Sep

1

Indian designer Anand Jon gets a lifer

September 1, 2009 posted by indiatime | 17 Comments

It was more 2 years ago that, Anand Jon, famous NY-based Indian fashion designer, went from page 3 to page 1, when the state of California charged and arrested him of sexually molesting more than dozen a young girls, between the ages 14 to 21. He was convicted of those crimes late last year. Yesterday, Jon received a minimum of 59 years to life for the crimes committed against young girls.

Earlier yesterday, Jon argued for a mistrial, contending misconduct on part of jurors and the prosecutors. His supporters and family have long claimed that Alvin Dymally, one of the 12 jurors, had expressed sexual interest in Anand Jon’s sister Sanjana, had communicated with her, and had lied on oath. Those arguments failed to sway the judge, taking the last defense weapon away, and clearing the way for Jon’s life sentence. Jon’s family also tried to politicize the issue, hoping that the Indian government would intervene. The Indian government did in fact go beyond what it would for any other criminal. The Indian consul general in San Francisco personally wrote to the California state authorities on Jon’s behalf, asking to release an exculpatory evidence that would help set the Indian designer free.

Hearing of Shah Rukh Khan’s detention and the Indian consulate’s role in getting him out of the immigration checkpoint, Anand Jon’s angry sister tried playing racism card by asking if it would helped to have the last name ‘Khan’ instead of ‘Jon’. Nice try, but comparing Jon’s case with Bollywood actor Khan’s recent detention at the immigration checkpoint, is just way too desperate, I think. Plus it is quite unfair to Shah Rukh, who to his credit, probably does have women throwing themselves at him every day, but has never gotten into such kind of trouble as Anand Jon has.

At the end of the day, the weight of the evidence and the testimonies was too strong, the charges just too serious and the crimes just too many. Jon, supposedly one of the most up and coming Indians on the planet, fell victim to his success and arrogance and uncontrollable lust. For the judge and the victims in the case, and for those able to see beyond Jon’s celebrity and success, the case was not about a famous fashion designer, but about a serial criminal, a rapist and a manipulator, who destroyed the lives of many young women, and ultimately his own as well.

Incidentally, Jon faces many more charges in 3 more states, which can add a couple more life sentences on top of his already received one.

Aug

15

Shah Rukh Khan, Bollywood’s biggest superstar, today got the taste of American hospitality, when he was detained at the Newark airport’s international immigration for a couple of hours. Shah Rukh was let go once his identity and the details of visit were confirmed, but the star has now gone on record saying he will never shoot another film in the US, and has also expressed his shock and awe at the humiliation he felt during the 2-hour non-drama.

Although there is still some confusion over why Bollywood’s big icon was stopped at the airport, many in Bollywood’s fraternity have claimed it is Khan’s last name that got him in trouble. That may or may not be true. After 9/11, there is a list of names that the homeland security department has compiled, which is what is referred to at every American airport or at the Immigration checkpoints. That Shah Rukh’s name came up at the name-check just means that someone else with the same name has been on the watch. Nothing more.

Shah Rukh’s indignation at being stopped and detained can be understood in the context of his being India’s biggest celebrity. But that matters little in the context of the United States where, apart from the south Asian diaspora, not many know his name. Why him, not many know outside the south Asian diaspora know about Amitabh Bachchan, Lata Mangeshkar or Sachin Tendulkar or Dhoni. No doubt, these are huge celebrities for the non-resident Asian Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Srilankan and Nepali community. But for those that do not watch Bollywood movies (or don’t know about Cricket), these names aren’t really celebrities.

Is that ignorance? Not necessarily, but possibly. Most Americans have never traveled to this part of the planet and would not know where to point India if shown a world map. Hard to believe, but that is the truth. American media, too, is largely ignorant of Bollywood and overall of India (Last year, Larry King, CNN’s famous interviewer had a hard time speaking a single word on Mumbai or India when live pictures of the Mumbai carnage were being shown on TV).

