My 'Ind'cyclopedia

In the Times of India today, Shashi Tharoor introduced an intermittent series, "A glossary of Indianness." Today he highlighted India exemplified by the letter A: for example, Ambassador (car) and Amitabh (star).

Inspired, I decided to take a quick alphabetical stab at how I perceive India.

A: Autowallahs -- they're aggravating, uncouth, and often outlandish, but their buzzing buggies are so typically India that green-and-yellow plastic rickshaws are hot sellers in the tourist trap that is CP
B: Bureaucracy -- wait in a line for four hours to have a simple yes or no question answered, then be openly mocked by the attending counterperson; infuriating and byzantine, and yet, the system (somehow, mostly) works
C: Caste confusion -- a code I can't parse; trying to sort out Yadavs, Patels, Nayyars, and Chatterjees feels like trying to read Ulysses without Cliffs Notes by my side
D: Dilli darshan -- constant exploration of the seven cities; there's always something new to see
E: Excreta -- even in Defence Colony, it's the nalla that defines the sweet smell of succes
F: Family -- the bonds are immutable, at times overwhelming; at times, I envy the uncomplicated allegiance S has to his bawdy clan
G: Gol gappas -- the best street food I've ever encountered, a complete explosion of the senses (sweet, salty, sour, crispy, wet, messy, addictive); so popular, it's inspired a nouveau cocktail including at an upmarket Delhi restaurant, featuring flavored vodka and a Kingfisher chaser
H: Hot hot heat -- when I read Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Heat and Dust, I imagined it was dramatization. I guess this web-footed Oregonian should have watched the Weather Channel before she left the balmy Northwest for the Deccan plain
I: Izzat -- honor is paramount, and crossing the line can lead to some unhonorable consequences
J: Jewels -- rubies, emeralds, pearls, gold, all my wedding ornaments all in a row
K: K serials -- ludicrously overwrought, my co-workers can't seem to stop gossiping about these trashy soaps
L: Love -- I came, I saw, I met my husband!
M: Mystery -- regardless of how long I live here, I suppose there will always be something new to learn, an air of the unknown hanging as thick as the smog around the towering Qutab
N: Natkhat -- possibly my favorite Hindi word in terms of mouth feel, it's also the preferred moniker for my catty-kin
O: Overcrowding -- in a country of more than a billion, it's inevitable that one will sometime feel the crunch; on the bus, on the street, in chaotic lines, at the grocery store, out for dinner, it feels almost decadent to imagine asking for peace, quiet, or personal space
P: Page 3 people -- obnoxious social climbers in bejeweled, overpriced, ostentatious outfits; they're in TOI and HT, and they get lots of free drinks, but conversation begins and ends at dropping clues about how fabulous they are
Q: Qutab -- World Heritage in my backyard, but no one really knows the original purpose of the Qutab's construction -- mosque, watchtower, tower of victory?
R: Railways -- on the Shatabdi or trying to sleep in the dodgy classes on an overnight ride to Faridkot, riding the rails in India provides a glimpse at a broad slice of the subcontinent
S: Shanti -- overwhelming traffic got you down? No one will renew your visa? In laws asking when you're going to produce a son? Shanti, shanti, shanti
T: Touts -- no, I don't want your chess set; no, I don't want a squeaky puppet; I'm not interested in a slithering wooden snake, I have no use for a rudimentary copy of a Mughal miniature, and for god's sake, I don't need any Punjabi suits or cashmere stoles
U: Unbelonging -- no matter how hard I try, I'll never fit in. And that's precisely why it's so wonderful to live here; it pushes me, forces me to confront what I don't like in myself and others, and requires that I actively pursue change
V: Vexatious -- my time here has been high on character building, which is good in the long run, but in the moment? Absolutely frustrating. But, in the words of one of my journalism profs, "Bad for me, good for the story"
W: Weddings -- whether glistening five-star affairs or my own disaster-riddled court ceremony, India certainly is a land of romance
X: X marks the spot -- for a significant slice of India's population, illiteracy is still a plague, and thumbprints count for signatures
Y: Yamuna -- it's a stinking, filthy cess pool that used to be a pristine river; nonetheless, it is (or was) lifeblood for disparate communities -- drum makers, food vendors, families, Hindus, Muslims, and more
Z: Zed -- somewhat sweeter than "zee," adapting to a different ending for the alphabet song is just one of the myriad adjustments in my life in the last few years; once I embraced the Oxford comma, I knew my life would never be the same

TOi's new editorial policy: A triumph over capitalization!

