If you can foot the bill

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nagranisocks.jpgMy favorite fashion writer, Robin Givhan of the Washington Post, has a story on the desi entrepreneur who has devoted his life to solving the following problem:

“I see a guy with a great suit on and nasty socks, I think, ‘Come on, finish the job!'” he says.

Great suit, nasty socks: truly one of the great fashion missteps of our time and one that many of our gentlemen readers will surely recognize. You know the feeling when you’re getting ready for a big meeting and realize all you have is holey, lumpy or mismatched socks? Well, Vivek Nagrani is here to help, at a mere $125 a pair. Hey, that’s only $62.50 per sock!

Nagrani makes a “Gatsby” sock with the image of a woman sipping a martini, strategically resting along a man’s Achilles’ tendon. “She’s holding him up,” he explains. Another pair of socks named “Luther” have a floral pattern winding up the inside of the calf; the flowers are revealed only when a man sits down and crosses his legs. He named another pair of socks “Brian,” after a customer who is attached to his dog Bottle Cap. The socks have stylized paw prints all over them.

You can read all about Nagrani in Givhan’s article. Meanwhile, I took a look at his corporate website, to learn more about this captain of industry, and found this description of the Nagrani brand:

The V.K. Nagrani label is privileged to create products for the diplomatic, scientific, military, artisanal and financial elite. With no surprise, men who define themselves by their distinct character rather than their possessions remain our most loyal customers and become our revered friends. Whether named by collection or by connoisseur, we grace such men of influence with our name. After all, the spirit of V.K. Nagrani is a sine qua non of any depiction of the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie or, quite simply, a life of luxury and elegance.

The day you see the “Churchill” — “lemon yellow with stripes of coco and blue” — haughtily peeking out beneath the impeccable cuff of my bespoke pantaloons, you’ll know that I no longer have time for plebeians like you. Continue reading →

Summer Hindi Film Music: “Omkara” Stands Out

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I found Krrish and Fanaa entertaining enough to watch, though I instantly forgot the songs to both films, and haven’t had reason to go back for a second listen. I’ve also been sampling some of the other Hindi film music this summer via Raaga, and with a couple of exceptions the songs all sound like they were produced by robots who hate music. The Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna songs in particular are atrociously bad. (Kabhi Repeat Naa Karna.) omkara still3.jpg

One big exception from what I’ve heard are the songs to Omkara, the new adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello by Vishal Bhardwaj. Bhardwaj directed another rendition of Shakespeare in Maqbool (Macbeth). Maqbool (Irfan Khan, Tabu, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri) was artfully done and well-acted, though I was a little confused about the obsessive focus on religion in the film. In Omkara, Bhardwaj is working as both director and music director, and the soundtrack benefits from the close attention to detail he evidently paid to it. The title track (“Omkara”), with Sukhwinder Singh’s vocals, is wonderful: it has that early A.R. Rahman happiness, the “Chaiya Chaiya” magic: Sukhwinder has a lot of power in his voice, and this tune celebrating the warrior “Omkara” allows it to come through. “Beedi” is also quite catchy — with a Qawwali sound — as is “Naina” (with vocals by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan). I’m a little less enthusiastic about the album’s slow songs, “Jag Ja,” and “O Saathi Re,” though they are still good — folksy and semi-classical rather than simply slow and pseudo-emotional (as in most Bollywood slow songs these days).

In short: sounds like A.R. Rahman, but much better than Rahman has been lately. Continue reading →

“Racial harmony” in Preston, Lancashire

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In the previous post I commented on the story of an apparent racist incident, that things are not always what they seem. On the other hand, sometimes things are very much what they seem. Today British authorities are trying to determine whether the stabbing death of an Asian man in a public housing estate after a pitched battle between whites and Asians armed with knives and baseball bats could possibly have had a racial component:

Police and community leaders in Preston, Lancashire, appealed for calm last night after 20-year-old Shezan Umarji was stabbed to death amid running battles between white and Asian youths early yesterday.

The young man was attacked outside his home in Fishwick View, on the city’s deprived Callon housing estate.

Racist abuse was involved:

Det Supt Graham Gardner, of Lancashire police, said racist abuse was used during the confrontation.

“There are racist elements to this murder. As such it has been declared as a racist murder investigation.”

But community leaders seem eager to downplay the racial dimension:

Community leaders played down any suggestion the attack may have been racially motivated but police sources said it appeared the battle was between Asian and white youths, some armed with baseball bats.

