DC Meetup #3: L’CHAIM!

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You know, for a meetup which I invited you macacas to with thismuch notice, DC’s third attempt at getting mutinous was as satisfying as the results to a certain Senatorial race, which we toasted by the way, since that was the reason for the season.

Eight of us destroyed the buffet at Heritage India, while discussing everything from breaking gossip (“Wait– HOW did that macaca get his JOB???”) to female infanticide in Punjab (“No, it’s not just a problem for the lower classes…educated people do it, too.”) to who knew a jew (“Have you SEEN the synagogue in Cochin???”). Care to gnash your teeth enviously because of what you missed? Find an entire album of awesome on my Flickr.

Commenter “Vivo” gets a special award for putting up with my non-stop derision after he accidentally made noises which sounded vaguely anti-Kerala (“Ah,” you’re thinking…”NOW these comments make sense”). Kindly be noting that I did not apologize for carrying him relentlessly– I mean, he totally deserved that. I can appreciate his thick skin without relinquishing my right to thenga-flavored chauvinism. 😉

Lurker Leo also deserves massive love for coming to the meetup, since he lives in Raleigh. He and his friend, the unexpected guest star (of David) of brunch both said farewell to me in the middle of Connecticut Avenue while everyone else left for Cosi, since we had closed out Heritage India. I hope they had a safe trip home. 🙂 Did I mention one of them was JEWISH??? 😀

Oh, that reminds me– while everyone else dodged raindrops and bitter cold by running in to s’mores central, DTK chivalrously waited for me as I hugged the North Carolinians farewell. Isn’t he the sweet? I must say, though my man-harem was filled with brilliant, witty, bewitching (bewarlocking?) goodness, nothing makes a girl feel funny in the tummy like a seemingly insignificant gesture like THAT. 😉

Inside Cosi, things REALLY got crazy, as you can see from the picture above. 🙂 It certainly didn’t hurt that three hilarious, very cute girls had joined us after brunch, two of whom were Kenyandesi and Barmaid. Jealous much? You should be. 🙂 I felt like a kid in a conversational candy store– everyone was saying something fascinating and I almost got dizzy from trying to follow all the fast and furious banter. Continue reading →

Songs for the Sleepless

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It probably won’t surprise many people if I mention that these days we aren’t getting much sleep in my house. Our newborn, Puran, tends to wake up hungry every 2-3 hours at night. The feeding part is usually relatively straightforward; it’s getting the little guy to burp and then sleep again that takes some time and persistence. The best tactic involves picking him up and pacing for fifteen minutes.

One of my colleagues in the English Department suggested reciting poetry while walking; the sound of iambic pentameter is said to be soporific. But sadly, I’m not that kind of English lit. person — with my new-skool education, I never actually managed to memorize anything. Instead — and it’s not a bad substitute, really — we tend to sing to him, basically whatever pop songs come into mind (the Beatles are especially good: “I’m so tired/ I haven’t slept a wink…”; “Cry, baby cry/ Make your mother sigh…”).

One trick to make the late night hours roll along more quickly is a little game we came up with: take a classic Hindi/Urdu romantic song about sleeplessness, and tweak it slightly to fit the current context. For instance:

O ho ho ho, khoya khoya chaand, khula aasmaan
Aankhon mein saari raat jaayegi
Tumko bhi kaise neend aayegi (full lyrics)
Hidden, hidden moon; open skies
In your eyes, I’ll be awake all night
And how can you sleep either?

And the travestied version might be: 

O ho ho ho, khoya khoya chaand, khula aasmaan
Dikaar mein saari raat jaayegi
Humko bhi kaise neend aayegi

“Dikaar” means “burp.” You can see the old song at Youtube ; it’s Dev Anand in a film called Kala Bazaar. Continue reading →

Have Brunch With the Mutiny!

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Eight people are here at Heritage India and I’m thrilled to report that I’m the only girl…FINALLY, I have my man-harem! 😀

Rollcall: Sriram, Prashant, Vivo, Salil, “context-specific” and his friend, DTK…and ME!

I told the story of the birth of the Mutiny…again. This meetup tradition continues.

WE HAVE AN INDIAN JEW AT THE MEETUP!!! I’ve always wanted to meet one (aside from the Baghdadi Jew from Kolkota I met once…who wasn’t very Indian).

Salil’s honeymoon story: the ONLY time the “slippery slope” argument was actually true! Continue reading →

The Macaca Speaks

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The Washington Post carries an op-ed this morning by none other than the Macaca himself. Shekar Ramanuja (S.R.) Sidarth speaks:

So What’cha What’cha What’cha Want?

…on Aug. 11, my experience took a strange — and now famous — turn. On that day in Breaks Interstate Park, located on the Kentucky border, Allen acknowledged my presence for the first time in one of his stump speeches. I was singled out at a GOP picnic, identified as “macaca or whatever his name is” — despite the fact that Allen knew my name, as we had been traveling the same route for five days — and then “welcome[d] to America and the real world of Virginia.”

