AmreekanDesi

All along i kept telling myself that your method of non violence was a silly concept that just delayed Independence.

But today i feel that more than gaining independence it was the discipline that you taught your children that was your greatest gift. You united them all. The Punjabi, the Marathis, the Tamils, Bengalis, men of all castes and religion stood up together as one.

You brought India together.

Come back, dear Mohandas Gandhi.

Come back before your children kill each other in fits of anger. We need your lesson of non violence more than ever today.

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We are seeing some good news coming in from the sporting arena these days. Indian sport lives.

Indian Tennis has a new star. Somdev Devvarman has qualified for the US Open singles, coming through the tough qualifiers.  He hasn’t just qualified but won his first round match as well. Somdev happens to be the first Indian male player to qualify for the singles main draw of a Grand Slam event in seven years, which in itself portrays a sad state of affairs. But we will look at the brighter side for now.

In women’s singles, Sania Mirza has moved on to the second round herself. We just hope she is able to get over her injuries and regain her pristine form of 2007 where she even defeated the current world number one, Dinara Safina.

In Football, India today triumphed in the Nehru cup winning the final against Syria. Small consolation for a national team that ranks a lowly 156 in the world.

Beijing Olympic bronze medallist Vijender Singh has been ranked world no 2 in the 75 kg category in the boxing rankings announced by the International Boxing Association (AIBA). There are other Indian boxers in the top ranks including Manoj Kumar (2nd in 64kg), Thokchom Nanao Singh (5th in 48kg), Akhil Kumar (9th in 57kg)

Women’s boxing will be included in the London Olympics (2012), which is excellent news for India. In the last world championship held in China, India won 4 medals. Mary Kom is India’s great hope and winner of a record 4 gold medals ever since the world championship started in 2001.

In Badminton, Saina Nehwal has been doing India proud. The world number 6 won the Indonesian open earlier this year and reached the quarter finals at the world championship. Chetan Anand is also doing well in the men’s circuit, and is currently ranked 14 in the world.

Force India managed a podium finish at the Belgian GP, and the media is going berserk. The only thing Indian about the team is its owner, so not sure it should be hailed as the coming-of-age of Indian F1 racing yet.

Great work, all you outstanding sportspeople. Kudos to you for making it big despite a system that doesn’t really work very well at bringing out the best in you, unless you play cricket.

(Image courtesy: oneindia.in)

Watch this.

This is Ajay Bhatt, Intel’s Indian Chief I/O architect, and a co inventor of the USB technology which revolutionized the way we transfer data in and out of computers.

After completing his graduation from India, Bhatt received his master’s degree from The City University of New York. Bhatt joined Intel corporation in 1990 as a senior staff architect on the chipset architecture team in Folsom. He holds nine U.S. patents with several in various stages of filing. In 1998, 2003 and 2004 Bhatt was nominated to take part in a Distinguished Lecture Series at leading universities in the United States and Asia. He received an Achievement in Excellence Award for his contribution in PCI Express specification development in 2002.

Bhatt is an industry-recognized expert in the area of I/O technologies. Bhatt leads definition and development of the next-generation Client Platform architecture at Intel. Bhatt continues to hold a position of Intel’s Chief I/O architect, where he is responsible for the platform and I/O interconnects directions for Intel. [link]

Nandan Nilekani, billionaire and co-founder of Infosys was on the Daily Show last night.

It was inspiring to see the humility of such a successful, rich, famous man who has virtually helped define the Indian technology industry.

Here’s a video of his conversation with Jon Stewart.

“When we started the company, there were lots of problems. Everybody told us to go to America”

Such a telling statement. I wonder if that is still the case today.

Its becoming a trend.

Last year it was Sanjaya Malakar, known more for his hairdos than his singing. This year it is Anoop ‘Noop Dogg’ Desai. Another desi guy in the running to be American Idol.

Anoop almost didn’t make it. He was not in the final 12 selected for the Idol finals, but scraped through as a wild card, thanks to tremendous public support. Maybe the show organizers realize the importance of the Indian community which pretty much carried Sanjaya through to the last stages of the contest. There’s a lot of viewership (and ad revenue) there!

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“Russell your show was mind blasting. Mmmind Blaasting. Not mind blowing…anything can blow the mind. You just blasted the mind”

Russell Peters, talking about Indians complimenting him after shows.

The venue was the Borgata at Atlantic City, where the Amreekandesi family spent their weekend. We were going to to the Vegas of the East coast as it is, and were pleasantly surprised to find Russell Peters performing this weekend. Me and the missus managed to get prime seats very near the stage.

Close enough, but not too close, if you know what i mean!

Russell Peters and Friends, they called it. Mr Peters and some other stand up comics performed over a couple of hours, and at one point my stomach actually hurt from all the laughing.

First though, for those who don’t know what i am talking about, Russell Peters is probably the most famous south-east Asian stand up comic. You can watch some videos of his earlier performances here and here.

Back to this show. The thing about Russell Peters is that most of his jokes are on race. The others are about sex. Sensitive people will likely not like him.

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Sadda Vicky… are baba apna Vikram Pandit.

You don’t know him? He just became the CEO of Citi Group, known in Industry circles affectionately as Shiti Group.

Another Indian does the country proud! haha…its funny when the media just jumps in on the achievements of Indians wherever they are. But then, at least he is a real Indian. Born in India, came to the US for his studies, and been blazing his way across the ranks over the past decades.
A real Indian, unlike Bobby who was also the toast of India till a few months back, albeit his giving up his Indian name, Indian religion, Indian accent (Oh well..he was never a FOB; always had that peculiar ABCD accent. Never mind).

Going back to Vicky. He’s famous for becoming MD in record time at Morgan (Stanley). He is also famous for starting his own hedge-fund. Recently he became famous when Shiti bought his fund with the sole intention of getting him to come on board. Of course, now he is their chief executive.

How do you – a common man celebrate promotions? A dinner? A cruise vacation?
How does a wall street CEO celebrate? By plonking down 18 million for a 10 (yes, Ten) bedroom apartment in one of the hottest part of Manhattan.

Vicky might be the first Indian CEO on wall street, but he certainly isn’t the only Indian biggie. Indian people in senior management are not uncommon. Indian MDs (Managing Directors) are a dime a dozen.

Doesn’t the chest just swell with Pride? We are proud of you Vicky.