The Real Hard-Knock Life

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Erstwhile Sepia guest blogger Saheli is amazing for many reasons, but now I have confirmation that it’s obviously genetic; her Uncle is Arunabha Ghosh, who recently accompanied rapper Jay-Z to Africa. Uncle Arunabha (do you like how I totally mooched him?) is involved with many worthy issues:

He worked on the rights of indigenous people, international migration, and the rise of culturally intolerant movements around the world. He recently delivered a lecture on the integration of immigrants at the Universal Forum of Cultures in Barcelona. [link]

What caught my attention and what Saheli just blogged about, however, is water:

Over a billion people lack access to clean drinking water. Every day–including today, Christmas Eve–over 4000 children lacking good drinking water will die of diarrhea-causing diseases.
It’s hard to wrap our heads around such astonishing statistics, or understand what causes this great gaping need, and how simple some of the solutions are. Last month MTV put up a set of videos in which Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter went on a tour of a home and a school in Africa to understand the basic issues. He was accompanied by his “homeboy,” my uncle, Arunabha Ghosh, a Policy Specialist and one of the authors of the UNDP Human Development Report. Arunabha has spent the last few years tirelessly running around the world, raising the alarm about development needs and spreading the word about development solutions. Last week he addressed an Indian Parliamentary forum on national water issues.[link]

Saheli does a fantastic job of breaking down the plight of children who spend hours fetching something which most of us shamefully take for granted, as we let the faucets run while brushing our teeth (wasting 3-7 gallons per minute). See for yourself, on her “More Fantasticness” blog, here. And if you want to know what I want for my birthday, see for yourself, here. Continue reading →

Merry Christmas to All, and to All, “Show Some Pride!”

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3670482_a31914cae1.jpg One of my dearest friends has an Op-Ed in today’s Washington Post (page A29). Nitya, I’d be proud of you even if “Longing to Join in Christmas” hadn’t been published, but now that it has, Akka loves you even more, because obviously, like all good South Asian elders, my affection for you is directly tied to your achievements. 😉 I can’t think of a more perfect post for today (so let me get out of the way):

Christmas is the season when you are most likely to find yourself on a street of beautiful homes with twinkling lights, warm fireplaces and happy families outfitted in festive holiday sweaters, only to be filled with a yearning to possess not just the house but the lifestyle inside.

For my whole Indian American childhood in the early 1980s, I wanted a Christmas tree that way. And it wasn’t for the presents. It was for the lifestyle.

I wanted the Santa Claus, I wanted the holly wreath and I wanted the jolly elves who toiled in a workshop all year long. I wanted the sleigh bell-wearing reindeer on my roof. I wanted the colorful stockings hung by the chimney. And I wanted the jolly fat man to wiggle down our (nonexistent) chimney before he ho-ho-hoed his way across the night sky in a triumphant journey back to the North Pole.

From the warmth of my Hindu home, I always longed for that good old Christian magic — and not a holiday like Christmas but Christmas itself. I wanted to belong to the classroom party hosted by homeroom mothers in Santa hats, to know the words to the holiday songs that everyone knew, to feel the evergreen anticipation that never faded or fell from branches needle by needle.

My immigrant father, who’d recently come to America as a University of California grad student, was a man of little sympathy and extra principle when it came to the wants and woes of my childhood.

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Travelers: Beaches of Bangladesh, Chatting on Indian Trains…

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I hope y’all are enjoying your holiday travels. For me it’s yet another December spent at home on the East Coast, followed by 3 days of hard-core academia at the annual South Asian Literary Association and Modern Language Association conferences. (Note: I’m not really complaining: this year we are blessed by the presence of a smiling, gurgling little baby. But yeah, a change of scenery would still be nice.)