Councillor Taalib Shamsuddin denied racism was involved. ‘There were two groups. It was a hot night and there were people who were drunk. It’s as simple as that … The early indications are that this wasn’t a systematic racial issue. It was a disagreement between two guys that got out of hand.’

And this:

Ch Insp Cath Thundercloud, head of community relations for Lancashire Constabulary, insisted Preston was not troubled by racial disharmony, despite figures which placed it at the top of a chart for incidents of racial abuse. …

“We’ve got a lot of mixed races on that estate, and they live together in harmony all year long, and they’ve grown up together and they live together, so this is very rare indeed.”

In a sense they have a point: to reduce this incident to a hate crime risks diminishing the importance of other factors in play, such as poverty, joblessness, depressing housing conditions, and a generalized culture of booze and violence. Still, deploying the idea of “a lot of mixed races” “living together in harmony” seems quite a preposterous move at this time. I’d love to hear from the British massive on all this. Continue reading →

“Watch your kids,” indeed

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Eight weeks ago, relaying news of the harassment of a Hindu family in Wayne, NJ, our own A N N A made a prescient comment. Remarking on the verbiage of the reported written threats (“We Kill U,” “We will Fire your house,” “Watch Your Kids”) she said:

Feel free to scream at me for this, but I know desis who sound just like that, not that I’m in any way implying that it’s an inside job OR that asshat racists are usually articulate. “We will Fire your house”?

Her hunch was correct. It was an inside job. In what an email from SAJA delicately calls a “twist” in the story, it turns out that the perpetrator of six months’ worth of threatening letters and spray-painted messages was the family’s own son, now 17.

The ensuing investigation — which included DNA, fingerprint and computer analysis — brought together Wayne police, the Prosecutor’s Office, the state Division of Criminal Justice and the FBI.

Avigliano said the boy had recruited several friends to help with his campaign, which began with a series of hate letters in late January. Several teenagers have been interviewed, and more will be questioned in the next few days, the prosecutor said. Criminal charges are imminent, he said.

Reached by phone, the boy’s father said Friday that he was overwhelmed with pain as he tried to elicit answers from his son. The Record has withheld the family’s name at their request.

“My heart is breaking right now,” he said. “I can’t figure out why my son would do something like that.”

Indeed, the motive remains unclear, with police speculating only that the young man was upset at the familyÂ’s having recently moved to Wayne from another New Jersey town.

This would simply be a garden-variety family drama featuring a teenager alienated from his parents for reasons not ours to know, were it not, of course, for the ethnic and religious dimension of the threatening language, which raised the alarm of community organizations as well as the authorities:

There were also ethnic slurs — “I HATE INDIANS,” for example — and others too vulgar to print that targeted Hindus.

No doubt there are various morals to this story that people will put forward from different points of view. Suffice here to note that this is a sad story and a reminder that in all aspects of life, things are often not what they seem. Continue reading →

Humanitarian crisis looms

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I’m sure we are all praying right now that humanitarian supplies including food and medicine are able to reach the civilian Lebanese population. Not to take away at all from that situation but since it is being thoroughly discussed elsewhere in the news and on the web, I thought I would divert the attention of SM readers for just a few minutes by speaking out about the looming crisis here in America and among other Diasporic desi communities. Folks, we have a daal shortage that hasn’t received nearly enough attention and it’s not going to be pretty when it all plays out. India West reports:

Soon to be more precious than gold?

Faced with an unexpected crunch in supply of dal and lentils, the staple item of the Indian meal, that’s the advice hapless store owners are giving to worried customers after an Indian ban on exports of lentils (I-W, June 30) has sent prices soaring and supplies dwindling. The Indian government has banned the export of dals and lentils until March 2007 to curb rising commodity prices.

“We advise customers to concentrate more on the vegetable than the dal,” Dinesh Kumar of India Cash and Carry, a busy Indian grocery store in Sunnyvale, Calif., told India-West.

No Indian meal is complete without dal, and it is a critical source of protein for vegetarians. Over the weekend, customers have been flocking to the aisle that stores dal, Kumar said. [Link]

The advice they are giving us is to “concentrate more on the vegetable than the dal?” That’s like asking someone to concentrate more on their job than on love, or to concentrate more on a blogger instead of the doctor or the finance guy. It just isn’t going to happen. As the article points out, daal is a CRITICAL source of protein for vegetarians. Is this some sort of bad karma for when all the vegetarians poked fun at the beef eaters for their mad-cow friendly ways? Now the chief protein source of vegetarian desis has come under threat.

