Pond’s White Beauty (yes, that is the real name of a product) is the latest “fairness” cream to hit the Indian market. Apparently, it features lycopene that lets you become “pale white or pinkish white, you choose“. [via]

There is also an ad campaign to go hand in hand with the product that hits a new low in terms of discriminating women based on skin color. The ad campaign is an elaborate one featuring Saif Ali Khan and Priyanka Chopra. The story goes something like this:
Saif dumps Priyanka for her dark skin and goes with a pale white girl. Priyanka starts using pink white fairness cream. Saif sees “the change” and realizes he still has feelings for her. Apparently pink white is better than pale white. If you had not seen similar ads in the past, one could be forgiven for thinking all this was an elaborate hoax.

Hard to describe in words but watch the first 4 episodes of the ad campaign yourself after the jump and leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section.

Read the rest of this entry »

Major IT hub, Bangalore, has been rocked by a series of blasts - 7 total within the span of 60 minutes killing 2 and wounding 20, per latest counts. [TOI]

Update: Bangalore as we all know is the IT and outsourcing hub of India. The blasts mainly hit the suburbs as opposed to the business districts and were said to be of lower intensity. Various public establishments and schools were evacuated and cordoned off.

Timing and location of blasts [TOI]

First blast: 1.20 pm, Madiwala bus depot
Second blast: 1.25 pm, Mysore road
Third blast: 1.40 pm, Adugudi
Fourth blast: 2.10 pm, Koramangla
Fifth blast: 2.25 pm, Vittal Mallaya road
Sixth blast: 2.35 pm, Langford Town
Seventh blast: Richmond Town

History of recent terrorist bomb attacks in India [BBC]

May 2008: Eight bombs in Jaipur kill 63
August 2007: Two bombs Hyderabad kill more than 40
May 2007: Bomb in Hyderabad mosque kills 14
February 2007: Twin blasts on train travelling from Delhi to Pakistan kills at least 66 people near Panipat
July 2006: More than 160 killed by seven bombs on train network in Mumbai
March 2006: Bombs at Hindu temple and railway station in Varanasi kill 15
October 2005: Three blasts in Delhi kill 62

As is always the case, there is very little mention of the blasts in the US mainstream media. When it come to news from India, 8 limbed humans and men marrying canines, seem to warrant more front page attention.

After calling for Hindu suicide bombers, Thackeray’s people now want to anoint the Taj Mahal a Hindu temple. [TOI]

Taj Mahal is really Tejo Mahal per Shiv Sena
img: via NYT

In an attempt to reclaim the Taj Mahal as a Hindu temple, a few Sainiks entered the Taj premises disguised as tourists and started a ritual or parikrama with folded hands. When asked to stop by the authorities, they got into a scuffle which ended with them being shipped to the nearest police station.

There is no mention if the Sena activists, a.k.a Sainiks, actually lit a fire inside the monument or not.

So why now and why the Taj Mahal?

Apparently, Bal Thackeray has finally gotten Internet connection and read up on Stephen Knapp, whose website claims to “prove” vedic origins/influences for everything from the Taj Mahal to Egyptian artifacts to the Vatican (no link love from us, google it). Per Knapp, the Taj Mahal is a vedic temple, a “study” which has often been cited by the Hindu right wing fundamentalists who’ve over the past couple of years started making similar claims. And if it’s on the Internet, it must be true, correct?

The Shiv Sena, which considers the 17th century monument built by Emperor Shah Jahan as an older Shiva temple called ‘Tejo Mahal’,

The fundamentalists claim that Shah Jahan actually acquired the Taj Mahal from Hindu king, Jai Singh.

I whole heartedly agree with the fundies. Everything has vedic influences and/or comes from India. Take the case of the Statue of Liberty. Presenting my own “everything has vedic influence” research on how Lady Liberty is a blatant ripoff of a Hanuman statue.

