SAJAforum

From SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association

New South Asian stuff every day. Feedback, story ideas to editor Arun Venugopal of WNYC Radio: arunvenu[at]gmail.com. Opinions expressed on SAJAforum don't necessarily reflect those of SAJA or its Board. 

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PAKISTAN: An "Impending Humanitarian Disaster"

That's what Audil Rashid and Mian Nazish Adnan sound the alarm about in the July 4, 2009 issue of the British medical journal The Lancet, following their recent visits to camps set up to house internally displaced persons (IDPs) fleeing the conflict zone in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. While Americans celebrate the Independence Day weekend with barbecues and fireworks, Rashid and Adnan paint a grim picture of the crisis in Pakistan:

From the very beginning it was evident that the government had underestimated the human cost of the military operation. As several camps were hastily set up to cater to the massive influx of IDPs, reports about the lack of even basic amenities in these camps began to emerge. Excessive heat (daytime temperatures soaring to 40°C and above), no electricity, food and water shortages, poor sanitation, and lack of proper health care are some of the immediate problems being faced by IDPs....

Lack of proper toilets and sanitation, unsafe drinking water, infrequent bathing, high air temperatures, inadequate disposal of solid waste, and the complete absence of a proper drainage system at the refugee camps are the main causes of worry for relief health workers. “This is the making of a disaster. These camps have been established on open tracts of land used for agricultural purposes. There are snakes, rats, and scorpions here. At night, when it is pitch dark because of no electricity, people sleep on the ground and are vulnerable to snakebites”, said M Idrees Mirza, a doctor who runs a private clinic in Rawalpindi city and is working voluntarily in the camps.

“Conditions in these camps make them perfect breeding areas for mosquitoes and many varieties of insects. In my opinion, there is a very high probability of an outbreak of any disease like mumps, measles, scabies, malaria, diarrhoea, polio, and leishmaniasis”, said another health worker working for a respected NGO who spoke to The Lancet on condition of anonymity. “We need medicines, doctors, and qualified health workers. And we need them urgently. Any delays might result in a human catastrophe of unimaginable proportions.”....

Eager to establish its writ over the Swat Valley, the government seems to have created a health crisis which it may not be able to overcome. [link; registration req'd]

Two letters in the same issue of The Lancet offer additional details. But as dire as the situation has become within the camps, K.M. Bile and Assad Hafeez note in one of those letters that the government camps house only 20 percent of the IDPs -- who may now total as many as 2.5 million individuals, almost half of them children:

Without counting the great costs to themselves, families in the local community are looking after more than 1·73 million people, in accordance with the local tradition of hospitality. Most displaced people have been accommodated within family homes; others are in schools, mosques, and other community buildings.... Although a proportion of host families are related to or friends of the displaced people, many have welcomed strangers. [link; registration req'd]

HUMAN RIGHTS: Sources to help you cover overturning of Delhi's anti-gay sex laws

SAJA member and author Minal Hajratwala just sent out a note to help journalists cover the major gay rights news coming out of India:

Dear SAJA members,

Below is a list of people who have agreed to be available for
interviews on the impact of the Delhi High Court's historic decision
to decriminalize gay sex for the first time since Queen Victoria's
era. The source list includes a spokesman for the United Nations; a
researcher for Human Rights Watch; the editor of a magazine released
two weeks ago whose cover story is presciently headlined  "Life after
377"; and activists, health workers, gay journalists, and community
members.  Those with an asterisk (*) may be available to write
commentaries or op-eds.

FYI for New York City media, a celebration is being planned for 7:30
p.m. tonight at the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street.

The full text of the ruling can be seen at:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17027448/Delhi-Hight-Court-Naz

At the end of this email is a list of major news articles published today.


SOURCE LIST

ºº In India:

Anjali Gopalan
Founder/Executive Director
Naz Foundation (India) Trust; plaintiff in the case
New Delhi
Telephone landline: +91 11 2691 0499


ºº In London:

Pratibha Parmar
Longtime organizer; filmmaker, "Khush" and other films about gay Indians
Telephone landline: +44 207 561 9541


ºº US: West Coast:

DESI SPOTTING: Yes, even in the Michael Jackson story

[Desi Spotting = finding South Asian elements in mainstream stories]

[REMINDER: SAJA's 15th Anniversary Convention & Career Expo, July 10-11 - just $50 for all workshops, panels, two receptions and gala dinner! http://www.saja.org/convention]

Yes, we've found South Asian connections in the Michael Jackson story.

• Among the journalists covering Jackson's passing on ABC, Martin Bashir, co-host of "Nightline." Before he came to America for ABC, Bashir was famous for his extended, sit-down celebrity interviews, including the controversial 2003 documentary "Living with Michael Jackson" (see Wikipedia link).
• The autopsy was performed by chief medical examiner-coroner for Los Angeles County, Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, who is no stranger to high-profile tabloid cases. He first received national attention during the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial.
  
  Two memorable examples of how his name became part of the story, for a moment.
  
  • From the LAT coverage of his testimony:
    
    A likable witness with impressive medical credentials, a distinct Indian accent and near-impossible-to-pronounce last name, Sathyavagiswaran opened his testimony by giving Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian Kelberg permission to refer to him by his first name.
    
    "If we call you Dr. Lakshmanan, you will not be offended, will you?" Kelberg asked.
    
    "No," Sathyavagiswaran replied, returning the prosecutor's grin. "I will not."
    
  • Jay Leno's monologue included the following, in paraphrase:
    The coroner's name's real name is Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaranstein, but he dropped the "stein" because it was too ethnic.
    
    
•  The Jackson story received major attention in South Asia, as it did all over the world. See this screengrab of the Times of India website, almost 24 hours after his death.



• SAJA Board member John Laxmi shared this note with those on the SAJA E-mail Discussion List:

If you are, like me, mourning the King's passing, in addition to marveling about the King's many talents, you might also wonder about the King's Desi connections ....  there are not many but consider this list:

(5) The King did a concert in Bombay
(4) The King was interviewed by Martin Bashir famously a few years ago
(3) The King featured a Bharata Natyam dancer in the video of one of his songs ("Black or White")
(2) The King inspired the B(k)ollywood dancer Prabhu Deva

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY,

(1) The King inspired the dance moves in approximately 10,000+ Bollywood song-dances.

What other Desi connections did we miss? Post your thoughts below.

