Kenya’s Man of the Match

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Kenya is one of those rare Commonwealth countries that has a large Indian diaspora population but where cricket isn’t so popular. It used to be. Kenya is only an associate member of the International Cricket Council, as is the United States, and so does not play test cricket, but thanks to some good qualifying tournament play, it has made it to the World Cup. It did so in 1996 and 1999 under the leadership of Aasif Karim. The spin bowler came out of retirement when his side qualified again in 2003 for the last world cup in South Africa. He had served as captain of the 1999 side.

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When I met him in his home, we tried to determine if his Indian descent and national team captaincy represented any sort of “first.” We wondered if he was the first desi to captain a national team (other than a team from the subcontinent) in a world cup (any cricket-mad mutineer know differently?).

Kenya won total of five matches in 2003, and Aasif was named Man of the Match for his performance against Australia (the world champions), even though his side lost. He enjoyed playing at the highest level but after the cup decided it was time to move on. Kenya’s commitment to cricket was small (professional sport here is hardly funded at all; even soccer, the most popular sport, lacks facilities, organization, and a commitment to development). But wouldn’t he like to be Kenya’s Brian Lara, perpetual captain and national cricket icon? “Better to go when they ask, ‘Why did you retire?’ and not ‘When are you going to retire?'”” he says. Continue reading →

DesiDeals.net

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Like many desis, I love me some deals. I know I am playing into stereotypes here, especially because I am Gujarati, but come on EVERYONE likes good deals. The enjoyment for me isn’t just finding a good deal, but the whole process: it is the hunt, the chase, and the glory in opening the mail and finding that rebate check that you thought might not ever come. Suffice it to say, I spend a good percentage of my time on the internets perusing some favorite deal sites.

But while I like finding good deals, one of my pet peeves is really poor customer service and the feeling that I have been taken advantage of. So when I was visiting one of my new favorite deal/consumer rights blogs, The Consumerist, (part of the Gawker family of blogs) I was a bit dismayed to hear the tale of our desi brethren, Mahesh, who reported on his parent’s really poor experience on United Airlines.

Mahesh’s parents flew from Omaha, Nebraska to Colombo,Sri Lanka, but at LAX, United Airlines (UAL) refused to honor their tickets, saying that they had not “been approved, authorized and authenticated.” The family ended having to pay $2860 extra to complete their journey. Apparently, Sri Lankan Air Lines, a United code-share partner, could not find the reservation Mahesh’s parents made. Mahesh wrote three letters of complaint to UAL and so far his parents have only received two $300 coupons in return. When Mahesh scoffed at the sum, United wrote, “our policy does not permit us to respond with the generosity you had anticipated. (link)

It seems that instead of writing letters, which I am a big fan of, now when desis are wronged, we blog. So as a good South Asian, Mahesh has started his own blog detailing his battle with United Airlines’ Customer service at evilunitedairlines.blogspot.com. His story is really messed up and I hope the airlines eventually do the right thing and refund the extra three grand his recently operated-on parents had to hand over to get home.

Continue reading →

Hee Hee! He Said “Bhenchod!”

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Beneath the horrendous headline “Gangsta Raj,” New York Times reviewer Paul Gray opens his treatment of Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games with the kind of snark that will dissuade anyone who only reads the first paragraph from buying the book:

This immense, demanding novel can be recommended, with scarcely a cavil, to well-educated Indians who have lots of free time, are fluent in (at the very least) English and Hindi, and have a thorough knowledge of South Asian politics; Hindu, Muslim and Sikh religious practices; and the stars and story lines of hundreds of Bollywood films. Longtime Bombay residents will have an extra advantage, since they will know, without consulting a gazeteer or Google, why the city is now called Mumbai. Prospective readers who donÂ’t fit this profile will have some catching up to do.

In the end, it’s a positive review, though the term “damning with faint praise” sure came to my mind several times as I went through it. And do the Gray Lady’s editors know they just printed the words sisterfucker and motherfucker?

