guests are not, and unless you splurge for a partridge or goose, you need to deal with the problem. That’s where restaurateurs like Qudrat Syed of Chicago come in. He’ll desify your gobbler for a fee:

For $75, Syed took Motamen’s store-bought bird and gave him back a tandoori turkey with biryani, a vegetable-laden rice dish, and Motamen got to keep his own kitchen clean. “It was really different and really good,” said Motamen, who plans to do it again this year.

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Global Climax Change: The Science Is Still Out

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You have just over one month to eat your nuts and fruits, reserve your favorite setting and line up the partner(s) of your choice. On Friday, December 22nd, you can help change the world by taking part in the Global Orgasm for Peace.

WHO? All Men and Women, you and everyone you know.

WHERE? Everywhere in the world, but especially in countries with weapons of mass destruction.

WHEN? Winter Solstice Day – Friday, December 22nd, at the time of your choosing, in the place of your choosing and with as much privacy as you choose.

WHY? To effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy. There are two more US fleets heading for the Persian Gulf with anti-submarine equipment that can only be for use against Iran, so the time to change EarthÂ’s energy is NOW!

Our minds influence Matter and Energy fields, so by concentrating any thoughts during and after The Big O on peace and partnership, the combination of high orgasmic energy combined with mindful intention will reduce global levels of violence, hatred and fear.

Since the list of countries that possess WMDs includes the United States, India, Pakistan and the United Kingdom, the Global O gives most of our readers an opportunity to do some good. Make sure to tell all the aunties and uncles back in Desh that they too can change the world that day. I am sure they will all want to participate.

It will come as no surprise that the Global Orgasm project originates in San Francisco, the veritable yoni of spiritually-oriented activism. Amusingly sprinkled with double entendres, this article in yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle has the details:

While the Global O may sound much like other collective actions attempted over the years, the O’s organizers promise something more on their Web site: “The combination of high-energy orgasmic energy combined with mindful intention may have a much greater effect than previous mass meditations and prayers.” …

The effect is to be measured by the Global Consciousness Project at Princeton University (I’m not making this up), which tracks the impact of major events on the output of random number generators. That scientific dimension distinguishes Global O from earlier ventures:

Not surprisingly, the Global O isn’t the first effort to synchronize pleasure in the name of peace. Or even just in the name of synchronized pleasure. For several years, a weekly climax has been coordinated online (Webcams optional), and sexuality experts say there have been several other attempts to link pleasure and peace.

I’m also reminded of the song by Pulp, “Sheffield Sex City,” which speculates on what might happen if everyone in a depressed Northern England city came at once. But the Global O takes the concept to a more ambitious stage and I am sure you will all want to take part. No word yet on a Meetup.

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See you macacas tomorrow

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Social life: Macaques troops average 20 with many males and females. Separate troops may sometimes join to form temporary groups of more than 100. All members in the troop have a well-defined rank. In many, the rank is inherited from the mother. … Females form the permanent core of the group, while males transfer from among groups at least once in their lives, usually before they breed. They are fierce primates and will offer stout resistance to potential predators. [Link]

Your final friendly reminder for the NYC meet-up. Continue reading →

Pay attention, Satveer

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Pay attention…this is very important, Satveer. Have you noticed Jesus for yourself…at some moment in time, yet???

That is the advice offered to newly re-elected Minnesota state senator Satveer Chaudhary by his defeated opponent, Rae Hart Anderson, in the concession e-mail she sent him in lieu of the customary phone call. (Thanks, tipster “pardesi”!)

Minneapolis-St. Paul TV station WCCO helpfully provides verbatim text of the e-mail. A true light for Christ, Ms. Anderson proffers an odd form of congratulations before giving our heathen brother some news he can use:

I’ve enjoyed much of this race, especially the people I’ve met…even you! I see your deficits–not all of them, and your potential–but not all of it. Only your Creator knows the real potential He’s put in you. Get to know Him and know yourself…you’ll be more interesting even to you!

The race of your life is more important than this one–and it is my sincere wish that you’ll get to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. He died for the sins of the world, yours and mine–and especially for those who accept His forgiveness.

The message continues in this vein, with quotes from Scripture, before ending as follows:

There’s nothing like belonging to Christ…not winning, not money, not degrees…it’s the best.

