Everyone asks me what I think of the “new India” now that I’m traveling around the country. My one-word answer would be it’s cold.

I have never been so cold in August in India. It’s actually swelteringly hot outside. In Delhi the parched landscapes of the hi-tech city seem to be gasping for air. In Kolkata it feels like an oven. In Hyderabad the boulder strewn red earth is baking.

But inside every building I go to it’s freezing. The brand new airport in Hyderabad needs a sweater. The malls are chilly. The airplane ride is so bone-chilling I had to dig a long-sleeved shirt out of my suitcase. The glitzy Indian School of Business is actually near Hyderabad but it feels like a Boston winter’s day inside.

Every time I come out of a mall or an office building I feel like I am enveloped in a cloud of condensation. My friend who is a photographer found his lens fogged up when he tried to take pictures. The camera had been sitting in the uber air-conditioned hotel room for two long. We had to sit and wait for it to re-adjust to the warm air outside.

These days in India it is much in vogue to try and find the “real India” versus the “new India.” There is a lot of buzz about the new issue Vogue India where poor Indians are posed against luxury goods. The goods flaunt their brand names such as Burberry and Fendi, the farmers and other Indians are nameless.

Everyone is trying to find the image that juxtaposes the two Indias – the slum next to the gated community in Gurgaon, the poor daily help and her mistress’ BMW, the rickshawpuller near the glam mall.

But I think it’s silly to posit one as the “real” India and one as not. They are both real. One is just air-conditioned. And there’s always a doorway leading from one to the other.

It’s good to know that despite the colossal mess the country’s immigration system is in, the government is working overtime to fix it.

For example, coming up with something like ICE Scheduled Departure Program for non-criminal fugitive aliens.

It’s so simple, it’s brilliant.

In a nutshell you turn yourself in and you deport yourself. In a tottering economy, you save the tax payers thousands of dollars. And you have the privilege of deporting yourself.

Ask not what ICE can do for you. Ask what you can do for ICE. Like its job, I guess.

There’s even a handy 1-866 toll free number you can call if “you are an immigration fugitive and have questions about whether you qualify for the Scheduled Departure Program.”

I didn’t dare try it out but I imagine it could go like this.

“If you are an illegal immigrant please press 1. Para Espanol marque dos.

You have pressed 2. Please state your name and address clearly after the tone. An ICE agent will come by shortly to detain you. Thank you for your cooperation.”

But suppose you pressed 1.

“If you are an illegal immigrant with a valid ID please press 1.

For quality assurance purposes an ICE Agent may monitor your call.(That’s your FISA dollars at work)

Please enter your 9 digit Social Security number followed by the # sign to see if you are eligible for this special limited time self –deportation offer.

Thank you for using Self-Deport. We hope you had a pleasant stay in the U.S. and we wish you a safe onward journey.”

Indians, being notoriously cheap and ever willing to exploit the government for a nickel and dime, my friend wondered if the self-deport scheme extended beyond Mexico.

“Could I somehow get a free ticket to India?” he wondered. “Airfares are getting really expensive.”

I had to disillusion him. The government isn’t going to pay your way home. In fact ICE suggests you show up for self-deportation with “Any flight preparations that may have been prepared or requested.”

If you really want someone to pay for your deportation, according to the New York Times your best bet these days would be a hospital.

Of course you could always just drive across the border back to Mexico if you really wanted to deport yourself. But please consider self-deportation. It’s easy, it’s convenient, and you can do it yourself. It’s the ultimate example of American can-do-ness. Americans install their own kitchen cabinets, fix their own cars, build their own patios. They have self-service everything from teller machines to coffee.

Now you have self deportation. How much more American can you be?

Immigration stories by New America Media

Ok, who is the biggest blockbuster hero of the week?

Here is one clue – it is a six-letter word and it starts with B. Second letter is A

B A _ _ _ _

Alright, how many of you got Batman and how many got Barack? Either way the Dark Knight is definitely the media star of the week.

The Economist says an Obama spokesman summed up the trip’s implicit message simply: “When President Bush goes abroad, there are big crowds protesting. When I go abroad, there are big crowds cheering.”

