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Brown in America

Desi woman sends gulab jamuns and …. death threats??

By: Santosh :+: Under: Brown in America
On: ⋅ March 5, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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Gulab jamuns, yes. Death threats, no. But Neelam Vir, a desi woman in the Ontario province of Canada has been charged with sending death threats to the staff member of the Premier of the Ontario province of Canada. [link]

“I will feed you gulab jamun and then kill you”
img: via TheStar.com

Neelam, who emigrated to Canada from India in 2002 with a PhD degree was a big fan of the Premier of Ontario province, where she and her husband lived. Hearing that the Premier was a big fan of gulab jamuns, she sent some gulab jamun mix to his staff to be handed to the Premier. Typical desi ishtyle, you think what’s wrong with that? Then later that night she emailed the McGuinty again inquiring if he got her gift. Typical desi ishtyle. But this is where things started to go wrong.

The same night, she emailed McGuinty, asking whether Masciantonio had given him the mix.

“I said, `If she didn’t give it to you, I’ll kill her.’ It’s just slang,” Vir said. “I use this term all the time with my husband and my kids. In Hindi, it’s, `Mein tumarhi jaan nikal dungi.’”

Vir received no reply but, on Nov. 20, after the election, half a dozen police officers showed up at her door. They confiscated her laptop, cellphone, camera and papers, and hauled her to jail on a charge of conveying a death threat. There she spent a frantic six hours until her husband bailed her out. “I was so upset I couldn’t stop crying. I kept asking, `What wrong did I do?’”

Uptil this point, this story was that of an overbearing desi, who tried too much to please. But after her release Neelam Vir did something, which at that point can only be termed as stupid, she contacted the Premier’s office again, in violation of her parole.

In desperation and in breach of the conditions of her release, Vir sent McGuinty another email, apologizing and trying to explain.

A few days later, police rearrested her for breaching her bail conditions. This time, the court ordered her to see a psychiatrist, pending a hearing.

This was not the first time Neelam Vir had sent emails ….

As a freelance writer for a Punjabi newspaper in Mississauga, she often met politicians at community events. A prolific emailer, she sent messages – mainly decrying the plight of foreign-trained professionals – to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Immigration Minister Diane Finley, the provincial labour, education and health ministers and provincial opposition leader John Tory, many of whom she had met on assignment.

She sent the first of about 200 rambling emails to McGuinty last July. “In India, you can’t even approach a politician. Here, they’re accessible and open to hearing from constituents, so that’s what I was doing,” Vir says.

…. or gifts to McGunity.

Thrilled to get a form-letter reply from McGuinty that used her first name, Vir mailed him a rakhi (symbolic thread) last August, referring to him as “Big B,” her big brother.

At a Sept. 17 Liberal news conference at a Toronto bookstore, Vir handed McGuinty’s teacher wife, Terri, her resumé in the misguided hope she might help her find a job.

Vir took her daughters, Aanchal, 14, and Muskan, 9, to meet McGuinty during a roundtable with Punjabi media in Woodbridge on Sept. 28 where she heard him say he likes gulab jamun. The premier posed for photos with the trio, who presented him with bouquets and handmade cards.

I actually feel sorry for this lady, upto a point. Neelam Vir seems like one of those over bearing desis, who try too hard to make friends. The sending of the gulab jamuns, rakhis and too many emails all while tacky, are friendly gestures overall. Plus no one ever told her to stop doing it, in fact she even received some form of encouragement from the Premier in the reply letter.

Even reading the text of the alleged “death threat” letter, you can’t but feel sorry for Neelam Vir, initially. `If she didn’t give it to you, I’ll kill her’. In fact, that does not even read like a death threat. If the complaint was about the language was inappropriate or even rude, that seems like a valid argument. Granted that in this post 9/11 era, threats should not be taken lightly but detaining this lady over a bad joke, seems awfully over-reactionary. Albert Brooks spend $10 million on a movie that tried to figure out what made Muslims laugh, perhaps he should spent it on figuring out what makes Canadians laugh. What makes it slimier, is that Premier McGuinty waited until after elections to bring this up with the police. If he did indeed construe Neelam’s email as a death threat, shouldn’t he act on it immediately?

Now for Neelam Vir, while it’s easy to feel sorry for this lady, she was in the wrong on two counts. In this part of the world, there is a certain term people would use to term her brand of friendliness - stalking. Surely, having been part of that society for over 5 years, you would think she picked up on that? Besides 200 emails to a relative stranger in one month is definitely not normal whichever part of the world you come from. And then, she tried to contact McGuinty inspite of what appears to be a restraining order against her from the court and that is where she crossed the line. And yes, even though I believe that Neelam Vir made a honest mistake, immigrants like her and even me could do well to learn the local culture of what’s appropriate and what isn’t.

As for me, lesson learnt. No more “My back is killing me” (attempted suicide), “I could kill for that Ferrari” (homicide with burglary) or “We could make a killing off this blog” (premediated murder). Ssssshhhhhhh

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