The Chaat of Destiny

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Some paragraphs were accidentally omitted from Somini Sengupta’s recent article on Chaat and other Delhi street foods in the New York Times. Because I am a super-devoted-Somini Sengupta groupie (a “Sengroupie,” you could call me), I was sent the missing paragraphs as a gift, under strict order not to reveal my sources:

The reporter visits a lost alleyway in Mastinagar, a suburb of Delhi. In the alley are an endless variety of special chaat stalls unknown to western taste-buds and unimagined by western food tourists. This is as “street” as it gets; if pressed, the people of this alley all state that they have never been near an air-conditioner or even a piece of plastic. Indeed, it is highly unclear whether the residents of Mastinagar have ever been outside Mastinagar, or even know that their “Shehr” is in the city and state of Delhi (indeed, one resident referred to the city, rather anachronistically, as “Tughlakabad”). In the lost alley, one finds an almost infinite variety of Chaats, some of which were tasted by a reporter. A short list of the highlights follows:

Orientalist Chaat: This type of chaat will fulfill all your desires for mystical knowledge and understanding, and set your brain on fire. If this chaat is eaten, it is said, the eater will learn a thousand yoga poses (a DVD is included), a thousand Sanskrit chants that will lead to Enlightenment, and perpetual unity of mind and body in pure relaxation bliss. After eating, you will have reached the other side of the moon, tasted the stars, found the ergonomically perfect chair, and finally know the answer to the question, Why Did the Bodhi-Dharma Leave For the East? (NOTE: Insiders report that Orientalist Chaat is exactly the same as regular Chaat, only 10,000 times more expensive.)

Erotic Chaat: This chaat is an aphrodisiac composed entirely of garlic and crushed Viagra powder. Not especially tasty, but surprisingly “potent,” as a reporter subsequently discovered.

Chaat Feng Shui: This Chaat, which is composed entirely of wind, water, and garam masala, is not meant to be eaten, but rather dispersed around a room in need of redecoration. Pirated Chaat Feng Shui originates from China, which continues to flood the Indian market with inexpensive rip-offs of actual Feng Shui. Continue reading →

A New Set of Wheels

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A fascinating group of news stories discusses the goal many auto companies have of building the next generation of really cheap cars for the 3rd world mass market.

Singing and Dancing into the Future

Businessweek reports –

Renault-Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn is betting that for autos, the magic number is under $3,000. At a plant-opening ceremony in India Apr. 4, he was already talking up the industry’s next challenge: a future model that would sport a sticker price as low as $2,500–about 40% less than the least expensive subcompact currently on the market. Renault-Nissan is the first global automaker to take up the gauntlet thrown down in 2003 by India’s Tata Motors, which plans to launch a $2,500 car next year.

India is target #1 on all fronts — design, manufacturing, marketing, and, of course, the ultimate consumer. Instead of looking outside for economic growth, this is a story of internally sourced, created, and most importantly executed growth.

Continue reading →

Nothing Meek In Her Voice

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rishiheadshot.jpg A couple weeks ago I was standing on the train during my morning commute, my arm stretched all the way up so my finger could curl about the ceiling pole, idly twisting about on my toes in a half-turn to survey the crowd and eye-scape their morning reading for titles, authors, snatches of prose. What are they reading? I always wonder, like a ghost watching a feast. These days it makes me ill to read on the train, and I feel like I never have time to read real books–spoiled by my steady diet of magazines and blogs, I can’t quite digest those bricks of literature. That morning there were some romance novels, a Crichton, Guns Germs & Steel. A woman shifted, and behind her a gray-suited man’s folded back New Yorker came into view, the familiar Deco font, and like my mother’s voice the desi words sharpened into focus:

Karma, by Rishi Reddi, Harper Perennial; $12.95: Each of the stories in this startlingly mature collection shows first- and second-generation Indian-Americans attempting to manage the disconnect between cultures. The premise is hardly a new one, but Reddi’s understated prose and her choice of details give her revelations a quiet power.(link.)

Some part of me groaned. Karma? You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s really the best title you can come up with? Saying the premise is hardly new seems like the understatement of the generation. My skimming glance over the title story (then findable online, now sadly only partially available online as a pdf excerpt) quickly got me to a line that seemed worrisomely familiar:

. . Shankar and Neha were deposited on the threshold of their new life.

