“Driving, driving, driving. Our work, a little bit difficult. Driving, a little bit tiring,” Sastry said as he steered his sky-blue BMW — license plate PRIEST-B — around the Capital Beltway from his Ashburn home to the Ellicott City housewarming, a ceremony considered most auspicious if performed before sunrise. “But this is a respected thing,” he said.

Freelance priests are bountiful in India, but just seven serve one of the Washington region’s largest ethnic communities. Census data from 2006 indicate that 105,000 Indians live in the area, about 60 percent of whom are immigrants; most have settled in Fairfax, Loudoun, Montgomery and Howard counties. To those who regularly call upon them, Sastry and his counterparts become trusted family priests, akin to family doctors or accountants. [link]

Had I only known this, I could have avoided an entire trip to India to get married for the second time (to the same person). Fly Mr. Sastry down, perform the ceremony and voila! We are married the Hindu way. We are happy to have avoided wedding-related trauma drama hungama costs. The ever-increasing-in-religiousness elders are happy since we are officially married the Hindu way. And Mr. Sastry is happy with anything we pay him. So I would have only given him $1 + expenses (I’m Ahmedabadi, after all). Everybody’s happy.

Sastry declined to discuss his fees, saying the payment is up to the devotees

My “suggested fee” wouldn’t cut it. Especially since this priest takes his kids to Disneyworld!

Clients said they typically pay $150 to $200 for a ritual of a few hours. They also pay his expenses, including mileage — “IRS rate,” he said, chuckling. It is enough for a tidy townhouse and a yearly vacation with his wife and two sons, 11-year-old Vignesh and 8-year-old Pavan. Last year, they hit Disney World.

Disneyworld? What kind of a Hindu are you, Mr. Sastry? You should – at the very least – take your kids here. If they’re lucky they’ll get to spot B-list actors in blue paint. And strings are $2 per. I kid, of course. Mr. Sastry can take his kids any where he damn well pleases. Or where they damn well please. Either way.

At any rate though, the one thing that bothers me about this is the license plate. “PRIEST B”? WTF? Something creative would be good. Like say, “SWAHA MAN” or “PUNDIZIT”. What say?

Now, this does not look like a swimwear shoot to me. Look where his right hand is, for crissake! Looking closer (purely intellectual interest, mind you), I read the caption, and saw that there was a URL typed in there, without a link – theindianplayboy.com. With the pursuit of knowledge in mind, armed only with my research background, I soldiered on. I manually (what dedication!) cut-pasted the link into my address bar and…

The amazing story of a Corporate Finance Executive with a passion for Film Making who had had the guts to risk it all by making a quality erotic film in Los Angeles! Now on DVD with an embedded E-Book that answers all your questions and provides you with all the juicy in side information that you have always wanted to know!

…

It is both an interesting Biography and a “How to shoot a porn/erotic film” combo. Nothing comes close to it. [link]

Ok, sardonic quips about the TOI(let) aside (these pics are categorized under “Foreign Fashion Show”) – what the hell? A desi making a movie about the making of a porno? Why doesn’t he just make a porn? Or maybe he already has. Who is this character?

Richard Menon who has previously directed “Miss 2” a film on model aviation that made it to the New York International Film Festival 2004 and an adult film under the Ecstasyvision Inc banner conceived the idea of “The Indian Playboy: Anatomy of a Porn Film” Documentary Film + Book. Since he is the subject of the film, he decided to entrust Steve Clack/DP with the Directorial Assistance. [link]

Richard Menon (48) hails from Trichur, the cultural capital of Kerala State, India. He graduated from the University of Calicut in 1979 and … had his formal film production training at the famous Hollywood Film Institute. [link]

A mallu from Trichur, based in Jersey City, going to LA not just to make porn films (mind it!), but also documentaries on the making of porn films. Hmm. Several comments are flying through my mind right now, but I think the humour intrinsic to that thought is enough. Hell, the concept is a movie in and of itself (starring Johnny Lever). It suffices to say that I’m sure glad he entrusted Steve Clack with directorial assistance, because I’d definitely be distracted when shooting something like that. Unless, of course, it was at gunpoint or if I was doing it out of purely intellectual interest.

