Category Archives: News

Never a Nobel man

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While we’re in the thick of Nobel Prize season, Sree over at SAJA reminds us that the peace prize commitee never recognized Mohandas Gandhi, its greatest omission of all time:

… Reuters reported in early 1998 that the reason for not selecting the leader of India’s struggle for independence was Norway’s friendship with Britain after World War II. Hundreds of documents in a basement safe at the Nobel Institute in Oslo… showed that Gandhi was nominated but did not win in 1937, 1947 and 1948.

Historians say the five-man jury in the 1930s and ’40s was pro-British and had a patronizing attitude to candidates from the developing world. “If I were to guess, one factor which made it difficult to give the prize to Gandhi was the very strong pro-British orientation in Norway’s foreign policy,” said Geir Lundestad, director of the Nobel Institute. [Link]

Something is rotten in the state of Norway, and it ain’t just the lutefisk. The peace prize endowed by the inventor of dynamite later covered its ass with vim and bluster:

There is no hint in the archives that the Norwegian Nobel Committee ever took into consideration the possibility of an adverse British reaction to an award to Gandhi… when the Dalai Lama was awarded the Peace Prize in 1989, the chairman of the committee said that this was ‘in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi.’

… it seems clear that they seriously considered a posthumous award… they decided to reserve the prize, and then, one year later, not to spend the prize money for 1948 at all. What many thought should have been Mahatma Gandhi’s place on the list of Laureates was silently but respectfully left open. [Link]

It’s all clear now. They really did give it to Gandhi, see. In their heads. Without telling anyone. Poor Nobel committee, always on the wrong side of history. Then they gave Yasser Arafat the peace prize in 1994. Can you say ‘overcompensate’?

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A Mumbaikar on Delhi

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A Mumbaikar takes a dig at Delhi, where my family’s from, in a long-running intranational rivalry (thanks, Amardeep). It’s more bare-knuckled than Suketu Mehta’s usual measured style, I like.

Most Indians think about Delhi as a place where women are never completely safe, where the pollution is a large mattress over the city in the winter, and where crazed ministers’ sons pull out guns at the slightest provocation… [Link]

Of course, many Dilliwale think of Delhi quite prosaically as home, and of Bombay as debauchery central: gangsters, bar girls and filmi melodrama. For those stereotypes, we can thank Mr. Mehta

Many Indians, especially in the Northeast, consider it the citadel of the new Indian imperialism… Bombay and Delhi, in particular, have never quite adjusted to the fact that they share the same country. They are India’s New York and Washington, tolerating each other…

When people say nice things about Delhi, it is usually about North Delhi–a very Indian city, with Punjabi families living in ramshackle houses with multiple new additions, sitting on cots under tubelights thick with insects and the lizards feasting on them… [Link]

Or those compliments are about Delhi’s new subway.

I’ve spent many pleasant hours in barsaatis drinking cheap rum with expensively educated friends. And I’ve gone to many a cocktail party at Problem Row… the World Bank, the United Nations… Save the Children, where everybody discusses what problem they specialise in. “I’m in malaria, what about you?”…

Delhi, unlike Bombay, is not an island; people can live very far from their inferiors… I came to think of Delhi as an Endless City… When it is very quiet you can hear the screams of the slaughter of Timur the Lame, blending into the screams of the slaughter of the Sikhs just 21 years ago. [Link]

Melodramatic much? And when it’s quiet in Bombay, you can hear the whine of starlets. It’s blood-curdling, I tell you.

Here’s more on Timur Leng / Tamerlane, the sacking of Delhi and Timur’s capital city, Samarkand (now in Uzbekistan).

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“Anna asks. We write. Friday afternoon :)”

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Once upon a time…well, it was actually just a week ago, a beloved Sepia personality asked:

yay! I love Fast Fiction Fridays at the Mutiny. Can we do it again next week?

Of course we can, darling. “55 Fiction Friday” is a meme I’ve been faithful to for a while; I’m happy to infect the Mutiny with it.

