This guy goes to study music at this old guy’s house. The guy and the old guy’s daughter fall in love, only to find out that the daughter’s marriage has already been arranged. Hilarity ensues. OK, no, no hilarity. But, it’s a good movie with an interesting perspective on arranged marriages. It’s a great “traditional” movie.
3. Guru (2007)
A polyester manufacturer embodies every capitalists dream come true. Plus he finds true love. Um. Come to think of it, it sounds more boring than it actually is. And, anyway, I just love this song. (It’s by the same guy that wrote Jai Ho).
4. Three Idiots (2009)
This will make everyone in the West feel a little better about our educational system. Favorite line? “At 5:15, I was born. At 5:16, my father said, ‘My son is going to be an engineer.’ “ If you do watch the film, please feel free to forward through the number “Zoobi Doobi.” Please. I beg of you. My dignity could very well hang in the balance.
I just like this actor because he reminds me of my husband. Plus, hey, it’s in English, so no reading!!
******
I picked these movies because I think they would have the most crossover appeal for a gathering that was mostly people who are not very familiar with Indian/Pakistani culture. And, yes, smartypants, I know they’re not the same thing.
Anything you’ve seen that you’d like to add?
Persons who contemplated writing either “Slumdog Millionaire” or “Monsoon Wedding” must forever live with the knowledge that they are, in fact, the most obvious persons on the planet.
Turn the volume up really, really loud on your laptop.
Take a deep breath and hit play on this video.
And dance. Dance your heart out. Let go. Feel the pain of the disco.
When it’s over? Know that I’m right here holding your hand.
You’re going to be OK.
P.S. For the rest of you, if you’re offended by bikini clad women and bare chested Bollywood actors dancing around hypersexually, you may want to pass on this one. Click view original post for the video, if you’re reading through FB.
The notion exists that, in some way, every person who leaves their nation to settle in the United States is running away from something bad and towards something good.
Frankly, nothing could be further from the truth for a great deal of the immigrants that I know. The truth is that in this nation there are many foreign born individuals who were neither tired nor hungry when they arrived on our shores.
The leaving of one’s homeland is a concept that is more than familiar to me. I’ve often referred to my family as jet setter bedouins of the modern era. In my head, of course.
Nearly sixty years ago, both of my grandfathers left their ancestral homes in India and crossed a man made border and became Pakistanis. Twenty years after that, their children left Pakistan and magically became Americans.
I am a woman who is quite aware of the artificial aspects of the construct we call “nationality.”.
Still, nearly two weeks ago when we received a letter from INS instructing my husband to report to his oath ceremony I reacted with a considerable amount of glee. “Daddy is going to be an American,” I cried to our daughter, “Isn’t that wonderful? Congratulations Daddy, isn’t this exciting?!”
My husband smiled an odd smile, not the kind of smile that I expected. It was not the usual smile, the one that can brighten any room or get us free tickets to Disney while we’re standing at the gates with our wallet out (yes, that happened, twice).
It was… a sad smile.
The kind of smile that you force onto your face when you know that you are leaving something precious and meaningful behind. The kind of smile that you must put on your face, so that others are unaware of the pain that lives behind it.
You see, like so many immigrants in this country, my husband has nothing to run from.
If he lived in India, his life would be beautiful and amazing. He would fit in all the time. He wouldn’t have to bend his mind around the most simple cultural nuances that we take for granted here. He would never have to mow a lawn, do the dishes, or clean the pool. Because, back home, they have people for that.
In all ways, his life would most likely have been easier in India.
These things didn’t occur to me until I saw that sad smile on his face.
That smile told me that being the native born American child of immigrants is not the same thing as being a naturalized American.
We, the children, are the beneficiaries. We do not feel the pain as acutely of turning over the old passport for the new one. We do not feel the sensations in our hearts that make us feel that we are somehow betraying who we are and those we have left behind.
I have no words for my husband on this day that will quiet those thoughts. They may very well be true, I don’t know.
I do know this, though.
I can recognize that he did not decide to become American because India is a bad place or that the people were bad there.
I can recognize that opening one door means closing another, and that it is alright and completely understandable to feel ambivalent and even a little sad about that.
I can recognize that he, like my parents, did this for me and for his children.
I can recognize that as our children get older and he tells them that he became an American for them, they will grow up, as I did, with a deep feeling of importance and a sense of destiny because of his actions today.
I can recognize the incredible strength it takes to forgo one set of emotional attachments for another.
I can recognize the wisdom that we live in a world where international alliances are precarious at best, and the borders and hearts of every nation become less welcoming with every year that passes. At the very least, having matching passports would offer us the perceived comfort of knowing that we will always be together.
I can recognize that like my parents, more than the word, “Congratulations” from me on this slightly bittersweet day, he needs to hear the words “Thank you.”
Thank you, Tariq, for becoming an American today for our family.
May this day open the doors before you to all sorts of joys, prosperity and goodness that will quiet the sad feeling that there may be some that are slowly closing behind you.
I know everyone is sick of hearing about Michael Jackson. So, I promise never, ever to bring him up ever again. After today.
I saw this clip from “Britain’s Got Talent” several months ago, maybe even last year. In retrospect, it captures one of the points I was trying to get across in this post.
