you forgot the parsi bawas, you madman
March 21, 2010 4:08 AM Subscribe
Jug Suraiya, famed middle of the editorial ha ha heh man of india's ridiculous prolific and noisy media takes a poke at stereotypes. All ring true of course.
Indians - all Indians - know that they are in all respects superior not only to those unfortunate beings called foreigners...
Leonardo Da Vinci was Indian.
Posted a sketch from the same show in the recent spicy food thread. Can't have been many Indian and British Asian stereotypes they didn't mock.
posted by Abiezer at 4:52 AM on March 21, 2010
Leonardo Da Vinci was Indian.
Posted a sketch from the same show in the recent spicy food thread. Can't have been many Indian and British Asian stereotypes they didn't mock.
posted by Abiezer at 4:52 AM on March 21, 2010
This article and vanar sena's reply made me laugh and wish I was Brahman.
posted by doost at 4:54 AM on March 21, 2010
posted by doost at 4:54 AM on March 21, 2010
Thank you infini for bringing a touch of internationalism on to metafilter. Indian writers seem to use our common language so creatively. I enjoy the articles and columns in the Indian press even though I often have no idea of the subject matter. On preview vanar sena wins the thread before its started.
posted by adamvasco at 5:05 AM on March 21, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by adamvasco at 5:05 AM on March 21, 2010 [2 favorites]
Bit jarring to see Bengalis hold up Subhas Chadra Bose as a hero. And why no Telugu stereotypes? What are the Telugu stereotypes?
posted by orthogonality at 5:34 AM on March 21, 2010
posted by orthogonality at 5:34 AM on March 21, 2010
I figured out a long time ago that the stereotype of Punjabi and Harayanvi Jats is exactly that of a wookie. It didn't help that a friend of mine straight from the village used to beat up guys who had the temerity to win at chess. Luckily he was a very good chess player.
posted by vanar sena at 5:37 AM on March 21, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by vanar sena at 5:37 AM on March 21, 2010 [3 favorites]
you can say that again, adamvasco. It's not contemporary, but G V Desani's All About H. Hatterr is brilliant and (yay!) finally back in print.
posted by scruss at 5:45 AM on March 21, 2010
posted by scruss at 5:45 AM on March 21, 2010
It may have just been a coincidence, but Microsoft Security Essentials gave a threat warning as soon as I navigated back from the link in the post. Just a heads up.
posted by anifinder at 5:53 AM on March 21, 2010
posted by anifinder at 5:53 AM on March 21, 2010
how many indian engineers are there from bangalore? basavanagudi? phase III?
posted by infini at 6:00 AM on March 21, 2010
posted by infini at 6:00 AM on March 21, 2010
G V Desani's All About H. Hatterr is brilliant
I recognised the jiggery-pokery style. If that young feller was a holy man, worthy of worship and honour, I am John Bunyan (1628-1688)!
posted by Wolof at 6:42 AM on March 21, 2010
I recognised the jiggery-pokery style. If that young feller was a holy man, worthy of worship and honour, I am John Bunyan (1628-1688)!
posted by Wolof at 6:42 AM on March 21, 2010
Paging Russell Peters ... Russell Peters, you have a call on the brown courtesy phone ...
posted by bwg at 7:00 AM on March 21, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by bwg at 7:00 AM on March 21, 2010 [1 favorite]
ok i see ur point but america is still teh best in the world ok
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 8:07 AM on March 21, 2010
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 8:07 AM on March 21, 2010
And why no Telugu stereotypes? What are the Telugu stereotypes?
We have no stereotypes. We're too busy to have them. Mostly because we spend most of the time either eating spicy food, or typing our long full names to login to administer backoffice servers. Both take a lot of time.
posted by the cydonian at 8:12 AM on March 21, 2010 [4 favorites]
We have no stereotypes. We're too busy to have them. Mostly because we spend most of the time either eating spicy food, or typing our long full names to login to administer backoffice servers. Both take a lot of time.
posted by the cydonian at 8:12 AM on March 21, 2010 [4 favorites]
Well, that article made little sense to me, other than I figured there would be some outrage at the stereotypes. I'd like to see someone do the same thing about Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, and the Irish and have it come off well. I got a bit confused. Is this like Garrison Keillor making fun of Norwegians and Lutherans (a tired but mostly harmless trope by a man barely even funny anymore) or is it something more sinister? Maybe I need to be better versed in Indian stereotypes to make this funny.
I didn't expect the comments to be so all shucks both here and there.
Well, I can agree with this: "Bongs are the uber kind of the human species," but then I am probably misunderstanding what he meant here as well.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:14 AM on March 21, 2010 [2 favorites]
I didn't expect the comments to be so all shucks both here and there.
Well, I can agree with this: "Bongs are the uber kind of the human species," but then I am probably misunderstanding what he meant here as well.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:14 AM on March 21, 2010 [2 favorites]
other than I figured there would be some outrage at the stereotypes.
