Author Archives: V.V.

A Brown Girl in Italy

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My book tour is (mostly) over. But I wanted to share a little bit about what it was like in one of the most exciting spots I hit: Torino, Italy. I traveled there for four days in mid-May, for the Torino book festival, where I spent most of my time hanging out with Tahmima Anam, the author of A Golden Age.ItalianTV2.jpg

Tahmima and I have the same fab Italian publisher, Garzanti, and the same fab editor, Elisabetta. Getting to know Tahmima was unexpected and awesome! She is one of the nicest and funniest people I met on tour—and she was also generous with her advice. I am reading her book now, and it’s fantastic. (Previous Sepia coverage here.) Anyway, she’s also a Sepia reader, and when I told her I wanted to blog about our time in Italy, she readily agreed.

We spent a fair amount of time giving interviews. As far as Tahmima and I could tell, there were four female South Asian authors at the Torino festival. It took hardly a moment before someone wanted all four of us in the same spot. Two of us wore saris. Nope, it was the other two.

Left to right: Tahmima Anam, Sunny Singh, Stefano Bortolussi, Selina Sen, and me.

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Law & Order: Sri Lankan Episode?

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Mutiny! I haven’t been around so much lately. My chronically bad hands hit a bad spot right before I started traveling for book promotion in April. When I returned, the SAJA Convention was waiting. These things were fun, but I’ll admit that I missed the Mutiny somethin’ turrible. I have quite a backlog of posts I’ve been meaning to write. So I am glad glad glad to be back. (Thanks to all those Mutineers who said hey at various readings! It was nice to meet you.)

I had a first-post-back all ready, and then I started getting e-mails from Sri Lankan pals and journos. They said: Did you know that there is a Sri Lankan-themed episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent? Indeed, I did not. It first aired on Sunday, on USA Network, and I missed it. Fortunately, it will be aired again tonight, at 11 p.m. So a heads-up to all those of you who might be interested. I’ll update this post with my thoughts after I watch it. (It’s Season 7, Episode 14, entitled “Assassin.”) There will be a few repeats this week.

UPDATE: 10:26 p.m. For entertainment value, I’m actually going to try to live-blog this. Incidentally, have just seen “Get Smart,” which has The Great Khali in a key role.

Live blog below.

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A Trick Question: That’s KAH-ree-yah-wah-sum

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A quick break here from my Groundviews posts. First, as I said in that last comment thread, the kind people in the bunker said I could stay for awhile longer! I’m excited.

Second, my friend alerted me to a reference to Sri Lanka in a recent SNL skit:

Run the player until about 1:30 before the end, and listen to the foreign policy segment. Yup, that’s a reference to Sri Lanka’s Ambassador Prasad Kariyawasam. He’s Sri Lanka’s permanent rep to the U.N. At least, I think he still is. 🙂 Continue reading →

The Beginning of the End: Groundviews

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This is my last day with the Mutiny, so I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth and fire off a few posts, Abhi-style.

I promised to blog about Groundviews. On Friday, I met with Sanjana Hattotuwa, the site’s editor, who was in New York on other business. We talked about the site and the situation in Sri Lanka. I’m excited to share that conversation with you here. I’ll do it in a few parts—we talked for quite a long time.

First, a little background: Groundviews is a citizen journalism site about what’s happening in Sri Lanka. It started in the fall of 2006. It’s perhaps the best use of citizen journalism I’ve ever seen—I think it’s a brilliant way to get around media censorship in that country. As I’ve become increasingly saddened by the progression of the conflict there, I’ve also been heartened to see the spectrum of people participating in Groundviews. Continue reading →

What’s God Got To Do (Got To Do) With It?

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First off, a belated thanks to the Mutiny for letting me stay a month longer. I’m excited to be here, and even more excited that my topics now know no bounds. Brace yourselves. Huddle in the bunker.

You all know I love to write about food. And I love Sri Lanka. So what would make me sadder than anything? (Subtract conflict in Sri Lanka from consideration.) This piece about a Sri Lankan restaurant, from the Village Voice.

My friend K sent me this. (Thanks, K!) There’s so much wrong with it that I hardly know where to begin. But what struck me most was something I’ve been seeing more and more in coverage of Sri Lanka: gratuitous inclusion or overemphasis on religion. There’s enough carnage in Sri Lanka that I suppose people feel compelled to cover or mention the country. At the same time, they feel that they ought to smush news or writing about it into the Religion v. Religion WWE format currently favored by those discussing 9/11 and its aftermath. Continue reading →

Happy Walentine’s Day

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I have been saving and saving and saving this post, since it seemed to me most appropriate for Walentine’s Day.