PHOTO FORUM: The Orange Men of Rishikesh, by Charlotte Purin

The Orange Men of Rishikesh

Text and photographs © Charlotte Purin

It was fitting that I met G.T. Roa (above) on the holiday of Holi, the Indian festival of color that celebrates a man’s survival thanks to his unwavering devotion to God. On this day Hindus, especially adolescent boys, throw or smear brightly colored, staining powders at anyone in the street. Despite this, I left the safety of my ashram and ventured out for sweets. Zig-zagging in order to avoid the boys, I bumped into G.T., a much-bemused sadhu, who was color-free except for the orange uniform that all sadhus wear to signify their life path. I thrust some sweets into his hands and said, “Happy Holi!” He smiled: “Come and talk sometime. I will be sitting here. I am always sitting here.”

The next day, there he was in the same exact spot. And he was there every day until I left four weeks later.  G.T. Roa is a man who left his job as a welder for the life of a monk, renouncing worldly desires for a life of devotion to God. One day he told his family he was going to the mountain – the Himalayas, refuge of seers (rishis) and saints. 

HEALTH: Research on South Asian mothers

Writer Ryan Biltstein has a cover story in Miller-McCune magazine about important research about race and health: "After decades of research, Arline Geronimus concludes that the long-term stress of living in a white-dominated society 'weathers' blacks, making them age faster than their white counterparts."

The piece is fascinating and covers a lot of important questions and I suggest you read it in full here.

Meanwhile, there's a nugget about South Asians buried in the piece (emphasis mine):

Those disparities don't subside on the way up the income ladder. Geronimus and then-graduate student Cynthia Colen, now a professor at Ohio State University, led a study showing that upwardly mobile white women who grew up poor improved their birth outcomes, but similar income increases didn't help black mothers much at all. Other researchers have established that the health of Latino immigrants declines as they stay in America longer and improve their lots in life, and that South Asian Indian mothers, who have socioeconomic profiles comparable to whites, suffer from birth outcomes as poor as those of low-income blacks.

Anyone have more info on this particular research? Please post in the comments section below.

WEBCAST: SRI LANKA BRIEFING #4 - The Human Rights Situation

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WEBCAST: SRI LANKA BRIEFING #4
Discussing the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) Special Report: on A Marred Victory and a Defeat Pregnant With Foreboding

SAJA presents the fourth in a series of webcasts about Sri Lanka (recordings of previous sessions below).

SAJA features a rare interview with a member of University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), Dr. K. Sritharan. UTHR(J) has just issued a special report focusing on the last two months of the war in Sri Lanka—and in particular, its ramifications for civilians.

SPEAKER:
Kopalasingham Sritharan, former Mathematics Lecturer at the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, is a co-founder of University of Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna). The group formed in 1988 at the University of Jaffna, and documented human rights violations and abuses by all sides in the nation's conflict, including various armed groups. After the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) assassinated Dr. Rajani Thiranagama, another prominent founding member of UTHR(J), in September 1989, Sritharan and fellow UTHR(J) member Rajan Hoole were forced to leave the university. For the past 20 years, in hiding and on the move, they have systematically documented human rights violations, provided political critiques and recorded voices of ordinary people from all communities.  UTHR(J) was awarded the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for human rights in 2007. K. Sritharan is also a co-author of The Broken Palmyra.

Official report summary:
This report covers key issues arising from the recently concluded war. It begins by examining current political prospects, and then moves on to a sketch of the last two months of the war primarily from the standpoint of civilians. While being frank about the LTTE’s cynical use of civilians, the report raises questions about the Sri Lankan government’s relentless move to crush the LTTE leadership while placing the civilians it held hostage at unacceptable risk. It examines humanitarian and human rights issues, the detention of the doctors who served with courage in the No-Fire Zone, questions about the fate of the injured left behind and moral questions arising from the action against the LTTE leadership and the fate of Prabhakaran’s family. The report closes with a warning, noting the danger posed by the present government behaving increasingly like a replica of the LTTE, and makes some recommendations that UTHR(J) believes would be profitable at this juncture. The report and its recommendations emphasize two aspects in particular: the need for urgent measures to address the concerns of the recently displaced living in camps and to secure accountability of the state to ensure the due rights of its citizens.

Full report here:
http://www.uthr.org/SpecialReports/spreport32.htm

Featuring: K. Sritharan, University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna).
Moderator: V.V. Ganeshananthan, current SAJA board member, former SAJA vice president and author of "Love Marriage," a novel set in Sri Lanka and the diaspora.

Friday, June 12, 2009
10:30 am-11:00 am NY time
8 pm-8:30 pm Colombo time

Listen live or to a recording:http://www.blogtalkradio.com/saja/2009/06/12/Sri-Lanka-Briefing-4-The-Human-Rights-Situation
(you can go and set an e-mail reminder for yourself)
or listen live via your phone by dialing this NYC number +1-347-324-5991
Please post your questions in the comments section below or e-mail saja[at]columbia.edu (subject=webcast). You can also call into the show live.

You can listen to previous webcasts here and here:
BRIEFING #1: http://www.sajaforum.org/2008/12/webcast-sri-lanka-the-.html
BRIEFING #2: http://www.sajaforum.org/2009/01/webcast-sri-lanka-briefing-2.html
BRIEFING #3: http://www.sajaforum.org/2009/05/webcast-lanka-briefing-3.html
Another discussion co-sponsored by the Asia Society and SAJA:
http://www.asiasociety.org/resources/090415_sri_lanka.html

OBIT: Prof. Rajeev Motwani, influencer of Google, Paypal

 I learned about the passing of Rajeev Motwani, one of the most influential people in Silicon Valley the way I learn most news these days, from the world of social media. SAJA co-founder and leading tech journalist Om Malik, posted the following on his Twitter feed:

@om: good bye Rajeev Motwani, one of Silicon Valley's good guys and a dear friend. I am going to miss you.

And he followed up with a blog post about Motwani, whose Stanford students included the Google founders:

Rajeev Motwani, one of the savviest angel investors in Silicon Valley, a Stanford professor and most importantly a close and personal friend passed away earlier today. He was 45 and is left behind by his wife Asha and kids.

It is hard for me to write this post — this morning the news of Steve Jobs’ improving health put me in a good mood. My day is ending with a broken heart and tears in my eyes. It is the day which reminds you of the unpredictability of life. Rajeev and I had been swapping emails, hoping to get together for a cup of coffee and discussions about technology. Alas, that shall never be.

