Category Archives: News

It wasn’t me

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Paranoia or Art? Bangladeshi American Hasan Elahi has decided to pre-emptively prove to the FBI (or any other shady wire-tapping federal agencies) that he is not, cannot possibly be, has never been, a terrorist. In order to do so he is doing the FBI’s job for them (quite convincingly):

Hasan Elahi whips out his Samsung Pocket PC phone and shows me how he’s keeping himself out of Guantanamo. He swivels the camera lens around and snaps a picture of the Manhattan Starbucks where we’re drinking coffee. Then he squints and pecks at the phone’s touchscreen. “OK! It’s uploading now,” says the cheery, 35-year-old artist and Rutgers professor, whose bleached-blond hair complements his fluorescent-green pants. “It’ll go public in a few seconds.” Sure enough, a moment later the shot appears on the front page of his Web site, TrackingTransience.net.

There are already tons of pictures there. Elahi will post about a hundred today — the rooms he sat in, the food he ate, the coffees he ordered. Poke around his site and you’ll find more than 20,000 images stretching back three years. Elahi has documented nearly every waking hour of his life during that time. He posts copies of every debit card transaction, so you can see what he bought, where, and when. A GPS device in his pocket reports his real-time physical location on a map.

Elahi’s site is the perfect alibi. Or an audacious art project. Or both. The Bangladeshi-born American says the US government mistakenly listed him on its terrorist watch list — and once you’re on, it’s hard to get off. To convince the Feds of his innocence, Elahi has made his life an open book. [Link]

Ok, I’ll be honest. The first thing I thought of was whether or not this project is helping Elahi’s love life. I mean, I could just imagine some girl coming up to him and saying, “Wow, isn’t it funny how we just keep running in to each other like this? Must be fate!” (Abhi curses himself for not thinking of this first). Elahi’s logic for starting the project is flawless:

The government monitors your movements, but it gets things wrong. You can monitor yourself much more accurately. Plus, no ambitious agent is going to score a big intelligence triumph by snooping into your movements when there’s a Web page broadcasting the Big Mac you ate four minutes ago in Boise, Idaho… [Link]
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Gurcharan Das on Hydaspes River

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As usual, biz has me on the road accumulating airmiles… and the usual upside is some unbroken reading time — most recently with Gurcharan Das‘s India Unbound. The book is well written and covers a wide span of Indian history and issues both from Das’s direct (and apparently quite privileged) experience as well as his clearly thorough research. Emotionally laced with optimism for the future and regret for the past, this nonfiction book struck a chord in a way I imagine some find in escapist lit. Call it Bridget Jones for the econ-minded. Amartya Sen’s comments on the book are particularly interesting.

Das tackles the age old, highly politicized question of “Why was India rich, why is it poor, and when will it be rich again?” In the dozens of cases Das presents, one particularly unique example is a famous battle of antiquity and the first large scale military interaction between Desi’s and the West – the Battle of Hydaspes River in 327 BC.

The battle pitted Alexander the Great’s Macedonians against Porus (the Hellenic version of “Rama Puru”), leader of the Kingdom of Paurava in what is now the Pakistani section of ancient Punjab. Beyond the general intrigue and war narrative – feints, maneuver, logistics, and so on – Das finds a nugget of explanatory wisdom to his question – Teamwork.

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do – Samuel HuntingtonDepending on your proclivities, Hydaspes may have marked the beginning of Western colonialism in India and thus the beginnings of all that ailed its 20th century history. In Samuel Huntington’s famous aphorism — “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do” — Alexander was perhaps the capstone ancient example. Thus, the Battle of Hydaspes River may have set the imperial template for hundreds more, longer lasting incursions over later millenia.

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Rape of the Lock: Brown on Brown Hate Crime?

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Our tip lines have been exploding about a New York incident involving a Sikh high school student who was assaulted; his turban was ripped off and then his hair, which had never been shorn, was cut against his will. Unfortunately for those of you who kept submitting the story, there were crickets chirping in the bunker this weekend. Our delay in blogging it was not a reflection of whether we feel the issue was important or not.

Here are the facts I have gleaned from the various links sent in:

  • The Sikh boy was trading “Yo Mama”-like insults with two others
  • Things got out of hand
  • He tried to apologize
  • He was informed that the only way to do so would be a haircut (WTF?)
  • That’s when he was dragged in to a bathroom and cut
  • Two other boys served as “lookouts”
  • All the boys may or may not have been friends
  • The teenaged defendant is a Muslim of Pakistani descent
  • Other desi students said this was anomalous for their school.

