The Long Shadow of Hassan-i-Sabbah

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Longtime SM readers know that I enjoy making occasional forays into the past, so as to connect to the present. History is the most spiritual of subjects, more so than even religion in my eyes. Those who believe in reincarnation and karma will find as much wisdom in the recurring motifs of a history book as in any sacred text.

Yesterday we awoke to what may have been yet another attempted suicide bombing. The first words I heard this morning on NPR as my eyes opened were that police had shot “a South Asian man” in the Tube. About two months ago University of Chicago Professor Ropert Pape (who heads the Chicago Project on Suicide Terrorism) released his book Dying to Win on the history of suicide bombings. Here is an excerpt from his New York Times op-ed re-published on Truthout.org:

Over the past two years, I have compiled a database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 through 2003 – 315 in all. This includes every episode in which at least one terrorist killed himself or herself while trying to kill others, but excludes attacks authorized by a national government (like those by North Korean agents against South Korea). The data show that there is far less of a connection between suicide terrorism and religious fundamentalism than most people think.

The leading instigator of suicide attacks is the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group whose members are from Hindu families but who are adamantly opposed to religion. This group committed 76 of the 315 incidents, more than Hamas (54) or Islamic Jihad (27). Even among Muslims, secular groups like the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Al Aksa Martyr Brigades account for more than a third of suicide attacks.

What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks actually have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland. Religion is often used as a tool by terrorist organizations in recruiting and in seeking aid from abroad, but is rarely the root cause

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Tagore in America

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You might not know that Rabindranath Tagore’s first sustained experience of America was not New York or San Francisco, but the farming/university town of Urbana, Illinois. He went there in 1912, to visit his son Rathindranath, studying at the University of Illinois. Father Rabindranath had wanted his son not to study literature or the arts at a place like Oxford or Cambridge (or London, as Rabindranath himself had done), but rather agricultural science in the service of what Tagore hoped would turn into a program for village development.

You might expect this small-town Illinois experience in 1913 to have been a lesson in culture shock for the cosmopolitan (soon to be world-famous) Tagore, who just a few weeks earlier had been dining with the cream of the crop in literary London. But no, Tagore fit right in, impressing the local Unitarians and making friends as he would do wherever he went in those years. He quickly moved from Urbana to Chicago, where he was a hit with the literati there, and from Chicago he started getting invitations to lecture at some major universities, which he accepted.

Tagore actually made five trips to the US, starting in 1912, and ending in 1930, according to his biographers Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson, in their excellent (but out of print!) book Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man. (Note: Their book is the source for most of the information in this post.) By looking at those trips in particular, we can get an image of the man rather different from the aristocratic ‘Gurudev’ that most people know. Tagore came to America, first, to visit his son (who did not stay long), then to raise money for his new university at Shantiniketan. But above all, he came to argue with Americans about American business, industry, and war. What he said and how it was received tells an interesting story about both Tagore and the U.S. in those days. Continue reading →

Guest blogger: Amardeep Singh

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Please welcome guest blogger Amardeep Singh, he of the excellent blog eponymous. On his keyboard of prolificness, Amardeep has fisked exoticism, the Brit Asian music scene, puffy hair and guru shirts, Parineeta and Sarkar, Suketu Mehta and Monica Ali, Vijay Iyer, singer Kiran Ahluwalia, immigrants in London, and Gandhi’s views on the British Raj. In his spare time, he spins records and teaches lit.

I’ve nicked more post ideas from Amardeep’s insightful writing than I care to tally. Finally, I succumbed to the inexorable logic of laziness: why not bring the mountain to the Mutiny?

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Sussing out an honest bureaucrat

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Dr. Krishna Ella is an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin and the founder of Bharat Biotech in Hyderabad. MIT’s Technology Review recently covered the unique challenges he faced when doing business in India. His first challenge, before the Indian economic boom: desis skeptical of returnees.

Ella and his wife had to spend the first months convincing banks to loan them money. It didn’t help that Ella was a repatriate. “Nobody could understand why someone would come back to India,” Ella says. “Everyone’s first question was: ‘What went wrong in America? Did you break some sort of law?'” [Link]

That’s actually still a good question, given that the former chairman of U.S. Airways left that collapsing company and is launching an Indian airline. Ella’s second challenge: routing around the famously inflexible Indian labor market.

As Ella’s business blossomed, though, he faced a classic Indian problem: how to avoid becoming dependent on local labor unions. His solution was practical — and radical: “We chose a poor village in three of the poorest states of India and offered training to their best students, with a promise of at least two years’ employment…” Today, much of the company’s skilled labor force is made up of people who sometimes can support an entire village with their salaries… [Link]

Third challenge: preparing dossiers on which bureaucrats were the least corrupt.

“It was my experience that 90% of the bureaucrats were just in it for the bribes and 10% were really interested in using their position to help the people and the country,” Ella says. He did background research on the employees of an agency from which he needed permits or regulatory approvals, then concentrated his paperwork on the most honest clerk in the department. Further, if a bureaucrat was rude or unhelpful, Ella approached them like he would a potential customer, returning several times to explain his situation in polite and persuasive language. [Link]

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The quonset tunneling effect

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Russell Peters jokes that the only thing the desi accent is good for is cutting tension, while Vikrum Sequeira has decoded how the desi head wiggle signals affability. Indeed, you can usually count on desis to be friendly and amiable.