“People are in a little panic for dals right now, even though we are requesting them to not take too many packets,” said Kumar, whose store has set a limit of a four-pound pack per household. People were cooperating, he said.

Prices have shot up. Toor dal, which retailed for less than a dollar a pound a couple of weeks ago, has shot up to almost two dollars a pound. [Link]

When I went to the Indian grocery store on my block last weekend I saw a little boy get trampled by three aunties who all reached for the same package of daal on the shelf. As the paramedics loaded him onto the ambulance he kept crying, “why Bhagwan, why?”

“Demands have gone up way high. Everybody is looking for dal and there is not enough in the market,” Parmar told India-West. “We have to supply each and every store; we have limited quantity to supply…” [Link]

Because of my blogging duties I knew about this looming crisis before most in the media and public. I have been steadily stocking up on daal by filling up one of the storage rooms here in our North Dakota bunker. Even my co-bloggers have remained in the dark about my grand designs. My power and influence in the blogosphere and the world in general will no doubt rise as knowledge of my new wealth spreads.

It’s hard to tell how this would play out, he said. “As of now, the market is in a period of uncertainty,” Soni said. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen in the course of the next month…” [Link]

In a post-apocalyptic world where daal is scarce I will have my choice of a beautiful desi bride in search of protein…or perhaps several brides.

Continue reading →

The Merchants of Kidney-vakkam

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PBS’ Frontline Roughcut series lives up to its name with its latest on-line film. You might remember that I have linked to their on-line film series before. The latest one tracks the human kidney trafficing business in a slum near Chennai nicknamed “Kidney-vakkam.” The 10 minute film is titled, A Pound of Flesh: Selling kidneys to survive.

Traveling between Bangalore, India’s thriving technology center, and the slums to the south, Grant spoke to government officials, doctors, kidney brokers and donors to try to find out why so many people are still getting paid to give up their kidneys even though a law was passed 12 years ago to heavily regulate the practice. When Grant arrived in the slums of Chennai, about eight hours south by train from Bangalore, someone offered to sell her their kidney on the spot. “I was stunned,” she says.

A New York Times Magazine article recently asked the question, “Why not let people sell their organs?” From an economic point of view, the article explains, demand for kidneys is far outrunning supply around the world. If people could legally sell, economists argue, more people with kidney disease might be saved, and the poor people willing to sell would have a chance to get badly needed funds.

As Grant reveals, the problem is especially acute in India, where demand for kidney transplants is increasing along with the country’s growing numbers of diabetics, a health problem that has been directly linked to India’s recent prosperity and rise in obesity. Those who can afford medical care are much more likely to receive a new organ, often because inside India’s impoverished slums, many are desperate enough to sell a kidney for as little as a few hundred dollars. [Link]

The film points out that as Indians increasingly adopt a western diet they are becoming more susceptible to kidney disease, thus increasing the demand for illegally sold kidneys.

Above all, Grant’s story shows a vicious cycle among India’s poorest — particularly among women, the family members traditionally expected to sell their kidneys. Holding out her original donor card, one woman tells Grant that she has been waiting 17 years for the rest of the money promised her. [Link]

As the film explains, the quickest way to close down this practice is to limit kidney donations to between blood relatives, but nobody seems incentivized to do this.

Continue reading →

The Rocket Men and the Tiger of Mysore

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The recent and still developing conflict between Israel and the Lebanese terrorist group Hizbollah has caused many analysts and pundits to point out the great disparity in arms between the two combatants:

Tipu_Sultan.jpg

The State Department’s 1993 report on international terrorism lists Hizbollah’s “strength” at several thousand. Hizbollah sources assert that the organization has about 5,000-10,000 fighters. Other sources report that Hizbollah’s militia consists of a core of about 300-400 fighters, which can be expanded to up to 3,000 within several hours if a battle with Israel develops. These reserves presumably are called in from Hizbollah strongholds in Lebanon, including the Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs. The number of members involved in combat activity in southern Lebanon is under 1,000. But it has many activists and moral supporters. After the Israeli withdrawal Hizballah reduced the number of full time fighters to about 500, though estimates range from 300 to 1,200. There are also several thousand reserves, but these lack training or experience. Hizbollah’s militia is a light force, equipped with small arms, such as automatic rifles, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and Katyusha rockets, which it occasionally has fired on towns in northern Israel. Hizbollah forces are shown on television conducting military parades in Beirut, which often include tanks and armored personnel carriers that may have been captured from the Lebanese army or purchased from Palestinian guerrillas or other sources. [Link]

versus:

The IDF [Israeli Defense Force] is considered to be one of the most high-tech armies in the world, possessing top-of-the-line weapons and computer systems, Some of it American-made or indigenously modified (such as the M4A1 assault rifle, F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon jets and Apache helicopter). Israel receives more than US$2 billion per year in military aid from the United States, and much of it requires that American equipment be purchased with it. In spite of this however, Israel also has developed its own independent weapons industry. Weapons such as the Merkava battle tank, Kfir jet series, and various small arms such as the Galil assault rifle and Uzi submachine gun have all proven to be very successful.

