Nikki Haley, Ajit Pai, and Seema Verma released a country music album this week about trekking down the lonely road of life as hard-right Americans of Indian descent.
The country music album setting Nashville–and D.C., and New Dehli, for that matter–on fire this week is “Maudlin Masala Mayhem,” the freshman endeavor by a most unlikely group of musicians: the top three Americans of Indian descent in the good ol’ Trump administration. We spoke to Nikki Haley, Ajit Pai, and Seema Verma about how this improbable trio got together as they prepared to drop their first album. Our own Pietro Travesty headed down to D.C to get the details.
Backstabbers Who Play Banjo
I met Haley, Pai, and Verma at A Taste of India-Na, which seemed an appropriate choice, given that it’s an Indian-Indianan fusion restaurant inspired by whiter-than-white Mike Pence and his love of Subcontinental fare.
The three most well-known Indians in the Trump administration walked in together, Haley and Verma smiling and chatting with forced warmth, as Pai discussed further restricting access to the Internet with a fellow viper at Verizon. Haley, Verma, and I introduced ourselves, as Pai hurried to end his deranged discussion.
“Sorry about that, man,” he said, extending a hand to shake mine, then squeezing it like a true overgrown frat bro. “People aren’t going to rescind Net Neutrality themselves, am I right?” he asked slapping me on the arm. “What about these two, huh? Some really pretty Indian ladies.”
Haley blushed noticeably, as Verma pulled her houndstooth blazer taught with two quick tugs. The three sat down, Haley’s spine as rigid as her worldview, while Verma slouched next to her, much as the health of every American slumps a little further with her every move in office. A busboy scampered over with a jug of water and filled our glasses.
“Jose, my man, lemme get the usual,” Pai said to him without looking away from me. “Ok, let’s talk about this album, I need to stay on schedule. Got a lot of access to information to restrict.”
I asked the three when their love of country music took shape.
Haley was the first to chime in, saying that as a South Carolina native, she grew up listening to the genre, popular as it is below the Mason-Dixon line.
“I always had.a special fondness for the ballads about heartbreak,” Haley said. “I feel like it really informed my decision, actually, to be this uber-conservative Indian woman serving as U.N. ambassador. Just like most country love-gone-wrong songs are about one heart breaking, I think I can ruin lives around the world by killing one dream–breaking one heart–at a time.”
The busboy placed a scotch neat in front of Pai who gulped it down with gusto, then looked at me and winked.
Verma nodded her support of the sentiment Haley had just expressed
“Just to piggyback on Ms. Haley’s really astute observation there,” she began, “I actually really feel that my love of–and now creation of–country music, which started when I took the job as Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid–supports the damage I’m trying to inflict on the country with the awesome responsibility of this job….It can get pretty intense doing things like punishing poor people by requiring them to work for Medicaid benefits. So I listen to a down-on-my-luck country crooner and I think to myself, ‘Seema, you helped ruin a life, just like the one this guy is singing about.'”
The three of us turned to Pai, head of the Federal Communications Commission, expectantly. He was looking down at his phone again.
“Uuuuuuuuhhhhh…yeah….so, yeah,’ he looked up suddenly, “Yeah, these chicks are sexy and smart, know what I’m sayin’, man? I’m totally into country, cuz like, anything I can do to ingratiate myself to white people.–I’m down for it, bra.” He put his fist forward for a bro-pound, which I delivered.
The Opposite of Namaste
Despite their hectic schedules trying their best to worsen the quality of life for as many Americans as possible in 2017, Haly, Pai, and Verma crossed paths and came to know of each others’ love of country.
“We really think it’s annoying how everyone assumes every Indian is like, ‘Oh, ahimsa, asanas, whatever,'” said Haley, referencing the Hindu concept that all beings are connected, so to harm one is to harm all, and the Sanskrit word for yoga poses.
“Dude–I’m way more into Ashanti: chaos and violence,” Pai said, his leg shaking manically underneath our table causing the silverware to shake as our waiter introduced himself and placed menus in front of us. He then made a rock on symbol with his manicured hand, extended his tongue, and did a mini-head bang.
