Category Archives: Kids

Save Her Life

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That precious, happy little girl you see above is Nirali. She has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (Thanks, bean). According to the following,

Despite overall improvements in outcome, the prognosis for patients…is poor. Their estimated event-free survival (EFS) is only about 30%. [link]

her life is very much at stake, so the way I titled this post isn’t sensational or an exaggeration of any kind. After losing an Uncle to Leukemia two years ago and having an even closer family member go to the hospital this week because of the looming possibility of cancer, Nirali’s story makes me want to weep.

She needs a bone marrow transplant.

She needs that transplant from someone who is brown.

There aren’t anywhere near enough desis in the National Marrow Program database.

We have no excuse for this.

I am terrified of needles, I’ve said this many times. I avoid flu shots, because I find them so traumatic, but even I sacked up and then felt like the biggest baby for being afraid of the “typing” process which put me in the database of potential donors. Apparently, they’ve even taken care of THAT obstacle; now you can just get your cheek swabbed and that is enough.

Look here for a desi-centric list of opportunities to join the database, nationwide. Go. Give a tiny part of your physical self. And then pray, if you are inclined to do so, that we follow-up this post with some joyful news. Continue reading →

Designer Desi Baby Food

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It’s hot outside. So hot, these days, you want to curl up next to a fan with a cup full of ice water and allow your brain to regress to an almost womb-like state of slushee-induced, heat-transcending peace. The local papers here in Philly have had nothing very exciting to say about the curent heat wave, but the BBC has an amusing article on the rest of the British media’s penchant for “climate porn” (the BBC, of course, only participates in the phenomenon by discussing how everyone else participates in it). Still, “climate porn”: you might want to rethink how much time you spend at work checking the weather. 02baby.2.190.jpg

Speaking of returning to the womb, or something close to it, did you hear about the new, designer desi-themed baby food?

HappyBaby, which sells colorful cubes of frozen vegetable and fruit purées through FreshDirect and Gourmet Garage, flavors puréed peas with fresh mint, and potatoes and red lentils with coriander and cinnamon in their savory dahl, an Indian staple.

“This is how my parents fed me,” said Shazi Visram, co-founder of HappyBaby, which began on Mother’s Day and is expanding its line this month. “Why shouldn’t babies, of all people, get to eat delicious things?”(link)

No more vanilla, canned Gerber for today’s stylish babies. At HappyBabyFood, you get organic Baby Dhal. It comes in frozen, baby-sized cubes, and is sold at health food places in the New York City area. (Because it’s frozen, they can avoid having to put in preservatives.)

Not everyone is thrilled with the masalafication trend:

But some parents remain skeptical. “Moms ask me, ‘Can babies really have that?’ ” said Anni Daulter, co-founder of Bohemian Baby, which delivers meals like Vegetable Korma, made with coconut milk, for 12-month-olds, and purées of fruits like pomegranates and figs for infants. “And I say, of course! What do you think they feed babies in India?” (link)

Wait, you mean they feed babies in India something other than American baby food?

For more frozen organic baby food porn, click on this image, from New York Magazine. And a bit more on HappyBaby Food co-founder Shazi Visram, who has an MBA from Columbia and has worked in real estate in Brooklyn, can be found here. Continue reading →

Heritage Camps for adopted Indian children

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Just over a week ago SM commenter DesiDancer returned from a trip to Colorado and emailed me the following about a wonderful experience she had there:

I was invited to come teach dance classes at the East Indian Heritage Camp, last weekend. The organization, Colorado Heritage Camps, Inc. offers a series of ethnic camps (Latin American, Chinese, Korean, Desi, etc) every summer, for adopted children and their parents. They draw on members of the ethnic community to volunteer and help engage the families in culturally-minded activities during a 4-day camp, up in the mountains. In addition to fun stuff, there are also panel discussion with several different age groups, dealing with cultural identity, issues that may affect adoptees and their parents, and several child psychologists contribute to the curriculum. In addition to the dance classes I taught, I sat on a panel for jr. high aged kids, discussing reclamation of culture, biculturalism, and other issues…

