Saturday, September 16, 2006

So you must be from India

I look Indian enough, and sound Indian enough that I expect people to guess quite accurately where I am from. Now recently I was out with an Indian friend of mine meeting some people I knew. As we were introduced to someone neither of us knew, the guy in question guesses quite rightly that I am from India, but he is thrown off a little and guesses that my friend was raised here. My curiosity got the better of me and I asked him how he had come to that conclusion. He replied that it was the accent. rowing up in Bombay I was exposed to a whole variety of accented english(and hindi for that matter). There was the telgu,tamil,malyalam , north indian , marathi and gujrati versions, each distinct from the rest(all of which I can proudly imitate). Naturally it never dawned on me that I too had an accent. But why then did'nt I develop an imitation of the american accent after living in the states for 5years(trust me there are benefits to be had)?
Well quite simply it was this converstaion I overheard at Hyderabad airport between an Indian settled in the US with his born and raised in US daughters. That grotesque blend of the texan drawl with the telgu pechnant for appending "OOO" at the end of every word was all I needed to convince me that there was no way in the world I was speaking like that.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

And the wheel turns a full circle.

The US open is in town and it brought to my attention a few interesting facts. Namely that the top women's tennis player(Maria Sharapova) makes more in endorsement deals than the top mens player (Roger Federer) for reasons that don't have anything to do with tennis ofcourse. Though my tone might indicate otherwise I have no issue with that. I mean if you are still wondering why thats the case, you have'nt seen a photo of Sharapova. The market has decided that Maria Sharapova is more saleable than Roger Federer and its as simple as that.
Then why am I writing this post? Well not too long back women won pay parity with men on certain Grand Slam events(I don't remember that all the 4 grand slam's implemented a pay parity) after a long and hard fough battle. For them the principle at hand was how could a woman be paid less to do a job , play tennis in this case than men.
Now Since my reading on this matter is not extensive I apologise for any holes. But to me it would seem a misplaced argument. Surely the men were getting paid more cos more people turned up to watch them. Wonder what those women who fought the good fight think now. Was it worth it? Since anyway now women are on top for the very same reasons the men got more prize money.