The Community Health Center was founded last September when Tulane physician Anjali Niyogi set up a card table in the street to serve Hurricane KatrinaÂ’s first responders. Since then the center has established itself at the Covenant House [at] 611 N. Rampart Street, and served more than 7,800 patients with free adult primary care, mental health counseling, geriatric care and health education.

However, I will end my posts here with an homage to my paternal grandmother, who unexpectedly passed away last night in her Chennai home. Despite never having spent a substantial amount of time with her, I know Bhavani Patti (Grandma Bhavani) because I am her – she is the storyteller, writer, historian, people watcher and mocha-colored, Rubenesque pear-shaped woman in me. She was the inspiration for VatulNet and her death has kicked my rear into working harder on the genealogy portion of the site.

Patti’s children and grandchildren are almost everywhere in the world – India, Europe, Australia and the United States. Now, more than ever, is when we wish we could all miraculously converge in space and time to commiserate and grieve. But, time zones and logistics do not always militate in our favor. Venues like Sepia Mutiny serve to make our diaspora smaller through online discussion, debate, consensus and a forum to make like-minded (or not) friends. It was on SM that I met so many who are “my kind” but their individual selves in oh! so many beautiful and interesting ways. My kingdom for more days in the year to meet and interact with all of them in a befitting manner, at least something more than emails, cards, IMs and the occasional meetups. Multiply that feeling by a hundred and you may understand my chagrin at not having had or made the time to spend with the woman who created and raised my father, uncles and aunts. Yet, during this blink of a geological eye, I was privy to her company and advice whenever possible and grew a hearty appreciation for home and family. For that, I am grateful, and similarly thankful to have met you at all.

Gratitude to the mutineers for making like Bruce Springsteen and pulling this Courtney Cox out of the crowd and onstage, except in a lot less dorky fashion. A flying kiss to Siddhartha for helping highlight my lovely Crescent City and its current woes, which are far from over. I insist that each one of you visit here to witness the still-uncleared devastation firsthand and to act as ambassadors for the rebirth of a great American city, the cradle of its musical culture and culinary taste.

Au revoir, mes amies! Laissez les bon temps rouler encore!

Happy Navarathri, too!

While mired in the hurricane-force sneezes and sea of wadded-up tissue paper, cable TV overcame me and I fell prey to such eye-searers as As The World Turns, Dr. Phil and America’s Next Top Model. Dear Supreme Geek Council, please do not oust me from your favor for this transgression. Your humble servant was merely … ummmm … getting to know the enemy … yeah, that’s it.

Anchal Joseph of Homestead, FL wishes to go beyond model immigrant; she wants to be a supermodel. This 19-year-old sports flawless dark skin, ass-length hair, blue-tinted contacts and a desire to show her people that dark women can walk that catwalk, too. With tears threatening to evict her fake baby blues, Ms. Anchal informed Tyra Banks, Jay Manuel (a planet in the neighboring galaxy is missing its weirdo) and J. Alexander (and I do not quote), “Where I come from, light skin and light eyes are preferable to dark skin and eyes. I want to show them that I am just as beautiful.” Fair enough. So, why the blue contacts? If you want to win on your looks, where is the need for the prop? Then again, Anchal is the only one out of 36 who doesn’t transform into a vavoom covergirl when adorned with that other crutch – lots of makeup. She looks pretty much her beautiful same. (Aside: Check out this definition for anchal)

Conversely, the only personal features I find appealing are my brown skin and black eyes. My hips could use several circumlocutions of the block and 5’4″ isn’t anything to write Elle about. This isn’t to say that my extended family has risen above the inanity of Anchal’s experiences; in fact, I’ve been on the receiving end of such remarks for 12 more years than her. My dark skin has never bothered me, even when met with reproachful stares from the kuppai that populates my end of the South. To each her own pathology or just another plea for Reality-TV^TM attention?

Speaking of this past week’s TV, was it the NyQuil crooning or did a segment of Chaiyya Chaiyya open a scene of the Smith premiere?

Instead, I’ll celebrate the language percolated down from my ancestors – Tamil, and its offerings to English – and linguistics in general. No, I don’t mean Tam-glish, with terms like shamachu-fy¹ or “An’one see my pie?”² but actual English words that originate in Tamil like catamaran and orange. Tamil Contributions To The English Language contains a list of terms derived from Tamil. The crux of this post is not glorifying Tamil, as the list seems to (“the great antiquity of the Tamil civilization”), but to celebrate the transmutation of language, all languages, when in contact with another. Our ancestors got around a lot more than the current understanding of history allows for and this is evident in language. While physical proof of such contact has been absent, destroyed or undiscovered, how we communicate via our vocal chords is the living evidence of cultural evolution.