So it goes here. Those who plunge into the novel soon find themselves thrashing in a sea of words (“nullah,” “ganwars,” “bigha,” “lodu,” “bhenchod,” “tapori,” “maderchod”) and sentences (“On Maganchand Road the thela-wallahs already had their fruit piled high, and the fishsellers were laying out bangda and bombil and paaplet on their slabs”) unencumbered by italics or explication.

Seriously though, I still haven’t read the book (the US edition comes out this week, hence the review) but one thing I appreciated about Chandra’s last book, the amazing collection Love and Longing in Bombay, is precisely how he manages to introduce large amounts of local color and vocabulary in ways that connect even if you don’t know what exactly every term means. Surely the review could have taken a more productive approach than to lead with this literalist harping? Continue reading →

“Ji Hain! Lahore!”

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This is brilliant. Via SAJA, here’s the story of the Pakistani-American brother who has bought land in Lahore, Virginia, and has great plans for its use:

We spoke to the present American owner of a portion of the town’s land, and also the Pakistani American who has recently bought that piece of land to develop it to match the Pakistani town of Lahore. The new Lahore will have a school, a museum, an airport, and a replica of the famous Shalimar gardens in Lahore, Pakistan.

The report, for the Voice of America’s Urdu TV service, is by journalist Imran Siddiqui and features great local characters who are interviewed in English.

This opens up a lot of possibilities. For instance, there is a Delhi in New York, Delaware, California and Ohio. There’s an Agra in California and Kansas, and another in Oklahoma where there seems to be no shortage of land to build your miniature Taj. There’s also a Bombay in New York, population 1,192, with a tantalizing but undeveloped backstory:

The town of Bombay, comprising township Number One of Macomb’s purchase and. all of the St. Regis reservation on the American side of the boundary, was erected from Fort Covington by an act of the Legislature passed March 30, 1833, to be effective on the first of May following. Its name was chosen by Michael Hogan in compliment to Mrs. Hogan, who was a native of Bombay, India.

There are also Calcuttas in Ohio and West Virginia, a Madras in Oregon, and even a Lucknow in western Ontario. I couldn’t find a Thiruvananthapuram. Continue reading →

Oil of Ofay

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yourface_chart.jpgI know I’m plowing a slightly old furrow here (Manish blogged about this product when it launched back in ’05), but in light of the Guardian commentary today by Sarita Malik that Red Snapper posted on the news tab, and the latest round of skin-ism and politics-of-appearance debates on the comment threads, I thought it might be useful to reproduce the scientific chart to the right. It’s an analysis by Emami Ltd., the makers of “Fair and Handsome” skin lightening creme for men.

The product website is a gold mine of manipulation, insecurity generation, and odd Indian advertising lingo, complete with a list of “free sample receivers” and “hey gals! give your opinion also” exhortations. It’s also, obviously, testimonial that at least in Desh, skin-ism is still in deep effect.

We all know intutively that the phenomenon extends to the diaspora, but how much, and with what consequences, is a matter of (endless) discussion. I have to say that although I found Malik’s commentary well written and to the point, she offered little concrete evidence of skin color discrimination among desis in the UK, and she undermined her piece by referring to Fair and Handsome as a Hindustan Lever (makers of Fair & Lovely) product, which it isn’t. Continue reading →

Doin’ Her Thang Thang

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This is a sister called Shakti who is making commercially-oriented urban pop music and is based as far as I can tell in New York (thanks tipster Sonia!). She’s another MySpace-era striver who has a single on iTunes, a website with more bells and whistles than she has material to fill it, an embryonic line of fashion accessories, and a producer-songwriter-laptop wizard behind her looking to become the next Timbaland. (He has another artist called Asia Minor.)

She’s also generous with the Indo-flavored exotica, announcing “Namaste” on her website and putting forward, in her various materials, the full complement of noserings, silk scarves, saris, and the like, combined with the racy iconography of today’s commercial R&B. There’s also a Kama Sutra reference and a camel (not together). And there’s some really ugly short promotional clips online that truck in cab driver and 7-Eleven nonsense.