Good wishes and better wishes…until you wish for the best!

“To get a sermon is definitely a surprise,” Chaudhary told WCCO. (Perhaps he should write back: “Tat tvam asi, Rae!”) Incidentally, Chaudhary’s state senate district overlaps with the US Congress district of Keith Ellison, the nation’s first Muslim congressman, who was asked this gem of a question a couple of days ago on CNN Headline News. It seems that in Minnesota, much of the Lord’s work remains shamefully undone. Continue reading →

Banal and Sad

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Today’s New York Times report from Myanmar (or Burma, if you prefer) is in large measure the same old sad story of a country wracked by poverty and disease while its dictatorial elite has fun and makes money. The angle this time, at least in the lede, is the contrast between the ongoing rush for Myanmar’s natural gas reserves and the domestic penury of petrol and electricity. The article then opens onto a number of other topics; no scoops here, but a useful reminder of a situation that many have found easy to forget. It’s also a timely reminder, considering the imminent passage of the US-India nuclear deal, of the way great-power strategic considerations still trump more ethical goals; for all their differences in other areas, India and China are both big supporters of the Myanmar regime.

Burma372.jpgAlso timely, considering our recent discussion of “citizen journalism” by means of camera-phone, is the article’s mention of video footage of the wedding of the Myanmar leader’s daughter that was smuggled out and posted by The Irrawaddy, a publication and website run largely by Burmese and based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Senior General Than Shwe has been the head guy in Myanmar for the past 14 years and apparently has given himself the airs of traditional Buddhist royalty, as several examples in the Times story attest. The wedding of his daughter Thandar Shwe to a mid-ranking government official involved a ceremony costing a reported $300,000 and, perhaps more egregiously, $50 million in houses and cars as gifts. Recently posted online, the video gives Burmese a specific target of outrage in the spirit of the great Bob Marley line, “Dem belly full but we hungry,” although how much it wil be seen within Myanmar is unclear.

I took a look at Irrawaddy.org and was extremely impressed by the coverage, analysis and professional values of the website; it can’t be all that easy reporting on a largely closed society and excavating the ties of its leadership with neighboring powers. Perhaps someone more versed on the subject can give more advanced commentary.

Meanwhile, watch the wedding video and what is striking is not so much the six fat ropes of diamonds that the bride wears, nor the train of her dress or the devoted attention of the dinner guests, but rather the sense of emptiness that the whole thing conveys. It seems to be held in an oversize function hall where the trappings of luxury have been grafted onto ultimately ordinary surroundings. The guests, the dinner tables, all look small and lonely and despite the lifting of bottles of Champagne it doesn’t seem like anyone (including the betrothed) is having much fun. The cheesy music only compounds the sense of tawdriness, even sadness, that suffuses the scene. Of course you don’t need to look as far as a paranoid dictatorship to find sensory evidence of the absolute, mind-numbing banality of power, but settings like this one display the phenomenon in its full, melancholy glory. The staging expresses the dialectic that binds the construction of power and spiritual decay, and supplies an updated, self-contained meaning to the term puppet regime. Continue reading →

M.I.A. Reappears Amid Charm City Grime

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wire.jpgOn September 15 BidiSmoker wrote this about the best show on TV:

I know there isn’t much of a desi angle to the story, but I’d love to write a post for SM on the Wire just because it’s such a great show that everyone should watch and no one does.

and Salil replied:

I TiVo and watch it religiously. It is, in my opinion, the best show on TV. I lived in Baltimore for a year, and they’ve captured the feel of that city to perfection. It’s gritty and raw without being forced or unbelievable, and the stories are really powerful. I kind of wish for a desi angle on it, too.

It is written, ask and ye shall receive! For it turns out that only a few days later the desi angle manifested itself. Allow me to take you through the steps:

1) The best show on television is The Wire.

2) The Wire takes place in Baltimore.

3) Baltimore has two major current cultural exports that share a rough, hyperrealistic griminess. One is The Wire, the other is the bass-heavy sound known as Baltimore club.

4) A major recent convert to Baltimore club is DJ Wesley Pentz aka Diplo.