After working tirelessly in anonymity, his tutelage of two Stanford University young grad students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, made him a household name in Silicon Valley. He started the Mining Data at Stanford project (MIDAS) and was one of the earliest backers of Google. He was an early investor in Paypal and a special advisor to Sequoia Captial.

Sergey Brin, one of those famous Google boys, posted the first item in nine months on his blog:

It is with great sadness that I write about the passing of my teacher and good friend Professor Rajeev Motwani. But I would rather not dwell on the sorrow of his death and instead celebrate his life.

Officially, Rajeev was not my advisor, and yet he played just as big a role in my research, education, and professional development. In addition to being a brilliant computer scientist, Rajeev was a very kind and amicable person and his door was always open. No matter what was going on with my life or work, I could always stop by his office for an interesting conversation and a friendly smile.

<snip> Eventually, as Google emerged from Stanford, Rajeev remained a friend and advisor as he has with many people and startups since. Of all the faculty at Stanford, it is with Rajeev that I have stayed the closest and I will miss him dearly. Yet his legacy and personality lives on in the students, projects, and companies he has touched.

Here's News.com's report, Valley investor and Google adviser Rajeev Motwani mourned:

Condolences are pouring out over the Internet as news spreads that Rajeev Motwani, a Stanford University computer science professor and well-known Silicon Valley angel investor, died unexpectedly at his home Friday.

Reading all this, you'd presume Motwani was an old man. He was 45 47, a 1988 Berkeley PhD and a 1983 IIT-Kanpur, grad. See his personal site here.

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington posted two documents co-authored by Motwani, from the proto-Google days in 1998.

Here's how Brin ended his post: "Today, whenever you use a piece of technology, there is a good chance a little bit of Rajeev Motwani is behind it."

UPDATE: Cause of death was reportedly accidental drowning in his home swimming pool.

Post your comments here.

BLOGS: Browngirl's Beautyblog, for those other fleshtones

When I was about eight my family visited India, and my dad being the social animal that he is, packed us into the car regularly so that we could meet every possible person in our known extended family, from first cousins to third cousins, thrice removed. In Kerala, on a July day, that means you're either driving  around in the rain, or worse, on an impossibly muggy day, where every inch of skin and clothing sticks to the vinyl seats of the Ambassador, and loudly peels off when you so much as shift in your place. And as the only boy among three siblings, I was always assigned the worst seat in the car: the middle of the front seat, wedged in between my dad and the hired driver, a location entirely deprived of any air flow, where the torpor was periodically broken by the flailing elbow of the driver, as he shifted gears.

Yesterday, while chatting with a Latina colleague about the politics of skin tone in our respective communities, I was reminded of those long, long trips, and of one destination in particular. It was some relative--I can never remember the connection--and he was old, and crotchety, and as we all sat around, drinking our respective cups of tea and Horlicks, he glared at me and my sisters, and pointing to one of them, asked my parents in Malayalam: "All of you are so fair. How did this one turn out such a darkie?"

After I told my friend that story, we flipped through a new issue of India Abroad, which I had on my desk. In the matrimonial section, I'd say maybe every 5th listing mentioned "fair" skin. No one used the terms "dusky" or "wheatish." But it made me wonder: if someone doesn't say their son or daughter is fair, does that imply they're wheatish or dusky, or maybe even dark?

Maybe Sumi Raghavan can tell us. Sumi's a doctoral student in clinical psychology at Fordham University, here in New York. To periodically take her mind off her dissertation, she started "Browngirl's Beautyblog," because, as she told me, "there's a real gap in the amount of information available about beauty products for women of brown color, and as an informed consumer with a lot of experience, I thought I may have something interesting to say about it."

In her first post, on May 29, Sumi describes her skin as a "deep brown":

"There is something unique and beautiful about the golden brown of Indian skin.  So why on Earth does it feel like nobody is making beauty products for us, for our pigments, for our textures, and our needs?"

Elsewhere, she provides a DIY recipe for turmeric facial application ("I assumed they were jaundiced or something"), and gives a shout-out to Thevi Thambirajah, a Sri Lankan who launched Thevi Cosmetics.

Here she tells us more about why she started the site:

BOOKS: Chaya Bhuvaneswar's novel, "Jackson Heights"

I chanced upon a small item in a publishing industry newsletter, noting that "Rhodes Scholar Chaya Bhuvaneswar's" novel "Jackson Heights" had been picked up by Spiegel & Grau, a division of Random House that also publishes Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nicholas Kristof, Suze Orman and Howard Stern.

"Jackson Heights" won't be out for a while but we asked Chaya, a physician by day (who's expecting any day now), to tell us a little about the book and how it came to be.

What's "Jackson Heights" about?

The story overall is a simple one. One summer, two girls come of age, sexually and otherwise, as they investigate a story for their student newspaper that turns out to unveil sex trafficking and various forms of dishonesty masquerading as piety. On their journey, they also learn about surviving violence-- from an unexpected event that involves them directly, rather than just as reporters. [more about the plot below]

Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired your book.

I was born in Queens and the first place my parents lived in the US with me as a small baby (after a hideous walk-up in Staten Island) was an only slightly-less-crummy walk-up in Jackson Heights, which I have happy pictures of that do not obscure the huge water stains on the walls and my uncle holding me before he left for Canada to escape the Vietnam War draft. My dad got deported, having come here through a program that solicited doctors from South Asia which he convinced my mom to participate in after watching too many ‘Three Stooges’ movies and deciding that America was the place to be... but it was pretty hard at first to sort out his immigration status and my mom supported us on the (even then puny) salary of a pediatrics resident.

MEDIA: India's little gay magazine that could

Today I sat in on a meeting of the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association. The event was held in my station's new performance space - a tony little auditorium in downtown Manhattan - and the invited speaker was Christine Quinn, New York's openly gay City Council Speaker. Her main remarks centered on pretty much what all gay and lesbian officials and activists around here are dealing with these days: the fight to make same-sex marriage legal in New York state. A whole slew of states have passed same-sex marriage recently, and some people fear that's making all-too-cool New York look a bit behind the curve. In recent weeks, I've attended rallies against and in support of same-sex marriage, and for all the star power the pro rally drew - the cast of the Broadway show Hair, cast members of Sex in the City, Mayor Bloomberg, and New York's governor - there were actually a lot more people at the anti-same-sex marriage rally, namely Latinos who are religiously opposed.

