Author Archives: Ennis Singh Mutinywale

Ikdum fit!

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In each of these locations, there was a weird juxtaposition of things sited. In the first and second locations, a gym was right along side some form of educational institute, in the third the municipal gym was between a gurudwara on the left and a mandir on the right. Incidentally, the first and third places were closed (I tried to join while I was here … start the new year right and work off all the gulab jamun I’ve been eating). The third place, the municipal gym, saw all of its equipment break from overuse so the city just closed it down. It was a shame, but this is the risk inherent in overly subsidizing a service.

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Lady in Red

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I am in India right now, “helping” my baby sister with her preparations for her impending nuptuals. This is what a bridal show looks like, Indian style :

Does this lehnga make my hips look large?

[Excuse the photoblogging – it’s hard to get the peace and quiet necessary to string two words together around here and the DSL is unreliable to boot.]

UPDATE: The photo above was taken at Frontier (sic) Bazar in Karol Bagh, Delhi. My sister bought none of the lehngas above, they were being shown to somebody else (and most Sikh weddings are done in Salvaar Kameez suits, which is what she bought). She did, however, buy her suit material at Frontier, which she heartily endorses, after having done the tour of most of the South-Ex boutiques (selection is small, and unless you want what is in fashion at that moment you’re out of luck).

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Skype’s Sepia Avatars

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Disco DJ Ennis in da virtual hiz-ouse!

Remember “flesh colored” bandaids – the ones that didn’t look anything like your flesh, and which stood out like a pink gash on your arm? This same problem recurs in the virtual world. Cyberspace is oddly eurocentric given the vast number of cyber-coolies who work to maintain and extend it. Despite the years that have elapsed since the end of the flesh-colored crayon, very little of the virtual world is easily extensible to look like me.

One noteworthy exception is a company called Weeworld that specializes in the creation of avatars for use with Skype or other services. Their web application lets you specify settings for 23 variables, each of which can take on multiple values, to create an image of yourself for only 1.5 Euros. Not only can you specify whatever skin, hair and eye color you want, but you can also give your icon facial hair and even a fairly realistic looking turban! It is a profound demonstration of the deep penetration of desis into British cultural life when a British company, producing for a largely European audience, includes a turban as a standard option. [Hat tip to Mr Sikhnet]

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Tufteing the subcontinent

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Map of the world with each country scaled by population size

Above is a map of world populations: “the larger the country, the bigger its population. Each grid square represents a million people.” [Link]

When you eyeball the map, a few things leap out at you in a way that they don’t when presented with a table of numbers:

  • India has 1 billion people, or roughly 1/6th of the world’s population
  • Pakistan and Bangladesh together have slightly more people that the US. If there was still a “United Pakistan” it would displace the US as the world’s third largest country.
  • There are more people living on the subcontinent than there are on most other continents. More South Asians than Europeans, Africans, North Americans or South Americans. As a matter of fact, there are more Indians than people in these other continents.

The same website also presents similar maps of past and future population levels of the world from 100,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago, 350 years ago (1650), 100 years ago (1900), and even a projection of the world’s population 150 years from now in 2150. [via BoingBoing]

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Speak American in America! (updated)

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How many of you feel inhibited in using a language other than English when you are out in public? I know that I think twice about speaking in Punjabi on my cell when there are others around. Here are two examples of recent language xenophobia incidents. The first involves Zach Rubio, a 16 year old student in Kansas City who was suspended for speaking Spanish in the halls:

Zach Rubio’s high school had no such signs

“It was, like, totally not in the classroom,” the high school junior said, recalling the infraction. “We were in the, like, hall or whatever, on restroom break. This kid I know, he’s like, ‘Me prestas un dolar?’ [‘Will you lend me a dollar?’] Well, he asked in Spanish; it just seemed natural to answer that way. So I’m like, ‘No problema.’ “

A teacher who overheard the two boys sent Zach to the office, where Principal Jennifer Watts ordered him to call his father and leave the school… in a written “discipline referral” explaining her decision to suspend Zach for 1 1/2 days, she noted: “This is not the first time we have [asked] Zach and others to not speak Spanish at school.” [Link]

Note that this high school has no policy against speaking Spanish outside of class, and even if it did, it would be difficult to understand how such a policy could be legal.

The second incident involves an editorial assistant at the Chicago Tribune named (verdad) Ahmad. A. Ahmad:

The Amtrak train was four hours outside New York City when we heard the conductor’s voice on the loudspeaker…We were all stuck, somewhere in the middle of New York state, and we would have to wait for a bus to take us to the nearest big city… I decided to call my mother in Chicago to tell her what happened. We spoke in our native tongue, Arabic.

… I heard sirens approaching, and the bus suddenly came to a stop on the side of the highway. Police cars came–so many I couldn’t even begin to count them… The man told police he understood Arabic and had overheard my conversation. He thought I was talking to some terrorist cell when I was chatting with my mother… The authorities questioned me for nearly three hours at an Albany police station. They asked me where I was from, whether I was a United States citizen, who I knew in New York City, who I worked for, and why I was traveling alone. [Link]

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He blinded me with science!

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President Musharraf yesterday proposed a two pronged approach to producing a “Muslim renaissance.”

