In the 1980s, as India fought its dirty war to quash Sikh separatism, it inadvertently inspired a new generation of savvy Canadian Sikh politicians. Stepping off the plane, the first-time visitor to Toronto might be surprised at what seems like a Sikh monopoly on jobs at Pearson International Airport. Everyone, from the customs and immigration officials to the elderly "aunties" mopping the floors, are Sikhs, and all reflecting their characteristic image: proud and hard-working.

Diasporics have generally favoured the technologies that allow for narrowcasting to target specific audiences over those that provide the means for mass communication. Diasporic communication networks are sometimes viewed as forming alternatives to the structures of corporate globalisation. Commentators writing from the perspectives of cultural studies and postcolonialism tend to see them as "the empire striking back". The diasporic site becomes the cultural border, Homi Bhabha’s metaphorical "third space", lying between the country of origin and the country of residence.

A community that has become a state of mind. An Anglo-Indian these days is almost a state of mind. Many who became part of the community’s diaspora after India and Pakistan gained Independence in 1947, never declare themselves as Anglo-Indians, seemingly eager to disappear into their host societies in the Anglophone countries of the West.

About 10 million people of South Asian origin can be found living outside their ‘homeland’—from the Caribbean to Fiji, from Canada to New Zealand. They are con-centrated in North America, Southeast Asia (mainly Malaysia, Burma and Singapore), Europe (mainly the UK), Eastern and Southern Africa (mostly Mauritius and South Africa), the Caribbean, the Pacific (mostly in Fiji), and now, as migrant workers, in West Asia.

In the sweat shops of Silicon Valley, immigrant dreams are shattered. "Hurry up Line 1! You are not here to talk, you are here to work! GEE-VAAN WHAT’S THE HOLD UP?!" The supervisor’s words always carried a certain violence, intended to elicit immediate obedience, the way a prison guard would use a night_stick. Jivan had only been at the plant for a few months, but had grown accustomed to the daily harassment by the supervisor. So, in response to the harangue, he went back to stocking the conveyer belt with printers, but not before saying, "You know, in India workers would not stand for this treatment."

We began our study of the Hindu Right in the United States several years ago, when word of large funds being transferred to India by sympathetic organisations started doing the rounds. Of course, the flow of such cash to the ‘mother country’ was not a novel occurrence among South Asians, as we had before us the highly publicised cases of the generosity of some Sri Lankan Tamils towards the LTTE, as well as of European, Canadian and American Sikhs towards Khalistani groups in Punjab.

Even politically correct nay-saying nabobs have now begun to grudgingly admit that India, in addition to being a Nuclear Power, is also a Pretty Power. You may well ask: What is the connection between beauty pageants and a nuclear weapons programme? Everything. Just as a country is only taken seriously by the international community when it acquires weapons of mass destruction, in the same manner a country whose women are judged the most beautiful in the known universe will find that it is suddenly no longer the butt of jokes in faraway capitals.

Tetramethrin Deltamath had time on his hands and an interest in the sky, so he set across the world, chasing solar eclipses. Packed his bags, kissed his wife and was off, waving hands, promising to return in 2046, July 26, the date of the next hometown eclipse.

For Richard Lannoy Mother Goddess Pepper vines ring the jackfruit tree that is her shrine. She claims tributes of colour: indigo is hers, and saffron, and carmine.

The foreign hand The excellent report, "Gods in Exile" (October 1999, Himal), took me back many years when I was working in Nepal. At that time, I had read Juergen Schick's The Gods Are Leaving the Country (in German) and was shocked to learn of the theft of Nepali sculptures. When I came back to Europe, I tried to start a project to catalogue the remaining statues, and wrote to several international organisations seeking their help.

When it comes to Tibetan history, the tendency is to begin by focusing on the Buddhist heritage that took root in the early 7th century with King Srongsten Gompo. Civilisation in Tibet, however, originated much earlier and is associated with the lost kingdom of Shang Shung of the north and west of the Changtang Plateau. The character and extent of this mysterious civilisation is only now emerging as scholars search for cultural and archaeological remains of that distant past. John Vincent Bellezza has been part of this process of discovery and has used the texts of Bon, the indigenous religion of Tibet, to locate the temples, forts and villages of Shang Shung. Emerging from Tibet one more time recently, he writes of simple discoveries with intriguing antecedents. A hundred and fifty kilometres north of Lhasa rises Nyenchen Thanglha, the great sacred mountain of Tibet's north country. Standing 7000 metres tall, this massif is the centrepiece of the Trans-Himalayan range and considered the mythical legendary ruler of the 360 neighbouring peaks. According to ancient Tibetan mythology, Nyenchen Thanglha is inhabited by a white archetypal father figure mounted on a white steed, who was worshipped by local rulers.

At the same time as India gets ready to launch the 'second phase' of neo-liberal economic 'reforms', the Bharatiya Janata Party-dominated government is trying to ram through a Hindu sectarian agenda in culture and education.

SOUTH ASIA Call us spoilsports, party poopers, or anti-fun, but we refuse to get goose-haired or drunk over a date, and we don’t particularly relish the idea of being forced to party at media-gun-point. Nor do we want to enhance the company of some South Asian English-educated executive types who are sure to make a mess of themselves between 31 December 1999 and 1 January 2000.

BANGLADESH There might be some very good reason for calling hartals, but as yet, the general public has not been let into the secret. Not that it particularly cares, knowing only too well that politics is not about their wishes and wills, but a crass and continuous strategy to usurp power.

PAKISTAN  The suspense mounted as 16 November drew near. A month earlier, the new military ruler of Pakistan, Gen Pervez Musharraf, had warned all "willful" loan defaulters to repay their debts back to the banks by that date or face the consequences. The build-up to mid-November was marked by daily countdowns in newspapers and TV, and advertised warnings. But when the day came around, the defaulters had returned only 10 billion rupees out of the total colossal figure of PKR 211 billion (USD 1 = PKR 50 approx).

By the time she died at age 89 on 20 November, Begum Sufia Kamal had accomplished what would take more ordinary folks many lifetimes. One of the earliest Muslim Bengalee women poets, Begum Sufia was also probably the first Muslim woman in the world to have taken a plane ride (in 1928), and that too in a burqah. She was part of almost all the progressive women's movements of her time, both in pre-independent India and Bangladesh. She was an inspiration to many women politicians, but was never affiliated to any party, and this in a partisan land, is saying something.

A Sri Lanka Air Force helicopter scattered jasmine blossoms on the cortege of Savumyamoorthy Thondaman, the son of a humble plantation worker who made the long trek from South India to Sri Lanka's hilly tea country in search of the crock of gold at the end of the eternal rainbow. Karuppiah "Head Kangany", Thondaman's father, did make his fortune, eventually buying the British-owned estate where he had once laboured.

With the deepening shadow of the military rule, it looked for a while as if the entertainment-starved citizens of Lahore would get a raw deal. As the time neared for the Third International Theatre and Dance Festival, to run from 12-22 November, queries from around the world came thick and fast to the organisers, Lahore's Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop, as to whether it would be safe to visit Pakistan at all.