<!--QuoteBegin-shamu+Dec 13 2008, 12:22 PM-->QUOTE(shamu @ Dec 13 2008, 12:22 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->BTW, if you go from north to south, and east to west, you will see Indians in shades of colors. Surprisingly, India happens to be the only country in the world shere such a feature exist among indigenous population. In all other countries, people will be of one particular color, unless there is a mix of different types if people like Africans and Arabs in Egypt etc. So, the color tag "brownie" doesn't really reflect Indian skin color.[right][snapback]91789[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Shamu, at my uni there are many international students and students of diverse overseas origin. From my experience, even within the same countries (and families) in Africa there's a whole range of colours. In Japan there are darker and lighter shades, as also in China. India has a wider range than in JP & CN though.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From what Bhavv wrote, I get a feeling that he doesn't want to be identified as an Indian.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Shamu, Bhavv is an open book. I'd designate her as a modern-day <b>Merle Oberon</b>, a replica in our time.
In case anyone is not familiar with who Merle Oberon is, she's a "siren" of the Hollywood black and white cinema era. Here's some parts of her bio to clarify why I brought her up:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Merle Oberon was born in Bombay, of mixed Welsh-Indian parentage,
Her father hailed from Britain and her mother from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).
To hide her half-Indian parentage, she would falsely represent to visitors that her mother was the maid.
In 1949, twelve years after her mother's death, she commissioned a painting of her mother from an old photograph, instructing the painter to lighten her mother's complexion in the painting to hide the fact that she is part-Indian.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Merle was a christian of course (her mum too probably).
Here, Merle=Bhavv and Merle's mother=Bhavv's ancestry. Both mother and ancestry just tag along as unwanted baggage since they can't be got rid of. An inconvenience that has to be borne.
Bhavv's "I don't like calling myself Desi - I call myself British Indian or Indian."
Yet "I don't like others asking whether I am an Indian."
Very interesting that someone
- who is specifically not a Hindu
- who does not identify with Bharatam (And even when it comes to country names, she - though a British 'Indian' - prefers *Indians* to use the word India, and was previously all eager to imagine/argue that the word itself had nothing less than superior English christo origins <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> )
- who would designate herself some sort of Indian if it came to it, but preferably not if anyone *Indian* were to ask her
- who doesn't like to be asked whether she speaks 'Gujerati' (from what I know, it's spelled 'Gujarati' though I neither hail from there nor do I speak the language. Anyways, this interesting misspelling by Bhavv reminded me of the BBC news starlet of Hindu name I once saw presenting the news and who kept insisting that many "<b>Hind<i>i</i></b> people at the <b>Hind<i>i</i></b> Temple had died of a stampede" - in order to clearly indicate her own distance from the Hindoos).
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bhavv wrote: Similarly I was asked once at work by another Indian employee 'Do you speak in Gujerati?', which I do but I am terrible at it, so I reply 'No, I only speak English, is that a problem?'. If I am at work, or in public, I find it disrespectful to people around me who only speak in English if I begin having conversations in Gujerati. <b>This to me is just a way of saying 'I want to isolate myself among only people who speak in Gujerati'.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Wow, my French colleague keeps talking to French speakers in French. How 'communal' of him too. No, no - what am I saying - since he's not a Hindoo, he's only "preserving his language" and "doing what comes natural to him".
^ Interesting that such a psecular as Bhavv - who is non-Hindu and would ideally not be identified as Indian nor admit to knowing any more than English in case (gasp) another "Gujerati" wants to speak to her in Goojeratee - comes all the way to IF, which is a nationalist forum of Hindoos, to debate on more than one occasion about Indian <i>identity</i>. I mean, what's up with that? She doesn't identify with it, she's a "British Indian", so why is she here at all, talking with Hindoos (who she would rather not know in real life, I'm sure) about *Bharatam*, Indian self-designation and Indian identity.
Here's two reasonable explanations that come to me as to why she has evangelically invited herself and her opinions over:
1. She seeks confirmation/validation of her position of uppityness as a british indian. She thinks she scores even more points if she could get people to see the matters of 'desi' and Bharatam the same way she does. "If only those Hindoo Indoos could read my deep arguments, I am sure they would immediately see how they cannot use 'Bharatam' for India, should not be 'racist in using Desi' (and would quit believing in Ganapathi too, since I, Bhavv, the self-declared "bright science student", saw through the Hindooo nonsense".
Not quite sure if she is insecure or arrogant in coming all the way here. She shows signs of both.