For those of you who missed last week’s brilliance and have no idea what I’m going on about, the idea behind “Fast Fiction” is simple:

Flash fiction, also called sudden fiction, micro fiction, postcard fiction or short-short fiction, is a class of short story of limited word length. Definitions differ but is generally accepted that flash fiction stories are at most 200 to 1000 words in length. Ernest Hemingway wrote a six-word flash: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” Traditional short stories are 2,000 to 10,000 words in length…One type of flash fiction is the short story with an exact word count. An example is 55 Fiction or Nanofiction. These are complete stories, with at least one character and a discernible plot, exactly 55 words long.[wiki]

More than a few bloggers have been writing a piece of nanofiction every Friday, for weeks.

I was elated at the response that my post on this meme inspired– comment after comment containing perfect little gems of story– we’d be crazy NOT to create a tradition out of such goodness.

What goodness it was. By the time I closed comments at the end of the weekend (a practice I think I’ll continue), we were in the triple digits.

Umair made me lightheaded when he channeled the book I love most:

Transported back to 1951, the thought of making money by betting on cricket matches yet to happen was for some strange reason furthest from my mind, which should give you a sense of just how at home I felt with the whole affair. But then: “I wish she’d married either Kabir or Amit. . .”

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Mr. Fix-It

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Well, I’m up at the infamous North Dakota headquarters, and I have to say that from the brief glimpses I’ve managed to catch so far, it seems pretty swank. At the moment they’ve got me locked up in a crawlspace next to the Champagne Room with only a laptop to keep me company; it was a bit cramped at first, but now that I’ve cleared out the last of the empty kasippu bottles and deflated the dolls, things are starting to feel a bit more homey around here.

Being selected as the next Sepia Mutiny guestblogger is quite an honor for me; all day I’ve been trawling the internet in search of a fitting subject for my first post. I considered topics ranging from the upcoming Sri Lankan presidential election to an update on the guy who played Jawarharlal in the hit sitcom Head of the Class. Ultimately, I decided that it would be best to brush up on my acronyms before wading into the murky alphabet soup of Sri Lankan politics, and to hold off on the Jory Husain/Joher Coleman update pending further research.  Just as I began to despair of ever finding a suitable millionaire topic for my marriage post, the Mutineers presented me with that gift most treasured by desi bloggers the world over:  A Suketu Mehta article to blog about!

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Guest blogger: Ads

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I met a fit (and you’ll know it), witty blogger at our fantastic SF Meetup this summer and I was immediately smitten like a kitten. She played it cool though, observing all the shenanigans around her while remaining slightly apart from the hoi polloi, a sphinx in our midst with an inscrutable smile. Either that or she was bored. Or pissed that I made her leave the east bay for North Beach.

No matter. Next to her, I was tigger, bouncing about, pouncing on Oms and Vinods alike, leaving glitter on everyone who had the misfortune of being accosted by a squealing, hugging, air kissing, scenery-masticator. Leaving the Meetup was like walking out of Scores après-laptease, you were marked by the shimmer of this social beast.

Not her, though. I didnÂ’t dare sully her hipper-than-thou, old skool track jacket, nor did I ever notice the omniscient eyes behind her alternagirl specs change their appraising gaze. Who was this woman? What was she considering so carefully as she observed the dozen desis around her? Where did she get that outfit? I wanted her. To tell me, I mean. 😉

I always get what I want (even when itÂ’s so late in the game, I no longer want it, but thatÂ’s not the case here so letÂ’s cut the parenthetical chitchat, shall we?)

Meet our next guestblogger, Ads. SheÂ’s a Buddhist guitarist, a left-coast dwelling east-coaster, an all-around original who remains anonymous, because you would all stalk her if you could (you know you would).

Sigh. I havenÂ’t had a pledge to haze since college (Cicatrix wasnÂ’t interested in getting paddled by ME). It feels ridiculously good to be someone’s akka again.

