Category Archives: News

The hand that rocks the cradle

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Our site administrator Paul tips us off to an article over at the BBC today that highlights a unique new program launched by the government of India:

The Indian government is planning to set up a network of cradles around the country where parents can leave unwanted baby girls.

The minister for women and child development, Renuka Chowdhury, told BBC News the cradles would be “everywhere”.

It is the latest initiative to try to wipe out the practice of female foeticide and female infanticide. [Link]

In my opinion anything that will help mitigate the foeticide and infanticide scourge is a good thing, but the imagery of little cradles set up around the country is kind of bittersweet.

“We will have cradles strategically placed all over the place so that people who don’t want their babies can leave them there,” Ms Chowdhury told the BBC News website.

The cradles could be in places as diverse as the local tax collector’s office, or where local councils meet.

Ms Chowdhury said parents would be able to leave their babies secretly. The important thing was to save their lives…

“They will be collected and put into homes,” she said. “There are plenty of existing homes and we will be adding some more also…” [Link]

Apparently there is actually a precedent for this type of program (in Japan):

The drop-off at Jikei Hospital in southern Japan will consist of a small window in an outside wall, which opens on to an incubator bed, officials say.

Once a baby has been placed inside, an alarm bell will alert staff. [Link]

Continue reading →

Rage, Rage Against the Dying Satellite

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mtvdesi_small.jpg Bloggers can’t presume objectivity, so despite the fact that I don’t subscribe (only get old-school network TV), I’m frankly quite dismayed by the news that MTVWorld has closed shop. I know some people who work(ed) at MTV Desi, and appeared on a show that might never air, so perhaps my sentiments are self-serving. But an MTV desi producer emailed this rather heartbreaking note to me today:

This is just really tough for all of us who work to the bone on making something progressive and representative of our communities. I’ve been pretty broken up.

I feel truly truly sad…[and would like] people to understand the challenges of creating a 24 hour channel. The reason we repeat so much is because there are fucking four of us working our asses to the bone to get content up. We are growing. We are a start up– give us a chance!!!

It takes time– and we barely cleared a year and we have supported so many many artists and every single one of them has walked out of our studio feeling proud, happy, accomplished, important…[there is] a need for us to get out there… [to represent] what we stand for and how much WE CARE!!

SepiaMutiny blogged about MTVdesi from its inception, as the first video dropped, anchors were selected, desi artists aired their first videos. We even blogged about how MTV desi covered the Pakistan earthquake (internet writing about liquid television…does that count as meta commentary or wankery?) Continue reading →

Love (don’t shoot) thy neighbor (updated)

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Meet Joseph Cho, all Asian-American boy. Cho went to Yale undergrad, enlisted in the Army after 9/11, served 3 years and was given a honorable discharge [Link]. Now 31, Joe Cho is a law student at Penn. Thus far he sounds like the kind of good Asian kid that even the most xenophobic auntie and uncle would love to have over for tea. “He’s a good influence,” they might say.

However, earlier this month something went … wonky. Cho had a beef with some neighbors. That’s normal — I don’t like my next door neighbor either, he plays his shoot ’em up video games late at night and disturbs my sleep. Usual apartment building stuff.

Cho’s beef, however, was a bit different from mine. He believed his neighbors, two desi men, were actually terrorists and decided to do something about it.

Police said Cho,… suspected the neighbors – two Indian men studying biomedical engineering at Drexel University – of being spies. On Wednesday afternoon, he sought to confront them. When no one answered his knock on their door, he shot the lock off with his Glock pistol, walked inside, and eventually left. [Link]

Gulp! His lawyer says his client was off his rocker:

His lawyer, Peter Bowers, said the attack on the men he believed were terrorists … “appears to have been a mental health or emotional issue…” Cho, meanwhile, was described as an “outstanding young man,” Bowers said. “It’s really an unfortunate incident…” [Link]

You know, the words tourism and terrorism sound so much alike, it’s an easy mistake to make. It could happen to anybody, really.

The university provost said:

“the student has been temporarily suspended from the law school. The matter will be reported to the Law School’s Committee on Student Conduct and Responsibility for its consideration…” [Link]

I suppose that’s a good first step. I wonder what you have to do to get kicked out of law school.

Me? I wonder if he’s been watching too much 24.

