Mmmmmmmangoes!

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For me, the sweetest fruit of Bush’s bisit to India is that finally, after 17 years of trying, Indian mangoes will soon be available in the US. Thus far, desis in the US have had to settle for Mexican mangoes, which are neither as sweet nor as juicy as what one can get back in the sub-continent.

Perfection in a golden wrapper

While India is the largest producer of mangoes (41% of the world produce), and the US is the largest importer (29% of all imports), there was no convergence between the two. The gainer was Mexico which only produces 5 per cent of the world’s mangoes and has 25 per cent of the mango export market. [Link]

The cause of the decades long mango moratorium was a fear of alien invasion, a (legitimate) concern about nasty creepy crawlies that might infest America’s fecund farmlands. This concern has now been allayed via the miracle of modern science – Indian mangoes will be nuked, neutered and neutralized before they are allowed to immigrate:

Preventing Indian mangoes from entering US supermarkets was the strict Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) conditions imposed by the US. Pests like pulp weevil and fruit fly are alien to US conditions. And the US was never confident about India’s capability to make the harvest pest-free… Several meetings later, the clincher was irradiation, the method to be now adopted to make mangoes pest-free. Earlier, it was limited to vapour treatment and quarantine. [Link]

How sweet it is. M-day is roughly 18 months away and I can hardly wait!

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Update/Art Advisory: “Disappeared”

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A note on the tipline from desi academic extraordinaire Amitava Kumar reminds us of Disappeared in America, an ongoing multimedia project that began by documenting the round-up of immigrants in the post-9/11 hysteria and has now expanded into a web of collaborations among America- and Europe-based artists. Together they are tackling the rise of suspicion and xenophobia in all these countries, the climate of secrecy and fear, the intended and unintended consequences of actions by governments and their foes. (Manish mentioned the project last February here.)

… While our work started in the American context, we have expanded to look at Europe & the Middle East, in recognition that anti-migrant xenophobia, coupled with Islamophobia, is not a new or uniquely American phenomenon.

The collaborative has several new “interventions” in the next couple of months in New York, Houston and San Francisco that Mutineers in those cities might find interesting.

This is also an opportunity to point folks to tipster Amitava’s work. Now a professor at Vassar College, he’s one of those desi polymaths who covers politics, art, culture, discourse, sociology with even analytical poise and great literary verve. He’s also perhaps the most prominent and interesting discussant of matters Bihari on the web. Indeed, if there’s a thematic connection here, it’s that he is actively engaged in un-disappearing Bihar from the collective consciousness, a Sisyphean task that he handles with aplomb.

Recent posts on Amitava’s blog include one featuring photos from the arrival in Bihar of the avian flu; a mock letter from Lalu Yadav, Bihar’s “supremo” (as an Indian newspaper might say) to George Bush; and a joyful announcement of the upcoming U.S. edition of Upamanyu Chatterjee’s comic classic English, August, 18 years after its original publication. Continue reading →

Posted in Art

Baby steps

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The recent verdict in a scandalous Delhi killing argues the well-connected can still literally get away with murder. Our Most Favored Flatulation Guy Trebay summarized the case in the Village Voice in ’99:

A man refused a late-night drink at a tony hot spot pulls out a gun and fires it twice… the alleged killer was the son of a former cabinet minister, his victim was a onetime model, the bar was in the most stylish shopping complex in the city, and the murderer waltzed away in front of hundreds…

Demanding whiskey, Sharma was told by Malini Ramani that he could have a sip of her drink for 1000 rupees, or about $35, her sister claims. “It was a normal remark, and I guess only a madman would react in such a violent way,” Malini would later say. Sharma apparently approached Lal next and, when she told him the bar was closed, pulled out a .22 and fired. It was the second bullet that caught Lal in the forehead. Sharma then walked to the courtyard and smiled his way out through the crowd. [Link]

Seven years on, it’s not that the tabloids beat the broadsheets, it’s that every broadsheet has turned into a tabloid:What India lacked until lately: a headless body in a topless bar

Since liberalizing its trade policies in the early ’90s, the vast subcontinent has become a kind of dumping ground for Western culture. It’s a phenomenon observable in everything from the upper-class vogue for New Age anodynes (reiki and Viennese voodoo are currently the rage) to the more obvious glut of MTV.