Read the rest of this entry »

Continued from …

*This is the concluding post of a two post series. We will have a short Q&A with the man who introduced this coffee to the world, R. Miguel Meza. We will talk about the lack of Indian coffee blends in major American coffee producers like Starbucks and Folgers and also briefly delve on how “Monkey Parchment Coffee” is doing its bit in helping the local economy of Chikmagular*

No “kaapi” at your local Starbucks?
img: via Flickr

A few quick blurbs:
-”Monkey parchment coffee” is one of the most expensive blends of coffee in the world produced in Chikmagular near Bangalore in India.
-The coffee is made from beans chewed up and spit out by those sneaky macacas.
-Making use of these beans which were essentially considered a loss earlier, has not only cut down on losses but started a whole new mode of employment for the locals.
-The reason you don’t find any Indian coffee in your local Starbucks or elsewhere in the US - lack of awareness of Indian coffee in the West and the watered down quality because of concentration on mass production.
-With the improving economy and the shifting of labor to urban areas, the Indian coffee industry seems to be in a crisis mode in terms of labor.

Thanks to R. Miguel Meza of R. Miguel Coffee for taking the times to answer our questions.

Read the rest of this entry »

We like macacas and we like coffee. So when we stumbled on this story, we could not resist running it. [PRWeb]

Trick question: Which is the one of the most (if not the most) expensive coffee blends in the world that India exports?

Chances are you have never heard of R. Miguel Coffee. Founded in 2007, coffee Roastmaster R. Miguel Meza imports exotic blends for serious coffee lovers. Among the truly exotic blends this coffee maestro serves up is monkey parchment coffee. Never heard of monkey parchment coffee? It’s served on tree branches in Chikmagular in India.

It all begins with the Rhesus Monkeys in Chikmagular, India. “The Monkey Parchment coffee comes from coffee beans that have been chewed on by Rhesus Monkeys that have enjoyed the sweet flavor of the coffee cherries throughout its existence in time.”

Apparently, those sneaky macacas have been enjoying “a cup of joe” way before us. An expensive one, at that!!

An exotic novelty unmatched without comparables in a category of its own, the Monkey Parchment is respectively the most expensive coffee currently sold in the US.

At $250 a pound, it’s pretty hard to argue with the “most expensive tag”.

All this money is for coffee whose beans have chewed up and spit up by monkeys.

“After chewing on the fruit for several minutes, they spit the coffee parchment covered seed out onto the forest floor. The next step is less leisurely and becomes trickier. Trained workers search the forest floors of Chikmagular to find the few seeds that the monkeys have chewed on.” Those preciously left-over seeds are then thoroughly rinsed, washed, processed and dried.
The resulting raw coffee after the intricate sequence is a set of grey beans, embedded with occasional tooth marks, unlike the typical green color of regular raw beans. The Monkey Parchment is also quite distinct from other Indian Arabica coffee in taste, considering the specific enzymatic breakdown of the fruit that occurs in the monkeys’ mouth.

Meza who discovered this coffee on a recent trip to India sums up the taste as “the sweetest and most complex Indian Arabica coffee I have ever tasted” and describes the coffee as “coffee is extremely heavy bodied with a pleasant rounded acidity and seemingly no bitterness“. Being a computer programmer by profession (big surprise there), who is regularly faced with long hours and short deadlines, I’m an avid coffee drinker myself but of the commercial Starbucks variety only, so I’ll take an expert’s word for reviews of exotic brands. Besides I’m way too cheap to pay $250 for a pound of coffee.

So what makes this coffee so expensive?

RMiguel Coffee has made the Monkey Parchment available in America for the first time, but in very limited quantities. Due to the lengthiness in time that it takes to collect any substantial amount of coffee, only a few hundred defined pounds were produced.

Have anyone of our readers from that area of India ever heard of this method of coffee production? Have you ever tasted coffee made this way or, rather, what is the most exotic coffee blend you ever had?

*This is part 1 of a two post series. In the second part, we will have a short Q&A with the man who introduced this coffee to the world, R. Miguel Meza. We will talk about the lack of Indian coffee blends in major American coffee producers like Starbucks and Folgers and also briefly delve on how “Monkey Parchment Coffee” is doing its bit in helping the local economy of Chikmagular*

Bobby Jindal, the republican governor of Louisiana declares that he is not interested for the post of the vice-president of the United States. [Link] (tip Annu, via tipster)


Image from Wikipedia

Bobby Jindal has been touted as the next Ronald Reagan and understandably so, because of his achievements at a very young age, (9 yrs younger than Obama – Jindal’s 37).

