Monthly Archives: February 2005

‘I was a Bollywood stuntwoman’

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Salon writer Cara Anna became a Bollywood extra through casting agents who stalk backpacker hostels in Bombay. She played many a blank, blond backup dancer, getting a taste of reverse exoticization (via Attempt to Be Hip):

[Casting agents] wait patiently… skimming over the dirty and the clearly stoned, looking for the freshest faces… Lonely Planet guidebooks in hand… Want to be in a film? Just get in this car…Westerners resemble certain Mexican laborers — picked up from street corners, without the proper work papers, by shady middlemen who keep a generous dose of a long day’s pay for themselves…

I could… eavesdrop on actors complaining about Bollywood’s gay casting couch. Being foreign and assumed ignorant, I was harmless…  I not only met stars but became a casting agent, a dancer, a pitch-making screenwriter, a documentary assistant and an aspiring film journalist, all in less than four months…

I met a man from New York who, knowing nothing about Bollywood, became a bodyguard for one of India’s biggest actors. He worked his new connections, appearing in runway shows, and made the Mumbai tabloids as the rumored new lover of a dimpled starlet.

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Thong-Tha-Thong-Thong-Thong

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You guys have heard a similar story before I’m sure, but this stuff never gets old. GG2.net reports:

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An American online store selling womens` undergarments featuring images of Hindu Gods and religious icons has angered members of the community who have demanded their immediate withdrawal from the website.

In an ad for womens` thongs, Cafe-Press.com has on display hundred per cent cotton `Hindu God Shiva classic thong` priced at USD 12.99 with the religious deity`s face, another called `iGod Shiva Classic thong` for USD 15 makes a statement “Namaste it loud. Your`re Hindu and you`re proud.”

The `Om Classic Thong` priced at USD 8.99 explains “Om or rather aum is a sacred Hindu symbol that represents the absolute.”

Leading the protest for the products withdrawal is the American Hindus Against Defamation (AHAD), the largest Hindu anti-defamation group in North America comprising several Hindu organisations.

But all is well that ends well:

The protests had borne fruit with CafePress withdrawing the product line from its site.

Oh yeah? Then what is this?

I just don’t get my panties in a bunch over stuff like this though. There were other items however that did get my attention. Continue reading →

Brit Curry Fixation

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Brief article in MSNBC about Asha Bhosle’s latest venture – an upscale Desi restaurant in the UK –

When British pubs shut their doors just after 11 p.m. Burch, and thousands like him, will complete a typical night out by staggering up the road to wash down all that beer with a hybrid Anglo-Indian mix of foods that most Britons call “curry”. “There is only one place to head to after the pubs have shut and that’s for a curry,” said Burch. “The most important thing is to have eight pints before you go, then the hotter the curry the better. It’s an English tradition.” … Bhosle, who already has restaurants in Kuwait and Dubai, will provide her name, the decor, music and a rich menu of authentic northwest Indian cuisine to tempt patrons away from the Bengali-inspired dishes that dominate British curry houses. The two entrepreneurs are also hoping the popularity of the 71-year-old singer, who was the muse for the 1997 hit pop song “Brimful of Asha” will be a lure for emigre Indians. … Britain’s Food Standards Agency said in its 2003 “Curry Factfile” that 2.5 million consumers tuck into “an Indian” every week and that the industy as a whole is worth some 3.2 billion pounds ($5.96 billion). Some 23 million portions of chicken tikka masala are eaten each year and it is estimated there are more Indian restaurants in London than in Delhi and Bombay.

8 Pints of beer, eh? Continue reading →

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Creative courtesy

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In the last few months of the Mutiny, we’ve been thrilled that we don’t have to pay y’all to read our stuff 🙂 But, we’d very much appreciate if those who quote us would extend the same courtesies that we do:

  • Please excerpt posts, don’t snarf the whole thing
  • Please credit us or the individual author and link directly to the post, not just the home page

Details are here:  

Thanks, and happy blogging!