What India lacked until lately… was Amy Fisher­-Joey Buttafuoco­-style saturation coverage. It lacked a headless body in a topless bar. In the weeks since Lal’s shooting, the capital’s major papers have printed dozens of stories daily under headlines that wouldn’t be out of place in the Post… In a country where Hindu newspapers still print pages of ads for traditionally arranged marriages, and where such stop-the-presses headlines as “Pachyderm Tramples Tigress” are commonplace, there’s an unfulfilled hunger for the Dynasty-style dross of the West. Not since the days of serial killer Charles Sobhraj has a crime so deliciously fit the bill. [Link]

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Posted in Law

Holy hai

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The Beeb is running some absolutely gorgeous photos of a major Jain festival which only comes around every 12 years. Jains from all over India and the diaspora gathered in Shravanabelagola, Karnataka for the Mahamastakabhisheka festival. They washed and anointed a 58-foot-high, 1,000-year-old statue of Bahubali with haldi, kumkum and rice flour.

[Bahubali] is considered to be the originator of the concept of ahimsa or non-violence by the Jains, the basic tenet of their religion… he was the first to have attained salvation…

One thousand and eight small metal vessels containing water are placed neatly in the courtyard below the gigantic sculpture, considered divine. At day break, a select group of priests, chanting hymns, arrange the pots in a traditional geometrical pattern. Devotees then lift these vessels and climb up the 600 stairs to the top of the enormous statue… The statue is bathed with unending quantities of milk, sugarcane juice, pastes of saffron, sandal wood, and therapeutic herbal lotions. Powders of coconut, turmeric, saffron, vermilion and sandal wood are then sprayed on the statue. Precious stones, gold, silver, petals and coins are offered in reverence. The spectacular finale to this 10-hour ceremony is a shower of flowers from a helicopter. [Link]

The digambara (nude) form of Bahubali represents the complete victory over earthly desires… [Link]

Perhaps it was to prevent these charismatic scenes of religious ecstasy that the Puritans to the west took a rocket launcher to the Bamiyan Buddhas.

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Three-ring circus

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The press now has accounts of the extraordinary security measures that are being enacted in preparation for Bush’s visit to India:

About 5,000 personnel including snipers, commandos and U.S. marines using helicopters, bomb detectors and electronic jammers will protect President George W. Bush during his visit to India this week, officials said on Monday.

The personnel would be part of a three-ring security cordon around the U.S. president and First Lady Laura Bush who are due to arrive in New Delhi for their maiden visit to the subcontinent on Wednesday, they said.

“He is a much-threatened VVIP. We are fully geared,” Manish Agarwal, a top Delhi police officer involved in security operations, told Reuters…

Besides the inner-ring of security forces, an outer cordon would be deployed “as deep as possible” to thwart any attack by a rocket launcher, Agarwal said.

“A rocket launcher normally has a 1,000-metre (3,300 ft) range so we would be deployed in forests around venues,” he said. “We will have 360-degree rooftop surveillance around all the venues…” [Link]

I would hate to be a Secret Service agent on this trip. My brother once got a chance to meet Clinton but he was stopped by an agent while his two female companions were motioned forward. Another time an agent warned him that a sniper on the roof of the Chinese embassy had him in his sites. Just imagine being an agent in a whole country full of brown people! 🙂

There are already protests in India. Where will these people be with respect to the “three rings.”

Traffic in many areas in the capital will come to a near standstill on March 2 when Bush travels to his engagements from the Maurya Sheraton hotel to Hyderabad House, where he will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and Rashtrapati Bhavan, where President A P J Abdul Kalam will host a dinner for his American counterpart.