Having said that, there is another aspect to this. In the past, many celebrities from India would enter the US on visitor visas. Once inside, they would perform in dance and song shows, making a lot of money at that. The US government viewed that as work performed and balked because it hadn’t allowed the celebrities to come and work in the US, but only to visit. So now, most celebirties who do these song and dance shows have to get a P-2 performer visa, meant for entertainers. I myself know of many Indian celebrities (though not of Shah Rukh’s fame) and entertainers, who had a hard time at the immigration checkpoints because their sponsors hadn’t taken care of the proper documentation fo them. So these folks would come to the US all the way from India with visitor visas stamped on their passports, and then when asked by an immigration officer about the purpose of their visit, would tell them about some singing performance etc. But then that was contrary to the original permission given only to visit and not work.

Shah Rukh’s case is surely not about the performer visa, but about his name popping up in the name check database. That name-check issue still keeps haunting American celebrities and many other American citizens, including US senators and business elite. Several Americans themselves are still on the no-fly list for no fault of their own. That’s just the way it is after 9/11.

The rude shock for Shah Rukh may have been that nobody inside the immigration detention center knew of him. That just shows how limited Bollywood’s reach is. What can you say? One problem with celebrities is that they keep telling us they miss privacy. And when they get a touch of reality, the next minute they start missing their celebrity. What is the big deal about waiting for a couple of hours anyways? No big social cause was coming to an end except for some delay at some stupid dance show, right?

The only person who definitely could have made it past any of the US airports anytime anyday ever is still Gandhi. And he too left little to chance, wearing what he did, hiding nothing. To this day, the 62nd birthday of India’s independence, he remains India’s biggest celebrity to the rest of the planet. And that’s a fact.

Jul

18

Bank robberies

July 18, 2009 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

Yesterday, the Reserve Bank of India, responding to consumer complaints, has upped the ante on the banks to become accountable for delays in returning the erroneous ATM fees charged in cases of incomplete the particular transactions. Henceforth, the banks will have to re-credit the erroneously charged amounts within less than 12 days, even in cases of third-party ATMs. And those banks that don’t do so, will now end up paying their customers Rs 100 per day.

Almost every Indian who has ever opened account in an Indian bank, has more than a few painful memories and at least some bitter banking experience. Directives like yesterday’s will go a long way towards assuring bank customers that it is okay to deposit money in Indian banks.

Recently, a non-resident Indian (NRI) family that lives in the US but still has multiple bank accounts in Mumbai, allowed me in on their enlightening experience with a major bank in Mumbai. A while ago, this family put a substantial sum of money in a fixed deposit scheme with a famous government-owned bank in Mumbai. An year later, an emergency came up, and the family needed their cash back from the bank. At first, the bank gave them various excuses and told them about the hefty penalties for withdrawing out of the fixed deposit scheme.

‘We understand‘, said the family, ‘just take your darn fees and give us the rest of our money back‘.

‘We could have done that a year ago, but it is now almost impossible after the 26/11‘, said the bank, ‘we cannot be sure who is a terrorist or not and who has money deposited in here‘.

‘But we are not terrorists and this is our hard-earned money that we put into your stupid fixed deposit scheme‘, begged the family.

‘Well, there is one way we can give your money back‘, relented the bank - ‘We will still have to keep your money as collateral, but we will give you a loan based on that fixed deposit‘.

Realizing they weren’t getting their money from this famous bank, the family tried their luck with another major bank where they had money deposited around the same time a while back. So they visited the branch office where they had the account. ‘We cannot locate your papers‘, came back the branch manager, ‘our whole basement got flooded two years ago, and we lost quite a bit of paperwork in that‘.

