khuswant singh is the best santa-look-alike I know of. But seriously, some old sikh men are oh so chrismassy.

i think it is a general and not south asian issue. there is a natural and useful tendency to bracket cultural and genetic variation in the “chunks” which we’re familiar with. and that is fine, and there isn’t going to be too much intermarriage to really diminish the big chunks which exist today. but, a substantial proportion of the world’s population in the near future will be more like the cape coloureds, a bit of all sorts of “incongruous” components. to give an explicit example, barack obama’s half-sister sister on his mother’s side is half-indonesian and married to a chinese canadian. he has a half-brother on his father’s side who lives in china and is married to a chinese woman. this sort of family tree is not that uncommon among the “global elite” (e.g., rupert murdoch has half-chinese children, and 1/4 ghananian grandchildren, etc.).

in terms of what it is brown/desi, there is a parochial and narrow aspect which is important, significant, and will remain demographically dominant. but, in terms of what is brown/desi for diasporic people it is going to be more “mixed up.” more “dougla” as a triniadian would put it. the categories and contexts will multiply, and dualisms will break down, because they won’t be useful.

as for being an “uncle-type,” people who are familiar with me will know that wasn’t my intent. but i contribute to a lot of blogs, so i can’t exactly take the time to contextualize everything about my background constantly people will take different things from the same post, and that’s fine actually, but i do demand that they not impute back to me their own interpretation of intent. you can find out about me pretty easily, so there’s no need to guess that much. my own children are going to be half-brownz, and i count many of that kind as friends, so i have a particular interest in issues of hybridity.

Yes, genes dispersed. Funtastic. To each their own conclusion on the significance of Chaplin and Ms. Rapace having some Indian in them. They might just be as Indian as I am Arab and Caucasian. Initially, your post came off to me like an uncle-like attempt to include famous folks in the cultural group, but I know that’s not at all what you’re going for. It’s good to know that folks mixed. Warm and fuzzy, yes, we are more alike than different. Here’s to havin good lookin babies.

2) don’t impute intent upon me

otherwise i’ll just delete your comment when i see it.

(if you complain about this policy, i’m going to delete that too)