Over the course of 4 days, several of the activities included Ayurvedic medicine, traditional dance, Bollywood dance, Rangoli drawing, traditional vegetable painting/block printing, games like Cricket and Gilli-Danda, yoga, cooking classes, music lessons, and lectures on Indian holidays, Indian weddings, travel to India, Indian history–with a weird specialty class in Freedom Fighters, and a book group. We ate desi food, and every night was a party with desi music. The closing night of camp, all the little kids (and big kids) performed dances from their classes, and the parents in my adult class performed a dance for the families, too. I’d spoken to one of the Directors of the camp about getting a DVD of “Calcutta Calling” to screen at the camp, one evening, but I think she is going to arrange it for next year instead. Though she said she watched the video stream at PBS…They loved the documentary.

Continue reading →

Hindi-Hong Kong-Bhai-Bhai

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I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the lameness we possess insiiiiide. Give them an over-developed sense of pride, to make it easier. Let the children’s prejudice remind us how we ought not be…

From the news tab, an anonymous tipster points us to a blog which took an amusing and slightly dil-warming look in to what tweens and teens in Hong Kong think of other Asian people:

When you think about Filipinos, what comes to your mind?

"Tak-shing Building!"
"They know how to sweep the floor!"
"I see them in Central all the time."
"Bun-bun.  Filipina girls.  But I have never met a Filipino guy yet."

Do you feel that you disrespect them by calling them such names?

"Hey, they come here to work.  We have more money than they have.  They are getting paid, so wouldn’t you say that they can be ordered around?"

Someday, you will be working and earning money too, and you will give spending money to your mother.  Does that mean that you can order your mother around?

"But how can that be the same?  My mother is not a Filipina."

Awesome. And now, on to the germane part (aside: does anyone know what “Ah Cha” means?):

When you think about Indians, what comes to your mind?

Continue reading →

NYC Desi Youth Activists Get Props

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Many thanks to the tipster who posted a link on the news tab to this column by Errol Louis in the New York Daily News. Louis, whose columns often focus on ear-to-the-street developments in New York’s immigrant communities and communities of color, devotes today’s piece to the launch, this afternoon, of a report on safe learning for immigrants in the NYC public schools. It’s a broad, holistic understanding of safety that means fewer cops, more resources, and protection from immigration authorities.

What’s remarkable is that this report, based on two years of fieldwork supported by a prestigious non-profit called the Urban Justice Center, is the work of desis — the young brothers and sisters in DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving) Youth Power. These young desi activists are taking on subjects that are important to all immigrant families and indeed to any family with kids in the New York schools.

It’s an encouraging example of identity politics used for inclusive, coalition-building purposes: the desi identification gives a group like DRUM its base and stability, but the work reaches far beyond the narrow interests of that base.

You can agree or disagree with this approach, or for that matter with the overall “Education Not Deportation” umbrella theme of this action, but it’s nice to see the DRUM Youth Power work give an opportunity for a major tabloid columnist to educate the city about desis:

The slang term Desi refers to immigrants from South Asia – including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and parts of the diaspora including Africa, England and the Caribbean.

They are part of the backbone of our city – including the cab drivers, domestics and restaurant workers who collectively form our largest and fastest-growing immigrant group.

Working-class Desi kids, according to a survey summarized in the DRUM report, are sick of seeing metal detectors, armed cops and bullying administrators prowling school halls.

“A climate of fear is being created,” says Refat (Shoshi) Doza, a 20-year-old Queens College student. “That’s not the way to teach a child.” Raquibul Alam Nayeem, a 17-year-old student at William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens, agrees.

To Louis at least, the sisters and brothers in DRUM are setting an example for all to emulate:

The Department of Education should listen closely to DRUM’s youth leaders, particularly the explosive allegation that some schools, in violation of longstanding city policy, may be turning over students’ citizenship information to immigration officials.

