In my Sepia denouement, it seemed appropriate to disclose one small confession: I’m scared of Indians. Like, terrified. Like, if everyone in the last comment thread was standing together in a room, it would take me several cocktails to muster the courage to enter. And one of those cocktails would probably have to include some ratio of 151.

Seriously. I’m scared of NetSAP, I’m scared of ISAs, I’m scared of regional conventions where everyone always seems to know each other but me. I’m scared of any organization that starts out “South Asian” and ends in “Association”. To that end, even from the safety of my pseudonym, it’s been slightly intimidating to write for a cast of anonymous brown thousands, always gripped by terror after I hit Post that my voice won’t resonate with the masses.

But over the course of my 30 days in this sepia-colored universe, I realized with some amount of humor and irony that despite my irrational fears — whether it wants me or I want it — this hyphenated-community is one of the only groups I’ll ever truly belong to; and certainly the only one that intrinsically understands the use of singular instead of plural (“Let me put my pant and shoe and come.”), plural instead of singular (“Good lucks on your maths test!”), and that some sentences just sound better in full-on Indian accents (“It’s paining!”). Three things central to the essence of who I am.

And so, with my secrets confessed, my awareness heightened, my insecurities challenged, I raise my glass to TheBloggers, TheBunkerMasters, TheAlumni, TheMutiny.

I’ll be managing my e-dive over on Typepad where — especially for you, my fellow residents of BrownTown — DrinkSpecials at Love&Haterade are always on the house.

The AP reports that “Cocaine May Be the New Status Symbol in India“.

Says Kiran Bedi, good cop extraordinaire:

“Cocaine is expensive. You’ve got to have money for it, and now more people have money. It becomes a matter of keeping up with the Joneses.”

Among all the things that it is, it is another great example to add to the Class Matters series The New York Times did last year of how the material ways once used to define class have both changed and stayed the same.

And though I would argue that the social ripple effects of designer handbags and addictive stimulants are decidedly different, I suppose there is some parallel between Louis Vuitton and Lady Caine. Even though…

Only a tiny percentage of Indians are believed to have tried the drug.

I’m no mathematician but I would argue that small slices of a billion is still a lot of people.

Perhaps the greatest line of the AP Wire comes when a high-flying twenty-something banker at an elite New Delhi country club asks not to be named…

“…for fear of India’s stiff anti-drug laws and “my mother-in-law…”

…illustrating in one more shining example that, even among the wildly successful and jet-set, hell hath no fury like an Indian parent shamed.

Foolishly, for a time, I thought I could anticipate your moves and quickly learned I would never be fast enough: you were always one step ahead. I tried valiantly to dodge your never-ending stream of inquisitions over standardized test scores, cumulative grade point averages, class rank, college major, graduate school, first job, starting salary, rent payment, home purchase, and potential spouse — I always failed miserably, stuttering, shot down and wounded on topics I would have never even thought to imagine. Like how much my student loan payments were. It always seemed easier to surrender immediately to your poison bite than to fight it and prolong my own demise, snared and tangled in a weak web woven of my own lies.

I always suspected you knew the color of my underwear, how much I’d paid for it and strongly disapproved.

I avoided Indian functions my entire senior year of high school because of you… …This was especially problematic when all I wanted to do was go to the temple to pray I would get into a far-off college to escape your evil clutches.

You were infamous. People in other cities knew you and were warned by their mothers to steer clear. You were a fast-talking, smooth-moving, sweet-smiling hustler. In my opinion, your greatest triumph was that — despite your status as an equal opportunity offender — you were still always invited to everything. But then, you also made the best payasam in a 4-hour radius and used heavy cream in your aviyal instead of just milk.

You remembered and verbalized details with a selectivity that borderlined on humiliating: where I didn’t get into college, what I wanted to be and wasn’t, and the other Indians you knew in my age group that did things better. Your questions were poison double-dipped in sugary innocence. I never realized what I’d just consumed in our conversations until it was too late.