Traffic is also likely to be affected by the proposed demonstrations against the Bush visit planned by the Communists, the Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal-Secular.

The Maurya Sheraton, where Bush and his entourage will stay, has been converted into a fortress with the US Secret Service screening every visitor.

Hotel employees have been issued special passes, which have to be produced along with their identity cards when they arrive on duty. [Link]

All the security precautions are sure to rub local law enforcement the wrong way. Even when Bush went to Britain a few years ago the local authorities felt bullied by his security detail:

An unconfirmed report claims that American security officials wanted to handle Air Traffic Control themselves when Air Force One, the Presidential aircraft, arrives in New Delhi but the bizarre proposal was turned down. Indian engineers, they’ve been told, are capable of handling the situation but it would not be surprising if American officials are allowed to be around.

See related posts: Media Roundup: The Trip Part 1, Media Roundup: The Trip Part II

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Bye bye, and back to earth

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A few years from now, when posterity comes ambling around, I will be known as the guest blogger at Sepia Mutiny that got away. Got away with not visiting the North Dakota headquarters ever, got away with missing the traumatic initiation party (I definitely didnÂ’t want to be paddled by a guy, even a guy with great hair) that the mutineers reportedly throw and got away with maintaining the laziest guest blogging schedule on Sepia Mutiny ever, because I had Siddhartha to cover for me. Not too lazy though – at this rate I could’ve hit Manish’s weekly post count in just under three years, and that’s way more than most bloggers can claim.

But then, like all good things (please, keep the snickering down, it hurts me when you do that) this little stint must come to an end as well, and I must now go back to my own blog, where the sitemeter stats will be much easier to monitor. Thank God for that.

So here it is: Thank you all for a great time, and good bye. Continue reading →

Media Roundup: The Trip Part II

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With the visit only a couple of days away there are of course ever increasing stories on the Presidential visit to India and Pakistan. Again this roundup is in no way comprehensive, and some mutineers may or may not cover one or more of these articles in greater detail.

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Curry in a bag

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Every desi Superbowl party you go to next year will feature these I’m sure. After all, they are both “spicy” and “curried.” What more could we ask for?

Oh yeah. Break me off some o’ that.

In an attempt to win the snack food dollars of Canada’s largest ethnic groups and address a desire for stronger flavours, Frito Lay Canada Inc. is launching a new line of Asian-inspired potato chips and snacks.

Bags of wasabi- and spicy-curry-flavoured potato chips will be hitting grocery store shelves in Toronto and Vancouver this month, supported by a targeted marketing campaign in Chinese-language newspapers and television stations…

“[In Asia] they have a plethora of different snacking options — nuts, meats, those kind of things are much bigger from an Asian perspective. So the challenge for us was to find the perfect intersection between the flavours and tastes they like and something Western, which is the potato chip…”

In the Greater Toronto Area alone, South Asians annually spend $12.6-billion on retail goods and services and Chinese consumers spend $12.2-billion, according to Prasad Rao, a partner at Rao Barrett and Welsh, a Toronto advertising firm that specializes in multicultural marketing.

“I think the communities will want a lot more,” said Mr. Rao, who added that the tastes of Asians and South Asians have been largely underserved by mainstream food companies. [Link]

Our liberal Canadian neighbors always get to have more fun than us. Will American markets also demand a curry Lays? With so many flavors to choose from why would one remain monogamous?

In April, Frito Lay will launch it’s own version of shrimp chips. The Styrofoam-like morsels, which are often served in Thai restaurants…

Mmmmmm. Styrofoam….

However, I wonder, how will these compare to the snacks from the local Patel Brothers store in Rockville, MD? That’s what my parents shove in front of me whenever I go home.

