Author Archives: Abhi

About Abhi

Abhi lives in Los Angeles and works to put things into space.

Got a story that is “One in a Billion?”

Posted on by

My friends Geeta and Ravi Patel, a talented brother and sister team based here in Los Angeles, are working on a comedy documentary titled, “One in A Billion.” The documentary follows Ravi’s quest for a wife and explains the odds stacked against him all along the way. Geeta previously co-directed the film Project Kashmir in 2008. Ravi has appeared in a few recent shows as touched on by Taz here. Here is the synopsis of the documentary:

THE ODDS

So, my parents, who are totally, sickly, exuberantly in love- they had a traditional Hindu arranged marriage. Naturally, they want me to marry an Indian girl. Let’s say I want that too. India has a population of over a billion people. Easy, right? But I live in America, where Indians only make up one percent of the general population. My odds of finding this person are one in a hundred. But now let’s say I want this person to be a woman (fifty percent): make that one in two hundred. Now let’s say, I want this woman to be unmarried and over the age of seventeen (fifty percent): one in four hundred. Now, actually, this girl is supposed to be Hindu and her family has to originate from a specific 50-square mile radius in the State of Gujarat, India): one in two thousand. Okay, so now let’s say I have to like her, she has to like me, and we have to actually find each other…what are the chances?

ONE IN A BILLION

This equation, or close versions of it, have been around for a long time in the American desi community. My undergrad buddies at Michigan and I ran through this equation back in the late 90s trying to explain our failed (alright, my failed) love lives. The funny thing is the math is very similar to the Drake Equation which attempts to approximate the number of intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy. The final odds all depend on the probability you assign to each variable.

    Ravi Patel is approaching age thirty and still single – a cataclysm in his culture. After breaking up with Audrey, his secret white girlfriend of two years, Ravi goes to India for his annual family trip. As usual, the pressure to get married is heavy, only this time Ravi succumbs; he agrees to try things their way: the semi-arranged marriage system. He comes back to America having no idea what he just agreed to. Blind dates with Indian girls introduced to him via biodatas – matrimonial resumes passed amongst the parents. Indian dating websites. Indian weddings. And matrimonial conventions for people all descending from a small group of villages in India – all with the same last name: Patel. Meanwhile, Ravi can’t stop thinking about Audrey. Ravi Patel has one year to find a girl, or next year he tries things the way his parents did it: the arranged marriage.

Because this is a documentary (i.e., things need to be serious) Geeta and Ravi are going to be interviewing a panel of all kinds of desi experts, including couples with interesting stories, as part of this PBS documentary. That is where you readers potentially come in. Got a good story about your relationship?

SEARCHING FOR INTERESTING PERSONALITY WITH GREAT DATING STORIES!!!
A PBS Documentary about Indian dating and marriage in America is searching for everyday people to appear as guests for a filmed radio talk show in conjunction with the film.

The talk show panel will include academics from around the world, celebrities, and everyday people. We are searching for the following:
Indian Americans who are currently dating people through biodatas/parents, marriage conventions, the internet, and other methods. We are searching for someone who might have faced a great deal of pressure/conflict from their family regarding love and marriage, and someone who has grappled with the question: “Do I need to marry an Indian to be happy?’ Must be dynamic, interesting personality. Shoot is Los Angeles in early July.

If you would like to share thoughts, have any further questions, or are interested in a preliminary interview, please email: tsbillion [at] gmail.com.

Since relationship posts on SM are always the most commented upon, I am sure some of you will be jumping at this opportunity.

Continue reading →

Ole, Ole Ole Ole. Gulati done good.

Posted on by

Four years ago I noted on SM that Sunil Gulati was appointed the head of U.S. Soccer. Right now the U.S. Soccer team is performing near its best in the modern era. 80% of the credit has to be given to the improvement in play by the U.S. team and to coach Bob Bradley. But lets also give some credit to Gulati. France and Italy have demonstrated that having some of the most skilled players in the world means jack if your organization is dysfunctional and poorly managed.

Gulati (left) is working with Clinton to try and bring the World Cup back to the U.S. in 2018 or 2022

He grew up playing football in Nebraska. Gulati, who served as USSF vice president for six years, was elected as its president in March 2006.