From the Queens D.A.’s press release:

District Attorney Brown said that, according to the charges, just after 12:00 noon on May 24, 2007, the defendant, armed with a pair of scissors, approached 15-year-old Vacher Harpal in the hallway of Newtown High School, located at 48-01 90th Street, and stated, “I have to cut your hair.” When Harpal asked, “For what, it is against my religion,” the defendant allegedly displayed a ring with Arabic inscriptions and stated, “This ring is Allah. If you don’t let me cut your hair, I will punch you with this ring.” It is alleged that Harpal initially refused to go into the bathroom with the defendant because he feared that the defendant would hurt him with the scissors.
Once inside the bathroom, it is alleged that Harpal removed his dastar while crying and begging the defendant not to cut his hair, which had never been cut and fell past his waist. The defendant is then alleged to have used the scissors to cut Harpal’s hair to the neckline and thrown the hair into the toilet and onto the floor. [link]

Is this a hate crime? Or just juvenile stupidity and roughhousing gone too far? Continue reading →

Maltreated H-1B Workers Begin to Find a Voice

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There was a thought-provoking article in the SF Chronicle Sunday on the current quandaries faced by high-skilled foreign workers on H-1B Visas in the U.S. A very large proportion of these are Indian (49%), and in high-tech and computer fields (45%).

Currently, the system has problems on every side: first, representatives of software companies (chief among them Microsoft’s Bill Gates) have loudly asserted that they need for the number of available H-1B visas to be increased, as there are currently significant numbers of unfilled positions in many computer related fields (and this is even despite the explosion of outsourcing in the past five years). Secondly, there is confusion about whether H-1B should be understood as a temporary visa, or the first stage on the path to a green card; most Indians I know presume it’s the latter, while the government still seems to think it’s the former. And finally, the system clearly hasn’t been working very well for the immigrants themselves: it currently takes between 6 and 12 years for an Indian on an H1-B to be given a green card, even with employers willing to sponsor them. Confusingly, it takes much less time for H-1B workers from other national backgrounds to be given a green card once they find sponsorship. Continue reading →

Warrior pose, corpse pose

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Back when I took yoga classes regularly there was one teacher whose classes were too early on a Saturday morning for me, but who was one of the best teachers around. She was great at explaining things, had really excellent form, was really present in the moment … oh yeah, and she was really hot.

Given how incredibly healthy she seemed, I was surprised to find out that she was 8 years HIV+ . There are a number of reasons for her health – she was an athlete before she was infected, she was on ARVs, but she gave a lot of credit to her yoga practice. She taught a class for the HIV+ which probably increased the quality and also possibly the quantity of their lives.

I concede up front that Yoga can be a very important thing for people whose lives have great challenges (as American PC-speak would put it).

Still, there’s a time and a place for everything. I’m a bit weirded out by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar‘s proposal to bring Yoga to the war torn Iraqi city of Najaf.

That does look like Virabhadrasana I (Warrior I) to me

Maybe I’m reacting a bit harshly. The Art of Living foundation does work in a number of different war zones teaching yoga as part of their “peace work.” It’s just that people’s needs are so large, and given the opportunity costs involved I would rather see efforts directed towards the base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In short, I can’t imagine teaching corpse pose to people whose main worry is avoiding becoming a corpse themselves, teaching the Art of Living to those whose worry is the Art of Dying.

On the other hand, I’m far more favorably inclined towards the Indian Army’s yoga classes in Lebanon:

In the village of Ebel es-Saqi, in the farm country of Southern Lebanon, a new subject is being taught at the local middle school: yoga. The instructors are from the Indian army, members of the U.N. peacekeeping force. Three times a week, Lt. Col. Rajesh Kumar of the 1st Battalion Punjab Regiment instructs about 50 students and their teachers at the school. [Link]

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What you figure out when you poll American Muslims

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Wednesday morning’s USA Today features a survey of the attitudes of Muslim Americans toward “extremism,” probably to show how such attitudes contrast with the views of Muslims in Europe and elsewhere. The subtext of the survey seemed to be an exploration of the likelihood of homegrown terrorists within the U.S.:

The USA’s estimated 2.4 million Muslims hold more moderate political views than Muslims elsewhere in the world and are mostly middle class and willing to adopt the American way of life, according to one of the most comprehensive surveys of this segment of the nation’s population.