He’s the youngest sitting governor of a state and is from a minority race, similar to Obama (who’s bi-racial). Bobby’s race, age and achievements could probably have benefited McCain in his presidential dreams.

However, Jindal isn’t interested:

“Let me be clear: I have said in every private and public conversation, I’ve got the job that I want. And I’ll say again on air: I’m not going to be the vice presidential nominee or vice president. I’m going to help Senator McCain get elected, as governor of Louisiana,” Jindal said.”

There could be many reasons on Bobby Jindal’s side for this – he may feel that he lacks enough experience, and his primary responsibility towards the state of Louisiana to begin with.
It would only be reasonable to assume that, one day we might see him running for the president of the United States. For now the race is on without him anywhere in the picture. And as for McCain’s remaining options -

“Later, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, another potential running mate, told FOX News he has had “no conversations” with the McCain campaign about joining the ticket. “When they announce it, I’ll be one of those most interested in their decision,” said Ridge, also former Homeland Security secretary. He said he has “no idea” when the McCain camp might decide.
Meanwhile, The Boston Herald reported Wednesday that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is still near the top of McCain’s list. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and several other officials, are also thought to be among the top choices for McCain.”

And since Condi Rice isn’t being seen as a serious contender, McCain has probably few options to choose from – Tom Ridge, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty, none of whom see to have an apparent race advantage (or disadvantage) for the voters.
What do readers think? Is it a clever idea for Bobby Jindal to take time to groom himself for the post of the strongest man in the world? Or is it an opportunity lost forever?
Would it have mattered if Jindal actually had the supporting ticket for the post of VP, for the upcoming elections?
Have your say below.

Other posts related to Jindal on Uberdesi:

• Jindal flip flops himself out of the veep position
• McCain picks Jindal as running mate

As predicted earlier on Über Desi, the lure of instant power beat out the lure of promised power. The UPA government won the trust vote in the Indian parliament comfortably by a margin of 275 votes in favour and 256 against. This victory was in spite of major political pundits predicting a closer margin. The vote was marred by controversy with BJP members of parliament claiming that members of SP tried to bribe them. This victory paves the way for the Indo-US nuclear deal which has been the cause of much contention in Indian politics of late. [TOI]

… Über Desi [Über Desi @ Moksha]

So says our flagship tee in the Über Desi @ Moksha section of Moksha Tees.

Summer’s here and it’s time to pull out those old raggedy t-shirts out of the closet. But wait, why do that when you can buy brand new ones, unique desi tees with a brand of humor seldom seen in the desi fashion world. From the guys who crack way too many PJs, presenting Moksha Tees.

Moksha Tees, an obvious play on the words “Mocha” and “Tea”, is what happens when the guys who designed the rotating banners for Über Desi run wild with their imagination and humor. What can I say, we got mad graphic skillz.

Every single one of these tees has been well thought through and painstakingly designed from scratch. No copy-paste of text and clipart images from Microsoft Word, every single image is designed in Photoshop and Gimp 2.0 and is unique unlike anything you will see anywhere else. Our inspiration is the brand of tees we wore growing up in India, Tantra, but unlike Tantra, which caters to an exclusively Indian audience, we cater to Indians and Indian-Americans.

Our tees are humorous and edgy and are likely to amuse and offend, but when did that last stop us?

Other tees in Über Desi @ Moksha:
1. Über Desi - Putting the D in ABC….
Offended? There’s more.

2. Kiss my kundi
My personal favorite - the kundi is from a Mohenjo Daro era relic. It can’t get any desier.

3. Desi World - No mice, no ducks, just real nice people
An obvious play on that place where those mickeys and goofies live.

and of course,
4. FOBs R Us

Wait! We’re just getting started.
We also have a number of selection in two other sections:
1. Moksha Lite: Most designs in the store available at cheaper prices. We’re desi, we’ve been cash strapped at some point in life, we understand.

2. Moksha Grande: Note the coffee theme all over the place? Goes well with the color brown. Moksha Grande is our premium section featuring the best and the boldest. Check it out yourself.

Some of our designs have already been turned down by some major t-shirt outlets, for being too edgy or too controversial and are strictly available on a request-by-email basis only.

