Author Archives: Ennis Singh Mutinywale

Bharat Gheewala’s dream

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We’ve all seen a movie and been inspired to change our lives. Usually, with me, that impulse lasts around as long as it takes me to get home and then I forget or move on. However, in Bharat Gheewala’s case [I can’t make that name up – what could be a better name than that?], he plans to act on this impulse.

Gheewala’s inspiration came from an unlikely place — the movie “The Last King of Scotland” which should earn Forest Whitaker an Oscar tonight. Watching the movie reminded Gheewala of his own experiences in Uganda over 30 years ago:

“It was a case of leaving the kitchen and the bathroom and all our belongings and just getting out,” he said. “At first no one knew if Amin had meant what he said. But when it became clear that he had there was real panic… “In the end most of us left with nothing. People knew Amin … was a killer and would carry out his threats if we did not obey him…” [Link]

Interestingly enough, it also made Gheewala, now a successful businessman in the UK, feel he should do something to help Uganda:

“There is a saying that when you prosper you should give something back to the land of your birth, the land that created you as a person and that’s what I want to do.” [Link]

Gheewala says he now wants to build a hydroelectric plant to generate electricity in the south of Uganda, and create a lasting legacy for his family. I can’t tell if he’s serious or not, or if this is all clever PR, but I thought, on Oscar night, it would be nice to spotlight somebody who at least claims to have been inspired by the silver screen.

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Daytheists in the closet

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I have a number of brown friends who are staunch, one might even say devout, atheists but you’d never know it because they are very private about their beliefs. I find this a bit perplexing because they are quite outspoken on most other personal and political matters, but when it comes to matters of religion and God, these desi atheists (==> daytheists) are still in the closet because of the social costs involved in exposing themselves.

Stamp celebrating the founder of India’s Atheist Center

On the one hand, it’s not surprising that they have some hesitation about outing themselves. Religion plays less of a role in the US than it does in India, but even so most Americans have a negative view of atheists, as shown in a 2003 Gallup poll:

Very Favorable: 7%
Mostly Favorable: 27%
Mostly Unfavorable: 19%
Very Unfavorable: 33% [Link]

That’s even more negative than American opinions about Muslims, both amongst born-again Christians and amongst non-Chiristians! In fact, more Americans would be willing to vote for a gay candidate than an atheist:

Atheists “are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public,” … In a recent NEWSWEEK Poll, Americans said they believed in God by a margin of 92 to 6 … and only 37 percent said they’d be willing to vote for an atheist for president. (That’s down from 49 percent in a 1999 Gallup poll–which also found that more Americans would vote for a homosexual than an atheist.)… [Link]

Surprisingly, tolerance for atheism might be higher on the desi side. While I don’t have comparable poll numbers, atheism has a long history within India as a philosophical movement, going back to 600 BC:

Carvaka, an atheistic school of Indian philosophy, traces its origins to 600 BCE. It was a hedonistic school of thought, advocating that there is no afterlife. Carvaka philosophy appears to have died out some time after 1400 CE. [Link]

[Amartya Sen says:] “Sanskrit had a larger atheistic literature than exists in any other classical language. Even within the Hindu tradition, there are many people who were atheist.” [Link]

In fact, some prominent Hindutva figures are actually atheists:

Well-known personality, Veer Savarkar, who was president of Hindu Mahasabha, was an atheist. He is credited for developing a Hindu nationalist political ideology he termed as Hindutva (Hinduness).

Bal Thackeray, the founder and president of the Shiv Sena, has publicly proclaimed himself an atheist after the death of his wife.[Link]

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Give me a ring sometime

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[Cue crabby uncle voice] The crazy things that kids do these days! They’re glued to their mobile handsets. They eat, sleep, and even go to the bathroom while jabbering away. Why, just the other day, a Pakistani man in Italy even got married over the phone:

In Milan, the man told a court that he feared losing his job in Italy if he had flown to Pakistan to get married. Instead, he got married over the phone and had an official Pakistani marriage certificate to prove it. He even showed the court a video of relatives celebrating the wedding – without the happy couple.

