“Indo-Pak Express” doing well at U.S Open

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Hey tennis fans, have you been paying attention to the nice run by Indian Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani doubles partner Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi at the U.S. Open in New York [thanks for the tip, Abe]? Can I get a “South Asia, represent” from the crowd?

Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi looked around the perimeter of the court Tuesday and saw what he’d hoped for. They were sitting together.

Pakistanis and Indians, blurred along the bleachers, one just like the other. They were clapping for the same thing. Cheering in unison…

“There was a lot of Pakistanis and Indians in the crowd cheering for us,” Qureshi said. “And you couldn’t tell the difference, who was Pakistani and who was Indian, they were all mixed together and supporting the same team.” [Link]

And they won their match yesterday to advance:

Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi progressed to the men’s doubles pre-quarterfinals of US Open with a straight-set win over German-Finn pair of Michael Kohlmann and Jarkko Nieminen.

The 16th seed Indo-Pak pair defeated their opponents 6-4 6-4 in the second round of the season’s last Grand Slam. [Link]

Were any of you there at the Open? Anyone see the match? Would love to see some pictures of the crowd.

The duo next play second seeds Daniel Nestor of Canada and Serbia’s Nenad Zimonjic in the third round.

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Interview: The Animal Days Are Gone for Tasneem

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It started to drizzle as I waited for Tasneem on the Santa Monica Pier early on a July summer day. I couldn’t believe it. It never rains in Southern California but here it was, middle of summer and it had started to rain. Luckily, by the time Tasneem arrived, guitar and all, it had turned into a beautiful day for a ferris wheel ride.

Tasneem, otherwise known as Jungli, is back for a brand new edition with a whole new sound. A New York transplant to California, she’s taken the coastal change and reinvented herself and her singer-songwriter sound into a new Cali-vibin’ freshenss. She’s working on a new E.P. The Animal Days Are Gone set to be released in the next few months. Check out my one-on-one ferris wheel interview with the infamous Tasneem. She talks about why she makes conscious music, how she loves Bat for Lashes, and how her dad would make them listen to Afro-Pop on the drive to weekly prayer.

I realize the interview is kind of long, but I had a hard time editing it down. We had a lot of fun on our quasi-date and Tasneem is very personable. Conducting interviews on ferris wheels are my new favorite thing to do, and getting a personal concert while in a ferris wheel bucket was one of the highlights of this summer. Check out the following video where Tasneem sings “Mark Wahlberg” and you’ll see just what I mean. Continue reading →

Why is no one donating?

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One month after monsoon rains caused flooding in the northern mountains, relief efforts were still in emergency mode. On Sunday, the Indus River, surging at 40 times its normal volume, breached levees near the southern city of Sujawal. Evidence is growing that the river’s path of destruction has stunted, if not annihilated, social and economic systems across Pakistan.

The effects, from increased hunger to obliterated schools, are likely to force Pakistan and the United States – which last fall earmarked billions of dollars in aid to build up Pakistan’s civilian government – to retool their development plans… Unlike the deadly jolt of the 2005 earthquake that previously ranked as Pakistan’s gravest natural disaster, the flooding metastasized like a cancer, submerging an area nearly as large as Florida. With much of the south still underwater, assessing the damage remains guesswork. Where the waters have receded, officials bandy about figures in the sums of millions and billions of dollars.

But there is little doubt that the losses are colossal. The government says 1.2 million houses, 10,000 schools, 35 bridges and 9 percent of the national highway system have been were damaged or destroyed. Even as emergency workers in the northern mountains build temporary bridges, landslides smother more roads. [Link]

But by all accounts, nobody is giving:

The amount of foreign donations given per flood victim is very low compared to other such disasters. The figures for the Haiti earthquake, tsunami, and Kashmir earthquake were $1087.33, $1249.80, and $388.33 respectively. For the Pakistan floods, the world has given only $16.36 per victim. [Link]

So the question on everyone’s mind is why? Why were we able to open our wallets when faced with such staggering tragedy in all those other instances but not now? Continue reading →

Talking About Terror

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[Amitava Kumar and Lorraine Adams will be in conversation today, August 27, at 6.30 PM at the Aicon Gallery in New York City. Admission is free.]