Now, it’s back to my research for me…

Tata Motors unveiled the 100,000-rupee car earlier today at the Auto Expo in Delhi today.

Tata Chairman Ratan Tata talks about his inspiration for the car:

Speaking at the unveiling of the car at a motor show in Delhi, Tata chairman Ratan Tata said: “”I observed families riding on two-wheelers – the father driving the scooter, his young kid standing in front of him, his wife seated behind him holding a little baby.

“It led me to wonder whether one could conceive of a safe, affordable, all-weather form of transport for such a family…” [Independent]

This is true. I once saw eight people on a scooter with a side-car, and routinely have seen five on one without one. I wasn’t too worried about them safety-wise, though. Traffic in Bombay is slow, and these dudes are smart and resourceful. They reach places significantly faster and more efficiently than any car would, in spite of their large loads.

I’m more worried about the Bihari dudhwala (milk-man) on his bicycle. Once one of them swerved in front of me when I was driving a moped on a busy street, and then swerved to avoid me when he realized I was blocked by a truck on my other side. People say they put water in the milk, but I’d swear this one was putting a little bit of narangi (local liquor) and toking a little on the side.

I don’t think that the dudhwala is Tata’s primary target, though. And given the amount of carbon and other pollutants in the air, I do see one advantage of owning the Nano. At least the family of eight will not have to inhale vast amounts of soot and shower after every ride on their two-wheeler to remove a nice thick layer of gunk on their faces and bodies, if they can afford the Nano. Even laundry costs will go down.

If they can fit eight on a scooter though, I wonder how many they’d be able to pack into the car. Many in India do still live in the joint-family system. My previous remark about local liquor notwithstanding, the joint-family system has nothing to do with marijuana. It just means that several generations, and siblings and siblings’ families live together in one house, or in several cases, a Bombay apartment. And many Bombay apartments are not too much larger than the inside of the Nano, which once again leads me to wonder how many they’ll manage to fit in there.

But (as usual) I digress. The nitty-gritties on the car were also talked about:

The car would be commercially launched in the second half of 2008, and would be produced at the Singur plant in West Bengal.

Speaking at the launch, Ratan Tata, said: “The car is powered by a 624cc, 30 bhp engine and will deliver mileage of about 20 kpl.”

The standard variant (without AC) of Nano is priced at Rs 1 lakh for dealers excluding VAT and transportation. There will be two deluxe variants with AC.

“The car has already undergone full frontal collision tests and will soon be undergoing side impact tests this year. It will be Euro-IV compliant and will meet all emission norms till 2010″, Tata said.

The car is 8% smaller in terms of length than the Maruti 800, but has 21% more room internally. [Business Standard]

Although it’s impressive that the emission standards are in line with European ones, it’s not going to be sold in the West as of now.

The irony of it all is that Ford talked earlier this week about launching their own small car, and Tata is now one of the front-runners in buying Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford. I guess this completes the circle.

Ford Motor plans to more than double its investment in India to produce a small car for the fast-growing local market and to build an engine manufacturing plant there.

The company is expected to announce on Tuesday that it will increase spending in India by $500 million, raising its total investment to $875 million, as it focuses on making the country a regional hub for small-car manufacturing.  [link]

Since the auto-maker is tanking badly on the U.S. market, it’s now  moving the center of gravity of operations further East.

Ford has been struggling to reduce its reliance on North American markets, where sales are falling sharply, and to increase its presence in Asia’s booming markets.

The new investment follows similar moves made in Thailand and China in the last six months.

Let’s just wait and see what happens. My old Ford clunker ultimately ended up costing me several small cars over its last years. At any rate, let’s have a little token praise to the des from Ford executives, and we’re good to go.