'So where did i go wrong?'
'Coming as i do from a family of government servants ...'
'Like the government, i'm all for kiranawallas.'

I'm not sure how long it's been going on now, but it seems the Times of India is fighting a scourge worse than communalism, casteism, and sexism combined: the capital I.

Tongue firmly in cheek; still, I would really love to understand the rationale behind the consistent lowercasing of the of the personal pronoun (which, at this time, seems confined to the editorial spread). I can't write it off to poor rapporteur -- clearly, Shashi Tharoor and Gurcharan Das are aware of the rules of the English language.

So is it a conscious decision on the editorial board's behalf, perhaps a silent rebellion against the strictures of an imperialist tongue? A sweet subversion of society's myriad norms? Can someone PLEASE tell me what's going on?!

Sex in the subconty

Here in the land of the Kama Sutra, I have been INCREDIBLY disappointed with how people in general -- and the media in particular -- broach the subject of sex. The debate is pretty polarized, with people either prudishly denying impulses exist ("Karnataka says no to sex education") or superficially embracing prurient matters with a smattering of jingoistic verbiage ("India's cricketers put sex appeal before six appeal").

So I generally avoid the topic altogether, unless the reporter appears to have taken more than a cursory interest in some of the issues at play. At least, that's the general rule: Today, I couldn't help but read the cover story of Times of India's weekend supplement, What's Hot, which features a callout box on "What Women Want" that is so ludicrous I simply MUST cite it here in its entirety:

• Women who live between the Ganges and the Yamuna do not like 'lusty practices' like being bitten or having men dig their nails into them.
• Those of Baluchistan like to be physically struck by their men.
• Women of Maharashtra like their men to use foul language while making love; however, women of Varanasi abhor men who do that.
• The women of Patna are demure.
• The fair sex of Avanti (central India) loathes being kissed.
• Women of Punjab can be won over by oral sex.
• Women of Oudh (Uttar Pradesh) make great love potions are are also impetuous in their desire.
• The fair sex of Andhra is very 'voluptuous' in its taste.
• Source: Kama Sutra: The Art of Making Love to a Woman, Pavan K Varma

I really can't make heads or tails of this. Apart from the grossly inadequate assumption that women of certain geographies have uniform sexual preferences, what the hell do some of these comments mean? Are the women of Andhra sapphic, or do they just like fat men? Why (why, why?!) do the women of Baluchistan like to be physically struck by their men, and is it really responsible to assert that they do when, in fact, they may not enjoy it so much as have been conditioned into accepting the practice?

Kya bakwaas hai.

(On a side note, somewhat-but-not-really related, I sometimes call my cat "little Lula," because I give everybody and everything annoying pet names. After about three months of doing so, S informed me that in Punjabi, lula means "penis." Woops. When I told my beloved mum this story, she exclaimed, "But that's what they called your stepsister when she was little!")

Unfrozen Sudoku champion?

At left: The Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer (played by the late Phil Hartman), of Saturday Night Live fame.

At right: The six representatives of "Team India," bound for the World Sudoku Championship in Prague on March 27. Presumably, they're helmed by the dashing man in an incongruous black shirt, who may or may not have fallen into a crevasse during the Ice Age only to be discovered by scientists in 1988 who reanimated him.

I know the picture is a bit fuzzy, but I can totally imagine our plucky friend addressing the audience at the penultimate Sudoku championship ceremony: "Ladies and gentlemen of the audience, I'm just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: "Did little demons get inside and type it?" I don't know! My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts. But there is one thing I do know -- when a large media group offers you hundreds of prizes for putting some numerals on paper, and they also offer to fly you to Prague, you seize the opportunity. Thank you."

