Desi Rant #8 Ponzi-Love

It is said that a sucker is born every minute. Based on recent evidence, it seems like 90% of those suckers are born in India, and then come to the US on F1/H1/L1 visas. Because, for some reason, desi immigrants in the US seem to be disproportionately drawn towards Ponzi schemes of any kind.

The desi love for Amway-Quixtar is well-known and has even been documented in detail in the blogosphere - 1, 2, 3, to link a few. The desi Amway zombies, or desambies if you will, have terrorized non-stupid desi people to such an extent that many of us now avoid even entering an aisle in a departmental store if we spot another desi there. Parents have started scaring their kids - stay in school or you will become a desambie. Young second-generation desi girls being sent off to college are now told by their mothers - date a black or Hispanic guy if you want, go to drunken frat parties, do drugs, experiment with lesbianism, but please please please, stay away from the desi guy who asks you if you would like to make some extra income and retire before you are of legal drinking age.

We have noticed though that this Ponzi-love is not restricted to Amway-Quixtar along. Of course, it takes a special kind of stupid to buy into that bullshit and ruin your life for some pie in the sky. But even desis who are wise enough to run from Amway, are known to give in to mini-Ponzi schemes or other kind of stupid referral schemes all the time.

The most annoying one has to do with cheap phone calls to India. It is not a Ponzi scheme per se, but relies on the famed desi hunger for a discount. Every other week, some guy I have never heard of will spam some desi listserv saying - "Hey guys, this thing offers really low calling rates to India. Click on the link below. Click only on this link. Yes, this link only!" The insistence on that link is tied to the fact that the URL has his referral code. So he figures that even if a handful of people are pliant enough, it will give him 30 extra minutes to talk to his mommy, which he will probably use up by "tiffin" time.

Then there are those free ipod, free t-shirt, free underwear emails too. Please click on this link, the email informs me, forward it to 10 people you know, and win a made-in-india-for-18-rupees t-shirt with some questionable lettering on it. All this song and dance for a friggin t-shirt? I know desis like to pinch pennies, but really!

And of course, there is the fact that 10 years after everyone and their retarded cousin figured out that the "Microsoft/Yahoo will give you a dollar for every person you forward this mail to" is nothing but a hoax, desis I barely know keep spamming me with those ancient scams. That trick was labelled too stupid back in 1999. How these supposedly IT-savvy desis keep falling for the same trick, is beyond me.

Which brings us to another scam - the 419ers from Nigeria. No, desis don't fall for it. In fact I have never heard of a single desi ever buying into those bullshit schemes. Which made me wonder....why not? It seems like a match made in heaven. If Amway has made so many desis in America swallow the bait, why not Nigerians?

And the partner, who is an immigrant desi, had the right answer. 419 schemes are run by Nigerians, who are, of course, black. The desi phobia of blacks is far far greater than the desi mania of get-rich-quick scams. In fact the black-phobia of desis is so deep, it has pervaded all six of their senses. So as soon as such an email lands in their inbox, their black-radar goes off, and the desis delete the email, wrap their jackets around them tighter, lock their door, make sure the windows are closed, and "beep-beep" make sure the car is locked.

Desi Rant #7 Music from the Stone Age!

It is virtually impossible for any normal person to talk music with a desi immigrant. Well, for any normal person born after Watergate, that is. If you are currently availing of Medicare benefits, swear by the AARP, and are worried about your prostate or your hip bone, the desi immigrant is an ideal music aficionado for you.

Because the desi tastes in non-Indian music are frozen in the stone ages. Poll desis about their favorite non-Indian names and the same names turn up. Pink Floyd - it always starts with Pink Floyd! Nice band, but really, there is something bizarre about a person in his 20s knowing each and every word and note in Comfortably Numb, Dark Side of the Moon and all those damns bricks in the wall. The Pink Floyd craze jars when you take their age into consideration. But no person of any age, who is not certified to be mentally challenged, has any business singing along to Bryan Adams' Summer of 69 or If You've Really Loved a Woman. In fact, even the mentally challenged will be offended by my speculation that they might know the songs. Between Pink Floyd at one end and Bryan Adams at the other, the desi taste in music is woefully limited, often lame, and always, oh always, hopelessly dated.

It makes me wonder if the desis ever look around them when they are attending the latest Rolling Stones wail-fest or the raspy Bob Dylan whine-alongs. Don't they realize that except for fellow-desis in tshirts tucked into jeans with a thick belt holding them up, everyone else has white hair? That there is extra handicapped parking at these "concerts"? That the only radio stations they have preset in their cars are "Oldies" stations? (And of course, NPR as a previous post noted!)