In remarks prepared for a news conference on Tuesday in Chennai, John G. Parker, Ford’s executive vice president for Asia Pacific and Africa, called the India investment a reflection of “the extraordinary potential” of India.

Extraordinary potential, indeed.

Bookstores are filled with titles like “Extreme Indian Arithmetic Drills” and “The Unknown Secrets of the Indians.” Newspapers carry reports of Indian children memorizing multiplication tables far beyond nine times nine, the standard for young elementary students in Japan.

And Japan’s few Indian international schools are reporting a surge in applications from Japanese families.

At the Little Angels English Academy & International Kindergarten, the textbooks are from India, most of the teachers are South Asian, and classroom posters depict animals out of Indian tales. The kindergarten students even color maps of India in the green and saffron of its flag.

Little Angels is located in this Tokyo suburb, where only one of its 45 students is Indian. Most are Japanese. [link]

Wow. Never thought I would thank my sixth standard (that’s “sixth grade” in Americanese) class teacher, the late Mrs. Sachdev, but thank you, Mrs. Sachdev for teaching me to go beyond nine times nine. I am now cool in Japan.

The first wave of slicing up services work and sending it abroad has been all about business operations. Computer programming, call centers, product design and back-office jobs like accounting and billing have to some degree migrated abroad, mainly to India. The Internet, of course, makes it possible, while lower wages in developing nations make outsourcing attractive to corporate America.

The second wave, according to some entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and offshoring veterans, will be the globalization of consumer services. People like Ms. Yamaki and Mr. Tham, they predict, are the early customers in a market that will one day include millions of households in the United States and other nations. [link]

Here’s the view from my home. If you can see it through the haze, the leftmost end of the skyline in the distance is Malabar Point – where the Governor’s bungalow is.

In 2006, Mr. Patel lost in the seventh round thanks to just such a word, eremacausis (“gradual oxidation of organic matter from exposure to air and moisture”).

The word sounds like it should come from the Greek eremos (suggesting solitude) or aero (for air). In fact, it is the only word in Webster’s to come from the Greek erema, meaning “gently”.

Mr. Patel crashed out of the competition with a-e-r-o-m-o-c-a-u-s-i-s. This year [2007] he blew his last chance to win a title over clevis (a U-shaped piece of iron). He panicked over the information that its roots were “probably Scandinavian” and opted for c-l-e-v-i-c-e. The ESPN commentators were stunned. [link]

No – I’m not insulting anyone here, so calm down. I suffer from the occasional migraine myself, and was intrigued by this new treatment which I read in (of all things) Men’s Health. It advocates crushing a chili in your hand and literally, rubbing it into your nostrils. There’s even an all-natural nasal spray that sprays chili into your nose! Gives a whole new meaning to ‘pepper spray’.

I couldn’t find that vignette online, but there’s a whole bunch of info on using chili peppers (and their “active ingredient” capsaicin) to cure all kinds of pain. Here’s something on spicy meals and how it all works:

The chemistry of that spicy meal is quite fascinating. Capsaicin dilates the capillaries in the mucous membranes and skin, which is why your nose runs when you eat spicy food, explains Eric Yarnell, ND, RH (AHG), adjunct professor at Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington. The dilation of the capillaries by capsaicin permits more efficient circulation of nutrients into tissue and waste material out. This helps remove not only any superficial irritants to the nasal pathway, but also anything deeper in the tissue produced in reaction to the chronic inflammation that has been causing the sinusitis and headaches. [link] [via]

Picture Source: aaaai.org

Your Sinuses

If you’re desi, you’ve already experienced this effect. And if you’re a headache sufferer, then you’re probably wondering how opening up your sinuses will cure your migraine. It’s because they are linked:

…although different chronic headaches are diagnosed and categorized according to a particular variety, they all share many of the same main factors, and therefore they should all be preventable and controllable by the same methods.

