Henna hands on subway stops, brought to you by the bankers of Hong Kong and Shanghai. Oh look, it’s just like South Asian fiction covers 
Trite but cute. The first ad actually sets up an artificial duality. I’ve got female friends who’ve flirted with a Delhi wedding while living among the Japanese hipsters of that ‘hood. The punks of St. Marks Place are more taken with piercings — mehndi is no longer mutinous.
I have a rampant addiction that even my co-bloggers don’t know about. Any time they come up behind me at SM headquarters I quickly switch my computer desktop to make it look like I am writing a post for our blog. In reality however, I am dedicating obscene amounts of time to managing my Fantasy Football team (The Pocket Rockets). Yes. During the regular NFL season I am a Fantasy Football fanatic:
Fantasy Football is a game in which the participants (called “owners”) each assemble a team of real life NFL players and then score points based on those players’ statistical performance on the field. Leagues can be arranged in which the winner is the team with the most total points at the end of the season or in a head-to-head format (which mirrors the actual NFL) in which each team plays against a single opponent each week, and at the end of the year the team with the best win-loss record wins the league. Some leagues even set aside the last weeks of the NFL regular season for their own playoffs. [Link]
I take great pride in my team and in my improvement as a coach. I hate losing at anything. My first year playing I was ridiculed by the other coaches in my league (my supposed friends) for not even knowing the names of some famous players. This year (my third) I am dominating most of the teams in my league and talking smack at every opportunity. Most of the fun of Fantasy Football comes from emasculating your friends and telling them how pathetic they are. Yeah, yeah. If you don’t play fantasy football then you won’t understand the appeal, but I am sure those of you who do, know what I’m talking about. This isn’t just a passive sport. Every week you have to research all the different football match-ups and note the teams and defenses your players are going up against, as well as injuries. It takes A LOT of research. If you aren’t up to speed and able to make the proper adjustments, then your team will lose. Thankfully there are bloggers like Vinnie Iyer that make the jobs of coaches like me easier. It is their full-time job to put in the research hours that will help the rest of us (hat-tip to Sandeep from my league):
This NFL and fantasy football columnist grew up in St. Louis and is a 1998 alumnus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., where he won a decent year’s salary with his appearance on a popular “answer and question” quiz show. Shortly after graduating as a journalism major, he joined TSN in 1999 and has been covering the NFL full time since 2001. He remains loyal to his roots as a fan of the Cardinals (baseball, of course) and Northwestern’s athletic programs (inexplicably). With TiVo, iPod and HD already in his vocabulary, Iyer is ready to “blog” away on pro football and hot topics of the day.
Look. Let’s get real folks. There is only one desi player in the NFL. That shouldn’t mean that all desis should be shut out of football. I participate by coaching a fantasy team since I am not built like a linebacker. Vinnie (who may have once had the potential to be an offensive lineman) is doing his part by being one of the best at what he does. In Fantasy Football circles Vinnie is a celebrity.
Oh joy, oh giddy delight. I love anniversaries, don’t you? Wikipedia’s always interesting and informative main page reminds us that it’s already been four years since we helped America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism:
Passed by the U.S. Congress after the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks, the (Patriot) Act enhances the authority of U.S. law enforcement for the stated purpose of fighting terrorist acts in the United States and around the world. This enhanced legal authority is also used to detect and prosecute other alleged potential crimes. Among other laws, the USA PATRIOT Act amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Among the laws the PATRIOT Act amended are immigration laws, banking and money laundering laws, and foreign intelligence laws…
Critics claim that some portions of the Act are unnecessary and allow U.S. law enforcement to infringe upon free-speech, freedom of the press, human rights, and right to privacy. Much controversy has arisen over section 215, which allows judges to grant government investigators ex parte orders to look into personal phone and internet records on the basis of being “relevant for an on going investigation concerning international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities”, rather than probable cause as outlined in the fourth amendment.
Since the Indian restaurant next door to my apartment went out of business, I’ve been coming home to find unclaimed stacks of Little India magazine strewn all over the sidewalk. While stepping over a copy the other day, I noticed the cover story: “Only U.S. Town with an Indian Majority.” Naturally, I was curious. Where is this town? In the Bay Area? Jersey? Or is it in the great state that brought us weather-forecasting groundhogs and chipped ham? (The answer is #3.)