Big crowds are cheering The Dark Knight too. USA Today says it’s the fastest movie to reach $200 million. This is according to Jeff Bock, an analyst at box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations – “a juggernaut.”

Here’s a recent headline from The Telegraph in the U.K. – US elections: Barack Obama juggernaut ‘will crush John McCain’.

Do a Google search on Barack Obama and juggernaut. That’s a lot of matches.

Which leads me to believe that Barack Obama’s secret identity is not a Muslim. He is really Batman.

Should we expect an Ich Bin Batman speech soon?

If you watched The Dark Knight there are clues in there aplenty that this is a film for an election year.

Remember the line about “People will lose hope.”

How about “We bet it all on him.”

Of course this does not make McCain the Joker. Though I bet he is hoping he is the “immovable object” to Obama’s “unstoppable force.” And latest poll numbers suggest in some states McCain’s numbers are moving up despite Obama’s Magical Mystery Tour.

Buried in there is even a warning about giving someone, no matter how appealing, unparalleled surveillance powers. Morgan Freeman voices that in the film but he is just a lonely voice of caution. After all the surveillance power is used for the greater good (just as we were promised the PATRIOT Act would be).

And if after all this Obama doesn’t win in November, (the polls are a lot closer than the media buzz) The Dark Knight has the perfect epitaph.

“He’s the hero (America) deserves but not the one it needs now.”

My Chihuahua is for Obama.

She thinks the AP-Yahoo poll which found that pet owners favor McCain over Obama 42 percent to 37 percent, with dog owners particularly in McCain’s corner is just barking up the wrong tree. I am just astonished 1,759 adults actually took part in the poll and didn’t hang up the phone thinking it was a prank call.

My dog says she wants to know what kind of dogs were surveyed. She thinks polls like this frequently focus on big family dogs, the labs and retrievers. She says small dogs especially Chihuahuas (think Mexican) are frequently left out of the survey. She notes that the American Kennel Club poll for what kind of dog Obama, win or lose, should add to his household does not include a Chihuahua. That would be too politically sensitive, more so than a fist bump.

She is curious why it includes a Bichon Frise, Chinese Crested or Miniature Schnauzer. My dog thinks Obama should beware of the American Kennel Club. She is sure that the it is part of a swiftboating campaign that’s trying to make Obama seem as foreign as possible to other Americans. Otherwise why present so many foreign sounding options? I mean how many Americans can even pronounce Bichon Frise?

My Chihuahua who just had very expensive cataract surgery and does not have any insurance thinks Obama might actually have a health plan for her. She also thinks as a small dog who has to share playgrounds with large dogs, she wants a President who knows what it’s like to be a minority. She thinks he might expand Chihuahua Cha Cha, a safe space for small dogs in San Francisco, across the country.

Dogs are not a monolithic voting bloc, she tells me no matter what figures Yahoo-AP barks out. I reminded her the poll was about pet owners, not pets and she said it’s a well known fact that “human companions” merely reflect the votes of their “animals.”

The poll also found cat owners favored McCain 41 to 38 percent. I told my cat that and he just shrugged. He says he’s yet to find a cat who cares one way or the other.

He doesn’t care what color the president is, as long he catches mice.

I thought I had problems with my name. I share my first and last name with the son of India’s most celebrated filmmaker, the late Satyajit Ray. I once went to cover an event honoring him and this man seeing my name came up to me and started talking about how he’d once met my father. When he started going into camera angles I realized he was talking not about my civil engineer dad, but Satyajit Ray.

But that confusion is nothing compared to this news I read recently. Apparently a man convicted of rape in India shares his name with India’s hallowed first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. This Jawaharlal Nehru unfortunately is accused of raping a 16-year-old woman in 1988. He appealed against his sentence to the Supreme Court saying he’d been implicated because he’d refused to buy firewood for the young woman and her mother.

But instead of the facts of the case, the justices have been caught up with the name of the defendant.

“You have committed a rape and share the name with Jawaharlal Nehru?” the judge said. “It is a disgrace to the national ethos.”

Now the Supreme Court is wondering if we should change the names of criminals who share the names of iconic national leaders.

Hmmm I wonder if there are any criminals in the US who are named George Bush or Dick Cheney who’d like to change THEIR names.