MAC Attack

Are you a MAC girl? MAC Cosmetics does a great job of providing highly-pigmented lipsticks and eye makeup that tends to suit darker complexions. Their Studio-Fix foundation is a fixture in most make-up bags I have perused and it is a good "starter" makeup if you don't consider yourself a "makeup" person. Until tomorrow at midnight, save 25% off your entire purchase, and enjoy free shipping on purchases over $60.00 at MAC Cosmetics. Use the code MACFF9. I just bought this.















Want more beauty news and shopping deals? Check out Brown Girl Guide, launching soon.

One Indian Woman's Wish List

New Year, new wishes. All moms dream of things that would make life easier ("A robot that cooks and cleans...and breast-feeds"). Here, some of my wishes, specific to being an Indian mom. Somebody please look into these--many would be a post-it-note "why didn't I think of that!" moment I am sure...!

Beyond "Identity" Fiction

We get it. We, as Indians, sometimes feel torn between the east and the west. If we were born here, we are intrinsically "American" but, at the same time, we have values rooted in a decidedly un-American heritage. Thank you to all the literary trail-blazers who put "identity" fiction--and literature about South Asians in general--on the map. But let's get on with it already. How many times do we want to read about one foot in New York and one in Delhi? Eighteen times pretty much sufficed. Onward and upwards, let's see what else the glorious Indian women who roam the pages of fiction can do.

Netflix for Indian Clothes

I have learned the rules but they still don't make sense. That $1000 lengha? With the hand-done embroidery and gold spun by hand? You should wear it once and carry around a spotlight so everyone can see how gorgeous it is...but then you can never be caught dead in it again. Okay. I'll play by the rules. But why not let friends reap the rewards of that spun-gold and Swarovki glory. Or forget my friends, let a stranger wear it, why does it have to hang in sad confinement in my closet (read: lay in a sad pile under my bed). Somebody has got to get on this. Bindi Borrow or Steal. Or something.

A Turmeric-Sensitive Cleaner

Members of my family believe that turmeric is a magical panacea. When my kids are coughing up lungs and their noses are perpetually leaking, I would try voodoo so turmeric is completely fine with me. But it is a disater on my home. The faint yellow residue has left impressions on high chairs and fabric long after the colds have passed. There's got to be something to get this out and even my magical Folex has failed me.

While we're at it: How about something to get that "I just came back from india" smell out of your clothes. Don't even tell me you don't know what I mean. Febreeze doesn't cut it, it just makes it seem like you were hugged by an Indian airport that had a Febreeze free sample kiosk.

Luxe Lipsticks for Brown Ladies

I have found foundations, blushes, skincare and eye makeup that I think looks great on Indian women but, for some reason, most lipsticks still manage to make me look like a clown. It's not that hard is it? Listen up Chanel: We have money to spend (sometimes): Give us a reason to.

A Short Primer On Important Traditions


I need to be able to sift through which traditions are really important to my extended family and which ones are really just filler on the calendar. I am a mutt--half Gujarati, half South Indian--and my husband is Punjabi. In terms of tradition and culture, we may as well be from different countries, it seems at times. I need some Cliffs notes. AND, I would LOVE to know what the ritual and pomp and circumstance surrounding the many traditions I've never heard of actually mean. I am still trying to get to the bottom of the significance of the strainer at karva chauth. And are we allowed to steal shoes at all auspicious occasions? And is eating panjiri THAT important?? I wish the people behind these books would get on this.

More South Indian restaurants

Just saying the word "dosa" makes my mouth water. There's more to Indian cuisine than Tandoori chicken and yet, many people have no idea.

"Petticoats" that don't suck. And lenghas that don't attack you.

I have war-wounds from some of the Indian garb I have worn. Cat-claw-like scratches under my arms from bronze adornment on lengha blouses. Near-rug-burn on my waist from "petticoats" that need to be "so tight they hurt--if it doesn't hurt it isn't tight enough." And the "petticoats" (love writing such a silly word!) are often of this horrible synthetic, satiny material that feels horrible against my skin. I'm thinking it doesn't have to be like this. Somebody please show me the way.