Realizing they weren’t getting their money back from this second bank, they finally went back to their original neighborhood bank, a famous regional name. And then, to their horror, they found that their account had been making utility payments for their next-door neighbors to their empty apartment in Mumbai. ‘How did this happen‘, they asked the manager. ‘Well, we recently upgraded our computer systems, and looks like your neighbor also lives in the same building, and shares the same building number‘, answered the manager.

‘What are you going to do‘, I asked my friends a few months ago. ‘Well, we have definitely learnt from our mistakes and now have our money in the Bank of America branch across the street from our house‘, said my friend.

Two days ago, I sent them this news article about a Bank of America customer who was charged $23 quadrillion (an amount that is almost 50,000 times the world GDP) for a pack of cigarettes.

Jun

21

Ali Akbar Khan, sarod pioneer (1922-2009)

June 21, 2009 posted by indiatime | 3 Comments

“….If you practice for ten years, you may begin to please yourself, after 20 years you may become a performer and please the audience, after 30 years you may please even your guru, but you must practice for many more years before you finally become a true artist — then you may please even God….”
Ali Akbar Khan (Sarod maestro)

Ali Akbar Khan’s death last Thursday, is like an end to an institution that had carried the flag of Indian classical music in the west for over a half century. Ali Akbar Khan and brother-in-law Ravi Shankar were the face and the fingers of Indian music in the west, propelling its ancient system of swars, ragas and talas into the world conscience, and making way for future generations of Indian classical musicians to be all that they could be.

In his book ‘The Dawn of Indian Music in the West’, Peter Lavezzoli writes about the first time the Indian classical music played on American television:

Ali Akbar Khan, Chatur Lal (Tabla virtuoso) and Shanta Rao ( Bharat Natyam dancer) became the first Indian classical artists to appear on television in the United States, when they appeared on Omnibus, a cultural program supported by Ford Foundation that was instrumental in sponsoring Ali AKbar Khan’s visit to the United States. So on the Sunday afternoon of April 10, 1955, Yehudi Menuhin introduced the Indian trio to the American audiences. For the next few minutes, Ali Akbar Khan and Chatur Lal managed to give a very short demo and then Shanta Rao performed the Bharat Natyam for about 5 minutes. The overall Indian demo, titled ‘Dances of India’, lasted barely 10 minutes.

Later that month, Khan and Chatur Lal played in New York, getting these reviews:

“…Clearly this music is meant to be relished both for its patterns and its performance…repeatedly enchanted by rhythms, colors, sonorities and melodic bits…especially impressed by the power of this modest ensemble speaking an exotic tongue to reach out and say something to another world….”

“…have never before encountered quite the degree of virtuosity in this idiom….found their music endlessly fascinating from a technical point of view and curiously hypnotic in its emotional effect….”

Over a period of decades, Khan won 5 grammy nominations, more than 5 honorary doctorate degrees from prestigious universities, trained more than 10,000 American students in Sarod. Here’s a short clip about Ali Akbar, whom Yehudi Menuhin once called the greatest musician in the world.

Jun

19

Minor matters

June 19, 2009 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

Life is tough for 14-old Indian girls, it seems. At home, abroad or anywhere. Here are three different stories that illustrate the fact.

1. 14-year old saved from forced marriage
The Gujarat police reached just in time to put a stop to a 14-year old orphan being forced into marriage with a 24-year old. The incident happened in Veerawada village, where the marriage was being attended to by the village elders and the local glitterati. The orphan girl’s uncle, who was the perpetrator behind the forced marriage, was however not charged with the Child Marriage Act of 1929. The police made him promise them that he would not forcibly marry his niece off until she is 18. “You can do it once she is 18″, they said.

2. Man gets life for setting 14-year old girl ablaze
Also in Gujarat, Haresh Ahir was sentenced to life for setting a 14-year old on fire after she refused his marriage proposal. Aarti Goswami, 14, succumbed to her burns last March, but not before recounting the horror of an older man proposing and forcing marriage. The judge also slapped a $100 monetary fine on Ahir for murdering the 14-year old.