Although you may be tempted to close this video after about a minute, make sure you keep watching. I think you’ll be surprised. Whether it’s pleasantly, I can’t guarantee.
*If you’re reading this through a Facebook feed, click through to the original post to see the video.
Louisiana governor and the GOP’s “great beige hope” for 2012 Bobby Jindal was on CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday night. So great is the Republican hope for Jindal that we’ve already begun discussing it less than two months after the inauguration of President Obama.
At 37 years old, Governor Jindal is an impressive young man. By all accounts, I think he’s the kind of Republican that I respect. I don’t agree with most of what he believes, but I respect him.
Educated, ethical (as ethical as a politician from Louisiana can get, anyway) and ambitious, Jindal represents the mirror image to President Obama. A Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker. Or maybe more like a Faith to Buffy. Or a Spike to Angel. Thankfully, I’m just shy of being geeky enough to come up with something clever here.
Many of you probably already know that he declined when asked to submit his name for the McCain vice presidency. Like the good ol’ boy Southern politicians of the 19th and early 20th century, he’s going to have to be asked several times until he offers a reluctant, yet highly calculated, “Well, alrighty, if y’all really, really want me to, I’ll serve ya’.”
(And please don’t let that drawl confuse you, the man is an Ivy League educated Rhodes scholar. This only proves my point that gifted minds can and do use the phrases “alrighty” and “y’all”). I think this act is slowly ingratiating him into the heart of the American people… mind crushingly boring rebuttals to Presidential addresses notwithstanding.
And, now, let us finally get to the point.
In case you haven’t noticed, Bobby Jindal, born “Piyush (prounounced pee-yoosh) Jindal” is of the Indian ethnicity.
He picked up the name “Bobby” while watching “The Brady Bunch.” (Do you even remember Bobby, Governor? He was the youngest one who tattled on all the other Brady kids and was hall monitor at school? My next post on Jindal: What kind of kid looks up to Bobby Brady?!)
Anyway, this name changing business is fine. I have no problem with Indian/Pakistani people who genuinely bear or have intentionally adopted anglicized names. Never mind, that I have stubbornly endured thirty three annoying years of having to say “It’s pronounced Fie-Kah, like the tax.” So, Harrises, Rogers, Sonias, Petes, Robs, Marys, Sophias, Adams, and Saras can just rest easy. This isn’t about that.
I do get a little annoyed when I hear people from the subcontinent or of its origins say one of the following, though:
“Did you know that the governor of Louisiana is Indian?”
“There are lot of South Asians in Americans politics, take Gov. Jindal, for example.”
No. The governor of Louisiana is not Indian.
He. Is. American.
And this is not me that is saying this. It’s him and his lovely red clad Nancy Reagan channeling wife, Supriya, on their shameless promo for the 2012 election. “60 Minutes“.
Asked if their family maintains any of the Indian traditions, Supriya Jindal told Safer, “Not too many.”
“No, they’ve been here for so many years that…,” her husband said.
“Years that we’ve sort of adapted. And we were raised as Americans, you know? We were raised as Louisianans. So, that’s how we live our lives,” Supriya Jindal explained.
He’s a classic example of the American melting pot. This oyster and crawfish-eating Louisianian tends to downplay his ethnic background
…
“He clearly presents himself as true blue American,” Safer remarked.
“And he is the genuine article. He’s deeply, by nature, deeply conservative, deeply patriotic.”
And, you know, that’s fine, too, if they don’t celebrate Indian traditions.
But, you know what I find exasperating?
Aside from the sad masses of Indian expatriates all over the world attempting to appropriate Governor and Mrs. Jindal as Indians when clearly they don’t want anything to do with being Indian?
I find it irritating that there’s an implication that if you do celebrate your heritage that you were somehow not raised as an “American.”
A “classic example of the American melting pot” does not include dismissing one’s heritage. Classic examples of the American melting pot incorporate their heritage, and they assert its value as an integral part of being American. Right?
The Jindal family’s choice not to identify closely with their Indian heritage is fine with me, and I don’t disparage it. It’s not necessarily a classic example of the melting pot, though. It’s an example of the shedding of one identity for another. This is a respectable and legitimate American phenomenon among immigrants concerning ethnic identity. One of many.
It is in no way a proof of inherent patriotism or American-ness, though.
Chinatowns, Little Italys, Cinqo de Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day and countless other ethnic celebrations are American entities, now. They may have originated elsewhere, but these celebrations exist as pieces of American heritage because a few citizens refused to downplay their ethnic identity in attempts to be perceived as more American.
These infusions are, in my eyes, a gift to the American people. Something that enriches all of our lives.
These inclusions are the classic examples of the “melting pot.” More so than say, the choices that seek to “downplay” identity.
I respect the Jindal’s choices to not celebrate their heritage, but the underlying assumption that this makes them more American or more patriotic is just… a little sad.
And infuriating.
For those of you who missed it, you can watch Jindal’s interview on “60 Minutes” right here.
UPDATE: Gov. Jindal didn’t actually decline the nomination. He did not submit his name when asked to for the “vetting” process by the McCain campaign.
