Was walking through downtown SF earlier this evening and passed by this sign for the ubiquitous Club One fitness chain. Entry #1 under group exercises was mos def a hoot.
Pretty cool to see Masala Bhangra go from an “ain’t that special” sideshow into the leading entry on the advert posters for a major fitness chain. San Franciscans can now enjoy sweating to Daler every Tuesday Evening — any ClubOne mutineers in downtown SF willing to give us a first hand report?
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UPDATE:ADS left an excellent comment on the Masala Bhangra post with a first-hand review —
A friend of mine was in town, so we decided to check this out, for shits and giggles. They’re offering the class at the Berkeley RSF, so it was free with my student gym membership. Being both Sri Lankan and a cultural dilettante, I can’t really give any insight into the authenticity of the “moves,” if there is such a thing, but I do have to admit that it was kind of fun. At first I felt like kind of an ass “screwing in the lightbulb” in time with about 25 other people, but the little routines that the instructor put together kind of grew on me by the end. The instructor (I think her name’s Sheila Jain?) didn’t really make any kind of big claims about cultural significance; she started off by saying that masala means “spicy” and bhangra is a punjabi folk dance, then she pretty much started in with the lightbulb-screwing-in. Oh, and every once in a while, she would try to get everyone to yell “balle balle,” but that wasn’t very sucessful. When the class started, it was all women and mostly non-desi, but later 4 desi guys showed up, so overall, the ratio was mainly non-desi and female. So in conclusion, it wasn’t exactly culturally enriching, but I had a good time and would consider going again if I could find someone to drag along.
Of course, it’s not at all suprising that desi dudes in the class just happened to also be the 4 late arrivals. Somethings never change, I suppose.
Where’s that daler pic from? is it from a video of his?
yup, it’s one of his videos
I suppose it’s progress to go from a sideshow to the featured exoticization (if that’s what’s happening…I’m not there) but it still annoys me that anyone and everyone now loves desi culture. They didn’t seem to love it so much when I was being called a gas station attendant or people were getting killed in Jersey City.
Amrika…love it or…give up your citizenship benefits:)
Saurav, I’m with you. I’m not sure how to feel when the same kids who used to tease us as kids, make fun of our lunchbox contents, call us dot-heads, point out our moms’ mustaches, etc. are now the same joiners paying $135 in soho for a crappy Rs170 cotton kurti at some “it” boutique. While I’m pleased that some respect and tolerance may come with this sudden interest in all things desi, it’s kind of backhanded in a way. Like oh now it’s cool?!
What can Brown do for you? 🙂
My personal “this is so NOT good for desis” moment came in the grocery store: Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen magazine cover featuring them in Indian gear – full-on saris with bindis, bangles, etc. Oh HELLLLL no!
A distant second was explaining to a store owner that using a picture of Shiva with hair swatches attached to advertise the different shades of Manic Panic hair dye was completely friggin offensive. Oh, and that it is kama sutra, not karma sutra (!!) His response was, “I go to India every year.” Mmmyeah. I feel so much closer to you, and so much less offended now.
-D
D WTF magazine is that with the Olson Scags in full-on desi gear? I have to see it!
This was one or two years ago – it was Mary-Kate & Ashley’s magazine (which may have been called something like that.) Hmmm…wonder if you can find copies on eBay? 😉
I hope you appreciate this, DesiDancer – I found their hideous, ad-ridden website . Ick.
-D
Allow me to point out that Vaashtu has been around as long as, if not longer than, feng shui. Why didn’t the styleratis attach themselves to it like they did the latter method of living in harmony? Like yoga, Hindu god motifs and now bhangra, people love desi culture as long as it’s represented as cool and “now.” It’s a temporary cure for what I call lifestyle angst. Tomorrow it will be something else. For many, it will be their only interaction with a given “foreign” culture. Sad, don’t you think?
Then again, this treatment of desis is lots better than, say, a recent incident which involved my friend, a Telugu Hindu convenience store owner, being referred to as a fucking Habib who should be questioned by the government. My buddy’s crime was charging this tourist ~$4.00 for a 40 of Bud Light.
D- That. Is. So. Wrong.
hideous maxiumus
Hmmmm. When I consider Italian culture or Chinese culture, I don’t think either is “cool” or “uncool” – I’m ambivalent to both. I wonder if eventually Indian culture will follow the same path, as more and more desis become assimilated.