Update 1: See comment #20 by somebody who knows him

Update 2: It was racial, at least in part:

Walker said the Penn student, a Korean American, accosted the Drexel students yesterday morning as all were leaving the building, … When the Drexel students told the Penn student that they planned to return to India after their studies, the Penn student accused them of being spies, Walker said. [Link]

One of the students was actually in the apartment at the time:

… around noon, the Penn student “decided to engage in more conversation” and banged on the Drexel students’ door, Walker said. When he got no answer, he got his 9mm Glock handgun and emptied it into the lock, police said. Then he stepped inside, looked around, and left the building. Unbeknownst to the assailant, one of the Drexel students was cringing in his bedroom about 25 feet from the door. [Link]

Another neighbor called 911, and officers found the 22-year-old Drexel student still cowering inside the apartment, said police. [Link]

Somebody on a bulletin board who claims to be a fellow law student said:

I think this guy has been involved in at least one other racially charged incident at the law school recently. [Link]

And the final indignity — the mere mention of terrorism has meant that police anti-terrorism officers have been notified:

Police said … that investigators will notify police terrorism officials about the reason behind the shooting. [Link]

Continue reading →

Kamadev’s little helpers

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Don’t believe uncles and aunties when they say that nobody celebrates Valentines Day in India. Not only is romance a bloomin’, but it has some help from unlikely quarters.

First, Shiv Sena is (again) offering to come to the assistance of lurv:

… hardline Hindu groups have threatened to marry off young couples meeting in public places like parks and restaurants Feb 14. [Link]

They will not manhandle or threaten the Valentines, or vandalise the greeting card shops tomorrow. “The lovers have mistaken Shiv Sainiks to be the heart-breakers. We permanently unite the hearts….” says Shiv Sena District President Gulshan Kumar.

If there is any opposition for the marriage of lovers from their family, Shiv Sainiks stand by them. But the couples should belong to Hindu religion. [Link]

The loophole in this plan is obvious though, leave your ID at home and voila! An entire town of Mary Joshuas and Jacob Abrahams out on dates! [Yes, I know the threatening to forcibly marry couples isn’t new – they did it last year as well]

This being India, mobilization is met with an apposite counter:

… two women’s groups, belonging to the Sawarna Samaj Party (SSP) and the Rashtriya Secular Manch (RSM), have decided to take on those threatening to oppose Valentine’s Day … the RSM has decided to form baton-wielding groups of women to dissuade Bajrang Dal activists from disturbing lovers Wednesday on the Valentine’s Day. These women’s wings have declared to provide the necessary security to citizens if the state government fails to do so. [Link]

I’m sure they will get a lot of calls for their service too — “Quickly! Send 4 or 5 women to the park by the IIT men’s hostel! There are couples being oppressed by the RSS Shiv Sena!” Who knew that crying wolf was a great way to meet women?

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Speed kills (part 1)

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There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have been counting down to Wednesday all year long, and those who wonder why so many people are buying flowers for President’s Day. I count myself in the latter camp, having been single virtually every Vday that I can remember. So I watch with amusement as many of my friends work themselves into a lather because of the intense pressure to commemorate this day with precisely the right amount and kind of conspicuous consumption.

The mingled scent of love and desperation in the air can mean only one thing for desis these days, namely speed dating followed by quirky stories from the mainstream media. Here’s a NYT article about Muslim Speed Dating Meeting:

A few years ago the organizers were forced to establish a limit of one parent per participant and bar them from the tables until the social hour because so many interfered. Parents … alternate between craning their necks to see who their adult children are meeting or horse-trading bios, photographs and telephone numbers among themselves….

Mrs. Siddique said her shy, 20-year-old daughter spent the hours leading up to the banquet crying that her father was forcing her to do something weird. “Back home in Pakistan, the families meet first,” she said. “You are not marrying the guy only, but his whole family…” [Link]

I suspect journalists are tickled by this spectacle because to them speed dating is like the bar scene, but faster. So the idea that conservative parents endorse it is weird. Parents, on the other hand, see it as a faster way to set up little tea encounters for their children, but only wholesale instead of retail. And desis love a bargain!

Desi parents (especially Muslim ones, but I’m sure there are similar scenes in other communities) do make it pretty easy to be mocked:

One panelist, Yasmeen Qadri, suggested that Muslim mothers across the continent band together in an organization called “Mothers Against Dating,” modeled on Mothers Against Drunk Driving. [Link],

So who’s right? Is speed dating/meeting a truly chaste solution to parents’ worries, or is it the first step down the slippery slope to group sex and public handholding?