We’re not endorsed by any celebrities because we believe the customer is the celebrity. So be a celebrity. Get value for your money and great quality @ Moksha Tees.

How to pick one? Simple. Just go with the ones you like most.

Please email your feedback to moksha[at]uberdesi.com

With the Congress party-led UPA coalition in India staring down the barrel of a crisis, with the no-confidence vote looming large, elected members of smaller parties are coming into more focus. [Reuters]

“So this is democracy??”, Ghandi (sic) seems to be saying
img: via Reuters

With a vote of confidence (or one of no-confidence) looming large on the horizon, the UPA-led coalition seems to have no option but to ride this one out.

The vote, due on Tuesday, is so close that several MPs who are ill may be flown or wheeled in from hospital, and others, in jail for crimes such as murder and extortion, have been granted temporary release.

The legacy of Manmohan Singh seems to be riding on whether his government has one more year in office or not.

If the Congress party-led government falls there will almost certainly be an election this year. It would also likely lead to the scrapping of the civilian nuclear agreement and throw economic policy into limbo just as inflation rises dangerously.

Speaking of which, the nuclear deal seems to be the focal point of this vote.

The vote essentially pits the Congress-led coalition in favour of the deal against the communists and a coalition led by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP says the nuclear deal limits India’s ability to test nuclear weapons.

In this game of high stakes, smaller regional parties have been brought into play. With smaller parties like Samajwadi Party (SP) - for, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) - against, Shiv Sena - against, JD(S) - against, RLD - against, holding the cards to the end game, the members of these parties are being wooed openly by all and sundry.
Things have gotten so ridiculous, unicorn sightings are not out of question - the UPA government renamed an entire airport to woo the leader of the RLD party, Ajit Singh. [Rediff]

With an eye to make the Rashtriya Lok Dal president Ajit Singh happy, the Union Cabinet in a crucial meeting decided to rename the Lucknow airport after his father Chaudhary Charan Singh. This was disclosed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram while briefing media-persons on the developments that took place in Thursday’s meeting.

Reports are now surfacing that 3 of the 12 Shiv Sena members could potentially vote against the party line, after reportedly receiving minor tokens of appreciation - Rs. 50 crore each (around $12.5 million), not only by members of opposing parties but also from bookies, who have a lot of money riding on the survival of the Congress led UPA government [TOI]

It’s learnt that at least three of its (Shiv Sena’s) MPs have been approached not only by the Congress and NCP, but also by bookies. It appears that the bookies led by Hitesh Samrat and Ajay Maheshwari — they consider UPA government as the odds-on favourite to survive the trust vote — have developed huge stakes in the continuance of the UPA government and are going all out to try and fix the outcome of the trust vote.
“The going rate for an MP has shot up to a mind-boggling Rs 50 crore with 50% being the down payment,” said a senior Maharashtra intelligence official on Sunday. More attention is being paid to those MPs who have lost their constituencies in the delimitation exercise. “The reasoning is that since these MPs have no constituency to fight from, they’ll be more vulnerable to allurements,” a Sena leader admitted.

Which brings us to our man-of-the-hour, not the Prime Minister, leader of the opposition or any of these horse-trading members of parliaments. It’s none other than the man who made changing parties, cool. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Gaya Lal. [TOI]

Read the rest of this entry »

F1 legend Schumi is not making a comeback to F1 racing but his “guru” is. [link] (tip Karthik via email)

‘Guru’ Balbir Singh and Fisichella
img: via F1-live.com

Balbir Singh, physiotherapist and spiritual guru of the erstwhile F1 champion and legend is all set to make a comeback to bigtime F1 racing, after “retiring” in 2005.

Michael Schumacher’s former physiotherapist and ‘guru’ Balbir Singh has made a surprise and full-time return to the Formula One paddock. The Indian - revered by former seven time world champion Schumacher as F1’s best physio, masseuse, dietician and ’spiritual guide’ - left the sport at the end of 2005 to spend more time with his German wife and children and set up a meditation business.

What kind of an Indian guru has a German “shishya” and a German wife? Surely this is against “Indian culture”. Lets commence with effigy burnings.