Non-cheesy Indian-inspirted housewares

I don't need Ganesha on my plates and I would prefer not to have Lord Shiva on my accent pillows. But it would be great to be able to showcase Indian art in my home. We keep hearing about how thriving the Indian art scene is but it remains difficult to gain access to it from here. I would much rather throw some money at a modern Indian art emporium than Design Within Reach--if I knew how.

Got Any Indian-Inspired Wishes on Your Wish-List?

I Need A Hero

February's Glamour Magazine profiles Supriya Jindal--wife of Louisiana Governor and former VP-short-listed "Bobby" Jindal--as a "fiesty" woman who also happens to be "our only Indian American First Lady."

Images of Clarence Thomas race through my head. He must have a wife. I wonder if she is like Supriya. It sounds harsh I know but let's review the facts: Bobby's real name? Piyush. He "adopted" his current moniker in homage to Bobby Brady. Presently-Catholic Piyush's born religion? Hinduism. He converted in high school. And of course there is his famous New Oxford Review essay--"Beating the Demon, Physical Dimensions of Physical Warfare"--which details his belief in exorcism. All this and we haven't even gotten started on the Governor's views on church and state, stem cell research, gay marriage--but I am getting off topic...

Bottom-line, the guy seems decidedly anti-Indian and while I suppose it isn't fair to assume his wife holds the same views, when she is paraded around as our only Indian American First Lady and she doesn't say anything to distance herself from her husband's whitewash, what is anybody supposed to think? She gives us a little glimpse into her views in a local New Orleans newspaper interview:

Although she has visited India several times -- including once with Bobby, when he was sent as a congressman on a trade mission -- she says she doesn't feel any particular attachment to the country of her ancestors or any particular sense of comfort when she's there. Nor does she follow the news from India with any particular regularity.

Okay, fine. There it is. Be who you want to be right? Be American, be yourself, be cool. And, in all honesty, Supriya seems cool enough. By all accounts, she is a whip-smart, considerate powerhouse, juggling three kids and a career. According to the Glamour piece, she is getting ready to launch the Supriya Jindal Foundation for Louisiana Children, a nonprofit aimed at fixing the state's lagging math and science scores. What's not to like about improving education? Plus I have a soft-spot for the woman since her son's name is Shaan, as is mine.

But the Jindals constitute token representation of Indians, at best. Is there any disputing that? And I can't help but wish that Glamour had picked somebody else to represent us. Someone who, perhaps, rose in her own right. A South Asian woman who stands up proudly, or at least not in shame or ignorance, of where she (and her husband) come from, geographically, culturally, philosophically. Someone like...

Like...

Like who? Who are our South Asian female role models? Help me out here...

Not Just Another List

If you're like me, you are probably sick of all the "top 10"s and every other assorted list that a new year catalyzes people to make. But my friend S passed along this list of resolutions for parents and it was too good not to share. The reason I love it is because the directives strike the perfect balance of motivating us to be better parents as well as better people in general. The author of the list, Jacque Grillo--an Early Childhood Specialist, Marriage and Family Therapist, and Director of Lone Mountain Children's Center in San Francisco--is going to be featured on The Today Show this week, talking about these resolutions all parents should make in 2009 (The stuff in bold is my emphasis):

1. Resolve that one day each week will be a day without television, videos, computers, and electronics of any sort. Shut the things off. Reclaim your homes.

2. Resist the pressure to become your child's day planner, social secretary and entertainment organizer. Allow for days where nothing is planned. Celebrate boredom! Don't protect your child from a day with nothing to do. Day after day filled with adult-organized activities and events destroys any possibility of creativity or self-discovery. Don't allow your child to become the center of your universe.

3. Play together, fantasize together, and get creative together using only the simplest of materials: old clothes, a cardboard box, crayons, paper and glue. Make-up characters and stories - together.

4. Get out of your child's way. Provide her with time, either alone or with friends, that is largely unsupervised and where an adult will only intervene when the screams reach a high decibel level. Teach them to trust in themselves. Let them make mistakes and experience the consequences. Stop rescuing.