Mothers trade biodatas while their children speed date

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Speed kills (part 2)

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When you think about it, there are many ways in which speed dating can go horribly horribly wrong. My favorite account of a speed dating disaster comes from Rupa:

R: So…what do you like to do for fun?
Another boring dude: I play online pokers. And I watch Indian movies.
R: Do you read books?
Abd: No. I hate it when authors, y’know, try to give their OPINION. I hate it when people try and tell me how to think. So I don’t read books.
R: So you just don’t think?
Abd: Yes. [Link]

Bored out of her gourd, Rupa turns … dangerous:

Towards the middle I just stopped asking questions, because I realized I totally, absolutely, fully did not give a shit. And that was when I decided to start making stuff up. I … managed to tell someone that I had a 9-year old son (“My family is extremely supportive”), that I had a gambling problem (“After I took out that third mortgage on my condo, my parents staged an intervention. Have you ever been to that casino in Gary, Indiana? They caught it all on tape”), but my favorite was when Natasha asked someone if he would have a problem with a woman who did drugs.

ABD#3: Just once in a while, right?
N: No…it’s pretty much everyday.
ABD#3: Well…I guess it’s not a problem. But you’d stop after marriage, right?
N: No. Absolutely not. I don’t think so.
ABD#3: Well..I guess that’d be ok. [Link]

So when I stopped laughing my kundi off, I paused to wonder whether or not there was any way speed dating could work. I would think that if you only have a few minutes to make an impression, the usual conversational gambits fall flat since they all depend on being able to talk long enough to get past the obvious (what you do and where you live) to the more interesting.

So, tell us. What worked for you? What didn’t? If you wont fess up to having done this, explain what you might do that you’re sure would work if you tried it. Think of it as a public service. Or public ridicule. Either one, really

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Honest Injuns

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osman.jpgThe selfless cab driver who returns the valuables some schmo left in his car is an urban archetype that never seems to grow old. It’s the sort of embodiment of working-class dignity that civic and business leaders draw on to signify that for all the hubbub and ambient edginess of city life, everything (and everyone) is ultimately in its right place. And in a context where, as is the case in most large American cities, taxi workers tend to be immigrants, every instance when a cabbie can be celebrated for doing the right thing represents that much more balm with which to assuage not only class but also ethnic anxieties.

This week brought two such cases, spanning the North American continent from sea to shining sea, and the heroes in both cases are desi: Indian taxi driver Vinod Mago from Lynnwood, near Seattle, who returned a customer’s wallet with $5,950 in cash, and Bangladeshi driver Osman Chowdhury (pictured) here in New York, whose customer, a jeweler from Dallas, left a suitcase that was found to contain 31 diamond rings rings.

As you may have read, the Chowdhury story comes with the additional piquant detail that the Dallas lady had tipped him only 30 cents on a $10.70 fare. So in the end her misadventure only ended up costing her $100.30, as she gave Chowdhury a C-note as his reward. (Though he initially refused any reward at all, and it may be that he was only prepared to accept the equivalent of fares he lost while dealing with the situation, which of course would make her a bit less of a tightwad and him even more of a saint.)

Here’s a snapshot of Chowdhury’s life according to a BBC report: Continue reading →

One Desi and Philanthropy

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While most people are in favor of charitable giving, not everybody likes charitable givers. While some donors are seen as saintly figures, donating their hard earned cash for the benefit of the less fortunate, others are seen as social climbers trying to attain respectability by using money generated by less socially beneficial business practices. Consider the story of Darshan Dhaliwal, the gas station king of the Midwest, a man with both supporters and detractors:

The University of Wisconsin-Parkside has received a $4.5 million contribution from Milwaukee businessman Darshan Dhaliwal. The donation, the largest private gift in the university’s 38-year history, … will help fund expansion of the university’s Communication Arts Building … The expanded facility will be named Dhaliwal Hall. Dhaliwal Hall will be the first new academic building on campus since … 1979. [Link]

Dhaliwal is a very wealthy man by all accounts, although it’s hard to know exactly how many gas stations his company owns, especially since he wont provide a figure. In 2000, a he confirmed that he owned at least 400 in 8 states, the “NRI of the month award” over the summer said that he owns “nearly 1,000 gas stations” across the country. This statement, from over a decade ago, claims that “Dhaliwal Enterprises… employs 5,000 people and posts annual profits that exceed $50 million.” In the end, it’s impossible to tell for sure with a private company. What we know is that he’s a very big fish, who operates gas stations in somewhere around twelve states between the coasts.

He has also been a controversial figure in Milwaukee. In 2000, he was accused by some community activists of not doing enough to prevent drug paraphernalia at his stations, sometimes by managers or clerks [see photos]:

There’s the crack pipes actually sitting in the Chore Boy box, on an empty register drawer, next to the ephedrine. Some of the clerks are embarrassed about having to sell this stuff. This is how the manager wants it done. [Link]

… neighborhood leaders asked on numerous occasions to meet with Dhaliwal about their concerns with graffiti, loitering, drug dealing and other problems at the Citgo station. [Link]

Dhaliwal disagreed, saying he was responsive and that he was also being singled out. In a 2000 article, he said:

… he sent a letter to each of the lessees at his 22 Milwaukee gas stations, asking them to stop selling roses with glass tubes, small scales, cigarette papers and Blunt cigars – all items that were known to be purchased for drug use.