Significantly but not surprising, Singh has chosen with make his comeback with the first Indian-owned team in F1 history.

But Singh is back in the paddock at Hockenheim this weekend - wearing a uniform of the Indian-owned team Force India. The German newspaper Express reveals that Singh is team driver Giancarlo Fisichella’s new physio.

Immigration, business and economics work in weird ways. Point in case, Alberta (in Canada for the geographically challenged) is trying to woo H1B holders, while the US immigration policy makers are doing their best to cut down on the number of H1Bs. [Philly.com] [via]

Alberta is wooing H1B holders with cheesy shots of its picturesque downtown
img: via Philly.com

On one hand, Alberta seems to have a lot to offer in terms of quality of life, infrastructure and employment opportunities.

An oil boom. A robust economy. Universal health care - free next year.
….

There’s more. Highly lauded schools. Low crime rates. Low unemployment. Low taxes. A surplus of jobs.
….

…. anybody, would probably enjoy living in a province where the largest city, Calgary, population 1.1 million, had just 30 homicides in 2007. And the health care will be free, thanks to all the oil and gas royalties. Prices for new houses rose nearly 5 percent in 2007.
….

There’s no provincial sales tax, the equivalent of state sales tax. The lowest provincial income-tax rate in Canada. (A flat tax of 10 percent for singles earning over $16,853 and $39,655 for a family of four.)

On the other, they’re finding it difficult to attract highly skilled workers.

But there’s the rub: Not enough workers to fill the positions, expected to top 110,000 over the next decade, according to estimates provided by Alberta. So, government representatives have been visiting cities worldwide - including a stop today at the Westin Philadelphia Hotel - to entice potential employees to think Alberta.

To attract highly skilled workers, mostly the equivalent of US H1B holders, Alberta seems to be laying out the red carpet including ads in papers, offers of permanent residency and even a website touting its wares.

My personal opinion? I’ll pass. Not only is the cold weather a factor in my decision (I live in the Sunshine State of the East Coast) but the overall reputation of Canada also. Rightly or not, the desi community is chock full of stories of Canada with this reputation of easy immigration laws to lure immigrants who find it difficult to find employment once they reach there. On the other hand, if I was struggling to find employment or my H1B was in danger, who knows?

Being that a large section of our readers hold H1B visas or at least know someone close to them who holds a H1B visa, what is your personal opinion? Hypothetically, would you move to Alberta, Canada, with its promises of more opportunities and better life quality? If yes, why, and if not, why?

This is also an opportunity for someone with more expertise on Canadian immigration to chime in and dispel or reinforce some of the myths surrounding it.

….. desi ishtyle, of course. [NYT] (tip Karthik via email)

Bad day at work?
img: via NYT

The pictured scene is not from a campy Lollywood flick (which by the way I highly recommend for purely entertainment purposes), it’s the aftermath of the violence near the Karachi stock exchange. After 15 days of losses and the worst month in the stock market history, investors decided enough was enough and decided to take matter into their own hands, of course by matters, I mean objects of lethal force, frequently employed on the subcontinent, when we so desire, to express our displeasure.The trigger point was the denial of a request command by the investors directing the stock market to stop trading to prevent further losses for the day. Rules being rules, the stock market denied and the investors fulfilled their wish anyway, through alternate methods.

Angry investors stormed out of the Karachi Stock Exchange on Thursday, hurling stones and planters at the building in protest over slumping share prices.

Of course, no stock market crash is complete without the perfunctory sob story.

“I have lost my life savings in the last 15 days, and no one in the government or regulators came to help us,” said Imran Inayat, 45, a protester and a former broker in Karachi

As is, par for the couse, the investors speculators blamed the government for their losses ……

Some of the fury was also directed at the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, which this week removed a 1 percent daily limit on price declines. The restriction was aimed at halting a slide that has wiped out $30 billion in companies’ combined market value over three months.

…….. leading Phil Gramm to call Pakistan “a nation of whiners“. Ok, I made that one up.

Other stock market experts beg to differ.

“There has been some level of mismanagement by the authorities,” said Habib-ur-Rehman, a manager at Atlas Asset Management Ltd. in Karachi, according to Bloomberg. “This may be due to their misperception that they can prevent the market from falling. Investors have to learn to bear losses as they do gains.”