Like Visa, you were everywhere I wanted to be. Once I saw you at the mall on a Wednesday night when I was on a clandestine date with my boyfriend. I pushed him into the nearest Foot Locker as you approached, but to no avail. Within an hour, I got a phone call from my mom asking who I was with, why we were holding hands and how I could have been so stupid. Another time, from the passenger seat of a moving car, you saw me jogging on a local highway and called my parents to let them know you thought it was dangerous. And also that my shorts were too short. I never jogged again.

Your role among your peers oscillated among the aunties between strictly functional and purely ornamental, breezing past both ends of the spectrum with an air of nonchalance so pungent it was rivaled only by your tea rose perfume. You always managed to be assigned a job by My Favorite Auntie that strategically placed you in the middle of the action but that you could also pass off at the drop of a hat.

You lingered. You listened. You smelled fear and attacked.

You missed your calling. As a Guantanamo interrogator, you would have extracted policy-changing confessions; as a CIA agent, you would have been the second coming of Mata Hari. And if the federal government put you on the trail of Osama Bin Laden, it is my personal belief that you would not only find him, but be able to report his SAT score, high school grade point average and record of admittance to Governor’s School.

My whole life I’ve believed that your line of vision resembled the viewfinder of an AK-47. You always had a target and, with the skill of a true gamesman, you never missed your mark. You taught me how to be coy, how to answer questions without really answering and how to play cat-and-mouse with alarming dexterity. The great flirts and politicians of our generation have you to thank.

I’m grown-up now. And independent. And though I have relatively little to hide, I’m still slightly afraid of you. But when I visit my parents, and see children, teenagers and adults alike running away as your silk-shrouded fin weaves through the crowd at community functions, I miss the simplicity of a long ago time when you were my greatest adversary.

Those who didn’t prostrate before the altar of your vast knowledge of crowd control before birthdays, graduation or anniversary parties often paid the price in more ways than one. Functions without your fingerprints were never as good.

You weren’t scared of anyone. You had a PhD from the School of Hard Knocks and when you spoke, everyone listened. I’ve seen you go head-to-head with everyone from mess hall cooks to American wedding planners, janitors to Hindu priests, elected officials to Indian musicians, usually within the same afternoon. You always won. He who dared doubt you often felt your ire and disgust for years on end.

You never forgot the rigatoni. You were a visionary and realized early on that it was the appropriate side to every imaginable combination of Indian cuisine.

You also never forgot the thair chadam……knowing that there was no location too proud, no occasion too fancy, no table too formal for a stainless steel vessel filled to the brim with curds, rice, and fried mustard seeds, best served in heaping mounds with a plastic soup ladle. Once, in my adolescence, I saw you make it with your bare hands in the kitchen of the Omni William Penn in a $700 sari wearing $2000 worth of gold jewelry while the hotel’s uniformed catering staff looked on in disbelief. When I was standing idly by and watching you, you handed me a plastic bag-encased bottle of Bedakar mango pickle from the depths of your Mary Poppins purse, and ordered me to find a spoon and add it to the buffet line. I hesitated momentarily, afraid of the way the offensive oily, orange-lidded jar of spicy, pickled mangoes would look against the grand opulence of sheer white linens and sterling silver trays, and, on your way out of the kitchen with a pathram of rice balanced on your hip, you snatched it out of my hands and did it yourself. You barked at me for not immediately following your instructions — irritated that I was embarrassed by the sight of empty buttermilk containers in the kitchen of one of the city’s most ritzy hotels — but I loved you all the more.

You had no less than 30 aunties buzz around you at the onset of every function like worker bees to the queen. They knew their role, their function, their designated vegetable in the buffet line, and always responded to your command like troops to the general. You always delegated, but they rarely focused and usually messed things up. You knew things only turned out right when you did them yourself.

You knew everything. Everything. Without asking a single question. People confided in you because you had practical, applicable solutions to any problem. You always had needles, thread, yarn, scissors, super glue, Sharpies, plastic spoons, safety pins and crepe paper on hand in case of emergencies.

