Forget Will Smith, Time For Karva Chauth

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In the past, I was somewhat snarky when it came out that Aishwarya Rai, before her marriage to Abhishek Bachchan, agreed to marry a Peepul tree because of her “Manglik” status. aishwarya-jodha-akbar.jpg

The New York Times had a story recently (thanks, Jamie), which described how Aishwarya Bachchan recently dropped out of a Hollywood project with Will Smith in order to be home in Mumbai to celebrate Karva Chauth.

For those who don’t know, Karva Chauth is a traditional Hindu festival where wives fast for a whole day without food or water as a symbol of their devotion to their husbands. I have many women friends who object to the festival as regressive, though I also know one or two people who do observe it out of a sense of loyalty to tradition. (Perhaps not too surprisingly, the women I know who observe it are NRIs, not ABDs. Are there any ABDs out there who observe Karva Chauth?)

Here is the quote the NYT gives regarding Aish’s decision to return to Mumbai for Karva Chauth:

Ultimately Ms. Bachchan chose to return to Mumbai and starve with a smile. National television channels covered her first Karva Chauth as headline news. Two months later she shrugged off her loss in an interview. “You do what you have to do,” she said. “Feeling torn and thereby unhappy, confused or guilty is not something I want to feel. So you make your choices and go with it. You get some and some you don’t.” (link)

What to say. From what I can tell, everything Aish does outside of her acting seems to reflect a pretty sincere traditionalism. One has to presume she’s observing Karva Chauth because she really wants to, not because anyone put pressure on her to do so. So, if we accept that the festival of Karva Chauth isn’t inherently sexist (and the case can be made that it is), here I’m inclined to give props to Aish for putting tradition over her career. It certainly beats America’s celebrity culture — which has lately just been depressingly bad, what with Britney losing her mind, and Amy Winehouse smoking crack…

On the other hand, the Indian media loves this kind of thing, so it may be that sacrificing a romantic comedy with Will Smith might actually help her Bollywood career — and she can have both. Jodhaa Akbar, anyone? Continue reading →

Duh, only Royals can be inbred.

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A British politician has caused quite a stir with his statements regarding the defective results of the arrangements Asians accede to…

A minister who warned about birth defects among children of first cousin marriages in Britain’s Asian community has sparked anger among critics.
Phil Woolas said health workers were aware such marriages were creating increased risk of genetic problems.
The claims infuriated the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) which called on the prime minister to “sack him”. [BBC]

As far as Woolas is concerned, he’s bravely confronting a worrisome issue which is politically incorrect; he has been quoted as saying he has an obligation to bring this up. He isn’t attacking the marriages as illegal or even a religious problem, his point is that this is a cultural practice which should be examined. Children of such unions are 13x more likely to suffer from recessive disorders.

“The issue we need to debate is first cousin marriages, whereby a lot of arranged marriages are with first cousins, and that produces lots of genetic problems in terms of disability [in children]. If you talk to any primary care worker they will tell you that levels of disability among the… Pakistani population are higher than the general population. And everybody knows it’s caused by first cousin marriage….Awareness does need to be raised but we are very aware of the sensitivities,” [BBC]

Critics wonder about his motives, since his political position deals with the environment instead of health. The timing for this hullabaloo in the empire’s orchard is awesome:

His comments follow the storm sparked by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who suggested some aspects of Islamic Sharia law could be allowed in Britain. [mirror]

Anti-green team, please note, both Woolas and the the cabinet minister who has his six, Geoff Hoon, are taking pains to point out that this conniption about cousin-coupling doesn’t involve the “wider Muslim community”; oh no, this backwardness is alll Asian.

The junior Minister has other vocal supporters besides Hoon: Continue reading →

Facebook loves us a little too much.

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Flying all over the intarwebs is an NYT article about Facebook— and how it is apparently the equivalent of a social networking roach motel; once you check in you can’t check out.

Are you a member of Facebook.com? You may have a lifetime contract. Some users have discovered that it is nearly impossible to remove themselves entirely from Facebook, setting off a fresh round of concern over the popular social network’s use of personal data. While the Web site offers users the option to deactivate their accounts, Facebook servers keep copies of the information in those accounts indefinitely.

The first flummoxed Facebooker quoted by la grey lady is brown!