2. Alternatively, she's just another crypto christian trying to crawl under heathen skin. Certainly, her argument pattern is consonant with others of the ideology.
Why would anyone who doesn't even identify,
- come to a Hindu nationalist forum to 'dialogue',
- choose to dialogue on specifically these topics ("Hindoos are racists; there is no Hindu origin in the naming of the country, bla blah bleh")
- specifically announce they are not Hindu with particular reference to some lame story about Ganapathi,
- and write the following cryptochristo contradiction:
http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.ph...indpost&p=87841
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bhavv wrote: <b>I am not giving any benefit of the doubt to christianity</b>, and I do not believe in any of it either, nor in Islam (<b>I am secular</b>). <b>Christianity was founded in 0 BC.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The contradiction is in the part where she says she is psecular, does not give any benefit of the doubt to christianism and "does not *believe* in any of it either" and then in the next breath writes that christianism was founded in 0 BC - as per <i>christian</i> theology instead of the history that real bright students of science are fond of (her 'science' - which troubled her when it came to Ganapathi - clearly didn't interfere in questioning christianism...). Surely much belief and benefit of doubt was in fact bestowed by her on the christian narrative.
- and choose to believe that Bharatam was first named 'India' by some English *christian* even though the traditional Ancient Greeks would be a better choice if an arbitrary non-Indian starting point for the name was necessary:
From Bhavv's post 21 of the "India be named as Bharat thread"
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bhave wrote: <b>The name India came directly from King Alfred's translation of the Orosius:</b>
[...]
Note that although the Orosius is a <b>Christian book</b>, the word India was created simply from a literal translation of the text, and entered the English language. India is only the English name since the 17'th century, one would have to read the Orosius themselves to find the actual word that the translation was based on.
India is just an <b>English word</b> used in the English language that was first used by King Alfred. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->A very "bright science student" indeed who bypassed the Hindus, Persians, Greeks and Romans to start at christo English instead.
And even if she's not sheep already, she sure is a soon-to-be-sheep. It's perfect for her. (Christo-conditioning is the same as christianism in the long run; it's preparation.)
Whichever of 1 or 2 (or another alternative) it may be:
Her psecular style in arguing through use of personalisation of argument contexts/scenarios - I refer to the example in her posts above, such as "my mother refers to somebody as Gora/Kalas AND that must be racist AND my mother is Hindoo AND Hindoos are racists for inventing/using such words" - is very much like communist Mira Kamdar using references to her alleged Hindoo dad as a personal-narrative-to-larger-reality leverage tool to make insinuations against The Hindoos/Hindooism. (Even assuming neither Kamdar nor Bhavv are lying about their parents, it is clear that not even family is sacred for cryptos and communistas, and they will sacrifice any Hindoos they are related to if it means they can score points for their ideology/push their lame arguments on unsuspecting readers.)
http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/article...ism/kamdar.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Mira Kamdar tells us about a paradoxical combination of opinions in her father: "My immigrant Gujarati father is both a liberal Democrat and a supporter of Hindu fascism. This is not as unusual as one might think."
[...]
<b>4. Hate, the concept</b>
That opinion, we are told, amounts to nothing less than hate: "So it has been a great and sad shock to me to realize that my father, who loved Martin Luther King, hates Muslims. He hates them blindly, viscerally, categorically. ( ) in any discussion where Muslims, the Middle East, Bosnia (not to mention Pakistan) comes up, he is wont to fly into an apoplectic rage, turn red in the face, shout until spit begins to pool at the sides of his mouth, shake his fists. The culmination of these fits is always the same. He bends over, seizes the cuff of the right leg of his pants, and pulls it up to show off a series of diagonal dents marching up his shin, scars from a back-alley encounter decades ago with a gang of bicycle-chain-wielding Muslim youths. "This is what Muslims did to me! This is what Muslims do!" <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Kamdar's "Hindus are facists - see for instance my dad" <-> Bhavv's "Indoos/Hindoos are racists - see for instance my mum"
Anyways, Bhavv inviting herself over to Hindoo nationalist forum IF - in spite of what should be her disinterest in it (going by the logical implications in her posts) - is an <i>evangelical</i> endeavour: her posting behaviour aims to convince through puerile arguments that even include boring and trite narratives. The gist of her "You Indoos are racists for using Desi, doesn't matter at all that that is merely how I (mis)read the situation. Because, how us British (Indians) misunderstand your use of the term Desi *must* in fact also be the way you mean it. Though I don't understand you and I can't remotely relate to your experiences, I *will* nevertheless speak on what pertains to you. And you can have no other opinions." Not unlike how AmeriKKKan 'scholars' keep assuming the right to write lies on Hindu Dharma and Hindu experiences of it, while delegitimising Hindus' right to expression on what pertains to Hindus.
