This year, with the markets in a nosedive, it may be that you will light a few lamps less, or light fewer fireworks. Perhaps you won’t buy the jewellery and the finery you might have done on most other Diwalis. But although this is the festival of Laxmi, it is, first and foremost, the festival of lights. And light, like the all the good things in life, is free. It is within us. So don’t let the morose economists, the glum newscasters and gloomy stockbrokers get your spirits down. Cheer up and let the lights within shine forth. Their effulgence will surely brighten the lives of everyone around you.

Happy Diwali.

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It’s their way to wish you and your family a bright and colorful Diwali.

For the occasion, trueroots is offering a Buy One, Get One Free promotion until October 30, 2008. For those who haven’t enjoyed one of the great promotions offered by trueroots, it means that your purchase will be doubled within 24 hours. It’s double your talktime or, as you can see, it’s the equivalent of 3.45 cents per minute for calling to India!
And, for even more talktime, if you subscribe to the Auto Recharge feature, every Auto Recharge on your account before October 30, 2008 will also get doubled!

Happy Diwali

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While traditionalists lament the garbi giving way to disco dandiya and, more recently, to Bollywood-style bump-and-grind, the fact remains that Navratri is one the most popular festivals among young people precisely for those reasons. Here in the West, I have known of some really interesting developments on the dandiya front. Fusion seems to be the name of the game here. Of course, like with most of our traditional festivals, we are at risk of reducing Navratri to a frolic, food and finery event. To be fair though, it was also all that to our pious ancestors. I’m sure that our festivals were their chance for some revelry at the end of hard periods of poverty-imposed austerity.

We may not be as poor as the peasants of yesteryear Gujarat in monetary terms, but are impoverished in other ways. Culturally, we expats can be a rather deprived lot. It’s during festivals like these that we reconnect with, reaffirm and celebrate our roots. So no matter what your social, political or religious affiliations, you would do well to don your favourite angiya, kurta or chaniya-choli, pick up a pair of dandiyas and rock the nights away. Happy Navratri.

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One of my favourite novels is Mary Margaret Kaye’s The Far Pavilions. An epic romance set in 19^thcentury British India, the novel is, despite its unabashedly orientalistic tone, a heart-warming story of forbidden love against all odds. The aristocratic British army officer, Ashton Pelham-Martyn falls in love with the beautiful princess Anjuli and rescues her from a terrible fate. The awe-inspiring Himalayas, the bloody Afghan War, murder, intrigue and scandal are all woven into a grand narrative that makes the book deeply fascinating and engaging. Of course, it is full of stereotypes and is not quite politically correct. But that is Raj literature for you. Kipling’s work was like that too. One can love it and hate it, all at the same time.

But what if a story like were to happen in real life instead of in the realm of fiction? Well, it did. The BBC reported yesterday on just such an unlikely romance across borders. Ten years ago, on one of his footloose and fancy-free jaunts across continents, Tim Wallace, a one-time hippie from England met and fell in love with Tura, a village girl from a remote part of Meghalaya. Fighting the odds of cultural barriers, familial opposition, serious illness and class divides, the two were married and continued to live in Tura’s homeland. Tim and Tura have been man and wife for a decade now and have a bonny little daughter, Amazonia. The couple are still very much in love and very happy, although Tim seems to miss home.

Well, here’s wishing them all the luck and fortune. Good for you, people! May you prosper.

One has to wonder though, how things would have worked if the babu had been desi and themem had been English. The mandarins at the Home Office would not have taken a very romantic view of things.  There would be a mountain of paperwork and visa formalities and immigration questions to tackle. And in the interim, our desi babu would not even have been able to work, like the love-struck Mr Wallace could, in India.

To his credit, Tim Wallace does understand how privileged he is. “I come from a relatively rich, middle class, multicultural western society and can access any information I want. I have been able to travel where I want and do anything I like,” he says. Of course, you can do as you please, Tim sahib. Your compatriots have even bought off half of Goa benaami, haven’t they? Be that as it may, it is nice to know that in India there is still space for a romance verging on the foolhardy.

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It’s their way to wish you Eid Mubarak and Happy Dusshera.

For the occasion, trueroots is offering a Buy One, Get One Free promotion until October 2nd. For those who haven’t enjoyed one of the great promotions offered by trueroots, it means that your purchase will be doubled within 24 hours. It’s double your talktime or, as you can see, it’s the equivalent of 3.45 cents per minute for calling to India!

