You MUST go read Jagjit’s comment on the H&K post and check out the attached graphic. It’s priceless and one of the best pieces of desi parody I’ve seen in a LONG time. It’s so good I’m jealous.
Author Archives: vinod
AI282 to Dallas, now boarding…
One of the seminal “growing up ABCD” collective memories was the torturous trip back to India (during school vacations only!) to visit the relatives. I so vividly remember the lines, the waiting, the baggage weight limit horrors, bumped passengers, horrible food, non-existant customer service, ugh, basically everything.
One can only imagine what went through those bomb sniffing dogs minds as they encountered an aunty’s suitcase laden with 101 masala’s, spices, and vege’s.
Well, times might be a changing — US ready to open its skies to any Indian airline.
NEW DELHI, AUGUST 31: Building on its idea of an open-skies agreement with India, the United States has provided a detailed proposal listing far-reaching features of such an agreement, the first of its kind being considered by India. At present, none of the US airlines has direct flights to India, barring one which operates to Mumbai. In contrast: Daily, there are are 20 non-stop services to China, 13 to South Korea and an average of 51 to Japan.
The US govt official apparently has a stake in the matter – he’s desi! –
…US Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Aviation Karan Bhatia
The upside for us? Better service and lower fares –
The existing agreement allows only designated carriers to specific points. While Indian carriers can touch New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, US airlines can only operate to Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai. …The US has argued that an open-skies agreement will also bring down air fares. While the distance between Washington DC and New Delhi is close to that from Washington DC to Seoul, the air fare to New Delhi is almost double that to Seoul. The US believes this is largely because of the open skies agreement it has with South Korea.
Jihadists deal a blow to America by striking … Nepal
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – A Web site linked to an Iraqi militant group showed a video of what was purported to be the killing of 12 Nepalese workers by militants who had kidnapped them. The Nepalese Foreign Ministry said it could not confirm the report of the hostages’ deaths. The 12 had been reported kidnapped Aug. 20.
Nepal should respond by allowing the Gurkha’s to go medieval on their asses.
“Great Indian Excuses”
Vicious OpEd in Rediff –The Great Indian Excuses resurface.
If Anjali Bhagwat had stiff muscles, K M Binu ran with the wrong spikes, Karnam Malleswari suffered a last-minute back problem, and Suma Shirur was done in by a mental block!The exceptions were heptathlete J J Shobha, who braved excruciating pain to finish the event in eleventh place, and tennis stars Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes.
There seems to be no end to the excuses given by Indian athletes for their shoddy performances at yet another Olympiad that ended last night in Athens.
Whether these were genuine reasons for their failure, only the athletes can tell. But one thing is for sure. They have got readymade excuses for every failure and it appears to come to them naturally.
New Sikh Temple in San Jose
While Manish reports on the celebrations @ Amritsar, in local news, the Bay Area Sikh’s have opened the nation’s largest Gurdwara in San Jose – MercuryNews.com | 08/28/2004 | Gurdwara facts
The new San Jose gurdwara will be the largest and most expensive in the country. The Bay Area is home to four other Sikh temples, in Hayward, Pittsburg, El Sobrante and Fremont. Fremont’s temple, built in 1991 for $1.8 million, had been the nation’s largest. The San Jose gurdwara: Cost $10 million, which was collected over 10 years. Was paid for with $6.75 million from the sale of its former home on Quimby Road, and $4.36 million from individual loans and donations from the Sikh community. Encompasses three buildings that total 20,000 square feet on 40 acres in the Evergreen district.
When planned, the Gurdwara raised some controversy –
Plans for the 40-acre property sparked controversy when Sikhs first unveiled their goal to move from the old temple on Quimby Road. A vocal minority of neighbors feared there would be traffic and noise headaches and criticized the magnitude of the project, which was scaled back to meet some of the concerns. Public hearings in San Jose lasted late into the night and at times erupted into name-calling. Protesters carried signs reading “No Sikh Jose.”
But all’s well that ends well –
“I’m very emotional,” said Amrit Singh Sachdev, 49, a computer engineer. “This is bringing back memories for me, when the whole street shuts down, just like in India.” The ceremony, which drew about 7,000 guests, signified a happy chapter in a rocky journey that began in the early 1990s.
Whole streets shut down like in India? Well, I suppose there’s always a temple opening up somewhere….
The case up north
Sepia Mutiny earlier reported on the trial of the accused in the AI 182 bombing. Well, this trial north of the border is just getting whackier & whackier – TheStar.com – Defence in Air India trial calls last witness.
VANCOUVER — The defence in the Air India case called its final witness today, ending another segment of the lengthy trial that included insults and angry outbursts, expletives, an admitted drug dealer and witnesses with shaky credibility.
An interesting cast of characters includes a drug dealer with that oh-so-Punjabi nickname – Mindy
Raminder Singh (Mindy) Bhandher, 26, was testifying on behalf of accused Air India bomber Ripudaman Singh Malik, who Bhandher said he regarded as a generous father figure. But during his testimony, Bhandher also acknowledged a lengthy history of drug dealing, smuggling and fraud.
A peace leader who knows how to deliver a verbal smackdown –
When he did testify — describing himself as a peaceful, devout Sikh leader — he shouted expletives at a Crown prosecutor who alleged he knew about the bombing plot and selectively warned friends to fly another day. “Bullshit!” Daljit Singh Sandhu yelled from the witness stand.