Haley said the three were pleasantly surprised–in their own special, repressed way–of their shared love of one of America’s most essential and enduring forms of music, country,
“We’re all about giving back–well, mostly taking from, actually,” said Haley, with a loud, awkward chuckle. “And we needed a way to unwind after work. We thought why not contribute to country music as we draw inspiration from it. That’s where are giving, of any sort, ends, of course.”
The three began meeting in the sprawling basement of Pai’s Alexandria, Virginia McMansion. Haley brought her banjo, the strings of which she rubs turmeric on to keep them soft and remind her of the heritage she acknowledges but isn’t obnoxious about. Verma came with her harmonium, which looks like a piano crossed with an accordion, and she affectionately calls the Harmonium of Horrid Health. The moniker keeps foremost in her mind her mission to Make America Sick Again.
“And my beat-barrels were already, there, cuz it was my pad, so…” Pai opined. “I like to think every time I hit that snare with my sticks, someone’s wireless router–somewhere–turns off, like, those flashing green lights go dark, you know?”
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Teasing Out the Treacherous Tunes
“They say the last things you remember as you age and your mind goes are song lyrics. So I think the three of us can all agree that when the Trump administration is nothing but a sad, unfortunate footnote in the history of the United States, and by extension, we are living out our last years in ignominious shame, essentially in exile in our home communities, we want the world to remember the pure nature of our idiocy and cruelty,” Haley offered, following off her potent mini-speech with a sip of water.
Pai and Verma looked at her with mouths agape, eyes wide.
“Yeah, right, totally. So, we just started jotting down some lyrics about what it makes us feel like, deep inside our coconut–brown on the outside, white on the inside–souls, to be nasty, uninteresting people in positions where we’re lucky enough to harm as many humans as possible,” Verma said.
“I’d, like, start pounding on my drums, get us a beat, and it just like went off from there,” Pai added, looking at Haley and Verma, his hand making the vague shape of a bird in flight in front of him.
The three noted their small, hard hearts went into crafting every note-transition and lyrical lamentation of the 12 treasonous tunes on their first album, “Maudlin Masala Mayhem.”
“Don’t get us wrong, none of us are intelligent or creative enough, nor do we have any interest in being so. We’re not innovators.We all got to where we are by excelling in contexts and in ways that are ordinary and, frankly, a little dull,” Haley said. “So we looked to some people with actual skill who gave America some of its most beloved country songs.”
“My favorite song is that I wrote for “Maudlin Masala Mayhem” is ‘Stand By Your White Man,'” Haley noted, giggling and leaning to the side, and for the first time in our chat, Â loosening up. “I love Tammy Wynette, and I hope Indian girls everywhere listen to this and really know their place in the world, both as females and desis,” she said, using the Hindi term for “native.”
Verma gave her a quiet, mini-round of applause.
“Can I just…ok, yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off, Ms. Haley,” Verma said. “The song I’m most proud of is, ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter Who Has Mesothelioma.'” Obviously, in writing it, I was inspired by the Loretta Lynn classic, “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” I think it really brings home how I want people to work really, really hard to earn their health care, not be given it because it’s a human right. And then I hope they get rare cancers doing that work, so….yeah,” she said, her voice trailing off, as the three of us again looked at Pai, expecting a response. He threw back another scotch and looked over at us, his eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Sorry, dudes…Favorite song…Oh, gotta be ‘Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Have Open and Free Access to Any Website They Choose’ Â I love that song by Willie Nelson, ‘Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,’ but I think mine does a better job of reminding everyone they can’t just have information. They have to accept what Internet Providers want them to have. See, we like the Deep State when it suits us. I accepted when I was in first grade that I’d spend my life working hard to please my brown mom and dad..and now my white dad, The Donald.”
As the waiter came back and genially told us he was ready to take our orders, Haley looked at the clock and noted that it was three, meaning she had to scurry back to her obsequious office to resume to her busy day of dumbed-down diplomacy.
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She and Verma shook my hand again, smiling with zipped-up ceremoniousness. Pai gave me a chest-bumping man-hug, with a few hard slaps on the back.
The three made their way out, as I opted to stay and indulge in some spicy-yet-bland Indian-Indianan fusion cuisine, marveling at the utterly insipid, impressively unpleasant twenty minutes I’d shared with the three most traditionalist, retrograde, yet country-music-loving-and-creating, Indians I’d ever have the misfortune to meet.
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© 2018 Akbar Khan