5. Intentionally deny your child something he "really wants". Don't just delay its acquisition but never allow the desired object into your home. Have conversations about the experience of disappointment. Share your own experiences of how it feels to not get something you "really want".

6. Plan a long weekend away for you and your spouse and resist the urge to check in by phone every hour. Trust me -- your children will survive and everyone will benefit.

7. Don't buy into the "more is better" culture. Almost always less is more.

8. Remember what life before children was like. Commit to having a life of your own with your own activities, friends and interests. It's not only good for you but a great model for your children.

9. Worry less. Almost all problems self-resolve in time and the small percentage that don't probably couldn't have been prevented in any case.

10. Have faith in something and share it openly with your children. It can be God, the Universe, Love or the inherent goodness of your fellow man. It's one of the greatest gifts you can pass on to your children.

Monday Musings: Do Kids Know Their Ethnicity?

The other day, as I was picking up my son D from preschool, one of his teachers approached me with a furrowed brow and a solemn look on her face.

Uh-oh, I thought. D has obviously hit another child. Or peed in the birdcage. Again. Game face game face.

"Hi!" I said, with so much eagerness I sounded like I was trying out for the cheerleading squad.

"Hi," Miss M. said, as she put her hand on my shoulder with concern that was palpable.

"How are you?" I shrieked.

"I'm good," she replied, all hushed-tones. "D told us what's going on, it must be really hard for you with the 2 kids, and being pregnant and all," she said.

I laughed nervously in that way you do when you are going through the rolodex of possible puzzle pieces in your head. D told her what happened? Wait, something happened? Something that D could communicate? D can communicate? Beyond "I want Mamma Bear Pappa Bear" (which is what he calls The Berenstein Bears, his new favorite tv show, replacing Cailou--thank god for small miracles--but still driving me crazy)?

Miss M. charitably took the panicky smile on my face as a cue to further explain.

"About your husband?" she said, looking around the room as the other parents were coming to pick up their kids. "And how he left yesterday and moved to India?"

WHAT?

My first thought--I have to admit--was whether I was so tired that I had forgotten this had happened. (Like the time I told my husband about this "crazy dream" I had involving our kids spewing every bodily fluid on us in the course of one day, and he informed me that it wasn't a dream, it was last Sunday.) Then, I just laughed--in a more natural, non-stage-fright way--and told Miss M. that my husband was at home and had no plans to move, to India or anywhere else.

It was then Miss M's turn to laugh and look slightly puzzled: "D is non-stop," she said, as things like "natural comic" and other attributes that seem bizarre to pin to a 3 year old rolled off her tongue. Apparently in "circle" that morning, D had told his class and all his teachers, and I quote: "My daddy moved to India yesterday and my mommy and I are very sad but my brother is too baby he isn't sad."

After we exchanged a few more laughs and a bit of necessary awkward conversation, I collected my crazy D and all his stuff and drove us home. On the drive, my thoughts quickly turned from whether D was super imaginative or a pathological liar (I decided on the former) to something decidedly different: How did D make up that his daddy moved to India?

It still baffles me, really. Our race and ethnicity are not the usual stuff of conversation at our house (yet?) D hasn't been to India yet. In fact, I'm not sure if the word "India" has been used around D any more often than many other words. So how did he pick India as the backdrop for his daddy's imaginary furlough? How do we learn where we're from? Does D know he is Indian? He barely understands that "home" is a place, could he possibly understand that India is one? It's heady stuff, the way a child's mind works, and the way a child learns about race.

As is the natural corollary. If D somehow, implicitly, knows what "Indian" is, does he also know what other races are? And does he know that race makes people "different"? I'm reminded of my friend's 3 year old daughter who, when asked who was going to be the next President, responded "Obama! The black man!" My friend was somewhat aghast--especially as her daughter repeated the whole thing numerous times--and went out of her way to explain that she did not teach that particular qualifier to her daughter. So how did she pick it up?

I don't think racial identity and, by extension, prejudice are hard-wired. I am pretty sure you have to learn to hate. It's cool to see D play at his preschool amongst his "it's a small world" cadre of friends--Diego, Joaquin, Johnny (how cool is that? That Johnny is the one with the "weird" name...!) And yet: D's first friend at school was another little Indian boy, and D somehow selected him himself.

