The India Abroad Center For Political Awareness has done a nice little summary of the 2000 census data about the Indian American community. For those of you SM readers too lazy to read the whole thing you have me here to summarize it for you, with my own observations thrown in as a bonus. The highlights:

• Indian Americans use Social Security benefits much less than the general population and significantly lower than even the Asian population. (We need to grab our piece of the pie out of that “lock box” folks)
  
  
• A significant number of Indians live in poverty in Rhode Island, Puerto Rico, D.C., and New York. (I didn’t even know Indians lived in Rhode Island except to attend Brown)
  
  
• Indians account for 0.68% of the U.S. population (Represent!)
  
  
• 96.70% of Indians live in Urban areas as opposed to 79% of the general population. (That really sucks if you are brown and live in a small town)
  
  
• Nearly 2/3 of the Indian American population is 35 years old or younger. This is the largest difference between Indian Americans and the general population. (The really young ones are turning into little punks. I worry about this)
  
  
• As this large group of young people hits retirement age we will begin to require a larger amount of healthcare, social security, and retirement facilities (Whatever. I plan to have rich kids to take care of me.)
  
  
• 6.6% of Indian Americans live in the same house with their grandchildren (Wow. That’s less than I thought. But my kids will take me in, I’m sure.)
  
  
• Since 1994, between 32.3% and 54.1% of the eligible Indian American population voted in each election (not good folks).
  
  
• Indian Americans are 3.5 times more likely to have a professional degree (what a pain in the ass it has been living up to that stat).
  
  
• Indian American children tend to start school earlier than children in the general population (NERDS!).
  
  
• Indian women are more than twice as likely not to have any schooling (foul!).
  
  
• While the general population has only 19.38% more people in poverty than the Indian American population, it receives 176% more public assistance (damn slackers).

Fauja Singh–the astonishing nonagenarian athlete and all-around bad-ass who was in an adidas ad–will be starring in another commercial, an ad for PETA:

The ad shows a runner in mid-stride, training for his next marathon, and reading, “Fauja Singh: Age 93/Champion International Marathon Runner/Father of Six/Grandfather of 13… Vegetarian”.

Singh will be competing at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon September 26.

Singh rediscovered his passion for distance running at the age of 81 and even now shows no signs of slowing down. He has joined forces with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to caution Asians and others about the perils they face if they clog their arteries with meat.

singh has received well-deserved accolades for his accomplishments:

…Singh, who finished ahead of his age group at the New York Marathon last year, was honoured with the Ellis Island of Honour for his feat. He is the only non-American to be so honoured in the history of the prestigious award.

Apart from congressional awards, the Ellis Island Medals of Honour are the only awards recognised by Congress.

what was that about old indian men with superpowers, abhi? 😉

What pops into your mind when you see Arabic script? BBC World News? Urdu shayari? Old-school Punjabi poetry?

Midwest Airlines grounded a flight from Milwaukee to San Francisco after a passenger grew alarmed at seeing Arabic script handwritten inside a magazine (via Half the Sins). The plane returned to the gate, a thorough search turned up nothing, and passengers had to spend the night. The script turned out to be a meditative passage in Farsi written by a Persian Jack Handy.

Reminds me of a trusty Shazia Mirza joke which went something like this: ‘I told my audience I had a surprise for them. And everybody ducked.’

Over the weekend, I went to a desi wedding in Long Island and drove past a slew of Amber Alert child kidnapping signs asking people to watch for a white van. The kids turned up safe, and the father/abductor committed suicide after killing his wife and shooting her sister. Turns out Clifford Bonner’s wife Michelle and her sister, Candice Rampersad, are both desi. The police bulletin on Bonner described him as black, but he’s actually Hispanic and Cherokee. Another case of conforming race to black / white/ Hispanic / other? Continue reading →

British reporter Yvonne Ridley, having been held captive by the Taliban, converted to Islam after her release. Her explanation (conveyed via the BBC) has some odd sexual undercurrents to it:

Working as a reporter for the Sunday Express in September 2001, Ridley was smuggled from Pakistan across the Afghan border…. her cover was blown when she fell off her donkey in front of a Taleban soldier near Jalalabad… Her first thought as the furious young man came running towards her? “Wow – you’re gorgeous,” she says. “He had those amazing green eyes that are peculiar to that region of Afghanistan and a beard with a life of its own. “But fear quickly took over. I did see him again on my way to Pakistan after my release and he waved at me from his car.”

Continue reading →