I was chatting with a friend updating him with my latest knowledge about US politics. I have some grad students who are forced to listen to me, unlike my husband who walks away nowadays, and its not even a year, dammit!
This is what we were talking about. Ya, the same Baaabbby guy. See, I know I'm a huge fan of Obama. And I do not deny it. But then he is good, admit it. The charisma is outstanding, and his oratory skills are beyond compare. I just do not understand how it was good politics to send in our very own Baabbby to respond to Obama. One, Baabbby belongs to a party that literally ruined the economy, two, he is SUCH a bad orator! And he is from Louisiana, a prominently Republican state which was neglected during the Hurricane Katrina so bad that it should not even be spoken about in the annals of Republican history. Yes, I'm not a Republican supporter and yes, I'm not all that informed about it. But then this post is not about making informed, intellectual, pseudo American remarks about MY views on American politics. Frankly, I'm interested only because I'm without a job and I did not even come here with the American dream or anything. My problem with this is just that his speech was outrageously stupid, condescending and frankly, put my country in bad light. Call me sensitive, tell me I'm making a big issue of nothing. I do not care.
The truth is that I will not stand for my country to be portrayed as a poor country ALL the f***ing time. We deserve better than this. Yes, I agree we have poverty, but then, hey, why doesn't anyone want to talk about skinheads, or poverty in the US, and now the latest, poverty thanks to stupidity, or just because you elected an African-American President doesn't mean you are all talking about race openly. Dammit, at least we are not hypocritical about caste issues in my country! Please know I'm not defending caste riots or even casteism for that matter. Its so much simpler to address it directly than assuming that atrocities against minorities don't happen!
Baabbby ends every paragraph in his speech with : We ARE Americans, and Americans can do anything. I can imitate him now. Fairly well. I'm unable to produce what I think is pseudo Southern twang in my voice though. Yes, Americans can do anything. I do not have an issue with this statement, really. Every country says it, I think. But then, I have an issue when Baabbby talks of being a son of immigrants ala the latest immigrant, Obama and talks of his dad taking him to the grocery store where very obviously there were SO MANY things and his dad told him: Baabbby, Americans can do anything. Now, if this is the life lesson he remembers receiving from his parents, then, I do not know what to say.
He talks in the same vein and he goes on to say that his dad had seen extreme poverty in India. His words NOT quote unquote: Coming from India, he'd seen extreme poverty. WTF! I'm sorry. What he doesn't realize he mentioned earlier in the speech was that his family was poor even in America for a long time. So, why say poverty and India? We do have other stuff to show, you know? I'm quite tired of being associated with poverty. To be very arrogant, I, as an individual was quite well-off. And I'm educated. I'm fairly independent. Or should I say, was? We do have poverty, we do have a lot of things we aren't proud of. But then, that is not the only thing we are about. That is my complaint about SDM as well. I'm not saying, don't show reality, but then there are other realities that we seem to miss. Consistently.
Coming back to Baabby, he also spoke of Hurricane Katrina and how Government wasn't much of a help then and that we as Americans should not depend on the Government, because again, remember, we can do anything? Seriously, does he realize which Government was ruling then? And how much of Govt. help we do need now? After taking HIS Govt's help for all these years?
As an uninformed immigrant who was rich in a poor country but who is soon going to be poor in a rich country, I know that this was a bad example. What kind of a politician or a leader is he?
And of course, everyone criticized him for being condescending, and so I do not want to go in there. I felt foolish listening to him. Strangely enough, I felt that, he or the Republicans he was representing, were throwing the crisis back to the people and saying: you can do anything, we can't. So, its your responsibility. Contrast this with : Yes, we can. It is the same message, but such a huge difference. There's a message about unity, doing things together, a spirit that Baabbby lacked inspite of remaining true to Sr.Jindal's advice. I still get goosebumps when I hear: Yes, we can.
Yes, Baabbby, Americans can do anything. And I believe if you lead us, Americans HAVE to do anything and everything.
I thought I should have some fun and record my imitation of his "Baabbby, Americans can do anything." But then, my mic on the computer is not working and I couldn't do it!
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Peek-a-boo!
I'm back just to peek. For all of you who left all those nice comments asking me to come back :P thank you. The break has survived its purpose. I'm no longer as mad, and as confused. I know what I'm going to study, how I'm going to study and all those useless things have been decided. I've also rescheduled my GRE for all my well-wishers. So, to celebrate, I'm blogging and doing some other stuff that you guys may or may not be informed about soon. Yay! Ok, so I actually read someone's 25 random things on FB, and remembered something similar I'd done.
