Author Archives: A N N A

Quit BJP? Advani did.

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advani.jpg After stating what very well could be a fact while on a trip to Pakistan, BJP leader LK Advani has asked his party to “relieve” him of his duties. Or, to put it bluntly, he’s resigned after much drama.

A chief architect of the political ascendancy of Hindu nationalism in India in the 1990’s and the current opposition leader in Parliament, L. K. Advani, resigned today as head of his party, amid a storm of criticism from within his own ranks over remarks he made while in Pakistan.
Last weekend, on a visit to Karachi, where he was born, Mr. Advani stood at the tomb of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and praised him as a “secular” leader.

Now I was raised to hate on Jinnah like most good, slightly perplexed toddlers were; my father vividly remembered an “India” that still contained an unbroken Punjab and like many of his generation, he bitterly resented Jinnah for “what he did to us”.

I never really thought of or questioned this until today, when I started to see these stories on NYT and the Beeb. I went to trusty Wikipedia to see about Jinnah. What if Advani was right, and gasp he WAS secular?

A common view, especially in India, is that it was Jinnah who was responsible for “the division of India”, creating Pakistan. The portrayal is that of a religious leader completely committed to his community having a country of its own. Jinnah himself, however, was a very secular person. Most of his career till about 1930 was spent trying either to bring the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League to work together or getting mainstream parties like the Congress (of which he was a member much longer than the League) to be sensitive to minority priorities. When the League was founded in 1905, he was probably the only major Muslim personality to refuse to join.

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They TOTALLY beat Abhi to it…

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everest.jpg Two Nepalese lowebirds who had participated in the Rotary Centennial Everest Expedition this week got married atop Everest; yes, it’s a first. Sadly for you, Abhi was not around HQ for comment.

Other climbers were understandably floored by the event…or ceiling-ed, rather, at the simple, ten-minute ceremony.

They briefly took off their oxygen masks and put on plastic garlands, while the groom symbolically applied red powder on the bride’s forehead.

They kept it on the downlow:

Mr Dorjee said other couples had wanted to do the same in the past, but none had managed because they could not get up on top of the peak together.
Fearing the same possibility, they had kept their own plan secret.

Did you catch that? Before this couple, no one else had been able to use the world’s most exclusive location for their nuptials because apparently, they couldn’t get to the top of Everest at the same time as their intended. What did they do, ditch their slow beloveds in the snow? Stay with them and nurse resentment? Rethink the viability of marrying them on the long way down? I ask too many questions?

So, there’s more to this union than a unique location; Moni Mule Pati and Pem Dorjee Sherpa’s bond is extra special because it crosses caste and ethnic boundaries. In a statement regarding this aspect of his marriage, the groom, in an understated, black, backwards-facing baseball cap wisely quoted Depeche Mode:

“If some people are loving each other they have to get married,” Pem Dorjee told the BBC. “That’s why we want to give all Nepali people [the message] that people are people so there’s no problem about caste.”

Indeed. It’s been quite a week for Everest, besides this marriage made and/or “solemnised” in heaven, two Iranian women became the first Muslim females to make it to the top. No word on whether they left slow fiances in their dust. Snow. Whatever. Continue reading →

Aren’t we uptight enough?

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curry leaves.gif From the verdant paradise of my ancestors comes a story that has my head ringing with “You put your WEED in it!“– apparently, a needless slaughter of innocent, Idukki-dwelling Cannabis plants took place in Kerala…I ask you, where’s the outrage? 😉 Oh, and what next?

The Kerala government will convert part of an 8,000-acre forest that used to be dense with cannabis plants into a tourist adventure and herbal park.
“Apart from the adventure park, we propose to convert the place into a herbal park as several species of herbal plants are growing in the area,” Forest Minister T. Radhakrishnan told reporters here Tuesday.

What’s an herbal park…without HERB? Sheesh.

If I had to guess, I would speculate that the park will be full of Karriveppilei, that sacred, venerated Malayalee houseplant that my mom would save from a burning building before any thought of me, my sister or my dog.

About 114,000 cannabis plants were destroyed.

Omg, they killed cannabis. Those bastards. 😉 Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go veg to more Comedy Central, lest I run out of cute ways to blog things. 😀 Continue reading →

Monkey see, Monkey do?

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Monkey got props for his actions, too. (Thanks, bl00t!) A simian devotee of Shiva showed up bright and early in Orissa the other day:

Said Aniruddha Behera, a village resident: “The monkey folded his hands, observed silence, put vermilion on his forehead and also took the prasad from the devotees.”
“When we saw the monkey joining us we were surprised. We did not try to drive it out and it continued praying for nearly an hour amid hundreds of devotees,” Behera told IANS.

Villagers from Junia, Balasore district placed a garland on the spiritual simian before he left for a forest. Apparently the monkey was not familiar to those who witnessed the surprising scene, which went down on the day that a symbol for Shiva was being “formally inaugurat(ed)”.

“We have not seen any monkey around for the last two years. This is a miracle for us,” Behera said.