The IDF also has several large internal research and development departments, and it purchases many technologies produced by the Israeli security industries including IAI, IMI, Elbit, El-Op, Rafael, Soltam and dozens of smaller firms. Many of these developments have been battle-tested in Israel’s numerous military engagements, making the relationship mutually beneficial, the IDF getting tailor-made solutions and the industries a very high repute. [Link]

This post is filed under, “Another thing that Indians invented that you probably didn’t know about.” In this case however, the invention might be viewed by some as a rather dubious honor. The only weapon of any significance in Hizbollah’s arsenal is the Katyusha rocket. Can this single weapon threaten to defeat the IDF? No. But it was the Indians that invented the use of rocket artillery in battle, and the father of rocket artillery, Tipu Sultan (the Tiger of Mysore), was celebrated for his use of rocket artillery in defeating the superior British army in the 1792 Srirangapatna War.

…Tipu Sultan achieved a grand victory, whereby the whole British detachment lead by Colonel Baillie was destroyed and 3820 soldiers were taken prisoner (including Colonel Bailli). the contributory cause being that one of the British ammunition tambrils was set on fire by Mysorean rockets.

At the Battle of Seringapatam in 1792, Indian soldiers launched a huge barrage of rockets against British troops, followed by an assault of 36,000 men. Although the Indian rockets were primitive by modern standards, their sheer numbers, noise and brilliance were said to have been quite effective at disorienting British soldiers. During the night, the rockets were often seen as blue lights bursting in the air. Since Indian forces were able to launch these bursting rockets from in front of and behind British lines, they were a tremendous tool for throwing the British off guard. The bursting rockets were usually followed by a deadly shower of rockets aimed directly at the soldiers. Some of these rockets passed from the front of the British columns to the rear, inflicting injury and death as they passed.[Link]

Continue reading →

Enlighten the Mutiny!

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Love posting stories on the News tab? But hate copying-pasting multiple times? Well, I have something for you!

There is a new “bookmarklet” for the news tab. Look under the “Post story” link. Just drag that link to your bookmarks/favorites toolbar, and next time whenever you are reading a news story that you want to post on the news tab, just select the summary and click “Enlighten the Mutiny” on your bookmarks/favorites toolbar. Two clicks and be done! It’s that simple!

How to add this bookmarklet to Firefox:

  1. Make sure your Bookmarks toolbar is visible (View menu > Toolbars > Bookmarks toolbar)
  2. Drag “Enlighten the Mutiny” link from the news tab to your Bookmarks toolbar.
  3. Goto to a story you want to tell the Mutiny about.
  4. Select a summary from that story.
  5. Hit “Enlighten the Mutiny” on the bookmarks toolbar, and then hit Post!
  6. All done!

How to add this bookmarklet to Internet Explorer:

  1. Make sure that View menu > Toolbars > Links is checked
  2. Right click on “Enlighten the Mutiny” link on the news tab and select “Add to Favorites”
  3. Depending on your security settings, Internet Explorer may complain that it may be unsafe, ignore it, click yes.
  4. Click “Create In”, if its not already open. Select the Links folder. Click Ok.
  5. Goto to a story you want to tell the Mutiny about.
  6. Select a summary from that story.
  7. Hit “Enlighten the Mutiny” on the Links toolbar, and then hit Post!
  8. All done!

This bookmarklet should work in all major browsers, including Opera and Safari. If you have any problems using this feature, just post a comment below. Continue reading →

Sonia, Congress Stop Jag Mundhra Biopic

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Sometimes blogging lands you up in funny places. SM’s own Abhi and Patrix from Desipundit were recently quoted in an excellent San Francisco Chronicle regarding the new Indian comic books. A mystery man named “Ennis Singh Mutinywale” was quoted all over the place after dropping this bombshell. Manish Vij had, as mentioned earlier, a quality piece in Salon after the Mumbai blasts. And a number of bloggers (naturally) were quoted in mainstream media coverage of the Indian blog ban — not surprising since several prominent desi bloggers are also professional journalists.