The Pew Research Center study released Tuesday found that “Muslim Americans are very much like the rest of the country,” says Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. “They do not see a conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society.”

Muslim Americans, however, have a much more negative view about the Iraq war and the war against terrorism than the U.S. public as a whole, the survey found. The study also found pockets of sympathy for Islamic extremism, especially among younger people. Muslims between the ages of 18 and 29 express significantly greater acceptance than older people of suicide bombings in some cases.

The young show a greater tendency to identify themselves as Muslim first and American second. This faith-first pattern is even more pronounced among Muslims in Europe, according to previous Pew surveys. [Link]

The trend that suggests that Muslims in America are willing to adopt the American way of life is something that I expected. We’ve often discussed here on SM that assimilation is stressed within the immigrant population of the U.S., far more than elsewhere. The fact that Muslims between the ages of 18 and 29 show a greater acceptance of suicide bombing doesn’t surprise me either. If you had given the same survey to members of any other religion I am sure the acceptance of suicide bombing would correlate with age. We live in a world where extreme violence is commonplace, and the youngest among us will therefore accept such violence more readily than the older generations. However, the last highlighted finding above did surprise me as I have personally not encountered such an attitude. Then, as I read just a few sentences further, everything was put into perspective:

Previous Pew surveys show that 42% of Christians identify with their religion before their country. Among white evangelicals, 62% say they identify themselves first as Christians. [Link]

So Evangelical Christians in America (who are more likely to have been born in America) are more likely than Muslims to put their faith before their country? That’s food for thought. The final finding in the study is also a trend that we’ve discussed on SM before. African American Muslims (particularly those with a prison record) are more likely to accept extremism.

The poll found that African-Americans are the most disillusioned segment of the Muslim American population, a possible reflection of their economic conditions and experience with racial discrimination. [Link]

So maybe what this survey has really found is that people that live under poor economic conditions and face racial discrimination are more likely to be accepting of violence as a means to change their ends. Did we really need to poll Muslims in America to figure that out?

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Is FOB a fighting word?

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Pream Anandarajah is a Canadian born Tamil teenager whose uninsured Scarborough home was recently firebombed, sending his mother Jeyaluckshmi to the burn unit at the hospital [via UB]. And yes, this was an ethnic attack, but not in the way you might think. His attackers weren’t white, they were Sri Lankan Tamils, but FOBs recent immigrants instead of Canadian born. Is FOB as bad a word as n–er?

That’s right — there’s intragroup gang violence between CBD and recent immigrant Sri Lankan Hindu Tamils, serious violence:

Hours before the firebombing, a friend of Anandarajah’s was stabbed … He rattles off the names of gangs that he says recently arrived Sri Lankan youth have formed: EST (East Side Thugs); BNS; BNS Juniors; Tux Boys (Tuxedo Park); Tiger Boys; Gilders (Gilders Street). [Link]

The house is now largely destroyed

The firebombing was part of an escalating series of retaliatory attacks, including one where Anandarajah was jumped by 12 students in the high school parking lot and knifed:
Touching his neck he says, “I don’t know how I got this scar. It happened after I was knocked out. They beat me up real bad. My mom couldn’t even recognize my face.” [Link]

One major beef between the groups is the use of the word FOB:

Frequently tossed around in the escalating feud between the groups is a loaded word, used to bully, label and shame. The mostly Tamil Sri Lankan youth around Scarborough who get called FOBs say the word is used as a weapon against them.

“It’s like calling a black man, n—–,” says a Grade 10 student. [Link]
Continue reading →

“The Over-Accesorized Label Lover” – UPDATED

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The LV which is unfortunately fug.JPG

Sometimes, you mutineers will see a story which you practically demand we post. After New York Magazine’s “The Look Book” slyly dissed and dismissed a brownie who works in Private Equity who emphasized,

“I love to consume. Consuming is my specialty.”

…some of you started screeching louder than the Howler monkeys in the bunker—and that’s saying a LOT.

Natasha Mitra (r) was interviewed by Amy Larocca and though I was also left smirking at the catty aftermath, I immediately heard the diminutive angel on my shoulder remind me that we don’t know how many questions were asked and then not included, whether Mitra’s words were edited to paint her a certain way, etc.