The groom is legally resident in Italy and had won the approval of the local police chief for his plans to marry over the phone and then bring his bride to his new hometown in northern Italy… All that mattered, the judge said, was that a telephone wedding was recognised by law in the two spouses’ home country. [Link]

Of course, Italian immigration wasn’t too happy about it, but the judge had no problem with the idea. And who would expect less from a judge in the city of … Milan.

Is this idea so strange? If you can get divorced via text message [Exhibit A, Exhibit B*] , and if you can (ahem) perform “marital activities” over the phone [topic NSFW, but link OK], then why not get married over the phone too? I have friends whose entire LDRs seem to be over the phone these days anyway, so why not include the wedding as well?

Before you think that this is just modern technology run amuck, there was actually a similar event close to 160 years ago, on the “Victorian Internet” i.e. the telegraph:

… with the bride in Boston and the groom in New York… the bride’s father had sent the young groom away for being unworthy to marry his daughter, but on a stop-over on his way to England, he managed to get a magistrate and telegraph operator to arrange the wedding. The marriage was deemed to be legally binding. [Link]

There truly is nothing new under the sun.

*Yes, I know in K-Fed’s case he was just being informed not talaqed, but I couldn’t resist

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Bloody Valentine

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Since I’m a bleeding heart, listening to my friends complain about how much last night cost them made me think about the costs that are born by smaller folk than me. In response to my post about how India has become a major flower exporter and how an Indian multinational is poised to become the largest rose exporter in the world, Anantha pointed out the dark side of this business, namely accusations of the use of child labour:

Malur, the little-known rose capital on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border, which caters to a large domestic and export market, engages more than 1,000 female children in this chain of rose production, right from rose plucking to packaging, according to John Devaraj, a film maker and a child rights activist… [Link]

While I question some of the claims made (“These girls are swift in their work and can pluck upto even 10,000 roses per day…” [Link]), the accusation is quite plausible on its face.

If present, the use of child labor is even more troubling when you consider the fact that flower growing involves large quantities of fertilizer and pesticides, thus exposing children to noxious chemicals. Even without that, though, roses have thorns, something that’s easy to forget when you only have to deal with the cellophane wrapped versions, so this is hardly light labor.

Horticulture, however, comes out smelling like roses in comparison to the high end of the romance market, namely diamonds. As you all know, India is a dominant force in the bulk diamond market:

India’s diamond industry is the fastest growing in the world, employing more than a million people and turning over some $8bn a year. [Link]

It’s not surprising that some diamond merchants are willing to cut corners when it comes to the source of the gems:

‘These stones are from Africa,’ he said, holding up two knuckle-sized murky brown diamonds. ‘We can’t always tell where they are from, but they aren’t legitimate. But here business is done with cash and no questions.’…

‘Look at this diamond,’ Shah said. ‘It’s not small, but is easy to smuggle. What can be done to stop that being smuggled to India? I will get a buyer, an agent for a polisher, who will give me a good price, and then sell it out of a reputable firm for export. There is no way it can ever be traced…’

The stones brought in by dhows and fishing boats through the shallow waters of Gujarat’s ungovernable west coast make a laughing stock of attempts to stem the global flow of blood diamonds. [Link] Continue reading →

Love (don’t shoot) thy neighbor (updated)

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Meet Joseph Cho, all Asian-American boy. Cho went to Yale undergrad, enlisted in the Army after 9/11, served 3 years and was given a honorable discharge [Link]. Now 31, Joe Cho is a law student at Penn. Thus far he sounds like the kind of good Asian kid that even the most xenophobic auntie and uncle would love to have over for tea. “He’s a good influence,” they might say.

However, earlier this month something went … wonky. Cho had a beef with some neighbors. That’s normal — I don’t like my next door neighbor either, he plays his shoot ’em up video games late at night and disturbs my sleep. Usual apartment building stuff.

Cho’s beef, however, was a bit different from mine. He believed his neighbors, two desi men, were actually terrorists and decided to do something about it.

