The Name of it is "Autumn"

The skies are blustery grey, and the trees toss their red, orange and golden heads at the oncoming clouds; a single ray of sunlight bursts through the leaves suddenly and makes the Merrit Parkway a tunnel of luminous color. At times like this, I wonder if there could be a luckier person than I am, living my daily life against the incandescent colors of a New England fall. I hope I never get that used to it that I stop noticing. And alright, New Hampshire and Vermont, I grant that your foliage may be more breathtaking right now, but I don't live there.

Elections and the Femme Fatale

Do Sarah Palin's political advisors have any idea just how sexist many of her supporters are? I am amazed that as accusations of sexism float around the whole issue of Wardrobe Gate, just how little criticism is directed at the absolute - insert the plural male equivalent of "bimbo" here - who flock to her rallies and make a mockery of the woman they want to have become a top member of the next U.S. administration. No, I don't think "babe" is a respectful way of addressing your leader.

It's not only liberal feminists who need to raise an outcry here (they've already done so), the protest needs to start with some critical reflection by the Republican National Committee and by everyone whose d**khead son/husband/brother patronizes the Las Vegas Men's Club that recently hosted a Sarah Palin-themed strippers' competition. Do they think this is an act of admiration, some sort of loving gesture by a local fan club? There are people from her own base who are supporting this unbelievably belittling event, these are the people who are reducing her to an object, not some blue-stocking East Coast, latte-drinking, elite circle of New York Times readers. I am not providing links to this horrendous event or naming names. You can google those for yourself if you want to follow up the story.

My American Burqa

My American burqa - my hijab and niqaab - comes in many cuts and colors. It is mainly mass-produced and comes in many different kinds of material. It is sometimes elegant, sometimes demure, never too revealing, and utterly, utterly conformist. Above all, it does what all good burqa's should do. It renders me invisible (mostly). My American burqa can be found here and here. On rare occasions, I go here to find a suitable party burqa. When I first came to this country as a twenty-something, I wore a younger version of the American burqa. That can be found here. The younger version can, depending on the cunning of the Chinese tailor in the burqa factory, be snug and form fitting, but that snugness too is always conformist, never revolutionary.

When I first arrived in this country, I stood out and not just because I didn't know what on earth to do with vending machines (I slunk around, watching practiced veterans punching buttons, retrieving their drinks and candy before I worked up the courage to use them). Besides my incompetence with machines, my clothes always gave me away even before I opened my mouth, and this even though I stopped wearing my much-beloved salwar kameezes (surely, the most comfortable clothes for women ever). My jeans were too baggy, my sweaters too bulky, my hairstyle too - too Delhi, my shoes too inappropriate for the dress. Still, I resisted donning the American burqa for a long time.

Why? Well, some of the American burqas were made of the material that in India we derided clueless, hippie, western tourists for wearing. I swore I would never wear the thin, flimsy cotton tops, the cheap cotton skirts that are so prized here by trendy stores and sold as top-of-the-line summer wear. For the hippies in India, the looseness, the flimsiness, the gauzy fabrics probably evoked carefree whimsy, an abandonment of the structure and rigidity of their suburban homes in the west. For us, they screamed - export rejects from Janpath! Only college students wore those. Young women with aspirations to ethnic chic wore handwoven fabrics from FabIndia (do they still do that, I wonder?). For western wear we depended on the benevolence of visiting relatives from abroad or else we hit the sales at South Extension and Greater Kailash markets and swallowed as we handed over our middle class money to sniffy, sullen sales clerks who snatched the money from our hands and looked over our heads as they handed us our shopping bags.

But slowly I learned to adapt to my new surroundings. I made some mistakes initally. For example, I bought a burqa in yellow silk that had embroidered on it small monkeys drinking champagne, their brown tails curled perkily over their little brown heads. Looked cute but it belonged to some yacht-owning New England preppy girl, not to me. That burqa still hangs unworn in my closet (actually, it just struck me as I wrote that given George Allen's "macaca" remark, maybe I should wear this burqa proudly). I also realized over time that although blue denim burqas are now acceptable party wear, they are not for all parties and definitely not for Christmas parties. In general though, my American burqas are more tailored now, and are the right cut. In the summers, the cheap cotton doesn't feel so bad, and what the heck, the other women are also wearing the same thing. In my American burqa, I can go up and down Fairfield County, Connecticut, without attracting a second glance.

However, in New York City...well, that's another story. I need a New York City burqa so that I don't stand out there as a visiting suburban housewife.

In New York City

One New York traffic cop to another: You voted for Bush last time, you jerk.
2nd Cop (mournfully): Yeah man, and he's destroyed us all.
(Nervous laughter from people waiting for a cab in the taxi line)
It's not a good sign for a political party when lower-level government servants turn against it. It is especially not good when policemen begin to deride a sitting president.

At MOMA (the Museum of Modern Art, to my Indian readers), my eight-year old S. looks at the Vincent Van Gogh art exhibit (running through Jan. 5 2009) and pronounces his judgement: "Very dark." Well, the title of the exhibit is "Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night." About Van Gogh's portrait of the poet Eugene Boch, his judgment was "That's Abraham Lincoln!" Little M. tugs at my hand and says "I want a muffin."

Hmmph! I think cultural education will have to wait a few more years.