But for a little perspective, it's worth turning one's attention, every now and then, to the state of affairs in India, where homosexuality is still criminalized. And in that context, the act of producing a magazine for the LGBT community seems an act of bravery.

From "India's Little Gay Magazine That Could," an article by Amita Parashar in The Advocate:

Bombay Dost (Bombay Friends), India's first and only LGBT publication, has just relaunched after going out of print in 2002 when the then-underground publication ran out of financial support. The original Dost, which printed from 1990 to 2002, was available mostly through roadside vendors and often wrapped in plain brown paper.

"There is a sense that certain sections of Indian society are now much more liberal and tolerant, something that would be unheard of back in 1990," editor Vikram Phukan told Advocate.com via e-mail.

Six weeks into the relaunch, Bombay Dost has sold two thirds of its initial print run -- nearly 1,000 copies.

The magazine costs 150 rupees an issue (about $3) and will be published twice a year. Some of its funding is coming from the United Nations Development Program, but even more amazing is the financial support coming from a Bollywood actress.

Celina Jaitley, Bollywood actress and former Miss India, has thrown her support, and money, behind the magazine's relaunch, though she has received hate mail for doing so. Jaitley told The Times of India that homophobia was responsible for taking the life of a close gay friend and she won't be deterred by the intolerance. Phukan applauds Jaitley's courage and said that Bollywood "attracts more than its fair share of queer professionals," yet few come out for fear of losing social standing and professional work.

Check out the rest of the article in The Advocate, as well as the Bombay Dost website.

SPELLING BEE: Kavya Shivashankar wins. "Laodicean"

Hegemony! Kavya Shivashankar became the 8th Indian kid to win the Spelling Bee. (Sameer Mishra won it last year.)

She's a 13 year old from Olathe, Kansas. Kept spelling out every word on her palm. Amazing kid - really, all these kids just blew me away. ABC did a phenomenal job of presenting these kids as interesting, regular personalities. So far removed from just a few years ago, when the Spelling Bee was synonymous with useless regurgitation or a sport for the socially inept.

My only quibble was the requisite zoom in on the kids who'd just spelled a word wrong and were burying their faces in their hands. Give them their dignity, ABC.

Here's Kavya's word-journey to immortality:

1	Round One Test
4	ergasia	ergasia
5	kurta	kurta
6	escritoire	escritoire
7	hydrargyrum	hydrargyrum
8	blancmange	blancmange
9	baignoire	baignoire
10	huisache	huisache
11	ecossaise	ecossaise
12	diacoele	diacoele
13	bouquiniste	bouquiniste
14	isagoge	isagoge
15	phoresy	phoresy
16	Laodicean	Laodicean

Earlier: Desis in the Spelling Bee semifinals

HOAXY: Ericsson's free laptops. Act now.

My dad forwarded me this email, promising a free Ericsson R320 to anyone who forwards it to 20 people. I figure that posting it on this blog is worth at least 15 people, right? But I like how the supposed author is one "N.kousik [IT Manager - RCG]." See how innovative our desis are - not content to just send around a bland text-based hoax, but taking the time to make a shiny jpeg. Or at least to appropriate one that's been floating around for a while: according to the hoax-busting site Snopes, it's been going on for at least a couple years.

Savor the little differences: in the Snopes version, the letter comes from Anna Swelund. Here, you're simply supposed to cc Anna Swelung. 

SPELLING BEE: Fourteen Indian semifinalists

I haven't been paying attention to the Spelling Bee yet, but with the semis and final round coming up tomorrow, I thought I'd take a look at the Semifinalists list online. As I scrolled down through all the faces, I got that sinking feeling: Where are all the desi kids?? How will they maintain their hegemony?? I had to scroll past five kids of varying hues before I finally came to the first, Ramya Auroprem, an 8th grader from San Jose ("Ramya is fascinated by linguistics and is eager to learn new languages."). Out of 41 semifinalists, I counted 14 Indian kids - a goodly percentage, but they'd best not let that kind of scare happen again.

FYI, the Semifinals are on ESPN on Thursday at 10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Finals start on Thursday at 8 pm on ABC.

A onetime competitor, Ahalya Nava, wrote to me today, pointing out this little Fun Fact posted on the Scripps website:

"In 1985 Balu Natarajan of Chicago, Illinois, became the first Indian-American to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Since 1985 six additional Indian-Americans have won the championship: Rageshree Ramachandran (1987), Nupur Lala (1999), George Thampy (2000), Pratyush Buddiga (2002), Sai Gunturi (2003), Anurag Kashyap (2005) and Sameer Mishra (2008)."

So I asked her to share some more of her thoughts on the contest, since she was in it:

Things have certainly changed since the 1980’s.  I remember back in 1986, perhaps only a handful of us South Asians at the National Spelling Bee, and being surprised at seeing even 3 or 5.  We were a shy group, in awe and full of gratitude for the opportunity to represent our schools and our states, and to have the opportunity to meet and shake hands with President Reagan.  I don’t think any major news channel might have even carried our stories or the competition.

Fast forward 23 years, and there are at least 32 South Asians represented in the National Spelling Bee of approximately 293 total competitors – that’s approximately 10% of the entire competitor base. 

AUTHORED: Tania James on "Atlas of Unknowns"

[See our previous editions of Authored, with writers Kamran Pasha, Shilpa Agarwal, Minal Hajratwala and Dilara Hafiz.]

Someone handed me an Uncorrected Proof of Tania James' "Atlas of Unknowns" a couple months ago. This would be the promotional, paperback version of the new book, with an additional yellow outer sleeve glued on. On that sleeve, in all-caps, it states: "Announced First Printing: 35,000"

Now, some of you may find that number unremarkable, but if it's more than wishful PR, it's quite a serious ambition for literary fiction. And it got me wondering just how this young Malayali-American talent--a New Yorker by way of Kentucky and Harvard--was going to achieve those kinds of sales, in this market.

It doesn't hurt to have the industrial heft of Alfred A. Knopf behind you, or blurbs by Nathan Englander, Junot Diaz and Ann Packer--or coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle or on NPR--but as Tania writes below, she's pursuing less glamorous routes as well: blogging, calling up Malayali organizations, producing a book trailer, and making the most of own's mother. Her tour is underway, with readings to come throughout Illinois, as well as in New York and Ohio.