You were the stuff of legend. Once, I swear I saw you feed 100 people on 5 minutes notice with a spoonful of rice, a handful of flour and two potatoes. Another time you stretched 2 cups of chakra pongal across a line of 400. And you made the best panchamritham of my life with a single banana, three grapes, and two spoonfuls of brown sugar.

Your efficiency and style and street smarts deserved their own show like “Whose Wedding Is It Anyway” or a million-dollar, high-flying, party-planning gig for P-Diddy where you were able to silence him and his entourage with the fire of a single glare and convince them to use plastic table clothes for cost-efficiency, but you stayed and catered to us: the undeserving.

And now, though your hair’s a little bit grayer, your gait a little bit slower, and you haven’t hiked up your sari on one side and leapt across a stack of plastic chairs to stop someone who wasn’t following your directions in quite some years…every time I go home and see you organizing and directing and orchestrating the details that matter the most, I know that my childhood, my hyphenated-American experience, my memories of the perfectly organized buffet lines of yesteryear would not have been the same without you.

First, I was annoyed that Ritu Beri seems to be chasing the ideals of a postmodern colonialist landscape.

The West doesn’t even recognise the Indian fashion industry, just individual designers…

Then, I felt like she might have a point…

In fact, Ritu feels that the West wants fashion with a distinct Indian edge from us. “We should restrict ourselves to Indian wear because we do that best…”

Then, I was annoyed again:

Her take on the Indian fashion weeks is also quite dismal. “Indian fashion weeks will not take the industry anywhere as we don’t exactly know what is happening outside our four walls…”

Then I wondered why I’m ever surprised that India still gets so exotified by the West for its spiritual swamijis and silken sensuality and, now, ruffled cotton petticoats:

So, that’s why Ritu herself prefers phoren to Indian fashion weeks. “For them, India is a very exotic land. From spirituality to people – everything attracts them. For them, even a petticoat and a saree is Indian fashion,”says Ritu.

Ultimately, I’m just curious as to which fashion industry she thinks the West recognizes besides its own. I mean, granted it piecemeals items from here and there, to accessorize and colorize and glamorize, and to aid and abet its crimes of fashion — but are we waiting for them to tell us we’ve arrived? And for allowing us to keep the clothes on our backs once we get there?

(And I say this with utmost respect for the global vision of Tyra Banks, Ken Mok and the executive staff of America’s Next Top Model — not only for picking Indian Julie from Kent, WA, even if she went out on the third elimination during Cycle 3 for admitting to being on the show to get ahead in manufacturing — but also for featuring fashion capitals in South Africa and Asia when the girls make their international mid-season jump. And also to Nigel Barker for being not only a smoking hot noted fashion photographer but for organizing a South Asian-themed shoot during the last season because he’s half-Sri Lankan, thereby upping his hot factor by making him trendy and interracial to boot.)

And I’m curious as to why it’s necessary to sell out the accomplishments of a rich, bedazzled tradition of costume designers, jewelers, tailors, and silk weavers who have won domestic and international accolades and emulation, in their own unique way, for decades, if not centuries, and influenced the evolution (or devolution, according to Ms. Beri) of India’s fierce, one-of-a-kind, knock-out strut down the world’s fashion catwalk.

But mostly — after forwarding this article to my parents and two friends — each of whom had a completely different take on what Ritu Beri was ultimately trying to say, I’m just curious as to what the point was she was trying to get across.

Ritu: Don’t worry, if your autobiography “I’m Too Sexy for This Salwar Kameez” — priced at Rs 1 lakh per copy — doesn’t do well “abroad” and the Indo-French crossover project in “overall assistance” falls through, I’m sure there’s a Delhi-themed episode of America’s Next Top Model with your name written all over it. You can put snake charmers and auto rickshaws and Bengal tigers in the blurry background, and let the women drape themselves with cobras and Nalli silks before they’re photographed in familiar Kama Sutra poses known the world over. Though, despite the publicity and promotion your autobiography would enjoy, I feel the need to warn you that the WB and haute couture are not particularly synonymous.

