LEAN IN, LADIES!
THE WEEK India|August 11, 2024
From fashion to food to spirituality, how Indian are Kamala Harris and Usha Chilukuri Vance?
ANJULY MATHAI
LEAN IN, LADIES!

THE US VICE PRESIDENT and likely presidential candidate Kamala Harris is killing it on the internet! There was a time when the world loved to mock anything Harris-ianfrom her unbridled laugh to her dance moves to her love for venn-diagrams to her hair-care routine (apparently, she spends a lot of time on it while on trips) to her "word salads", when she uses incomprehensible turns of phrase. Today, however, the narrative has turned. What once left people scratching their heads ("What can be, unburdened by what has been") has now been reclaimed by her supporters. They are mining deep meaning from it, whether she meant it or not. Like her line from a speech last year, when she said, "You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?"

Republicans compared it to a daffy talk show while Democrats spliced it into a Taylor Swift track. But Indians immediately knew what she was talking about. It is exactly the kind of thing an Indian mother would tell her children, like Harris's Tamilian mother Shyamala told her and her younger sister, Maya. In fact, everything Indian about Harris is thanks to her mother. After separating from her Jamaican husband, Shyamala raised Harris and her sister mostly on her own in a Berkeley suburb.

"My mother, grandparents, aunts and uncles instilled us with pride in our South Asian roots," Harris writes in her autobiography, The Truths We Hold. "All of my mother's words of affection or frustration came out in her mother tongue-which seems fitting to me, since the purity of those emotions is what I associate with my mother most of all."

この記事は THE WEEK India の August 11, 2024 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。

この記事は THE WEEK India の August 11, 2024 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。

THE WEEK INDIAのその他の記事すべて表示
The day of the knuckle-duster
THE WEEK India

The day of the knuckle-duster

Several narratives have emerged from the Donald Trump-Volodymyr Zelensky-J.D. Vance dust-up in the Oval office, the most disturbing being the opinion that “Zelensky invited it”.

time-read
2 分  |
March 23, 2025
The AGI dilemma
THE WEEK India

The AGI dilemma

Spooky and powerful, AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), the planet’s newest technology, has divine benefits, as also diabolical applications that can trigger our destruction.

time-read
2 分  |
March 23, 2025
I want to transform MP into a powerhouse of development
THE WEEK India

I want to transform MP into a powerhouse of development

GIS 2025 surpassed expectations in investment commitments, participation, and policy impact.

time-read
3 分  |
March 23, 2025
It is not NEP 2020, it is RSS 2020
THE WEEK India

It is not NEP 2020, it is RSS 2020

TAMIL NADU’S RESISTANCE to the three-language policy under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has reignited the debate over linguistic identity.

time-read
4 分  |
March 23, 2025
Munde blues
THE WEEK India

Munde blues

Just months into its tenure, the Fadnavis government suffers multiple blows

time-read
3 分  |
March 23, 2025
Plastic buckets and parliament seats
THE WEEK India

Plastic buckets and parliament seats

The plastics industry boomed in the 1970s when our rulers told our people to make fewer babies. The dairy industry, already on a high milkmark, should boom if Telugu Desam MP Kalisetti Appalanaidu gets people to make more babies. What’s the connection? Hold on. First listen to India’s population story that’s already a statistical farce, and may soon be a political tragedy.

time-read
2 分  |
March 23, 2025
MDGA-Make Diplomacy Great Again
THE WEEK India

MDGA-Make Diplomacy Great Again

Must say that all the reports of 'Agent Krasnov' make fascinating reading—like one of those old school, thick-as-a-brick bestsellers that Irving Wallace and Robert Ludlum used to write.

time-read
2 分  |
March 23, 2025
In search of Pampa
THE WEEK India

In search of Pampa

Salman Rushdie breathes life to the forgotten goddess Pampa Devi in his novel Victory City (2023).

time-read
2 分  |
March 23, 2025
Centre of attraction
THE WEEK India

Centre of attraction

If the enthusiasm at the Global Investors Summit is anything to go by, Madhya Pradesh is poised to write a new chapter of development

time-read
2 分  |
March 23, 2025
RO AND BEHOLD!
THE WEEK India

RO AND BEHOLD!

As the Champions Trophy win showed, the Rohit Sharma-led veteran brigade might not be over the hill. However, they will have to be on their toes as age and younger talent catch up

time-read
5 分  |
March 23, 2025