Bad entertainment from a high school student.
I prefer Kindergarten, they know how to argue decisively.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->From what Bhavv wrote, I get a feeling that he doesn't want to be identified as an Indian.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Shamu, Bhavv is an open book. I'd designate her as a modern-day <b>Merle Oberon</b>, a replica in our time.
In case anyone is not familiar with who Merle Oberon is, she's a "siren" of the Hollywood black and white cinema era. Here's some parts of her bio to clarify why I brought her up:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Merle Oberon was born in Bombay, of mixed Welsh-Indian parentage,
Her father hailed from Britain and her mother from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).
To hide her half-Indian parentage, she would falsely represent to visitors that her mother was the maid.
In 1949, twelve years after her mother's death, she commissioned a painting of her mother from an old photograph, instructing the painter to lighten her mother's complexion in the painting to hide the fact that she is part-Indian.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Merle was a christian of course (her mum too probably).
Here, Merle=Bhavv and Merle's mother=Bhavv's ancestry. Both mother and ancestry just tag along as unwanted baggage since they can't be got rid of. An inconvenience that has to be borne.
Bhavv's "I don't like calling myself Desi - I call myself British Indian or Indian."
Yet "I don't like others asking whether I am an Indian."
Very interesting that someone
- who is specifically not a Hindu
- who does not identify with Bharatam (And even when it comes to country names, she - though a British 'Indian' - prefers *Indians* to use the word India, and was previously all eager to imagine/argue that the word itself had nothing less than superior English christo origins <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> )
- who would designate herself some sort of Indian if it came to it, but preferably not if anyone *Indian* were to ask her
- who doesn't like to be asked whether she speaks 'Gujerati' (from what I know, it's spelled 'Gujarati' though I neither hail from there nor do I speak the language. Anyways, this interesting misspelling by Bhavv reminded me of the BBC news starlet of Hindu name I once saw presenting the news and who kept insisting that many "<b>Hind<i>i</i></b> people at the <b>Hind<i>i</i></b> Temple had died of a stampede" - in order to clearly indicate her own distance from the Hindoos).
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bhavv wrote: Similarly I was asked once at work by another Indian employee 'Do you speak in Gujerati?', which I do but I am terrible at it, so I reply 'No, I only speak English, is that a problem?'. If I am at work, or in public, I find it disrespectful to people around me who only speak in English if I begin having conversations in Gujerati. <b>This to me is just a way of saying 'I want to isolate myself among only people who speak in Gujerati'.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Wow, my French colleague keeps talking to French speakers in French. How 'communal' of him too. No, no - what am I saying - since he's not a Hindoo, he's only "preserving his language" and "doing what comes natural to him".
^ Interesting that such a psecular as Bhavv - who is non-Hindu and would ideally not be identified as Indian nor admit to knowing any more than English in case (gasp) another "Gujerati" wants to speak to her in Goojeratee - comes all the way to IF, which is a nationalist forum of Hindoos, to debate on more than one occasion about Indian <i>identity</i>. I mean, what's up with that? She doesn't identify with it, she's a "British Indian", so why is she here at all, talking with Hindoos (who she would rather not know in real life, I'm sure) about *Bharatam*, Indian self-designation and Indian identity.
Here's two reasonable explanations that come to me as to why she has evangelically invited herself and her opinions over:
1. She seeks confirmation/validation of her position of uppityness as a british indian. She thinks she scores even more points if she could get people to see the matters of 'desi' and Bharatam the same way she does. "If only those Hindoo Indoos could read my deep arguments, I am sure they would immediately see how they cannot use 'Bharatam' for India, should not be 'racist in using Desi' (and would quit believing in Ganapathi too, since I, Bhavv, the self-declared "bright science student", saw through the Hindooo nonsense".
Not quite sure if she is insecure or arrogant in coming all the way here. She shows signs of both.
2. Alternatively, she's just another crypto christian trying to crawl under heathen skin. Certainly, her argument pattern is consonant with others of the ideology.