Allen’s actions that day stood out because they were not representative of how I was treated while traveling around the state. Everywhere I went, though I was identifiably working on behalf of Allen’s opponent, people treated me with dignity, respect and kindness. I cannot recall one event where food was served and I was not invited to join in the meal. In southwest Virginia, hospitality toward me was at a high point. [Link]

Heaping praise upon the state and people of Virginia? Hmmm. Sounds like something that a politician would do. Maybe he will run in 20 years. Also, at long last Sidarth reveals the one crucial piece of information that we’ve been waiting months to hear:

After Allen’s remarks, my heritage suddenly became a matter of widespread interest. I am proud to be a second-generation Indian American and a practicing Hindu. My parents were born and raised in India and immigrated here more than 25 years ago; I have known no home other than Northern Virginia. The hairstyle inflicted upon me by two friends late one night also became newsworthy; for the record, it was intended to be a mullet and has since grown out to nearly the appropriate length. [Link]

And finally, Sidarth notes something about the “Real Virginia:”

The politics of division just don’t work anymore. Nothing made me happier on election night than finding out the results from Dickenson County, where Allen and I had our encounter. Webb won there, in what I can only hope was a vote to deal the race card out of American politics once and for all. [Link]
Continue reading →

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DC Meetup MADNESS

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I’m so sorry that I’ve been Arular lately, but I promise that New York (as much as I adore it) won’t be the only Sepia city to get mutinous, especially after the glee-inducing events of this past week. I mean…come on…this victory was all about chocolate, not apples. 😉 Besides, I won’t be able to attend the New York meetup and I want to celebrate just as much as Siddhartha and Vinod do. 226622742_b0a003c568_m.jpg

I was originally going to propose something different: a meetup/workshop hybrid which would oocur at some cafe as we wrote and read 55s…sort of a mash-up of the Kahani writing gatherings I used to host and our regular SM melas. But, I think that after Tuesday’s triumph of relatively-good over the most-fumbled-cammpaign ever, zimbly hanging out and laughing our kundis off (which we did at the last DC meetup, pictured left) might be a more apposite goal.

So, while I don’t mind getting together Saturday night for potentially scandalous debauchery (especially if it ends in the wee hours with cheese-veggie-burgers at Fuddruckers), I’m wondering if Sunday afternoon will work for more of you?

How about brunch at Heritage India Dupont, on Sunday at 1pm?

Heritage India is near the blue/orange/red lines and it’s bang in the middle of everything, so if we’re having fun, we can sluggishly waddle off somewhere else after being sated by the best ma ki dal in DC. Brunch is served until 2:30pm, so IST can be slightly accomodated. 🙂 RSVP in the comments below, so I can make reservations tomorrow, y’heard?

:+:

If you can’t eat the cutest aloo tikki EVER with us at Heritage this weekend (trust me, the presentation always delights), consider partying with us a month from now, during Sepia Mutiny’s first-ever Hanukkah meetup, on December 16. This could be the meetup to trump all meetups because… Continue reading →

Dalits liberated by English?

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Dalit activist Chandrabhan Prasad just celebrated the 206th birthday of Lord Macaulay, with a party in New Delhi [via Shashwati]. Why celebrate the face of English imperialism? Because for some groups domination by a foreign overlord was better than domestic oppression.

…. Prasad … hails Macaulay as the Father of Indian Modernity, for it was after the introduction of his English system of education in 1854, that Dalits got the right to education, he says. [Link]

Bhan has three reasons for revering Macaulay – his insistence to teach the “natives” English broke the stranglehold of Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic teaching, a privilege of only the elite castes and, he argued,for the European kind of modern education, with focus on modern sciences. “Imagine, if we had only followed indigenous study,” said Bhan, “we would be like Afghanistan or Nepal today.”… [Link]

These activists go further than celebrating Macaulay’s role in the past, however, and call for English to be central to Dalit education in the future. They unveilled a portrait of “English, the Dalit Goddess”:

Dalit poet Parak sang a couplet to the portrait – a refashioned Statue of Liberty, wearing a hippie hat, holding a massive pink pen, standing on a computer, with a blazing map of India in the background – Oh, Devi Ma/ Please Let us Learn English/ Even the dogs understand English, to cheers and laughter, …

Bhan … declared … “Hereafter, the first sounds all newborn Dalit and Adivasi babies will hear from their parents is – abcd. Immediately after birth, parents or a nearest relative will walk up to the child and whisper in the ear – abcd,’… [Link]

Is English a tool of liberation? Are indigenous Indian languages oppressive?

The remedy … is to … become English speaking at the earliest. Goddess English is all about emancipation. Goddess English is a mass movement against the Caste Order, against linguistic evils such as Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telgu and Bangla for instance. Indian languages as more about prejudices, discrimination and hatred and less about expressions and communications. [Link]

Or is this just a PR stunt, to stick a finger in the eye of the local intelligencia? Is the best path for Dalit advancement to reject Indian languages in favor of English? Lastly, should they learn International English or Desi Hinglish?