And the music? It’s pretty good on balance, although the single for sale (and yo, what kind of viral marketing strategy is it to put your first record out and charge folks for it?) called “Do the Thang Thang,” hardly does justice to Shakti’s extensive classical and jazz training AND Berklee School of Music bachelor’s degree AND Chicago Music College master’s degree with lyrics like this:

Do the thang thang
Freak your body body
Don’t hurt nobody body
Let’s get naughty naughty.

There are a couple of remixes that make things a bit more interesting, thanks in part to the singer on the bhangra version (a free copy of which is floating around online).

The song on the YouTube clip here, “Let Me Dance,” I like a lot more. Now the Orientalism police (which I occasionally roll with, I admit) won’t be feeling Shakti’s thang thang overall, but if you suspend that reservation for a minute the sinewy groove and bedroom themes might just get to ya.

What I can’t figure out is the end of the line that begins “Just like the Kama Sutra…” It occurs twice in the song. Any sharp ears out there able to decode it? Conferral of the official Sepia Mutiny seal of approval might just depend on those hard-to-make-out words… Continue reading →

Big Brother Watches Bollywood

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If anyone in Bollywood needs a big brother to watch over her, one of my first guesses would be item-number girl extraordinaire, Shilpa Shetty. And lucky for her (and for us too), Big Brother will be watching her, and by Big Brother, I am referring to the UK television show’s ongoing celebrity version (thanks Jai).

The BBC reports yesterday that Ms. Shetty (31) was the sixth of eleven stars to enter the Big Brother house, wearing a pink sari. Because Shetty, who has appeared in over 30 Bollywood films, is an unmarried Indian female, attractive, and over the age of 30, it appears that they are going to focus on her love-life (you know, being single, desi, and over 30, the horror, the horror).

The film icon will reportedly have a dinner date with another housemate, in which she will be encouraged to flirt and reports say Ms Shetty – often the subject of marriage speculation – will dine at a later stage in the show with the housemate she finds the most attractive. Inevitably, Indian coverage of the show will focus on romance in Shilpa Shetty’s life.”

But it isn’t likely that any shaadi will result from the show. When responding to a love-life related query from one newspaper in the run-up to the show, Shetty kept it fashionably coy saying, “I shall marry but after three years. There is no-one in my life as of today. And, I am very happy living single, at present.” (link)

Correspondents, like always, are saying that Shetty’s appearance on Big Brother is bound to be hugely controversial in India where many would question its standards of morality. Maybe so, but these correspondents must then have missed some of her more risque–scantily clad-and-in-the-rain dance numbers that Shilpa has participated. Morality, Shmorality, it is Big Brother, and by the look of things already, this season sounds like it is going to be interesting. I know I will be watching, and with Shilpa on, I bet many of the two million plus British Asians will be too. You can see videos of the show here, Shilpa’s page here, and Shilpa big brother news here.

Continue reading →

The new entrepreneurs

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Indolink.com reports on a study released today that breaks down the impact of Indian immigrants on several key U.S. economic sectors. Titled, “AmericaÂ’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs,” the document is full of interesting pie and bar charts that reveal the disproportionate influence that Indian immigrants have had in the last couple of decades. However, I’m here for those of you who don’t like pie and bar charts (slackers).

The joint Duke University – UC Berkeley study reveals that Indian immigrants have founded more engineering and technology companies from 1995 to 2005 than immigrants from the U.K., China, Taiwan and Japan combined. The report also shows that Indians have overtaken the Chinese, albeit marginally, as the leading group of immigrant entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.

The immigrant contributions must be viewed as part of a “U.S. global advantage” and provide a pointer to what “the U.S. must do to keep its edge,” the study says. In addition the study reveals that the patents awarded to non-citizen immigrants – typically foreign graduate students completing their PhDÂ’s, green card holders awaiting citizenship, and employees of multinationals on temporary visas – increased from 7.8% in 1998 to 24.2% in 2006.

It’s “a report that will without doubt rock the boat,” claims Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University, the primary author of the study. [Link]

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Public and Private Spaces

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Some more musings from Nairobi . . .

