Author Archives: Ennis Singh Mutinywale

Welcome Grandmaster P!

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We at Sepia Mutiny would like to extend a very snarky hearty welcome to the newest Sepia Macaca: Puran Singh. That’s right – Deep is a daddy! [Mothers everywhere want to know what the rest of us are waiting for]

Puran Singh (“Master P,” as my brother is already calling him) was born yesterday at 8pm. He’s 8 pounds, 2 ounces (3.7 Kg), and both he and his mother are doing well. We have lots of family around helping us out and giving support (thanks, everyone), and the hospital experience has been pretty good, though the final stage of labor was difficult (I guess it always is).

The name means “fulfillment,” “completion,” or “perfection.” No one in our family has been named “Puran,” but there are a couple of famous people who have had this name: including Bhagat Puran Singh and also a famous Punjabi poet. In the Sikh tradition, the first letter of a baby’s name is usually chosen by opening the Guru Granth Sahib at random, and taking a “Vakh.” The first letter of the page opened is supposed to be the first letter of the baby’s name. In our case, we got “P,” and I immediately thought of “Puran…” [Link]

P is for Perfection

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Pavlov Auntie

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Clearly, some of you were good little boys and girls in your youth. That means that you are conditioned to associate the words “uncle”/ “auntie” and the vernacular with respect. You can’t help it. If this was just Plain Jane, the 50 year old down the street, you might be polite and pleasant, but if somebody who calls herself Bunty Auntie starts speaking to you in your mother tongue, you snap to like a pointer.

This account comes from Sleepy’s blog “Watching the Sun” but I’ll bet you have your own auntie experiences:

One morning, while back, it was 4am and I had been asleep for fifteen minutes. I was woken up by a phone call and I was a little, I don’t know, pissed off?

Me: (barely making sense through all that incredibly righteous indignation) Hello?!
Her: Hello Beta, this is Shabnam aunty!

I usually tend to wake up very quickly when someone calls herself aunty and speaks in Hindi/Punjabi/any language my twisted little psyche associates with authority. Seriously, wouldn’t you? For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out whether I knew Shabnam aunty, but I wasn’t too surprised, my mom often makes friends who call me at random times to you know, chat. [Link]

Now me, I would have just hung up. Uncle, Auntie, I don’t care. Don’t call me at 4AM unless you’re blood of some sort, a close personal friend, or an early morning booty call [the last was added after Jeet reminded me of such things ]. But an auntie I’ve never heard of? Clearly, Sleepy is made up of sugar and spice and everything nice and I am not because she continued the conversation:

Me: Um Hi?
Her: How are you Beta?
Me: Good aunty, how are you?
Her: I’m fine beta, give the phone to mummy now.
Me: ????????? Um, aunty, mom’s at home, not here.
Her: hahahahhahahah, so cute.
Me: (o.k., seriously, wtf?! and I start talking in Hindi as well, cuz you know, maybe she’ll believe me) She’s at home, do you want her number?
Her: Enough now beta, give the phone to mummy. (All stern like, velvet glove/iron fist stuff, which ya know, doesn’t sit well with me, ever)
Me: Mummy isn’t here.
Her: Are you making fun of Shabnam Aunty Beta? That’s not very nice. (o.k., this is what she said, Beta, aap Shabnam aunty ka mazaak uda rahein hain? Bilkul theek baat nahin hai. It was like she was flirting with me )

So yeah, we went for a few more rounds and then I hung up. ON. AN. AUNTY. [Link]

The next morning, of course, Sleepy felt remorseful:

I don’t know, probably shouldn’t have hung up on her because what likely happened is that she called the right number and chewed out right number’s children for being cheeky, obnoxious heathens. And then had the kid’s mom chew them out, and the dad, and the grandma etc. etc. And then they probably got chewed out for bringing shame on the family cuz Shabnam aunty’s very fond of gossip… [Link]

Personally, I don’t get it. Maybe it was my particular family upbringing, maybe it’s because I’m a boy, maybe it’s because I’m just too much of a coconut. I understand what Sleepy is saying, and while I think of myself as being reasonably nice, the title “uncle” or “auntie” just doesn’t cut any ice with me. Will I be going to a hell that I don’t believe in, populated solely by aunties bent on making me miserable? How many of you salivate automatically when this particular bell rings?

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Fatwas 4 sale, cheap!