Why would anyone who doesn't even identify,
- come to a Hindu nationalist forum to 'dialogue',
- choose to dialogue on specifically these topics ("Hindoos are racists; there is no Hindu origin in the naming of the country, bla blah bleh")
- specifically announce they are not Hindu with particular reference to some lame story about Ganapathi,
- and write the following cryptochristo contradiction:
http://www.india-forum.com/forums/index.ph...indpost&p=87841
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bhavv wrote: <b>I am not giving any benefit of the doubt to christianity</b>, and I do not believe in any of it either, nor in Islam (<b>I am secular</b>). <b>Christianity was founded in 0 BC.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The contradiction is in the part where she says she is psecular, does not give any benefit of the doubt to christianism and "does not *believe* in any of it either" and then in the next breath writes that christianism was founded in 0 BC - as per <i>christian</i> theology instead of the history that real bright students of science are fond of (her 'science' - which troubled her when it came to Ganapathi - clearly didn't interfere in questioning christianism...). Surely much belief and benefit of doubt was in fact bestowed by her on the christian narrative.
- and choose to believe that Bharatam was first named 'India' by some English *christian* even though the traditional Ancient Greeks would be a better choice if an arbitrary non-Indian starting point for the name was necessary:
From Bhavv's post 21 of the "India be named as Bharat thread"
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bhave wrote: <b>The name India came directly from King Alfred's translation of the Orosius:</b>
[...]
Note that although the Orosius is a <b>Christian book</b>, the word India was created simply from a literal translation of the text, and entered the English language. India is only the English name since the 17'th century, one would have to read the Orosius themselves to find the actual word that the translation was based on.
India is just an <b>English word</b> used in the English language that was first used by King Alfred. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->A very "bright science student" indeed who bypassed the Hindus, Persians, Greeks and Romans to start at christo English instead.
And even if she's not sheep already, she sure is a soon-to-be-sheep. It's perfect for her. (Christo-conditioning is the same as christianism in the long run; it's preparation.)
Whichever of 1 or 2 (or another alternative) it may be:
Her psecular style in arguing through use of personalisation of argument contexts/scenarios - I refer to the example in her posts above, such as "my mother refers to somebody as Gora/Kalas AND that must be racist AND my mother is Hindoo AND Hindoos are racists for inventing/using such words" - is very much like communist Mira Kamdar using references to her alleged Hindoo dad as a personal-narrative-to-larger-reality leverage tool to make insinuations against The Hindoos/Hindooism. (Even assuming neither Kamdar nor Bhavv are lying about their parents, it is clear that not even family is sacred for cryptos and communistas, and they will sacrifice any Hindoos they are related to if it means they can score points for their ideology/push their lame arguments on unsuspecting readers.)
http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/article...ism/kamdar.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Mira Kamdar tells us about a paradoxical combination of opinions in her father: "My immigrant Gujarati father is both a liberal Democrat and a supporter of Hindu fascism. This is not as unusual as one might think."
[...]
<b>4. Hate, the concept</b>
That opinion, we are told, amounts to nothing less than hate: "So it has been a great and sad shock to me to realize that my father, who loved Martin Luther King, hates Muslims. He hates them blindly, viscerally, categorically. ( ) in any discussion where Muslims, the Middle East, Bosnia (not to mention Pakistan) comes up, he is wont to fly into an apoplectic rage, turn red in the face, shout until spit begins to pool at the sides of his mouth, shake his fists. The culmination of these fits is always the same. He bends over, seizes the cuff of the right leg of his pants, and pulls it up to show off a series of diagonal dents marching up his shin, scars from a back-alley encounter decades ago with a gang of bicycle-chain-wielding Muslim youths. "This is what Muslims did to me! This is what Muslims do!" <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Kamdar's "Hindus are facists - see for instance my dad" <-> Bhavv's "Indoos/Hindoos are racists - see for instance my mum"
Anyways, Bhavv inviting herself over to Hindoo nationalist forum IF - in spite of what should be her disinterest in it (going by the logical implications in her posts) - is an <i>evangelical</i> endeavour: her posting behaviour aims to convince through puerile arguments that even include boring and trite narratives. The gist of her "You Indoos are racists for using Desi, doesn't matter at all that that is merely how I (mis)read the situation. Because, how us British (Indians) misunderstand your use of the term Desi *must* in fact also be the way you mean it. Though I don't understand you and I can't remotely relate to your experiences, I *will* nevertheless speak on what pertains to you. And you can have no other opinions." Not unlike how AmeriKKKan 'scholars' keep assuming the right to write lies on Hindu Dharma and Hindu experiences of it, while delegitimising Hindus' right to expression on what pertains to Hindus.
Bad entertainment from a high school student.
I prefer Kindergarten, they know how to argue decisively.