The Times of India has done it again. Having long abandoned any pretense of journalistic integrity, here is the latest rubbish from our favorite go – to desi paper.

Under the cringe inducing headline “ Study links lesbianism to career” ,   the TOI quotes a dubious study from un-named NGOs in Chandigarh that : ( I am not making this shit up – this is a direct quote!)

A study by two NGOs to understand the nature of lesbian behaviour in the city has found that most women take to this alternative sexuality while staying in hostels of educational institutions or working at call centres and marketing companies

Apart from personal choice, the reasons for these women’s (sic) turning lesbian were found to be an abusive childhood or being widowed or divorced.

There is zero mention of genetic predisposition and makes the whole issue of homosexuality sound like a lifestyle choice as opposed to a congenital orientation.

This sounds like it was dictated by the far right – defense of marriage act types in the US …

Anyways, I matched their “checklist” against my personal history and:

- Stayed at hostel of educational institution : Check

- Working at call centers or marketing companies : Check

- Abusive childhood : No

- Widowed or Divorced : No

Does this mean there is a 50 % chance I am going to play for the other team ? But, but …I love Bruce Willis ..so that can’t be true? Can it ? Can it?

Who writes this crap?

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I read this article in the Times of India and I think that was the proverbial last straw for me. I see a disgusting and disturbing trend that I can only describe as hidden racism via making fun of ethnic names.

I sat through part of the unwatchable “Outsourced ” on NBC out of a sense of obligation – believing I needed to review it for Uberdesi. I wish I could have that 30 minutes of my life back! While “Outsourced” plays up every disgusting stereotype, the nadir was when the white, male lead sniggers at hearing the name “Manmeet”. He says something like “Man meat? That must be embarassing to use on the Internet”. That was it for me – I switched off the TV. If the actor/director had even bothered to research the way the name is pronounced ( munn- meeth ) the so called “pun” would not even hold up. ( As an aside: the presumably ABD actors like Amisha Nagarajan – of “Bombay Dreams” fame – should be ashamed of themselves for participating is such an obviously offensive show. It can be done right : ref: Raj Kootrapalli ( Kunal Nayyar) of “The Big Bang Theory”.”Outsourced” is plain wrong. I wonder if the ABD actors spend their time sniggering at their unfortunate DBD cousins and congratulating themselves on being so different?)

Making fun of ethnic names kind of shows that the writers have reached the bottom of the barrel. What is the wit in making fun of something that the unfortunate target has no control over? And who decides that only Anglo Saxon names are normal?

Remember Sanjaya Malakar? And the way the American media had a field day with his name? Even Brian Williams – who I respected up till that point – made a joke about it on Letterman. ( and then followed up with a half -assed apology you can read here )

I remember last Christmas when my family attended a party at the home of non Indian friends. A slightly inebriated guest asked my husband and son their names and then said “Why do you Indians have such weird names? Why can’t you name your kids Tom or Jack?”. I cannot tell you how uncomfortable we felt .

I confess that in India I used to snigger every time I passed by an Opticians shop in Colaba called “Lund & Blockley” for obvious reasons. But I would not dream of making fun of someone’s name. Here is my proposal (sarcasm :ON) With the issuance of a Green Card, lets change every Indian male’s name to “Tom” appended by a digit : Tom1 , Tom2 , Tom3 etc.Women can be Jane. And when Non-Indians visit India : lets call everyone “Sanjay ” since that is one of the few desi names that the American tongue does not mangle beyond recognition.Women can be Mahalakshmi. ( sarcasm:OFF).

There may be some hope on the horizon. This article in the NYTimes states that fewer immigrants are changing their names to fit in.

The rationale was straightforward: adopting names that sounded more American might help immigrants speed assimilation, avoid detection, deter discrimination or just be better for the businesses they hoped to start in their new homeland.

Today, most experts agree, that traditional immigrant gambit has all but disappeared.

Of course: this pertains only to last names. We still have a ways to go before an Anol or an Ashit can introduce themselves without encountering ridicule.

Dear Readers: If you are a fan of “House” please stop reading RIGHT NOW. Major spoilers ahead!

For those of you who have been following “House” half as obsessively as I have – you should know that this weeks episode had a major shocker. Dr.Lawrence Kutner (our very own Kal Penn) committed suicide. I knew that this was going to happen almost a month ago . The Ausiello files predicted the death of a major male character on a leading TV series, I narrowed it down to “House” and I just knew that Kal Penn’s time had come. How,you ask? Elementary,my dears – its all because of the EMC theory-a theory that while not strictly scientific-has loads of empirical evidence to support it !

