Monthly Archives: September 2004

One Step Forward, One Step Back

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One of the most reported issues in the U.S. media a few months ago, was the issue of Gay Marriage. On one side you had the mayor of San Francisco issuing what turned out to be illegal marriage certificates and on the other side you had the President calling on Congress to amend the most sacred of all democratic texts. The rights of homosexuals are increasingly becoming an important topic in South Asia as well. From SFGate.com:

Islamabad, Pakistan — One recent Sunday evening at midnight in a town near here, Kohsar Riaz sat down eagerly in her favorite living room chair for her weekly dose of ARY One World network’s “Drama Hour” and was instantly engrossed in the depressing tale of a hijra (cross-dresser) disowned by family and friends, desperate for acceptance and hopelessly in love with a young man who used him solely for money.

The young hijra, unable to understand why his love would spurn him after achieving business success, dies trying to chase down his love’s car.

At the funeral, attended almost exclusively by other hijra, the young cross-dresser’s grief-stricken parents beg for their dead son’s forgiveness. He was their only child, but they failed to protect or help him.

Tens of thousands of South Asian night owls who stayed up to watch the popular television show got a rare glimpse from the other side of one of the region’s most ostracized groups.

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Jagjit Strikes Again

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I have posted a few entries now about the Indian delegates to the Republican National Convention. An SM reader named Jagjit (who earlier brought us a poster about his visionary new film) has once again provided us with something useful to look at. He writes:

It appears that we command quite a significant presence among the GOP delegates. This is an incredible development, and truly meaningful progress for our community, our issues, and the country as a whole.

They are making their way up the ranks of our country’s dominant party. Their victories are our victories. We should all pull for and support these trailblazers.

The first order of business is to polish up the bios/self-descriptions that were provided to DesiTalk-NewsIndia Times. Most of them sound like they were written in quite a hurry, and without consideration given to marketing the delegates. To show my support, I would like to take a stab at spinning together an effective public image with which to brand themselves by editing the aforementioned descriptions (free-of-charge).

My proposal will offer them the best chance to rise within the GOP by demonstrating a readiness to champion the party’s core beliefs.

Chillin’ like a villain

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Because the last thing I want people to think is that I am somehow biased, I decided to make up for yesterday’s posting about profiling at the RNC with a story about profiling at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Am I not fair? From the Boston Phoenix:

There were so few arrests for DNC-protest-related activities, we now know, because there were so few demonstrations to begin with; everyone, apparently, was waiting for the Republican National Convention to make their voices heard. As for the massive security efforts orchestrated for the DNC, well, how safe should we feel now that itÂ’s become clear that, with federal authorities at least, “suspicious” individuals were targeted not based on what they do, but on how they look?

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Uncle Montezuma’s Revenge

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Good news from the science front – MSNBC – Montezuma’s curse gets reversed.

September issue, Budget Travel magazine – Traveler’s diarrhea, or T.D., has ruined many a vacation, especially to high-risk destinations such as Mexico and India.

Changing the approach to treating the common ailment is an antibiotic that’ss newly approved in the U.S., but one that’s been prescribed in Europe for years. Rifaximin was given the official OK by the FDA this past spring, and as of August it’ll be sold under the name Xifaxan (the first x is pronounced like a z).

Anita Desai says men tell better tales

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In an interview with the Guardian, novelist Anita Desai says that male characters tell more adventurous stories (via Kitabkhana):

As a young woman, Desai says she felt her own life was not big or broad enough to feed her writing. “My whole life was about family and neighbours: it was very difficult for a woman to experience anything else. I was bored, and I needed to find more range, which is why I started to write about men in books like Baumgartner’s Bombay [in which a German Jew flees the war in India] and In Custody [a college lecturer goes in search of a famous poet]. Men led lives of adventure, chance and risk. It just wasn’t possible to write that from an Indian female perspective.“

InCustody.jpg Desai, who grew up in Delhi, had a German mother and a Bengali father. Her new book, The Zigzag Way, is a tale about the Cornish miners who settled in Mexico before mysteriously fading away. Desai also wrote the novel In Custody, about a slowly degenerating Urdu poet. The book was adapted into a luscious movie, Muhafiz, starring Shabana Azmi (one of the greatest pleasures in film is watching the lovely Ms. Azmi, bedecked and bejeweled, sitar in hand, croon a ghazal full of smoke and longing). Desai’s daughter Kiran recently debuted as a novelist with Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard.

indian food in the UK gets “real”

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since most brown restaurants in britain are actually owned and operated by bangladeshis, an indian entrepreneur in coventry has decided that it would be novel to put the “indian” back in indian food. read on:

Ownership of ‘Indian’ restaurants by Bangladeshis in London is so widespread that many Asians of Indian origin remark that they should pay royalty to use the word ‘Indian’ in their businesses – because that is what brings customers in.
Several patrons also often complain that what is served in such restaurants as Indian food is a pale shadow of the real thing.
…Jo Matharoo, one of three brothers who are partners in the venture, said:…”Flamingo Bar and Grill will be the real thing.
“What many people don’t realise is that 50 percent of people in India are vegetarians so that is a market we intend to cater for strongly.”

Those whacky, dancing, teenage, Indian nuns

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The four nuns from India, some with a few pimples left over from adolescence and all in black habits and crucifixes, giggled and chatted like American freshmen as they arrived here for college.
They came from Kerala, a state in southwest India, to attend Assumption College for Sisters at Mallinckrodt Convent as part of an atypical Roman Catholic experiment.
[snip]
The students have been encouraged to display their talents at prayer services, in the motherhouse and occasionally at Mass. One of the visiting nuns … said, “The Nigerians are great singers.” The Indian nuns, she added with a giggle and peek in their direction, “really know how to dance.”

[NYT]

Does anybody else think this sounds like a bollywood movie? Or yet another Sister Act movie with Whoopy Goldberg? Sister Act 12, in which Whoopi Goldberg teaches teenage indian nuns how to sing to go with their dancing.

Hari Puttar and the Order of the Phoenix?

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Mira Nair to direct the new Harry Potter movie? According to Nair herself:

“I’m getting offers to direct Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I read it over the weekend. I’m still deciding… I’m not letting all this go to my head. I’m grounded. I practise detachment, it helps me keep my balance. I’m a Dilliwalli [someone from Delhi], only an asana [a position in Yoga] gets me on my head! My son Zoharan’s excited. I’ve seen all the Harry Potter movies with him.”

I’d be quite interested to see what she could do with the material. I thought that Chris Columbus did an awful job, both in terms of deadening the joy in the material, but also in terms of whitewashing it all. Cuaron, on the other hand, did even better than I had expected (although given how well he directed “A Little Princess“, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised). He also managed to showcase the non-white characters who were there all along, and who play a larger role in the story as the series goes on. No word yet on whether Sitara Shah will come back as Parvati Patil (heck, they haven’t even re-signed Daniel Radcliffe yet).

For more on Nair, read Sajit’s earlier post on the topic, where he mentioned this rumor earlier. Continue reading →

India’s leading global brand…

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vstory.aishwarya.raiafp.jpgWe’re always looking for a gratuitous reason to put up a pict of Ms. Rai – CNN.com – Ash leads the Bollywood brand – Sep 1, 2004

MUMBAI, India (CNN) — Think global brands and the first names to come to mind might be Microsoft, McDonald’s, Toyota or Samsung.

For India, that global brand is Bollywood, the massive film and entertainment industry that has its heart in the city of Mumbai.

And its best-known brand ambassador is former Miss World Aishwarya Rai, an actress who is proving adept at a multilingual and multinational approach to picking scripts.

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