QUOTA OF QUOTES
“I don’t know where they get off saying that America has this freedom of speech thing. That’s the one freedom they don’t have … Nobody says what they want to say.” – Indo-Canadian comedian Russell Peters, who now lives in Los Angeles. (CBC)
“My sister and I had this system of going to the public library and sticking CDs in books that my parents approved of, books about turtles or nature. So we’d sneak them in the house and listen to them when my folks went off to work. And every time we heard the garage door opening? Rock ’n’ roll time was over.” – Indian-American rocker Shilpa Ray, who sings and plays the harmonium for the group Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers. (San Francisco Examiner)
“Some of them come back having lost their buddies, some of them come back having lost their limbs, and things have changed for them forever. To be able to sit down and show compassion for soldiers I have never met before is part of the message of Christ as well as [the Hindu teachings] of Vedanta.” – U.S. Army Captain Pratima Dharm, 40, who has been named the first Hindu chaplain to serve the Department of Defense. (Stars and Stripes)
“There’s a lot of buzz in India because I was in the top three. My parents are excited. My mother is happy that I’ve done justice to the food.” – Sudhir Kandula, whose Spice Coast restaurant concept almost won the competition for investors on NBC’s America’s Next Great Restaurant. (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
“Bollywood girls are much slimmer than their counterparts down South. The size zero phenomenon would not be appreciated in the South. The men like their women to be fleshier.” – Actress Priyamani, who has appeared in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam movies, as well as a couple of Bollywood films. (India Today)
“The customer is the king. Wherever the customer wants the services to be, we can provide.” – Madhu Vuppuluri, an executive for Indian-owned Essar Group, which employs 70,000 people on several continents, including 5,000 at nine U.S. call centers.
Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
[Comments? Contributions? We would love to hear from you about Chai Time. If you have contributions, please email us at melvin@melvindurai.com. We welcome jokes, quotes, online clips and more]
Enjoyed reading Khabar magazine? Subscribe to Khabar and get a full digital copy of this Indian-American community magazine.