For instance, the Italian word for key is chiavi, also the Tamil word for the same item (chaavi – Hindi, llave – Spanish, taste – German, tecla chave – Portuguese, clef – French, nøkkel – Norwegian, sleutel – Dutch). There is one of two possibilities for this coincidence – that the word was coined in one place and carried to another, or that the same word was invented separately in two different places to describe the same thing. Given that a significant majority of the world speaks Indo-European languages, I vote for the former theory.

Language is fascinating, as are dialect, accent and semantics. I feel honored to live in a part of the United States where so many collide. The ethnic geography of Brooklyn on the Bayou is so intricate that navigating it requires the knowledge of several Romance languages and a few African ones, too. In the end, you get used to the speak and the fact that we’re all in the same pot of gumbo no matter where we originated.

¹ Shamachu-fy: To cook. I’d love to go out, but have to shamachu-fy for relatives arriving tomorrow.
² An’one see my pie?: Has anyone seen my bag?

I considered it all a coincidence until the discovery that famous geophysicist, Pradeep Talwani, is a professor at the University of South Carolina and director of the South Carolina Seismic Network, and Vijay Vulava has joined the faculty of the College of Charleston as an environmental geochemist. Hmmmm … the thot plickens.

Hark, what light through yonder passport photo breaks? Move over, Michael Manga – there’s a new sexy desi geologist in town. Unfortunately, like Michael, Vijay is married. His wife, Sirisha Vadlamudi, is an electrical engineer who specializes in virtual and augmented reality (sound familiar?).

Not to be excluded from the running is UTIG‘s Abhijit Gangopadhyay.

While you investigate the South Carolina riddle, I’ll keep my eyes peeled for more kannu-candy at the upcoming SEG conference in New Orleans.

Given the New Orleans proclivity for rearing some of the world’s best musicians, this is yet another loss for its rich musical history at an already bad time. As Mark Clague, assistant professor of musicology at U. Michigan says, “Born at the confluence of Latin, Caribbean, African and European peoples, the music of New Orleans thrives on such a diverse human resource. Today, [its] musicians are scattered. Diaspora is a disaster for New Orleans music.”

Here are just two directories of our displaced or affected music community, all the way from the locally-popular to world-famous greats like Irma Thomas and Henry Butler. Thanks to efforts like Habitat for Humanity’s Musicians’ Village and other grassroots work, New Orleans musicians like Fredy Omar are able to return home. A cursory internet search yields the global reach of New Orleans music. Rolling Stone claims that “a powerful case could be made for New Orleans as the true birthplace of rock & roll. Not just Elvis, the Beatles and the Stones, but Cheap Trick, Heart and Devo [and the Rolling Stones] have all had hits with NOLA music.” Never mind that it created jazz and has influenced jazz musicians everywhere, including Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Mahanthappa, as referenced in May 2005′s Village Voice (FYI, Abhi highlighted this article back then):

Iyer’s triumph is in understanding that composition and improvisation each have something to gain when they overlap … examples include “Song for Midwood,” which proves 7/4 can be funky, and “Infogee’s Cakewalk,” which reconfigures a hip-hop rhythm into New Orleans second line.

Perusing NOLA music history online, I ran across this gem:

The four shaggy haircuts onstage at City Park back when new episodes of Bonanza aired and show tickets cost only $5? Wow, wonder what that was like. Ooooh, I can’t wait to share this with my mother … on second thought, there are many activities I’d rather participate in than listening to her rendition of “I Vant To Hold Your Hand.”

Incidentally, IACPA reports that a photo exhibition of The Beatles In India just wrapped up at the Win Henstock Gallery in Oakville, Ontario. Check out the online gallery of John, Paul, George, Ringo and a bevy of goras at a Rishikesh ashram. My favorite is Lennon sniffing his guitar while Paul wonders, “Wot’s ‘e doin’?”

If you’re interested in helping New Orleans musicians make it back home or in their new cities, please visit WWOZ 90.7 FM’s Musician Aid list and give what you can. Worthwhile causes, in my opinion, are the Musicians’ Clinic, which provides affordable healthcare, and the Relief Fund, which helps displaced musicians and has the lowest administrative overhead of the various music charities that have sprung up in the last year.

You are also more than welcome to visit New Orleans and offer physical help to the aforementioned Habitat for Humanity Musicians’ Village and the incomparable Arabi Wrecking Krewe (read their About section and peruse their gallery to find out how cool they are). Here is a friend’s narrative of his first gutting experience with Sheik and the gang.