“It’s like the Hotel California,” said Nipon Das, 34, a director at a biotechnology consulting firm in Manhattan, who tried unsuccessfully to delete his account this fall. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
It took Mr. Das about two months and several e-mail exchanges with Facebook’s customer service representatives to erase most of his information from the site, which finally occurred after he sent an e-mail threatening legal action. But even after that, a reporter was able to find Mr. Das’s empty profile on Facebook and successfully sent him an e-mail message through the network.

I understand that Facebook is ostensibly attempting to keep the reactivation process zimble, should one change one’s mind about one’s participation in this timesuck, but one might still find this policy douchey. (Now who has U2 stuck in their head? Just me? Meh. You kids and your tatti taste in music.)

Facebook’s Web site does not inform departing users that they must delete information from their account in order to close it fully — meaning that they may unwittingly leave anything from e-mail addresses to credit card numbers sitting on Facebook servers. Only people who contact Facebook’s customer service department are informed that they must painstakingly delete, line by line, all of the profile information, “wall” messages and group memberships they may have created within Facebook.

Continue reading →

55Friday: The “Hail to the Thief” Edition

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Radiohead.hailtothetheif.jpg Once upon a time, every Friday at the Mutiny, we would have quite an orgy of a writing party, as we composed scintillating stories which had a maximum of 55 words.

Flash Fiction Friday (or the Friday55) has been on hiatus for a few months, but it seems like the time is right to commence creating again. 🙂 It’s a new year, it is time to discover new writers.

When we did this in the past, we’d have anywhere from a dozen to almost a hundred story submissions left in our comments section. How is such a thing possible? Well, as I mentioned above, at a wee 55 words, these were rather abridged stories.

I know I’m not the only one who is looking forward to reading the brilliant gems you mutineers tend to come up with. If it’s all still a bit unclear, I’ve got an example of nanoficiton for you to consider; I used to post tiny stories regularly on my personal blog, HERstory. Here is one of those short-short stories, to give you a sense of what they are like, and how zimble they can be, if you are not yet acquainted…

She nervously adjusted her sari, hoping no one noticed. So far, the night had gone flawlessly; she had made a good impression on everyone, she could just tell.

The older woman at the table noted how silk was tugged upwards. Taking a delicate sip of tea, she thought, “She’s not good enough for our family.”

And now, for some background on the genre:

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.[wiki]
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]

I used to help organize a writing workshop in DC for would-be Lahiris and the one thing which was consistent was an inability to get started. If you looked around at the beginning of any warm-up or writing exercise, you’d observe a morose sort of gaze focused on one’s notebook, writing instruments quivering, and nothing marring those smooth sheets of paper or glare-ridden laptop screens.

To get around this for our Flash Fiction fiestas, I used to choose a song for our “theme”. It was always drawn from my music collection and usually, it was the sort of song one would have seen featured on the now-defunct, but ever-legendary 120 Minutes. This week, I’m going to veer from that formula in two ways. Our theme is the name of an album and a recent one, at that. In light of current events and primary colors, let’s ring around the rosy “Hail to the Thief (The Gloaming)”. More about that, after the jump. Continue reading →

Political parents are adorable

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Before SuperFaTuesday fades from our collective minds, I wanted to share a few different conversations that people have had with their parents about who to support.

Tamasha’s mother played true to her demographic and supported Hillary as did her “new-grandmother aunt”. I loved the conversation between Tamasha and her Aatya:

Aatya: Sweetie, can I make one last plea for you to vote for Hillary?
Tamasha: Um, it’s not really going to work, but tell me why you’re voting for her.
Aatya: Women have to vote for her.
T: Yeah, see, that’s not enough for me. Her being a woman, I mean.
Aatya: Women my age have to vote for her.
T: Huh?
Aatya: You haven’t had to face the glass ceilings that I have, working with men who have meetings in the men’s room and come back out zipping up their pants making proclamations.
T: Fair enough. But Obama has more things going for him that appeal to me, and he has specific ideas and beliefs that more precisely match up with mine.
Aatya: Just wait.Just wait until you have to go into the bathroom with these men while they pee and make decisions. [Link]

My mother feels similarly, although she put it in less colorful language. She simply said that it was time for a woman, and that she was tired of women hitting a glass ceiling, and being called shrill when they’re just being as aggressive as their male counterparts. She liked Obama plenty, but figured Obama could run in 4 or 8 years once he had a little more experience. Continue reading →

Everlasting be your memory, Bevin

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Bevin.jpg Bevin Varughese passed away today, in New York.

