you know. when the republicans are engaging in taliban worship, i’d much rather go with the alternative. it is time these religious fundamentalists recognized the similarities between themselves.

FYI haters, Obama mostly writes his own speeches which are better than any president’s since Abe Lincoln. His cabinet picks are being lauded even by Republicans as he is not going hardcore lefty, and is hiring on merit. In just his first 2 weeks as president he has already banned torture, ordered the closing of Guantanamo, made equal pay for equal work the law, is putting a cap on the salaries of wall street CEOs etc.

oh please. If you are not an american-born, I find this attitude pathetic. There have been plenty of leaders in India who have received more and much more love and adulation than Obama might ever receive. As for your comments about Obama’s charisma vision etc etc, let me ask this – who had heard about this Obama guy say five years back? He has promised a lot, rather his speechwriter and PR team has, and has done little on a national scale before this. Now, He has had the advantage of being preceded by someone whose popularity was not quite stellar or was not much of a scholar. Now, let this Obama prez make good on some of his promises, then we will see. So far his picks for key posts and some decisions have not inspired a lot of confidence in his ability to translate his words into action. Talk is cheap, you know. When Rajiv Gandhi got elected as PM, there was the same feeling in India – young handsome PM, lot of fresh ideas, fresh face, a new energy for the nation, charisma/intelligence all that stuff you mentioned – look where all that went after a few years. So, let’s see. So far Obama’s main advantages have been the ineptitude of his opponents, a good speechwriter, and an ability to read from a teleprompter without making it look like that. Let’s see how much remains after the honeymoon is over.

1. Obama stunning rise to power represents a paradigm shift, a change in global consciousness that is having an impact on the entire world including India.

Please. Desis these days will chant for anything connected with America. Let’s see how much of this new adulation remains after he takes another look at all the outsourcing and H1B visas.

As I said, if an American is misty-eyed about Obama, fine, he is probably the first leader after a while in the country to at least sound like a good one. After all, one could only wonder if they were scraping at the bottom of the barrel when one saw Ms. Palin being brought forward as a possible VP candidate. However, I still cannot understand how a desi still holding his Indian passport and therefore quite an outsider to the American democratic process, is going all glassy-eyed over Obama.

you can worship Obama all you want, just dont make up stories about the rest of the world to make it look like the relative newbie obama is something like an ultimate political figure.

I swear these kids need to make a song about Indian leaders who will do something about their country rather then looking at Obama and praising him who will never have a direct impact on them..

1. Which indian political leader today deserves the love that Obama is receiving? India hasn’t produced a single leader in 6 decades of independence who has a fraction of the charisma, intelligence, vision, broadmindedness and desire to do good that Obama has.

2. Obama stunning rise to power represents a paradigm shift, a change in global consciousness that is having an impact on the entire world including India.

I hear you. I thought the same thing when I saw the artists point out the African connection in their song. But, well, I’m willing to cut them some slack for trying. I suppose they should have emphasized the guitar since that is more popular in Kenyan music.

Whether or not I’ve personally had my fill of odes to Obama (I think I’m getting pretty close to the tipping point), I can’t help but remain fascinated by the worldwide responses to the idea of his leadership. The way I look at it, for a long time, I felt like people were looking around and saying, “I don’t see a world leader I feel good about” and now, there’s a spirit of optimism and a person who represents possibility that is inspiring art, music, and perhaps, even, action. That’s a good thing, even if it isn’t clear right now whether he’ll live up to all his promises.

I think what struck me about both these pieces was the common thread of devotionalism — and the trace of hindu syncretism to claim him as “one of our own” by annointing him a follower of Hanuman, just as we have seen Hindus claim Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu.

is anyone else, tired of all this obama worship?

not me. i’m with beyonce; like totally still into this obama thing. now, unlike most obamamaniacs, i thought the great land of opportunity was ready for a black prez, but maybe i’m a little like that sartre chaarcter out of huis clos who demended the door open, acting fully confident that it would, but when it actually did he was all like wtf!!???

i’m especially thrilled at gates at secdef, clinton at state, and larry summers was a clear slap to the pc crowd. he’s not only abandoned raising taxes but is now lowering them. swoon. nuanced torture, even better. exactly the post-ideological, post partisn politics he promised.

now, the self-created obama with his affected blaccent and eveything clearly has a problematic relationship with social constructionism. he’s long sounded much more like bill cosby than tim wise on the pulpit. a doorman told me he could die now b/c he’s seen the holy trinity: king, mandela, and obama. i think its no exaggeration that that is the company obama keeps right now within the af-am community. in order for the bond to break he’s going to have to be found in bed with an ugly white boy. in short,i predict a massive right wing shift among black americans as they abandon the “you can’t succeed” left. progressives, who have embraced race since their class based politics ended up committng holocaust after holocaust, are about to see their natural base disappear.

