Tying The Knot - Village Style

Umer...
Actually I was wondering about whether you were joking, hence my teasing question, since the first conclusion I came to upon seeing Harpo`s email address was that it had to do with his birthday!
[Yeah, it’ll be cool to see Harpreet get published. Saying that, he’d prolly have to write a novel first. Short stories seldom get accepted by agents, let alone authors. It’s all related to economics. Once you have a couple of solid titles under your name, then you can head into short-story writing.]
that`s what I was told too, in a writing class, when an agent came and spoke to us. But then again there are those who have published short story collections first, like the gorgeous Jhumpa Lahiri. It seems that Harpo`s niche right now is short stories. And maybe he can connect stories later on, or turn just one into a novel...or write a whole different novel, but I sense that this is what he`s comfortable with for now. I myself have put aside attempting a novel, and am writing short stories. I`m really waiting and hoping for Harpo`s stories to get published though. :-)

People,

Regarding Harpreet being a Pisces...it was a joke...you see, it was like - December the 14th gettit and I was like...okay, let`s forget it. Sorry, that was my other type of humour. Since no one got it, I think I`ll stick to my brash swear-word filled variety….

Yeah, it’ll be cool to see Harpreet get published. Saying that, he’d prolly have to write a novel first. Short stories seldom get accepted by agents, let alone authors. It’s all related to economics. Once you have a couple of solid titles under your name, then you can head into short-story writing.

As for the BOW, there’s an internet link which I can’t find right now so you don’t have to burn 12 or 13 quid down at WHSmiths.

Umer M

Umer

I am Saggitarius.

Half Man, Half Beast, with a licence to screw in the streets.

(I wish that was my quote but I heard it from some black dude from America on a TV programme once)

:)

-h-

Aamir#57

Go on...write a poem about me...LoL!

;)

-h-

re: #51

A Pisces, eh? No wonder he`s such a cool guy (and an extraordinary writer as well). Pisces rule. It`s a fact.

Aamir

#55 by satyavadi on January 14, 2003 11:22am PT

I think that you got confused.... Im saying exactly what you are saying.. that it is easy to do surveys and pass it off as actual situation in a socitey

read the surveys....

Krishna seems to be a sensible old man.. he gracefully withdrew the suggestion citing that it seems that there is widespread oppostion to the Idea.

#53 by stuka on January 14, 2003 10:37am PT

It is true about punjabis... I lived in Delhi for a few years.... though I was a young not too observant.. I did feel that Delhiites were pretty hard drinkers..
Often after diwali, holi and such festivals our neighbours mothers would discretely call us younger boys to go out and find their older sons who have not returned home. Often we would find them passed out in friends palces, inside small sweet shops where they would drink with the owners who they had befriended and some times on foot paths, gutters and busstops....

It is this hard reality of drinking that most people dont seem to accept..

ali87 #48:

[he even defended his statement a day later only to withdraw it after two weeks under pressure. ]

I didn`t know the chief minister had to retract from his position.

[[Doing surveys is pretty easy. If you go to Cafe Coffee Day (the Bangalore equivalent of Star bucks)around b/w 11am-3pm in Prestige building in Bangalore and took a look at all the girls smoking and ask gently about thier sexual experiences you will have a good enough cross section reperesenting various colleges of bangalore. Such a survey will lead you to conclude that majority of the young college women smoke and have very linent sexual attitudes and quite a few would be willing to exchange sex for a dinner in a five star hotel or a night in the exclusive hotspots of bangalore.

You would have a very good cross section of colleges covered and even a relatively varied economic variation in the survey candidates. ]]

While there sure are some college girls willing to have sex for pocket money or a few drinks, by no means are they are majority or even close to 20% of the total population of college going girls in the metros.
I have graduated from college not too long ago and know what goes on.
You are falling in the same generalizatoin/exaggeration trap you accuse Sameer, Stuka etc off, albeit on a different topic (they on alcohol and middle class families and you on sex and college girls in metro India).

Satyavadi

Ali87:

Well, whereas I disagreed with the initial description that Veeresh gave, I can tell you that the discrete serving of alcohol is very common amongst Punjabis middle class families. Even in my extended family, people who are way more conservative than us, the ``program`` was a reality, in a sense out of social pressure. They did not want to offend people by not having an option. They did not want to serve it openly either.

That`s why, though my earlier description was light-hearted, the serving of alcohol in a discrete manner is very much a reality. Again, I am limiting my comments to Punjabis, both Hindu and Sikh. We don`t have Punjabi Muslims in India so it is hard to say about them.

Umer...
And how do you know that Harpo is a Pisces????!!! Anyway...Valentine`s day is right around the corner, why don`t you buy him BOW 2003?! :-). Something tells me he might already have it though!

Sammi...
you should be Harpo`s agent :-)

#45 by Saminasha on January 12, 2003 7:18pm PT
Sameer,

You men are sooooo baaaaaad....how come I never found out about this? Although, I think my khandan older generation is very conservative...was this common in India/Pakistan about 50 years ago?