3. 14-year old Indian girl’s killer jailed in Canada
Far away in Canada, 14-year old Reena Virk’s murderer got her guilty verdict restored. 12 years ago, 14-year old Reena Virk, a second-generation Indian-Canadian, was beaten and drowned in a gorge near Victoria, Canada. The Canadian courts had rejected the guilty verdicts against the accused, but yesterday’s supreme court verdict will now put the murderer behind bars for at least 20 years. Others in the group that murdered Reena, have previously been sentenced, most getting away with lighter sentences.

Jun

6

Interpol plea - hunt these criminals down

June 6, 2009 posted by indiatime | 7 Comments

Crime stoppers international has recently launched a public campaign to hunt down fugitives who have managed to evade the law. There are more than a few with India connections - Indians who are now hiding away or non-Indians who have fled abroad after committing crimes in India. Here’s part of that list:

1. Omana Edadan
omana_edadanWanted by the Tamil Nadu police for crimes against human life and health, Omana is wanted for poisoning her lover to death and then cutting his pieces in small pieces at the Ooty railway station in South India. She then stuffed her lover in a suitcase, but was caught when her smart cabbie alerted the police.

2. Parthasarthie Kapoor
parthasarthie_kapoorCanada has an outstanding warrant against this 35-year old Indian national, who is wanted for sex crimes against children.

3. Neeraj Gulati
neeraj_gulatiGulati, a non-resident software engineer, is said to have fled to the United States to escape rape allegations by his family’s young maid. Months after his escape, a Delhi court fined Gulati one lakh Rupees for his frivolous plea and extortion claim against the maid’s family, and also asked the Delhi police to bring him back to India.

4. Wilhelm & Lilli Marti
marty_coupleThe Marti couple from Switzerland is wanted in India for crimes of kidnapping and sex crimes against children. The couple was arrested in more than 8 years ago, in a 5-star hotel on Mumbai’s Madh island, when the local police found them filming slum children in pornographic acts. But the couple fled India, apparently with the help of local Swiss embassy, who later claimed ignorance about the couple’s whereabouts. Despite strong objections from the local police, a local high court judge let them loose from their prison cell, slapping a fine of $2K per victim, and requesting the couple not to leave India. Needless to say, they left India immediately after their release.

Jun

5

Richest Indians in American towns

June 5, 2009 posted by indiatime | 5 Comments

In his new book, ‘The Richest Man in Town’, W. Randall Jones, the founder of the financial lifestyle magazine Worth, writes about the richest individuals in 100 American towns. The book looks only at the richest person in a particular town, not the second or the third-richest. So some very rich individuals have been left out, just because there was a richer individual living in the same town.

Researching all these successful individuals, Jones found 12 common traits, attributes he calls his 12 commandments of wealth :

1. Don’t seek money for money’s sake
2. Find your perfect niche
3. Be your own boss
4. Get addicted to ambition
5. Be early
6. Execute or get executed
7. Fail so you can succeed
8. Location doesn’t matter
9. Don’t compromise your morals
10. Embrace selling
11. Learn from the best and the worst
12. Never retire

There are three Indian-Americans who figure in this unique book. They are not the richest Indian in the United States, but are surely the richest in the towns they live in. And they definitely seem to be practising the commandments of wealth common to this elite group.

Brothers Karthik and Guha Bala are the richest people in their town of Albany, NY. Co-founders of Vicarious Visions, a video-game powerhouse, they have created over 100 video games, selling more than 20 million units. The Bala brothers founded their company while in high school, a childhood dream that began in their family basement.

The other richest Indian in an American town is Bharat Desai, the richest man in two different towns - Fisher Island, Florida and Troy, Michigan. With a net worth of close to $2 billion, Desai is the founder of Syntel, a company he founded about 30 years ago, now said to be employing a workforce of almost 12,000. Desai’s company provides IT services to corporations, and has a huge workforce that is based out of India.