Police said Cho,… suspected the neighbors – two Indian men studying biomedical engineering at Drexel University – of being spies. On Wednesday afternoon, he sought to confront them. When no one answered his knock on their door, he shot the lock off with his Glock pistol, walked inside, and eventually left. [Link]

Gulp! His lawyer says his client was off his rocker:

His lawyer, Peter Bowers, said the attack on the men he believed were terrorists … “appears to have been a mental health or emotional issue…” Cho, meanwhile, was described as an “outstanding young man,” Bowers said. “It’s really an unfortunate incident…” [Link]

You know, the words tourism and terrorism sound so much alike, it’s an easy mistake to make. It could happen to anybody, really.

The university provost said:

“the student has been temporarily suspended from the law school. The matter will be reported to the Law School’s Committee on Student Conduct and Responsibility for its consideration…” [Link]

I suppose that’s a good first step. I wonder what you have to do to get kicked out of law school.

Me? I wonder if he’s been watching too much 24.

Update 1: See comment #20 by somebody who knows him

Update 2: It was racial, at least in part:

Walker said the Penn student, a Korean American, accosted the Drexel students yesterday morning as all were leaving the building, … When the Drexel students told the Penn student that they planned to return to India after their studies, the Penn student accused them of being spies, Walker said. [Link]

One of the students was actually in the apartment at the time:

… around noon, the Penn student “decided to engage in more conversation” and banged on the Drexel students’ door, Walker said. When he got no answer, he got his 9mm Glock handgun and emptied it into the lock, police said. Then he stepped inside, looked around, and left the building. Unbeknownst to the assailant, one of the Drexel students was cringing in his bedroom about 25 feet from the door. [Link]

Another neighbor called 911, and officers found the 22-year-old Drexel student still cowering inside the apartment, said police. [Link]

Somebody on a bulletin board who claims to be a fellow law student said:

I think this guy has been involved in at least one other racially charged incident at the law school recently. [Link]

And the final indignity — the mere mention of terrorism has meant that police anti-terrorism officers have been notified:

Police said … that investigators will notify police terrorism officials about the reason behind the shooting. [Link]

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Kamadev’s little helpers

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Don’t believe uncles and aunties when they say that nobody celebrates Valentines Day in India. Not only is romance a bloomin’, but it has some help from unlikely quarters.

First, Shiv Sena is (again) offering to come to the assistance of lurv:

… hardline Hindu groups have threatened to marry off young couples meeting in public places like parks and restaurants Feb 14. [Link]

They will not manhandle or threaten the Valentines, or vandalise the greeting card shops tomorrow. “The lovers have mistaken Shiv Sainiks to be the heart-breakers. We permanently unite the hearts….” says Shiv Sena District President Gulshan Kumar.

If there is any opposition for the marriage of lovers from their family, Shiv Sainiks stand by them. But the couples should belong to Hindu religion. [Link]

The loophole in this plan is obvious though, leave your ID at home and voila! An entire town of Mary Joshuas and Jacob Abrahams out on dates! [Yes, I know the threatening to forcibly marry couples isn’t new – they did it last year as well]

This being India, mobilization is met with an apposite counter:

… two women’s groups, belonging to the Sawarna Samaj Party (SSP) and the Rashtriya Secular Manch (RSM), have decided to take on those threatening to oppose Valentine’s Day … the RSM has decided to form baton-wielding groups of women to dissuade Bajrang Dal activists from disturbing lovers Wednesday on the Valentine’s Day. These women’s wings have declared to provide the necessary security to citizens if the state government fails to do so. [Link]

I’m sure they will get a lot of calls for their service too — “Quickly! Send 4 or 5 women to the park by the IIT men’s hostel! There are couples being oppressed by the RSS Shiv Sena!” Who knew that crying wolf was a great way to meet women?