(Also for your consideration, the strange case of the cut ‘n paste artist who hit some sister blogs.)

Indian food hacks

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You know how your desi mom totes around lal mirch in her purse because everything’s just too damn bland? And how embarrassing it is when she whips it out at restaurants, hunched over like it was a bottle of Night Train? This is just like that, but classier because, um, you’re epicurious: here’s my favorite Indian food hack from my bachelor kitchen.

At most grocery stores, you can buy tortelloni or ravioli stuffed with fillings such as sun-dried tomatoes and cheese. Try boiling the tortelloni for five minutes, ladling on spaghetti sauce and adding the secret topping: generous scoops of chutney powder, a.k.a. idli masala. It’s a yellow-orange spice mix that morphs the flavor of ravioli into something as delicious as dum aloo. It’s easier than fixing a sandwich, and it is absolutely sabroso. I’ve eaten it for six months and I’m still not sick of it.

And I’m not the only Marco Pulao running around. The desi pizza joints of Jersey City and Jackson Heights, and my own family, are famous for their Indian reimagining of hot pie. Dumpling Man, who makes fresh, thin-skinned Chinese dumplings, offers a spaghetti sauce option. I pitched him a chutney powder topping in a note scribbled on the back of a business card; when I left, I think he was laughing.

Here’s an older, non-Italian favorite which I eventually wore out: toasted onion rolls with spicy hummus, pepperjack cheese and the secret ingredient: mango achar. Please, for the love of Bacchus, share your own favorite food hack here in the comments.

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The NYPD’s dirty laundry

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Lisa Hazamoon Cahill, an Indian American who was formerly one of New York’s finest, is pissed and humiliated. The New York Daily News explains why:

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One of the NYPD’s few Indian officers charges she was treated like a maid by her sergeant, who allegedly ordered her to wash and iron his shirts at Police Headquarters.

“He forced me to … I’m so embarrassed, so ashamed,” Lisa Hazamoon Cahill, 33, told the Daily News in an exclusive interview. “I couldn’t refuse. He wasn’t asking me, he was telling me.

“Maybe he thought because I was Indian, he thought I was submissive,” she added.

Cahill’s explosive allegation is contained in an employment discrimination lawsuit filed Jan. 28 in Manhattan Federal Court, charging a pattern of disturbing conduct by supervisors in the 1 Police Plaza security unit.

What’s up with the New York City government employees hating on Indians?

She said she once loved her job. She proudly recalled being commended in 2001 by then-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik for stopping a knife-wielding stalker from getting into Police Headquarters.

She appeared in a recruiting video and occasionally represented the NYPD at events attended by the Indian community.

The Brooklyn-reared Cahill, who is of Punjabi descent, said she knew of only one other female cop of Indian origin in the 36,000-member force. Cahill said she was the only cop in the security unit with certification from the U.S. Marshals Service in X-ray screening for weapons and explosives.

Holy crap. Is anyone else scared by that last sentence? Homeland Security??? Continue reading →

First desi CEO in the Dow Jones?

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As y’all know, the CEO of HP, Carly Fiorina, was fired yesterday for architecting a failed merger with Compaq. If the head of HP’s flagship division were elevated in her place, Vyomesh Joshi would become the first desi CEO of a company listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (as far as I know).

The Dow Jones includes just 30 blue-chip stocks such as Procter & Gamble, Boeing and Microsoft. The mustachioed, light-eyed Joshi has long been a tireless advocate for HP printers.

[The board] did not rule out promoting someone from within the company… the most likely candidate would be Vyomesh (“VJ”) Joshi. He had been the widely respected head of HP’s printing and imaging division and was recently put in charge of a new unit that combines the printing and PC businesses… one analyst asked Wayman whether the company was concerned about Joshi leaving if he were not named the new CEO… Milunovich added though that it would be important for HP to hold on to Joshi. [CNN]

In three years in charge of the printer unit, which delivers 73 per cent of the company’s operating profits, he boosted profit margins from about 10 per cent to almost 17 per cent at the end of last year. HP could ill afford to lose Mr Joshi, but he may be deemed unsuitable for the top job because he has no experience in corporate computing. [Financial Times]

HP, with $80B in revenues, would actually be the perfect company for this to happen to first because it’s not the hippest company in the world. It’s slightly dowdy, carrying around a pocket protector, an RPN calculator and a combover, but its products tend to be intelligent and dependable. Just like a desi uncle.

