My upcoming exam

We are coming up on our first wedding anniversary. We are also coming up on our green card interview. I'm not sure what to expect, but apparently if they suspect that the marriage is fradulent -- they put us in separate rooms and quiz us about our marriage.

Hmm, that sounds uncomfortable.. but what would be really awkward is if I couldn't answer the questions!
Where was he born? Where did you go on your first date? What did he have for breakfast yesterday? What's his favorite music band? What color are the walls in your bedroom? (I swear I looked around the house to double check the answer) What gifts did you give each other for your birthdays? (Uh, nothing...) Who does most of the cooking? (Umm, did you mean who defrosts the pizzas?)

Will the immigration officer pass judgment on the genuiness of my marriage -- or on my fitness as a wife? Are any of us ready to have our marriages examined by total strangers?

Tempests in Teapots

A British director makes a movie based in the slums of Mumbai, and self righteous Mumbaikars accuse him of 'peddling poverty porn'. As if hundreds of Hindi movies haven't dwelt on the exact same storyline. And as if the poverty needs peddling, as if it isn't right there, in your face -- on street corners, waiting at each intersection, squatting along train tracks.

In the movie, several very nasty characters scornfully refer to the hero as a 'slumdog' - and slumdwellers associations are up in arms! The irony of being offended by a term invented precisely to highlight the callousness of the characters using it.. is lost on them.

The New York Post printed a really nasty cartoon. A man with a smoking gun, a bullet ridden monkey corpse -- all this parodying the horrible mauling of a woman! Yes, a seriously disturbing cartoon. But racist? Give me a break! The stimulus bill has been roundly criticized by Republican types, but the bulk of the blame has been on Congress. If anything, the cartoonist was calling Nancy Pelosi a crazy chimpanzee, not Barack Obama. To jump from this image to racism to a call for violence against Obama is just plain ridiculous.

Ah well, the sillier the cause, the louder the protestors.

I am glad A.R.Rahman won at the Oscars today -- he has singlehandedly transformed Hindi film music over the last 15 years. My only complaint is that the quality of the lyrics is inversely proportional to the quality of the music.