What’s the big fuss about? An American has won the Miss America title. So good. I am happy for Nina Davuluri whose first statement on being crowned was, “I am an American.”

Right on, lady, you are. So why are all the Indians behaving like they had a hand in this and it’s something they must celebrate or dump on. What part of it don’t we understand? She is not an Indian.

We are the first to own success that is not ours. We did it with Amartya Sen, we did it with V.S.Naipaul.  We do it with Norah Jones and Bobby Jindal. We even did it with Amar Bose like he sat in Panipat and made those wonderful sound systems.
 
These are not NRIs. They are full-fledged foreigners with foreign passports and there is nothing wrong in that, it is our different responses that are offending. We have experts giving us lectures these past two days on the socio-psychological impact of this phenomenon, of the new-found esteem, the new social order, the true American embodiment of mixed cultures and I am thinking come on, get a life, there are bigger things happening, is this even an issue? There is even a story on how she would never have won in India because she is too dark and dark Indians are damned (which is true) but she wouldn’t have been eligible since she is not Indian so that makes it a moot point.

Of course, the south Indians are delighted because they ‘beat’ the north Indians (hahaha, so much for your fair-skinned beauties) and  the northerners are happy because they beat the WASPS (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) and all the non-white people are happy because Miss America wasn’t blonde and blue-eyed and the whites are saying, what’s all this, isn’t a black man in the White House enough ,now we have an Indian with a crown and what is she Sioux or Cherokee and you wonder, sometimes, why can’t you just have a nice evening, enjoy her little victory and let her spend the year making those mind numbing statements of good intent that all winners do, starting with the impact that Mother Teresa has had on them. Yes, sure.