But before the author holds forth, a bit of synopsis, not from the SF Chronicle's rave review--"one of the most exciting debut novels since Zadie Smith's 'White Teeth'"--but from Tania's website:

"In the wake of their mother’s mysterious death, Linno and Anju are raised in Kerala by their father, Melvin, a reluctant Christian prone to bouts of dyspepsia, and their grandmother, the superstitious and strong-willed Ammachi. When Anju wins a scholarship to a prestigious school in America, she seizes the opportunity, even though it means betraying her sister. In New York, Anju is plunged into the elite world of her Hindu American host family, led by a well-known television personality and her fiendishly ambitious son, a Princeton drop out determined to make a documentary about Anju’s life. But when Anju finds herself ensnared by her own lies, she runs away..."

Selling "Atlas of Unknowns" - by Tania James

First, a disclosure: I am a terrible salesman. In high school, I briefly worked as a knife salesman for Cutco Knives, a stint that ended soon after I severed my own finger during the paring knife presentation and had to stop because I was bleeding all over the meat cleaver. I quit a few months later, after my only sale came from my mother.

 I like to think of that self-inflicted wound as a revealing moment, a clear indication that I was not meant to be in sales. Years later, I went to grad school for creative writing, where I gained only the slightest understanding of the book publishing process. I had no idea what the process required from the writer once the book went out into the world; I always assumed that, by this time, the writer would simply float to the next project, happily untethered to the grit and grime of having to do the actual selling.  

There are some writers for whom such happy oblivion is accurate, but for me, a debut novelist coming of age during a recession, trying to push a hardcover novel during a dismal period in publishing unlike any the industry has ever seen, the reality looks different.  

It has now been a month since the release of my book, "Atlas of Unknowns." I've learned some things and have remained clueless about others. What follows here is a bit of grit and grime from the trenches, and some humble advice.

ESSAY: Class of '09, exit stage left

While many of my friends are getting their diplomas and moving into the real world this spring, I’m taking the scenic route to graduation – pinning on an extra semester that allows time for a Gainesville Sun newspaper internship, journalism trip to Brazil, volunteer work in north Indian villages, and some extra multimedia classes.

“Oh, you’re such a free spirit,” my mom’s friends tell me as they nudge their children toward law school or MCAT classes.

But my sense of adventure might have something to do with the fact that finding a job has me shaking in my hiking boots.

The other day I looked up from my elliptical to the gym TV to see a headline that read “Worst year to graduate ever?” Soothing.

It’s not just the news, or the demise of the Boston Globe, CosmoGirl or Oprah Home. It’s also the journalism conferences where even lighthearted, successful columnists like Dave Barry have given budding writers the yellow light.

Professors in j-schools around the country are arming students with “backpack journalism” skills like video editing, RSS-savvy writing and Web design, but telling us to be open to PR and advertising.

My mother, who still makes me open up Word or upload photos for her, is pushing me to become more technical. Basically, a computer programmer who might have a couple story ideas too.

OPINION: Roundup of recent essays on South Asia

There was a time during SAJA's first 15 years, when you could go weeks or even months without seeing an editorial, commentary or essay in a major American publication about South Asia (the Canadian press, generally more attuned to international affairs, was better about this). Nowadays, of course, the continuous big news out of South Asia has meant American publications suddenly have a lot to say. The continuing war on terror in Afghanistan/Pakistan; the end of the LTTE in Sri Lanka; the Indian elections - they are all reflected in this roundup below.

THIS IS JUST A START. HELP US ROUNDOUT THIS ROUNDUP: Post items worth reading in the comments section below.

WAR IN AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN:

• NYT: David Kilcullen and Andrew McDonald Exum: Death from Above, Outrage from Below
• THE ROOT: Ken Cooper, former WashPost South Asia bureau chief: Pakistan's Biggest Problem? It's Not India
• WASHINGTON POST: Selig Harrison: Pakistan's Ethnic Problem
• WASHINGTON POST: Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial page editor: An 'AfPak' About-Face for Obama

THE END OF THE LTTE IN SRI LANKA:

• FORBES: G. Parthasarathy, former ambassador: The End of a War Without End
• BOSTON GLOBE: Ken Cooper, former WashPost South Asia bureau chief: Healing the Wounds in Sri Lanka
• THE NEW REPUBLIC: Michael Schaffer: Winning the Peace
• FORBES: Vivian Wai-Yin Kwok: Sri Lanka's New Beginning
  

INDIA'S MASSIVE ELECTIONS:

• FORBES: Tunku Varadarajan: Obama Must Stop Ignoring India
• NYT: Unsigned editorial: India's Challenges
• WSJ: Alyssa Ayres: The US-India Moment
• FORBES: Swaminathan S. Aiyar, economist: India Votes for Continuity, Not Radical Change
• WSJ: Keerthik Sasidharan: The Home and the World: The New Global Indian
• NYT: Rahul Singh: Elections Define a New India

This is just a start. HELP US ROUNDOUT THIS ROUNDUP: Post items worth reading in the comments section below.

Post your comments below, too.

WEBCAST: Sri Lanka Briefing #3 - The End of the Tigers: What's Next in Post-War Sri Lanka

[PLEASE SUPPORT SAJA: Help us meet our new $15,000 challenge grant: http://saja.org/articles/saja-group-receives-prestigious-challenge-grant
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LISTEN TO A RECORDING BY USING THE PLAYER ABOVE or by clicking on this link.

WEBCAST: SRI LANKA BRIEFING #3
The End Of The Tigers: What's Next in Post-War Sri Lanka

SAJA presents the third in a series of webcasts about Sri Lanka (recordings of previous sessions below).

The war in Sri Lanka has drawn to a close in terms of military operations—but serious humanitarian and political questions remain. Will there be a return to armed conflict, or is it really over?  How will the issues of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people be addressed? How will the human rights situation be addressed? As the international community and Sri Lankan government officials talk about a political solution, what process is likely to take hold? How far will that solution go? What will be the relationship between rehabilitation, reconstruction, development and the political process? What are the possibilities of a transitional process to provide democratic space? How can demilitarization and democracy move forward in Sri Lanka? What role will the powerful Tamil diaspora play?

Featuring: Ahilan Kadirgamar, spokesperson for the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum; Alan Keenan, senior analyst of the International Crisis Group; Jayampathy Wickramaratne, constitutional lawyer.
Moderator: V.V. Ganeshananthan, former SAJA vice president and author of "Love Marriage," a novel set in Sri Lanka and the diaspora.

