i have no clue who bengali actress Monalisa is, but she definitely has my attention (and the attention of many of our Stuff-appreciating, red-blooded, male readers after THIS post, i’m sure):

“I know what people want from us. Although bikinis have become progressively smaller and girls have been flaunting their bare legs on screen, it’s just not enough. I think the Indian audience now wants to see actresses do topless scenes. They want full value for the money they spend,” she says.

Monalisa, who pairs up with item girl Payal Rohatgi in the sex comedy Tauba Tauba, is willing to oblige. According to the bindaas babe: “If I have an attractive figure, why should I have problems showing it off? To be honest I have no qualms about uncovering the upper half of my body, but the requirement of the story should be such.”

A breast-baring performance, insists Monalisa, has logic of its own. “Unnecessarily shedding your clothes just amounts to obscenity.”

um. wow. so many thoughts, so few of them printable. 😉 i kid.

i’m torn:

-part of me wants to support her, if that’s what she wants, since i’m not one to talk about modesty;)

-part of me would be saddened if indian film became as crassly lame and over-sexed as the rest of the world’s, i.e. amreeka’s

-part of me can’t BELIEVE that she said what i “bolded”. indian audiences want value, and that means getting nekkid? eep. 😮

it is an issue of the separation of mandir and state. i think. read on:

A Hindu temple in Flushing, Queens, has shot into prominence with its trustees asking for an injunction on a state court order that asks the temple to conduct elections and have proper audits.

Attorneys for the Ganesh temple, the oldest Hindu temple in North America, citing the principle of the separation of religion and state, asked a federal judge on August 26 to place an injunction on the state Supreme Court order.

When the case came up for hearing at a Brooklyn court it was packed with Indian Americans, some of them with sandalwood and ash marks on their forehead, many of the women in saris, eliciting curious glances from visitors to the federal court.

…The matter, which was only a local and community issue in Queens, gained national prominence after the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty took up the case.

via HindustanTimes.com

While Manish reports on the celebrations @ Amritsar, in local news, the Bay Area Sikh’s have opened the nation’s largest Gurdwara in San Jose – MercuryNews.com | 08/28/2004 | Gurdwara facts

The new San Jose gurdwara will be the largest and most expensive in the country. The Bay Area is home to four other Sikh temples, in Hayward, Pittsburg, El Sobrante and Fremont. Fremont’s temple, built in 1991 for $1.8 million, had been the nation’s largest. The San Jose gurdwara: Cost $10 million, which was collected over 10 years. Was paid for with $6.75 million from the sale of its former home on Quimby Road, and $4.36 million from individual loans and donations from the Sikh community. Encompasses three buildings that total 20,000 square feet on 40 acres in the Evergreen district.

When planned, the Gurdwara raised some controversy –

Plans for the 40-acre property sparked controversy when Sikhs first unveiled their goal to move from the old temple on Quimby Road. A vocal minority of neighbors feared there would be traffic and noise headaches and criticized the magnitude of the project, which was scaled back to meet some of the concerns. Public hearings in San Jose lasted late into the night and at times erupted into name-calling. Protesters carried signs reading “No Sikh Jose.”

But all’s well that ends well –

“I’m very emotional,” said Amrit Singh Sachdev, 49, a computer engineer. “This is bringing back memories for me, when the whole street shuts down, just like in India.” The ceremony, which drew about 7,000 guests, signified a happy chapter in a rocky journey that began in the early 1990s.

Whole streets shut down like in India? Well, I suppose there’s always a temple opening up somewhere….