We posted about his fight with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia back in October, a few weeks after his cancer returned. A bone marrow transplant was his only hope for survival. I wish I had had the time to post more about the drives his determined friends put together, all over the East coast, in order to save their friend.

Bevin never found a match.

After two rounds of chemotherapy, he caught an infection; now he is gone. Many of you lurkers either grew up with him in New York, attended church with him, or knew him from his days as a student at Temple University, in Philadelphia. I’ve heard from a few of you, about this heart-breaking loss:

He fought so hard and was always so positive, with a smile on his face despite enduring the worst of health conditions. He never once complained.
I still remember him from college. I had the biggest honking crush on him but I was too scared to talk to desi guys. He was really nice, though…

I’ve also heard the now-cliched phrases about “the good dying young” but more than that, I’m struck by how gracious and optimistic Bevin was, until the end. I don’t know why we lose certain people, when or how we do, but I do know that we can’t keep letting this happen. I implore you, if you are not already part of the National Marrow Donor Program, to consider becoming a committed donor. It’s too late to save Bevin, but you might save someone else, who is just as loved and cherished.

My thoughts and prayers to his family, friends and the strangers who didn’t even know him personally, but did amazing things like run marathons in his name. May Bevin’s memory be eternal. Continue reading →

Superdelegates and the Credentials Committee (updated)

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Coming out of Super Tuesday it looks like Clinton and Obama are tied in the only race that matters: the race for Democratic delegates.

In a surprise twist after a chaotic Super Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) passed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in network tallies of the number of delegates the candidates racked up last night.

The Obama camp now projects topping Clinton by 13 delegates, 847 to 834.

NBC News, which is projecting delegates based on the Democratic Party’s complex formula, figures Obama will wind up with 840 to 849 delegates, versus 829 to 838 for Clinton. [Link]

So let’s play this out to its logical conclusion. If the trend continues then Obama may win states like Virginia, Maryland, and a few other smaller states, but Clinton will probably take Ohio and my state of Texas (states with a large number of delegates). Regardless, the votes will be close enough that the delegates will be split fairly evenly by the time they get to Denver in August. If that is the case then the final decision as to who is the Democrats nominee will come down to two important, but little known groups. The first group is the Superdelegates comprised of Democratic party insiders (which you can assume will probably break for Clinton who is more connected to the establishment). They each get a vote and do not have to reflect the popular vote in any way. Currently Clinton has more committed to her (but they can still switch all the way through the end of the convention). As I scanned the list of Superdelegates I spotted only a single desi on it. It was Kamil Hasan who is currently committed to Clinton. Here is an article from 2006 explaining how Hasan fits in to the Democratic Party and why he was anointed “super”:

Kamil Hasan of Saratoga has a new job: collecting serious cash from the Indo-American community for the Democratic National Committee.

That job may not be as powerful as senator or congressman. But for the Bay Area’s roughly 155,000 Indo-American community members, Hasan’s appointment represents another step the well-educated, affluent immigrant group is taking to gain political clout. His goal is to raise at least $5 million through a newly formed Indian fundraising council in time for the next presidential election.

What’s most important, community members said, is that the appointment isn’t just about Hasan: It’s about the voice of the entire Indo-American community, about 2 million strong. [Link]

There is a great example of “emergent politics” for you right there. Kamil Hasan speaks for 2 million strong.

Continue reading →

The word that changed the 2008 election

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A month ago on January 4th, the morning after Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucus (the first one), I sent the following email off to a group of friends that I discuss politics with:

One word: Macaca. Imagine how differently this election would have been if George Allen hadn’t uttered that word. The fact that he’d be running right now is certain. He was the only potential Republican candidate that appealed to fiscal conservatives, national security conservatives, and religious conservatives. None of the current crop of Republican candidates can boast that wide appeal, which is why the Dems are sitting pretty. And it is all because of “Macaca.”

We have only to look at the Super Tuesday results map to show what happens when the base of the Republican party gets split in three. Huckabee took the religious South, McCain carried the national security conservatives and Romney the economic conservatives. This morning the Washington Post also started thinking about former Senator George Allen and how everything might have been different for the Republicans if it wasn’t for our boy S.R. Sidharth:

As Virginia voters prepare to go to the polls Tuesday to help choose the Republican nominee for president, state and national party leaders are left wondering: What if former senator George Allen had never uttered the word “macaca”?