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In many third world countries, everything is for sale. Instead of paying for the services of a good lawyer if you get caught doing something wrong, you pay for the services of the judge, or better yet, of a legislator in the first place. Sure you can buy congressmen in the USA, or hire a high-powered lobbyist, but it’s a lot more expensive, and the process of getting what you want is far more contingent.

I just learned about a new twist to this phenomenon, however. Now you can buy not just secular verdicts, but religious ones as well. And dirt cheap! The term “fatwa” is commonly misunderstood because of the famous fatwa against Salman Rushdie. It actually refers to a legal judgement on a point of Islamic law:

A fatwa … is a legal pronouncement in Islam made by a mufti, a scholar capable of issuing judgments on Sharia (Islamic law). Usually a fatwa is issued at the request of an individual or a judge to settle a question where “fiqh” (Islamic jurisprudence) is unclear. [Link]

It turns out that you can buy a fatwa in India cheaply, for as little as $60 US!

India’s “cash-for-fatwas” scandal broke out last weekend when a TV channel broadcast a sting operation that showed several Indian Muslim clerics allegedly taking, or demanding, bribes in return for issuing fatwas, or religious edicts. The bribes, some of which were as low as $60, were offered by undercover reporters wearing hidden cameras over a period of six weeks. [Link]

The fatwas purchased covered a wide range of fairly mundane issues. They even managed to get two fatwas directly opposed to each other, concerning whether one could watch TV:

Among the decrees issued by the fatwas: that Muslims are not allowed to use credit cards, double beds, or camera-equipped cell phones, and should not act in films, donate their organs, or teach their children English. One cleric issued a fatwa against watching TV; another issued a fatwa in support of watching TV. [Link]

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A suitable boy or girl

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Although Vikram Seth has been out of the closet as bisexual for some time now, I had not been aware of his sexual orientation until he gave a lengthy interview to Outlook India on the subject. His more visible profile on the topic of his sexuality is related to his public support for the anti-Section 377 movement, the movement for the decriminalization of homosexuality in India.

The interview is fascinating, both in terms of what it reveals about Vikram Seth and in terms of what it reveals about India. My favorite part involves the interviewer grappling with the very idea of bisexuality.

I’m not sure I quite understand what bisexual means?

What do you mean you don’t understand? Supposing I have a physical attraction at some time or in a certain place to a particular woman, and another time to a particular man …I suppose if you don’t like the word, you could say I am gay and straight.

But if you can be straight, and life is so difficult as a gay, isn’t it simpler to just be straight?

Of course not. You have your feelings. You can’t just suppress or contort your feelings, either your emotional or sexual feelings. And why on earth should you, just to appease someone else’s unthought-through prejudices. [Link]

Ah yes, such a desi question. But beta, if you are attracted to vomen, then vhy do you need to be the gay? She follows that little gem up by asking “This is something that people often snigger about: has boarding school anything to do with you being gay?” which was the icing on the cliche cake.

While I cringed to read her asking these questions, I was still glad she did. Even if she knows better, I imagine these are questions that your average person on the street is thinking of, so it’s far better to give Seth a chance to respond than to leave them unsaid. Continue reading →

Wrong Swastika

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The New York Times recently ran a story about a mysterious gigantic swastika in Kyrgyzstan. The swastika in question is 600 feet across, at least 60 years old, and made out of fir trees:

Legend has it that German prisoners of war, pressed into forestry duty after World War II, duped their Soviet guards and planted rows of seedlings in the shape of the emblem Hitler had chosen as his own.

More than 20 years later, the trees rose tall enough to be visible from the village beneath. Only then did the swastika appear, a time-delayed act of defiance by vanquished soldiers marooned in a corner of Stalin’s Soviet Union.

For all the tidiness of legend, however, the tale is not quite true. [Link]

The article then goes on to present various explanations for the swastika, none of which quite click. A major reason why they don’t click is that the swastika in question obviously not a Nazi swastika (based on its orientation) but a Hindu/Parsi/Buddhist/Jain one:

The mystery’s persistence is in its way surprising, given that as a Nazi swastika the symbol is imperfect, whether by design or because of uneven terrain. Hitler’s swastika was tilted 45 degrees; the formation here is almost level. Moreover, the arms do not mimic the Third Reich’s symbol, but its mirror image — a swastika in reverse. [Link]

Left facing swastikas long predate the Nazis and are common in Asia. One explanation for the swastika is that it is in some way connected to Hinduism. The swastika is known as the “Eki Naryn swastika” and is located in a town of the same name. The phrase “Ek Narayan” means “One God.”