By standing up and complaining, these kids are learning lessons that will prepare them to be the kind of outside-the-box thinkers our city and nation need.

The report launches this afternoon at 5 PM at a community meeting in Jackson Heights, for anyone interested in attending. Congratulations and Big Up! to the DRUM crew for their hard work. Continue reading →

Desi Kids Also Rule Geography Bee (Quiz Included)

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bonny jain.jpg Bonny Jain, of Moline Illinois, won the 2006 National Geographic Spelling Bee. He’s twelve years old, and he’s also a spelling champ and a violin player when he’s not naming mountain ranges in Wales.

He beat — no surprise — two other Indian American kids to take home the prize:

Neera Sirdeshmukh, 14, of Nashua, New Hampshire, came in second place, while 13-year-old Yeshwanth Kandimalla from Georgia came third.

For the winning question, his 26th out of 27, Jain correctly answered ‘Cambrian Mountains’ to the question ‘Name the mountains that extend across much of Wales, from the Irish Sea to the Bristol Channel.’

Jain, who is still in eighth grade, won $25,000 and a lifetime membership to the National Geographic Society for his efforts. (link)

That’s right, the three top contestants in the top U.S. Geography Bee are all Indian Americans. (Incidentally, Jain came in in the top 10 last year, and was mentioned by Sepia Mutiny here)

Think you can run with the geography whizzes? Try this quiz — written by Jain himself — at the Chicago Tribune. (Remember, no cheating! I got 7/10) Continue reading →

Ohio’s newest puppetmaster

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In 2005 much of Ohio politics was dominated by the controversy surrounding a scandal dubbed “Coingate” by the media:

Coingate is a nickname for the Thomas Noe investment scandal in Ohio revealed in early 2005 in part by Ohio newspaper Toledo Blade. The Ohio government’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation fund (BWC) invested hundreds of millions of dollars in high risk or unconventional investment vehicles run by people closely connected to the Ohio Republican party who had made large campaign contributions to many senior Republican party officials.

A rare coin investment fund has attracted particular scrutiny after it was reported that two coins worth more than $300,000 had been lost. Further investigation then revealed that coins worth $10-$12 million were missing and that only $13 million of the original $50 million invested could be accounted for. [Link]

As you would expect, politicians, especially Democrats running for office this year, find it beneficial to point to the Coingate affair as another example of Republican corruption and a reason to vote to change the status quo. One of those politicians is a Democrat named Subodh Chandra (see previous SM mention here) who is running for Attorney General of Ohio. Subodh recently talked about the Coingate affair to drum up support at one of his fundraisers. Well…he didn’t so much “talk” about Coingate, rather he…well you’ll see:

Apparently it was a “kid friendly” fundraiser. What? Kids in pre-school really do dig politics. The man is providing a valuable service to a segment of the population that lacks a voice in their government. His puppeteering skills aren’t bad either. Continue reading →

Pranav and the Bee

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pranav.jpgSomething smells down in Georgia and young Pranav Mahadevan is being forced to take a deep breath of the stink in. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on an exclusive investigation which takes a look at the seedy underbelly of spelling bee competitions in this once great country:

Pranav Mahadevan, a serious speller since second grade, had one final shot at the state spelling bee, where a win would finally give him his ticket to the national stage in Washington.

In anticipation of the Georgia Independent Schools Association spelling bee in Macon last month, the Dunwoody eighth-grader pored over word lists and studied word roots in Greek, Latin and French. But he was eliminated when the judges said he spelled the wrong word. He spelled “ivy”; the judges were looking for “ivied.”

Pranav, a student at Our Lady of the Assumption School in north Atlanta, said he misunderstood the pronouncer. He spelled the word he thought he heard, a word he repeated for the judges before he started spelling. His mother, Kalpana Mahadevan, appealed her son’s dismissal immediately, as is her right under the bee rules. But she said the judges refused to replay the tape to see whether the pronouncer had clearly articulated the word. Instead, they ruled that Pranav was out and proceeded with the contest.

