Category Archives: Profiles

Who will the dead cat hit next?

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An article published in the Hindustan Times on Monday quoted an anonymous Obama advisor as saying, “You can’t swing a dead cat in the Obama camp without hitting an Indian.” The implication here is that Indians and South Asian Americans are going to be a huge part of this new administration. Well earlier today one “Sonal Shah” rocketed all the way up to the 7th position as the most searched term on Google:

Turns out that Ms. Shah was named part of Obama’s transition team advisory board today:

On the list: former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Carol Browner; Obama friend and former Commerce Secretary William Daley, University of California-Berkeley law school dean Christopher Edley; Obama law school friends and advisers Michael Froman and Julius Genachowski; former Gore domestic policy adviser Donald Gips; Governor Janet Napolitano; former transportation secretary Federico Peña; Obama national security adviser Susan Rice and Sonal Shah of Google.org. [Link]

Shah was probably brought in on the recommendation of the current head of the transition team, John Podesta:

Shah, although not as visible an Obama activist as Bansal, had been brought into the transition team in the summer by her old boss Podesta, and told rediff.com that she will be taking a leave of absence from Google.org for the next two-and-a-half months at least till Obama is sworn in January 20 as the 44th president of the United States.

While Bansal will be working on personnel operations beyond January 20, her name is also been thrown up for a senior level position in the Department of Justice, and speculation is rife that she could be the new Solicitor General.

However, Bansal has been keeping a low profile and told rediff.com that she didn’t want to comment on the speculation or her duties as part of the personnel selection team, but insiders said, “She will be very heavily involved on the personnel side.” [Link]

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Crunch time for many

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Indian sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik created this sculpture on Puri Beach near Bhubaneswar, India

Its all about fight election night from now through Tuesday and the sense of excitement has been building (around the world even, as you can see in the picture above). I am now getting text messages from excited friends who have been “deployed” in battleground states as part of the 72 hour GOTV effort. I have also heard from South Asian Americans who are helping to bring potential new hires to the attention of the candidate’s transition teams. Tuesday should not be the end of desi political involvement but rather a new beginning. Anyone currently participating who thinks their job is done on Tuesday after simply voting doesn’t have an appreciation for the work needed to maintain a democracy. One of the founding fathers understood this well:

Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide. – John Adams [Link]

A couple of weeks ago I asked for reader’s help in identifying some local desi candidates that we should keep an eye on Tuesday night. One of those identified was Republican Sashi Sabaratnam McEntee who is a Sri Lankan American running for State Senate District 3 in California. Here is video from a recent debate between her and her Democratic opponent Mark Leno:

A 34-year-old Republican business consultant who has never before run for office is hoping to score a David-and-Goliath upset over Democrat Mark Leno in the race for the 3rd District State Senate seat in November.

Sashi McEntee, who expects to give birth to her first child in December, said she was recruited by members of the Marin Republican Party…

McEntee, who describes herself as a moderate Republican, favors some form of amnesty for undocumented immigrants. She opposes Proposition 8, which would eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry, and opposes criminalizing abortion. But she supports Proposition 4, which would require that the parents of minors be contacted and a 48-hour waiting period enforced before a doctor performs an abortion.

“I think that parents need to be involved in all medical decisions related to underage children,” McEntee said. [Link]

Sahsi’s trip to the Republican National Convention was featured by the Washington Post. She says she represents the many other “closet Republicans” out there in Northern California.

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Another Desi Reality Show Contestant!

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Shazia is on Top Design.jpg …this time, it’s Shazia Kirmani, of Houston/Dallas, Texas (thanks for the tip, Sadaf). She’s an ABD whose parents are from Pakistan, and she’s one of the contestants on Bravo TV’s excruciatingly boring show, Top Design. I ain’t tryin’ to hate, but I couldn’t get through all of the one episode which I had DVR’d in preparation for writing this post.

That’s sad, really, because I asked for and received a subscription to Conde Nasty’s HG as one of my sixth-grade graduation gifts, way back in 1986. I already had this. Keeping all that in mind, you can understand why I was extra let-down at the utter crappiness of this show. But I digress. Let’s meet Shazzers:

Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Shazia was part of the first generation of American born children in her family. From a very young age her father pushed her to become a doctor, but after her first semester at The University of Texas at Austin studying Biochemistry, Shazia realized she was more passionate about redesigning her bedroom than anything that was going on in the classroom.
Upon graduation, she accepted a position at the Gap as a visuals specialist, where she finally found the direction she needed. At the age of 25, familial and societal expectations thrown to the wind, Shazia entered The Art Institute of Dallas studying Interior Design. Three short months after graduation, she was awarded a contract with a multi-billion dollar healthcare services company and from there she started her own company, Egospace Interiors, Inc.
Shazia is inspired by everything – the environment, politics, fashion, etc. She prefers her designs to be functional, with a touch of contemporary edge. In 2006, her apartment was recognized in Dallas’ D Home and Garden Magazine and she was named the ‘It’ gal of interiors.
Now at 30, Shazia is as successful and ambitious as ever. Her company is growing and she is taking on commercial/residential rehabs and clientele such as The Trelivings, whose patriarch, Jim Treliving, is star of CBC’s Dragons’ Den and owner of Boston Pizza International. By staying true to her deepest desires, whether business or personal, Shazia has mastered the ability to take on any challenge without letting fear of the unknown stand in her way. [bravotv]

I love Bravo for Project Runway, Top Chef and my dirty little secret, The Real Housewives of New York City, so I tolerate their shameless cross-promotional crassness (“You only have five minutes to get your models to the TRESemme Hair station. TRESemme hair products provide professional quality hair care at an affordable price. Make it work!“), but just barely.

On the episode I only minimally fast-forwarded through last night, Top Design hopefuls were instructed to create a window design to showcase a dress created by…wait, for it…wait, for it…past contestants of Project Runway. While it was fun to see crunchy Sweet P, the exquisitely sensitive Andrae, and the ferocious Santino again, it was NOT FUN to watch TD teams create some of the most boring installations I’ve ever seen. Continue reading →

DNC Day 4: How’s business going?

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Located on the 16th St. mall

I decided to take it easy today and stay away from the luncheons and the schmoozing. Instead, I paid a visit to Mt. Everest Imports on the 16th Street Mall area of downtown Denver (the extremely crowded area where all the hotels and businesses catering to conventioneers is located). Mt. Everest Imports is owned by a Nepali immigrant named Shyam Shrestha. I asked him how business was going since Mt. Everest did not seem to be selling any Obama gear (unlike every other store of any kind in the whole area). He told me it was going “very well.” The shop was totally empty. I told him my sister-in-law was Nepali and he opened up a little more and said he’d been there for about 10 years and gave me his business card. Still, with all the cheesy Obama memorabilia I’ve seen here I think Shyam would have done well for himself if he’d sell Buddhas with Obama’s head and the Buddha’s body. I’m just saying. Try and visit Shyam store when you are in Denver.

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Why Joe Biden? Answer: Pakistan

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As everybody and their mother now knows, Obama’s Vice Presidential running mate will be Senator Joesph Biden of Delaware. Very clever of Obama to wait the whole week, gathering the cell phone numbers of thousands of potential supporters wanting to be the “first to know” via text message (well eat it guys because this post is up even before you got your lousy text message…at ~3:30 a.m. EST). His campaign now has the ability to send get-out-the-vote texts to thousands of young and new voters, many of them who don’t even keep land lines and are traditionally hard to reach on election day. Anyways, we here at Sepia Mutiny have of course written about Joe Biden’s predilection for verbal gaffes before (see Donutgate here and here), which is probably his greatest weakness. However, it is no doubt his considerable strengths that led Obama to choose him as the running mate. Here Obama, in his own words, describes what he was looking for:

“Obviously, the most important question is, is this person prepared to be president? Second-most-important question, from my perspective, is: Can this person help me govern? Are they going to be an effective partner in creating the kind of economic opportunity here at home and guiding us through some dangerous waters internationally? And the third criteria for me, I think, was independence. I want somebody who is going to be able to challenge my thinking and not simply be a yes-person when it comes to policymaking…” [Link]

Biden walking with Kerry and Nawaz Sharif near Lahore earlier this year

Arguably, the most dangerous waters to be waded through internationally in the next few years will be the tribal areas of Pakistan and it’s border with Afghanistan. There is probably no one in the Senate who knows more about these issue than Biden. In fact, remember this article I blogged about last November:

President Pervez Musharraf and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto each placed telephone calls from Pakistan to Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to discuss the country’s crisis before either talked to President George W. Bush.

On Saturday, Bhutto stressed to Biden the need for parliamentary elections in January with Gen. Musharraf remaining as president but leaving the army. Musharraf called Biden Tuesday and asked that their conversation be kept confidential. Biden got the impression Musharraf could accept January elections although he had triggered the crisis by suspending the constitution. [Link]
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Razib on Reihan + Grand New Party (updated)

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Razib beat me to the punch in profiling the rising desi-pundit Reihan Salam. We first mentioned Reihan on SM a few years ago when he, as a blogging neophyte, held a guest spot on Daniel Drezner’s prominent blog & raved about PunjabiMC and H&K. Since then, his footprint has grown both through his own blog as well as via coauthoring a provocative new book, Grand New Party which advocates a sort of Natalism to “save” the Republican Party.