And, for even more talktime, if you subscribe to the Auto Recharge feature, every Auto Recharge on your account before October 2nd will also get doubled!

As hard as I may try, I don’t think I will find a better deal for calling to India.
Eid Mubarak and Happy Dusshera!

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 The Family Planning Association of the UK has earned the ire of British Indian parents with its latest information booklet Let’s Grow with Nisha and Joe. The Daily News and Analysis reports that the sexual health charity, in a bid to represent Britain’s growing multicultural population, decided to replace the usually white female character in it’s information pamphlet aimed at kids with a desi (brown-skinned and braided-haired) girl, Nisha. And desi moms are not amused.

Nisha, who is only a diagram, appears naked in the pamphlet and has to have nether regions neatly labelled by those who read the pamphlet. Oh horror! We Indians want nothing to have to do with such besharmi, do we? It’s only the shameless goras who go about speaking of doing you-know-what, isn’t it? “Why have they used an Indian girl in the pamphlet? Are they saying something about the lack of sex education among Indians or their prudishness about such things?” one indignant desi mom is quoted as demanding. Well, yes and yes.

Vatsyayana’s country didn’t get to be a billion-strong because India has a surfeit of storks. We do love our rolls in the hay, it would be fair to note. But, you see, we’d rather not talk of it. So what if YouTube is full of five-second clips of more-imagined-than-seen glimpses of cleavage revealed by film stars? So what if the alleyways of our countless towns and cities are crammed with quacks dispensing everything from snake oil to ginseng to clueless youngsters about to embark on or mortally rueing their first carnal encounters? So what if our children are confused by the clash between our ascetic interpretations of desi culture and the hyper-sexualised media world they live in?

We shall pretend the stork brought us all in. We shall be desi.

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One of the most popular desi tracks on the UK charts features none of the scantily-clad dancers, exotic locales or quaint videos that have become de rigueur in music these days. Instead, this unlikely hit features two firemen, some ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’, an important social message and a wicked hip-hop-meets-bhangra sound. This is the Got Mine, Got Yours? Asian Streets Remix, a unique idea dreamt up by the London Fire Brigade (LFB) to promote the installation of fire alarms in South Asian homes.

The Daily News & Analysis reports that the song and video are proving to be so popular that the LFB is considering a nationwide DVD release! This is not in the least bit surprising because, as one look can tell, this is indeed a slickly-produced, catchy number.

The LFB’s own website reveals that the project is the brainchild of London firefighter and part-time rapper Stephen-Remell Coleman. Coleman had originally produced the Got Mine Got Yours?, a rapped reminder to Londoners to avail of an offer of free fire alarms. To take the message directly to London’s desi community, Coleman teamed up with another talented London firefighter, Harvey Sahota, to rehash his original creation. Like Coleman, Sahota too is a musician. Sahota gave it some Punjabi punch and the result is the pulsating Asian Streets Remix version.

The hip-hop/rap and bhangra interface is one of the most fertile creative grounds in Britain. From its early underground days in Handsworth, bhangra-rap has gone mainstream to take the world by storm. British desi artistes like Apache Indian, Punjabi MC and Taz have defied classification and pushed the boundaries of the genre, spawning a whole new generation of fusion-minded young desis all over Europe, North America and, ironically, even in India. Apache Indian a.k.a. Steven Kapoor typifies this ilk. His work is edgy and gritty, representing the angst and the hope that are at the heart of the Asian immigrant experience. Social messages are therefore not new to bhangra. And rap’s heritage is even older. Kudos to the LFB for realising this and for thinking outside the box. Smart move.

But there’s probably one thing they have overlooked. Sahota is reported as having said, “The Asian community like to use cooking oil, fireworks and candles for Diwali or Eid. It puts them at higher risk.” If I recall correctly, while I was a student in London, my friends and I, like hundreds of other desis unhitched our fire alarms. There isn’t a fire alarm in all Christendom that can cope with a desi kitchen. The daily tadka alone is enough to send it into a tizzy, belting out tinny false alarms. So we just switched the damned thing off. And I know that I wasn’t the only brown guy in London who had done so! The LFB need to take cognizance of that and offer a more thick-skinned, blunt-nosed alarm in Wembley, Southall, Green Street, Stepney and Whitechapel.