So, I was all of 4 or 5 years old and we lived in our old house. I hardly had any playmates, so to speak unless you want to talk of my Dad's unemployed friends who kept me company much to my mom's angst. I did have a younger sister by then, but we did not get along too well. We fought. Always. And hey, she was young and irritating while I was a mature 4 year old! So, there were these two girls S and R who I played with. R was my age, more or less and she was from this small town called Arsikere in Karnataka - those days my dream destination for a holiday that we never went on. I made friends with R after this incident happened between S and me. Anyway, S was the daughter of a tenant who stayed upstairs. She was much older than the both of us. She was over 11 or 12 years old. We went to the same school and she'd walk back from school everyday with me.
My granny like all grannies had grudges with all her tenants irrespective of how nice they were and all people who she didn't know. I dunno her opinion about R, but then she was sceptical about S and her family. My mom was only too glad to let me play with S who I played house-house for a long time. I had this mini cooking set with some utensils and all that jazz. My mom tried her best to domesticate me from a young age. So, S and I were playing one day and it was mid afternoon - 3-4 ish. We were cooking rice for the both of us and we were talking like 2 older women - something we always wanted be then (Then is the keyword here) We'd poured water into the utensil which could hold about 3 tbsp of rice and let it alone for sometime - cooking or rather, resting on the mini gas we had. After about 2 hours of playing, I told her we should sit and eat rice. Now, obviously the rice was uncooked, but had grown soft. I got extremely excited that we cooked food which even my mom couldn't! (My mom never cooked thanks to my granny's restrictions, and I thought she couldn't cook then) I wanted to eat the rice that we cooked really badly. She refused. She said no. Could you believe that? A 11 year old girl cooks her own rice along with a more talented 4 year old and she doesn't want to eat it!
I couldn't believe my ears. I said to her again: S, we should eat it. Get the plates. She refused. I got into a rage. I wasn't used to being refused. No, I wasn't spoilt. But eating rice was normal and I'm sure my excited parents would've lapped up the rice if I cook for them. So, I pleaded with her this time. I said: "S, please, can we eat the rice together? I'd hate to eat it all alone. I hate doing that."
She said no again. I got mad. I screamed at her. I said: " We have to eat it. I cannot waste this. If you don't eat it, I will beat you up." (Beating up is a threat I have followed on with several people!)
She refused calmly wondering how much could a 4 year old do, anyway? She was much taller than me and I came up to her waist only then. She could easily flip me! I got so mad that....
...I bit her. I lifted her skirt and bit her stomach. So hard that she bled in front of me. She screamed in agony while I stared at her in triumph like a wronged heroine or something. Everyone came running and of course, my mom was shocked at her daughter's violent tendencies. She realized later that it was to be the norm. Her parents couldn't believe it. They were mad at me and prohibited me from playing with S after this. I was only too happy and egoistic to oblige. My mom said sorry a 100 times and took her to the doctor and what not. After that, I did not play with her, and she refused to walk me back from school. My dad decided that I will walk back alone, much to my granny's fears that someone would kidnap her pretty, innocent, light-brown eyed baby. Sigh, such love, I've not known again.
But then I had to find another playmate now that S wouldn't even look at me. I used to love to swing on the huge gate we had. One such swinging, I saw this girl skip on the road. Yes, she skipped. Using a skipping rope. She had short curly hair and was tiny. I just stared at her skip in the middle of the road and could see no one else or nothing else. I was amazed that someone could skip so well. I'd just started to learn to do that. And she wasn't even doing the jumping kind of skipping. I was enamored and totally stared at her as she passed by. After that, for quite sometime, I'd see her skip from one end of the road to another. Until one day, my mom saw her and pushed me to go talk to her and call her home. I stopped her midway and she seemed scared until my mom asked her, her name and other things and called her home. Soon, my mom and her mom spoke and we were a pair :) She spoke of the rice fields in Arsikere and I created stories about Kansbahal, the place I was born and hardly remember! She taught me how to skip and spent hours cooking and playing house-house with me. I cried everytime she went to Arsikere on a holiday. I stood at the gate and bade good-bye everytime she and her parents got onto the auto to go to the station. We made grand plans for our lives which mainly included skipping, playing the doctor game and the house-house game. She was my first best friend. I no longer know where she is or how she is. But, sometimes, I miss her :)
So, I was all of 4 or 5 years old and we lived in our old house. I hardly had any playmates, so to speak unless you want to talk of my Dad's unemployed friends who kept me company much to my mom's angst. I did have a younger sister by then, but we did not get along too well. We fought. Always. And hey, she was young and irritating while I was a mature 4 year old! So, there were these two girls S and R who I played with. R was my age, more or less and she was from this small town called Arsikere in Karnataka - those days my dream destination for a holiday that we never went on. I made friends with R after this incident happened between S and me. Anyway, S was the daughter of a tenant who stayed upstairs. She was much older than the both of us. She was over 11 or 12 years old. We went to the same school and she'd walk back from school everyday with me.