The house belongs to Mrs. Cora Foster, 84, who is a distant relative of Jelly Roll Morton and Buddy Bolden, and who has as uncles trombonist Honore Dutrey and coronetist Sam Dutrey. Miss Cora lived in this house in the Hollygrove neighborhood for 59 years; since Katrina she has been living with her daughters in Detroit.

I hope this answers a question someone had about the fate of New Orleans music and also serves as one example of why this city is a tremendously special place. If you don’t get it, come here. If you do, come back.

The Louisiana Military and National Guard vehicles poured forth and the crowd erupted in applause. We are a thankful city, y’all, even with full awareness that such a presence here on the 29th of last year, and not five days later, would have saved many of the thousand dead.

My Katrina evacuation photos weren’t released until yesterday, the first time I was able to relive the gut-wrenching anxiety. Sifting through my pictures, I wondered how many came back that evacuated with us. Was it the last time a number of them saw New Orleans? What a way to close a life chapter. On the other hand, it isn’t simple even for those who remained and returned, especially for the middle-class and business owners whose livelihoods were either damaged by wind and flood or, a year later, may fail due to increasing insurance costs and a dwindling consumer base. With less than half of pre-Katrina New Orleans residents back home, over 70,000 of them living in 240-square foot FEMA trailers, and the rising cost of living, penny-pinching is the norm.

In the high and dry French Quarter, the tourist section is littered with t-shirt and novelty shops owned by families of South Asian descent. When friends show up in town for the first time and want to buy the obligatory Bourbon St. and Mardi Gras t-shirts, I walk them to Decatur St. and to a large store owned by a lovely Sindhi couple and their Oxbridge-educated daughter. On a recent visit, the lack of business was so appalling that I insisted on paying full price, ignoring the loud objections of Aunty and Uncle to the contrary. “Arre, bacchi, how can we take this much from you? It’s not right.” [A note to non-desis: haggling is in our blood and must be conducted, usually at the behest of the store-owner] It is now my personal responsibility to pay full price to Paul (Prakash), Jim (Jahangir), Simon, Kendra, Don and every single small business owner whose store I frequent in New Orleans. “Buy New Orleanian” is the new motto around these parts. But, how long will our activism alone keep these endeavours afloat?

Our ill Hindu points me to an article in today’s Beeb that addresses just this dilemma: South Asians Recall Katrina Disaster

Indian and Pakistani traders in New Orleans’s popular French Quarter describe official recovery efforts as too little, too late. “Rebuilding is slow, business is less than half of what it used to be before Katrina,” says Murli Daswari, a souvenir shop trader from Puna, India. “At this pace, I don’t think I’ll survive much longer in business.” Strolling in the city’s popular flea Market, I come across Mohammad Ishtiaq, another dejected shop owner. He came to New Orleans from Karachi ten years ago. “This is supposed to be a bustling tourist town. Just look around you. The streets are empty and there are no customers,” he points out.

While some hard-core New Orleanians argue that the storm was good for taking out t-shirt and souvenir shops that “cheapen the Old World elegance of the Quarter,” one cannot ignore the fact that, next to bars, they are the biggest customer magnets in an economy that runs mainly on tourism. Additionally, Asian-owned businesses have historically had the lowest turnover in the Quarter. In other words, they have made New Orleans their home, send their kids to school here and stay put – they are the locals. It’s not surprising that many were amazed when an Indian restaurant closed shop and moved Uptown to cater to a more residential clientele.

As I cheered the public servants on parade today, I remembered how much they need our love and advocacy. New Orleans is reliant on history and the support of those who know it well. Without backing from their government and citizenry, our police and fire officials have no reason to keep going. Similarly, government and customer sustenance of local businesses is essential to the continuity of economy and community.

New Orleans is not a dead city, by any means, it’s just hurting. Nor is it architecture, Mardi Gras, streetcars or Cajun & Creole cuisines. The city is the people who live in those buildings, ride the transports, celebrate colorful holidays and cook and eat the food. It will be sad then to lose those people who make New Orleans who she is. We collectively recognize, as the BBC article states, that “the road to reconstruction will be long, hard and uphill. And even when the work is completed, New Orleans may never be the same again.” The citizens of New Orleans are the ones who define same.

Today’s nola.com confirms the rising cost of living in this city. Surrounded by jacked-up insurance premiums, neighborhoods teetering on the fine line between rebound and abandonment, increasing expenses and a mayor without a plan (or a clue), can the middle class make it during the rebuild? The current answer to this $110-billion-dollar question: We shall see.