Translation: A resounding STFU for the speculators.

The root cause for this violence appears to be a misplaced sense of entitlement brought about by asinine government protectionism and market intervention. The 1% drop-freeze rule, presumably instituted by Musharraf, not only shielded the speculators from losses which are a part of most stock markets around the world, it also spoiled them to the point of making them feel entitled to be protected from losses.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Sports commentators often love to indulge in clichés. It doesn’t get better than when cricket commentator and former player Tony Greig said something to the effect “There’s a lot riding on this match” in a must-win game for India in Sharjah before Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar went on to play his monumental innings in a desert storm, but I digress. When two rivals, for instance New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox in baseball, Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins in the NFL and India-Pakistan in cricket, play each other, one of the common clichés commentators use is “There’s bad blood between these teams”.

How about Indian and Pakistan in hockey? [Hindu]

Good ole “raada” - desi ishtyle
img: via Hindu

The occasion?
The semifinal of the sixth junior Asia Cup hockey championship
The teams?
India and Pakistan
What exactly happened?
India was dominating early and Pakistan was feeling the pressure.

The Indians quickly regained composure despite Pakistan forcing a penalty corner in the very first minute. The outstanding display came from the defenders, especially Innocent Kullu and Diwakar Ram, while Ranjit Singh on the left-flank showed enterprise and imagination in warding off a series of threats from Pakistan captain Shafqat Rasool and Shahzad Nasir.
In the 16th minute, winger Roshan Minz fed a precise short pass from the left-flank to Gurwinder Singh Chandi who in one action trapped and essayed a delectable reverse hit from the left of the ‘D’ to give India the lead.
With even Jagwant Singh making his presence felt upfront, India looked the better side. And with Chandi and Mandeep Antil working in tandem, the Pakistan citadel was often under pressure.

In the 31st minute of the game, the Indian captain was allegedly mugged by a couple of Pakistani defenders which led to an all-out brawl.

When Indian captain Gurbaj Singh was allegedly jostled by the frustrated pair of Khasif Ali and Muhammad Irfan, it led to the players being involved in a brawl in the 31st minute.

Things ultimately got under control …

For four minutes the situation seemed to be going out of hand before better sense prevailed at the intervention of the technical officials and the referees Marcin Grochal of Poland and Al-Wahibi Thani Shaheem of Oman. Irfan got an yellow card amidst protests from the Pakistan camp.

… and India ended up victors enroute to the championship game.

India seemed to have reserved its best for the semifinal against Pakistan and Diwakar Ram came up with a sterling display both as a defender and in scoring two goals to fashion India’s 3-1 win and entry into the final of the sixth junior Asia Cup hockey championship here on Tuesday.

Congrats to the junior Indian hockey team for the victory and a big thanks to both teams for providing spectators with some extracurricular entertainment. While I personally don’t condone violence, some sort of extracurricular activity in sports is ok with me. The “calculated” brawls in ice hockey and baseball while entertaining, happen way too often to hold any real interest. But the rare minor brawls in a blood rivalry like India and Pakistan on the field can only be good for the otherwise dying game of field hockey.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Other posts on Über Desi about field hockey [1,2]

We @ Über Desi are vary vary family-like - loving, nosy and overbearing. So much that we’re already planning the baraats of our yet-to-be-married resident bloggers [1,2] even without marriage dates or in some cases, without potential brides. So when we heard about rich grooms in India arriving at the wedding venues in choppers, we decided that was it, matter settled. Until we came across this ….. [BBC]

Switching the sehra for sky diving helmets
img: via BBC

Shishir Mishra, an Indian airforce sky diver, not only arrived in a chopper but actually jumped off the chopper to parachute into his own wedding.

Mr Mishra jumped at around 7,000 feet from a helicopter and landed in a crowded sports ground just a short distance away from his bride’s home. He and three fellow skydivers freefell before opening their parachutes a few hundred feet from the ground.

And why would anyone do such a risky stunt on the day of his wedding?

Mr Mishra said that his novel way of arriving was not done solely to impress his future bride - he wanted to promote and popularise skydiving in the state. “I have been thinking of a skydiving demonstration in Orissa for some time now. But the idea of doing something on the occasion of my marriage struck me after I read about a couple in Maharashtra getting married in a hot air balloon recently,” he said.