The real problem, Dhaliwal says, is not that he won’t cooperate, but rather that the neighborhood groups are asking too much of him. He can’t understand why neighbors are singling him out as an owner, and not asking other area gas stations to comply. [Link]
Continue reading →

Maximum absorbancy

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Quite predictably, my inbox was blowing up this morning and the news of a bizarre love triangle at the workplace was the only thing people wanted to talk about. It was the first item at our weekly office meet-up (under the heading “safety”). At my workplace safety always comes first. So THIS is what they mean by a “water cooler topic”:

This is the story everyone’s talking about at the water cooler today. (Fortunately, I sit right next to the water cooler.) NASA astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak has been charged with attempted murder of another astronaut, who was in a astronaut love triangle with another astronaut. She also had on diapers so she wouldn’t have to stop on the drive. Okay, so attempted murder and kidnapping aren’t cool, but if they have to happen, I’m pretty happy that astronauts are involved. [Link]

First of all, if I was a rockstar I would totally name my band “astronaut love triangle.” It’s so edgy. If you click on my first link it will lead you to the arrest report which provides details about the steel mallet, rubber tubing, knife, pepper spray, large trash bags, wigs, and trench coat involved. I will spare you re-hashing the details that have been replayed on the news all day. This far into my post I am SURE you are all wondering “where is the desi angle?” Stay with me a moment.

Earlier this week Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams (see previous posts 1,2,3) set the spacewalking record for a woman. This is an amazing achievement that took many long hours of hard work in a dangerous environment!:

U.S. astronaut Sunita Williams has now spent more time in space [outside of a vehicle] than any other woman, setting the record on Sunday.

She and a crew mate upgraded the international space station’s cooling system.

Williams broke the previous female spacewalking record of more than 21 hours when she and Michael Lopez-Alegria completed the second of what could be a precedent-setting three spacewalks in nine days. The new record is 22 hours and 27 minutes. [Link]

So what do these two seemingly unrelated news stories have in common besides the fact that they both involve astronauts? Three words: Maximum Absorption Garment (MAG). Continue reading →

Love in the time of Leprosy

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vows.jpg

I hate the New York Times Vows Section. I hate how the couple is always young (or young-at-heart!), how the bride is always so quirky and brainy, how the guy is so creative in his wooing of her, how the article name drops schools, professions, connections, and associations as if the NYTimes were a paid fluffer for social ranking porn. And that’s before we meet the parents.

So I wouldn’t have stumbled across this gem if Gawker.com hadn’t brought it to my attention. At first glance, Frances Wu and Rommel Nobay appear to fit the profile:

Mr. Nobay, whose first language is Swahili…was named for a military leader, in his case Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. Mr. Nobay was born in New York, but spent most of his youth in Kenya, his parentsÂ’ birthplace, and also in Goa in India, where their ancestors originated. Eventually his family settled in the United States, where he learned English, graduated from Princeton and received a masterÂ’s in public health from Yale.

Ms. Wu is a Virginia-born Chinese-Japanese American, who speaks more Japanese than Chinese…Ms. Wu remembers feeling “immediately understood,” and she had little trouble grasping his sense of dual kinship with Goa and Africa.

Cosmopolitan, eccentric background, well-traveled, Ivied, quirky, polished professionals, romantic discovery of soul mate…All good, right? But wait!

As their dating progressed, Ms. Wu researched Mr. Nobay online and learned that in 1998 he sued Princeton, unsuccessfully, for defamation after the university notified medical schools he had applied to that his applications contained misrepresentations and altered his academic record.

What the hoo-ha? Rommel, is this true? I couldn’t believe that the brother would let browns down, so I decided to investigate further… by reading on. According to the AP in 1998 (also via Gawker):

The graduate, Rommel Nobay, had admitted he told numerous lies and half-truths in applying to Princeton and later to medical school. He claimed that he was part black and a National Merit Scholar and that a family of lepers had donated half their beggings to support his dream. … Nobay, 30, a computer science teacher from New Haven, admitted that he was not, in fact, a Merit Scholar and that a family of lepers had not helped send him to school. He also acknowledged that he doesn’t know whether he has any black blood.

Stand tall my friend Rommel. Stand proud. Military history (and the Sepia Mutiny)on this day salutes you. For within the hallowed halls of academia, and the gloried annals of the Grey Lady, I can think of none besides you who, for however a sweet and fleeting moment, got people to believe that lepers helped fund your schooling.

As for me, I think I just might read this section more often… Continue reading →