May

25

Australia’s ABC News is reporting about the case of Paul Dean, an Australian fugitive who has, for last 3 decades, moved around in India disguising as a priest, surgeon, and a charity worker.

Paul Dean disappeared from Australia back in 1976, stealing a hundred thousand dollars, and resurfaced as a missionary in India, eventually performing eye and general surgery among the poor populations on India’s east coast. He claimed to be an agriculture expert, a missionary, and a doctor. But over a period of 30 years, Paul Dean aka brother Alan left a trail of victims who he sexually abused. Caught a few times and arrested, he managed to convince the authorities to let him free, and that included the Indian as well as the Australian law.

So far neither the Australian nor the Indian authorities have shown the inclination to go after this child molester who has also abused and maligned the charitable organizations that he apparently worked with. As for the patients who the fake doctor operated upon and whose limbs he has cut so far, they seemed to be happy with his limb-cutting skills. And many locals called the running fugitive a ‘walking god’.

One of these days, we may see the Australian in doc India (walking God Dr. Paul Dean) and the Indian doc in Australia (Dr. Death - Jayant Patel)) go into a partnership that would be the first Indo-Australian medical tourism venture. An apt cultural and academic exchange, one would think.

May

5

A non-resident Indian couple in Australia is facing 25 years imprisonment for their role in their little daughter’s death. Thomas Sam, a homeopath & a college lecturer in Homeopathy, and wife Manju, an IT professional, are being tried in the New South Wales State Supreme Court , for having neglected their 9-month old daughter Gloria’s health.

The case goes back almost 7 years. Around the beginning of 2002, little Gloria Sam, then 4-months old, was diagnosed of a severe skin condition by her Australian doctors. The doctors requested the parents to seek specialist care contending that the baby’s symptoms warranted it. But soon thereafter, the mother and the baby traveled to India, and instead of the medicines prescribed by the doctors, the family apparently chose to treat the baby’s condition with homeopathic medicines.

Around April of 2002, father Sam joined his family back in India to attend a relative’s marriage and for the next few weeks, the family embarked on a hectic ’social schedule’, continuing to treat the baby with homeopathic medicines. During the same time frame, Mrs. Manju Sam herself suffered from gall stones and sought conventional treatment, but the couple chose not to treat the baby the way the baby’s doctors had recommended.

By the time Sams returned to Australia in May of 2002, little Gloria’s condition had worsened further. The couple still chose not to seek emergency medical help, further delaying any potential help that could have helped their baby. The Sams finally did admit their daughter to the hospital, but it was too late. Gloria Sam died within 3 days of being admitted to the hospital.

The prosecutor is alleging gross neglect on part of the parents, contending that the Sams put their social life before their daughter’s welfare. The neglect also relates to the Sams’ choice of homeopathic treatment, and disregard of the doctors’ advice and prescriptions on little Gloria’s health.

Some might contend that the choice of medical treatment is an individual or a family prerogative. The prosecutor’s argument so far puts the Sams in a very negative spot, where they seem to have behaved in a way that most parents wouldn’t. It would be one thing if the baby’s symptoms had suddenly exacerbated or worsened. In this case however, the baby’s symptoms seem to have worsened over a period of several months, during which there seems to have been little attempt by the parents to intervene except with a few homeopathic drops.

Actually, this can’t even be considered a case about the parents’ attitude towards a system of medicine, since the baby’s mother seems to have sought allopathic treatment when she was in grave trouble herself. This isn’t about access to medical care either, since all the parents needed to do was to show up at any emergency clinic. Their inordinate delay in doing that does reflect poorly on the way they handled their baby’s illness. They were the only ones who could have prevented this from happening, they had sufficient warnings about it, and they were sane enough to understand what the seriousness of the issue.