5) Diplo is the music- (and sometimes more-) mate of Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam AKA M.I.A.

miabalto.jpg6) M.I.A.’s first reported appearance in the United States since her reported troubles with U.S. immigration took place on September 25 at Baltimore club Taxidermy Lounge, in a surprise set with Diplo before about 20 late-Monday-night revelers. (There she is to the right; photo from the Tazidermy Lounge MySpace page.)

7) M.I.A.’s new track “XR2,” now spreading virally over the internets (thanks Ismat and Nirali!), and its Diplo remix “XR2 Turbo,” are heavily influenced by Baltimore club.

So there you have it; the connection is drawn. Now you macacas can talk freely here about the show — or about the song, which marks something of a new artistic direction for the sista. I think it’s pretty dope. Continue reading →

Religious Visas

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Thirty-three people including two Massachusetts imams have been arrested for abuse of the Religious Worker visa program:

Federal immigration agents arrested imams from two Boston-area mosques yesterday on charges they were involved in a scheme that provided religious worker visas to immigrants who used them to enter the United States and work instead as gas station attendants, truck drivers, and factory laborers. …

Under the scheme, described by federal authorities yesterday, the immigrants, who were mostly Pakistani, paid a fee to US religious organizations, which then sponsored them for the visas.

The Religious Worker Program was created under the Immigration Act of 1990:

…churches, synagogues, and mosques can ask the government to approve visas for foreigners to fill vacant positions. Several thousand visas are issued each year that permit immigrants to enter the United States exclusively for religious employment. To obtain the visa, immigrants must have religious training and experience in their native country. Once here, they are not allowed to hold secular jobs. The religious worker permits can ultimately lead to green cards, or permanent residency. …

Federal immigration officials believe that abuse of the program is widespread: an August 2005 audit found signs of fraud in more than 30 percent of applications.

That wasn’t the prevailing view in Congress two years earlier, when the program was extended to 2008 in a fine display of bipartisan blather. Here’s Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.): Continue reading →

This Is Doha

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Al-Jazeera’s English-language channel launched today. I just watched the inaugural broadcast of Riz Khan’s daily one-hour show. It consisted of two long interviews, one with the Palestinian prime minister, Ibrahim Haniyeh of Hamas, and one with Shimon Peres, Israel’s vice-premier. Riz posed questions that were substantive and reasonably challenging, including a number sent in by viewers. It was interesting enough though the demure pace — you might say sedate — took some getting used to; the long-form interview format is only as good as the interviewees. The Peres segment was the more watchable, while the Haniyeh segment suffered from long, awkward pauses while Riz’s questions were being translated, off air, into Arabic.

AJEset.jpgAs I write this, an hour-long news show is under way with anchors in Doha, London and Washington and correspondents deployed in a number of locations. The global-South aspirations are made clear, with a reporter in Tehran, an interview of Congolese president Joseph Kabila, and a feature story from Brazil. The voices are mainly British, and of these, several are desi; others include former BBC reporter Rageh Omaar and other veterans of established UK and other outlets. The weather announcer is British and blonde.

The news hour pace is slower than CNN but faster than Riz’s show, very much in line with what you get on British and European news channels. It’s quite pleasant, actually. The overall production values are strong. So is the website, which has been totally overhauled from its previous atrocious state; it now looks very nice and has a good clear interface, although it’s still quite thin on content. To watch AJE in the United States, you will need to go through the website as there are no US distribution deals in place yet, and who knows when there will be. The site offers two feeds through RealPlayer: the low bandwidth feed, which I watched, worked fine, although it automatically ends after 15 minutes (you can just press play and it restarts); a high-quality feed is also offered for $5.95 per month.

The jury is out and no doubt will be for quite some time, but once I lowered my metabolism to the right level, I actually started to find the broadcast quite interesting and refreshing in its choices of topics. Nothing politically controversial has happened yet, and the presenters regularly read viewer email, including negative comments. It’s been striking so far how many of the comments, both positive and negative, come from people in the US. Perhaps the producers are emphasizing these on purpose.