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Playing Monopoly

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As Abhi posted earlier, there’s a big outcry in the U.S. over the sale of a British port operator to one based in Dubai. What few people have pointed out is that in the international edition of Monopoly, when you buy P&O, you get India for free:

Yet nowhere else has the deal for P.& O., as the company is known, drawn much anxiety… in other countries it will vastly increase the company’s reach. In India, for instance, Dubai will take control of about half the country’s container shipping operations, but there has been little public outcry there. [Link]

Through this deal the Gulf-based company will have in its kitty India’s three major container terminals… Mumbai… Chennai… and… Gujarat; apart from a share in… Vishakapatnam.

Also, with the development… by Dubai Ports in Kochi, a majority of the Indian container shipping is expected to be in the hands of the Gulf-State backed company… “Dubai Ports is going to rule the India container industry…” [Link]

The deal’s purported security risk would affect desi Canadians as well as Americans via Vancouver:

But what’s at stake, specifically, is the Centerm hub in Burrard Inlet, which handles about a quarter of the shipping containers passing through Canada’s third-largest city. Centerm is where P&O — and soon, Dubai Ports World — makes money by loading and unloading shipping containers…

Vancouver’s ability to safeguard against terrorism is crucial for the continent… In 1999, Algerian al-Qaeda member Ahmed Ressam cooked up a massive bomb in Vancouver… he had been hoping to… [set off] the bomb in… Los Angeles Airport. In 1985, Sikh terrorists placed deadly bombs aboard two Air-India jets at Vancouver’s airport. [Link]

Flat-earther Tom Friedman piles in for the free-marketers:“This is about keeping ‘a bunch of Arabs’ out of our country”

“I think it’s a shameful and has slightly racist overtones to it… This is about keeping ‘a bunch of Arabs’ out of our country, that’s what this is really about. And it’s a bad thing, not only because it doesn’t reflect our real values.”

Friedman points out that American companies like IBM, FedEx or UPS run around doing business in the Arab world. “What if they then turn around and say, ‘You’re not going to take ours, well, we’re not going to take yours…’ ”

“Both sides are guilty of it. When people ransack a Danish embassy in Damascus and the government allows it.. We have nativists in our country. They have nativists in their country that are going to always want to push these issues. Government’s job is to restrain that.” [Link]

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Hingrish

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The LA Weekly journalist who attempted a Rang De Basanti review has apparently never used a film database in his life:

Veteran character actor Atoll Kukri (Chanting Bar) is equally impressive… The students, whose ranks include superstar Aimer Khan (Lagan)… [Link]

As fun as a ‘chanting bar’ sounds, he means Atul Kulkarni (Chandni Bar) and Aamir Khan (Lagaan). But the mistakes aren’t a language thing, they’re a sloppiness thing. He even gets the British lead’s name wrong:

… a group of slackers at Delhi University is hired by a British indie moviemaker (Alice Payton) to portray the heroes of the terrorist phase of the Indian independence movement… [author:] David Chute… [Link]

This quality review was brought to you by the Yeh Le Wickly’s Daoud Choot.

First of all, the key characteristic of terrorism is targeting civilians rather than military or political figures — unlike the miscreants in Iraq, Kashmir and Sri Lanka, the events of Indian independence covered in this film hardly qualify. And second, that’s Alice Patten, 25-year-old daughter of Chris Patten, the last British governor-general of Hong Kong:

… her father Chris Patten… had absolutely encouraged her to do the film. He told her it would be a life-affirming [experience]… [Link]

Alice first drew world wide attention when she stood sobbing during the ceremonial British handover of Hong Kong… [Link]

… Prince Charles… was “really sweet” when he fixed her a stiff gin as Britannia sailed out of Hong Kong on June 30, 1997… I cannot resist reminding her of the lugubrious final moments of the handover of Hong Kong. The bagpipe droned, the rain poured down, the Patten girls sobbed. “Sssh!” says Alice. While Prince Charles and her father (with the help of a Vick’s inhaler) maintained dignified control and her mother achieved a certain composure, the girls did not. So the cameras focused on them, because their distress seemed best to capture the poignancy of the moment when the Royal yacht – and with it the British Empire – sailed out of Hong Kong harbour and into history. [Link]

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