Step 1, Ban all hate and terror organizations:

Senseless acts of terrorism committed by a handful of misguided individuals while claiming to act in the name of Islam have maligned our noble faith of peace, tolerance and compassion … We must condemn and reject all forces of terrorism and extremism, banning organisations which preach hate and violence. We must promote the Islamic values of tolerance and moderation,”… [Link]

Step 2, Fund lots of science:

The president said most Islamic societies remained far removed from the expanding frontiers of knowledge, education, science and technology. Any dreams of progress on these fronts would remain unfulfilled if not fully backed by collective will and adequate financial resources, he said. [Link]

These are two admirable goals, but honestly, I fail to see the connection between them (perhaps I misread the original article). Is his plan to generate a society too geeky to hate or kill? Anybody who ever read soc.culture.indian (or encountered Biswanath Halder) knows that geeks are just as capable of hate as anybody else … Continue reading →

Fear of flying

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A desi Lt. Colonel was detained for 4 hours because air marshals didn’t “like the way he looked” When I was a little boy, I believed in an America where all men were equal before the law, and due process was paramount. However, when I grew up, I put away childish things and saw that this was not true. Therefore, I put on my best Stepin Fetchit imitation when flying, grinning broadly, shucking and jiving. I call somebody at each leg of my journey, so that there is a paper trail just in case somebody decides that I look “wrong” and I get stopped for flying while brown. [Why not drive? You should see how highway patrolmen react to the sight of a turban and beard passing through middle America. Flying is also far safer.]

Is this paranoia or simple prudence? If you think I’m overly cautious, consider the case of Bob Rajcoomar, a U.S. citizen and Lt. Colonel in the United States Army Reserve who was detained on a flight in August 2002 because federal air marshals did not “like the way he looked.” [Hat Tip: RC]

Dr. Rajcoomar’s disturbing ordeal began shortly after take off during a flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia on August 31, 2002, when U.S. Air Marshals were called to subdue an apparently disoriented man seated in the coach section. The air marshals rushed at the unstable individual, handcuffed him, and then dragged him to the first-class section, where they placed him in the seat next to Dr. Rajcoomar, a U.S. citizen and Lt. Colonel in the United States Army Reserve and is of Indian descent. Dr. Rajcoomar asked to have his seat changed and the flight attendant obliged. [Link]

Dr. Rajcoomar’s seat change made the air marshals suspicious:

… after the flight landed … air marshals handcuffed Dr. Rajcoomar without explanation and took him into the custody of Philadelphia police. His wife Dorothy, who was also on the flight, was given no information on what had happened to her husband. Because the authorities confiscated Dr. Rajcoomar’s cellular phone, she had no way to contact him.

After four tense hours in detention, Dr. Rajcoomar was released. TSA personnel told him that he had been detained because air marshals on board the flight did not “like the way he looked.” [Link]

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We three (well, thirty-five) Singhs of Orient are …

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One of my favorite holiday traditions is our annual national battle about the character of the nation. Are we the Christian nation of the “first settlers” or the secular nation of the barely theistic founding fathers? Since 20% of Americans do not identify as Christian, how do we find common ground with the rest of America?

One way is through holiday hymns/song. Let’s face it, many traditional hymns and carols are as catchy as Puritan cuisine is tasty. I went to an elementary school where our annual assembly had both Christian and Jewish songs; the nation’s capital goes one step further with the annual interfaith concert at Washington National Cathedral:

Hindu and Sikh hymns echoed through the Washington National Cathedral as nine world religions filled the building, a usual venue for Presidential prayers … Led by Washington’s Guru Gobind Singh Foundation (GGSF) executive director Rajwant Singh, 35 Sikh men and women in spotless white with saffron satin scarves around their necks said opening prayers at the 26th Interfaith Concert held by the Interfaith Conference.

The Kuchipudi Dance Academy represented the Hindu faith as its troupe presented a recital in honour of Lord Shiva.

The Buddhists also took part in the event for the first time, with three Sri Lankan monks from Washington’s Buddhist Vihara joining the annual celebrations recently.

More than 1,400 members in the audience also enjoyed interludes of tabla maestro Rajinder Pal Singh, a student of Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain.

The annual concert aims at bringing together Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Sikh communities on a common platform. [Link]

I’m waiting for William A. Donohue to protest against this invasion of a Christian space. After all, if this guy finds the White House insufficiently Christian, what will he think of Hindu dancers in the National Cathedral?

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There’s no monopoly on cliched orientalism

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The previously blogged Desi-opoly is finally available in the UK, just in time for the holidays. With this board game, the desi diaspora has just joined the ranks of Nascar, Garfield, the Powerpuff Girls, Star Wars (both old and new), as well as towns like Swansea and Wigan as official monopoly themes.

The Desi Monopoly website toots its own horn louder than the Bollywood Brass Band:

It is very exciting news that the South Asian community is Passing GO. It is widely acknowledged that the South Asian community have played a significant role in contributing to the recent success and culture of the UK and the new Monopoly UK Desi Edition celebrates this. [Link]

But the game hardly celebrates the contributions of BritAsians to the UK. It’s basically the same game with a bit of mirch-masala mixed in:

the properties are a mix of Indian icons (famous train stations, the Taj) and Asian neigbourhoods in Britain. [Link]

… along with a ton of hackneyed desi cliches for good measure. The images in the strip on the right are just some of the pictures used on the box. They include a brocaded sari, a woman meditating, a woman doing classical dance, a tiger, a rickshaw wallah and yes … the Taj Mahal. This from the same country that brought us “Goodness Gracious Me“, “The Kumars At No 42” and the “Funjabis?”

Who needs white people when we exoticize ourselves so thoroughly, for so little. At least the monopoly guy wasn’t morphed into the Air India man …

Related posts: I want to be the three-wheeled scooter, M-m-me so hungry, Buzzword bingo

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