E pluribus unum indeed, from a proud American to all the rest of you on this holiday weekend:
Author Archives: Ennis Singh Mutinywale
Sam Manekshaw and Obama
On June 27th, India’s Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji “Sam Bahadur” Jamshedji Manekshaw died at age 94. Manekshaw was one of the heros of the 1971 India-Pakistan war, and an extremely popular figure in India:
Sam Manekshaw, who has died at the age of 94, was the first general of the modern Indian army to be made a field marshal; he was awarded this honorary rank in 1973, at the end of his four years as chief of army staff. His career lasted almost four decades, saw five wars, and culminated in his successful masterminding of the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971. [Link]
As an ABD I had never heard of Sam Bahadur until somebody sent me this statement from the Obama campaign:
“I offer my deep condolences to the people of India, on the passing of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. He was a legendary soldier, a patriot, and an inspiration to his fellow citizens. Field Marshal Manekshaw provided an example of personal bravery, self-sacrifice, and steadfast devotion to duty that began before India’s independence, and will deservedly be remembered far into the future.” [Link]
Who in the campaign knew about Manekshaw? The new India brain trust had:
Obama’s statement is a product of a new India policy team set up two weeks ago within his campaign team. The team, co-chaired by two prominent Indian-Americans Vinod Khosla and Swadesh Chatterjee, includes some 20 Indian-Americans and South Asia experts from Bill Clinton’s administration. A key member of the team and the only Indian-American in Obama’s inner circle is Preeta Bansal, a Harvard Law School colleague of Obama. [Link]
What benefit does the campaign get from this? It wont help them with this Indian government if Obama becomes POTUS; neither the defense minister, nor the service chiefs, nor a single member of parliament were at the funeral.
Sabhnanis sentenced
Last week, on Thursday and Friday, a federal judge handed down sentences to the Sabhnanis, the couple in Long Island who were charged with enslaving and torturing their Indonesian maids (Previous SM coverage: 1, 2, 3). 
- Varsha Sabhnani, identified as the person responsible for torturing the maids, received 11 years in prison.
- Her husband, Mahender Sabhnani, was sentenced to 40 months in prison for allowing the crimes to take place and benefitting from them.
The sensational details of this case caught the attention of the mainstream press, as did the resemblance of Varsha Sabhnani to a certain Disney villain. I can imagine this made other Indian families in Long Island, especially the ones who knew the Sabhnanis, a bit unconfortable.
What I can’t understand is why their friend, Jotwani, thought that this would be a defense:
“This case is very frightening for Indian families here,” said Bharat Jotwani, a wealthy friend of the Sabhnanis’ who lives nearby. “We are all educated, nice people. We came here to make it…”“There is no way on earth any Indian family in the United States could do what they were accused of,” he said. “The [Indian] people I know here all feel this way. Anybody from India who has come here comes from a very good family…” [Link]
WTF? The Sabhnani’s couldn’t possibly be guilty because … they’re educated and nice people from good families? No Indian could possibly commit a crime? I know Jotwani’s speaking uncle-speak here, but I honestly can’t figure out what this would translate to in ABCD English. They couldn’t be criminals because they’re wealthy? Sometimes you just gotta shake your head and wonder …
Just some kids
Despite the central air in my apartment, last night was one of those nights when it was cooler outside than in. Because I live on the ground floor, I can’t leave my windows open while I’m out, and it gets stuffy sometimes. I threw open the windows, had dinner, and sat down in my favorite chair with my laptop in my lap.
All of a sudden, I heard voices yelling, screaming, somewhere really close, like my apartment had been broken into. I pushed the laptop aside, jumped up and scanned the room, startled, my heart racing, totally confused.
Then I heard racial epithets (fucking Bin Laden terrorist, etc), and laughter. Two white teenagers (in this town I’ve only encountered racist hostility from white folks, but that’s a matter of a whole nother post) had snuck up to my open windows, yelled, and run away. I hadn’t seen them because my lights were on and it was dark outside.
I walked up to my windows, cussed the kids out, slammed the windows shut and glowered, my tranquility disturbed, my sense of safety in my own home penetrated.
I remembered that, whenever I had lived on the first floor in the past, one roomate always kept a baseball bat handy to … repell unwanted visitors.
That was the end of the incident. It wasn’t a hate crime, I didn’t feel threatened or menaced, nothing really bad happened. It was just some high-spirited teenagers out for some racist fun. Still, it might be prudent to keep a bat around.