“Across the past decade, a platform for this sport has been built that did not previously exist, and we now have an opportunity in the coming years to achieve more for soccer in the United States than anyone could have ever envisioned 15 or 10 or even five years ago,” Gulati had said after being elected at the USSF President.

Former USSF president and Major League Soccer founder Alan Rothenberg has called Gulati the “single most important person in the development of soccer” in the country. It is he who appointed the current US soccer coach Bob Bradley.

In February this year, he was unanimously re-elected the USSF president. [ToI]

As Gulati said after the Algeria victory, “A new benchmark has been set.”

I guess not everyone appreciates him though. A blogger at Deadspin had this recent eyewitness account from South Africa:

PRETORIA, South Africa — A few hours before the gut-roiling USA victory here, I witnessed a tense moment of another sort when two well-lubricated American yahoos tore into Sunil Gulati, the head of the U.S. Soccer Federation. Here’s how it unfolded …

Sometime after noon, I made my way to Hombaze, the pre-game boozing site for hardcore Stars and Stripes fans. And boozing they were. Waiters were bringing around six packs of Castle beer. The lads were downing lager as fast as they could lay hands on a bottle. Everyone was sauced and ebullient. Then Sunil Gulati turned up…

It was then, from the balcony of the bar, that an evil howling commenced. Even over the patriotic commotion you could hear it, an expression of pure animal rage that ran through the crowd like a dirty shank.

FUCK YOU, GULATI!… (Their complaints about Gulati, I would later learn, were manifold, and their origins were difficult to discern. They had something to do with the USSF and banners being prohibited in stadiums and ticket sales and Mexicans sitting in their section and not having “a seat at the table.”)… [Link]

Win or lose today, we here at SM appreciate all Gulati has done for the sport of futbol/soccer in the U.S. I like the fact that it is the hard work of an Indian American who grew up playing soccer in Nebraska that has in part led us to this game against Ghana’s Black Stars. Open Thread below for the game. Let’s go U-S-A!

Continue reading →

Tipping Point? Haley’s journey nearly complete.

Posted on by

Nikki Haley’s victory Tuesday in the Republican primary battle for the South Carolina Governor’s mansion is symbolic of the huge strides that South Asian Americans have made in the past six years. I say this completely agnostic as to what kind of person or leader she will be or which policies she supports. You don’t have to support her politics one bit to pause and appreciate the demographic and historical significance of Tuesday’s victory. 2010 is a year in which a “raghead” is a few months away from being elected the chief executive of South Carolina. Something has fundamentally shifted. In 2004 when I wrote about Nikki on SM I did so in a post which cited Dalip Singh Saund in the title. He was the lone anomaly in Indian-American history.

So like, what’s up with South Carolina? Not widely recognized (at least by this blogger) as being a bastion of minority politics, all of a sudden South Carolina is the place to be if you are South Asian and have your eyes on the prize. Earlier this year, you may recall that Nikki Randhawa-Haley, 32, won the Republican Primary in South Carolina?s House District 87 and was to run unopposed in the November election. [SM]

Today Saund is no longer an anomaly but a harbinger:

The Republican Party stepped away from its long and uncomfortable history of racial and ethnic politics in South Carolina on Tuesday, nominating an Indian American woman for governor and an African American man for the House…

Nikki Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, overwhelmingly captured the GOP gubernatorial nomination over Rep. J. Gresham Barrett — despite a whisper campaign insinuating that she is not really a Christian, as she says she is. And in the 1st Congressional District, Tim Scott, a black state lawmaker from Charleston, convincingly defeated Charleston County Council member Paul Thurmond, a son of the late senator Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.). Barrett and Thurmond are white. [WaPo]

A commentator in the Baltimore Sun was exultant this afternoon. He even invoked spelling bees, ivy league schools, and Kal Penn:

… the next decade is set to be the Indian-American decade. Second generation Indian-Americans are building on their parents’ success and achieving in diverse fields. From Ms. Haley’s political success (she is the likely Republican nominee for governor of South Carolina) to prime-time TV, its hard to miss the rise of Indian-Americans.