Reihan classifies himself as –

Rawlsekian neoconservative singulatarian meliorist humanist neoliberal infosocialist Viridian postliberal incrementalist.

SM Favorite Razib heard Reihan speak recently and characterized him this way –

WITNESSING Reihan Salam speak off-the-cuff feels like some intensely demanding, habit-forming new spectator sport. While he’s in full rapid-fire, animated flow, the rapt listener remains completely engrossed, delighted by his insights, analysis, and wide-ranging references, wowed by his effortless formulations and disarmed by his wry asides.

…So, who is Reihan Salam? If you don’t know of him yet, you will. Salam is an American-born son of Bangladeshi immigrants, Harvard graduate, prominent political blogger and journalist, and now co-author of a serious and fast-selling political manifesto Grand New Party.

To add that he also blogs about pop culture doesn’t begin to describe the man’s breadth or curiosity. He has long posted original poetry and rap lyrics on the web and steeped himself in pop music, both Japanese and Anglophone.

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Game, Set, Somdev!

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Last night, I unexpectedly ended up at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, where I watched Andy Roddick struggle early on and then barely defeat Argentina’s Eduardo Schwank (my tennis-obsessed date dismissively characterized it as “outlasting him”). I wasn’t that interested in watching Mandy Moore’s ex- swing, but the next match had me sitting up straight and paying rapt attention– and not just because I was suddenly court-side.

UVA’s beloved Somdev Devvarman, the reigning NCAA men’s champ (two years running!), played someone else and he did it so well, I don’t even remember who his opponent was. He was fierce, unrelenting…just a gritty player. It was mesmerizing to watch (and quite a thrill to out-shout the punk behind us, who was hating on our boy). Suddenly, for the first time in over a decade, I was interested in tennis again.

Behold, shady background info from wikipedia (I’m late for the match!):

Somdev Devvarman (also known as Somdev Dev Varman) is the reigning and two-time NCAA Men’s Singles Champion. As a recent graduate out of the University of Virginia who hails from India, Somdev is best known for having captured the 2007 NCAA Singles Championship by defeating Georgia Bulldogs senior John Isner in the final. In one of the most dramatic finals in the 123-year history of the tournament, Devvarman scored a 7–6 (7), 4–6, 7–6 (2) win over the tournament’s No. 1 seed. A year later, he defeated Tennessee’s J.P. Smith 6-3, 6-2 to take home his second consecutive NCAA Singles National Championship. It was his historic third consecutive appearance in the NCAA singles final.
Devvarman, the son of Ranjana and Pravanjan Dev Varman, was born February 13, 1985 in Assam, India. He has an older sister, Paulami, and older brother, Aratrik. The Dev Varmans originally hail from the north-eastern Indian state of Tripura. Devvarman picked up the racquet as a nine-year-old in Chennai in 1994 and after learning the basics he made it to the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Academy in 2000. [viki]

The video I embedded above will fill you in quickly– cheesy shots of him moving around like it’s a Sesame Street stop-animation-skit aside– about Somdev. He’s humble, cheerful and adorable. We likey. In fact, we likey so much, we may be live-micro-blogging it, via Twitter. If we can tear our eyes away from watching him play, that is… Continue reading →

Highs and lows at the Olympics (updated)

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Watching the Olympics this past weekend has been equal parts exhilarating and depressing. Seeing the American men win the 4 x 100 m swimming relay last night was un-freaking-real! But it also sent me in to full, early mid-life crisis mode. Am I the only one? I kept thinking how I’m now too old and beat-up to be an Olympian and I was feeling kind of jealous of fellow Wolverine Michael Phelps (would my upper body look like that if I growled in victory poolside?). And then this morning my depression lifted some. Even though I woke to the upsetting news that American Badminton stud Raju Rai had lost to a Finn (read here to understand how hard the environment is), I was quickly informed that Abhinav Bindra of India won the Gold in the 10m Air Rifle! It was Bindra that turned out to be the great brown hope.

So how did Abhinav help me to avert my midlife crisis until another day? Just look at our boy. He looks like and ordinary IT guy or an engineer or friendly grad student. He is now a national hero. A Peter Parker of sorts. He is the great common brown guy hope! Not all of us can have Phelps upper body, but some of us can imagine looking like this (I like paintballing for instance ).