Yes, Smoke on the Water is an amazing tune, Jim Morrison and Paul Simon opened new doors of the mind, and everyone has gone through phases of being obsessed with Nirvana's "burn out than fade away" songs. But really, did the Indian government impose some kind of ban on music that is less than 15 years old that we are unaware of? Don't they air the Grammys in India?

Seriously, desis, get with the program! Stop listening to old fogey music and expand your horizons. As it is, desis have too many traits in common with many old white people (rabid homophobia being one of them, but that's another rant). You could do without this one.

Desi Rant #6 Those Damned Desi Superbowl Parties

The best way to start a post about why Superbowl parties are an annoying desi habit, is with an excerpt from a chat transcript. The chat happened between me and a fellow-desi I used to work with. He pinged me in spite of my status being set as "Busy".

Him: Hey busy girl, how're you doing?
Me: Not bad. What's up?
Him: Do you have any plans for Sunday night?
Me: (confused if he is hitting on me, because I know he is married) This sunday? Why?
Him: We're having a Superbowl party. Lots of junta will be there. You should come.
Me: Oh..... well, maybe I'll drop by for a while.
Him: Come for sure. By the way, I am supporting your home team. :)
Me: (confused again) My home team?????
Him: Yeah, the Steelers!
Me: How is that my home team?
Him: Didn't you grow up near Philly?
Me: (still confused)Yes......
Him: So...
Me: So....I still don't get it... how does that make Steelers my home team? They're from Pittsburgh.
Him: Yeah, also Pennsylvania. That makes it your home team, right?
Me: Emmm... no! I am from Philly so my home team is from Philly - Eagles.
Him: I thought the Philly team was called Phillies.
Me: (wishing there was an emoticon for *groan*) That's the baseball team
Him: Oh is it? I thought that was the football team
Me: No, Phillies play baseball. They won the last World Series.
Him: Oh ok. I don't really follow baseball. My game is football.
Me: Anyway, just because I am from PA does not mean I will support any PA team. In baseball, in fact the Pirates and Phillies have an intense rivalry.
Him: OK.
Me: And there would be between the Steelers and Eagles too, but they are not in the same coference. Anyway, the Steelers are a good team. But as a true Philly girl would, I only support the Eagles.
Him: Never heard of them. They mustn't be very good.
Me: (still raw from the Eagles' defeat in the NFC championship game the previous week) WHAT???????????
Him: What happened?
Me: Eagles beat Steelers this season!
Him: I thought they weren't in the same conference.
Me: (now getting REALLY pissed off) They're not. It was an inter-conference game
Him: What??
Me: Never mind. Do you know who the Cardinals beat in the NFC championship game to go to the Superbowl?
Him: (after a break of a few minutes during which I suspect he was on Wikipedia) Yes, Eagles. I know that.
Me: (wanting to say - no you don't, you poser! you just said that you had never heard of the Eagles... but I stay polite) Ok.
Him: Anyway, come for the party for sure. Gotta go. (and he beats a hasty retreat)

This is what makes the desi pretense of caring about the Superbowl so annoying. Desis in America, no matter what their other flaws, are usually capable of intelligent conversation on a variety of topics. So why do they insist on sounding like idiots by putting on a show of caring about something just because the whole country is obsessed with it? A guy who thinks a Philly girl will support the Steelers just because we're from the same state is throwing a Superbowl party!

Although I have never been brave enough to attend a desi Superbowl party (which sounds about as much fun as a mormon Diwali party), I have seen pictures on facebook and they provide evidence of how clueless most people at those parties are. They burn money on merchandise to wear at the party, just so they can feel like they are actual fans of the sport. Unlike other normal people who wear jerseys to support their teams, the desi usually wears jerseys to show the world that he likes football. Browsing the facebook pics, I saw that a guy wearing a Steelers jersey at this year's Superbowl party, was wearing a Patriots jersey at last year's party!!

So really, desis, please stop pretending that you care about the NFL, or that you would have these parties even if the Superbowl was not a super-hyped media circus. Why don't you stick to your cricket parties? I know the Superbowl happens every year, so the peer-pressure to watch it is very high, but come on! I know there is some mega-cricketing event every year these days.

Maybe people like me who get bugged at this desi act of caring about the Superbowl should petition the World Cricket Association to have a big cricket game between India and Pakistan every year on Superbowl Sunday. Desis will then have a valid excuse to ignore football that day, and we will be spared these pathetic Superbowl parties thrown by them.

