Mildred Loving, the Rosa Parks of interracial marriage, passed away last Friday. She and her husband Richard’s Supreme Court case Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia struck down anti-miscegenation laws nationwide on June 12, 1967:
Mrs. Loving and her husband, Richard, were in bed… five weeks after their wedding, when the county sheriff and two deputies, acting […]

Finally finished the book Charlie Wilson’s War, a sprawling, 500-page work about the Soviet war in Afghanistan published in ‘03, and the tale it tells is wild.
The war
The most successful Islamic jihad in modern history, Afghanistan vs. the Soviets, was run by the CIA, which along with the Saudis pumped in up to ~$800M/year over […]

The swashbuckling hero of the movie which scarred desi kids with monkey brains and Thuggees is actually named after India, via Columbus, Native Americans and the Hoosier state:
The state’s name means “Land of the Indians”, or simply “Indian Land”. The name dates back to at least 1800, when Indiana Territory was created, at which time […]

Travel writer and veteran Time journalist Pico Iyer stopped by Harvard Book Store tonight to read from his new book The Open Road, a profile of the Dalai Lama. He said that five years ago when he began his book, he planned its release for this spring because he knew Tibetans would be protesting […]

These giant opera puppets are some of the craziest things I’ve ever seen — Westchester billionaires meet Burning Man. They’re from Satyagraha by Philip Glass, an opera at the Met, and they represent Indian collaborators with the British.
The libretto is comprised of Bhagavad Gita chants in Sanskrit, without subtitles. Hindu weddings really are like German […]

This is rich. British churches are finding that metal thieves are stripping their lead roofs and selling the metal to fulfill demand in India and China:
In some cases, clergy members and parishioners discover roof thefts only once rain pours into the building, damaging cherished items like carved wooden screens and ancient organs… [A churchwarden] has […]

Wreath marks the spot

On this day, the 40th anniversary of MLK’s assassination:
King’s last words on the balcony were to musician Ben Branch… who was scheduled to perform that night… “Ben, make sure you play ‘Take My Hand, Precious Lord’ in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty.” [Link]
Gandhi’s memorial (or Samadhi) at Raj Ghat, […]

Happy Bangladesh Independence Day:
‘Amar Shonar Bangla (My Golden Bengal)’ is a 1906 song written and composed by the poet Rabindranath Tagore, the first ten lines of which were adopted in 1972 as the Bangladesh national anthem. The word shonar literally means ‘made of gold’, but in the song shonar Bangla may be interpreted to either […]

He wore it like a bindi.

At the urging of John Kenneth Galbraith, President Kennedy’s ambassador to India, Mrs. Kennedy undertook a tour of India and Pakistan [in March ‘62], taking her sister Lee Radziwill along…
In Lahore, Pakistani President Ayub Khan presented Mrs. Kennedy with a much-photographed horse, Sardar (the Urdu term meaning ‘leader’)… Mrs. Kennedy told guests, “All my life […]

Tony D’Souza of the excellent The Konkans stopped by a bookstore last night in a small Boston suburb. He read a comic scene about DIY pig slaughter in a hardcore Chicago accent and the cadence of a poetry slam. He’s got his reading schtick down, more natural than most authors I’ve heard read.
The event was […]

Since today is George Washington’s birthday, let’s compare how India and America honor their respective fathers of their nations.
Washington doesn’t even get his own day - it’s widely known as Presidents Day. Gandhi’s day is called Gandhi Jayanti.
Washington’s mug is on the one dollar bill. Gandhi’s is on every bill.
On Washington’s day, government employees skip […]

The camera and photocopier company Canon’s original name came from a multi-armed Buddhist deity:

… the name given to cameras manufactured on a trial basis at the time was Kwanon. This title reflected the benevolence of Kwanon, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy… The logo included the word with an image of “Kwanon with 1,000 Arms” and […]

Reality

Hollywood

Hollywood did it with Charlie Wilson’s War and The Last King of Scotland, and now they’re at it again with Nanking. This new flick about one of the vilest atrocities of the 20th century, the wave of Japanese troops bayonetting, immolating, quartering and raping their way through a major Chinese city, automatically gets Mother Teresa-like […]

Scenes from Martin Luther King Jr.’s India tour in ‘59:

The Kings meet Nehru

While hundreds of Indians waited in vain for King’s arrival in India’s capital, a later flight took them to Bombay.. the three travelers were shocked by their initial encounter with Indian poverty on the drive to Bombay’s Taj Mahal Hotel. ‘The sight […]

Loins of Punjab

Four hundred years ago:
… suddenly, a tiger rushed forward… leaping straight towards [emperor Jahangir]… Bullets and arrows were showered from all sides but they went to right and left of the tiger… [Guru Har Gobind] dismounted from his horse… Just as the tiger was about to spring upon the Emperor, Guru Har Gobind […]

In Marjane Satrapi’s film adaptation of Persepolis, teen Marjane prowls Tehran’s Gandhi Street, snaking between matchstick men advertising sotto voce their illicit goods: Iron Maiden, ‘Jichael Mackson’ and lipstick. The movie is wonderful and engaging and more real than most films, dealing with war and cultural dislocation in a smarter, funnier, less whiny fashion than […]

Tahmima Anam, who like the artist formerly known as Prince has her own first-name domain, read from A Golden Age tonight at Harvard Book Store. She says she intended to do the Bangladeshi War and Peace, but realized she was much more interested in writing about the impact of the war on ordinary people […]

All right, Bostonists: Tahmima Anam is reading tonight in Harvard Square. Show your face. Be fashionably late. But come for the ironically-named A Golden Age – one of the first Bangladesh war novels I’ve heard of, nominated for a Guardian book prize — and samosas afterwards in one of the many desi restaurants which litter […]

The Washington Post now picks up on the Hillary-Indira meme:

… surnames function as a form of branding, particularly in very large, inattentive electorates such as those of India, Argentina and the United States. In theory, you know what you’ll get, more or less, if you elect a Gandhi in India or a Clinton in America: […]