Now. Just because I

  • make her do flatliner shots whenever she forgets to state everything in the form of a question
  • lie to Abhi about how she’s a Creationist so he’ll follow/berate her
  • wake her in the middle of the night via airhorn
  • lock her in the freezer for kicks
  • force her to answer Ennis’ fanmail
  • have her pick the lint off all the teeshirts in the store room
  • order her to Trader Joe’s to fetch my preferred brand of 1% milk

or otherwise torture her doesn’t mean you are allowed to do so– be good to her or feel the wrath of my stiletto heels. And no, you won’t enjoy it. Ladies and Gentlemen, straight out of a very small and uncomfortable spot in the North Dakota bunker– Ads!

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Boo shankar

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Just in time for All Hallows Eve, here’s the story of an unnaturally thin Indian man who makes a living playing a ghost (via Boing Boing). He weighs just 52 pounds — if there’s an Adnan Sami in this world, there must be a Gopal Haldar:

Measuring a mere 1.21 meters (four feet) and weighing a slight 24 kilograms (52 pound), Haldar — now near to retirement age — says he has been malnourished all his life… He says it takes him only 10 to 15 minutes to do his makeup and transform his emaciated self into a ghost-like creature — mainly by painting his sunken face, protruding ribs and skeletal limbs with soot…

A doctor at a local government-run hospital said Haldar had likely suffered acute malnutrition as a child which had resulted in hormonal imbalances. [Link]

The man from the psychedelic jungles of the Sundarbans carries on a proud carnie tradition with his herbivorous habits:

He mainly does his shows during the festive seasons and earns 40 to 50 rupees (about a dollar) a time, said his wife Malati, adding resignedly, “But he is addicted to smoking hemp and spends all his money on this habit.” Lighting up a hemp cigarette in front of his wife, Haldar acknowledged his love of the herb. [Link]

Emaciated, smeared in ashes and tolerant of chemical penances — is he a spook, or is he a Shaivite sadhu?

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Tee party

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You can finally buy Sepia tees and hoodies. Also check out the funny desi designs in the second half of the store.

You’re welcome to post design or color requests here, but please send any questions about the underlying shirts or order status to Spreadshirt. They use Fruit of the Loom, American Apparel and Hanes tees. A tip on ordering: the designs called ‘flex print’ are the most durable. The other designs eventually fade with repeated washing.

We make $5 per tee to help pay for blog hosting. If anyone’s ordered from Spreadshirt before, please let us know how the t-shirts turned out.

Here’s the store.

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My first Ramadan

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Amman, JordonSunset today marked the beginning of Ramadan for millions of Muslims around the world.

Muslims believe that during the month of Ramadan, Allah revealed the first verses of the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam. Around 610 A.D., a caravan trader named Muhammad took to wandering the desert near Mecca (in today’s Saudi Arabia) while thinking about his faith. One night a voice called to him from the night sky. It was the angel Gabriel, who told Muhammad he had been chosen to receive the word of Allah. In the days that followed, Muhammad found himself speaking the verses that would be transcribed as the Qur’an.

At many mosques during Ramadan, about one thirtieth of the Qur’an is recited each night in prayers known as tarawih. In this way, by the end of the month the complete scripture will have been recited.

Muslims practice sawm, or fasting, for the entire month of Ramadan. This means that they may eat or drink nothing, including water, while the sun shines. Fasting is one of the Five Pillars (duties) of Islam. As with other Islamic duties, all able Muslims take part in sawm from about age twelve. [Link]

I thought that I would share the story of my first Ramadan to mark the occasion here on SM. To me Ramadan was nothing but a word and a vague concept until three years ago.  I had read about it in books and had Muslim friends explain some of the traditions to me, but as a non-Muslim, unless you live in a Muslim country or near Detroit, I think it is difficult to really understand the feeling of Ramadan.  In November of three years ago I landed in Amman, Jordan just hours before sunset on the first full day of the holy month.  I had never stepped foot off a plane in an Islamic country before and I was excited to begin my adventure, in addition to being a bit nervous.  My destination lay approximately three hours south near the ancient ruins of Petra.  I stepped outside and looked for a cabbie that could speak some English.  I asked him if he could drive me to south to Petra.

