Dance dance revolution

You simply must watch this video (which has been spreading across the Internets like a global wildfire) of an Infosys account manager dancing -- nay, shaking a leg, getting down, gyrating, vibrating on a completely different plane.

And lest you think this is some kind of divine setup, let me assure you: I have witnessed even more horrendous acts than this, including an 8-year-old son of an executive assistant singing "Smack That" (unedited) while wearing leather pants and grabbing his crotch. Nightmares, my friends.

Six degrees of expat separation

You know, you'd think there'd be more variety in a country of a billion people.

Imagine, if you will, a young American expat's birthday party on a balmy Saturday night. Said expat is Miss Y. Your humble blogger? Miz Z.

Miz Z brings her husband, Mr. S., to the party, who promptly identifies Miss Y's paramour as "a guy who looks like my friend R," who indeed turns out to be his friend R (with a slightly different haircut).

Miz Z also brings her friend Big D, a freelance journalist, to the shindig, because, you know, Americans gotta stick together. Big D immediately begins talking to Miss Y, who works for a human rights foundation in Delhi that is TOTALLY Big D's "No. 1 favorite human rights organization."

Miss Y, consequently, is working for the organization in India on a fellowship that Miz Z just discovered is run by the son of Miz Z's former employer.

One of the girls also in the fellowship program (and at the party) is Easy E, who has brought her fiance to the fete. The fiance went to LaHell, the private Catholic high school located in Miz Z's home town (she went to the downmarket Milyucky).

There are two fine young people who also attended a rather exclusive Holi party attended by Miz Z et al.; another attendee is studying the '84 Sikh riots, which Mr. S did a photo essay on last year.

I could go on, but seriously, six degrees? Try one or two. It's a small world after all.

Rants and raves

So the big news from Holi is that a rave party outside Pune was busted and nearly 300 people were arrested.

I'm thinking that the palpable outrage would be somewhat subdued if these kids (or, according to the nut graf of The Hindu's front-page story, "250 youths, including 27 girls and 7 foreigners") hadn't been arrested for drug (from most accounts, ganja, hashish, and charas) offenses on a festival long known for its association with bhang, the equivalent of a pot milkshake -- there's even a government-sanctioned bhang shop in Jaisalmer.

I've just had to shut NDTV the hell off, because their nonstop coverage of the incident is insipid at best. Seriously, folks, what does it even mean if 91% of your viewers at 8:49 p.m. think that the rave and drug culture is taking hold among India's youth? It seems a bit counterproductive to try and extrapolate what this event means for a country of billions -- millions and millions of whom live on less than $2 a day, and millions and millions of whom could care less about the hip young BPO professionals and flight attendants, when they can't afford to buy onions because inflation is a bitch.

Amit Varma on the India Uncut blog makes a good point about how the news is being coopted to potentially punish a Web site (or Web sites) on which information about the party was available. And I think his argument can be made even larger: Although this could perhaps raise an interesting discussion on drug policy, the tension between "traditional" use of drugs and the commercialization of the drug trade, &c., it seems that people have found it more convenient to drone on and on about those wasteful, disillusioned youth seeking to tear down society by any means necessary. In case you haven't been following along? It's old hat, tiresome, sort of like listening to Thomas Friedman babble on about how flat the world is.

A pathetic Halloween this way comes

Do holidays transfer across borders? (Or, a rant on why the George Bush mask sold for hundreds of rupees in a Khan Market toy store does not a successful Halloween make.)Photo courtesy "Dead Air" on Flickr

So last night, despite my rampant anti-social tendencies, S and I ventured out to a party thrown by eM, former journo colleague turned professional blogger. Anyone who knows eM knows that she is an utter dear -- dainty and eccentric and at times a bit above-the-logical-plane, but all in a very well meaning, earnest manner, which seems to keep her surrounded by a revolving group of folks who are generally interesting.

Anyhow, eM was hellbent on her party being a Halloween party, which meant she harangued all attendees about the absolute import of wearing a costume. Any costume, just a costume, if you don't wear a costume I will stand in my doorway, yes, all 100 pounds of me, and prevent you from entereing -- that sort of thing. S and I didn't make an effort to dress up (although I kept a passel of jewelry and a particularly stank headscarf in my purse to convert my rather bohemian top in to a full-on hippie costume, just in case we were the only uncostumed ne'er-do-wells), and when we picked up our friend V, she was also lacking any visible theme.

We trudged up to eM's place, and entered a dark room full of people smoking, drinking, and conversing, just like any and every other Delhi party I have ever attended, save for eM, adorably donning aluminum-foil antennae and butterfly wings, and a sprinkling of roommates/close eM friends, cajoled into, for example, draping a dupatta over a skirt and tank top to mimic a toga.

There were quite a few firangs there; in fact, more than I've been in close proximity with since the days of the fabulous M&J, my American homeboys. Anyhow, many of them were Americans, and as such, had made some attempt to capture the spirit of Halloweens past -- donning costumes from sorceresses to Superman, which were abandoned in piecemeal as the night went on, as the apartment was not becobwebbed, there was no spooky music, no carved pumpkins greeted us, and there was nary a Mars bar or undigestible Sugar Daddy to be had, only bottles and bottles of vodka, like Seagram's Fuel was going out of style.

All of which just underscored to me how ridiculous it is to try and capitalize on the American holidays here. If I'm entirely honest, the only reason we Americans keep Halloween around is the candy, the joy it brings little kids, and the excuse it gives us to be someone else -- not a corporate hack, not a paper pusher, not a manual laborer -- for just one day.

All the English newspapers here have umpteen features on Halloween, how you can celebrate in Delhi, etc.; Star World is running a marathon of the Halloween episodes of The Simpsons; various Halloween-themed specials abound. But it seems to me that it's fetishizing the lives of Americans without really understanding that it's hardly some sacred ritual that should be exported and celebrated with abandon. I don't know, I'm not describing this well (which relates to a larger issue I've been having lately, that I'm feeling like I'm increasingly splitting and having blackouts and losing interest in things like, oh, eating, which is pretty concerning, but another story entirely). I can't criticize anyone for wanting to get in on the action -- most Americans love Halloween. But it's about candy, and shenanigans, and charade, not just slipping on a suffocating rubber mask and then getting drunk and ranting ad infinitum about the politics of language.

In the same way, when the South Asian student's group at my university in Chicago held Holi (a month after it was actually celebrated), I was rubbed the wrong way. It was a parody of something that is a fabulous, enjoyable celebration -- in India. Getting together, throwing a little color around, and calling it a day doesn't mean you've captured the spirit of a holiday. In both instances, one is just...attempting to capitalize on traditions without putting in the time or effort to reflect said tradition.

But then again, maybe I'm just a bitter fussbudget. People seemed to be having fun, and that's a positive outcome, whether they were dressed as pirates and hookers or not.