As late as the 1990s, there was only one notable Indian-American character on TV, a cartoon character, Apu on “The Simpsons.” From the lovable, Slurpee-peddling Apu, we now have an Indian-American on a major TV show each night of the week. From Mindy Kaling on “The Office” to Naveen Andrews on “Lost” to Aziz Ansari on “Parks and Recreation” to Kunal Nayyar on “Big Bang Theory,” Indian-Americans are suddenly everywhere.Indian-Americans don’t just win elections; they win national spelling bees, including 9 of the last 25. Indian-Americans have also taken home three Nobel Prizes. At any Ivy League school, more than 5 of the population is Indian-American, quadruple the share of the national population. [BaltSun]
Continue reading →

Real men do it barefoot

Posted on by

My friend Amit emailed me earlier today asking me if I thought this was the single greatest Wikipedia trivia fact ever. Ennis covered this back in 2006 but I think it is worth revisiting in greater detail:

India qualified by default for the 1950 FIFA World Cup finals as a result of the withdrawal of all of their scheduled opponents. However, they did not take up their place in the competition. The Indian players were unable to play as boots were required according to FIFA legislation, and the Indian players were not used to footwear and thus refused. The Indian football team was known to play barefoot during the period. In fact, Mohammed Abdul Salim one of the Indian football players played for Celtic F.C. barefoot.[2] The team has never since come close to qualifying for the World Cup. In the FIFA world cup 2010 qualifiers, India was eliminated in the first round by Lebanon. [Wiki]

I tried to do a bit of digging and found what I believe to be the oldest organized soccer club in India, pre-dating the 1950 World Cup. It is Mohan Bagan.

If you go to this site and look at some really old pictures you can get a glimpse of their feet. Sure enough, they play barefoot.

1911 IFA SHIELD WINNING TEAM (beat the Yorkshire Regiment)

Continue reading →

Our Sepia Mutiny admin team needs extra help

Posted on by

Our website administrators Chaitan and Kunjan need some extra help improving the functionality and features here on Sepia Mutiny. We are looking to add two highly skilled volunteer developers to our team. If you are a developer who is also an avid reader and wishes that we had this, that, or the other feature on our website, please email us. Sepia Mutiny has always attempted to keep up with the cutting edge in terms of blog readability, usability, and aesthetics. Joining us will also give you a chance to show off your skills on a website that gets a lot of traffic.

These are the basic coding skills you should have:

Required: PHP, HTML, CSS, Javascript

Preferred: Linux (CentOS), Apache, MySql, Perl

Bonus points: Git or SVN

MOST IMPORTANT PRE-REQUISITE: Time. If you don’t have at least 8-10 hours a week to spend improving SM, please don’t apply to this. Being a part of SM is a significant (but rewarding) commitment. All the bloggers here see this as a labor of love and carve out time to put their effort into this. You should have the same type of commitment in mind.

Please use our contact form to apply. Thanks in advance.

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized

Chuck Schumer’s “Outsourcing Tax”

Posted on by

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who many say aspires to be the Senate Majority Leader should Nevada’s Harry Reid lose his election or step aside, has proposed a new bit of legislation that may be of interest to SM readers:

In an effort to slow the exodus of U.S. telephone work to overseas services, Sen. Charles Schumer is introducing legislation that would impose an excise tax on companies that transfer calls with American area codes to foreign call centers.

The measure would also require telling U.S. customers that the call is being transferred and to which country.

Companies use call centers to give customers technical product support, answer billing questions or provide other information. They often use several operators.

The fee would be 25 cents for calls transferred to foreign countries. There would be no fee for a domestic call center. Companies would have to report quarterly their total customer service calls received and the number relayed overseas. [BusWeek]

The 25 cent fee isn’t ideal. It is anti-business and too nativist for my taste, but this is a tough economy and the Senator is engaging in a bit of phony “I feel your pain” to protect his right flank. What I really don’t agree with is the second part of the proposed legislation,which requires a company to announce which foreign country the call is being transferred to. Turning that into a law does nothing but encourage the worst in people. What’s next, pass a law that requires the call center worker to use their real names and accents as well?