Millbourne is a tiny Pennsylvania borough with an estimated population of 994. At the time of the 2000 Census, Indian-Americans constituted 40% of its population; current “Little India projections” bring that number up to 63%, compared with a national average of less than 0.6%.
The 2000 Census outlines the broad contours of Millbourne’s Indian community. The gender breakdown is about even: 53 percent to 47 percent women. Five percent are mixed race. The median age of the Indian community is 32. Only 13 percent of the Indians are native-born. Almost two-thirds migrated to the United States within the previous decade. Like the other residents of the city, Indians in Millbourne are principally blue collar. The median household income for the 102 Indian households in the borough was $36,000, higher than the borough average, but substantially below the national median Indian household income of $64,000. However, only 7 percent of the Millbourne Indians were below the poverty line, as opposed to 9 percent of Indians nationally. Just 10 percent of Indians in the borough owned their home, which is less than a quarter of the home ownership rate among Indian Americans nationwide.
Beads of Paradise is a small furnishings shop by Union Square in Manhattan. Earlier this year, it sold random old photos of a Rajasthani family for six hundred bucks as nothing more than visual texture for interior design. This struck me as comical. Now they’re selling Hindica for the same purpose:
The most egregious in this vein is actually ABC Home, a giant imports store down the street (Moroccan lanterns go for thousands) with expensive Krishna and Nataraja icons in its sidewalk displays.
Religion and art are closely linked, of course; churches in Italy feel to me like shared art galleries. But you generally won’t find secular furnishings stores in the U.S. selling pricy Christian icons because of the disrespect that implies. On the flip side, you can get Ganesh idols at many stores in Jackson Heights, but most of those selling anything larger than a keychain are religious artifacts shops. New Jersey has elevated the metallic dashboard Ganesh to an art form.
In a few days, adorable little humans all over the U.S. are going to wander door-to-door begging, as my parents derisively referred to trick or treating for Halloween. Along with torturously sour candy and milk chocolate-coated sugar, some of those costumed tykes will be looking for money.
It’s true; after screeching their customary greeting requesting candy bribes while exhorting you to “smell (their) feet” and give them something good to eat, some of the more earnest Princesses and Vampires will carefully navigate the following schpiel– can you hear them now, angelic voices pronouncing
30¢ provides lifesaving antibiotics for a child suffering from pneumonia.
$1 immunizes a child against the deadly disease measles.
$2.50 buys basic school supplies for one child.
$10 provides enough high-protein biscuits to feed three hungry children for one month.
$150 pays for a small well to provide clean water for an entire village.
They learned all of those stats from UNICEF, who has sponsored the charitable Halloween program “Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF” for 55 years.
When first graders are going to canvas their ‘hoods for charity, when victims of the South Asian Tsunami are giving after losing almost everything, when nearly every person who is reading this can afford to do even more than the two groups I just mentioned in this sentence, then yes, we have no excuse.
I wrote that accusatory sentence a few days ago, as I posted about those selfless Tsunami-survivors who are sending supplies to people who have been devastated by the earthquake. I asked, “What if we could do good?”, specifically in the context of blogging as a way to encourage fundraising, since we had all come together in a breath-taking, powerful way to stand up for truth, freedom and justice. Could we also unite to fight apathy? Disaster fatigue? Inertia?
I think we can.
Thankfully, people with more energy than me seized my flicker of an idea and ran with it. They heard the tentative call I put out after a fold. And they are doing good.
DesiPundit, predictably, is at the center of this movement. Sepoy at Chapathi Mystery was a pioneer when it came to quake relief. Even Instapundit, the big, bad, brand-name blog I quoted, along with TTLB, picked up on Blog Quake Day.
Now, it is our turn and after you read this, it is your turn. Today is Blog Quake Day. Do something. Give. Write. Post. Comment. Link. Give some more. Think. Do. Tag (“Blog Quake Day”). Continue reading
As I correctly predicted yesterday, the White House Press Secretary was beseiged today by a question that may end up rocking the administration later this week:
Q Scott, two quick questions. Remembering Miss Rosa Parks. Then in 1955 it was like Mahatma Ghandi in South Africa, same thing happened to him. And during her time, there was very little or not many immigrants in the U.S., but today we have millions of immigrants from all over the globe. What message do you think President will have today as far as civil rights moments —MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the President just spoke about her passing a short time ago in his remarks to the spouses of our military officers from all the branches of our military. And the President talked about what a remarkable women she was, and how courageous she was. She is someone who changed America for the better. She is an inspiration to generations, and we mourn her passing.