Dont worry it is not as common as these guys make it out to be. This is also a male ritual... Exaggaration....
You wont find it in any middle class muslim community in India and for that matter in most communites in india

Samina,

Harpreet is a Pisces. Buy him a Book of Writers 2003 :)

Umer M.

Chowkies, Harp,

Was lucky enough to get a copy of Harp`s ``program`` story. Harp, share the talent and submit it to Chowk.

Also, any publishers out there or people who have publishing contacts, Harpreet is a prodigious talent to watch. Sign him up for a book deal, he`s one of the better diasporic writers I`v ever read.

Drinks dont have to be served in a clandestine fashion. There are many dholkis and mehndis where drinks are openly served by waiters with trays or via an open bar.

#35 by satyavadi on January 11, 2003 7:05am PT

Now vijay mallya (Indias Liquor King)has become spritual and spoke extensively (in a full page article in Times of India Bangalore) on his spritual quest under the ``Art of Living`` guru Ravi Shankar!! And this guru has become the latest craze among the elite of India looking for an easy way to reconcile religon and modern life.

Krishna chief minister of karnataka announced less than a year back that there is nothing wrong if beer is sold in grocery stores. he even defended his statement a day later only to withdraw it after two weeks under pressure.

Doing surveys is pretty easy. If you go to Cafe Coffee Day (the Bangalore equivalent of Star bucks)around b/w 11am-3pm in Prestige building in Bangalore and took a look at all the girls smoking and ask gently about thier sexual experiences you will have a good enough cross section reperesenting various colleges of bangalore. Such a survey will lead you to conclude that majority of the young college women smoke and have very linent sexual attitudes and quite a few would be willing to exchange sex for a dinner in a five star hotel or a night in the exclusive hotspots of bangalore.

You would have a very good cross section of colleges covered and even a relatively varied economic variation in the survey candidates.

Media work looks pretty easy. I find it very intresting. I know a afghan refugee family whom we Interact with who have been in the US through a UN sponsred relocation from Pakistan. The have been here for about 8 months. It consists of a late 40 ish widowed mother and has a 11 year old boy and a 14 year old boy and a 6 year girl. Now the family told me that they father died of cancer. They were in pakistan for 3-4 years and the elder boy attended school for a year there and the younger one for a few months.ie while they financialy/logistically could.
I have been interacting with them for a couple of month . They also used to do odd jobs to earn some money by doing some tailoring and wroking in a tailors shop etc.
The elder kid is also a good sports man as were his half brothers who are still pakistan. He even represented Quetta in Under 14.

This saturday there was an article in the newspaper here reporting a program (not that program!!) orgnised by the schools or some govt department in which 650 US students heard the experiences of refugee kids from muslim countries about their post sept 11 experinece in america.
Now this reporter gave a nice slant to the event by mentioning that this particualr family that they lost their father to the Taliban. It said that the father was taken by taliban for a few days and subsequently when returned he fell ill and died in a few days!!
I suppose that this could be the case or just a nice story by smart people to gain sympthay of people who do not like Taliban or they just gave me a simple explanation to avoid akward questions or situations.
The reporter gave a further twist to the story. Saying that what the younger child liked best about USA is the schools where teachers dont hit students and that the elder brother had the been to school in pakistan for a year and he was scared of the stick used by the teachers there!!

Implied here is that pakistan is a place where childern are abused in schools!! and the particuar children were in absoulte terror of this practice in pakistan.

The reporter does not make the statement himself. But it is left to the readers to come to the conculsion.
Now these kids are the the furtherest from being scared or scarred. They are confident presonalites. They have rapidly adjusted to life here with the elder kid scoring A`s in school and the younger one even though is english grasp is a bit weaker gets B+`s. They are very clear in their goals ie to get scholarships for college as their midterm goal. They are street smart and survivors of the kind the americans cant imagine. This family gets a small hand out of $750 of which 600 goes towards their housing and with $150 they are able to make ends meet. This certainly does not costitue a scarred personality. And if the claim is that they made a such a drastic recovery in 8 months it is the most stupendous claim.

I like this media business. Hey if it is so easy to play around with facts and the american public is so gullible I think I would make a successful journalist.

#36 by sameerJB on January 11, 2003 8:00am PT

No I did not exaggerate because I live outside India/ Pakistan and hang around people like myself who do not make much out of religion

That probably explains it.

Some how I cant seem to agree with your view about drinking in pakistan. Sure there must be people who have access to drink.
Being an Islamic repbulic doesnot mean that the citizens turn chaste overnight. Which is why the laws are there. ie there is an expectation that there will be people who will not be in accordance with the laws.

I suspect for all that you say pakistan does not have any major drinking culture.
Remeber that Alcohol has been available all the time in history of Islam. Some times less the ban less strictly enforced and some times more stirctly enforced.

Most of the Mughal elite did enjoy their drink. So did the Nizams of Hyderabad Deccan. But that does not mean that drinking was rampant in those socites.

Noorie

Its no taboo with Sikhs!

:)

-h-