Cheap V- and W-switching jokes aside, as you may remember, I was recently in Singapore. Along with Preston Merchant, photographer extraordinaire, I made my way out to the Sri Senpaga Vinayagar Temple, on Ceylon Road in Katong. This temple, which just may be my favorite temple in the world, is gorgeous. It’s beautifully painted, clean, and welcoming. It’s got a huge collection of different Ganeshas, and all the priests are from Sri Lanka. Ceylon Tamils in Singapore built the temple over a century ago, but now Hindus of all backgrounds worship there. ceylontemple.jpg

There are rules for worship on the wall that detail the kind of clothing to be worn, and the temple pamphlet specifies an order of worship. But the reality of the temple did not hew to the rules as they were written—indeed, no temple I know really does. Women came in dressed for work, toting children; live musicians played nathaswaram; priests served warm paiassam; people worshipped in the order that pleased them (or, at least, I did). They let Preston take pictures. I paid for prayers in my family’s name. The chief kurrukkal loaded me down with books about the temple and gave me a tiny statue of Ganesha, gratis. It didn’t feel like a place with many rules—just a lot of warmth.

The temple also has a store. I purchased many things there: a few Ganesha pendants, a five-faced Ganesha statue, Ganesha keychains, and some books. Among the books: guidelines to funeral rites for Saivite Hindus—and guidelines to marriage for Saivite Hindus.

I pointed at the display case on the wall and told the volunteer running the store that I wanted both.

“Both?”

“I’m preparing for my whole life here,” I said. “Who knows when I’ll come back to Singapore?” Continue reading →

A Spot of Teh?

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Nasikandarpelita.jpgPreston says that I carry a teabag everywhere the way a teenage boy carries a condom. I disagree, as (I presume) teenage boys carry condoms with hope, and I don’t actually want to use the emergency teabag stowed in the change pocket of my wallet. Yes, there is such a thing as a tea emergency—the moment when only black Sri Lankan tea (with milk, one sugar) will make me happy. But I have had no such emergencies in Malaysia, as the tea here (teh tarik, as my preferred version of it is called) tastes like tea in a Sri Lankan home. (Teh tarik is “pulled tea,” according to one of our guidebooks. When I read what that meant, I realized that it’s what I know in Tamil as “athefining.” Pardon the poor transliteration.) Made with condensed milk and mixed by being poured from one vessel to another, it’s fantastically refreshing.

But before tea: food. And here Malaysia outdoes almost every other country I’ve visited. At the open-air food court nearest our hotel, Nasi Kandar Pelita, the cash registers feature a line-up of complimentary meal-enders: vitamin drops of various fruited flavors. The emptiest bin, however, is the one farthest to the left—antacids! The food is well worth the gastronomical price, and worth much more than its actual price. Continue reading →

‘There are protests everywhere’ (Singapore Days, Part II)

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JAN. 2, SINGAPORE, JERVOIS ROAD—When I met him, Seelan Palay was reading a Tamil newspaper. He had not eaten in two and half days, had not had solid food in ten, and had not consumed more than one meal for seventeen. A third-generation Singaporean Tamil, Palay had whittled down his caloric intake gradually in preparation for a hunger strike. In time-honored South Asian tradition, the scruffy 23-year-old art school graduate was fasting in front of the Malaysian High Commission to protest government actions: in this case, neighboring Malaysia’s violent response to a peaceful rally of thousands of ethnic Indians at the end of November.

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The November event, conducted under the umbrella of Malaysia’s Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF), has mobilized Palay even in Singapore, where restrictions on freedom of expression are par for the course. The grandson of a South Indian gardener and a gravedigger from northern Sri Lanka, Palay is an old hand at causing a stir. Palay, a painter and video artist, attended the rally in Kuala Lumpur, and says that what he saw there—as Indians peacefully protested the Malaysian government’s treatment of their minority—moved him to action. (Some reports, including one from major Malaysian news source Malaysiakini, put the numbers of that rally as high as 30,000. Other sources say 10,000 attended. Palay was there in part to document the action.) Malaysian police met those rallying with tear gas and water cannons. Palay says he was among those tear-gassed. The government has detained five of the group’s leaders under the Internal Security Act, which gives officials broad powers and has little transparency. Palay says each day of his hunger fast is for one of the detainees. He’s petitioning for them to be released, charged and tried in an open and transparent way. At this point, the Malaysian government has offered no answer.

“Everyone deserves a fair trial,” he says. “It’s very unfair. These people are not even asking for a change of government. They’re asking for a change of policy…. That kind of response was just uncalled for.”

photo by Preston Merchant Continue reading →