Having typed that, if my little sister sounded like this, I’d beat her with my red Ferragamo loafer. Not that there’s anything wrong with…sounding…like…this. 😉

Such big accessories!
My bag was a really special purchase. I work with this woman at Louis Vuitton—she picks things out for me, sends pictures, and tells me to pick what I like. She called one day and was like, “I picked a bag for you, and I’m sending it to your house because I know you’re going to love it.” I think it’s called the Stratus.
How old are you?
I’m 26.
Was the bag expensive?
Yes—about $3,500. I guess a lot of craftsmanship goes into it. Accessories for me are the key. I have about twenty bags, and I don’t know how many shoes. But they’re Vuitton, they’re Versace, they’re Gucci, and they’re Dior.
And your sunglasses?
They’re D&G. I was really excited to find them. They’re wild and crazy and different.
What do you do for a living?
I work in private equity. I love the sector that I work in, which is the consumer and retail group. It’s an area that I’m passionate about. I love to consume. Consuming is my specialty.
You picked the right career.
I’m going to Harvard Business School in September. Moving is definitely going to be the most difficult part of the experience.

Thoughts? After reading some of your emails, I’m tempted to respond with a “Tell us what you REALLY think”, but I’m certain you will already do that. I also look forward to the inevitable, “I know her, and, and–” which will appear below at some point. TWO DEGREES of separation, people. The fact that we couldn’t prove it with two random desi models doesn’t mean the theory is invalid, aight? Continue reading →

Don’t Want No Dark, Dark Man…

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Avishkar and several other mutineers sent in a story tip from Reuters about a rather unusual wedding complication, so I realized I better post it ASAP, lest I see it in my inbox yet yanother time. 😉

When it came to our color-obsessed culture, I thought it was the girl’s complexion which mattered. I guess turnabout is fair play. Sort of.

Turned down for marriage due to his dark complexion, an Indian man staged a hunger strike outside his would be bride’s house for two days before she finally relented, an official said Saturday.

Didn’t he know they make fairness creams for the new, metrosexual, dark brown man?

Saral Prasad, the 23-year-old groom in eastern Bihar state, said he would not budge from the girl’s village home after she refused to marry him earlier this week in an arranged marriage because he was too dark.
Rajani, 19, changed her mind after two days and the couple got married, Arun Kumar Mishra, a village council official said.
“We were all taken by surprise but Rajani was finally moved by the gesture of the young man and married him,” Mishra said.

Rajani was not quoted as saying, “I just want everyone to shut up and go away already, for Pinter’s sake”.

Most Indian women, especially those in rural areas, often have no choice in matters of marriage, and are coerced into it by relatives and parents.

Yes, of course..we Indian women have no choice with regards to anything and are coerced in to everything we do. Just this past Saturday, at the meetup, I was coerced in to drinking my Madras coffee later than I wanted to, because our poor waiter was so overwhelmed with 26 people ordering at once, he forget that I asked for it. Thrice. Obviously his being an Indian male was why he oppressed me by not sating my caffeine fix. :p And yes, yes…the meetup write-up…it is coming. Continue reading →

The lost continent of Kumari Kandam

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I’m sure the science-fiction geeks amongst y’all know about the lost continents of Atlantis, Lemuria and Mu. These are the “missing continents” that were submerged in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans respectively.

[The story of Atlantis has its origin in the Platonic dialogues, while Lemuria was hypothesized in the late 1800s as an explanation for why there were Lemurs in both Madagascar and India but not in Africa or the Middle East. Both are now beloved of mystics and kooks. Nobody really cares about Mu, although it is sometimes confused with Lemuria.]

However, I’ll bet you’ve never heard of the Tamil analogue, the lost continent of Kumari Kandam! Proponents say Kumari Kandam is Lemuria, different names for the same continent that once covered most of the Indian ocean:

Sri Lanka together with India, Indonesia and Malaysia were a part of this continent. Many islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans are remnants of this continent that in ancient time covered the whole area of today’s ocean. [Link]

The lost continent of Kumari Kandam

It turns out that everything does not actually come from India, it comes from Kumari Kandam. And by everything, I do mean everything.

“Homo Dravida” first evolved in Kumari Kandam; it is the cradle of civilization; the birthplace of all languages in general and of the Tamil language in particular. This is where the first and second great ages (Sangams?) of the Tamils happened, not in India, but in the true Dravidian homeland, further south.

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