Studies have shown that nearly 50% of diagnosed migraine sufferers also experience sinus symptoms as part of their headache patterns. The most common “sinus” symptoms of a migraine included nasal congestion and general stuffiness, clear nasal drainage, and watery eyes. However, those same patients also experienced the following symptoms of a migraine: moderate-to-severe pain, sensitivity to light, pain worsened by activity, and nausea. [link]

And that’s not all – capsaicin is even good for other kinds of pain:

For arthritis pain, capsaicin based creams have proven themselves to be highly effective, but when applied to the skin on a daily basis, the heat sensation can be too much for some people. In addition, applying a cream everyday can be inconvenient, and quite time consuming.

Recently though, manufacturers have come up with a capsaicin patch that can easily be applied in painful areas. Once applied, the capsaicin patch effectively blocks pain receptors and reduces inflammation after only a few days of use. [link]

Here’s Wayne Perry‘s story. He’s the creator of Sinus Buster – the said nasal pepper spray which I talked about earlier.

As a chronic cluster headache sufferer, I discovered this effect purely by accident when I had an experience with a self defense pepper spray in 1992.

At the time, I was a self defense instructor making the talk show rounds, and I agreed to be sprayed by real defensive pepper spray for television news segment. Shortly before I had to do the demonstration, I got one of my terrible cluster headaches. If you’ve ever had a cluster headache, you’d know they are absolutely debilitating. Figuring I’d be on the ground riling in pain anyway, I went on with the demonstration.

Within seconds after the reporter sprayed me, my headache started to disappear. I had been on all kinds of headache drugs, but nothing ever worked like this. [link]

Incidentally, the chili – which we Indians love to call our own – isn’t native to India. It was brought there by the Portuguese, who picked it up from the Spanish who, in turn, got it to Europe after colonizing the Mexicans and other South American nations (read more chili history). However, right now desis are the largest producers of chilis in the world, with Guntur in Andhra Pradesh producing the most in India.

Picture Source: benhur.wordpress.com

So the next time you have a migraine, just snort some Hyderabadi biryani. Damn, I’m hungry!

The article discusses, amongst other things, Dhirubhai, the Reliance empire, oil refining and more. They spend an inordinate amount of space discussing Mukesh’s new $1 billion apartment building that’s coming up on Altamount Road. They even talk about the Bollywood film Guru which is loosely based on Dhirubhai’s life. The money quote comes from a Chevron VP, where he talks about the current state of affairs in Indian business:

Says Tom Simons, a vice president of Chevron, “There were the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts, huge companies that were family owned. That’s where India is now. It is a bit of a Wild West thing here, but they’ll get through it. I wish they’d build some roads, though.” [link]

That’s certainly a classic quote. Chevron is a minor investor (with options to increase their stake) in Mukesh’s plan to build what will eventually be the world’s biggest oil refinery in Gujarat.

And apropos of the last time I blogged about the Western media and Bombay, there’s a quote from Nita Ambani (Mukesh’s wife). Before I get there though, I’ll regurgitate that old quote from the NYT article just because it’s such a classic.

The ladies who lunch don’t speak of their philanthropic work to end the city’s abject poverty. “There are simply too many suffering,” one socialite explained. “So we focus on things we can actually have an impact on, like art and gardening.” [link]

I’m still not over that one. They don’t bother to do anything about the poverty because there’s too much of it. Jeez. And in case you’re wondering, the “ladies who lunch” are the soy-latte-drinking, soccer-mom equivalents of Bombay – the upper-middle class housewives. And here’s Nita Ambani cementing her position in there:

Ambani’s wife, Nita, who looks after Reliance’s corporate-responsibility program, explains that she and her husband make a special effort to keep their children grounded, citing the family’s trip to Washington. “Our daughter flew with us in the private plane, while our sons stayed behind in New York,” she says. After the other family members had left, the boys got lonely and wanted to join them. “We both decided not to send the plane back to get them. They took the train! We’re striving very hard to make them live a normal life.” [link]

No private plane, huh? Damn, that’s harsh! How did they manage? Do you think they reached safely? It’s going to keep me up nights, you know…