One thing a photographer likes to be able to count on is the presence of his subjects in public spaces: streets, parks, shopping malls, out in front of their homes, etc. In other countries where I have worked, Indian people are out in the open, going about their lives, so photographing has been relatively easy. I meet people, we chat, drink tea, I take some pictures, maybe I come back again the next day, etc. I don’t really like photographing strangers, so getting to know people is essential to the way I work.

In Nairoboi, where the Indian community is fairly small, it’s harder to find people. Since security is the ever-present issue, city dwellers here avoid public spaces. This is not a city of walkers [edit: except by necessity]. People drive or are driven. Houses are gated and guarded. This is true for everyone who can afford the trappings of security, which includes the vast majority of the Indian community.

So I am concentrating on taking portraits of people in their homes.

Photography is all about space–in both the metaphysical and the physical senses. Space defines the subject in the frame. What’s included vs. what’s omitted are important questions the shooter has to ask himself before he trips the shutter.

So the matter for discussion here is, What does it say about community when its cultural expression occurs outside the public sphere? Does the space help define the culture?

Indian culture as I have witnessed it in India and elsewhere is all about the public space: parades, wedding processions, music, long-winded speakers at the public address system, big family events that draw in a larger community.

Granted, in Nairobi, the fact that much of the community here is Muslim has something to do with the reticence of expression, as do the obvious facts of minority status and the presence of crime.

Things are different here. Being Indian is different here from the way it is in other parts of the world, including other countries in Africa. There is no sense that Indian culture has to be hidden or subdued–just that it doesn’t seem to fit comfortably in the public realm.

Your thoughts? (I’ll post some portraits in the next few days). Continue reading →

Panic at the Chicken Shack

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A couple of days ago a Twin Donut shop burned down in the Bronx. This sort of thing happens frequently enough, of course — grease fires, arson, incidents of unknown causation. But not in this case. It turns out the fire was set by the owner of the Kennedy Fried Chicken outlet immediately adjacent. The chicken joint shares a wall and a roof with the donut shop, but it was barely scathed. The owner was quickly suspected and apprehended. Why’d he do it? Because the donut store had started selling chicken, undercutting his business.

Yeah, yeah, you want a desi angle. Well, hold your horses. Let’s get some local color first:

“I think he was a fool,” said a HuntÂ’s Point resident who identified himself as “Rhino.” “To burn down a store, this place has been here for many years, is stupid.” …

“He punched a hole in the wall between his store and the donut shop,” explained Assistant Chief Fire Marshall Robert Byrnes. “He introduced some gasoline. He used a pressurized container that you use with insecticide. He ignited the fire and left.”

People in this neighborhood who bought chicken from Kennedy Fried Chicken say it is hard for them to believe the owner would do something crazy like this. They say he was a good guy who cared about the community.

“Why would he do something like that,” added another local resident, Kesha Nelson. “That doesn’t make sense, he was trifling like that. I thought he was a nice guy. I buy chicken from here all the time.”

“Kennedy Chicken had the best chicken,” concurred local resident Frank Jones. “I don’t know about Twin Donuts because I never had their chicken.”

And now your desi angle. Judging from the names at least, both chickenwalla and donutwalla appear to be desi:

Kabeer Ahmad also was charged with reckless endangerment and remained in custody because he was unable to post $250,000 bond. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The Bronx food fight began when a Twin Donut shop started competing with Ahmad’s Kennedy Fried Chicken by adding legs, wings, breasts and thighs to its menu and selling plates of food for 50 cents cheaper. …

Ahmad had accused Twin Donuts of violating a noncompete clause by selling chicken at the shop. But the owner of the doughnut shop, Mike Chhor, said he didn’t know why his neighbor set the fire and destroyed his business, which he bought three weeks ago.

“I don’t know why he burned the store,” Chhor said. “I had no problem with him.”

If convicted, Ahmad faces upward of 25 years in jail. This brother-on-brother violence must end. What a senseless waste of entrepreneurial initiative. Why couldn’t they just get together an open a Chicken & Waffles joint? Continue reading →