Shishir Mishra is an accomplished sky diver with over 22,000 free falls including one with a national flag in hand.

Unfortunately, our yet-to-be-married bloggers turned down this idea for a grand entrance at their future weddings, whenever that may be. The overriding factor seems to be not fear of heights but fear of exposure - they’ll most likely be wearing veshtis for the wedding ceremony.

Indians in India are consuming more rice, while Indian-Americans are cutting down.

More Indians in India are driving, while Indian-Americans are cutting down on their driving habits.

The comparisons between Indians of the des and Indian Americans are strictly anecdotal and may or may not be related but certainly indicative of the times. Personally, over the last few years so I’ve cut down on rice in general but that is a personal choice. As for driving, high gas prices have certainly played a role in reduced driving. The last recession (dotcom bust) was when I was graduating, and jobs were extremely hard to come by, especially for H1B seekers.

How is the slowdown in the US economy affecting you, if any at all? Job search? Groceries? Driving? Vacations? Retirement funds? Daily life, in general? Do you think America is in a recession currently or is former Senator and former McCain adviser right about America (including Indian-Americans) being “a nation of whiners”? Any economic gurus/market experts feel free to chime in.

The captain of the Indian cricket previously featured on this blog for brushes with the law and being the victim of the effigy burning industry, is now threatened by an entirely new species - female fans. [BBC]

Dhoni seems strangely relaxed faced with this new threat
img: via BBC and Hindu

To protect him from this clear and present danger, the police have provided him with female bodyguards - earning them the sobriquet “Dhoni’s Angels”. I’m not sure that minus the tabloid potential why this article was exactly featured prominently on BBC news. Maybe its the fact that *gasp* a man in India can have *double gasp* female bodyguards. Where are the effigy burners? There must surely be something on Page 249 line 6 of the “Perpetually Offended Guardians of Indian Culture” book against this sort of mingling of the sexes and reversal of roles.

Keeping with the trend of mixing cheesy rap and 90s Europop lyrics in Bollywood numbers, we proudly present the Über Desi Top 10 Langoti remix:

(Dhoni)
Arre he, oh ho, yo yo,
Mein hoon captain, of da Indian cricket team,
Mein single, eligible, not tall, but vary vary lean,
I play a lot of cricket matches,
I bat, captain and also git sum catches,
All Dhoni wants is some rest and recreation,
All these ladies want is a lot of procreation.

(Female Bodyguard Chorus)(x 3)
Oh baby Dhoni,
You are my honey,
We wear bindis and bangles,
We’re Dhoni’s Angels.

(Dhoni)
Representing West Jharkhand. Holla at ya boy.

Thoughts? Opinions (besides ones stating my rhyming sucks)?

In case you missed it, yesterday news broke of the intended cover of the upcoming New Yorker’s July 21st 2008 edition. [CNN]

Highlights of the cartoon:
1. Shows Barack Obama dressed in traditional Muslim garbs complete with turban
Background: Barack wore a turban and traditional Kenyan attire in 2006 when he visited that nation. [UD]
2. Show Michelle Obama sporting an afro while in real life she does not [Photo]
3. Michelle Obama is carrying an AK-47 and a belt of bullets in the mold of a Taliban fighter
4. Barack and Michelle bumping fists, which they often do in public appearances
5. Picture of someone resembling Osama bin Laden on the wall of what appears to be the Oval Office in the White House
6. And above all, an American flag burning in the fireplace.

Did I miss anything?

The Obama campaign immediately termed the cover as “tasteless and offensive” as did the McCain campaign. [CBS]

The Obama campaign quickly condemned the rendering. Spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement:
“The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly e-mailed: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.”

The editor of the New Yorker released a statement terming the cover as a “satire” of Obama critics and slanders urging everyone else to do the same. [NPR]

“The intention is to satirize not Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, but, in fact, to hold a pretty harsh light up to the rumors, innuendos, lies about the Obamas that have come up — that they are somehow insufficiently patriotic or soft on terrorism,”
“Satire doesn’t run with subtitles. A satirical cartoon would not be any good if it came with a set of instructions.”