My granny like all grannies had grudges with all her tenants irrespective of how nice they were and all people who she didn't know. I dunno her opinion about R, but then she was sceptical about S and her family. My mom was only too glad to let me play with S who I played house-house for a long time. I had this mini cooking set with some utensils and all that jazz. My mom tried her best to domesticate me from a young age. So, S and I were playing one day and it was mid afternoon - 3-4 ish. We were cooking rice for the both of us and we were talking like 2 older women - something we always wanted be then (Then is the keyword here) We'd poured water into the utensil which could hold about 3 tbsp of rice and let it alone for sometime - cooking or rather, resting on the mini gas we had. After about 2 hours of playing, I told her we should sit and eat rice. Now, obviously the rice was uncooked, but had grown soft. I got extremely excited that we cooked food which even my mom couldn't! (My mom never cooked thanks to my granny's restrictions, and I thought she couldn't cook then) I wanted to eat the rice that we cooked really badly. She refused. She said no. Could you believe that? A 11 year old girl cooks her own rice along with a more talented 4 year old and she doesn't want to eat it!
I couldn't believe my ears. I said to her again: S, we should eat it. Get the plates. She refused. I got into a rage. I wasn't used to being refused. No, I wasn't spoilt. But eating rice was normal and I'm sure my excited parents would've lapped up the rice if I cook for them. So, I pleaded with her this time. I said: "S, please, can we eat the rice together? I'd hate to eat it all alone. I hate doing that."
She said no again. I got mad. I screamed at her. I said: " We have to eat it. I cannot waste this. If you don't eat it, I will beat you up." (Beating up is a threat I have followed on with several people!)
She refused calmly wondering how much could a 4 year old do, anyway? She was much taller than me and I came up to her waist only then. She could easily flip me! I got so mad that....
...I bit her. I lifted her skirt and bit her stomach. So hard that she bled in front of me. She screamed in agony while I stared at her in triumph like a wronged heroine or something. Everyone came running and of course, my mom was shocked at her daughter's violent tendencies. She realized later that it was to be the norm. Her parents couldn't believe it. They were mad at me and prohibited me from playing with S after this. I was only too happy and egoistic to oblige. My mom said sorry a 100 times and took her to the doctor and what not. After that, I did not play with her, and she refused to walk me back from school. My dad decided that I will walk back alone, much to my granny's fears that someone would kidnap her pretty, innocent, light-brown eyed baby. Sigh, such love, I've not known again.
But then I had to find another playmate now that S wouldn't even look at me. I used to love to swing on the huge gate we had. One such swinging, I saw this girl skip on the road. Yes, she skipped. Using a skipping rope. She had short curly hair and was tiny. I just stared at her skip in the middle of the road and could see no one else or nothing else. I was amazed that someone could skip so well. I'd just started to learn to do that. And she wasn't even doing the jumping kind of skipping. I was enamored and totally stared at her as she passed by. After that, for quite sometime, I'd see her skip from one end of the road to another. Until one day, my mom saw her and pushed me to go talk to her and call her home. I stopped her midway and she seemed scared until my mom asked her, her name and other things and called her home. Soon, my mom and her mom spoke and we were a pair :) She spoke of the rice fields in Arsikere and I created stories about Kansbahal, the place I was born and hardly remember! She taught me how to skip and spent hours cooking and playing house-house with me. I cried everytime she went to Arsikere on a holiday. I stood at the gate and bade good-bye everytime she and her parents got onto the auto to go to the station. We made grand plans for our lives which mainly included skipping, playing the doctor game and the house-house game. She was my first best friend. I no longer know where she is or how she is. But, sometimes, I miss her :)
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