After years of preparing for a 2008 presidential run, including trips to Iowa and New Hampshire and formation of a national network of donors, Allen’s use of the word on Aug. 11, 2006, changed the landscape of the GOP nominating contest… “A lot of us saw him as the 1,000-pound gorilla. He would have had so much clout and credibility within the party around the country,” said Chuck Smith, chairman of the Virginia Beach Republican Party.

Other Republicans say Allen would have been far from a shoo-in for the nomination despite his potential advantages. As the race heated up last summer, President Bush’s approval ratings were plunging to record lows among GOP voters frustrated over his immigration policies and his management of the war in Iraq.

With his signature cowboy boys and “aw shucks” personality, Allen could have been defined as the candidate most like Bush, some Republican strategists say.[Link]

Continue reading →

The Insurgent vs. the Emergent

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Ok folks get ready! The political fiend in me is ready to pound out three political posts in a row tonight (with a dinner break in between) that I hope you’ll find interesting and can add to in the form of interesting comments/debate. First up, in the aftermath of Super Tuesday here is what we learned:

  1. Women voters break for Hillary
  2. Latino-American voters break for Hillary
  3. Older voters break for Hillary
  4. Asian-Americans voters break for Hillary
  5. Male voters break for Obama
  6. Independent voters break for Obama
  7. Younger voters break for Obama

In the list of observations above, I want to especially focus on the two that I have highlighted, and on the nexus point between the two. Why is it that the Latino population seems to greatly favor Clinton (sometimes by a 3-1 margin), and helped her win in states like California? One possible answer some might suggest is the politically incorrect reason which offers that Latino people see African Americans as competition. They often compete for the same jobs, and many in the African-American community are quick to point out that illegal Latino immigrants depress wages, which works against African Americans seeking similar jobs (this was even a debate question the other night). Cynics would say that African Americans and Latinos would rather have a white person in charge than someone from the other group. Okay, lets assume all that is true for a minute. What about Asian Americans (including South Asian Americans)? Polls from last night showed that they voted for Clinton over Obama in even higher proportions than the Latino population. Here is an excerpt from Salon:

…a self-congratulatory article in the India Express touting the influence of Indian-Americans in the Democratic primary process reveals even greater constraints on the appeal of Obama’s diversity. In California, exit poll data suggests that 69 percent of Latinos voted for Clinton, while only 29 percent voted for Obama. But Asian-American voters skewed even more sharply pro-Clinton: 75 percent voted for her, compared to 23 percent for Obama. That’s almost as high as the percentage of the black vote (78 percent) that went for Obama…

Despite the claims of the Indian press, the total numbers of Indian-American voters in the New York and New Jersey primaries were too small to significantly influence the overall results. (The total Asian vote was too small for there to be any relevant exit poll data.) A better case can be made in California. In Santa Clara County, where there are some 115,000 Indian-American residents, Clinton cleaned up, winning 54.8 percent to 39.3 percent — better than her statewide average. (Whereas just to the north, in San Francisco and Alameda counties, Obama was the victor.)…

But that’s just one piece. In California, 8 percent of all Democratic voters identified themselves as Asian — a category that encompasses a vast swath of cultures. Truly, California’s diversity is extraordinary. But it doesn’t appear, so far, to translate into a willingness to vote for a “diverse” candidate for president. [Link]

So why didn’t Asians pick the more “diverse candidate” who seems to have more in common with them? Does this mean that Asians might be influenced by the bigotry against African Americans that pervades much of Asian culture (Anna joked around about this in her post last night)? Let’s just admit it. Many in our parents generation are openly bigoted against blacks. But all this might just be a partial explanation and miss the underlying reasons altogether. Continue reading →

Millionaire Gas Workers

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Abdul Kader Mollah

There are many reasons countries are and/or stay impoverished. While globalization, unfair tariffs, a history of colonization, and other external bogeymen often receive a disproportionate share of the blame, a significant % of the fault also lies internally.

This article, posted on the news tab by mutineer Art Vandalay presents a particularly galling example –

He was a lowly sales assistant on a salary of $100 a month, but Abdul Kader Mollah allegedly amassed a personal fortune of $300 million by becoming Bangladesh’s Mr Big of corporate bribery.

In 12 years with the Titas Gas Distribution Company, Mr Mollah struck corrupt deals with thousands of factories to undercharge them for the gas they consumed, and pocketed millions of dollars in bribes in return, officials claim.

With a population of ~150M, Mr. Mollah quite literally stole 2 bucks from every man / woman / child in the impoverished nation over the course of his treacherous career.

Continue reading →

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