From a virtual non-entity to the country’s hottest property overnight, Abhinav Bindra has struck gold. Not just in Olympics. The Chandigarh shooter who picked up India’s first ever individual gold in Olympics is expected to see his brand value shooting up to a couple of crores, riding not only on his historic feat but also his youthful personality. [Link]

Oh, lighten-up you nationalists! I’m just joking around. A hearty congrats to Abhinav! The dude even has over a 1000 comments on his latest blog entry. A feat unmatched by even…me. Well at least I can go after that record.

And for every hero of the day there is the sad story of the day. Poor Sania. Pulled out because her wrist was hurting. That’s what cortisone injections are for woman!

Raj Bhavsar lives on!!!

Update: Raj sports the bronze. Awesome.

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Cocks of Fury

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Early in high school I weighed about 105 lbs soaking wet. I know, laugh if you want to. I am descended from two bean poles so I was at a genetic disadvantage. This was, after all, long before my collegiate boxing, my climbing adventures, and before I started appearing shirtless in “Boys of Blogging” calenders (ahem…cough cough). So just how does a 105 lb boy make his way in the brutal world that is high school? By laying low, very low. Most people don’t notice a scrawny little kid in high school (as many of our readers might sympathize with). I was also very very very shy.

I hung out with the nerd/geek crowd at the first of the two high schools I attended. It wasn’t much fun as nothing exciting ever happens in the nerd/geek crowd. One day however, my friends and I hatched a plan. The only way that we could raise our station in life was to be on a high school sports team. Even JV would do. This would be our ticket out. But what could I play? Basketball was definitely out. I was a fierce defender but way too short. Baseball? I could play infield but could barely hit the ball out of the infield. Football? Ha Ha Ha. I was pretty good at indoor hockey on the gym floor and rough enough that one kid even tried to fight me for high-sticking his friend until the PE teacher broke it up. However, there is no gym floor hockey team in high school. And then, like a ray of light the answer was revealed. My high school would be holding try-outs for the…Badminton Team.

I was pretty good at badminton and my odds were good because none of the cool kids (who were also the more athletic kids) would EVER be seen anywhere near a shuttlecock. My svelte body would dart back and forth pounding that birdie mercilessly. The fact that it looked like a tiny upside down Apollo capsule re-entering through Earth’s atmosphere was just a bonus (although I could’t say that out loud or even the geeks would make fun of me). The problem was that the competition was cut-throat. All the other geeks were gunning for the same few spots. Many of them were also Asian or South Asian since, for some strange reason, Asians have a fascination with racket sports. Every day I practiced and practiced, honing my skills while huffing like a young Boris Becker of Badminton. Then, the day before the try-outs I came down with a cold and was battling flu like symptoms all day. After watching television while slumped in a couch I got up too quickly, got a massive head rush, passed out, cut my head open on my metal bed frame as I fell, bled all over the place, and had to get stitches in the ER. The doctor ordered me to miss tryouts the next day. I didn’t make the team. This was the single most scarring failure of my life. And that brings me to the point of this thus far depressing post: American Olympian Raju Rai. Geek has been replaced with chic.

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Big Man, Big Job

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Given the interest in Vikram Pandit taking the helm at Citi almost a year ago, I thought Mutineers might also be interested in the news of another DBD CEO appointed to save a troubled American company.

Motorola’s 70 Million Dollar Man

The problems facing Motorola’s handset division have provided fodder for business and tech rags for quite a while now. The core problem is that several years have now passed since the groundbreaking, nearly iconic Moto Razr was released, and the company has had a helluva time coming up with worthy successors. The result is that the firm that literally invented the mobile phone, withered the 80s/90s East Asian Invasion, and launched a celebrated comeback now finds itself slipping fast in a brutally competitive, global market –

Shares in the [Motorola] have fallen by more than 60 per cent since October 2006, when investors began to become disillusioned with the company’s falling sales. Its global market share has fallen to 9.5 per cent from 24 per cent two years ago, taking it from second to third place behind Nokia and Samsung.

The ailing handset division has been a drag on Motorola’s overall fortunes and several strategic options have been explored to save the group. The current front runner option is to bring in a new CEO for the group and spin out handsets as a separate company. On Monday, Motorola announced that Sanjay Jha would be tapped to lead this massive turnaround.

Due to my work in wireless systems & Sanjay’s former role as COO of Qualcomm, I’ve spent a lot of time within his sphere of influence (although I’ve never met the guy personally). Jha rose to the COO from the VLSI engineering ranks at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies (QCT) – the dominant business unit at the company and the one responsible for the bulk of QCOM’s $3B / year in profit.

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