Thursday, May 21, 2009
11:30 am-12:30 pm NY time
9 pm-10 pm Colombo time
See local time around the world: http://snurl.com/ihcnp 

Listen live or to a recording: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/saja/2009/05/21/SAJA-Sri-Lanka-Briefing-3
(you can go and set an e-mail reminder for yourself)
or listen live via your phone by dialing this NYC number +1-347-324-5991

Please post your questions in the comments section below or e-mail saja[at]columbia.edu (subject=webcast). You can also call into the show live.

SPEAKERS:

Ahilan Kadirgamar is a spokesperson of the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum, an international network of Sri Lankan activists formed in 2002, and is committed to democratization, human rights and a political solution in Sri Lanka. He is also a contributing editor of Himal Southasian magazine.

Alan Keenan is the International Crisis Group's Senior Analyst based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He coordinates all aspects of Crisis Group research and publications on Sri Lanka, the dynamics of its conflict, and the possibilities of its peaceful resolution. He is also responsible for the Crisis Group's advocacy work on Sri Lanka, which involves consultation with government officials, diplomats, international NGOs, academia, the media, and policy think-tanks in Sri Lanka, as well as briefing foreign ministries, UN agencies and concerned civil society organisations in Europe and the U.S.

Jayampathy Wickramaratne, constitutional lawyer; former senior advisor, Ministry of Constitutional Affairs; member of the team that drafted the 2000 Constitution Bill; member of the panel of experts to assist the All Party Representative Committee and signatory to the "majority report" that proposed a strong power-sharing arrangement with extensive devolution and power-sharing at the center.

You can listen to previous webcasts here and here:
BRIEFING #1: http://www.sajaforum.org/2008/12/webcast-sri-lanka-the-.html
BRIEFING #2: http://www.sajaforum.org/2009/01/webcast-sri-lanka-briefing-2.html

Kadirgamar and Keenan also appeared in this discussion, co-sponsored by the Asia Society:
http://www.asiasociety.org/resources/090415_sri_lanka.html

Post your comments or questions below.

SRI LANKA: Should Sri Lanka Be an Example for How to Win Wars?

The Sri Lankan government has made headlines across the world after ending the 25-year Tamil Tiger rebellion, a victory that The Washington Post's editorial board called a rare and "reversal of fortunes." But what does it tell us about other struggles? While the United States grapples with two wars abroad against fierce insurgents, one school of thought is that Sri Lanka has proved something.

But did Sri Lanka really set an example?

Yes, according to this editorial in the Wall Street Journal. Four years ago, the newly elected government under Mahinda Rajapaksa decided to launch a fullscale military offensive against the Tamil Tigers, investing massive amount of resources in military and counterinsurgency resources. That very determination, according to the Journal, gave Sri Lanka an edge against one of the most skillful insurgents ultimately defeating them.

No, writes Bobby Ghosh of Time. While Sri Lanka might have set a great standard militarily, Ghosh thinks that other countries fighting insurgency should not attempt to follow its lead because the costs at which Sri Lanka won the war amount to thousands of lives. "Rajapaksa's triumph has come at a high cost in civilian lives and a sharp decline in democratic values — and he is no closer to resolving the ethnic resentments that underpinned the insurgency for decades," he writes.

Of course, it's hard to rain on the Sri Lankan government's parade right now. Still, a shunned group will only stay dormant for so long. If a democratically elected insurgent group can come back to threaten a country, it's even more likely for a violently repressed group like the Tamils.

SAJA-NY EVENT: Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Nobel Laureate, in conversation with NYT's Andrew Revkin

All are are welcome to this free, public event! NOTE: A recording of the conversation will be webcast later in the week. Feel free to send questions for Dr. Pachauri to saja[at]columbia.edu (subject = Questions for Dr. Pachauri)

South Asian Journalists Association
The Earth Institute at Columbia University
and The John Oakes Prize for Environmental Journalism

Presenting a conversation with one of the world's leading experts on the environment and climate change...

Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri
- received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which he leads (seen here with fellow Nobel Laureate Al Gore)

- in July 2009 becomes director of the Yale Climate and Energy Institute

MODERATOR: Andrew Revkin, NYT environment reporter and creator of Dot
Earth blog - http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/
(Revkin interviewed Dr. Pachauri and his fellow Nobel Laureate Al Gore on Friday)

TALK and Q & A: "Saving the World: Forging and International Consensus
on Development and Climate Change"

Tuesday, May 19
6:45-8 pm
Columbia Journalism School
Stabile Student Center (lobby floor)
116th St & Broadway (#1 train to 116th St stop)

Free and open to the public; no RSVP required
Free open wifi available

NOTE: A recording of the conversation will be webcast later in the week. Feel free to send questions for Dr. Pachauri to saja[at]columbia.edu (subject = Questions for Dr. Pachauri)

BIO: Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2007 behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which he heads. One of the top world experts on climate change, environment and development he heads The Energy and Resources Institute, an international think tank and scientific research organization headquartered in New Delhi with centers around the world. This year, he was also appointed director of the Yale Climate and Energy Institute.

Dr Pachauri started out as an engineer, which gives him a unique insight into environmental issues. He has PhDs in industrial engineering and in economics from  North Carolina State University in
Raleigh and has taught at several U.S. Universities.

He has advised the Indian government on environment and energy policies and TERI was the major contributor to the Indian government's policy on climate policy announced last year.

As chairman of the IPCC, he guided the organization in producing its monumental survey, The Fourth Assessment Report on climate change, which reflects the international scientific consensus on the immediacy and gravity of the climate change problem. The Nobel Prize was principally in recognition of the IPCC's role in drawing global attention to the imminent dangers from climate change.

An important aspect of Dr Pachauri's work has been to look for solutions to climate change problems that also take into account the alleviation of poverty and development, while trying to build
international consensus in dealing with it.

2008 ELECTION: South Asians voted overwhelmingly for Obama

AALDEF, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, has finally started releasing its analysis of exit polls from the presidential election, last November. Its breakdown for Michigan and Pennsylvania indicate that South Asians almost unanimously voted for Barack Obama, beating even the extremely pro-Democratic projections that we posted here, prior to the election. Here's the info for Michigan:

AALDEF surveyed a total of 1,621 Asian and Arab American voters in Ann Arbor, Canton, Dearborn, Detroit, Hamtramck, Novi, and Troy.  The five largest ethnic groups surveyed were Asian Indian (25%), Arab (24%), Chinese (23%), Bangladeshi (15%), and Korean (5%).  Seventy-two percent (72%) of voters were foreign-born naturalized U.S. citizens, and 8% had no formal U.S. education.  Forty-three percent (43%) were first-time voters.