Do they deserve 25 years in prison for that? Here’s the thing. It’s hard to sympathize with this couple in spite of their loss, because they themselves seem to have contributed to it. It’s extreme stupidity at best, extreme neglect at worst. What they will pay for depends on where the court places them in that spectrum.

Apr

30

When pigs flu

April 30, 2009 posted by indiatime | 17 Comments

The time has come
To talk of many things
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax,
Of cabbages and kings,
And why the sea is boiling hot,
And whether pigs have wings

- Lewis Carroll (Through The Looking Glass, 1872)

Looks like pigs can fly, after all. The pig flu fever that began with a 5-year old boy on a farm in Mexico, is about to grip the other side of the globe. India has now started screening passengers traveling into India’s major international airports.

Although no native cases were reported in India yet, a non-resident Indian (NRI), flying from Texas to Hyderabad, seems have brought in swine flu to India. The state of Texas borders Mexico where the pig flu outbreak is said to have begun, and the bordertowns of Texas were the first to report pig flu deaths in the United States. For now, the NRI who brought it to Hyderabad is quarantined, and said to be in stable condition.

For public health officials in India however, the coming weeks will be anything but stable. Although this is definitely not the first time pig flu has been detected in India, this will be the first time for a major outbreak that has transmitted from pigs to humans.

The easiest way to wash one’s hands off of the pig flu is to wash one’s hands with soap and water. Covering nose and mouth while sneezing/coughing is also a good idea, although many in India find it rather hard to practice. Anything easily contagious is a potential disaster waiting to happen in a country that has a billion people (A single pig flu carrier in a Mumbai train could potentially infect at least a hundred people during one single ride to work), so pig flu is a serious deal. It has killed and it can kill and it can’t be taken lightly.

Disease outbreaks were probably the last things on anyone’s mind when non-stop international flights began connecting India to the far east and the far west. Everything has consequences, ancient Indian wisdom told us. A Murphian variant of that seems to be panning out in this pig flu pandemic. If humans can fly, so can the pigs. Who knew?

Apr

23

ABCD 2.0

April 23, 2009 posted by indiatime | 4 Comments

Two Indian Americans in the news this week.

1. Aneesh Chopra, currently the Technology secretary for Virginia, will soon be the Chief Technology Officer of the United States government. Chopra, who has a masters in public policy from Harvard, is a known innovator who has long been setting standards in governmental reform in technology policy. Some of his accomplishments include Virginia state’s open source Physics text book, an online social network for rural physicians, a government-funded initiative to push innovative ideas, a mobile learning apps development challenge, plus a lot more.

2. Anoop Desai, an extraordinary singer, who made it all the way to the final 7 of the American Idol and got eliminated last night. Anoop, a University of North Carolina graduate student, leveraged his immense singing talent, good looks and an easygoing demeanor to compete and outcroon thousands of others, becoming the first credible competitor of Asian Indian origin in the popular American Idol reality show. Though Anoop is certainly not the first Indian American to make it this far (Two years ago, Sanjaya Malakar came this close as well), he definitely was the first one who seemed to have a real shot at the prize.

Two Indian Americans representing the new horizons and ceiling-breakthroughs for the next generation of Indians who call America their home. This new generation doesn’t have the hangups, the accent, the weight of heritage on shoulders, problems with homesickness. They are fearless representatives of an emerging powerhouse in American society - the assimilated Indian-Americans, the new and improved ABCDs.

Apr

22

The selling of slumdogs

April 22, 2009 posted by indiatime | 6 Comments

After a British tabloid published its expose on the alleged sale of Slumdog Millionaire’s child star Rubina, there is a surge of concern for the little girl, the only innocent entity in this case. A trust floated by the movie’s producers has now decided to take steps to ensure some semblance of a financial future for the little girl, and private parties have also been pledging support and help to further this little girl’s education.

Several aspects of the story, however, just don’t make sense.

