Coconut Express

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The Oriya coconut distribution network reminds me of the tiffinwallas of Bombay (via Boing Boing). It’s a marvel of Indian efficiency:

Smashing coconuts in Malaysia

Hold a coconut in your hand on a highway in Orissa and the next bus will surely stop to pick it up to take it to the temple… Even if the bus is on a different route, the driver will make sure to drop the coconuts in a collection box en route or pass them on to a bus headed for Ghatgaon…

They tell stories of bus drivers who failed to pick up coconuts from devotees and met with engine failures or accidents. “No one can refuse to carry a coconut,” says shop owner Rabindra Patnaik. The buses usually dump their coconuts in collection boxes across the state, from where other buses or devotees headed to the temple pick up them up on their final journey…

At the busy temple, priests take turns to break the coconuts in front of the deity. A few hundred coconuts find the place near the deity’s feet, and the rest of them are sold cheaply to local shop owners. This has spawned a local coconut-based sweets and oil industry. [Link]

Besides religion, desis spread at least two things efficiently: fresh food and hot gossip. It’s no surprise that desis are at the forefront of networking technology. Hey, Internet2? I fart in your general direction.

Billo’s bindi

The Auntie-ji Pre-Crime Network is so fast, it predicts things before they happen and never hesitates to tell you so.

The Coconut Express has also had a huge influence on the rock scene in India. The sad fate of the broken fruit inspired alt.rockers Smashing Coconuts, fronted by lead singer Billo Kurugan. Their hit single ‘Sharaab Rakh‘ was a seminal influence on a new genre called cocotechno, inspiring performers like the No-Sex-Before-Marriage Pistols, the Beejis, Bob Dhillon and Elvis Singh:

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How to befriend a vegetarian

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This anecdote about Google cofounder Sergey Brin is part of a startup PR launch, but it’s interesting. I wonder what the dare was. ‘I cook, you eat’ doesn’t sound like a very interesting bet:

The victim

[Anand] Rajaraman and Harinarayan were co-founders of Junglee, an early Web database company… In 1994, Rajaraman proudly told Brin he’d acquired a new computer with the latest version of Microsoft Windows. Brin… went over to Rajaraman’s apartment and installed Linux… on his computer…

Brin even took on Rajaraman’s practice of eating vegetarian, a family tradition. One evening, Brin went over to Rajaraman’s apartment, baked a fish in his oven, and served it to him with some lemon. Rajaraman ate it. [Link]

Tamarind once served me the lamb version of the paneer dish I ordered, two large, flat white squares. I downed the whole thing thinking it was the worst paneer I’d ever had and didn’t catch on until I saw the bill. Gross.

By the way, your bagels contain an extract from human hair and chicken feathers, your milk contains cattle hormones and pus, your beer was clarified with fish extract, your miso soup may contain fish broth and your Kiwi Strawberry Snapple is colored with a dye from ground beetles. Perfect recycling. I see some aren’t taking this meatitude lying down. Bon appetit!

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Making Sacrifices

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Back in 2003, NY Newsday published an article by reporter Dennis Duggan titled, The Growing Legion of Wounded. A reprint of the article can be found on this website. Here is an excerpt:

October 8, 2003

When a rocket propelled grenade struck his checkpoint in Northern Iraq on June 1, Sgt. Wasim Khan of Richmond Hill became part of an unheralded and growing legion of wounded.

When Khan, 27, of the Army’s 1st Armored Division, was struck by shrapnel, he was sent to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany for five days before being transferred to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington…

What makes Khan’s American soldier story even more compelling is that he is a Pakistani who dutifully practices his Muslim faith.

Khan has spent the last four months in Ward 57 at Walter Reed, where the maimed lie in limbo waiting for prostheses…

Khan told me over the phone Tuesday that he hopes to get a medical leave in the next few weeks. Departure from the ward is the dream of most of the soldiers who endure pain and humiliation as their wounds are swabbed, poked and scraped. Painkillers are often useless, and sometimes the doctors and nurses break into tears along with the patient who cries out in pain. [Link]

Sgt. Khan’s name re-surfaced in the press once again just last week. Guess where?

“Our men and women in uniform are making sacrifices,” said President George W. Bush during his State of the Union address Jan. 31, and listening intently from the balcony with First Lady Laura Bush was wounded-in-action Soldier Sgt. Wasim Khan.

Khan, a native of Gilgat, Pakistan, is a patient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Khan was wounded in Iraq while serving with the 1st Armored Division. He was a special guest at the State of the Union, nominated to attend by the secretary of the Army.

“I got to meet both President Bush and Mrs. Bush after the Address,” said Khan. “They thanked me for my service and for coming and I told them it was an honor and a privilege to see them…” “It was wonderful to see how the American people support us, and keep up that support,” he said. “I hope they keep doing what they think is right for the country and right for the world. We have a lot of work ahead of us…” [Link]

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The standard opening line

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The standard opening line for a desi comedian in the U.S. is to get up and tell people s/he’s desi. You don’t see black comedians getting up and saying, ‘Hi, my name is David, and I’m black.’ They can see you, they can see your name, it’s a given.

And the standard first joke is a desi joke so lame that even Hollywood wouldn’t touch it today. Here’s comedian Rahul Siddharth’s opening joke at a NYC show (watch clip):

‘Papa, are we really Indian? How can you be so sure?’

[In horrible Indian accent] ‘[Because] your mother wears a red dot, and I sound like a Muppet!’