The majority of Asian and Arab Americans voted for Democratic candidate Barack Obama for President. Nearly nine out of ten (88%) Asian and Arab Americans supported Democratic candidate Barack Obama for President.  Ten percent (10%) voted for Republican candidate John McCain, and 2% voted for other candidates.  Arab and South Asian American voters gave Obama the most support, with 97% and 94% of those polled, respectively, voting for the Democratic candidate.  Chinese American voters also supported Obama, but at lower rates, with 76% of those polled voting for the Democratic candidate, and 22% for McCain.

And here's the AALDEF exit poll info for Pennsylvania:

AALDEF surveyed a total of 518 Asian American voters in Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware, and Bucks Counties.  The five largest ethnic groups surveyed were Chinese (47%), Asian Indian (19%), Vietnamese (10%), Korean (8%), and Cambodian (5%).  Seventy percent (70%) of voters were foreign-born naturalized U.S. citizens, and 24% had no formal U.S. education.  Thirty-two percent (32%) were first-time voters.
 
The majority of Asian Americans voted for Democratic candidate Barack Obama for President.  Nearly four out of five (79%) Asian Americans polled in Pennsylvania supported Democratic candidate Barack Obama for President.  Twenty percent (20%) voted for Republican candidate John McCain, and 1% voted for other candidates.  Among Asian ethnic groups, South Asians gave Obama the most support, with 92% of those polled voting for the Democratic candidate.  Chinese Americans also supported the Democratic candidate, with 87% of those polled voting for Obama, and 12% for McCain.  Southeast Asians were evenly divided between the candidates, with 50% of those polled voting for Obama, and 50% for McCain.

LANKA: LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran reported dead

We are still collecting information on this breaking news. Please post any links in the comments section below. From VOA's Steve Herman, who has been on the ground in Sri Lanka for several weeks now.

LTTE Leader Killed, Sri Lanka Claims Total Control of Island Nation
By Steve Herman
Colombo
18 May 2009
The quarter-century civil war in Sri Lanka has come to a dramatic end. The army says it has wiped out the entire leadership of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, including the founder-leader of the rebel group. And for the first time in 26 years, the government says all territory of the island nation is back under its control.

Sri Lanka's state-controlled broadcasters switched to patriotic programming and special reports to announce a total victory and that the military had vanquished the entire leadership of the rebel organization that had terrorized the island nation for decades.

"It has been revealed that the LTTE supremo, Velupillai Prabhakaran, has been killed owing to the attacks of the advancing troops today, in the morning," the announcement said. 

Media reports say the rebel leader, along with other top commanders, was killed trying to flee in an ambulance. The Defense Ministry says the bodies are in the process of being identified and that 250 rebels were killed during the final burst of fighting Monday.

OBITUARIES (more to come - please come back soon):

• The Hindu: Ruthless Fighter for Eelam
  

Post news, comments, etc, below.

BOOKS: Shalini Shankar's "Desi Land: Teen Culture, Class and Success in Silicon Valley"

Shalini Shankar, an anthropologist at Northwestern University, came out with "Desi Land: Teen Culture, Class and Success in Silicon Valley" (Duke Univ. Press) several months ago. Since there's still a relatively small body of academic work on South Asian Americans, we asked her to tell us a little about her research - which involved considerable hanging-out in high schools - and share some of her findings. At the end, she's provided a very useful list of texts that deal with South Asian youth and the diaspora.

By the way, if you're an academic and have a new book with somewhat broad appeal, let us know. All we ask is that you cut down on the academese, ie., keep it simple.

Researching and writing "Desi Land," by Shalini Shankar

What does it mean to be a successful Desi? "Desi Land" is my ethnographic account of South Asian American youth culture during and after the Silicon Valley dot-com boom. I examine how Desis define and manage what it means to be successful individuals and community members, and how teenagers orient themselves to their diverse high schools and consider their lives afterwards. I conducted the majority of my research between 1999-2001, when the high tech industry peaked. I did fieldwork with Desi teens in their diverse, over-enrolled public high schools, as well as in their large, bustling communities organized along linguistic, ethnic, and religious lines. I was interested in understanding their concerns in schools and communities, and how these overlapped.

When I began research in the fall of 1999, I didn’t realize how perfect my timing was, and that I would catch the height of the dot-com boom and witness its gut-wrenching collapse in Silicon Valley. I was most interested in how families of different immigration histories and class backgrounds had migrated to Silicon Valley, and the diverse trajectories that brought them there. For instance, were they first generation immigrants from India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh who were drawn to opportunities in the high-tech field? Were they third generation immigrants from Punjab who were looking for less back-breaking work than the agricultural jobs their families had held in other regions of California? Had they moved from the UK, Africa, Fiji, or some other location in the South Asian diaspora? All of these paths interested me, because I wanted to understand how this diverse range of experiences could differently shape what it means to be “Desi” for the diverse range of teens who are grouped under this heading, and why the “Land” of Silicon Valley provided a unique and distinctive location in which to examine these questions. 

Keeping up with the Kapoors

The concept “Desi community” is often used in public discourse, but what does that really look like in particular places? Over the past few decades, the surge in high-tech jobs has made Silicon Valley an attractive place for families in search of lucrative careers as well as steady, well-paying non-skilled labor positions. I sought to understand how Desi communities in Silicon Valley have grown from small, often socially isolated sets of families to dynamic, visible entities. I describe how middle-class and upper-middle-class Desis organize themselves into communities based on shared religion, language, nationality, class status, geographical proximity, and sometimes caste. From building places of religious worship to supporting one another in business, politics, and social endeavors, these Desi community networks are especially invaluable during times of economic, political, and social instability. Not surprisingly, they are also a hotbed of gossip that spans school and community settings. While class is not an openly discussed topic, I could see that it fundamentally shaped the experiences of youth and wanted to understand how this was happening. The majority of studies focus on upper-middle-class, upwardly mobile Desi youth, but I wanted to understand processes of class formation from a wide range of cases. Do Desi teens of different class backgrounds have varying academic and social experiences in school? Do differences in their parents’ occupational and educational status affect their participation in school life? How does it shape their thoughts about college and work after high school? High school, as it turned out, was a perfect place to study these things.