In many non-Western countries, including India, racism and ethnic prejudices are not considered "sinful" as they are in the US and in Europe, and so are expressed far more readily and candidly. I've personally gotten an earful of very honest and unedited thoughts about blacks, Jews, other Indian ethnicities, Japanese, Germans, etc., from a variety of non-Americans including Indians. (Only the bit about Germans being the best looking people, this from a Chinese woman, was not negative.)
posted by orthogonality at 8:38 AM on March 21, 2010
In many non-Western countries, including India, racism and ethnic prejudices are not considered "sinful" as they are in the US and in Europe, and so are expressed far more readily and candidly. I've personally gotten an earful of very honest and unedited thoughts about blacks, Jews, other Indian ethnicities, Japanese, Germans, etc., from a variety of non-Americans including Indians. (Only the bit about Germans being the best looking people, this from a Chinese woman, was not negative.)
posted by orthogonality at 8:38 AM on March 21, 2010
Mostly because we spend most of the time either eating spicy food, or typing our long full names to login to administer backoffice servers. Both take a lot of time.
Bond, James Bond.
posted by Xezlec at 9:45 AM on March 21, 2010 [3 favorites]
Bond, James Bond.
posted by Xezlec at 9:45 AM on March 21, 2010 [3 favorites]
Well, that article made little sense to me, other than I figured there would be some outrage at the stereotypes.
Word to the wise: while you don't do _religious_ or caste-based stereotypes in India, people seem to enjoy linguistic stereotypes as long as the jokes are told in English. The same joke in Hindi or any vernacular, though, takes on this mean tone that can get irritating and even offensive. I suppose we're really not used to getting angry in English, only to debate, joke and communicate.
Stereotyping sucks in general though. Take an example from the otherwise mild article, for instance, on Srinivasa Ramanujan, whom Jugs calls the greatest mathematician in the world. Now, Ramanujan probably identified himself as an observant Iyengar, and certainly was religious enough to ascribe all his genius to divinity (even to the point of calling an algebraic equation, 2^n-1, as spiritual and had gotten visitations from his village goddess, Namagiri, goading him to break caste and cross the seas to work with Hardy), and while, indeed, the Indian calendar system is computationally very complex & was traditionally computed by Brahmins, it is indeed irritating to reduce all of Indian math to being a fucking Tam Brahm (that's short for Tamil Brahmin) trait.
I say this as a South Indian brahm myself, but thats a stereotyping the community can do without. It adds unnecessary mystique and aura to not just the kula vRttis (traditional caste occupations) and the community, but also to math in general.
Math, especially Ramanujan's expressive leaps and forays into general number theory and patterns, can be enjoyed by all without being reminded constantly of people's cultural lineage, or being told that one's interest in, say, Bhaskaracharya, is because of being a Brahm; it dumbs down public discourse, it makes people think all this math is 'Brahmin'y and then tune out.
And it all drives me batty, because as a Sanskrit poet said, gaana bhavamuna jiirnamayye Subhaashitambu - when nobody listens to the specifics, knowledge gets digested as merely pious intent. Ramanujan is my hero not because he was Brahm, but because he was a fucking genius, with a brain we still don't fully understand. I like math because it is beautiful, it's expressive, and it says something about the world, not because my forefathers were priests.
posted by the cydonian at 9:46 AM on March 21, 2010 [15 favorites]
Word to the wise: while you don't do _religious_ or caste-based stereotypes in India, people seem to enjoy linguistic stereotypes as long as the jokes are told in English. The same joke in Hindi or any vernacular, though, takes on this mean tone that can get irritating and even offensive. I suppose we're really not used to getting angry in English, only to debate, joke and communicate.
Stereotyping sucks in general though. Take an example from the otherwise mild article, for instance, on Srinivasa Ramanujan, whom Jugs calls the greatest mathematician in the world. Now, Ramanujan probably identified himself as an observant Iyengar, and certainly was religious enough to ascribe all his genius to divinity (even to the point of calling an algebraic equation, 2^n-1, as spiritual and had gotten visitations from his village goddess, Namagiri, goading him to break caste and cross the seas to work with Hardy), and while, indeed, the Indian calendar system is computationally very complex & was traditionally computed by Brahmins, it is indeed irritating to reduce all of Indian math to being a fucking Tam Brahm (that's short for Tamil Brahmin) trait.
I say this as a South Indian brahm myself, but thats a stereotyping the community can do without. It adds unnecessary mystique and aura to not just the kula vRttis (traditional caste occupations) and the community, but also to math in general.
Math, especially Ramanujan's expressive leaps and forays into general number theory and patterns, can be enjoyed by all without being reminded constantly of people's cultural lineage, or being told that one's interest in, say, Bhaskaracharya, is because of being a Brahm; it dumbs down public discourse, it makes people think all this math is 'Brahmin'y and then tune out.
And it all drives me batty, because as a Sanskrit poet said, gaana bhavamuna jiirnamayye Subhaashitambu - when nobody listens to the specifics, knowledge gets digested as merely pious intent. Ramanujan is my hero not because he was Brahm, but because he was a fucking genius, with a brain we still don't fully understand. I like math because it is beautiful, it's expressive, and it says something about the world, not because my forefathers were priests.
posted by the cydonian at 9:46 AM on March 21, 2010 [15 favorites]
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posted by vanar sena at 4:33 AM on March 21, 2010 [11 favorites]