The great certificate race

This -- "Certificates reduced to ashes, hockey player tries to end life" -- is something one could hardly imagine transpiring in the U.S.

As someone who likes to think of herself as having risen based upon merit (rather than looks, legacy, or relative luck), it's hard to understand why someone would be so shaken up that a few pieces of paper no longer exist. The girl is presumably still an excellent hockey player, one who has honed and can display her talent at will; a few missing papers, in the grand scheme of things, is rather minor.

But this is India, the land of a billion, and relentless competition imbues these documents with real worth. Although one can sometimes take others at their word, it's far more likely that the girl would be harassed until she furnished some tangible proof of her history. Sure, she could forge some papers, but that is a) expensive and b) risky.

Most of my American homeboys have this inkling that people here can fake everything, buy papers, hide behind the proliferating population, slip through the cracks and have it all turn out all right. But it seems to me that it's the opposite; yes, you can navigate life relatively unmolested, so long as the social constructs that have been erected portend your safe passage. Step out of line -- lose your papers, choose an alternative sexuality, marry later than people in your family traditionally have -- and, unless you are the lowest of the low or the highest of the high, pay the price.

Oh yeah, by the way: Merry Christmas!

Christmas carols: Desi remix

I clearly have too much time on my hands. And thus I present "Christmas Carols I Totally Want to Hear Produced and Remixed and Possibly, Set to a Synth Bhangra Beat":

"All I Want For Christmas Is For You Fucking People To Leave Me Alone"
"The Twelve Days of Tortuous Questions About My Marriage, My Future, and My Reproductive Cycle"
"Cow Dung Roasting On An Open Fire"
"Miscellaneous Biker Got Run Over By A Rickshaw"
"O Leave, All Ye Beggars"
"Deck The Halls (With Boughs of Cheap, Tacky, and Overly Adorned Ornaments Shipped From China So You Feel Like a Part of The Rising Middle Class)"
"Here We Come A-Brandishing the Bhagavad Gita (and A-Harassing You For 100 Rupees)"
"I Heard the Maid Asking For Baksheesh on Christmas Day"
"I Saw The Man Selling Santa Masks at the Stoplight Kissing the Hood of the Mercedes"
"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like A Hallmark Holiday Exploded All Over Khan Market"
"Bhangra-ing Around The Christmas Bush"
"(There's No Place Like) An Overpriced Buffet Line at a Five-Star Hotel for the Holidays"