the shaadi bazaar

Is Arranged Marriage Really Any Worse Than Craigslist?

This desultory casting around to see what was out there has become much more urgent now that I’m in my thirties, and in their quest, my parents have discovered a dizzying array of Websites: shaadi.com, indiamatrimony.com, etc. Within these sites are sub-sites for Indian regions, like punjabimatrimony.com. You might be surprised at who you’d find on them: the guy in the next cubicle, your freshman-year roommate at NYU, maybe even the cute girl you tried to pick up at a Lower East Side bar last night.

Far from being a novel approach to matrimony, these sites are a natural extension of how things have been done in India for decades. Even since well before the explosion of the country’s famously vibrant press in the fifties, Indians were coupling up via matrimonial ads in national papers (“Match sought for Bengali Brahmin, wheatish complexion,” etc.) ......

.... Like most Indians of their generation, my parents believe there are only two legitimate professions: doctor and engineer (not medicine and engineering, but doctor and engineer). Yes, they’ve heard of such newfangled professions as investment banking and law, but, oh, no, they won’t be fooled. Across India can be heard the refrain, “It is good match: They found doctor,” and my father expects nothing less for his little girl.

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the pachydermal connection

Your body could soon be the backbone of a broadband personal data network linking your mobile phone or MP3 player to a cordless headset, your digital camera to a PC or printer, and all the gadgets you carry around to each other.

These personal area networks are already possible using radio-based technologies, such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, or just plain old cables to connect devices. But NTT, the Japanese communications company, has developed a technology called RedTacton, which it claims can send data over the surface of the skin at speeds of up to 2Mbps - equivalent to a fast broadband data connection.

Using RedTacton-enabled devices, music from an MP3 player in your pocket would pass through your clothing and shoot over your body to headphones in your ears. Instead of fiddling around with a cable to connect your digital camera to your computer, you could transfer pictures just by touching the PC while the camera is around your neck. And since data can pass from one body to another, you could also exchange electronic business cards by shaking hands, trade music files by dancing cheek to cheek, or swap phone numbers just by kissing.

Need more bandwidth? Grow more skin!

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my elevated revelation

i am a nascar
on rookie skis
i can turn left
then i freeze,
right-turn begs
a superhuman effort
invariably bringing me
down to my knees.

i am a downhill
champ on flats
slope it gently
and i go splat,
add to it a
turn or two
and watch me zoom
like a blind dingbat.

a freefall artiste
down the chutes
taming steep trails
shaking in my boots,
and as the blues
turn to double-black
my jewels shrink into
their teeny-weeny sack.

it then hit me, i'm brown
in an endless field of white
i'd better play it safe
hang on to dear life,
this desi in denial
needs to focus on survival
and try his very best to
not be dead on arrival.

nauseating protein

My roommate new post-workout high protein diet puts all previously known stomach-churning odd-food-combinations to shame. I wouldn't fault you for adjusting your iris and dilating your pupils, you truly are staring at a bowl with cereal and boiled shrimp in it. Be thankful that i did not post pictures of him adding milk to this grotesquely inedible concoction.