We get tired of repeating the proven adage “India is a land of paradox”. Case in point [BBC]

Health officials in the Indian state of Rajasthan are launching a new campaign in an effort to reduce the high population growth in the area. They are encouraging men and women to volunteer for sterilisation, and in return are offering a car and other prizes for those who come forward.

Of course, the prizes are also in keeping with our “cost-conscious” nature”

Among the rewards on offer is the Indian-made Tata Nano – the world’s cheapest car.

While not along the lines of Sanjay Gandhi’s alleged forced sterilization program, there is still something Orwellian about the government bribing people to make changes to their reproductive organs, however well-intentioned it might be.

And why is this paradoxical? While Rajasthan is bribing people to sterilize themselves, across the country, our good ole’ friends the Khasi tribe were paying couples Rs. 1000 per child to produce more children.

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A desi guy proposes to his girlfriend in San Fran (via @supremus). One of the more original ones we’ve seen in a while. If anything, the trends of flash mobs seems to be inspired by traditional song and dance sequences from Bollywood movies, so desis popping “the question” in this manner shouldn’t come as a surprise. Thoughts?

Starting the New Year off with some good ole fashioned narrow-mindedness and prejudice, a family “catches” their daughter hanging out with a long-haired dude, who allegedly, is from a different community*. The parents are worried and a nosy younger dude suggests CommunityMatrimony.com because forcing their daughter to marry from the same community ensures a virtuous, reliable, good-character life mate, right? [video link @desinole via Twitter]

* Community in this instance, could stand for caste, sub-caste, “gothra”, clan, other sub-categories or combination thereof.

In India, it was not uncommon to come across a “Do not spit” sign in India splattered liberally with …. ummmm…. spit. Well, recently I was at a popular tourist destination in Southeastern United States, highly recommended at this time of the year, but I digress.

Among the tourists, you could spot the occasional desi or two, until I stumbled upon this family (pictured left top). Three generation of immigrant desis – grandparents visiting from India complete with the prototypical grandpa in “swatter” and grandma in sari, trenchcoat and tennis shoes, parents who probably immigrated to the US couple of decades back and teenage kids most likely born and brought up in the US.

Seems like an immigrant family living the Amrikan dream, happily picnicking away and spending time with each other during the holidays. So what’s wrong with this picture, you ask?

It just happens that this family was happily picnicking away a few feet from this “NO picnicking” sign (pictured left bottom). As is obvious (in some cases) the menu consisted of chips (visible), carafe of homemade chai (visible) and samosas (not visible) among other miscellaneous picnic items. The “NO picnicking” signs were posted all over the place and I even witnessed some family members point at the sign and giggle away.

Now I realize this is not a new phenomenon or newsworthy. But to me, the people picnicking under the “No picnikcing” sign are guilty of the same infractions as the ones who spit on “Do not spit” signs. In fact, some of these people who break rules in the US are probably the same ones who complain about the latter who spit on “Do not spit” signs in India and both sets of people annoy me. What do you think?

Hindustan Times reports that the politically incorrect but popular comic book franchise, Tintin, will soon start releasing books in Hindi. (news and images from the Tintin Facebook fanpage)

On Monday, the Belgian ambassador’s residence in the Capital will see the launch of eight Hindi language books from the Tintin series.
The books have been translated by Puneet Gupta, an ad film-maker

Presumably, this is a more concerted effort to target Indian audiences, which, in my opinion, should’ve started a couple of decades back, if not earlier. Better late than never, is the popular proverb. Now a lot of kids around my age growing up in India, read Tintin comics and they remain popular to this day but their appeal among Hindi and other regional language audiences is TBD.

To appeal to the Hindi-speaking audience, various Tintin characters are also assuming Hindi names.

Snowy (originally Milou) is Natkhat
Thomson and Thompson (originally Dupont et Dupond) are Santa Singh and Banta Singh
Prof Cuthbert Calculus (originally Professeur Tryphon Tournesol akak Prof. Sunflower ) is Professor Surajmukhi
Bianca Castafiore is Malika Castafiore (a name inspired from famous singer Malika Pukhraj)

Translation of literary and musical content across languages are often more miss than hit as evident in some of the books’ titles: “Kaala Dweep (Black Island)” and “Samrat Ottokar Ka Raajdand (King Ottokar’s Sceptre)”. One can only imagine the names of the characters and book titles, if they decide to print in Tamil, Bengali or Gujarati.