While the ship sinks in the U.S., Indian media is buoyed by new print editions

I'm particularly excited for mint, a business paper produced by HT in partnership with the Wall Street Journal (primarily because it's designed by the fabulous Mario Garcia). It debuts tomorrow, and the Web site will go live as well; should be interesting. They're playing around with monetizing the online vehicle, which hasn't yet proved very successful in the subconty, so it'll be interesting to watch not only for journos, but also for crorepatis and techies (oh my!). FINALLY, you should pick up a copy ever day, if only to search for an upcoming article (profile?) of K. Thomas Oommen, currently the director of a journalism school in Kerala, and a fabulous, fabulous character.

Another pub of interest is Metro Now, a 48-page morning tabloid published jointly by HT and TOI. Thus far, tabloids in Delhz have been execrable (and I should know, I worked for one!) -- tits and ass, maybe some cricket, and tepid nightlife listings taken from the Delhi Diary. Can't find any Web presence, but the hubby knows the editor, so it should, at some point, actually make it onto newsstands.

I find it endlessly fascinating that, while circulation is dropping in the U.S. (AND PANIC ENSUES! IT ENSUES!), there's such a flourishing market in India. Why go to j-school -- why invest in writing for a living -- if the newspaper industry is circling the toilet bowl?

My suggestion for burgeoning young American journalists? DON'T spend some of your most promising years toiling away at City Council meetings. Take a chance. Move to a different country, play up your native English language skills and the benefit they can bring to other people in the newsroom, work for chump change (come on, you'll be doing it anyway), and get excited! Don't scoff at what you perceive as "poor" news coverage -- keep an open mind, take what works, chuck what doesn't.

OK, it's sanguine, and it probably doesn't address underlying economic drivers, etc., but at least you'll have something cool to blog about, eh?

I wonder how our friend the groundnut wallah feels about all this horn tooting

In news of the meta, Times of India today reported on a forthcoming article in the International Herald Tribune that ostensibly is a piece examining the trend of Indian pride in the rising strength of the nation.

It's a bit difficult to judge the content and/or article at this point, but it's certainly something interesting that I've noticed: an incredible hubris on the behalf of (middle- or high-income) Indians about how great they are, based primarily on the fact that growth has nearly hit the magical double-digit mark for several years now.

On the one hand, it's great. Pride is a powerful motivator. But on the other hand, when one is on vacation in Cambodia and runs into another traveling Indian journalist who extemporizes on t he incredible weakness of the southeast Asian nation, it's a bit hard to swallow. For example, as a (somewhat) objective outsider, I didn't see a significant material difference between sewage systems in areas not developed for tourists in both Cambodia and India. I didn't find the Cambodian people "primitive" and "immature," as this man claimed; rather, I found them remarkably flexible for seemingly beginning to reckon with some of the havoc wreaked by the Khmer Rouge.

So it's an interesting reality check. Times of India seems completely ignorant to the fact that the article likely casts something of a skeptical light on their practice of putting a logo -- "Global Indian Takeover" -- on anything related to how awesome the subconty is (i.e., "The report reaffirms the point by taking note of a logo...with every article that indicates India's growing international presence and stature in every walk of life"), but such is the Slimes.

IHT apparently ushers evidence of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh as the only doubters of India's ascendance, noting, "'Gandhi appeared embarrassed by the mood of triumphalism about India's economic transformation, pointing out that while India was "a country of dazzling prosperity," it was also a country of "dehumanizing poverty"'".

Still, it seems that Singh's reservations about "obstacles to these dreams of superpower glory -- the educational system, a failing public health service, and a shortage of vital energy resources" will continue to fall by the wayside, at least in mainstream media. They're too busy tooting their own horns, or ogling Aishwarya Rai's goodies. It's a bit of a shame that a sensitive/balanced analysis of Indian mindsets is confined either to specialist domestic journals or international papers trying to dip their nib in India's swirling pot.