The tabloid claims that it discovered father Rafiq’s rotten intentions about selling little Rubina, from a close friend and neighbor of the family. So someone who lives in the same slums, bypasses the entire Indian media - newspapers and television and everything, and communicates with a particular British tabloid (looks like this neighbor in the slums was a regular reader of this tabloid and probably quite internet savvy as well). The tabloid then sends its undercover team all the way to India to pose as a Saudi couple and offers to buy the little girl.

That’s a whole lot of of baloney on a tiny shred of bread.

Now, I don’t doubt that Rubina’s closest relatives - her father and uncle and people close to her, are a bunch of jerks who can’t make a dime by themselves and are out to encash this little girl’s 15 minutes in the sun. They are no different than a host of other humans who will resort to anything to make a buck, and have scant regard for words like sanctity, morals, ethics, or even law for that matter.

Still, I find it atrocious that the tabloid went ahead and actually set a trap for the greedy father, putting the little girl in an unusually difficult position, something that will haunt and torment her for the rest of her life. On last night’s Larry King on CNN, the tabloid reps claimed that they did not want to involve Rubina in their trap ad wanted to keep her away from the whole scene. How dumb does that sound when you consider that the middle eastern didn’t meet Rubina’s relatives alone, but did in fact meet Rubina as well.

What do I think really think happened?
I think someone close to Rubina (probably her uncle Rajan More) got together with someone representing the tabloid to hatch an entrapment expose to gain media attention. Did they get that attention? Of course they did.

So let’s see who all have been exploiting this little girl:

1. The producers and directors of Slumdog
2. The Indian media
3. The world media including the stupid tabloid from Britain
4. Rubina’s father, stepmother, mother, uncle
5. Rubina’s neighbors

Come to think of it, that’s pretty much everyone Rubina has met with and been with all her life.

Apr

1

Yahoo engineeer goes on murder-suicide rampage

April 1, 2009 posted by indiatime | 5 Comments

devarajan familyThis past Sunday, Devan Kalathat, also known as Raghavan Devarajan, a 42-year old Silicon Valley data warehouse techie working at Yahoo, went beserk and shot at his whole family and a guest family. When his rampage ended, 6 were left dead - his two kids, he himself, his wife’s brother, the brother’s wife and their little baby. Devan’s 34-year old wife Abha survived the rampage, but his 11-year old son Akhil, and 4-year old daughter Neha didn’t. Also left dead were the guests who were visiting with Devan’s family - 35-year old Ashok Appu Poothemkandi - the murderer’s wife’s brother and a recent hire at Hewlett Packard, Suchitra - Ashok’s 25-year old wife, and Ahana - their 11-month old baby.

The police rushed to the scene of the crime when the neighbors saw Abha, the murderer’s wounded wife staggering out of the house. The guest family’s 11-month old baby bravely survived the initial gunshots, but succumbed to her injuries later in the hospital. Survivor Abha reportedly has multiple gunshot wounds to her upper body and is in critical condition.

“…They were the nicest couple..”, said one neighbor.

“…They don’t seem like that kind of people…”, said another neighbor.

“…They seemed to be a very happy family….”, said a parent whose kid attended Challenger, the same private school that Devarajan’s son did.

“…He was a soft-spoken, loveable and intelligent person…”, said the murderer’s brother.

He was a psycho, that’s what he was. There were some family tensions and stress over this guy helping out his wife’s brother etc. But come on, couldn’t he have taken it outside and settled it in an MMA-style rampage with his brother-in-law? Why kill your own two little kids? And shooting an 11-month baby? What stress can ever justify that kind of violent behavior?

“…Architected, built and managed more than one multi-tera byte data warehouse solution…”, says Devarajan’s current linked-in profile.

“…Architected, planned and managed the killing of my family, and of my wife’s brother and his family and their little baby. Disgraced and shamed and disappointed everyone who ever knew me. Will soon be entering hell…”, linked-in needs to add that to Devarajan’s profile.