I can't tell you what that means but I'm pretty sure it means something. (Maybe I need some time in "circle" to figure it all out...!)

Goodbye 2008

In case you missed it--JibJab's salute to 2008:



Also, check out some of the stars' New Year's resolutions (including my personal favorite: "Eat more carbs"), as well as Lisa Belkin's round-up of resolutions for parents to make this year.

Then, after you feel adequately guilty for not making any New Year's resolutions, learn why nobody really keeps resolutions in the first place...!

A great weekend and a great 2009 to you and yours.

Advice From Your 50-something Self

I loved this post by Risa Green at MommyTrack'd so much I am going to re-print it in its entirety. It's the best New Year's resolution I've heard in a long time:

Happy Freakin' New Year

I am so glad that the holidays are over. I swear, if I have to look at one more ribbon or bow, I’ll hang myself with it. Now we can move on to bigger and better things, like the New Year, and what my resolution will be. I put a lot of thought into my New Year's resolutions. I don’t do lame ones that are destined to fail, like eat less sugar or clean out my closet. Instead, I try to find some behavior that is bringing me down somehow, and I resolve to change it. This year I’ve got a doozy. My resolution for 2009 is to pretend that I am twenty years older, and that I have been given a chance to go back in time and relive this period of my life. It’s a mouthful, I know. Eat less sugar would have been so much simpler. Obviously, I’m not doing so well with my 2007 New Years resolution, which was to try not to make things more complicated than they need to be.

But really, I think I’m on to something with this one. In twenty years, I’ll be fifty-five. My kids will be twenty-two and twenty-four. My husband will be fifty-four. If fifty-five year old me could go back and be thirty-five year old me again, I think that fifty-five year old me would a) be really psyched to not have so many wrinkles, and b) do some things a little differently. For example: my son is two years old. He whines a lot, and he’s going through a super clingy phase. He always wants me to pick him up, he’ll only let me put him to bed, and I can’t escape his room without a minimum of forty hugs before he’ll lie down in his crib. Now, this stuff drives me insane, especially when I’m starving and want to eat dinner and he’s yelling for me to come back into his room to give him his forty seventh hug, or when I’m trying to talk on the phone to my editor and he’s crying and screaming, “Uppy, mommy, uppy,” at the top of his lungs. But then I think about fifty-five year old me.

Fifty-five year old me would probably kill for the chance to pick up her son (who, let’s not forget, is now twenty-two), and have him wrap his arms around her neck and squeeze her so hard that she very nearly loses consciousness. Hell, with the way my back feels these days, fifty-five year old me would probably just be thrilled to not be an invalid anymore. And you see, when you think about it that way, you can’t help but be less annoyed by the kid, and more appreciative of just how sweet it is to have a little person love you so much that he just wants to be close to your face, even if it is at a particularly inconvenient time.

It works with other stuff, too. Sex, for example. When I think about fifty-five year old me – all menopausal and hot-flashy and saggy – not to mention her fifty-four year old husband – ahem – it makes me want to muster up the energy more often. Fifty-five year old me must long for the days when the only barrier to sex was being too tired. It works with my mother – she might be crazy now, but God only knows what she’ll be like in twenty years, if she’s even here at all. It even works with work. When I’m stressed out over a deadline, or late for a meeting because my daughter insisted on buttoning her sweater all by herself, I conjure fifty-five year old me, and she tells me to relax. One day, she whispers, when you’re an empty nester and your life is predictable, quiet and completely your own, you’ll miss this chaos. You’ll miss it terribly. I look at her, my eyebrow cocked with skepticism, and I ask her if she really means that. But she just smiles back, with her wrinkles and her grey hair that’s been colored blonde. Absolutely, she answers. Now have a happy freakin’ New Year, drink some champagne, and go have sex with your hot husband, because he’s not gonna’ look like this forever. And for God’s sake, don’t forget to wear sunscreen. Collagen doesn’t grow on trees, you know.