Travel journalists, by contrast, get to have leisurely travels all the time — for work. Today I was particularly drawn by a recent New York Times article about visiting beaches in Bangladesh, and a Times of London travelogue (thanks, Indianoguy) of a reporter’s trip all around India. Going to the beaches of Bangladesh (on the eastern tip, near the border of Burma/Myanmar) is something I would never have thought of doing, but it actually makes perfect sense. Incidentally, the tourist board’s official motto is perhaps unintentionally comical, but actually works despite itself: “Visit Bangladesh Before Tourists Come.”

And my favorite bit from the London Times travelogue is about a train ride to Jhansi:

Train journeys here are great levellers. Few Indians frantically fill their time, as westerners do, with work or reading. They regard the journeys as a chance to “interact” and talk, about anything from the price of aubergines to the finer points of Tantric meditation. By the time they get off, they’re exchanging business cards and pledging eternal friendship.

As fillings turned to extractions, the cabin attendant slouched past with an urn of peppery tomato soup, which he served in plastic cups (they would have been biodegradeable pottery cups five years ago). He scattered it with a handful of croutons from his pocket. The lady dentist seized her moment. “How does your daily routine here compare with back home?” she asked.. “How does India compare with UK?”

I said the UK is ordered, startlingly quiet and clean in comparison, and that its people are reserved and, in places, few and far between. I mentioned North Ronaldsay, the Orkney island which is three miles long and one mile wide, and has a population of less than 50. “Amazing!” said the dentist. And I described how my wife and I go walking in the Derbyshire Peak District and sometimes meet no more than six or seven people in four hours. “Astonishing!” said the biotechnology student.

He had a point. In the packed 3rd class carriage next door, some sort of evolutionary struggle for survival seemed to be going on. I said that British trains sometimes travel with as few as a dozen passengers. And that, if it’s even ten minutes late, there could be a riot.

This was a lie, but it seemed pretty relevant, as our train was now four rather than three hours late. (link)

I especially like the point about how mass-transit in the west is largely anti-social, while the experience in India (or perhaps all of South Asia?) is the opposite. (Does anyone have favorite subcontinental train/plane/bus experiences they want to share?)

Incidentally, if you’re sick of reading about western travelers in India (while they’re far from uniform, the stories always seem to have comments on the crazy traffic patterns and the smell), there are some great “internal” desi travel stories up at OkTataByeBye.com. I thought this in-depth article on Lucknow was an especially good read. And there are plenty more. Continue reading →

Arthi Meera’s Pop Lullabies; and, a question on “fusion”

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arthi meera.jpg I recently discovered the music of Arthi Meera on Myspace, and even though it’s probably too late to get counted on Siddhartha’s end of the year poll, I think readers might want to go check her out.

Of the songs that are up at Myspace, “Silty Sea” has gotten the most plays — and it’s a lovely song. But “Wander Away” is a catchy and infectious pop melody. Her album is also available via Itunes (I would recommend “In my head” and “It’s not you.”).

Arthi, who plays guitar and sings on all her songs, was raised in Chicago, and lives there now. She says she was trained in classical Hindustani singing, though the songs on her album show no trace of that particular background. Snippets of her voice, singing “Pardesi Jaana Nahin,” are in the closing credits of the film V For Vendetta (listen to BKAB Speechless at Ethan Stoller’s Myspace page; incidentally, Manish mentioned this song months ago). [Correction: that is not Arthi Meera’s voice, I’m told.]

I was a little curious about how she went from ‘A’ to ‘B’, so I sent her an email with some questions. Her reply was pretty thought-provoking. Continue reading →

Ninde Achan Aara, Nel?

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Sreesanth Swinging His Bat…. Dhoom Machale?!

