Confessions of a (Former) Cricket Addict

28

Let me admit: I was once a cricket junkie. I needed my regular 22-yard fix. No more. The last time I watched a live cricket match was in 2003. That was the final of the World Cup. I watched that game at a Bangladeshi restaurant in New York, along with about 30 others Indians and one Australian. I watched in hope for a few minutes as Zaheer Khan and Javagal Srinath appeared charged up. You know what happened next. Around 7.30 am, after the Australians had slaughtered the Indian bowling (or whatever it was), I decided to go home and get some sleep. I haven't watched a live match since then. Since I am in New Delhi in November, I did think about watching the ODIs between India and South Africa. I was at home in time for the first, which never took place because of rain. I wasn't before....

The Macaca Vote

10

S R Sidarth deserves a medal from the Democratic Party. S R Sidarth who? Sidarth is the young volunteer who trailed Republican Senator from Virginia George Allen for the campaign of his challenger, Democrat Jim Webb. Sidarth, who was born in Fairfax, Virginia, videotaped Allen's campaign. He was doing that in August when Allen still enjoyed a substantial lead over Webb, when the Republican singled Sidarth out and called him a 'macaca'. You can watch that video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r90z0PMnKwI. Now, Macaca was originally used by Belgian colonizers of the Congo to describe the native. The word is derived from the macaque monkeys and was obviously a racial slur. Actually, for lovers of comics, Captain Haddock uses that term in Tintin in the Congo. Allen apologized to Sidarth, gave interviews to the Indian-American media, but he couldn't recover. Sidarth is symbolic of the strong political participation among second generation Indian-Americans....