Desi Rant #5 Yuppie Marathon-ing

If you had a dollar for every time a desi you know in America told you he was training for some marathon, you would be swimming in gold. Unfortunately it works the other way. Every time some desi decides to run for a marathon, he asks you to donate money to support the cause he is supposedly running for, so it actually leaves you way poorer.

Why have droves of desis suddenly started training for marathons in recent years? The first reason is common to most annoying desi habits in America. Validation. Break room brownie points. Here's how it works -

In grad school or in the workplace, the desi comes in contact with white people. And white people love their sports. Not only do they obsessively follow professional sports, but usually play one or two of them on a regular basis - tennis, football, soccer, racketball, baseball, hockey, skating, skiing.... name a sport and you know some white guy at work who plays it every week. And what does the average desi play? Maybe some cricket once in a while, usually with a tennis ball.

So when everyone is talking at length about the sport they play, our desi feels left out. Cricket, unlike slumdogs, has not yet become "cool" in America, despite the success of Joseph O'Neill's book. The desi needs to find some other sport that will give him something to talk about. Something universal.

But if he actually starts playing one of the others sports on the weekend, who will go to Pioneer Blvd or Oak Tree Hill Road to stuff their faces? Who will arrange the desi coccoon parties? Who will go to the Venkateshwara temple 80 miles away? And who will watch the new Shah Rukh movie?

And then there is also the risk of sucking badly at that sport in the presence of colleagues and wives. The problem with a lot of the other sports is that you have to actually play them right away, and compete with others. That requires time away from other FOB-ish indulgences and some actual skill or athleticism.

Which is why marathons are such a great thing for the desi. Because you don't really have to "compete" in a marathon. For months you can just tell people you are "training for the marathon". And what does the training entail? Jogging at your convenience at a leisurely pace, 3 days a week. If you see a desi you know dressed in cut-off denim shorts or jaded khaki shorts, with an old collared t-shirt on top (because the desi will never actually buy running clothes....why do that when you have old clothes lying around?), knee-length white socks and Walmart sneakers (buying expensive marathon shoes is also rarely done), plodding along slower than a grandma on a stroll, be warned! He is convinced he is training for a marathon. And sooner or later, you will see a fund-raising email from him.

Most desis are just content with "training for marathons", in other words, jogging regularly. That gives them something moderately acceptable to talk about at work when the conversation turns to sports. They will also throw in the name of the charity they are running for, because that earns them bonus points for "trying to make a difference". The charity is usually Indian, involved with something related to slums. White colleagues have seen Slumdog recently, so they happily go to the link in the soliciting email and donate 20 bucks. And everyone is happy.

Thr training proceeds at a luxurious pace, with no attention being paid to speed - "speed is not important, dude. finishing is what counts!", their marathon veteran fellow-desis from the charity org will tell them. So the desi, even after months of training is running at a coomfortable 14-15 minutes a mile, sure to finish the marathon behind some geriatrics.

Of course, the wife will be in tow, cheering at the starting line taking pictures, and then again at the finish line, almost 6 boring hours later, taking pictures. And then at the end, after finishing barely inside the generous time limit set by the organizers, when our desi gets his piddly completion medal, the wife will have him hold him up as if it is Michael Phelps' 8th medal, and take a few pictures of that. All these pictures will be uploaded on picasa or facebook, so that white friends can leave polite congratulatory messages. The medal will be displayed in the living room or even better, in the cubicle.

And now our desi can start thinking of himself as a jock, and when talking about sports, he can graduate from saying "I am training for a marathon" to casually saying "I am a long-distance runner!" Even if that is pretty much the only marathon he ever runs in his life. Others may have their expensive skis, Bruline tennis rackets and spiked soccer shoes. Our desi has his marathon completion medal!

Desi Rant #4 Aspirational Faux-Connoissuers of Booze

Few annoying habits of desis in America cry out "I wish I were white!!" like their pathetic attempts at convincing themselves that they understand and appreciate the nuances of different kinds of wines, micro-brewed beers and single malt whiskeys.

It all starts with the mandatory desi pilgrimage to Napa Valley. Desis don't want to admit to themselves that they are just hitting Napa for the sake of all the free wine they get in tiny glasses at wine-tastings. So they start pretending that they can actually taste the flavors mentioned in the description. Yes, yes, they say, I totally detect the oaky flavor, never mind that there are no oaks in India where I grew up, so I don't have the first clue about what oak even looks like. Oooh and yes, I get the smoky tobacco flavor too, although Amma said smoking is bad, so I never touched a cigarette.