In a survey of American economists in 2006, Robert Whaples found nearly 90 percent agreed the U.S. should eliminate remaining protectionist tariffs and trade barriers, like the new one Schumer is proposing, that there are lower costs and a net gain from free trade. Most also agreed the U.S. should not restrict American employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. [BusWeek]

And India of course is the main outsourcing punching bag. It doesn’t matter that Ireland and Israel are the beneficiaries of a great deal of outsourcing as well. Only countries like India and the Philippines get the bad public image.

Please let Schumer know that proposing stupid legislation, just to protect himself from a Republican opponent that is a “terror warrior,” is not the right way to get the South Asian American part of his base to turn out on election day or open their checkbooks for his campaign.

You can contact him here.

Continue reading →

Guest Blogger: Lakshmi Gandhi

Posted on by

Do we dare hit you with yet another guest this month? Yes, we dare. Many of you already read her blog anyways, so why not read her at this party? Lakshmi Gandhi is joining us for a guest stint. She does a great job on her blog covering pop culture and politics among other topics.

And because we are South Asian I will highlight her degrees:

BA in History from Bryn Mawr College and a MA from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

Alright that’s enough intro. She’s ready to go. Please join me in welcoming her.

Continue reading →

Blogger claims illicit affair with Nikki Haley

Posted on by

Our tipline has been buzzing off the hook with the news Monday morning that a conservative blogger named Will Folks is claiming he had an affair with Indian American gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley. Haley had a 30% lead in recent Republican primary polls and has been endorsed by Governor Mark Sanford’s ex-wife Jenny, the conservative blogosphere, and most recently, Sarah Palin. Here is what Folks claims:

In fact, on a very personal level I have become the primary target of a group that will apparently stop at nothing to destroy the one S.C. gubernatorial candidate who, in my opinion, would most consistently advance the ideals I believe in. For those of you unfamiliar with the editorial bent of this website, the candidate I am referring to is S.C. Rep. Nikki Haley.

…within the last forty-eight hours several pieces of information which purportedly document a prior physical relationship between myself and Rep. Haley have begun to be leaked slowly, piece by piece, to members of the mainstream media. I am told that at least one story based upon this information will be published this week. Watching all of this unfold, I have become convinced that the gradual release of this information is deliberately designed to advance this story in the press while simultaneously forcing either evasive answers or denials on my part or on Nikki’s part.

I refuse to play that game. I refuse to have someone hold the political equivalent of a switch-blade in front of my face and just sit there and watch as they cut me to pieces.

The truth in this case is what it is. Several years ago, prior to my marriage, I had an inappropriate physical relationship with Nikki.

That’s it. [Link]

Nikki Haley flatly denies any of this is true:

News 4’s Mandy Gaither asked Haley if Will Folks said anything to her before the allegations came out on his blog.

“No,” said Haley.

“So, you had no idea? You were blind-sided?” said Gaither.

“I mean, look. This is what I will tell you. It is absolutely not true. My husband and I have been married for 13 years. We’ve been faithful to each other,” said Haley. “I will not stop pushing for good government no matter what they throw at me two weeks prior to the election.” [Link]

The thing about a situation like this that we know to be true? At least one of the two is lying. Continue reading →

Sepia Mutiny is looking for high school mutineers

Posted on by

The Mutiny is looking to refresh our ranks with some young blood. When I say “young,” I am talking about jail-bait really young. If you, or someone you know, meets all of the following criteria and want to take a turn as a guest blogger on Sepia Mutiny, please email me at abhi [at] sepiamutiny.com:

  1. A phenomenal writer (English class supernerd, school newspaper prodigy, master debater).
  2. Has time on their hands to write because high school (even counting all those AP classes you are taking) is a breeze.
  3. Knows their current events. We generally like generalists who can write knowledgeably about a variety of topics of interest to South Asians living in the U.S. and Canada (as opposed to someone who specializes in say, Bollywood movies from 2000-2010).
  4. Has never plagiarized in order to write a chick-lit novel.
  5. Will never admit to liking Twilight in a Sepia Mutiny post (even if he/she really does). Will also never use “lol,” “ur,” or “omg” in any form of correspondence. Ever.
  6. Based in North America, or are a North American temporarily living abroad.
  7. Has something they want to say or communicate to the South Asian masses. If you don’t have something to say then it really doesn’t matter how well you write.

Is this you?

Continue reading →