$20,000

:::Insert eyeroll here::: That the lubricating effects of money and status and class manage to somehow soften the harsh edges of an issue that seems decidedly black-and-white when put in the cultural context of India’s rural, uneducated poor but not in the face of the planet’s sweetly smiling, gray-hued financiers doesn’t really surprise me.

That the Philadelphia Inquirer ran “India tries to stop sex selection: Caught on tape, doctors accused of accepting cash to perform illegal abortions of female fetuses” the same week the AP titled its subtly sympathetic and ultimately more forgiving “It’s a Boy! If you want a boy...” doesn’t completely surprise me either though I wonder (amidst the obvious irony and class lines and socio-economic disparities at play) what exactly the difference is between

A pregnant woman, sitting in a doctor’s office, explained that she was carrying a girl. She already had two girls, she said, and didn’t want a third. That’s why she was seeking an abortion.

and

Some people spend $50,000 to $70,000 for a BMW car and think nothing of it, but this is a life that’s going to be with us forever,” said Robert, an Australian who asked that his last name not be used to protect the family’s privacy.

He and his wife, Joanna, have two boys. Now they want a girl.

But you wonder sometimes, when you read stories about fertility clinics and mad scientists who defend consumer eugenics on the premise that “The Chinese like boys. Canadians like girls. Every country is different,” if George Orwell and Aldous Huxley knew what was coming.

The Wall Street Journal called it “VIP Travel on the Cheap” but I think a better name might be (with all due respect to the anonymous maharaja in question) “People Who Want To Visit Foreign Countries Without Having to Interact with Anyone Who Actually Lives There”.

One of the hottest concepts in travel right now is the “insider” experience, where travelers are promised a chance to hobnob with celebrities, go behind the scenes where other tourists are barred and be treated like visiting dignitaries.

Companies are selling tours of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s entertaining room, visits with Olympic athletes and drinks with an Indian maharaja — complete with an elephant parade.

Now, I’m not saying you have to go to India and tan in the Dharavi slum or drive an auto rickshaw around Queen’s Necklace during rush hour or do a load of whites under the oppressive third world sun. But, if you’re going to sit in a plane and make the commitment and fly all the way around the world to India, shouldn’t you actually try to see some of it?Candace, I ask you: Isn’t there some charm to riding in a cramped, crowded train car at the end of the day, even if you have to face the occasional indignity of being molested? Isn’t there some adventure to drinking contraband coconut water from the side of the road, even if you have to face the certain indignity of being cross-examined every time you leave the bathroom in your grandparents’ house as to whether or not you have loose motion? Isn’t there some connection to be made in an open-air market among the sights and sounds and smells, even if, lost in the dialects and language barriers and unfamiliar gesticulating, you don’t understand a word?

This “insider” experience, on the other hand, sounds kind of like the upper-echelon equivalent of going all the way to Bombay to order a Papa John’s Pizza. Which you can do now.

Part of me wonders if I’m being too sensitive and overly protective about the charms of a country I’ve never lived in because, despite that small irony, it’s always evoked a sense of homecoming I’ve never felt anywhere else in the world.

And to that end, I might have been able to look the other way, too, had Candace Jackson’s travelogue not meandered from the pages of the Journal to Talk of the Nation last week.

CONAN: Hmm. Looking at it for the other end of the telescope, as it were, for a moment, what’s in it for the Maharajah of Jaipur to offer a dinner?
Ms. JACKSON: Well, I mean, in that case, you know, the maharajas in India, a lot of times, sort of use their palaces as tourist attractions. There you’re, the special access you’re getting is, you know, a possible meeting with the maharaja himself. So, you know, on some level I think, for that one, the screening process to even be able to do it is quite high. So, he might just be interested in meeting high-profile Americans himself, or, I don’t, you know, I don’t want to speak for him.

Back at the ranch, Candace Jackson concluded her Wall Street musings with the following:

On a business trip to India, Jennifer Joseph used a travel agent to arrange for cocktails with the maharaja of Jaipur. He met her and a group of her friends at the palace gates, where they had arrived on a horse-drawn carriage, and gave them a tour of his home.