Mar

26

NRI fights for open funeral pyres in Britain

March 26, 2009 posted by indiatime | 7 Comments

Davender Ghai, a non-resident Indian in Great Britain, is fighting for his life. Actually, it will be fair to say that he is fighting for his afterlife. 69-year old Davender Ghai is fighting to change England’s century-old cremation laws that forbid open-air funeral pyres, a common funeral practice in Hinduism. That Cremation act of 1902 restricted burning of human remains outside the confines of crematoria, consequently shutting down the Hindu practice of open funeral pyres.

For Ghai and his followers, is is the issue of religious freedom, the kind of which they believe has already been extended to every other religion being practiced in today’s Great Britain. Plus Ghai is also trying to point attention to a few prior examples of open funerals that did take place after the passing of the 1902 cremation act. The open air funerals of world war 1 Hindu and Sikh veterans in the 1910s and that of a Nepali royal in the 1930s have already pushed the limits of the 1902 act. Ghai himself did his bit as well, when, a few years ago, he himself helped organize an open air funeral for an illegal immigrant, to honor the grieving family’s wishes.

Gita, the Hindu scripture that is the gist of Hinduism, Lord Krishna’s own words about ways of living, and the most frequently cited poetic chants during the Hindu funeral pyres, itself does not include a directive on where the funeral pyres can be held. But for most Hindus, it’s usually the banks of their sacred rivers, at specific locations called ghats. It’s not clear whether Ghai and his followers are aiming to build such ghats on the banks of British rivers. For now, their fight seems to be just against closed and electric crematoria.

Ghai’s fundamental objection to the closed crematoria probably stems from the Hindu belief that Prana, the soul, the vital force of a human being, leaves the body through the cranium, and that the closed crematorial practice restricts that last passage of the human soul. A hundred years ago, such objections may not have mattered as much as they would in this day and age, when there is a huge number of Hindus and Sikhs in Great Britain, and the British are in no shape to decline a popular request by a powerful minority. But Ghai’s request is not as popular as he would like to believe and most Hindus or Sikhs all over the planet aren’t really uniting or anything behind him with much fervor.

We’ve truly come far from the days the British used to crack open the Indian freedom-fighters’ skulls with their sticks. Now, some Indians are fighting for the right to allow their skulls to crack open after death. The vital force of change is in the air once again, confirming Krishna’s assertion that nothing lasts forever.

Feb

25

Bobby Jindal fails to connect, blows an opportunity

February 25, 2009 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

After Barack Obama addressed the United States congress last evening, the republican response to the presidential address came from Bobby Jindal, a new-generation republican, the young Indian-American governor from Louisiana. It was supposed to be Jindal’s big moment, and the republican party stalwarts and fans waited impatiently to see if their party’s future promise could hold ground against the new president’s charisma.

Although one wouldn’t call it a sorry spectacle, Jindal’s speech was an unimpressive rehearsed monotony that must have failed to evoke any encouragement or excitement for republicans in despair. To be fair to Jindal, he was speaking within minutes of what must have been one of the most impressive presidential addresses in the American history. Still, Jindal failed to make any emotional connection, a must-have trait for a presidential aspirant.

He began his speech with an awkward walk towards the cameras, started off with a rehearsed line, and honestly, seemed a little unprepared for the big moment. His speech sounded robotic, uninspiring and dry. His smile appeared calculated. His jokes were lame. His references to grocery stores visits with his dad, an unnecessary details and needless reminders of his Indian background. Overall, he looked more like an elementary school kid making a rehearsed speech in his debate society, hardly like a skilled politician who could duel with one of history’s best orators on a political platform.

So what began as a much-awaited first round between a new African-American president and his probable Indian-American rival for the next election, ended with Obama stealing all the points for style, and Jindal blowing his first chance big time. Republican stalwarts all over will need to rethink their strategies for 2012 unless they plan to send Jindal for a makeover.

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