Oh not, not another catalog of the first apartment’s goods! Quick, do they mention those EIGHT DOLLARS? Continue reading →

DC: Brunch Meetup THIS Sunday? [UPDATED]

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sepia brunch.jpg

We’ve had some rough times in the bunker…when Manish and Vinod first broke up…when Ennis was told he couldn’t smuggle anymore adoring groupies in and pass them off as interns…when Manish and Vinod broke up again…when the lemurs went on strike to protest the lack of parties…when one of our guest bloggers developed a very rare allergic reaction to…ah, never mind.

My point is, what we faced before were minor challenges; this has been a rather difficult week, as we confronted far more sobering matters, which affected us all. This week, we dealt with real pain, as tragedy reminded us of how fleeting life actually is. Such “big news” always means more traffic, which means more moderating and more possibilities for this or worse, this.

So, I’m a little down right now and I know many of you are, too. This is what I propose to lift our sepia spirits: an eleventh-hour sort of meetup at reliable and hospitable Heritage India this weekend. Perhaps what this community needs is…more community. Let’s bond, y’all! You know you want to. All are welcome: trolls, lurkers, smurfs and elves included. Vogons, however, will not be tolerated, since it’s highly possible that they might be feeling poetic and no one deserves that.

We can do brunch like we did the first time we were there, at the third DC Meetup or we can have dinner like we did the last time we were there, at the fourth DC meetup which was also our first-ever SM Channukah extravaganza. No, that wasn’t convoluted at all. 😉 The more significant issue is that we haven’t met up in FOUR MONTHS.

Dinner on Saturday, April 21 at 8ish

or

Brunch on Sunday, April 22 at Noonish it is!

Either way, I feel like it is an apposite time to revisit Heritage; I’ve had a sad sort of craving for Golgoppas and I’d like to sate that, in memory of someone else who loved them.

FYI: Heritage is Metro accessible (Red line).

Heritage India Brasserie
1337 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 331-1114

Continue reading →

Paulose? Puh-leaze

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One of the two major keynote speakers at this year’s NASABA conference in San Francisco is going to be Rachel K. Paulose, United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota [Thanks Maisnon]. Yes, that Rachel Paulose.

On the one hand, this makes sense – she’s a very prominent desi legal figure. As we said before, at age 33 she is:

the youngest serving U.S. Attorney, the first woman to hold that position in Minnesota and the first U.S. Attorney of South Asian descent. [Link]

So of course she’d make a great keynote speaker. The other speaker will be Kamala D. Harris, the District Attorney of San Francisco, so Paulose is the bigger fish of the two.

Then again, there has been a lot of controversy around her. Since our last post about her, which dealt with her credentials and swearing-in ceremony, a number of other problems have cropped up, including an unprecedented vote of no confidence from her subordinates who demoted themselves rather than work for her:

On April 5, 2007, three of her top administrators — First Assistant U.S. Attorney John Marti, second in command; civil division head Erika Monzangue and criminal division head James Lackner — voluntarily resigned those positions, reverting to simple assistant U.S. attorney status, reportedly in protest over Paulose’s management style. [Link]

This is very highly unusual since the key people in her office took a rank and pay cut both to avoid working directly under her. It’s strange enough that the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee may even investigate.

And just recently, to top it all off, the Republican Senator from Minnesota, Sen. Norm Coleman, has done a 180 in terms of his support for her. Whereas earlier he took credit for her nomination, now his office is claiming that the Senator never nominated her at all.

Paulose is clearly a hot potato, which should make for a lively convention. If anybody is going, let us know if she gets asked anything interesting when she speaks, OK?

Continue reading →

Bring me the Head of Alfredo Wolfowitz

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When I first interviewed for my current position, I had to do so at Starbucks. This was not a fortuitous accommodation of my addiction to milky coffee, it was an acknowledgement that I was a risk, a threat until proven otherwise. Why was I so suspect? Well, for once, this had nothing to do with my pumpernickelish skin or brown subcontinental roots; I was risky business because I wasn’t cleared. And until I was, I would not be allowed more than five feet beyond the very beginning of a large lobby which contained a metal detector, an x-ray machine an imposingly high desk and several cameras. Five feet from the doors I had entered, that’s where I waited for almost 20 minutes, to meet the hiring manager who would sheepishly later ask if I minded conducting such an important interview at…Starbucks.

While I waited for aforementioned manager, my nerves invaded my stomach, from where it staged a coup attempt on the rest of my body. I felt like I was going to suddenly reacquaint myself (and everyone else in this very busy, very important lobby) with the protein shake I had chugged for breakfast. Horrified, I turned to one of the four guards and beseeched him to edify me regarding the location of the closest bathroom.

