Madhesi Gathering: Shangrila: Jay Kishan Heights: New Year

Happy New Year 2009. That was the ring of the email Aniket Shah sent to the New York Metro Madhesi mailing list, now almost 50 strong. Who knew there were so many Madhesiyas around? The price tag was scary, but I braved it. My hero is Sam Walton. The guy had plastic chairs at the Walmart headquarters in Arkansas. I'd have said, let's go for a dinner buffet place, about $10 a head, and you could have asked $5 a head on top of that for the organization. That would still have had the price tag down by 10 bucks. But some other Madhesiyas have richer/finer tastes. The first ever gathering I ever got behind, it happened in Prospect Park, zero cost per person. That was once upon a time when Binay Shah and I were still talking. That remains my preferred format, not recommended for winter though. Zero cost, plentiful food. You convince Binay Shah to go shopping beforehand. New guy in town, you make it sound like that is how things are done in New York.

I think we should have one potluck picnic in central park like that. Every summer.

Google ranks a website by how many other websites link to that site. It is called PageRank. I have a concept called MadhesiRank. That is, how many Madhesiyas you know, and how many Madhesiyas know you. Binod Shah is easily the top name on that MadhesiRank list in Greater New York. (I realized only yesterday these people had also colonized Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Even PA is part of New York, first time I am hearing this.)

From my temporary fancy residence in Scarsdale I moved to the rugged immigrant experience residence in Ridgewood to be in the city, neither of them mine. In Nepal you would have said I moved from Mahuwa to Bhanu Chowk. Here they say I moved from a suburb to a ghetto. Maybe not ghetto. Inner city? Not inner city. What's the term? Uh, you should check out Myrtle Avenue at this time of the year. Like a bride at a Maithil wedding. I read up on Ridgewood online. Some big mafia bosses from the past century have been buried nearby. Should I be scared?

I am the person who launched ANTA in New York. Vasco De Gama? Christopher Columbus? Neil Armstrong? Tenzing? But I never joined ANTA. The first part offended Binod Shah, the second part offended Ratan Jha. That is a stroke of genius, to offend both of them. Binod Shah is like, what, who is this Ratan Jha, he never heard of me before? The thing is I had online notoriety for years before that. In the primitive internet era, there was but one online watering hole for Nepalis all across the world, called The Nepal Digest. They had to shut that site down because they could not put up with me no more. That notorious. So those of you who got surprised they kicked me out of Nepal Democracy Forum - small Google Group, big ego - I had track record. So it was only a matter of time before I also offended Charlie Rangel.

The solution to free speech is more free speech.

For the first and last time I would like to explain why I never joined ANTA. I will come to many ANTA events. I want to and do know all the active ANTA people. But I can't join. I will not join. For me my political work has not been hobby, it has been a second career, I have done cutting edge work. For that I have a digital democracy organization called Hamro Nepal, it is not a diaspora organization because I also have members in Nepal. It is completely digital. That is the only organization I can join. Because I necessarily have to stay free of the ANTA, NAC, NRN hierarchy to do the work I have done, 75% done, 25% left to do. It is about work. I have also had a basic complaint of lack of democracy and transparency in the whole NAC, NRN framework. There has to be bottom up, not top down.

So don't ask me if I will join ANTA. Ask me if I will show up for a particular event. That is to be decided on a case by case basis. Especially now as I embark on life, part two.

The beauty of my style of politics is everyone who ever read a news article somewhere thinks he is bigger than you politically. Maybe that is what grassroots politics is all about. Is there grassroots surgery?

Happy New Year 2009.

So I am at Amit Shah's place. He wants to start a business. I think he can. I am pitching him mine. Aniket Shah drops by. You want to raise money? Let's call the Madhesiyas together. Before I have my PowerPoint ready, Aniket Shah has sent out the email to the mailing list. We got an event. Happy New Year. So when I was the last speaker, and I talked about my business, and Binod Shah said, for that you have to organize your own dinner, I was about to say, what do you think this dinner got organized for?

But I am not pushing. I mean, if it is about investing, right now is a beautiful time to buy stocks. Stocks are down and out. Which means they will go up. So buy. I am giving a buy signal. And Divita Mehta thought she was the only finance whiz.

But not everyone can invest. For the average Madhesi in the Metro, rent comes first. I am with you. I feel your pain.

By the way Divita Mehta paid for my dinner yesterday. They say there is no free lunch. They mean but there is free dinner. I did not even know she was coming. Ritesh Chaudhary told me only two minutes before she arrived. And her father. Jai Mehta. He too. I was surprised to see both.

Good thing she paid, or I had estimated the cost to be $18, so loaned $20 to Anirudh, and had $20 for me. Five bucks short, they would have found out real fast.

I launched ANTA. Binay Shah and Ritesh Chaudhary expanded it. Wait. I expanded it to about six members, the big catch there was Satendra Shah, who has now become a brain drain to Colorado. Then the two expanded it. Then finally Binod Shah came in. And when he expanded it, he made it look like there was no ANTA before he came along.

Serial entrepreneurs are known to start many companies.

Amit Shah looks like the new face of ANTA, the one who will take the organization in the Metro to yet new heights. I saw a glimpse of it yesterday.

Nawal Yadav took a swipe at my not showing up for the Holi celebration last year. Maybe he never heard of Barack Obama. He also took a swipe at Binod Shah suggesting the Shah family should pay also for the two kids. I was thinking the other way round. The two parents should not have to pay for bringing the two kids along. Amit was boring me with a speech, at the same time Radhika was singing, Nagara, Nagara, Nagara Baja. That I thought was priceless.

Amit Shah's killer application is -- Google's is Gmail -- Amit's is the Holi idea. It would be the flagship ANTA event for the year, every year. The entire Nepali community would be the target audience. It would be a major fundraiser for ANTA. Piece of cake. Can be done.

Amit Shah claims he can sell 200 tickets all by himself. I believe him. I think there is plenty of Pahadi guilt in town that we should be able to sell 400 tickets. Prepare a list of about six ticket sellers, names and phone numbers, and I will send it out to my New York Nepali mailing list, 500 strong.

But don't put my name anywhere, I think you had me on some kind of a doorman sub sub committee.

Yesterday I had emails from Google's employee number one, and someone I am eyeing to be my CTO maybe, a major Web 2.0 name in Britain, Calcutta guy, CIO of the Year in Britain a few years back. They take me seriously. But one Nepali in Queens, good hearted guy, very earnestly suggested once to me that he heard I wanted to start a business, how about one of those job agencies, they seem to make good money. He took me to see a friend of his who already runs one. I thought that humiliation a little lighter, better than when I said round 1, round 2, round 3, and some people - Pahadi and Madhesi - are like, this guy is running some kind of a scheme. Listen to him politely, but stay away. Mareko Madhesiyale Jiundo Pahariyalai Thagchha.

A $10,000 investment in round 1 becoming $300 million in 30 years is based on what companies that started 30, 40 years ago did. That is a conservative estimate. No scheme. But there is always Pahadi prejudice. And there are Madhesiyas who claim they are too poor - "too ghetto" - to be able to invest $2000 to secure a retirement. Warren Buffett knocked on a friend's door, friends then, friends now, friends always in between. You know, college education is getting expensive, if you invest 10,000 in my startup now, that takes care of your kids' college when they grow up. The friend never came along. Today that 10,000 would have been 300 million. Hari Mahaseth is my friend now, my friend 30 years from now, and friend in between all along.

Ram Manohar Shah is such a presence online, I thought he did not exist offline, but he showed up.

Happy New Year 2009.

IC