But why do I mock? Maybe this is the essence of democracy: every person’s shot at fame comes from the fair opportunity to appear on television.

In this wasteland of the television dream, it is wonderful to find someone like eighteen-year-old Ravi Mulani who has been blogging about the convention for sepiamutiny.com. Mulani read Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams From My Father, and was struck by its honesty. It gave him a model. “It’s in the teenager’s interest to be painfully honest,” he said.

Mulani was born in Danbury to parents who had migrated from Mumbai, and he grew up in the city of Chicago where Obama had found his purpose. Mulani persuaded all his friends to read the book. He told me, “Barack Obama doubled our debate team.” Later, Mulani went to Washington D C to compete in debates, and, because Illinois Senators have a tradition of having breakfast on Thursdays with their constituents, he visited the young Senator several times.

In the fall, Mulani is going to join Harvard and work on a degree in applied mathematics. When I asked him to tell me about his experience here in Denver, Mulani noted how much more diverse the attendance at the event was. He said, “Whether the country is ready for Barack or not, this convention is showing how rapidly this country is changing. This country has had this feel for a long time, but this is the first time that a convention is showing this reality.”

The 2008 Democratic convention has the largest number of black delegates in history, as well as Asian Americans, and also gays and lesbians. Mulani didn’t say this to me, but wouldn’t it also be a first of a sort that he is here, barely out of high school, reporting on the activism of South Asians?

... contd.