And while they are being so good to everyone in London, they might as well do all of the UK a good turn and start their very own LFB band with all that amazing talent they have in-house. It would spare the British public the embarrassment of having the world’s worst-behaved musicians in their midst. On second thoughts, perhaps that’s not such a good idea, after all. It could put out of business another great British institution – the masaaledaar tabloid!

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The next time someone feeds you a tired line about India or Indians being “conservative” or “backward”, here’s a rejoinder to leave them tongue-tied. One of the most popular Indian ringtones worldwide is the “condom a capella” (see report)! An imaginative composition produced by the BBC World Service Trust, this ringtone features the word “condom” repeated over and over, set to catchy music. And it is a hit. People love it and are downloading it for free from the website in their hundreds.

The idea is to remind people to have safe sexual intercourse and to remove some of the shame attached to the word “condom”. The ringtone is also supported by a few witty ads that would appeal to desi sensibilities.

What is interesting is that it reflects a highly enlightened approach on the part of the government and of various NGOs to the battle against HIV AIDS in India. For all our image of conservatism and no-sex-please-we-are-Indian, we are way ahead of the game when it comes to pragmatic approaches to public health. Nowhere in the West would such progressive measures be taken with such minimal fuss. The public health authorities’ measures to promote birth control among women are a case in point. This is something we should be proud of, as Indians.

On a less serious note, one wonders what it might be like to have the “condom a capella” as one’s ringtone. It might produce a few titters among friends and might draw frowns in polite company. But if you happen to be with any woman as witty as Mae West and your phone goes off…. The lady might ask, “Is that a phone in your pocket or you just happy to see me?”

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Tomorrow marks the beginning (for most Muslims) of the holy month of Ramadan. Considered sacred by Muslims primarily because it is the month in which the Quran was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed, Ramada is also a time of austerity and self-discipline for Muslim people. Fasting from dawn to dusk in Ramadan is regarded by most as one of the cornerstones of Islam. While they fast, as prescribed by the Quran and the traditions of the Prophet, Muslims also experience a sense of joy and elation, aware as they are of the spiritual significance of the month (and of the drawing closer of Eid!). Of course, many also live it up, with delicacies served for the Iftaar (the breaking of the fast). In fact, I have even heard the mock-complaint “saare saal ki kamai, Ramzan mein gawai!”

What’s a little ironic is that while my devout Muslim friends would be wilting in the Mumbai heat while observing the fast, the non-Muslims and the not-so-Muslim among us would be quite chirpy and chummy with them, hoping to get invited to their houses for the Iftaar! And what a regal treat the Iftaar used be! Few Mumbaikars (who are not vegetarian) must be unaware of parts of the city in Ramadan. Parts of Mahim and the entire area bounded by Nagpada, Do Taanki and Palton Road came alive at night. A friend of mine who did his medical residency at JJ Hospital would wait eagerly for Ramadan each year. A hard rationalist, he had little time or patience for anything religious. This did not deter him from informally joining his Muslim colleagues in fasting through the day only to work up the monstrous appetite he’d need to gorge himself at Mohammedali Road at night. Barah handi, boti kabab, tangdi kabab, kiri-kaleji, murg musallam, shammi kabab, and scores of other carnivorous delights, rounded off with a maalpua and a falooda!

In the Arab, Persian and Pakistani quarters of many Western cities, too, the nights of Ramadan are magical. In London, for instance, Edgware Road and Green Street become completely nocturnal. And the food is superb. A Swiss friend who was with me at university in London would declare himself an honorary Muslim for a month and shamelessly queue outside an East End mosque to partake of the communal feast served by the worshippers. Generous to a fault, they always fed him till he could eat no more.

I was told of something called Les Belles Nuits du Ramadan in Paris (website in French) and have heard that in several parts of the USA too, Ramadan is popular among many who are not Muslim. I just noticed a poster announcing an all-you-can-eat Iftaar buffet at a Montreal restaurant. So if you’re abroad and homesick and on a tight budget, find a Muslim friend and get real chummy. An Iftaar spread is not to be missed. The Islamic societies of many universities too serve free food. And it’s almost invariably the good stuff. Of course, all this is possible only if you are carnivorous. If you are vegetarian, some might opine that, you are already fasting every day and Ramadan is no different! And all you Muslim brethren out there…. Guys, it’s Ramadan. Be generous. Invite us to your Iftaars!

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