I have just received a letter from a man in prison. His name is Hemant Lakhani. Lakhani was a women’s clothing salesman who, in 2005, was convicted of selling an Igla missile to an FBI informant posing as a member of a jihadist organization.

Lakhani is one of the people I write about in my new book A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm A Tiny Bomb. He learned about the book’s publication by reading a review in the New York Times.

Mr. Lakhani writes to congratulate me but also to invite me back. There is more to tell, he writes. If I listen to his story, and write about it, he promises me that the book will be a bestseller. I will be interviewed by the mainstream press, including Charlie Ross (sic).

The Times review had also mentioned that I had visited a strip-club outside the Missouri high-security prison where Lakhani is incarcerated. I had a conversation there with a dancer about the man I had come to meet in Missouri. This didn’t sit well with Mr Lakhani and he writes in his letter that I must promise him that I will not go back to the strip-club again. Continue reading →

Interview w/ Reshma Saujani at Netroots

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The September 14th Democratic Primary in New York City could be the make or break date for Reshma Saujani’s bid for Congress. And of course, what is the biggest issue at the polls these days? The few-blocks-away-from-Ground Zero-Islamic-community-center.

There’s nothing smooth about the infighting for the Congressional seat from the so-called “Silk Stocking District” on the Upper East side, where 18-year Democratic incumbent Rep. Carolyn Maloney, 64, is facing a primary election challenge from upstart Reshma Saujani, 34, an eight-year resident of the city who is making her first bid for elected office.

the two both support the right of Muslims to build a mosque on Park Place, two blocks from Ground Zero (though Saujani, an American-born Hindu whose parents were born in India and later became refugees from Idi Amin’s Uganda, snipes that Maloney has been all-but-silent about her support for the mosque.)[nydailynews]

I had the chance to meet up with Reshma at Netroots Nation and asked her some questions about what it was like to run, her issues, and her fellow Desi candidates. Here’s what she had to say.

Candidate campaigns are no easy game, between the posturing and pandering and bickering. I was hesitant about Reshma’s bid after I found the following video earlier this year where she talks about being pro Netanyahu’s settlement plan in Israel. It seemed an awful lot like pandering for votes to me. But her support of New York City Muslims in this time of Islamaphobia is to be commended, both with the support of Park 51 as well as speaking out on the slashing of a Muslim NYC cab driver. After the Ami Bera fiasco of last week, I want to highlight how particularly important it is for people, ESPECIALLY CANDIDATES, to stand firm for what they believe. I commend Reshma for taking a stand, despite the risk of losing votes. And I challenge all other candidates to do the same. Continue reading →

Brownstar at NYC Fringe

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Brownstar NYC Fringe Festival

This Sunday I had the distinct pleasure of seeing Brownstar’s “Faster than the Speed of White” at the NYC Fringe Festival. There are two remaining performances, today from 3:45-4:55 PM and tomorrow from 8:45 to 9:55 and if you’re in NYC you really should go see them.

Brownstar is a theatrical performance duo, comprised of NORTHSTAR (Pushkar Sharma) and SOUTHSTAR (Sathya Sridharan). Their style is a hybrid of improv sketch comedy, like the Second City troupe, old school spoken word, and Hip Hop. This is not your parents South Asian theater by a long shot. [See our earlier post about them here for more about their background, origin story, and influences]

FTTSOW is a compilation of their earlier shorter sketch comedies into a single 70 minute show, the story of Captain Northstar and Ensign Southstar’s voyage on the Brownstar Galactica to the alcove of answers. As you would expect from the Fringe Festival, this isn’t a traditional play, it’s more like a concept album, a mashup and weaving together of several different sketches that share a set of common themes: South Asian American Identity and what it means to be a desi artist in America. The hybridity of their performance genre reflects the hybridity of their subject, like browns in America, their style reflects a variety of different influences.

Although these are weighty themes, the show is comic rather than somber. When you see the ode to the squat toilet or the mashup of Midnights Children with Kal Pen’s biography, you’ll see that Brownstar don’t take themselves seriously. Their work is thought provoking and consistently surprising and definitely worth a look for yourself.

TICKETS: Available online from NYC Fringe

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Vertigo Stick

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You know the great art of stripper pole dancing that we see performed at the local gentleman’s club? Turns out everything-is-from-India-Uncle could be right… pole dancing it turns out IS from India. Watch and thank me in the comments (thanks Sushil).