The Napa Valley trip changes the desi. Now he knows what to do with the disposable income leftover after buying tickets to India for the Christmas break and making the latest payment on the Japanese sedan. He buys expensive wine. He religiously pores over every issue of Wine Spectator, and zeroes in on some 80-dollar-a-bottle wine that he can buy, sip with masala peanuts, and then casually bring it up to his white colleagues and bosses at the next office party.

The problem is, his spice-bombarded palate does not really know how to differentiate wines. He can rattle off the histories and geographies of the cabernets, muscatos, merlots, shirazes and a bunch of other genres and grapes, because he read it on wikipedia and in Wine Spectator. But give him a blind taste test and he could not tell you the difference between a zinfandel and white zinfandel.

But there is something so "white" and "sophisticated" about the aspirational appeal of knowing about wines, that the desi now starts pretending he is the best brown oenophile around. Oh, and did he mention that he now also has a favorite year?

Other desis feel wine-tasting is a bit effete. So they immerse themselves, sometimes almost literally, in that manliest of all liquors, as our colonial past taught us - single malt whiskey. Yes!! From Scotland, the land that also gave the wannabe-white desi another sophistication to pretend to like - golf.

Dipshits who have grown up gulping down old-monk-and-thums-up start believing they can suddenly differentiate between a 12-year-old and 18-year-old single malt. Guys who are perfectly normal and likeable otherwise, become insufferable windbags when it comes to talking about whiskey.

Take this idiot for instance. One of us knows him a bit personally. Really nice and interesting guy otherwise. But bring booze into the picture and you want to grind him up and stuff him into a cask. Even the name of his blog - empty hip flask, cries out for validation. Doesn't really understand whiskey, but wants to desperately believe that he does, because he spends hundreds of dollars on it each month. And ever-so-subtly-and-humbly brags about it to anyone who cares to listen.

And of course, blogs about booze! That's the most precious thing for him - his blog posts about booze. They are so transparent! Take this recent post for instance. Do you really think that a guy whose idea of a good time is cheap lukewarm Mallya beer with that MSG-laden monstrosity called chilli chicken, can even pronounce Ardbeg Uigeadail? No wonder he brags about the price right off the bat. Ooh, you spend 120 dollars on a bottle of booze? Wow, man! You have really made it in America! That's what he wants us to say, so we say it.

The rest of the post has shallow and inane description, including a smattering of flavor names likely taken verbatim from the whiskey's own website - peat, tobacco, iodine. Yeah, right, like his podi-munching mug could ever make out those flavors! When he tries to be original, he displays his stupidity - "salty sea water"! ROFL! As opposed to other flavors of sea water, eh? Like gooseberry, musk and melon?

And of course, he mentions the one thing all desis check before spending their hardly-earned money on booze - alcohol by volume! Yes, ladies and gentleman, our wannabe friend here feels the need to obsess over the ABV of even an Islay malt! It would be cute if it weren't so pathetic. As if a poser like him can even tell the difference between an Islay malt and Mallya whiskey. As if he could even drink it without wincing.

Sure enough, he admits in as many words that he forced himself to like it. Drank a "glass" everyday for a week before he convinced himself he must like it. Heh, a "glass".... notice how the carefully accumulated connoisseur vocabulary deserts him occasionally? So our avial-humping friend drinks whiskey by the "glass", and still pretends to be some sort of an enthusiast. He should stick to his pedestrian level, we think - reviewing generic and ubiquitous beers that stopped being talked about glowingly by normal people after Woodrow Wilson left office.

The blog is a gift that keeps on giving. Read all the moronic posts here and try not to die laughing. What a guy! He hasn't given out his real name on the blog, so we will respect his decision and keep it private too. On the blog, he goes by the name Alan Smithee, which incidentally is another clear indicator of his wannabe-white status. The Alan Smithee concept stopped being "cool" when we were in high school. But I am sure this dude discovered it recently, was taken by it and goes around asking fellow-desis wrily - do you like the director Alan Smithee? snicker snicker snicker! We digress...

But enough of thos kootu-bashing. Back to the greater point. All you desi wannabe booze connoisseurs who live and die by the price and the ABV. Please, lay off. Use that money for things that give you actual pleasure, rather than make you think you got pleasure.

Ah, Our First Flamebait!!!

One of us found this post earlier today. One wonders what is more hilarious about the post - the clueless ignorance that comes out of living in a desi-only coccoon or the deficiency of a sense of humor? And of course the inability to comprehend what is written.