So when a certain Francis Devandra Raj dug a tunnel from Canada to the U.S., it was purely to promote cross-border comity. The three-by-five tunnel was fortified with rebar and concrete, lit and ventilated. In fact, this undercover brother’s purposes were so peaceful that he was using the tunnel to send serene B.C. bud into the grateful arms of American stoners everywhere.

I just can’t see why the U.S. government doesn’t agree 😉 They arrested Raj and two buddies from Surrey, B.C. yesterday on charges of drug smuggling. But one thing remains the same, desis’ pioneering nature. The tunnel is the very first cross-border subterranean passage between Canada and the U.S ever known to exist.

Federal agents have shut down an elaborate, 360-foot drug-smuggling tunnel dug underneath the U.S.-Canadian border — the first such passageway discovered along the nation’s northern edge… The tunnel ran from a quonset hut on the Canadian side and ended under the living room of a home on the U.S. side, 300 feet from the border. Built with lumber, concrete and metal reinforcing bars, it was equipped with lights and ventilation, and ran underneath a highway…

Francis Devandra Raj, 30; Timothy Woo, 34; and Jonathan Valenzuela, 27, of Surrey, British Columbia, were arrested Wednesday… Raj owns the property under the quonset hut. [Link]

The smugglers were apparently religious. I’d give anything to know which saints were found inside the tunnel — Bob Marley? Lakshmi, goddess of wealth? Or, more appropriately for a tunnel, Ganeshji, remover of obstacles?

That tunnel was 3 feet wide and 5 feet high with a concrete floor. It had wood-beam supports, fiberglass walls, ventilation, video security and groundwater-removal systems. Several altars with flowers and pictures of saints also were found inside. [Link]

The police used some pretty high-tech methods to find the tunnel. But really, all they had to do was look for a bunch of dudes with red eyes giggling hysterically.

Investigators used a machine that can “see” underground, a video-equipped robot, a drug-sniffing dog and an air horn to find it. [Link]

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I need a hug today

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You know what I hate? When someone that isn’t me thinks of a good idea that I would be infinitely better suited to carry out. 🙂 Take Amma “the Hugging Saint,” (a.k.a. Mata Amritanandamayi) for example. People flock to her for a hug and give her money. I give good hug too. The Boston Herald reports:

On the road to enlightenment, no shoes are allowed. Hugs, however, are OK.

At least 3,000 devotees tossed off their footwear before gathering in the lotus position before the smiling Indian spiritual leader known as “Amma,” or mother, revered around the world as “The Hugging Saint.” At the Best Western Royal Plaza Trade Center, truth-seekers engaged in group meditation, then each grabbed a token, like deli counter tickets, to get their hugs.

Amma’s hugs have healing power, some said. Her fund-raising, meanwhile, has allowed her to pledge $22 million to tsunami relief, providing 81,000 meals a day, adopting 350 orphans and sheltering more than 6,000 survivors.

Okay, so here is my vision. We have Sepia Mutiny “hug-ins.” I will announce what city I am in and any reader can come by for a hug. Then we’ll see if our hugging spreads. Not at our North Dakota headquarters though. I don’t want people knowing where we live. After reading this article I suddenly wondered if Dave Matthews and Badly Drawn Boy are fans of Amma. Their respective videos for “Everyday” and “Year of the Rat” would indicate so. Whatever your opinion of Amma, AT LEAST she’s better than this guy.

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davehug.jpg Continue reading →

Bucky Done Underwhelmed

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Ananthan points us to a new music video for M.I.A.’s ‘Bucky Done Gun.’ The mix she uses, the official one from Arular, is so spare that it can hardly sustain a video, leaving me squirming during the long gaps when nothing’s happening musically. The version from Piracy Funds Terrorism is much higher energy.

The video is beautifully filmed, though, black and white recolored in pastels, much higher production values than her early efforts. It’s strange seeing gritty radical chic, itself poseur, turn glossy like a high end photography mag. The video recolors a pair of loudspeakers to match the Palestinian flag, and M.I.A.’s checkered tights evoke the PLO kaffiyeh. Its firebomb-throwing young men are porn for the ultra-left, but the images are carefully sanitized: you see colored Holi smoke streaming from bottles, but you don’t see any actual explosions or maimings. In another bid for hip-hop authenticity, the label surrounds Maya with a swarm of backup dancers who are black.

In M.I.A.’s attitude you can already see the shift from awkward ingénue to sexually confident diva. The video opens with M.I.A. in a boxer’s hood, mike dangling from the ceiling. A clear homage to ‘Mama Said Knock You Out,’ it’s the very definition of aggression. The gaze from beneath the bangs covering half her face is no longer diffident, it’s brassy, painted and unblinkingly heavy-lidded. Her previous videos have been much more playful; this one’s simultaneously more serious and more trashy, with Maya and her main backup dancer pole-writhing against a chain-link fence.