I mean… did you see when he….. how did he….. what the heck……? Did that hurt???

Mallakhamb was introduced as a supporting exercise for wrestlers. “Pole mallakhamb” was started by Balambhattdada Deodhar sometime between 1800 and 1810. The mallakhamb pole used in competitions is a straight pole made of teak or sheesham wood, standing 2.6 metres (8.5 ft) in height with a circumference of 55 centimetres (22 in) at the base. [wiki]

Pole dancers in the West could learn a move or two from these Mallakhamb acrobats. I’m just saying. Continue reading →

Interview w/ Manan Trivedi at Netroots

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He won his Democratic primary election for his bid for Congress by only 672 votes, affirming the importance of “every vote counts.” But that’s only half the fight as Election Day on November 2nd is only two months away. Manan Trivedi is a doctor, a policy analyst, an Iraq veteran and… my former classmate at UCLA. I was excited to see him at Netroots Nation, even if it was only for a day – he had to fly back to DC to sit on an IALI panel with Jay Sean. Manan was generous enough to give me a few minutes out of his busy day to do an interview for The Mutiny. Here’s what he said.

More from #NN10 to come… Continue reading →

Interview w/ Ash Kalra at Netroots

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As many of you know, last month I got the chance to attend Netroots Nation 2010. It was the fifth annual gathering and I was graciously a recipient of one of the scholarships given out by Democracy for America. It was an amazing conference of about over 2,000 progressives, politicos and internet social media moguls. And of course, bloggers. You can read about my experience on my blog (Part 1 and Part 2).

The whole time I was there, I couldn’t help but play “desi-spotting.” At first I felt a little weird about it, but seeing as how I was going on behalf of a South Asian American blog and I was the only blogger I found repping a South Asian space, I considered it “ethnic-targeted marketing” after a while. There were about a couple dozen Desis there too. I met some great people and grabbed some amazing stories.

With all this talk of elections, I was excited to meet an actual Desi elected while at Netroots Nation. Ash Kalra is a council member for the city of San Jose. Check what he has to say.

More from #NN10 to come… Continue reading →

America has a Nativism problem, not a “Muslim Problem”

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Does America Have a Muslim Problem?

…Islamophobia in the U.S. doesn’t approach levels seen in other countries where Muslims are in a minority. But to be a Muslim in America now is to endure slings and arrows against your faith — not just in the schoolyard and the office but also outside your place of worship and in the public square, where some of the country’s most powerful mainstream religious and political leaders unthinkingly (or worse, deliberately) conflate Islam with terrorism and savagery. In France and Britain, politicians from fringe parties say appalling things about Muslims, but there’s no one in Europe of the stature of a former House Speaker who would, as Newt Gingrich did, equate Islam with Nazism. [Time]

My answer to Bobby Ghosh, the author of Time’s cover story, is “no.” America, despite all the ugly rhetoric of the past several weeks, is not Islamaphobic. Instead, I would say that America is currently in the grips of yet another episode of ugly Nativism, this particular episode fueled by power hungry ideologues that have access to methods of mass communication not present during former episodes of Nativism in our country: the 24 hour media cycle and the internet. “Islamaphobia” is not what afflicts our nation. It is merely a symptom of the underlying malady which, like chronic malaria, can flair up and leave the collective “us,” the American people, weak until treated. It will never be totally eradicated. Treating the problem by adopting an “enlightened” us vs.”ignorant” them mentality will make things worse, as will appeasement (see examples of the latter here, here, and here).

Before continuing the discussion it is important to understand what “Nativism” is in the context of American history. History has always been my favorite subject because historians are like fortune tellers. Everything that has happened will likely happen again. Let’s start with the most basic place to learn about the history of Nativism in our country. You guessed it, Wikipedia:

Nativism favors the interests of certain established inhabitants of an area or nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants. It may also include the re-establishment or perpetuation of such individuals or their culture.

Nativism typically means opposition to immigration or efforts to lower the political or legal status of specific ethnic or cultural groups because the groups are considered hostile or alien to the natural culture, and it is assumed that they cannot be assimilated. [Wikipedia]

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