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Nshima & Curry

Melvin's  Blog

Nshima & Curry

THE UNBELIEVABLE STORY FROM INDIA

Ladies and gentlemen, this can't be true. We must be the
victims of the world's biggest hoax. No, I'm not talking
about President Bush's military service. This is far more
earthshaking than that. This concerns the world's largest
democracy, India, which just held a general election. A
general election, as my Pakistani and Nigerian readers will
tell you, is an election in which the general gets elected.
But India did not have a general running for office, so what
did the 380 million voters do? They kicked out the incumbent
prime minister and replaced him, in effect, with an
Italian-born woman named Sonia Gandhi, making her the first
white woman to rule India since Her Majesty Queen Victoria.
At least that's what we've been told.

You can believe it if you wish, but as for me, I'm not that
gullible. I don't read horoscopes and I don't open emails
that say, "Keep her begging for more." And I'm certainly not
going to believe that Indians have elected an Italian-born
woman as prime minister, especially since Italians have
never done so themselves. (Perhaps the Italians are waiting
to elect an Indian-born woman as their prime minister? Yes,
soon after they put mutton curry on their pasta.)

At first, I wanted to believe. I was thrilled about the
thought of Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Congress Party and
widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, serving as
prime minister. I hadn't been this excited about race
relations since Oprah gave a big hug to Michael Jackson.

I even tried to share the good news with my American
friends:

Me: "Guess what, Mike? India just gave the prime minister's
seat to a white woman?"

Mike: "How come? Is the prime minister getting a new seat?"

Me: "No, you don't understand. A white woman is assuming the
prime minister's position."

Mike: "Which position? Stooping? Kneeling? Sleeping?"

Me: "The position of prime minister, silly. A white woman is
becoming the new prime minister of India."

Mike: "Yeah, right. Next you're going to tell me that
President Bush is really a Martian."

Me: "Well, guess which planet he wants to spend billions
on."

Needless to say, I began to have doubts myself. After all,
discrimination is prevalent in India and skin color seems to
be a national obsession, so how could this nation of
predominantly brown people entrust their future in white
hands? Were they truly unconcerned about her race or did
they simply get fooled by her tan? "Is she white? Is she
brown? Who gives a darn, she wears a sari and says,
'Namaste.'"

I also thought about the status of women in Indian society,
how some enjoy immense freedom while others are constrained
by the men around them. American women enjoy many rights,
yet in almost 230 years, none has gotten even a sniff of the
presidency (except perhaps after his morning jog). So how
could it be possible that Indians have elected another woman
as prime minister, their second in 20 years?

The more I thought about it, the more unbelievable it
seemed, this story of Sonia Gandhi. A white woman leading
India? It would be an amazing story, if only it were true.

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