“Can’t do that, miss. You’re not allowed past this line.”

“But I think I’m going to be sick…”

“Yeah, you don’t look so good…hold on—Jay!”

“What’s goin on’…is she all right?”

“No. Do you think we can let her use the bathroom…”

“I don’t know man…she ain’t allowed back there-“

“But she’s going to get sick right here!”

“True, true…all right, just this once. Miss! Come with me.”

And with that I was escorted past two different checkpoints, down a hallway, to a door I have never been happier to see.

Once inside, I washed my hands. It’s a reflexive thing, in part because I’m a clean-freak, partially because I find the sound and texture of water soothing. I tried to be mindful, to focus on the bubbles and the hand-wringing and everything else, to distract myself from my hyper-anxious state. It was starting to work. I took deep breaths. I felt a bit better. I checked myself out in the mirror—I looked horrid. Well, might as well touch-up my makeup since I’m—

“MISS! PLEASE BE AWARE WE ARE ENTERING THE BATHROOM-“

“Damnit, where is Sadie? Oh, there she is…Sadie, you go in there, I hate goin in the women’s’ room!”

What on earth? And just then, the door exploded open and a very irate woman accosted me.

“What are you doing in here?”

“I…I was just putting on…lipgloss?”, I stammered.

“You are NOT even allowed to be back here.”

“Oh, well, I thought I was going to puke, so—“

“I am aware of the situation! You have taken too long—if you were going to get sick, it would’ve happened already.” Continue reading →

Wet below but Suni above

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Monday was Patriot’s day, the date of the annual Boston Marathon. While the streets of Boston were wet, the most famous desi entrant was shielded from inclement weather in her special climate controlled gym. While some had to pound hard pavement, she ran the marathon many times higher than a kite, floating on air. And while it took her 4 hours and 24 minutes to cover the 26 miles, in that same time she circled the globe twice.

I refer here to Sunita Williams, of course, who unofficially ran the marathon with bib 14,000. Although she was spared Heartbreak Hill, her race wasn’t just a walk in the park. In order to complete the run she had to be harnessed in place (so she didn’t just float away) on top of the Space Station’s Treadmill Vibration Isolation System, which, believe it or not, served to keep the space station steady while she ran:

you know when you run on the ground or on a treadmill at the gym, you are stomping on the ground/treadmill pretty hard – right? Well, the ISS can’t really take that stomping around. We’ve got huge solar arrays, radiators, module attachment systems, etc., which will feel the load of that stomping… The engineers came up with a vibration isolation system for both the treadmill and the cycle. The treadmill rides on a gyro which spins up and takes the loads of the runner. [Link]

This apparently isn’t easy on her body:

“That harness gets hard on her back and her shoulders or her hips …. Her foot was going numb because the strap was on her hip so much…” [Link]

But honestly, the hardest part of this experience would seem to be the inability to bathe or shower afterwards:

… astronauts wash their hair with no-rinse shampoo, their bodies with cleanser-soaked gauzy fabric, and their hands with baby wipes. [Link]

Wow. And she’s not going to be able to shower until she returns to earth, at the end of summer at the earliest. I guess the good news is that they won’t be able to smell the atomized wasabi any more.

Continue reading →

This Blog is Not For Bigots [UPDATED]

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Welcome to Sepia Mutiny. If this is your first time visiting and you found us by reading the MSNBC/Newsweek article which commenced with: In Memory Of

The bodies had barely been removed when the racial epithets started pouring in. Cho Seung-Hui, the 23-year-old identified as the killer of 32 on the Virginia Tech campus, may have lived in the state since his elementary school days, but to the bigots in the blogosphere it was his origins in Korea that mattered most. “Koreans are the most hotheaded and macho of East Asians,” wrote one unnamed commentator on the Sepia Mutiny blog. “They are also sick and tired of losing their Korean girlfriends to white men with an Asian fetish.“

then please understand two very important truths:

1) Four out of the five comments which followed that quoted ignorance repudiated it consummately…

For shame.
This entire post decried stereotyping, and look at what you wrote about Koreans. My thoughts are with anxious students facebooking each other, heartbroken family members and everyone else affected by this tragedy. How can yours even go there? [SM]

2) “one unnamed commentator” does not speak for or represent this amazing, progressive, close-knit community

In fact, the views in the soundbite which MSNBC/Newsweek opportunistically and irresponsibly highlighted are NOT shared by the vast majority of those who write, comment or lurk here; they are the exception, not the rule on a blog which was created to enlighten, not divide. We are saddened that such a reputable and established source of news would misrepresent our site’s purpose and imply that the words of a rogue commenter are somehow indicative of the work we tirelessly try to do.