The comprehension first. A slow and simple reading of this blog will make it clear that it is NOT interested in the superficial and even incidental quirks like "white sneakers, a very un-cool accent and saving money wherever possible". Making fun of people for something like their accent is as bigoted as making fun of people for the color of their skins. That is not the game we are in. Reading the rants already posted makes it clear what we aim for.

The clueless ignorance next. Indians are the only ones who either glorify or ridicule their culture? The only person who can have such a distorted sense of reality is someone who surrounds themselves in a coterie of Indians, and whose only contact with non-Indians is at grocery stores, restaurants and the workplace, where the contact is strictly small-talk.

Americans are the ones who excel in both ends - over-glorification as well as over-ridicule. Talk radio at one end, and stand-up comedy at the other. Ever heard of "You know you're a redneck if" jokes? Probably not. The kind of person who makes utterly wrong statements like the ones on that blog usually have subscriptions to StarTV, ZeeTV and SunTV, which they watch every night, completely oblivious to the nuances of the nation they are actually living in. There is also a lot of self-depracating humor among Asians, Europeans, Latinos.... in fact I daresay that Indians are on an average, the most touchy about ridiculing their own type.

Which brings us to the third point about this flamebait post. An utter deficiency of sense of humor.... or an inability to take a joke at oneself. Which is seen a little too commonly among Indians in general and FOBs in particular. They will joke at the expense of anyone and everyone else, often in blatantly racist tones, but turn the spotlight on the, and see how they bristle! It is so sad, that it is funny!

Desi Rant #3 Assembly Line Desi Stand-Up Comics

Russell Peters is like Julius Caesar. He came, he saw and he conquered the uncharted territory of ethnic desi comedy. His jokes were new and hilarious, and they struck a cord not just with desis, but also others who know desis.

But here's the problem with ethnic-derived comedy material. It is rather limited. So while Peters remains the undisputed king of desi comedy abroad, the others who followed him into the business in droves are just unoriginal and unfunny hacks. Seriously, how many different jokes can one make based on the uncool accent, seven-elevens, desi cheapness, long and weird desi names, overbearing parents, arranged marriage and of course outsourcing? You could take one comic's maerial and hand it to another and they could deliver it without any rehearsals. Because they all crack the same basic jokes! In fact, I have seen at least two different desi comedians (Papa CJ and Rajiv Satyal) open their acts with an identical joke - about the audience wondering if we have started outsourcing comedy too. Hahaahaaazzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

And as if the clichedness and predictability of their acts was not self-evident, a bunch of these hacks went on a tour called the "Slumdog Comedy Tour" recently. They can't even come up with an original name for their tour, how can we expect them to come up with original material?

Note to folks like CJ, Satyal and other assembly line stand-ups like Hari Kondabolu, Paul Varghese, Gautham Prasad, Vijai Nathan, Dan Nainan and so on - increase your range, work on your material, and please please please be original! Stop hanging on the coat-tails of Russell Peters or you will forever be relegated to performing opening acts for his shows. Or maybe a few Indian Students Association annual events. Ever hear of first mover advantage? Well, it happens to be really big in ethnic comedy and Russell Peters already ate it up. So either find some newer niche, improve your material drastically, grow a personality and take this stand-up thing seriously.

Or then go back to the white-collar jobs that you boast about having quit when you are giving interviews to desi/ABCD media outlets. A small aside - this whole "I had such a plush job, but I quit it to become a comic. Am I the cat's whiskers or the bee's knees?" thing is so laughably and typically desi. So you, a college-educated privileged kid from a well-to-do family, quit your precious 95K job and entered showbiz. Oooh, you're so special. All non-desis in the business just happen to be homeless bums who had no other options anyway.

A small observation about these assembly line desi comics. Almost all of them, well at least the lame ones, are ABCDs. Which makes me wonder, is there something about the ABCD experience that constricts your world-view and your imagination so much, that your act ends up being a rewording of age-old cliches? Or are they just talentless wannabe's who can afford to take the plunge only because they come from moneybag parents? Although all ABCD comedians are not lame (Mindy Kaling has more talent in her little pinky toe than all these posers put together), all lame desi comedians do tend to be ABCD.

The only desi stand-up comic we find funny apart from Russell Peters and Mindy Kaling, incidentally, happens to be an immigrant - Vidur Kapur. His material actually has depth as well as range. Also, he probably has the benefit of the first mover advantage too - being the first openly gay desi stand-up who actually talks about gay issues. He seems to have the intelligence, talent and the comedic eye to actually go on and become a bigger phenomenon.

The rest of you Russell clones - go get a job!