Jai Slumdog

And so it happens. A movie not quite Indian, but more Indian than most, captures the attention of cousins in Mumbai, San Francisco, and who knows where else. Edmonton, Canada? Gold Coast, Australia? I don’t know how many in my clan were watching the American Academy Awards.

A special postmark

On the eve of Christmas eve, I stepped out my apartment door and walked down the stairs. It was cold outside, but I still needed to check my mail. I wasn’t waiting for anything in particular.
I turned the key and opened my tiny mailbox. An envelope sat inside.

Indian. Secular. Kashmiri. Muslim.

After the Mumbai terrorist attack, a friend in New Delhi with a fondness for Batman comic books emailed me her thoughts.  She is Kashmiri in ethnicity, Muslim in roots, and would probably self-identify as secular in practice:
“I can’t seem to process the attacks and all it could entail, and what the ’solution’ is, very clearly.
Will [...]

Smiles from Bihar

My Mumbai friend Avehi Menon took some pictures on a recent trip to Bihar, one of India’s less developed states.  Avehi and I used to hang out during my six months in Delhi.
Bihar faces significant challenges:  poverty, corruption, and organized crime.  Still, all of that slips away for a moment when you see the optimism [...]

The language of the victims

It makes a difference what language your victims speak.  By targeting foreigners and wealthy Indian elites, the Mumbai terrorists have received saturation coverage — at least in U.S. media.
Why?  For one thing, it is a national U.S. holiday, and there’s little domestic news to report.  But equally important — so many of the Mumbai victims [...]

Deepak Chopra, CNN Analyst

I always found the export of “Indian spirituality” to be a dubious industry.  Somewhere between the foreigner-oriented ashrams and the exchange of dollars into rupees, I smelled a little exotification.  Still, I maintained a healthy skepticism towards my skepticism.  In concept, there was nothing wrong with the idea of one nation’s ideas being exported to [...]

“India’s 9/11″

It is a curious thing, this business of labels.  The terrible attacks in Mumbai could easily be called 11/26, but instead, the corner of the screen says “India’s 9/11″.

Festival, subcontinental.

With a big swoosh, it came and went.  The 3rd i International South Asian Film Festival touched down for four wonderful days in San Francisco.  And then it slipped back into its cocoon of email updates and smaller screenings.

For four days, we had our pick of amateur projects, Bollywood splash, and border-hopping Pakistani introspection.  And [...]

Slumdog Millionaire

At times, I felt like the movie-going version of a “poverty tourist.”  Little Jamal, Salim, and Latika make their way through every twist and turn of poverty’s grind.  This is Slumdog Millionaire, a movie worth seeing.
You’ll stretch every muscle in your face.  Including the ones that make you smile.

The Adapter

By the good graces of Microsoft, a dear friend from Delhi paid me a visit.  In between meetings in Seattle and relatives in London, she squeezed in some twenty hours in San Francisco.
Before her arrival, I was asked me if I needed anything.  Truth be told, there were many things I wish I had brought [...]