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Speed kills (part 1)

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There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have been counting down to Wednesday all year long, and those who wonder why so many people are buying flowers for President’s Day. I count myself in the latter camp, having been single virtually every Vday that I can remember. So I watch with amusement as many of my friends work themselves into a lather because of the intense pressure to commemorate this day with precisely the right amount and kind of conspicuous consumption.

The mingled scent of love and desperation in the air can mean only one thing for desis these days, namely speed dating followed by quirky stories from the mainstream media. Here’s a NYT article about Muslim Speed Dating Meeting:

A few years ago the organizers were forced to establish a limit of one parent per participant and bar them from the tables until the social hour because so many interfered. Parents … alternate between craning their necks to see who their adult children are meeting or horse-trading bios, photographs and telephone numbers among themselves….

Mrs. Siddique said her shy, 20-year-old daughter spent the hours leading up to the banquet crying that her father was forcing her to do something weird. “Back home in Pakistan, the families meet first,” she said. “You are not marrying the guy only, but his whole family…” [Link]

I suspect journalists are tickled by this spectacle because to them speed dating is like the bar scene, but faster. So the idea that conservative parents endorse it is weird. Parents, on the other hand, see it as a faster way to set up little tea encounters for their children, but only wholesale instead of retail. And desis love a bargain!

Desi parents (especially Muslim ones, but I’m sure there are similar scenes in other communities) do make it pretty easy to be mocked:

One panelist, Yasmeen Qadri, suggested that Muslim mothers across the continent band together in an organization called “Mothers Against Dating,” modeled on Mothers Against Drunk Driving. [Link],

So who’s right? Is speed dating/meeting a truly chaste solution to parents’ worries, or is it the first step down the slippery slope to group sex and public handholding?

Mothers trade biodatas while their children speed date

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Speed kills (part 2)

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When you think about it, there are many ways in which speed dating can go horribly horribly wrong. My favorite account of a speed dating disaster comes from Rupa:

R: So…what do you like to do for fun?
Another boring dude: I play online pokers. And I watch Indian movies.
R: Do you read books?
Abd: No. I hate it when authors, y’know, try to give their OPINION. I hate it when people try and tell me how to think. So I don’t read books.
R: So you just don’t think?
Abd: Yes. [Link]

Bored out of her gourd, Rupa turns … dangerous:

Towards the middle I just stopped asking questions, because I realized I totally, absolutely, fully did not give a shit. And that was when I decided to start making stuff up. I … managed to tell someone that I had a 9-year old son (“My family is extremely supportive”), that I had a gambling problem (“After I took out that third mortgage on my condo, my parents staged an intervention. Have you ever been to that casino in Gary, Indiana? They caught it all on tape”), but my favorite was when Natasha asked someone if he would have a problem with a woman who did drugs.

ABD#3: Just once in a while, right?
N: No…it’s pretty much everyday.
ABD#3: Well…I guess it’s not a problem. But you’d stop after marriage, right?
N: No. Absolutely not. I don’t think so.
ABD#3: Well..I guess that’d be ok. [Link]

So when I stopped laughing my kundi off, I paused to wonder whether or not there was any way speed dating could work. I would think that if you only have a few minutes to make an impression, the usual conversational gambits fall flat since they all depend on being able to talk long enough to get past the obvious (what you do and where you live) to the more interesting.

So, tell us. What worked for you? What didn’t? If you wont fess up to having done this, explain what you might do that you’re sure would work if you tried it. Think of it as a public service. Or public ridicule. Either one, really

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One Desi and Philanthropy

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While most people are in favor of charitable giving, not everybody likes charitable givers. While some donors are seen as saintly figures, donating their hard earned cash for the benefit of the less fortunate, others are seen as social climbers trying to attain respectability by using money generated by less socially beneficial business practices. Consider the story of Darshan Dhaliwal, the gas station king of the Midwest, a man with both supporters and detractors:

The University of Wisconsin-Parkside has received a $4.5 million contribution from Milwaukee businessman Darshan Dhaliwal. The donation, the largest private gift in the university’s 38-year history, … will help fund expansion of the university’s Communication Arts Building … The expanded facility will be named Dhaliwal Hall. Dhaliwal Hall will be the first new academic building on campus since … 1979. [Link]