It’s my first time, Mutineers, so be gentle. I’m a total Cricket virgin and if you’re mean to me about what is sure to be an amateurish post, I’ll be scarred forever– whether I end up a frigid fan or not is in your hopefully kind and capable hands. 😉

After hearing about Mallu hotness Sreesanth (thanks, DTK), I had to visit ye olde YouTube to find out about this right-arm fast-medium-pace bowler, who is a right-handed tailender. Apparently, excessively lippy South African Andre Nel questioned Sreesanth’s heart/courage/skillz after Sreesanth evaded something called a bouncer. Sreesanth responded by hitting Nel for a six and then performing a dance I’d normally associate with an end zone. Oh, that was just brutal to write. I can’t imagine how many men I’ve just annoyed. 😉

I may not know a damned thing about what is arguably the most popular sport in all of South Asia, but I know the art of trash talk well and if anything could get me to fall in love with this very Brown game, it’s the video I’ve posted above. Set to some probably-famous song I’ve never heard before (“Dhoom Machale”), it’s way more fun than the other YouTube clips which came up when I searched for the new object of my lecherous (he’s eight years younger) affection. Not since I was kicked off our co-ed IM team in grad school for illegal (and may I add, utterly justified and deliciously violent) tackling during a flag-football game have I been so delighted by the immaturity of declaring “in your face!”. Gopu, I heart you. 🙂

UPDATE: The Google Video seems clearer, so I swapped it. Continue reading →

The Myth of “Martial Races”

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Gurkha.jpg Though I’ve always been proud of the Sikh tradition in military service — particularly in the First and Second World Wars — the fact that the British Raj designated certain ethno-religious groups as martial races makes me uneasy. And recently I’ve been reading a book on the Gurkha regiments, (Byron Farwell’s The Gurkhas), and after reading a number of chapters I’m ready to throw out the designation entirely.

For those who are unfamiliar, the Gurkhas (or Gorkhas) come from a region of Nepal west of Kathmandu, and have been actively recruited by the British for service as mercenaries since 1815. It so happened that the British discovered the Gurkhas’ military aptitude after defeating them in a series of particularly tough battles — just as they did with the Sikhs, the Marathas, and indeed, the Zulus (all of whom would be designated “martial races”; see the full list here). Often, troops from one recently conquered region would be instrumental in defeating the next group (the Gurkhas were deployed in the Anglo-Sikh Wars, for instance).

As a side-note, though most Gurkha regiments joined the Indian army at independence, the British did retain a small number of Gurkhas for the British Army after 1947 — and they still actively recruit them today (on a fully voluntary basis, of course). Gurkhas were deployed in the Falklands’ War, in Kosovo, and are now in Afghanistan. Retired Gurkhas are also probably going to be deployed to monitor the fragile peace agreement between the Maoists and the new government of Nepal. Joining the Gurkha regiments in the British Army is considered desirable, but it’s a tough gig to get: one of the physical tests in order to be accepted involves running uphill for 40 minutes with a 70 pound bag of stones strapped to your back!

The author of the book on the Gurkhas is mainly a military historian, not an anthropologist, so it’s probably too much to expect to ask him to deconstruct the idea of “martial races.” But it’s extremely frustrating that in episode after episode Farwell seems to reiterate a few straightforward stereotypes as explaining the Gurkhas’ effectiveness in battle on behalf of the British: they are simple peasants, they are hardened by life in a mountainous region, and they have a strong sense of cultural identity. The same could be said of many other ethnic groups, most of whom were not designated “martial races.” So why the Gurkhas?

It seems hard to escape the conclusion that “martial race” is a convenient term created by the British to continue military recruiting patterns favorable to the progress of imperial expansionism. Continue reading →

Macaca Music Poll: The Time Is NOW

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You dandies must be too busy shopping for lipstick or fretting about your naughty bits, because the volume of submissions to the Macaca Music Poll has been shamefully low. Don’t get me wrong: the quality has been high, and I’m going to need a couple of days to track down some of the picks and pull together a wrap-up post worthy of the contributions. However, there are a LOT of regulars who have yet to submit entries — yeah, y’all know who you are — and I know some of you lurkers have some cool picks to share as well.

So here it is: Last Call for the poll. Send me a list of up to five songs or albums that did it for you this year. Need inspiration? Here are my choices for the Boston Globe and for WNYC. You’ll also find picks in all categories from my colleagues at both outlets here and here. Email your suggestions here. I’ll post results by the weekend. Peace and humptiness forevah! Continue reading →

A Business-Friendly Plan For Mumbai Slum Resettlement?