Over forty years ago, my mom’s family in Kerala had a parrot that famously prayed with everyone every day; in fact, if “evening prayers” didn’t commence exactly on time, the much-loved bird would chide my heathen mother and sonorously begin them for her. Yeah, I love stories like this. Continue reading →

For 39 years, “One People, One Nation, One Destiny”

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coat of armsWe’ve been accused of a lack of lowe for Guyana, so I thought I’d point out that serendipitously enough, today is Guyanese Independence Day. Wikipedia says so on its main page, under selected Anniversaries. By the by, did you know that Guyana is half desi?

the three major groups are the (East) Indians or Indo-Guyanese (50%) who have remained predominantly rural, the Africans or Afro-Guyanese (36%) who constitute the majority urban population, and the Amerindians (7%) who live in the country’s interior…

Guyanese flag

Christianity (50%), Hinduism (35%), and Islam (10%) are the dominant religions in Guyana, with the latter two concentrated in the Indo-Guyanese community.

Word. SM is down with ALL brown, y’hear? 🙂

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Sachin? More like Sach-OUT, for a few.

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tendulkar.jpg Somewhere, a bench is about to have a really famous butt on it:

Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar will be out of action for at least four months after undergoing surgery on his troublesome elbow.
The 32-year-old batsman had the operation in London on Monday.
Karunakaran Nair, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, said he could not say how long Tendulkar would be out for…
He first suffered what was originally described as “tennis elbow” while batting in the nets in the Netherlands last August.

Surgeons say that the procedure for a “condition affecting the extensor tendons” was complication-free. Tendulkar is expected to make a full recovery. Continue reading →

Abha Dawesar in DC tomorrow

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no sari or mehndi here.JPG

Wordsmith Dawesar presents her electrifying Babyji in DC tomorrow night:

Reading from BABYJI
Olsson’s Books @ Penn Quarter
418 7th Street NW
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Thursday May 26th, 7 PM.
202-638-7610

I’m almost done with it and it’s fantastic; Babyji may accomplish what even my father couldn’t– it might persuade me to study physics. Intrigued? You should be. What other novel contains a come on like, “I want to collapse my wave function into you.” Now that’s hot. 😉 Continue reading →

Sunil Dutt, 1929-2005

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Dutt as Birju Bollywood legend Sunil Dutt died earlier today of a heart attack in Bombay. On June 6, he would have been 76.

A concise bio:

Balraj Dutt was born in Khurd, Jhelum District (now Pakistan) in 1929. He worked as an announcer on Radio Ceylon before launching his film career. Success came quickly with Mother India in which he played the outlaw hero son of Nargis, who later became his wife. He also played a series of clean- cut modern youths in the late 50’s and was a talented comedian. He made his directorial debut in 1964 with Yaadein, an experimental one-man show, and was responsible for launching his son’s career in 1981 when he directed him in Rocky. Like his wife he entered politics, becoming an MP representing Congress (I) in North Bombay in 1979.

My earliest memory of a Bollywood film involved “Dutt Sahib” as Birju in 1957’s seminal Mother India; I will never forget the look on his face or the sound of his voice in the scene involving his long-suffering Mother’s (Nargis) bracelets. I remember my father telling me the following anecdote, much to my delight:

It is a well-known story that while shooting for the film, Nargis was trapped amidst lit haystacks. As the flames got higher and higher, Sunil Dutt playing her rebellious son, Birju, in the film ran through the fire and rescued her. He proposed to her and Nargis married Sunil Dutt and quit films after marriage.

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%$#&?@ Vestern influences

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no pants here.JPG Professional Indian women are trading one type of pleated garment for a far less attractive substitute (unless they’re choosing “flat-fronts”, that is):

A survey of Indian women’s preferred daily clothing has shown that more female professionals are choosing trousers over the traditional sari. The study results show that sales of women’s trousers have surged by almost 10% over the last two years.

Why all the drama?

“Let’s face it, the sari is not an easy garment to deal with. Women find it difficult to work in it with all the pleats and it does tend to be cumbersome,” fashion writer Hindol Sengupta told the BBC.

Worry not, traditionalists. Regular old Indian clothes still account “for three-quarters of the women’s apparel market”. Huzzah. Continue reading →

Of course the locals they battle are SUSPICIOUS, they’re BROWN

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blacknar.jpg

I’ll say it, ain’t no shame in my game, I LOVE the New York Post. Kindly tell me what other paper entertains so thoroughly for a mere $.50. Exactly.

An item in yesterday’s metro edition caught my eye; buried way in the back, long after the gleeful schadenfreude of page six, I saw the words Black Narcissus in a caption that was being suffocated by movie listings.

Intrigued, I did a double-take while slowly remembering that this was a book by Indian-born, erstwhile resident of Kashmir Rumer Godden, an author I had adored when I was much younger and sadder. Down went the paper and to the iBook I turned. IMDB was immediately summoned and I chortled at the movie’s tagline:

A Story to Storm Your Heart! Drama at the top of the world … where winds of the exotic past sweep men and women to strange and fascinating adventure…

Well, “top of the world” obviously means India. I mean, duh. More:

Anglican nuns, led by the stern Sister Clodagh, attempt to establish a religious community in the Himalayas, and must battle not only suspicious locals and the elements, but their own demons as well.

Oooooooh. They battled their own demons as well? Exciting!

I noticed that one of the cast members had a very Malayalee name, so I predictably clicked through to find out more about…”Sabu”, aka “The first Indian and middle-eastern actor to make it big in Hollywood.” Apparently “he was restricted to stereotypical roles of Indians.” Wow, that’s so sad, I mean, look at how far we’ve come! Indians aren’t subject to such narrow-minded casting now, thank goodness. gag Continue reading →