However, we don’t know it was Hindus for sure. It could be the Chinese:

[The left facing] swastika is often found on Chinese food packaging to signify that the product is vegetarian and can be consumed by strict Buddhists. It is often sewn into the collars of Chinese children’s clothing to protect them from evil spirits. [Link] [It is a well known fact that Chinese spirits are afraid of children of dyslexic Nazis – ed]

In Taiwan, the swastika is a generic symbol for temple:

On maps in the Taipei subway system a swastika symbol is employed to indicate a temple, parallel to a cross indicating a Christian church. [Link]

Synbols on a Taipei subway map

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Misogyny kills

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There are times when I feel desperately ashamed of my community/communities (Desi/Punjabi/Sikh). I realize this is just one side of the story we’re hearing, and that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but it is all too believable and makes my blood run cold.

This is the story of 27 year old Navjeet Siddhu from Southall, who committed suicide by jumping in front of a 100mph Heathrow Express train. Not only did she jump, but she jumped carrying her two children.

She suffered from depression, which began when she gave birth to a daughter rather than a son. Her condition became worse after her husband, Manjit, who left her to return to his native India, said that he would come back home only if he did not have to do any household chores. [Link]

Navjeet Siddhu and her daughter Simran died instantly. Her son, Aman Raj, died in the hospital 2 hours later. To add to the carnage, Navjeet’s mother, 56 year old Satwant Kaur Sodhi, committed suicide at the same spot six months later.

Navjeet Siddhu died back in August of 2005, but the inquest into the incident is just now being held, hence the news attention. The husband comes off as hideously callous in news stories:

The court was told how Mr Sidhu, who arrived six minutes after the incident at Southall station, walked past the bodies of his wife and five-year-old daughter, Simran, to pick up the body of his 23-month-old son, Aman Raj, and take him to hospital. [Link]

It’s possible that his actions had a rational explanation – that Aman Raj was the only one who looked like he would survive – it’s hard to tell without having his side of the story. We really shouldn’t prejudge her husband based on such flimsy evidence. However, even if this account is a media fiction, this sort of thing is far too common and that makes it easier to believe that it might have happened.

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The Aunt Jemima Problem

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Here’s the problem in a nutshell. If you’re a CEO of an iconic brand, do you modernize the branding of your product if it is associated with a country’s racist history? If so, how do you do this without either losing brand recognition or whitewashing the past?

The original label

In 1885, Camp Coffee started producing a liquid coffee and chickory concentrate. They marketed the product by associating it with the coffee that kept Imperial soldiers fueled in the mornings:

To ensure Victorian consumers got the message that they were drinking the same treacly caffeine concentrate designed to fortify soldiers subduing the colonies, the kilted Gordon Highlander was shown being brought his drink by a Sikh manservant. [Link]

Of course, times change. The sun went down on the British empire, dusky Britons moved in and took over the cornershops. They weren’t quite as fond of this label as Victorian customers were.

So, in the 1980s, a compromise was reached:

In the 1980s, the label was moved to the back and later the Sikh bearer’s tray was removed but he remained standing. [Link]

This new label was a bit bizarre. It had the Sikh servant with his fist up, like he was about to punch the Scottish officer in his face.

The newest label

For some reason, after taking away his tray, they didn’t think to have him relax his hands at all. [picture after the fold, or click on the link].

Of course, this didn’t last either. Brown people being uppity like they are, they wanted yet more:

Recently, several Asian shopkeepers threatened to stop putting the liquid coffee and chicory concentrate on their shelves unless the label was changed. After such threats and pressure from race equality groups, the manufacturers have had the scene radically redrawn to show the two men sitting side by side. [Link]

So the label was finally changed to the anachronistic image of the officer and his batman sitting down for coffee together. While this might be a useful image for today’s multicultral UK, it’s absurd to imagine that it might have happened back in the day. Continue reading →

Secularizing the last officially Hindu country

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With democratization in Nepal comes secularization. Nepal has been a Hindu monarchy for close to 250 years:

Since it was unified by King Prithvi Narayan Shah in 1768, Nepal has been ruled by a Hindu dynasty. Its kings have bound themselves into a litany of Hindu rituals. [Link]

This man has no connection to the protests, I just liked his photo.