“He was a little reserved, but very welcoming,” says the 25-year-old television producer. The maharaja asked them about their travels and showed them photographs of previous visitors, including Jacqueline Kennedy. “It felt like something out of a movie.”

He was a little reserved? Dude, maybe he didn’t want you at his house.

Then again, I take some small, delightful, giggling comfort in the fact that maybe this anonymous maharaja was not, in fact, who they thought he was but rather a re-patriated IT worker — with a penchant for cocktails, Western women and Adobe PhotoShop — exacting his revenge on a world that’s willing to travel to the ends of the earth in search of perceived realities.

Just ask Ashish, a telecommunications graduate from India’s Pune University. He was caught cheating on his final-year exam – he diagrammed an elaborate electronic circuit on the underside of his calculator – and kicked out. But he returned and passed the next term, and freely admits to cheating on most tests at university.

“Cheating sounds too grave,” he says, insisting that his family name not be printed. “Everyone does it.” He has written formulas on his ruler and smuggled notes up his sleeves and inside his shoes. Women have it easier, he claims, as modesty affords protection. “If I were a woman, I’d try smuggling them in my bra,” he says.

LINK

I find this great for several reasons. For starters, I think we can all agree that Ashish of TheNoSurnamePeople is probably not winning too many popularity contests over at Pune U — and to that end has not seen too many bras in his day — but I have to applaud him for managing to make his slide-rule nerd status international by granting this interview to the Christian Science Monitor instead of the Pune University Pioneer.

(And not to totally channel my mom here BUT) I think we can also all agree that at this point Ashish has spent more time thinking about ways to cheat than he has actually studying. That those ways include contemplating some kind of transgender existence is just saffron on the payasam.

And while I wonder a seemingly endless list of other things (When Ashish says “in my bra” does he mean the notes, actual formulas or rulers with the answers written on the underside? Has Ashish ever seen an actual woman wearing a bra? Does he think bras have a sort of Mary Poppins bottomless-purse quality? How exactly has he envisioned the cheating to play out — practical or pornographic? Has he not considered how suspicious it might look to feel yourself up in search of “the answers” in the middle of a lecture hall? And if, one day, when some poor woman doesn’t know why Ashish can’t “handle” second base as deftly as she’d like him to, will she be directed to this article?), I have to ask:

Can’t people just program equations into scientific calculators anymore? Is that not an option?

And when the Monitor hits the stands tomorrow, complete with the colorful photographic spread of hard-working countrymen like Harichand Kanojiya…

…I’m sure there’s part of me that will feel thrilled that these manual laborers who comprise such an essential vertebrae in India’s backbone got their due by way of a clever title and a thoughtful profile in a National Geographic kind of way.

But…

…comparing the multi-million dollar, personally financed, wholly decorative essentially useless Gates of Central Park yesteryear to the you’ll-make-10-cents-per-sheet-provided-you-don’t-mind-spending-a-lifetime-in-the-merciless-sun-of-the-third-world-beating-cotton-against-concrete dhobi ghats seemed…a little bit like comparing a bite of spoon-fed crème brulée made with heavy cream and fresh berries by Martha Stewart to rice porridge you made yourself over a fire in the woods without matches.

She picks up your laptop and waits for you at the door, reminding you not to leave home without ample snark, a few good literary jabs and shimmery, sparkling eye makeup.

Your heart races. You swallow down parental warnings to avoid using fuck as a verb, drinking homemade punch out of crystal goblets handed to you by good-for-nothing “bois” and bringing sepia-colored Shame on the family.

You are sweaty-palmed and slightly nauseous over urban legends about hazing, mutinous readers and the potential for an unruly comment thread to turn into an impromptu session of Circle the Fat.

But mostly, you feel jittery and excited. Hoping against hope as she blindfolds you, that when the cool, silky fabric is ultimately removed you’ll find yourself at the intersection of Good Storytelling, Meaningful Prose and Cultural Context, but that until it is you have to go out on faith, friendship and sisterhood because you won’t know for sure till you get there what’s in store for you down the road ahead.