Maybe they were sleeping off the booze
Indian aviation just can’t seem to catch a break. First there was a story about the number of pilots who get grounded because they are have had too much to drink:
Around 50 pilots each year in India are being grounded because they had consumed alcohol before taking a flight, the country’s civil aviation authorities said Tuesday… Civil aviation rules specify that pilots and cabin crew cannot consume alcohol 12 hours before taking a flight… India is one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world with dozens of new airlines competing with each other everyday, often resulting in pilots forced to fly at short notices. [Link]
Notice that this is meant to be a positive story. Even if pilots are boneheaded, they’re getting caught before they get into the cockpit. If they’re actually catching all the tipsy pilots (and that’s a big if), then oversight authorities have done their job well.
However, there’s no good way to spin this next story other than to point out that at least nobody got hurt:
An Air India flight headed for Mumbai overshot its destination and was halfway to Goa before its dozing pilots were woken out of a deep slumber by air traffic control, a report said…
“After operating an overnight flight, fatigue levels peak — and so the pilots dozed off after taking off from Jaipur,” … The plane flew to Mumbai on autopilot, but when air traffic there tried to help the aircraft land, the plane ignored their instructions and carried on at full speed towards Goa. “It was only after the aircraft reached Mumbai airspace that air traffic control realised it was not responding to any instructions and was carrying on its own course,” the source said.
Finally air traffic control buzzed the cockpit and woke up the pilots, who turned the plane around, the report said. [Link]
Air India has strenuously denied the story, saying that it was merely a communications glitch:
“The report is absolutely incorrect, devoid of facts, misleading and irresponsible. It is a figment of imagination,” Air India spokesman Jitender Bhargava told AFP by telephone from Mumbai. [Link]
Note that a shutdown in communication still doesn’t explain why the pilots neglected to land the airplane as they were supposed to in Bombay. At best Air India is saying that its pilots simply … forgot, and there was nobody to remind them. Maybe they had a bit too much to drink.
Are you feeling lucky?
First reported by High Heel Confidential (thanks Nirvana), the Google Ooogle Sari is here. It’s produced by designer Satya Paul (you can see his URL in the URL bar of the browser), as part of his “inspirational series 3 – pop art” (Thanks Bloog). 
This is the promotional copy attached:
Oogle
Georgette jacquard printed sari along with unstitched blouse piece attached.
Inspirational Series 3 – Pop Art
“Starting in the 50’s, Pop art is a reflection of popular culture in art. Pop art is neither praise nor condemnation but explores the everyday imagery that is so much a part of contemporary consumer culture. It often uses media, advertising, packaging, celebrity and comic book art styles to bring art closer to real life.” [Link]
The sari sells for Rs. 11,995.00/ USD. 299.88 and has now been spotted in a mall in Gurgaon:
Spotted this in a fancy mall in Gurgaon, India (the tech hub south of Delhi). I don’t know the backstory, and I couldn’t find out because (proving that India is aspiring to Western standards in every way!) a guard started rushing over to bust me for taking pictures. [Link]
This latter part cracks me up — was the guard protecting the intellectual property involved here? Afraid that somebody would take the photo and use it to create a copy of the sari more cheaply?
While I’m generally a traditionalist, I see the potential in this sort of printed sari. Do you think it will catch on? Will there be more logo branded saris in the future? Or perhaps saris that use text as decoration – after all, search results (and sponsored links in particular) are kind of boring. One could do far better if you want to invite somebody over to (ahem) deconstruct your text.
Finally – how long until somebody wears this to Google’s own offices? (I’ve got a friend who works at one of the Delhi area offices as a programmer, I should ask him if he’s spotted it yet)
The presumptive Democratic nominee
Earlier today I wrote a post about the presumptive nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic Presidential candidate. I have now taken that post down because, after discussion with the other mutineers, I came to the conclusion that it crossed the line and was too openly partisan.
We have, despite the scoffing of a few readers, endeavored mightily to be a non-partisan blog, one which is open and welcoming to brownz of all political stripes and affiliations. That is very important to me, and is something we all want to maintain.
In the post I took down there were two broad points I was trying to make, and I do want to explain what they were and defend my general intent in making them:
- I wanted to talk about the way in which my political behavior was constrained by the racialization of the campaign and the attitude of voters in the region where I live. Because of my experiences with racism in the midwest, I have not felt comfortable using my own name or canvassing door to door, and so have made the tactical decision to limit my political behavior, lest it backfire.
- I wanted to talk about how one candidate had used racially excusionary rhetoric while the other candidate had used racially inclusive rhetoric.
Both of these are very relevant to a South-Asian American blog. I had waited until the primary was over to raise them to avoid the appearance of partisanship, but in retrospect, I don’t think I succeeded.