I should cheer for a performer coming into her own, but it feels like a Miltonian loss of innocence. Yeah, I’m already nostalgic for M.I.A. circa 2004 😉

Watch the video.

Update: Here are the lyrics:

They’re comin through the window
They’re comin through the door
They’re bustin down the big wall
And sounding the horn

What you want
The bucky done gun
What you want
The fire done burn
Get crackin, get get crackin

Time to spit new shit
I’m rocking on this new bit
I’m hot now you’ll see
I’ll fight you just to get peace

Heavy weight wrestler
Fight me in your comforter
Let you be superior
I’m filthy with the fury ya

I’ll hard drive your bit
I’m battered by your sumo grip
Lucky I like feeling shit
My stamina can take it

Gymnastics super fit
Muscles on the gun clip
Bite, teeth, nose bleed
Tied up in the scarf piece

Can I get control
Do you like me vulnerable
I’m armed and I’m equal
More fun for the people

Physical, brute force
Steel, iron, you’re the boss
Yeah, you’re so do-able
Grind me down sugar salt

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Sign Here, Here and Here

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Fresh bagels, Starbucks™ coffee, foot massages – the SM main office is indeed posh. Thanks for having me, just remember, I expect to be paid in cash.

So let me begin with a personal anecdote, For what better way is there to endear yourself to your readers but with something that will tug at their heartstrings or at least get them frothing at the mouth.

In order to prepare for our upcoming trip to London, the Mrs. and I went to get an American passport for our two year old son at the county clerk office here in Brooklyn. (I must mention here that I have been on vacation for the past week and have not shaved during the time. A quick glance at me in the CCTV puts me high on a lot of freedom-lovinÂ’ peopleÂ’s wanted list). The guy behind the counter was a big old queen, IÂ’m talking rings on each finger, dyed hair, in his early 60s looking like Tony Curtis and talking like Paul Lynde queen.

“Well, well” he says, “looks like another form printed from the internet, let me see if this is the right one they always screw it up.”

“Is it the wrong form?” I ask

“No, it’s the right one, but usually people screw it up” he replies.

He started to fill out other paperwork then asked for our I.D. (the US passport office suggests you bring a state-issued driver’s license as a form of I.D.). As he continued to write down information from our ID he looked up and says “Now you don’t have a Resident Alien card do you?” (I don’t since I am an US citizen, but he was talking to me.)

My wife interjected “Yes, I do, but I didn’t bring it.” (she’s Welsh with a UK Passport).

“Well, I don’t have to accept this application you know” he says with a flourish of his many-ringed fingers.

“I mean he (speaking to me, the swarthy looking one) looks like he doesn’t belong here but here, you are the one with the resident alien card. You really should bring it with you when you come for something like a passport”.

We both bit our tongue. Telling him to stuff it for that comment meant we would have to go back home, come back with more paperwork and go through this process all over again on the hottest motherchucking day of the year. Continue reading →

Guest blogger: Turbanhead

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As Sepia Mutiny’s first anniversary nears, we thought we’d mix things up a little by bringing in friends of the Mutiny to guest blog for a month each. We could think of no more appropriate person to take our guest blogging cherry than the O.G. Bollykitsch blogger. He’s inspired many of our posts and video-blogged oodles of cheesy ’70s item numbers for our milk-snorting pleasure.

Introducing the man who needs no introduction: DJ Spin Boldak, the Stetson from Crooklyn, Turbanhead.

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Now THAT’s realer than real-deal Holyfield

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The strict and often inflexible immigration rules that have been in effect since 9/11 continues to be displayed as yet another irrational story surfaces. In fairness though, maybe we can just attribute this to good old fashion government bureaucracy. GG2.net reports:

AN ORPHAN girl from India, visiting the US as part of an international goodwill trip, is now battling for life in a US hospital.

Eleven-year-old Shyamala Peddibotla, was admitted to the National Children`s Hospital in Washington, DC with complications from what appears to be diabetes and an infection.

Despite antibiotics having been administered, she continues to suffer from high fever. Apprehension about the girl`s illness is compounded by the fact that three care-takers who were to accompany Shyamala and her eight friends, are still awaiting visas to the United States.

Apparently the Real Deal heard and stepped into the ring to help. The Washington Times reports:

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Former heavyweight champion and philanthropist Evander Holyfield showed up at the State Department yesterday with eight Indian orphan girls in tow, pleading for a visa for the caretaker of a ninth orphan fighting for her life at Children’s Hospital in Washington.

“One of the little girls has diabetes and is in critical condition. Her caretaker needs to come but can’t get a visa,” Mr. Holyfield said in a telephone interview as he stood outside the State Department’s doors.

The hospital has said it cannot release the child without training her custodian in how to monitor 11-year-old Shyamala Peddibotla’s blood sugar level and administer shots of insulin, according to a hospital letter made available to The Washington Times.

If the caregiver — a woman who has tended to Shyamala for the past five years — does not receive a visa, Mr. Holyfield said, the child’s position “is kind of bleak.”

Holyfield is still feared. Someone at the State Department started making some calls on late Tuesday after his visit. Continue reading →