And even a F911 angle –
The defence’s case even had a connection — however tenuous — to documentary filmmaker Michael Moore and the popular movie Fahrenheit 911. Retired FBI agent Jack Cloonan, a commentator on U.S. news shows who makes an appearance in Moore’s latest film, was called as a witness for Bagri. Cloonan criticized another FBI agent who testified for the Crown. … The Crown accused him of weighing in on a case he knew nothing about.
This must be their OJ case but with desi’s & jumbo jets instead of ex-footballers & White Bronco’s…
Just what exactly was the Sepoy Mutiny?
Since we started the blog, several folks have asked me about the Sepoy Mutiny – the historical event our blog title derives from. The ever-excellent Wikipedia provides the most concise overview I’ve ever seen – Indian Mutiny – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Indian Mutiny (also known as the Sepoy Mutiny) as known to the British or The First War Of Indian Independence as known to the Indians was a period of uprising in northern and central India against British rule in 1857-1858. It is also known as the Sepoy Rebellion, the Great Mutiny, and the Revolt of 1857. It is widely acknowledged to be the first-ever united rebellion against colonial rule in India.
I’m personally not terribly hung up on colonial / post-colonial politics but I do think the name has a cool sound to it & the history is an interesting read…
Through the eyes of cricket
A couple desi coworkers were mentioning some flare up in the cricket world and I decided to check it out… Very interesting stuff. The brouhaha erupted over comments from an Aussie player – Mathew Hayden.
SYDNEY, August 24: Matthew Hayden says Australia are the leading cricketing team in the world because its players play as a team whereas cricketers from the sub-continent, including India, play for personal milestones.…‘‘In one-day cricket, if you get to 70 or 80, you can obviously get a hundred by just batting carefully but we just donÂ’t do that. It affects a batsmanÂ’s statistics but we just donÂ’t go for those personal marks,Â’Â’ he said.
…‘Counties like India suffer from that. We back ourselves against those countries because theyÂ’ll get two or three players in the 70s and beyond and theyÂ’ll be eyeing off that personal landmark and it will cost their side 40 or 50 runs as a result. Pretty much all the sub-continental sides are like that. They really can waste a lot of time and thereÂ’s no time to waste.
God, if I knew more about cricket, I could fully appreciate the significance here… BUT, there’s some interesting commentary in this column responding to Mr. Hayden –
Why there’s an ‘I’ in Team India
The self comes before the team because thatÂ’s our way of life
HARSHA BHOGLEIt would be tempting, and egotistical, to ignore Mathew HaydenÂ’s remark about players from the sub-continent being selfish. You could call it gamesmanship, and there will be a substantial element of that, but if it hurts there is probably some truth to it.
…It is my hypothesis that in over-populated, and therefore insecure, countries the self will always dominate. Feelings of comradeship, of surrendering the self to the wider cause, can only arise in either a highly spiritual phase or where the performer has ascended to a level of personal calm about his achievements.
Where you are in a mob, and we are in a mob, self-preservation will always prevail; whether it is catching a bus, or getting out of a movie hall or getting admission to a professional college.
There’s some serious wisdom here.
Cry me a river – “Mr. Hotmail”, no more
It’s tough to pity the guy – CNN.com – ‘Mr Hotmail’ seeks new challenges – Aug 26, 2004.
(CNN) — As the inventor of Hotmail, Sabeer Bhatia is the pin-up of India’s IT revolution; the boy from Bangalore who went to Silicon Valley and made his fortune. Bhatia was in his mid-20s when he developed the idea of web-based email accounts in 1995, raising $300,000 in investment to launch the revolutionary service the following year. Within 12 months Hotmail had 10 million users and Bhatia had sold his creation to Microsoft for $400 million.
Launching his new company in 1999, a one click e-commerce venture called Arzoo.com, Bhatia claimed it had the potential to be twice as big as Hotmail. By mid-2001 the dotcom bubble had burst and Arzoo had folded.
“The last couple of years I was quite depressed because I didn’t have an idea or a vision or a goal that would be world-beating like Hotmail. I often wondered if that would be the only success that I would have at the end of my life.
“I would rather not be known as Mr Hotmail anymore,” he says. “What is in the past is over. Now I’m looking for the next big thing.”
Don’t get me wrong, I have respect for Hotmail and Mr. Bhatia BUT, can’t he and his fawning masses attribute just a tad of his fortune to Timing and Luck? Hotmail was one of the keystone companies of the bubble – no revenue but lots of eyeballs. In any other world, it wouldn’t have been a name-making $400M venture….. There’s a helluva lot of Attribution Error goin’ on…
Maybe I’m just jealous. 😉
Funky Math
The headline screams – India has 93 per cent of Asia’s ‘extremely’ poor.
But then you read the details –
Of the 690 million extremely poor people in developing countries of Asia, 93 per cent are in India, according to a new report of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
93% of 690 = 641. But the actual number –
Of these, 93 percent (357 million) are in India, the People’s Republic of China (203 million), and other South Asian countries (77 million), says the report released Thursday.
357M is more like 50%. Am I missing something obvious? But there is hope –
The ADB foresees the number of people in extreme poverty in developing Asia declining from 690 million in 2002 to 150 million in 2015.