However, soon it will be neither if the Nepalese parliament has its way. These changes have more than mere symbolic significance – they affect the balance of power within the country. For example, control of the military will no longer be reserved for Hindus:
the army – hitherto ruled by top Hindu castes – will now be “inclusive and national” in character. [Link]

Official broadcasts will have to be more even handed between faiths:

the state broadcaster gives … [Buddhism] 10 minutes a week compared with three-and-a-half hours for Hinduism. [Link]

And more non-Hindu houses of worship will be built:

Pastor KB Rokaya heads a church which meets in a private flat because churches are not allowed to register with the authorities. [Link]

However, not everybody is pleased with these changes. The head of Shiv Sena Nepal said, at a recent rally:

“Nepal is a Hindu country,” he says. “It is the playground of God and a very holy country. If Nepal is not a Hindu kingdom then there is no Nepal. We are entering into a holy war,” [Link]

One of the demonstrators at this rally promises worse:

“In secularism it will be very difficult for … [religious minorities]. The churches will be destroyed, the mosques will be destroyed. The people who are very much [of a] religious mind, they will spontaneously blow up these churches and mosques. The fight between the religious communities… is not going to stop. It has been ignited…” [Link]

At this point, it is too early to tell if this is the usual windbaggery by people resistant to change. There have only been a few dozen protestors at these rallies thus far. The question is whether his movement will pick up steam or lose wind or further mix metaphors as time goes on.

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5 years later (part 2) – The Towers

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I am a native New Yorker, both born and bred. I emerged into this world in St. Vincent’s Hospital, the same hospital whose emergency room treated 844 patients (a record for a NYC ER) in the aftermath of the attacks.

My relationship with the Towers goes way back. My high school prom was actually held at Windows on the World, although I didn’t attend. My reasons for not going didn’t quite fit the typical desi geek narrative. In a high school where most people went stag, there were actually four women who wanted to go with me, the apex of my high school popularity! Nor did my parents forbid me from going. However they wanted me back by midnight (they were concerned for my safety) and wouldn’t budge. Given that the prom was going to cost around $200 (just for the tux and ticket, no limo, and this was a lot of money back then!), I demurred.

Still, while I may not have had memories of my prom at the Towers, I have plenty of others. Every time some relative or friend would come through town, I would be dispatched to show them the sights. I didn’t go up to the top that often – I was too jaded and too thrifty for that. Instead, I would wait below, in the plaza between the buildings. There I could lie on my back, look up at the hulking masses that stretched far into the sky and contemplate my own insignificance, wallowing in adolescent angst.

The Towers were like Niagara Falls, a must see destination for uncles and aunties. There was always a sari squeezing into the elevator, excited to go up to the top of what may not have been the tallest building in the world, but which was at least the tallest building at the center of the world.

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5 years later (part 1)

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Five years ago last night, I was on an American Airlines plane between San Francisco and Boston. I think I was on the penultimate journey of AA Flight 11, the plane that was hijacked the next morning and was the first to hit the WTC, although I was too shocked to check my ticket stub to make sure. [AA 11 was an LA bound flight, my flight was LA to SF to Boston].

I remember waiting for the flight at SFO very vividly. It was delayed, so I sat patiently, nursing a novel. There were three wisacres in the padded reception seats facing mine, and they decided to pass the time by making remarks about how I was a terrorist, as if I was somehow deaf or couldn’t comprehend what they were saying. I lowered my book long enough to glare at them, and then went back to my reading.

That was in the good old days, back before such behavior was criminalized, back before I learned to shuffle, shuck and jive, to grin broadly like an idiot and look at my feet, back before passengers counted the number of times you went to the bathroom to pee. It was a long time ago.

I took a cab back to my place and fell into a deep dreamless sleep. Because we had arrived late, I decided to sleep in the next morning and was awoken not by my alarm clock but by my father, calling on the land line (back when I had roomates and no cell phone).

“Beta, turn on the TV,” he said.
I did. And I saw. But I did not yet comprehend.

I stayed in the living room all morning, watching events unfold on television, and talking to my father in NYC. I was lucky, I never had any trouble getting through. I didn’t realize then how much everything would change. How much, even five years later, things would not be the same as they were just 24 hours before.

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