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Addressing the growing student body Melvin Durai Melvin Durai is an Indiana-based writer and humorist. Born in Tamil Nadu, India, he grew up in Zambia and moved to the U.S. in the early 1980s. In 1995, while working as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Chambersburg, Pa., he began writing a regular humor column. His weekly column now appears in several newspapers and on a number of Web sites. He also writes a twice-monthly column on Indian and Indian-American issues. He is a diehard fan of the National Football League and also likes to run, lift weights and play soccer, tennis and pool. An award-winning feature writer and aspiring novelist, he plans to publish a collection of his best columns. You can write to him at comments@melvindurai.com To read his older columns, go to http://www.melvindurai.com

"Good evening and welcome to the first monthly meeting of the Indian Students Association of Purdue University. My name is Mohan Bhatt and I will serve as president during this academic year, thanks to the powerful coalition of engineering and computer science students. For students in other fields, I'd like to make this promise: I will try my best to satisfy both of you.

I'm determined to fulfill all my campaign promises -- I've already asked the Director of Food Services to consider changing the cafeteria menus slightly, replacing dinner rolls with chapatis. He wants to please the Hispanic students, too, so I've suggested that he puts two signs over the same item, one that says 'chapatis' in Hindi, the other 'tortillas' in Spanish.

I reminded him that the number of Indian students has more than doubled since last year. That's why we had to move our meetings from the student union building to the football stadium. I apologize to those of you who still can't find a seat. Please feel free to squat in the aisles. Just don't get in the way of the samosa vendors.

Such overcrowding is being felt all over America. The number of new Indian students has almost doubled in the last five years. In fact, a record 66,836 students came from India in 2001, allowing us to finally beat China in something. And even more significant, we've helped reduce the population of our motherland. What better way to show our patriotism.

But as you know, Purdue and other universities are largely unprepared for the influx of Indians. Just look at the movies being shown on campus and you will see that not a single one features Aishwarya Rai. The local video stores are no better: if you want to see an Indian movie, you'll have to watch 'Gandhi.' I've already seen it 15 times, and I still don't understand why they couldn't let the Mahatma do a little singing and dancing.

While I'm on the subject of entertainment, you may have noticed that cable TV on campus is sorely lacking. I missed the entire Test series against England. No highlights on ESPN or anything. But I do have some good news for you: Some of our computer science students have reprogrammed the TV receiver in the student lounge. It now picks up Zee TV -- as long as Rajiv Gupta attaches his spectacles to the antenna. Apparently they are special specs, available only in Kolkata, but anyone who wants to borrow them from Rajiv can do so for $9.99 an hour.

We are also trying to address another important issue: we've learned that Purdue now has almost 50 students named Sanjay Patel. This can be rather confusing. Just last week, one Sanjay Patel wrote a bad check and the police arrested five others. The students are really upset and want me to solve this problem. If I don't, they're threatening to form their own group, the Sanjay Patel Association.

Thankfully, I've already found a solution. Every Sanjay Patel has been randomly assigned an American first name beginning with 'S.' Your new name will be emailed to you in a few days. I apologize in advance to Sinbad Patel and Santa Patel."

For an email subscription to Melvin's regular weekly columns (not the ones that appear here), go to www.MelvinDurai.com

Cartoon Copyright © Sudeep Ross

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