in this sense, obama is a man of his time, //ing the rise of india and china: poc abandoning socialism and embracing the weberian thesis. of course, there’s the protectionist problem, as vinod points out, but i’m fairly certian that was just a classic southern strategy on obama’s part: part of his ruse to win hillary’s “white hard working americans.” he doesn’t really mean it,as Canada knows, and those measures will disappear form the final bill. anyway, what’s a little racism among friends.

But no, America’s social advancements are more notice-worthy and praise-worthy. A teleprompter-savvy Obama whose speeches are written by a 23 year old white kid, making any perceived heart-felt sincerity in them to Obama’s life experience only as real as a stage managed realty show is much better than our VajPayee whose Hindi speeches were eloquent and poetic, and coming directly from his own mind, that of a published poet and writer. No, for us, what’s desi will always be second rate. We will scour the world looking for things to worship, and will worship them as long as they are not indian. So yes, i am a bit tired of all this *Indian* obama worship.

um the speech writer is a 27 year old guy actually and not 23 but nonetheless he has a very hot gf – hehehe just had to add a little humor but apart from that, I really admire Obama and everything but to see these gujju kids singing a stupid song to praise the guy when i bet they probably don’t know anything about his policies, instead of trying to sing something to praise their own country is plain ol’ stupid. Obama has inspired a generation, i agree but this song is seriously taking it too far and while he might actually do something to change this downward spiral of the economy, i doubt he can ever be compared to Gandhi…. And one last thing, why do we as indians always try to find the indian inspiration or indian connection for everything, e.g- slumdog but i won’t get into that..anyhow Obama might have a “hanuman” pendant, does not mean he is great believer and or prays to Hanuman regularly or anything. Its just a lucky charm like ppl have 4 leaf clovers or rabit’s foot..I swear these kids need to make a song about Indian leaders who will do something about their country rather then looking at Obama and praising him who will never have a direct impact on them..

heh Ditto, here, Sandhya. Maybe, it is the memories of being called a N***** back when I was a FOTB desi doing my MS grad studies. And this was not just in the mid-west, but also in liberal Cal, here in the heart of Silicon Valley. Yup, being called a raghead N***** in a VTA was not uncommon, strange though it may seen to folks now. And this was not the 60s, but the early 90s. The symbolism of Obama seems too much to handle and I tear up quite easily. -)

Yes. I dont care about the real american passport holders eligible to vote in american election worshipping obama – hey, its their president. But why the heck are desis so crazy about the american president? Just because you work in a call center and eat a maharajah mac does not mean that you have to abandon your politics.

Kids painting their faces with American flag over obama election, kids holding processions with obama masks in Chandigarh, that sand artist going a ga over obama…

We are a nation of contradictions and hypocrisy, right? We elect to office the corrupt, the criminals, the 3rd-standard failed goons (we are a democracy with elected leaders so we put the Indian politicians there, do not act as if you had no hand in their coming to power) and then sing praises to the scholar obama getting elected in USA. We rally behind a Sonia Gandhi as our leader as if no native born one in our 1+ billion is good enough to lead us, then shout for obama in USA where only native borns can become prez. We cannot rally behind a squeaky-clean Kalam as president for a second term and spare him from Sonia’s dirty politics and then wonder when we will have our own obama, without realising that we alredy had ours, only we decided to let them go. We are so happy about a black (actually a half black who was brought up white, hardly representative of the real black experience in the country) became American president, conveniently forgetting that someone from an ‘untouchable caste (who even now get beaten up in som states in India routinely) already became the Indian President sometime back, with KR Narayanan (yeah, he too went on to get a great education very much because of his own merit..) We ignore the fact that several times have women held the most powerful office in our own country and routinely do that in several states as well.

But no, America’s social advancements are more notice-worthy and praise-worthy. A teleprompter-savvy Obama whose speeches are written by a 23 year old white kid, making any perceived heart-felt sincerity in them to Obama’s life experience only as real as a stage managed realty show is much better than our VajPayee whose Hindi speeches were eloquent and poetic, and coming directly from his own mind, that of a published poet and writer.

No, for us, what’s desi will always be second rate. We will scour the world looking for things to worship, and will worship them as long as they are not indian.

So yes, i am a bit tired of all this Indian obama worship.