UPDATE: An injured Jay Mandal sends his regards (and a photo)

Last week, we wrote about the outrageous attack on NY-based photojournalist Jay Mandal as he covered the Indian elections. Here is a note that he's asked us to share with his friends and well-wishers.

Dear All,

 

I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of best wishes from people across the globe that have reached me courtesy Sree, the SAJA Forum, Nikhil @ Rediff.com and the many many personal calls and emails.

 

During the 17 years that I spent circumventing the globe on a bicycle, sure I did come across quite a few life-threatening situations but nothing comes close to the irrational and incomprehensible mob frenzy that I encountered in Nandigram on May 5. It is God’s grace alone that saved me from getting lynched.

 

The incident did leave me disillusioned about the times that we live in but the concern and messages of solidarity that I have received from each and every one of you has reaffirmed my faith in goodness, freedom of press and human-kind.

 

Your messages -- some long, some short, some emotional and some humourous -- have been a source of inspiration and strength. I thank you all from the depth of my heart.

 

Honestly, I an humbled that so many of you actually made time not only to send me "get well" messages but also offered of help -- some offered to rush medical help, some offered to replace of my camera gears or my glasses, even a very dear lady offered to send me multivitamins -- which are any day most welcome!!!!!

 

Believe me, it means a lot to me and I thank you all!

 

Pls accept my apologies for sending this mass message. My shoulder and collarbone still hurts when I try to type. But am hopeful of recovering fully shortly. Yes, I am fully under medical care and still have not been able to start doing photoshoot

 

I hope to see you all soon and express my gratitude personally.

 

God Bless!

 

Jay Mandal

in India

Earlier on SAJAforum: INDIAN ELECTIONS: New York photographer Jay Mandal beaten by political mob

 

AUTHORED: Kamran Pasha on "Mother of the Believers"

This is the fourth installment of our Authored series, where writers grapple with the promotional and marketing aspects of their new books. Previously, on Authored...

• Shilpa Agarwal on "Haunting Bombay"
• Minal Hajratwala on "Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents"
• Dilara Hafiz on "The American Muslim Teenager's Handbook"

This time, Kamran Pasha--whose TV writing and producing credits include "Kings" and "Sleeper Cell"-- writes about promoting his new novel, "Mother of the Believers," told from the point of view of Aisha, the prophet Muhammad's teenage wife. In December, we ran an item on his blog entries from Mecca. For those of us who have never been on Hajj, and never will, it was a fascinating window into the journey. And as Kamran writes below, it also happened to be a highly sophisticated and topical way of getting his name out, prior to his book's release.

Mother of the Believers: Lessons in Online Buzz

By Kamran Pasha

When I decided to write Mother of the Believers, my novel on the birth of Islam, I realized that I was wading into controversial waters. The book, which tells the story of Prophet Muhammad’s young wife Aisha, was guaranteed to attract attention. A similarly themed novel, The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones, had become the center of a media storm when its initial publisher canceled release of the book out of fear of a Muslim backlash. And so I knew I was walking into a potential minefield with my own take on Aisha’s story. But instead of hiding from controversy, I decided that I would face the danger head on, by making my case on the Internet months before the book’s publication. And in the process, I created an online buzz about the novel long before anyone had a chance to even read a word.

Having watched Ms. Jones experience, and being aware of the ugly legacy of the whole Salman Rushdie affair, I decided to first establish my credentials as someone who was qualified to even approach the subject matter. Unlike most other novelists in this arena, I am a practicing Muslim. I take my faith very seriously and wrote this book both to illuminate Islam as I see it, but also to address many of the negative attacks that have been launched against my religion over the past few years.  

Islam in general has a bad rap in the West as a violent and misogynistic faith, both perceptions that are false and belie the Islam I know and live, which is a religion of love, peace and harmony.  And so I wanted to tell the story of Islam’s birth from the point of view of an empowered woman, Aisha, who was a scholar, a politician and a military commander who led armies into battle.  She was also the most beloved of Prophet Muhammad’s wives and it was in her arms that the founder of Islam passed away.  I knew that Aisha single-handedly shattered all stereotypes of the oppressed Muslim woman, and I hoped that telling her tale would begin a much-needed dialogue about the true nature of Islam.  But first I had to present myself as someone whose opinion was worth listening to on the subject.  The big question was how could I establish myself as a unique voice amid the cacophony of opinions regarding Islam in the media?

Blogging the Hajj

As fate (or Divine will) would have it, my mother last year decided to go to Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, and asked me to accompany her.  Neither she nor I had ever been to the sacred city, which is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event for Muslims, and the idea suddenly struck me that I should write a live blog from Mecca recounting our spiritual journey.  I hired a wonderful online publicity firm, FSB Associates, to spread word about my blog, and I immediately started recording my journey from the day I arrived in Saudi Arabia and visited the tomb of Prophet Muhammad, as well as the grave of Aisha, the heroine of my novel.

PRESS FREEDOM: McClatchy reporter threatened by Karzai's brother

Tom Lasseter is a McClatchy correspondent in Afghanistan, and in this piece he describes the rough treatment he got from President Hamid Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai during an interview about the drug trade and corruption. Lasseter went through a list of allegations against Karzai before the interview went downhill:

He began to glare at me and questioned whether I was really a reporter.

"It seems like someone sent you to write these things," he said, scowling.

Karzai glared some more.

"You should leave right now," he said.

I stuck my hand out to shake his; if I learned anything from three years of reporting in Iraq and then trips to Afghanistan during the past couple of years, it's that when things turn bad, you should cling to any remaining shred of hospitality.

Karzai grabbed my hand and used it to give me a bit of a push into the next room. He followed me, and his voice rose until it was a scream of curse words and threats.

I managed to record just one full sentence: "Get the (expletive) out before I kick your (expletive)."

More from this Washington Post article by Rajiv Chandrasekharan:

"Mr. President, how are you attempting to control the corruption in your government?" Hagel recalled asking Karzai.

"Who is corrupt?" Karzai responded, according to Hagel. "Show me. Give me the names."

Hagel mentioned that U.S. and Afghan officials had accused one of Karzai's brothers, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the head of the provincial council in Kandahar, of links to narcotics trafficking. But Hagel couldn't cite specifics, and Karzai refused to budge.