My principal criticism so far is the overall global-antiseptic style that makes you feel like you are in a hotel room on some business trip even when you aren’t. But that’s a problem all these international news channels share. Here’s an early, generally positive, assessment from The Times of London; a profession of faith by the English program editor in The Guardian; and a Washington Post feature on Dave Marash, the Washington anchor. Continue reading →

November to Remember: The NYC Meetup, 11/18

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The election is over, and it leaves our community divided. We have happy macacas, upset macacas, indifferent macacas, and those who object to the term macaca. But surely the one political development of the last couple of days that has won broad-based approval is the apparent defeat of Sen. George Allen, for the reasons we all know. And in response, there have been calls for a party.

We’d love to fly all of you out to the bunker, where we could throw an outrageously debauched event away from prying eyes. Maybe someday. But for now, we offer the next best thing. On behalf of the whole crew, Vinod and myself invite you to The Sepia Mutiny “November to Remember” New York City Meetup, Saturday, November 18, 5:00 – 7:00 PM, at Epistrophy Cafe, 200 Mott Street (between Spring and Kenmare).

We’ve chosen this timing so that folks can join us and still go on to their fabulous New York evening activities, so no excuses! Epistrophy is a low-key, high-quality wine-oriented cafe with small food, both veg and non-veg, and reasonable prices. It’s owned by a couple from Sardinia and named for a Thelonious Monk classic. After 7, those who are so inclined can move on to dinner somewhere, but in the spirit of Monk, we’ll improvise.

FAQ: Regulars are welcome. Lurkers are welcome and encouraged. Aunties and Uncles are welcome. Aishwarya Rai, Kal Penn, M. Night Shyamalan, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Bipasha Basu, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy, Dr. Vijay, Salman Rushdie, Laloo Prasad Yadav, are all welcome. Macacas and non-macacas are welcome. Exotifiers and orientalists are welcome. Those who aren’t welcome are velcome.

Please to kindly RSVP in the comment thread, so we get a sense of numbers and whether we need to move the party to Bungalow 8 or Madison Square Garden. Zindabad! Continue reading →

A Complete Load of Pap(dits)

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In non-election news, tipsters are blowing up our spot to tell us about The Papdits, a TV pilot being shown online at Innertube, CBS’s broadband outlet. The creator is someone called Ant Hines, who is credited as a co-writer on Da Ali G Show and Borat.

papdits.jpgThe Papdits are a fictional Indian family (Kashmiri, the website specifies, strangely) who go around the United States in an RV on a mission to purchase and operate quartz mines. (Bear with me here.) We see them in Arkansas interacting with local yokels who are unaware that this is a “reality/scripted hybrid” played by actors who want to make them look ridiculous. I got through the corny music and overdone accents and made it to the point where the daughter wants to “make toilet” in a lake off the side of a boat that the family is trying to rent. You can see it all here.

The show is coming out of what Variety calls “two years of development hell,” being first developed for — and rejected by — Fox, before landing with CBS:

When it came time to make a decision on a series greenlight, however, CBS decided the show was simply too out there for its relatively mainstream aud.

Out there??? Try idiotic, borderline racist, a complete dog!

But [CBS exec] Tellem said Eye execs were hard-pressed to simply dismiss the show, which prompted serious laughter in the net’s screening rooms last May. …

Execs quickly decided it made sense to put the Sony/CBS Par show on the net’s Innertube broadband service. Rather than just throw it on immediately, however, net opted to wait a few months in order to piggyback the online premiere of “The Papdits” with the release of another, similarly themed project: “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”

Yeah, just like Borat, right? No, for at least one salient reason: while Sacha Baron Cohen is not, in fact, Kazakh, Ant Hines found himself some real-life desis to play the Papdit family. The mother, father and son are played by Priya Ayyar, Nitin Ganatra, and Kunal Sharma. One trusts this will not be the culminating achievement of their careers. CBS, meanwhile, thinks it’s onto something, and Hines ends up a winner either way:

While it’s highly unlikely the Innertube exposure will lead to a CBS berth for “The Papdits,” Tellem doesn’t hesitate when asked whether more episodes of the project could end up on Innertube.

“Absolutely,” she said.

In the meantime, CBS has given Hines a vote of confidence, inking a deal with the scribe to develop a new project for next season.

UPDATE: I think The Papdits is awful, but Priya at Nirali has a different view. What do y’all think? Continue reading →

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