[Reader-list] do you know where the fuck the money goes?

[rehan ansari]

Dear Shuddha, Monica, Shohini, Ravi, Vinita, (and PP),

PP has initiated more than a fair share of
interactions on this list. I have found his
contributions inspirational. I should say his
attitude, his quick-fire responses, his rhetoric
provocative in the very best sense.

Once again it is PP that got Ravi and Shohini to
write, which they do rarely.

I find people who dont write on the list, the cut and
paste crowd, the most offensive. At the very least PP
has told us about his workday, the cut and paste
moralists are too high and mighty to do that.

Calling him akin to a fascist, homophobic, navel
gazing, airing personal frustrations (the last two I
find particularly hypocritical) is silly at best. 

I had no doubt that Vinita would not  call for PP's
ouster. Nor that she can give as good as she got. 

When PP became fresh with me, employing a PP patented
rhetoric of suggesting/needling/demanding that I ( me
who? A Pakistani, a Rehan Ansari?) could tell him 
what others (like me?) could be dreaming in Gujrat and
Kashmir my outrage and dismay were only one of my
reactions.

What PP had said after all was not unusual, this 
needling occurs a lot on my travels in india, but
coming from him ("him" being the sum of all he has
written and provoked), AND IN THIS FORUM, is a rich
experience. 

And with the Vinita thing once again a Pratap "fit"
has led to me looking out for the shadows that lurk
beneath.

Shuddha writes to Vinita

> Your description of the anti protest (many young
> south asian women on one side and a few old >south
asian men on the other side) sounds >interesting.
Perhaps you could tell us more about what happenned.

I'll tell you. Something disturbing. I havent voiced
it yet. Of the young south asian women several of them
are friends, some acquaintances, some of them i know
have gone to a mandir in flushing, one of them
regularly, and some I accompanied on one occasion.

This mandir is:

one which claims and many claim for it that it is the
first one in new york. Address. Queens 45/57
bowne street flushing ny 11355

My sister, Saniya Ansari, told me a while ago, that on
a shoot for a tv program she saw a sign on the
premises that was asking money for orphanages. An RSS
sign.  It clearly said that. 
R S S. 
Saniya also
interviewed the director of the mandir, a Dr Uma
Mysorekar, or between you and me Dr. Massacre. The Dr
spoke about restoring HinduISM. And this is a quote
from the tv show, "make it puritan, just like
Christianity."

So I have asked more than one of those protestors
quietly: do you know what the mandir does with its
contributions? Oh in so by the way fashion I asked
this.

I feel like screaming:

you fuck, do you know where the fuck the money goes...

rehan

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