What signature did for an encore
A month ago, Amardeep blogged about Suleman Mirza and Madhu Singh’s audition for Britain’s got talent (it’s the second video in case you missed it before). The challenge thrown down by Simon Cowell was whether they could repeat their original success or whether they were a one-trick pony. Well, here’s what they did for an encore [HT Manish, skip forward to around 2 minutes in to see the act]:
Two things struck me about their performance. The first is how easily it was accepted by both the audience and the judges, something that would never happen in the US. The audience loved both the Michael Jackson impersonation and the Bhangra. The judges loved it as a dance act, they didn’t condescend to it at all. Heck, they even describe the dancers as typical brits with a day job and a dream. There was no talk about it being exotic or foreign, and no PC admiration for the multicultiness of it all.
The second is that it was weaker than their original performance. I thought the choreography wasn’t as tight, and the integration of the two styles was not done as well. The problem is that neither seems to have great range as a dancer. Suleman is a Michael Jackson impersonator and Madhu is a bhangra dancer. Once the shock of seeing the two together wears off, how far can they go?
Is Weiner just a beard for Huma?
Hillary has Huma, Barack has Love,, and Huma’s love is Weiner, or at least that’s what the NY tabloids say:
Rep. Anthony Weiner, a likely 2009 mayoral candidate… finally ‘fessed that he is romancing Clinton’s glamorous “body woman,” Huma Abedin. Asked by The Associated Press about all the time he’s spending on the road campaigning for Clinton, the 43-year-old bachelor said, “It’s largely because I’m dating Huma…” [Link]
This story has actually been kicking around since January, when the rumors of a Hillary-Huma couple were stronger. Back then the Abedin-Weiner story was floated and then denied:
Speculation that Washington’s two most eligible singles–Hillary Rodham Clinton’s fashionable traveling aide Huma Abedin and New York’s dashing bachelor Congressman Anthony Weiner–are dating has become “common knowledge” among the campaign press corp… [Link] Hillary Clinton’s top traveling aide, Huma Abedin, is not dating bachelor Rep. Anthony Weiner. A source close to Abedin shares that the political glamour gal is “just friends” with Weiner, but is dating someone else. [Link]
Honestly, I have trouble believing the story because I can’t imagine a body-person having time or energy to do anything more than minister to the candidate’s needs. They’ve got to be there, an arm’s length away, from when the candidate wakes to when they sleep. Huma’s probably better chaperoned than a desi on their first arranged marriage cha-meeting. And besides, Huma’s got her hands so full that I can’t see how she’s able to hold Weiner’s. Her schedule’s so full that there would be no time to be abeddin’ Abedin.
That said, it doesn’t really matter to me whether she likes Weiner or not. We’re desis, we like our politics without sex, thank you very much. You go girl – whatever direction you want.
Outsourcing in equilibrium?
Outsourcing to India is nearly limitless in potential, both boosters and opponents alike claim. As evidence, they point to the proliferation of services that are currently being performed in India. No longer limited to programmers and call centers, outsourcing has grown to encompass BPO, medical transcription, tax return preparation, and concierge services. The latest frontier is the legal profession
In the past three years, the legal outsourcing industry here has grown about 60 percent annually. According to a report by research firm ValueNotes, the industry will employ about 24,000 people and earn revenue of $640 million by 2010. Indian workers who once helped with legal transcription now offer services that include research, litigation support, document discovery and review, drafting of contracts and patent writing. The industry offers an attractive career path for many of the 300,000 Indians who enroll in law schools every year. [Link]
This perspective is based on a vision of India as having a nearly limitless pool of cheap labor, which isn’t true. While there are a lot of Indians, those actually qualified to hold these jobs are fewer in number and competition for these workers is increasing:
Young people say it is no longer worthwhile going through sleepless nights serving customers halfway around the world. They have better job opportunities in other fields… The complaints come at a time when the Indian information technology sector, which includes companies that run call centers and do other outsourced work like medical transcription and claims processing, is facing a dearth of skilled labor… India faces a potential shortage of 500,000 professional employees in the information technology sector by 2010… [Link]
And wages in India for the most qualified workers has increased to the point where there are little to no cost savings for companies:
India’s software-and-service association puts wage inflation in its industry at 10% to 15% a year. Some tech executives say it’s closer to 50%. In the U.S., wage inflation in the software sector is under 3%, according to Moody’s Economy.com…while most Indian technology workers’ wages remain low — an average $5,000 a year for a new engineer with little experience — the experienced engineers Silicon Valley companies covet can now cost $60,000 to $100,000 a year. “For the top-level talent, there’s an equalization,” [Link]