This is personal. First they screw us by misrepresenting Hindus in California textbooks and now they go after our kind in Georgia. Is it Pranav’s fault that Georgians can’t properly articulate the “-ed” at the end of their words? My personal advice would be to set up a commission to look into this. Scientists could come and quantify the acoustics of the competition room and speech therapists could assess the so-called “pronouncer.” Both could later testify as expert witnesses in front of the congressional committee which overseas these matters.

All hope is not lost however. After Hurricane Katrina, the city of Houston demonstrated its limitless generosity by taking in the vast majority of Katrina victims. On a recent trip to Houston, Pranav’s mom learned that the city was also known for taking in those abused by the Spelling Bee System and the incompetent federal and state officials who are responsible for its breakdown:

In Georgia, few students pursue spelling as diligently as Pranav, who has broadcasts of past National Spelling Bees on tape and can rattle off the winning words for the past several years.

His mother networked among parents in Texas, where the Indian-American community is very active in spelling bees. They advised her to move to Texas, saying that Georgia didn’t have a reputation of taking spelling competition seriously.

Georg…ia hates brown people. Continue reading →

Born as I Finished College, Yet He Already Directs

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The front/main page of Wikipedia imparts something new and interesting, yet again.

Did you know…that Kishan Shrikanth, age ten, is in the process of directing a Kannada-language feature film, C/o Footpath, which will almost certainly make him the youngest director ever to release a commercial feature film? [wiki]

I’ll save you the trouble of getting all wiki’d out; Kishan’s entire entry (save one redundant sentence) is below:

Kishan Shrikanth (born 6 January 1996), professionally known as Kishan or Master Kishan, is a Kannada-language actor from India. As of January 2006, having acted in some twenty films, he is in the process of directing a feature film, C/o Footpath (Care of Footpath), about an orphaned boy who wants to go to school. The cast includes prominent Indian actors Jackie Shroff, Saurabh Shukla, and Thaara.[1] Kishan will, himself, play the lead. [wiki]
The Guinness Book of Records currently lists Sydney Ling as the youngest person to direct a professional feature film. Ling was thirteen in 1973 when he directed the Dutch film Lex the Wonderdog.[wiki]

Upon reading that bit of information, I pondered how desis LOVE them some record-breaking and I wondered why no one brown had attempted this feat before.

So why did little Kishan choose this goal?

“I prefer directing to acting because of the creativity it affords me. From the beginning, I used to ask my directors about the technical aspects of the film, and hound the cameramen to show me their art. I want to continue directing and have already finalised the script for my next film, which will be a Hindi film,” he says.[rediff]

This diminutive auteur is the real deal:

“He is such a genius that I had to work in his film,” Jackie says. “He is constantly thinking about his next shot, constantly innovating to make it better. He is only nine years old, but he is sure about what he wants from his actors.”[rediff]

Now THAT’S impressive. Continue reading →

Watch Out Now, Hrithik

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We go from the strangely disturbing to the just plain strange today on the Mutiny. Right on time for dinner!

An Indian boy considers his rare birth defect to be an advantage. Devender Harne, 10, was born with 25 fingers and toes — six fingers on each hand, six toes on one foot and seven on the other.

Video of the child here. Of course he’s going to take the brown view of things: at school.jpg

Though it would be considered an abnormality to some, Devender says it allows him to work faster than the average child.

Despite his super powers, Devender is a pretty ordinary kid:

The extra digits on his hands and feet don’t hinder his daily life. Like any normal 10-year-old, he goes to school, plays sports and spends time with his friends.

As tipster BJ said– another one twenty-five for the world of Guiness. Brilliant!

The Guinness Book of World Records has contacted the boy’s family and is investigating whether he has the most useful fingers and toes in the world.

Continue reading →