“Sure.  You go Petra?  I take you.  Please sir. Come.”

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L’Shana Tovah

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A very sweet new years to all of our Jewish readers.

[Update: Here’s a wonderful description of Rosh Hashanah, Calcutta style, by an Indian Baghdadi Jew (via the 92nd street Y blog)]

There have long been Jews in India.

India has a legacy of three distinct Jewish groups: the Bene Israel, the Cochin Jews and the White Jews from Europe. Each group practiced important elements of Judaism and had active synagogues. The Sephardic rites predominate among Indian Jews.

The Bene Israel (“Sons of Israel”) lived primarily in Bombay, Calcutta, Old Delhi and Ahmadabad… The Bene Israel claim to be descended from Jews who escaped persecution in Galilee in the 2nd century B.C.E. The Bene Israel resemble the non-Jewish Maratha people in appearance and customs, which indicates intermarriage between Jews and Indians. The Bene Israel, however, maintained the practices of Jewish dietary laws, circumcision and observation of Sabbath as a day of rest.

Jewish merchants from Europe traveled to India in the medieval period for purposes of trade, but it is not clear whether they formed permanent settlements in south Asia. Our first reliable evidence of Jews living in India comes from the early 11th century. It is certain that the first Jewish settlements were centered along the western coast.

The first Jews in Cochin (southern India) were the so-called “Black Jews,” who spoke the Malayalam tongue. The “White Jews” settled later, coming to India from western European nations such as Holland and Spain. A notable settlement of Spanish and Portuguese Jews starting in the 15th century was Goa, but this settlement eventually disappeared. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Cochin had an influx of Jewish settlers from the Middle East, North Africa and Spain. [Link]

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I intellectualize for a living. And you?

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Some people look down on “intellectuals” but I for one think it would be cool to become one when I grow up.  Can you imagine having that on your business card?  I bet I could win any argument on SM if only I was labeled an intellectual.  Punks would step-off in a hurry.  SM tipster Kanchan sends us Prospect Magazine’s list of the world’s top 100 intellectuals.  The Hindustan Times reports on the Indians (I didn’t see any other South Asian candidates on the list):

Amidst brewing criticism, an opinion poll has been launched to select five top intellectuals in the world from a list of 100 names, which include five Indians.

The Indians among the world’s leading 100 contemporary public intellectuals are Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, 71, economist and author, Jagdish Bhagwati, economist, Salman Rushdie, 58, novelist and commentator, Fareed Zakaria, 41, editor of Newsweek International and author and Kishore Mahbubani, 57, Singapore-based diplomat and author.

The list which has only 10 women, includes India’s Sunita Narain, 44, developmental environmentalist. The readers’ opinion poll, published by British magazine “Prospect” and American global affairs magazine “Foreign Policy”, closes Oct 10 and results will be declared in November. Readers have also been invited to nominate their own candidates as well.

In its poll definition of public intellectuals “Prospect” and “Foreign Policy” say it is “someone who has shown distinction in their own field along with the ability to communicate ideas and influence debate outside of it.”

“This list is about public influence, not intrinsic achievement. And that is where things get really tricky. Judging influence is hard enough inside one’s own culture, but when you are peering across cultures and languages, the problem becomes far harder. Obviously our list of 100 has been influenced by where most of us sit, in the English-speaking West.”

You can actually go to the website and vote for your five favorite intellectuals.  Chomsky’s the early front-runner.  It’s sort of like American Idol in that way.  It would be cool if they did a final brain battle on live television or something but probably nobody would tune in since intellectuals always get a bad rap.  There was that one Simpson’s episode I remember when the intellectuals took control of Springfield only to be overthrown by simpletons.  Anyways check out the list.  I found it fun to identify pairs that would make for an entertaining intellectual death-match.

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