EMC stands for “Expendable Minority Character“- iin other words the hapless African American, Asian or desi who meets an untimely death all for the greater glory of the main star. Hollywood has perfected this to an art form.Take any action movie with a white hero and his essential minority sidekick. Four times out of five after umpteen blasts and mayhem, the EMC *must*die , with aforesaid hero weeping over him.

I think this works for Hollywood because they get their “token” character on screen to ward off any suggestions of lack of diversity and also get to kill off a cast member to inject pathos without alienating what they imagine to be the predominantly white audience. Its gotten so bad that the moment the EMC comes onto the screen- I start a countdown. The nadir was last year’s “Wanted” where the token desi was killed in the first two minutes of the movie. Read the rest of this entry »

Today is International Women’s Day. I cannot wish all our readers a “Happy Women’s Day” because truth to be told there is not much to be happy about.

The Times of India says so (link)

Studies show that a woman is raped every 35 minutes in India; female child mortality is higher than male by 25%-50% in India, Bangladesh and Nepal….. the average South Asian woman’s risk of dying in childbirth is a hundred times greater than for a woman in an industrialized country

Before we start congratulating ourselves on living in the US of A, lets pause to consider that the USA is also one of the few countries ( along with Sudan, Somalia, Qatar, Nauru, Palau and Tonga!) that has failed to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. (link)

Whats more disturbing  is that it is no longer just  the Right that is standing in the way of the ratification- but also so-called Liberals. The Conservatives claim that it could lead to legalized prostitution ( like that’s a bad thing!) and removal of restrictions on abortion. The Left is worried that in a rush to ratify it, a number of  potentially damaging exceptions for the US are likely to creep in. Damaging because the US will be ,in effect , telling the world “Do as I say, not as I do “.

Me? I am sad that we even need to be discussing the signing of a treaty that would guarantee equal rights for women.  Women make up more than 50% of the population yet the fact that we have to even discuss granting them Equal  rights shows how strong the patriarchy is . It has influenced even women’s groups such as the Rightist (and wrongly -named!) Concerned Women for America to oppose the treaty because it is like – and I quote them – “The Equal Rights Amendment on steroids”. And what is wrong with that?

The fact is that all this opposition in born out of fear. Fear that centuries of systems -political, social and religious – that are rooted in the patriarchy will no longer have a legal leg to stand on once this treaty is passed. The treaty requires that that signing nations “embody the principle of the equality of men and women in their national constitution or other appropriate legislation.” Other so -called controversial elements include the question of easy access to abortion and contraception that the treaty provides. I do not believe that the signing of CEDAW will magically solve all women’s issues ( Saudi Arabia signed it and women can’t even drive there!). But signing it will be a start to working towards true Equality – a start towards accepting that women are NOT second-class citizens of the world.

I’ll be happy about Women’s Day when I know that the world is working together to ensure that women have full rights over their lives and their bodies without society, the government and the family  telling us what is right for us.

Growing up we were told: Keep your head down, eyes averted , be ladylike .The nuns at school would not let us run in the hallways – no matter what the emergency. We had to walk like ladies, talk like ladies.

The conventional wisdom drilled into us when we – oh so often – encountered that loathsome breed – the roadside Romeo was -Don’t respond. Don’t acknowledge the insult. Don’t make eye contact. Keep your head down,keep traveling like nothing happened – like no-one was saying filthy things or passing lewd remarks. Later in college when I lived in a  girls’  dormitory we were locked in at 9 am like caged animals “for our own protection against anti-social element “. Random boyfriends would tell us “Don’t dress provocatively because you will attract the wrong element”. Not once did anyone in authority suggest that the problem was with the Roadside romeos, with the anti-social elements, with the “wrong kind” – whatever that was. The onus was always on us. We were women -we were to be subjugated, controlled and made to fit into whatever the ( male?) view of a “good” girl was.

So I did all those things- kept my head down, did not make eye contact, wore only  sarees to office. But surprisingly (!) they did not work. The Roadside Romeos continued to spout filth. I have been groped in Buses and trains. When I was in a sales job, corporate clients made unwanted passes at me. Being a “good” girl just did not work. It made me feel helpless and powerless. Read the rest of this entry »