Being a humor and satire based blogger, I semi-agree with that last statement on satire. However, I find it hard not believing that this was nothing but a cheap trick to generate publicity for the New Yorker’s July 21st edition, using a tried and tested stunt.

Reading various blogs and message boards, I came across various points of view:
- If George Bush can be the victim of satire, why not Obama? [BushOrChimp.com]
- Barack, welcome to Hillary Clinton’s world. [NOW]
-Extremely offended to the point of calling for a boycott of the New Yorker [LA Times]
-Found it to be “not a big deal” [Huffington Post]

Huffington also raises an interesting point: Magazines and late night comics (largely white media catering to a majority white audience) are finding it hard to run comic material about Obama largely because of his race. [NY Times]

So?

Thoughts? Opinions? “Tasteless and offensive”? “Funny”? “Not cool but not a big deal”? What say ye?

“Love Story 2050″ proves that some love stories should *never* be immortal. Unfortunately, the idea of the movie is a novel one with lots of potential.

“Love Story 2050″: Desi sci-fi gone bad
img: via Wikipedia

But Hindi movie scriptwriters are like inept hangmen - very poor execution. The incomprehensible plotline begins with the standard boy-meets-girl. Spoilt brat boy is played by Newcomer Harman Baweja - whose resemblance to Hrithik Roshan is remarkable. Since he imitates Hrithik- from hairstyle to dance moves - I’m guessing he knows this! Girl is played by Priyanka Chopra - another ex-Miss India who has made it big in the movies. The 2050 bit begins when Girl dies and for reasons that are never quite clear, boy must travel to Mumbai in 2050 to bring back her reincarnated self. Understood? No ? Join the club. There is never a good reason why a plotline should include both time travel and re-incarnation - one of those would be confusing enough.

Boy’s uncle (played by a frightful gray wig that sounds a lot like Boman Irani) is a scientist who invents a time machine. So Boy goes to Mumbai in the year 2050.

Regarding Mumbai in 2050, there’s good news and bad news :

- The good news is that Mumbai in 2050 looks exactly like the sets of the movie The Fifth Element

-The bad news is that shoulder-pads are back in fashion. Oh and the Round table pizza knight is around , playing the villainous Dr.Hoshi.

Read the rest of this entry »

A District court judge ordered the Sabhnanis to pay nearly $1 million in back wages to the women whom they were accused of enslaving and torturing. [NDTV]

Even Dr, ,Evil says one million dollars is not enough reparations for slavery
img: via Wiki

The Sabhnanis, who own an international perfumes business, were accused of holding two Indonesian women against their will and torturing them, in what has come to be known as the “Muttontown Slavery Case”. Last week, a judge ruled that the two victims were entitled to double the wages owed to them by the Sabhnanis.

A multi-millionaire Indian American couple, already sentenced to jail for virtually enslaving two Indonesian maids, has been ordered by a US court to pay nearly $1 million in back wages to the women.

The Sabhnanis, who run an international perfumes business, have been ordered to pay Samirah, who worked for them from Feb 2002 to May 2007, $620,744, while Enung, who worked at their house from Jan 2005 to May 2007 is owed $315,802.

And what kind of treatment were the victims subject to?

The women, who were brought as household helps from Indonesia, had testified in court that they were beaten with brooms and umbrellas, slashed with knives and forced to take cold water showers for perceived ”mistakes”.

You would think that for that kind of treatment even $1million seems like a small amount. Not, so says the Sabhnanis lawyer.

While the prosecutors had claimed that the actual wages amounted to $1.1 million, the Sabhnanis’ defence lawyers said that figure was vastly exaggerated and pared it down to $214,000.

Bargaining, even when guilty, desi ishtyle.

And where will the Sabhnanis get this million dollars from? From the sale of their home, thinks Judge Spatt.

Judge Spatt also said the federal government could seize not only the Sabhnanis’ house, but also an attached office of the couple’s multimillion-dollar perfume company. The estimate value of the home and office is $2 million.

Kind of optimistic, considering the state of the real estate market these days.

So what do our readers think? Is double wages enough compensation for slavery and torture?

Other posts on the “Muttontown Slavery Case” [1,2,3].