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There’s an interesting article in the New York Times by Anand Giridharadas about the way in which the Indian real estate boom has been affecting slums in Mumbai.

As many readers may be aware, Mumbai shantytowns are unusual in that their residents are often effectively permanent, and many people living there actually prefer the chaotic environment to the cramped enclosed spaces that are sometimes made available to them via various housing/resettlement schemes. The old method of clearing slums consisted of mainly bulldozing them and then going away, at which point the former residents would simply come back and rebuild. It was, in effect, both ineffectual and unfair. In recent years, the pace of slum-clearing has quickened, as the government has hopes of “Shanghaization” in support of “Vision Mumbai” (see this Frontline article for more).

But now there is a new method, where private developers are resettling slum dwellers into tower apartments they build and give away for free to residents. In exchange, they get to develop the remainder of the land any way they want: Continue reading →

So long L.A., and thanks for the Meet-up memories

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As of Wednesday SM will be closing down its L.A. offices. But…not before we had a rockin’ meetup in a den of vice.

As usual, the West Coast represented the best. We had at least 40 people show up including Sunny of our British cousin Pickled Politics. You can see all of the (non-censored) pictures here. That isn’t a pink shirt I am wearing in the photoset by the way. It is Sepia. And if you think it’s ugly, too bad…because the rest of my clothes are in boxes. To all the bloggers, commenters, lurkers, people who we’ve blogged about, and groupie that showed up, thanks for making LA such a great city to live in (except for the traffic)! Keep representing. West siiiidddeee.

Continue reading →

SM Memo: Nars “Hindu” is Very Brown

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The mission came my way via Abhi over a month ago, a reader had contacted our comment line with the following:

The high-end cosmetics company NARS has a new lipstick shade called Hindu…I wonder how a shade called Jew or Protestant would fare in the public eye? Is the idea that all Hindus have temptingly red lips? To be fair, there are also shades called Afghan Red and Gipsy. What do you think?

Said Abhi, “This one is ALL you.” Said me, “HELL YES!” I love Nars. If I’m not wearing Chanel makeup, I’m glowing because of the most notoriously named blush of all time. One problem– “Hindu” proved more elusive than I imagined. It was sold-out all over town. The intrigue grew; if it was so desired, I had to keep it under surveillance for the sake of the Mutiny. I finally located a tester of it at Blue Mercury Apothecary (apothecary!) and made my way to my prey.

Part of Nars’ Holiday ’06 collection, “Hindu” had sold so well, it would take a month for me to procure one for the Mutiny. “Nars just didn’t make enough,” my source said, as they prepared the tester for germ-phobic me. I loathe such situations, because I prefer to examine communal cosmetics on the back of my hand. The allegedly-disinfected lipstick was headed right for me. I started to panic, but then I remembered that every Mutiny requires pain and sacrifice.

When she was done with me, I was wearing a very brown lipstick with excellent texture, which reminded of a sheer version of Chanel’s “Very Vamp”. I expected redder tones, not the muted brown which I was studying. I also thought there would be more glitter, since it’s very visible in the tube. The staff praised the end result; I was less convinced by the “Hindu” effect. Maybe for the office, but it was too dull for my scenery-chewing tastes. I was thrilled that it looked so good on South Asian skin, though.

“Would you like to be put on the waiting list?”

I hesitated; normally I would have politely declined, but Abhi had tasked me with more than just scouting “Hindu” out:

My biggest question is can a nice Christian girl such as yourself be labeled a “heathen” if they apply this? If you kiss a nice Mallu boy with “Hindu” lipstick on, what would happen!

In the name of the Mutiny, I gladly put myself on the line to complete this mission; alas, I did not find a suitable partner for such a life-or-death covert operation. Abhi, forgive me. Continue reading →