Today it was my turn, albeit in a smaller way — the Times of London called for a comment on Sonia Gandhi’s attempt to suppress Jag Mundhra’s planned biopic about her (starring Monica “Mary Magdalene” Belluci as the young Sonia Gandhi). I blogged about it two months ago, and somehow that turned into this:

Despite priding itself on a constitution that guarantees freedom of expression, India has a history of censorship. It was the first country to ban Salman RushdieÂ’s The Satanic Verses and the Central Board of Film Certification regularly uses the fear of civil unrest between its Hindu and Muslim communities to demand cuts from directors or to keep certain films out of cinemas. Only yesterday, a ban was lifted on 17 websites that ministers claimed were fanning religious hatred after the bomb blasts in Bombay on July 11.

Amardeep Singh, assistant professor of English at Lehigh University, in Pennsylvania, was not surprised by Mrs GandhiÂ’s attempts to stop the film. “There is a knee-jerk censoriousness in Indian politics and it is a sad reaction to try to suppress the film before it has even been produced,” he said. “It is meant to be a respectful biopic, but I think theyÂ’re just nervous because the director has a reputation for the unsavoury.” (link)

Admittedly, that last statement was pure speculation on my part (one always wishes the reporter quoted the other thing you said…). But this censorship problem is, as Dilip D’Souza has ably argued, a systemic problem we need to be continually vigilant about. India would be a better place if the default were to allow people to have their say rather than block, ban, and censor. (And it’s not just a Congress Party thing; the BJP were no slouches when it came to censoring views they weren’t happy about.)

Sadly, the filmmakers here have apparently decided to shelve the film rather than insist on their right to make it. Continue reading →

I smell a revolting odour in what you speak

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A tipster on the News page alerts us to the following very odd column by Jon Carroll in the San Francisco Chronicle. The tipster comments: “Personally I think this article is in poor taste, but I’ll let others decide for themselves. I don’t want to be accused of jingoism.” A wise display of circumspection! So let’s take a look for ourselves. Carroll begins:

Occasionally over the years I have reprinted examples of English written by people for whom English is not their native language. Many of the examples appeared to be translations prepared by somebody with a whatever-to-English dictionary and a keen will to succeed. The earnest author would often, perhaps unknowingly, have a fit of fancy, often landing in magical territory unvisited by native speakers.

Okay… So, where are we going with this?

People often accused me of making fun of the writers. Not at all. I loved the writers. They were demonstrating how flexible English can be, something that professional writers tend to forget. It’s nice that the grammar police exist, but they mustn’t be allowed to rule. Language is not just a tool or a blade; sometimes it’s a springboard or a trampoline or a balloon.

Tool, blade; springboard, trampoline, balloon. Right. Anyway:

English as spoken in India is not a mistranslation; it’s a different dialect. Most written Indian English is made for domestic consumption, so it can follow rules that make intuitive sense to the audience.

Ah! We’re going to make fun of Indian English! Sure, why not.

The work below was prepared by a friend of a friend.

The old friend-of-friend move. Convenient when you write a daily column. (No columnist should ever write daily.)

All the sentences are reported to be actual quotations from one issue of True Crimes magazine

Reported to be actual! (Columnists don’t have to fact check either.) Now, onto this Indian English of which you speak:

Her husband clipped her ambitions with the instrument of refusal. The pangs of separation from her paramour made her to suffer….

When he retired to his bed that night, he tried to analyze latent import of her expressions; his body got thrilled….

Vijay’s friends had cars, in which stereos were fitted and they used to insert cassettes in the decks and then enjoy melody of recorded songs. “Come, let us go to the lake and listen to melodies of songs there….”

Geeta smelt a revolting odour in what he spoke. But Vijay was influential and also commanded much muscle power. Although he was in love with another girl called Lucy, a modern and highly fashionable dame, love messages were started exchanging through visual contact. Geeta put a bewitching and killing smile on her lips. Vijay didn’t find her unsuitable for an immoral act. “My business pertains to counterfeit currency and alongside I also do swindling. I will indulge in such novel acts of sex that your spirits will blossom and cheer you up and you will not feel sorry….”

Geeta: “Would I prepare for celebration?”

And so on. Anyway, here’s my question: as odd as Indian English can get, is this at all representative? Maybe I’ve just been sheltered from the worst of it. If so, feel free to rupture my illusions, preferably supplying your favorite examples. But if not, what exactly was the purpose of this column?

Continue reading →