Forget stress and money; grey hair is easily painted over and moolah comes and goes. In any disaster, whether natural or humanmade, one that occurs overnight or lumbers along over the course of years, the real price of living is borne by its least-enfranchised. At times of chaos, strife, poverty and socio-economic/political instability, women and children need additional protection. The ACLU investigates violations in New Orleans prisons after Katrina and Spike Lee talks of the overall suffering here; who speaks for the women? As pertains to Iraq, Afghanistan and Darfur, concerns about US military misconduct, extremist violence or the semantics of civil war abound, but why is more light not shed on the real victims – mothers whose rights are decreased or taken away, sisters who are brutalized and raped, daughters who are dehumanized? Back in December 2005, NPR aired a piece entitled More Stories Emerge of Rapes in Post-Katrina Chaos. Through the course of the show, my brain performed its usual cautious fencesitting on such issues. However, this statement made by Louisiana Rape Crisis Group’s Judy Benitez earned my agreement:

“The fact that something wasnÂ’t reported to the police doesnÂ’t mean it didnÂ’t happen,” Benitez says. “We know about all the other things that happened, all the thefts, all the robberies. There was all kinds of crime taking place on a much higher level than usual. Why would we think there was less rape typical of any given week in the city? It doesnÂ’t make any sense.”

Charmaine Neville, local chanteuse and scion of the famous Neville family of musicians, was a rape victim during the flood. Looking back on the last debacle I experienced, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, women and girls were in danger of battery and sexual abuse.

The concept of Women As Disposable Commodity in times of political and economic turmoil is unacceptable. The liquidation of women’s rights in war and crisis zones is not a mere side-effect and has lasting consequences on a society. Once introduced into a society, even as fallout or a temporary practice, it becomes a cultural habit then a tenet. Oligarchies and military regimes, and female female foeticide, infanticide and resultant abandonment and kidnapping, will usher us back into the Dark Ages, when fear was king.

Just because it isn’t played out in colorful footage and clever bylines doesn’t imply its absence. Please write your congresspeople and remind them that, while we purport to herald democracy and civilization in America and abroad, the disrespect and cloaking of women are not signs of advancement. Rape and rejection are lasting wounds. Enforced burqas shroud more than the body.

Employment ushered me to the other end of the Mississippi. With a choice between Houston and New Orleans, I opted for the city with the most interesting cultural dynamics in the United States. A mélange of European and Afro-Caribbean, New Orleans is 70% non-white, poor in wealth, rich in customs and conventions, and a lot more than the drunken-tourist section of Bourbon Street.

As you know, it has been 359 days since Category-3 Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Buras, LA and laid waste to Slidell, LA and lovely beach towns along the coast of western Mississippi. Whole beachfront streets and homes in Waveland and Bay St. Louis were torn off their foundations by the whipping winds of an unusually angry hurricane.

Thankfully, New Orleans was spared that fate. However, our long-suffering and neglected canal levees could not handle the 25-foot and higher storm surges and the unthinkable happened – the levees broke flooding 80% of this city. Friends who stayed behind were forced to act as rescue workers and witness things no American in the 21st century should. Trapped in their homes for more than five days without food, water, medication and rescue, approximately 1400 New Orleanians, mostly the elderly and little children, perished. Demolition workers find carcasses to this day.

What does this have to do with desi or Sepia Mutiny?
The plight of New Orleans all the way from hurricane evacuation to today’s recovery reeks of abandonment of a people, to the point where many of our citizens declare Sinn Fein. “New Orleans should not rebuild”, “They’re just a bunch of poor criminals” and “The city got what was coming to it” are phrases that ought never be thrown about in modern-day America. Along with the Brinkley book Siddhartha mentioned, read Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security. At the rate of the decline of natural disaster prevention planning and the increase in anti-terror boondoggles (and attendant racial profiling), this could happen to you and me as a people, too.

Please don’t forget us and we will return the favor. Peruse our >100 blogs, keep yourself informed of an American problem and visit our lovely city. From the restaurants and performance venues of Carrollton and the oaks of Audubon Park upriver to the funky-bohemian eateries and music joints of the Treme and Bywater downriver, from majestic Lake Pontchartrain in the north to the steamships, food and smells of the Mississippi in the south, New Orleans is the Mumbai, Chennai, Karachi, Dhaka, Colombo, Suva, Kingston or Port-Of-Spain of this nation. Spicy cuisine, magnolias and night-blooming jasmine, festering garbage, burning diesel and preserved colonial architecture – it’s all here for the living and rebuilding.

Come on down and weÂ’ll make us a good time, cher!

Jambalaya, feta cheese and a laddoo ‘Cause tonight I’m gonna see my ma cher amio Pick guitar, fill lassi jar and be gay oh Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou. – MaitriÂ’s good-global-eats reconstruction of Jambalaya

P.S. New Orleans is not the only thing on my mind. Look forward to many foodie thoughts and sci-tech geekery.