I’m all for supporting the brothas, but how about the brothas supporting us? If that’s your kind of humor, he’s doing a show tonight, and please don’t come near me

In all fairness, a friend of mine says the rest of the show is pretty good. It’s just that once I choke on an appetizer, I don’t stay for dessert.

Related posts: Veezher, Russell Peters strikes again, Russell Peters show online, Paul Varghese delivers on ‘Last Comic Standing’: God’s own comedy, God’s own comedy

Rahul Siddhartha and Vijai Nathan, ‘Don’t Tell Mamas,’ Friday, Feb. 3, 8pm, 343 W. 46th St., Manhattan, $20

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Why does the Philippines dislike India? (updated)

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A new BBC World poll says that people in the Philippines, South Korea, France, Finland and Brazil think India is a negative influence on the world (via Style Station). Pakistan was not polled. On the other hand, Iran, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the UK and Russia rate India highly. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the African countries polled are most neutral about India, while Sri Lanka and India are most neutral about the U.S.

Though India’s global profile has grown significantly over the last year, it fails to elicit strong feelings… The exceptions are two Muslim countries with positive views: Iran (71% positive) and Afghanistan (59% positive). The only country with widespread negative views is the Philippines (57% negative). Notably, India’s small neighbor Sri Lanka has a mere 4 percent reporting negative views and a robust 49 percent expressing a positive one.

Europeans are divided about India. At the positive end of the spectrum is Great Britain (49% positive, 30% negative) and Russia (47% positive, 10% negative), while at the other end are France and Finland–both being 27 percent positive and 44 percent negative. The US leans slightly positively (39% positive, 35% negative). [Link]

India has the strange distinction of being most loved by the most hated, Iran. Forty-three percent of the Indians polled seemed only lukewarm about their own country:

Interestingly, Indians themselves are the most tepid or modest in their self-estimates. While in most countries a large majority give their country a positive rating, among Indians only 47 percent give India a positive rating, but only 10 percent give it a negative rating. [Link]

The Philippines and Brazil are economic competitors of India. The others are more puzzling: South Korea is an economic partner, France has long-standing cultural ties to India, and the Finns might enjoy the weather

Globally, the most disliked countries are Iran, the U.S. and Russia. The African countries polled and some where the U.S. assisted against political repression (Poland, Afghanistan) are the most appreciative of the U.S.

Style Station points out that the sample sizes (and, for that matter, the methodologies) vary widely across countries, so take the poll with a grain of salt. Continue reading →

Anatomy of a List

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Every year, the men’s website askmen.com releases a list of the 99 hottest celebrities on this planet. Millions of people vote to pick their favorite celebrity, and men the world over are more interested in the results of this poll than ones that pick the majority leader in the House of Representatives. I know, men are shallow. However, I am not one of those men. I care. I am also against the crass commercialization of women. But sometimes, one has to make sacrifices for the sake of an audience, and so this year, I am setting aside my usual apathy to take on the unpleasant task of scouring the list for hot desi women.

There is something in this post for everyone, though: the righties can be indignant about the clothes these women wear; the lefties can fume about the list being predominantly white. The others can gawk.

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The politics of mixing

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I once dated for a few months a desi sister who remained my friend. She had separated from her longtime boyfriend, who was African-American. Her familyÂ’s disapproval was one of the big stresses on their relationship. So it was quite a step when they got back in touch and rekindled. I was honored to be privy to this, and with it, to R.Â’s management of her parentsÂ’ anxieties.

The next year they married, in her familyÂ’s backyard in Orange County. The aunties were in full effect, all gossip and jewels and rolls of flesh. They inquired hungrily as to my status. The uncles were hanging out. R. and W. sat before the pandit, soaked in sweat from their garments, the fire and the summer heat. No one was paying any attention. Except, that is, for W.Â’s family, a cortege of beautifully turned out Black folks from Arkansas and Texas. They sat for hours in the sun, sole occupants of the front row, wearing looks of deep confusion. I believe I was the only guest to attempt to explain the proceedings. The aunties looked right through them.

The wedding was a triumph for R.; her parents, lovely people, had come around. But it said little for the community’s readiness to miscegenate in the blackward direction. That pesky little problem, which many mutineers will be at least anecdotally familiar with, is not one of the themes of Lavina Melwani’s article “The Color of Desi” in the January 2006 edition of Little India (shout-out to Cinnamon Rani).

The article is a positively giddy celebration of desi mixitude: Continue reading →

South Asia in the State of the Union

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As you know, Dubya gave his State of the Union address on Tuesday. Here are all mentions of India and Pakistan in State of the Unions dating back to 1947*.

It’s interesting to see how the themes shift and how U.S. presidents viewed the subcontinent. Clinton, for example, injected artificial balance by only mentioning India and Pakistan together. Dubya has made electoral hay out of Pakistan and terrorism, but this year marks the first time a U.S. president has mentioned India as an economic competitor in this annual address. Carter and Johnson viewed the subcontinent primarily through the lens of poverty. Kennedy linked China’s invasion of India with the Bay of Pigs via the red scare. Eisenhower seemed to think of Pakistan as part of the Middle East.

Perhaps most tellingly, the year after Indian and Pakistani independence from the same colonial power the U.S. jilted, Truman made no mention of that momentous fissure. Maybe it made an ally look bad.

Year President Excerpt Theme
2006 Bush Jr.
In a dynamic world economy, we are seeing new competitors, like China and India, and this creates uncertainty, which makes it easier to feed people’s fears. [Link]

Outsourcing

2005 Bush Jr.
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and nine other countries have captured or detained al Qaeda terrorists. [Link]
 Terrorism

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