Continue reading →

AALDEF’s exit polling efforts part II

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As I mentioned on Wednesday, AALDEF conducted an exit poll during Tuesday’s elections. They queried Asian American (including South Asian American) voters that they saw leaving the polls in the states of DC, MD, VA, PA, MA, MI, NY and NJ. Here is an example of a set of exit poll questions (this one from New York). Before taking a look at the results I want to stress two things:

  1. These are primarily “blue states”
  2. This is data from all groups of Asian voters. I don’t think they’ve released stats yet which break the data down by sub group (e.g., Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, etc.)

Here are excerpts from AALDEF’s press release (thanks Deepa). I’ve highlighted the data that I found especially interesting and in some instances stripped AALDEF’s commentary/interpretation. Although I think they do great work I find them to sometimes sound “too enthusiastic” in their analysis and I’d rather you guys interpret the numbers (and any perceived biases) for yourselves:

Asian American voters in eight states continued a decade-long shift to support Democratic candidates, with 79% of those polled favoring Democrats in Tuesday’s congressional and state elections. According to preliminary results of a nonpartisan, multilingual exit poll of over 4,600 Asian American voters, released today by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), Democratic candidates in closely-watched races in Virginia, New Jersey and other states were consistently buoyed by Asian American voter turnout.

Most exit poll respondents (87%) said that they had voted in a previous election, while 13% told AALDEF volunteers that they were first-time voters. Over 625 pro bono attorneys, law students, and community activists monitored polling places and surveyed Asian American voters in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C…

Continue reading →

November to Remember: The NYC Meetup, 11/18

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The election is over, and it leaves our community divided. We have happy macacas, upset macacas, indifferent macacas, and those who object to the term macaca. But surely the one political development of the last couple of days that has won broad-based approval is the apparent defeat of Sen. George Allen, for the reasons we all know. And in response, there have been calls for a party.

We’d love to fly all of you out to the bunker, where we could throw an outrageously debauched event away from prying eyes. Maybe someday. But for now, we offer the next best thing. On behalf of the whole crew, Vinod and myself invite you to The Sepia Mutiny “November to Remember” New York City Meetup, Saturday, November 18, 5:00 – 7:00 PM, at Epistrophy Cafe, 200 Mott Street (between Spring and Kenmare).

We’ve chosen this timing so that folks can join us and still go on to their fabulous New York evening activities, so no excuses! Epistrophy is a low-key, high-quality wine-oriented cafe with small food, both veg and non-veg, and reasonable prices. It’s owned by a couple from Sardinia and named for a Thelonious Monk classic. After 7, those who are so inclined can move on to dinner somewhere, but in the spirit of Monk, we’ll improvise.

FAQ: Regulars are welcome. Lurkers are welcome and encouraged. Aunties and Uncles are welcome. Aishwarya Rai, Kal Penn, M. Night Shyamalan, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Bipasha Basu, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy, Dr. Vijay, Salman Rushdie, Laloo Prasad Yadav, are all welcome. Macacas and non-macacas are welcome. Exotifiers and orientalists are welcome. Those who aren’t welcome are velcome.

Please to kindly RSVP in the comment thread, so we get a sense of numbers and whether we need to move the party to Bungalow 8 or Madison Square Garden. Zindabad! Continue reading →

AALDEF’s exit polling efforts

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The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, with the aid of organizations like SAALT, were once again (they did this in 2004 as well) taking exit polling data on how Asian American voters voted in the mostly Blue States of DC, MD, VA, PA, MA, MI, NY and NJ. They haven’t realeased the data yet (although I am working on obtaining a sneak peek) but here are some of the incidents they logged at polling sites yesterday. Some of you told us about your own problems. You weren’t alone. From their press release:

More than 625 volunteers from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) and a coalition of Asian American advocacy groups monitored today’s elections in eight states–New York,New Jersey,Massachusetts, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania,Virginia,and Maryland–and Washington, D.C. Amid high Asian American voter turnout, AALDEF volunteers documented and phoned in reports that polling places were understaffed, poll workers were hostile to Asian American voters and improperly asked for IDs, and translated voter assistance materials were not readily available to Asian-language voters.

Preliminary list of Asian American voting problems in 2006 Midterm Elections:

New York

Under Section 203 of the federal Voting Rights Act, jurisdictions with large Asian-language populations must provide Chinese- and Korean-language voting assistance, including interpreters at polling places and translated ballots, signs and materials. In New York City, three boroughs are required to provide Chinese-language assistance–Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn–and Queens is also required to provide Korean-language assistance.

* At P.S. 20 in Flushing, Queens , the poll site coordinator told an AALDEF monitor that “A lot of Chinese and Koreans don’t speak English. This is America –they should learn English.” Translated materials, including the voters’ bill of rights and voting machine instructions, were not posted at the beginning of the day.

* At P.S. 126 in Chinatown , a poll worker walked down a line of Asian American voters and improperly asked them to show identification in order to make the line would move faster. Another poll worker asked voters to show their voter registration cards, also not a voting prerequisite.

Continue reading →