Fortune's caprice knows no limits. A butterfly's wingbeat in the Amazon causes a tornado in Oklahoma. The video of a political rally in The Breaks, Virginia makes fathers in Calcutta take a new look at their sons. Yes, Siddarth's dad was appointed to a critical DNC committee, and "may have a role in the election of the next US President in 2008". This just in from the Calcutta Telegraph:
`Macaca' catapults dad to Democrat [sic] chairWashington, March 25: It is not unusual for sons and daughters of politician-fathers - or mothers - to ride piggyback on their parents into political office, but among Indian Americans the reverse is turning out to be true.
At least one ethnic Indian father is rising to national fame in the US because of his son and may have a role in the election of the next US President in 2008.
The Democratic National Committee's chairman, Howard Dean, last week appointed Shekar Narasimhan a co-chair of the party's Indo-American Leadership Council (IALC).
Narasimhan is the father of a 20-year-old ethnic Indian student here, who enabled Democrats, by a freak, to gain the one-vote majority they needed in last November's election for control of the US Senate.
It all started in August last year, when one of Virginia's most popular Republican politicians, sitting US Senator and a possible front-runner to replace George W. Bush as President in 2009, made a politically fatal mistake.
George Allen spotted a 20-year-old American student of Indian origin trailing him on his Senate re-election campaign with a video camera. In a moment of politically incorrect misjudgement, Allen referred to S.R. Sidarth as a "macaca" in front of 100-odd white people.
Strange and wonderful, the winds of change blow in all directions. Congratulations Mr. Narasimhan, wherever you are.