The FBI wants YOU!

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Frequent Sepia Mutiny tipster Deepa M., alerts us to something we had completely overlooked. I had an excuse since I was forced to miss the Superbowl but how come none of you all mentioned anything? Deepa writes,

Did you see the FBI recruitment ad that aired right before the SuperBowl? It starred a guy I’ve known since 7th grade, Sunjit Randhawa.

Tight. I’m digging the ad. Its, dare I say, surreal. What? You liberal types not digging the FBI? Then try the FFFBI. USA Today reports:

In the wake of the recent Asian tsunami disaster, the need for children to learn about other countries is obvious. FFFBI (www.fffbi.com), a Web site that helps youngsters learn more about India, Japan and Australia, is a great place to start.

Once connected to the site, kids join the ranks of the FFFBI — the Fin, Fur and Feather Bureau of Investigation — a spoof FBI agency run by a group of “ill-equipped animal agents” who are dispatched to countries about which they know “less than squat.” The FFFBI needs kids’ help for its missions.

I think its fairly obvious which one of these two will end up recruiting me.

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Exercising American power at the book market

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Some in the conservative media were peeved earlier this week when UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, Shashi Tharoor (see former posts here and here) was quoted as saying that it was “the exercise of American power” that “may well be the central issue in world politics today.” Right-of-center bloggers pick up:

This is why the UN is useless. Whatever the original intention of the organization, the mission has morphed into trying to hinder anything the US wants to do. Oh, and by the way, the US is still expected to provide most of the funding, material, and other resources necessary for the UN to function. The situation is surreal.

Tharoor however doesn’t seem to be totally against the exercise of American power (if that is what his statement was implying as deciphered by right wing media). He likes the literary freedom it may have brought at least. He has just released his new book titled, Bookless in Baghdad which is a collection of essays inspired by walking through a Baghdad booksellers market:

Walking through Baghdad’s book souk, Shashi Tharoor, author and UN secretary general for communications and public information, couldn’t help being moved. “There were so many well-educated, middle-class people selling books on the pavement in Baghdad,” says the 48-year-old author. His stroll across the souk led to a compilation of literary essays…”

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Aishwarya in high res

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Here’s a higher-resolution version of Aishwarya’s appearance on Letterman last night. It’s available via BitTorrent, here’s the torrent (73 MB MPEG, 7:52).

First get an easy BitTorrent downloader:

Then click here. The download will start automatically.

Here’s Aishwarya on 60 Minutes: torrent (15 MB AVI, first 2:43).

Update: The shallowness of these questions surprises me. Letterman asks if she lives with her parents, 60 Minutes asks if she’ll kiss on screen. I half expect someone to ask if she ‘wears a dot on her forehead.’ She’s being treated gingerly, like a Martian, like Gandhi — talk about tension! Yeah, she’s not from Britain or Australia, get over it. On Aish’s part, she’s a lot more skittish, nervous and diva-ish in her American interviews than her Indian ones. And she was strangely combative: I dug her cultural smack-back on the living-at-home question, but it needed to be softened by a big smile.

The rant on American imperialism which Letterman showed was the strangest thing to pick out of a musical; it won’t do Bride and Prejudice any favors at the box office. And Aish dressed quite modestly, even more so than at Cannes or, for that matter, in most of her films. I get the feeling that she sees herself, and maybe the interviewers see her, as the Great Brown Hope.

Which is silly, really. I thought that was Kal Penn 😉

Update 2: Check out the video of Aishwarya on Nightline, and the rest of the 60 Minutes segment, here.

Previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4

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