Q Second question is on the — now again, most of Indian-American community thankful to the President for initiating — or did initiate the Diwali Festival of Lights at the White House. Now it will be next Wednesday, November 1st, when millions across India and America will — Indians will be celebrating the festival around the globe, including at the White House here. What they are saying in the Indian American community, really, just like President initiates prayers with other groups here in the White House, like Muslims and Jews, and all that, that they are requesting him, please, to the President, this time, that if he can take a few moments and be there at part of the White House Festival of Lights on Wednesday, November 1st.
MR. McCLELLAN: On Wednesday, November 1st? Well, we’ll update you on the President’s schedule later this week.
How much do you want to bet that Goyal was the one who asked that question? I wonder if he reads us? Keep it locked onto SM for minute by minute news and analysis of this growing scandal. I am considering launching my own “Special Counsel website” focusing on just this issue. The truth is that I don’t care one way or the other whether Bush celebrates Diwali. I just like raging against the machine. I’m good at it. 
R.I.P. Rosa Parks (thanks, Razib).
Martin Luther King Jr…. was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, who led the peaceful struggle for India’s independence from Great Britain. King’s work was helped in the civil rights movement by such people as Rosa Parks who served as a catalyst for the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. [Link]40,000 people walked, some more than 20 miles, during the Montgomery bus boycottOn Montgomery buses, the first four rows were reserved for whites. The rear was for blacks, who made up more than 75 percent of the bus system’s riders. Blacks could sit in the middle rows until those seats were needed by whites. Then the blacks had to move to seats in the rear, stand or, if there was no room, leave the bus. Even getting on the bus presented hurdles: If whites were already sitting in the front, blacks could board to pay the fare but then they had to disembark and re-enter through the rear door…
“When he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up and I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ And he said, ‘Well, if you don’t stand up, I’m going to have to call the police and have you arrested.’ I said, ‘You may do that.’ ” [Link]
You can now listen to Salman Rushdie’s mellifluous British tones in an interview on NPR (thanks, Abhi). 
The PR tufan bears all the hallmarks of a practiced public speaker: note the near-total absence of fillers like ‘um.’
Now that I think about it, although I’ve bumped into him at Midnight’s Children the play, I don’t think I’ve ever heard his voice before. As usual, it’s not quite how I imagined it.
Here’s a lame, anti-epic review of Shalimar the Clown, which I rather enjoyed, in the NYT. I place it far above Fury and just a hair below his best work, but it’s a clear return to form.
Cascading clauses are a Rushdie trademark; they can be taken as a manifestation of abundant imagination or as a symptom of poor writerly discipline.. It’s hard, though, to see them as anything but laziness when they’re misapplied…
As a rule, Rushdie’s characters lack a plausible inner life; instead they have bizarre quirks, unusual looks or magical powers, like the figures in a fable… For the creation of such a description-mad writer, Rushdie’s Pachigam remains stubbornly hazy: How big is it? How developed? How many rooms do the houses have and what are they made of? Do they have electricity? Are the roads paved? Your guess, even if you haven’t read the book, is as good as mine. [Link]
Yes, and please specify the width of the caulking in the bathrooms. Reviewer please. This kind of dis on Rushdie is not only widespread, it’s absurd. Don’t hate on the book just because you don’t dig the genre. Westerns don’t have a lot of interior dialogue either. Rushdie’s style is very male, and his stories, like Vikram Chandra’s Red Earth and Pouring Rain, are sweeping, masculine epics with strong, idealized women. Sometimes you’re in the mood for circumscribed domestic weepies, sometimes you’re not.
Congrats to our hottie stepsister Pardon My Hindi for finally launching a tee and tank store featuring Raag*’s luscious designs. Unlike our graphically-challenged asses, they actually feature original artwork:
He’s also posted a beautifully designed online magazine with photos of a Bombay circus, his exploits tagging the LES with babu stickers and an interview with Koushik Ghosh, who’s got a new downbeat album coming out on the same label as Peanut Butter Wolf:
Koushik specializes in making that hazy, hip-hop-based downbeat sh*t that you could easily compare to contemporaries such as Four Tet (who released Koushik’s first single on his Text label), RJD2, and DJ Shadow. What sets Koushik apart from the others is a beautiful ’60s psych-pop element that tends to pervade throughout. [Link]