Dhaliwal is a very wealthy man by all accounts, although it’s hard to know exactly how many gas stations his company owns, especially since he wont provide a figure. In 2000, a he confirmed that he owned at least 400 in 8 states, the “NRI of the month award” over the summer said that he owns “nearly 1,000 gas stations” across the country. This statement, from over a decade ago, claims that “Dhaliwal Enterprises… employs 5,000 people and posts annual profits that exceed $50 million.” In the end, it’s impossible to tell for sure with a private company. What we know is that he’s a very big fish, who operates gas stations in somewhere around twelve states between the coasts.

He has also been a controversial figure in Milwaukee. In 2000, he was accused by some community activists of not doing enough to prevent drug paraphernalia at his stations, sometimes by managers or clerks [see photos]:

There’s the crack pipes actually sitting in the Chore Boy box, on an empty register drawer, next to the ephedrine. Some of the clerks are embarrassed about having to sell this stuff. This is how the manager wants it done. [Link]

… neighborhood leaders asked on numerous occasions to meet with Dhaliwal about their concerns with graffiti, loitering, drug dealing and other problems at the Citgo station. [Link]

Dhaliwal disagreed, saying he was responsive and that he was also being singled out. In a 2000 article, he said:

… he sent a letter to each of the lessees at his 22 Milwaukee gas stations, asking them to stop selling roses with glass tubes, small scales, cigarette papers and Blunt cigars – all items that were known to be purchased for drug use.

The real problem, Dhaliwal says, is not that he won’t cooperate, but rather that the neighborhood groups are asking too much of him. He can’t understand why neighbors are singling him out as an owner, and not asking other area gas stations to comply. [Link]
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The end of check the box?

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If you watch a little kid with a pile of stuff, you’ll often see them sorting. They’re putting some things together and separating others. On Sesame Street they sing “Which of these things are not like the other … “, it’s the first step towards developing a sense of discrimination … and also the first step towards discriminating. Still, it seems like a fairly basic human activity, even when categories are contested. Therefore, I was amused to read two stories recently about eliminating these divisions:

In conservative Nepal, authorities recently granted an official citizenship document to 40-year-old Chanda Musalman which lists “him” as both male and female:

With elections approaching, government teams are currently touring the country issuing certificates of citizenship. One team came to Chanda’s village in western Nepal. Chanda, who has had no sex-change surgery, asked the officials to erase the words male and female, listed under gender. They obliged, and ascribed Chanda’s gender as “both”… It is unclear how this unique legal status will play out in practice – for instance, how it will affect Chanda’s marriage rights. [Link]

A similar desire to eliminate pigeonholes is sounded in the opinion column of the NYT today, by an author who calls for the abolition of racial categories on the census:

There seems to be an emerging consensus that the system of racial classification that has dominated national politics and the census for nearly two centuries is so fraught with imprecision — and so tainted by racist ideas that have been disproved by science — that it should eventually be dropped altogether.

This view has been percolating among census historians for years. But it has gained traction since the 1990s, when there was a pitched battle over a proposal that would have added a “multiracial” category to the 2000 census. A compromise allowed people to check more than one box for race. But that change only fueled the debate by revealing a conflict between the fixed racial categories that have long dominated American life and a different sense of identity that’s clearly on the rise among younger Americans. [Link]

My family has been caught betwixt and between racial categories before. Back in the early 1970s my mom cut her hand and had to go to the hospital. The two nurses there started to argue about whether to denote her as white or black on the intake form. The white nurse pointed out that my mom is light (she needs sunscreen, unlike me), while the black nurse argued that since she isn’t really white, she must be black. Finally my father demanded that they admit her right away, telling them that they could put her in whatever category they wanted once the doctor saw her. Still, this story doesn’t argue that there should be no categories at all, just that categories should be useful (and that classification should be secondary to medication). So personally, I don’t get the argument for the abolition of racial categories altogether as long as they remain socially relevant.

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