The bitter irony of this situation is that this website exists to create positive change and yet we were mischaracterized by an article about the valid concerns of the Korean American community after Monday’s massacre; as South Asian Americans, we sympathize and understand such issues because we are far too familiar with the concept of “backlash” ourselves.

We pray that Korean Americans are spared what Balbir Singh Sodhi suffered, that the rage which is to be expected after something so senseless isn’t misdirected so that it harms even more innocent people.

Just as one anonymous person who isn’t even a regular contributor here shouldn’t tarnish the reputation of an entire blog, one troubled, lost soul who took his pain out on innocents shouldn’t tarnish the reputation of an entire ethnic community. We are all suffering; let’s put aside the generalizations, stereotypes and impotent rage and work instead towards healing ourselves, our communities, our world.

::

This is what they have to say for themselves:

Dear Mr. Reeves,
I appreciate your note. Our intention was not to chastise Sepia Mutiny in any way–many blogs have been receiving derogatory comments, and Sepia is just one example. I think that anyone who visits the site will quickly find out what you speak of: that it’s an open forum for commentary, and with that comes the possibility of potentially-hateful comments. We would hope that our readers who are concerned about this site check it out and find that out for themselves. Unfortunately, unless we’ve introduced factual errors into a piece we do not print retractions, and we stand by this piece. I appreciate your input and interest and will keep it in mind as we move forward in our coverage.
Respectfully,
Jessica Bennett

Thanks for writing them, Maurice. We appreciate your efforts to rage against the useless, sloppy, too-proud-to-admit-they-erred machine. Continue reading →

A Message from the Grandfather of the Mutiny :)

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In Memory OfWhile eating my lunch, I received an email from a name I sort of recognized. Wait a nimisham…could it be?

Anna: The attached file is what I just received from one of my High School buddy (a Parsi) from Ahmedabad. Abhi told me several times how to link something and post it to your blog, but I have not done it yet. Could you please put this on your blog. It would remind all of us – in the aftermath of VT massacre – how important this message is!! ……….Take Care — YO DAD

When my own beloved Father was alive, he asked me to do a dozen things a day: make him coffee, play his favorite MS Subbulakshmi or KB Sunderambal vinyl, read an Op-Ed with which he agreed passionately, see why the dogs were barking, retrieve something from upstairs, since he could no longer do something as simple as climb a flight…I am so ashamed and heartbroken that I often did these things begrudgingly, rolling my eyes and muttering under my breath or worse, sighing dramatically at the tediousness of it all.

Once, my father looked at me sadly and said, “One day, you will even miss this. You will wish for the days when I asked you for a simple cup of kappi.” He knew, because our relationship mirrored the exact same tempestuous, love-hate dynamic he shared with my Grandfather; he expressed his regret over what he couldn’t do for my Appachan daily. “You know, there is a certain pleasure one can derive from doing what is asked…” he said to my useless back, as I returned to whatever fashion magazine, phone call or French assignment he must have roused me from. I can still hear that last sentence, trailing away because I chose to leave and not pay attention.

Eight years have passed and not a day goes by when I don’t re-live that moment. I wish I could make you your coffee, Daddy. But I can’t. It is too late. What I can do is obey someone else’s Daddy, and pretend for a moment that snapping to attention and enthusiastically following through is how I always did things, when you and I know that I didn’t.

::

Mutineers of mine…from what I have read, it seems like we are all reeling while poorly dealing with the senseless tragedy which commenced this week. Non-stop news coverage about every possible detail only adds to the stress and turmoil many of us feel. We all cope differently; my preferred method involves mindfulness, gratitude and love. The support of friends and family– that’s a potent cure for this malaise. I’ve been pensive about many things since researching and writing that post about Minal yesterday…the “message” that Yo Dad wanted us all to see is a large part of what I am clinging to during these bleak hours. It’s a powerpoint presentation and it’s available here: seven wonders. If you are so inclined, take a few moments to see it.

Thanks for thinking of all your “other children” right now, Yo Dad. Continue reading →