(I was going to add French culture to the list, but of course recent current events have temporarily stirred feelings against it in some people)
And sorry for the offoptic post Vinod, but I couldn’t resist commenting 🙂
You know all this bhangra-aerobics craze in America. I read an article where it was being marketed as some kind of yoga-style thing. So you had hippies and new-age weirdo’s turning up expecting to find a route to Nirvana through some mysterious and ancient dancing art of India.
hahaha
Balle Balle
Which brings me to something I’ve been pondering for a while regarding the marketing of “Indianness” to westerners. Should we laugh all the way to the bank or feel bad that we are descending the karmic ladder, owing to our complicity in the western notion of soulless materialism?
Wait a second … why am I asking this question as I get paid by The Man?
I wonder if these White kids will adopt the other parts of my upbrining that I wasn’t so fond of, like being asked when I’m going to grad school every time I talk to my mom between the ages of 22 and 27. Hmmm…I should add that some day as an index of desi-mother-controllingness. Sort of like the Big Mac index.
Ha, I saw that same sign a few weeks ago (Embarcadero Bart Station) and hardly gave it a thought. I guess I thought something like, “Is the Masala there to indicate that its, like, totally extreme cardio Bhangra, or what?”
I’m surrounded by so much commodification of desi culture I hardly notice it anymore, but yeah, it’s there, grating and amusing and thrilling all at the same time.
I’m not sure how to feel when the same kids who used to tease us as kids, make fun of our lunchbox contents, call us dot-heads,
This really hit a nerve. Lord knows I experienced enough of that as a small child. (Anyone else learn the fine art of debate by defending vegetarianism at the tender age of 6?). I have to say, it was usually one or two bad apples. But by, say, 9th grade, the coolness factor definitely outweighed the rancour. I’m not sure if I was better able to swallow this shift because I had moved so much in between–I could honestly think the change was a new set of kids, not their increased maturity or the trendiness of desi culture. When I think of my honorary desi friends, the ones who would sign up for that Bhangra class in a jiffy, it’s hard to imagine them as 10 year olds harrassing me. So I can’t say these are the “same” kids.
It’s a tricky thing. I haven’t found a set of core, defensible principles to unify what annoys me and what doesn’t. My non Indian buddies being totally hooked on A. R. Raman—doesn’t bug me. He’s a hooky kinda guy. Madonna mixing in Shankaracharya’s Guru prayer with a regular song–does bug me. What really drives me crazy: yesterday I saw a Tommy Hilfiger pash balish, with a clearly Indian pattern for the print, Made in China.
We’re equally to blame though. Conde Nast Traveller did a big spread on Bollywood last year, featuring set photographs of pretty famous Bollywood stars carefully posed in the clothing of top designers–top European and American designers. You’d never think that India has a thriving fashion industry, and always has.
It also goes both ways. I do Aikido, and I’m sure I totally exoticize Japanese culture. There’s some level at which borrowing from other cultures at will is part of what makes it great to be American.
Eh, sorry for the long comment. I was already thinking about these things because of that stupid pillow.
Wow…. call me a wide-eyed cultural optimist BUT, I think this stuff is actually a net good for desi’s overall.
It’s a long road to travel from ignored, to quaint, to cool-but-fringe, to normal. And stuff like this moves us there in fits and starts….
There may be some evolutionary dead-ends along the way (and frankly, if you’d have asked me a year ago, I’d have thought that Masala Bhangra would be one of them!) but there’s still progress on an underlying trendline. Stuff like this, Harold&Kumar, etc. will make progress in normalizing the Desi crowd the same way that Queer Eye and Will&Grace are doing for the gay crowd.
Now, I’m sure in some segments of the Gay crowd, QueerEye is reviled as cartoon-ish but I also contend that it’s made more progress towards eventually creating Gay Marriage support in Middle America than ostensibly more “authentic” gay content & shrieking activists.
Now I guess you can complain that we aren’t entirely in the “normal” category yet but like it or not, Masala Bhangra, Harold&Kumar and its ilk are doing more to get us there than, well, complaining… And it’s a heck of a lot more fun in the process.
As for what that future looks like, I’ve always been impressed with products like Bend It Like Beckham or Monsoon Wedding (but emphatically NOT Bride & Prejudice!) – they are great datapoints for how Western & Indian can borrow & reinforce each other to create a new Aesthetic that is still “Desi”… The video for Punjabi MC’s Beware of the Boys is just utterly rockin’ and impossible to confuse as a simple whitewashed music video.
Vinod, good points for sure. While I’m usually optimistic and gung-ho about the fact that it’s about time the rest of the country caught on to some really cool facets of our culture… I still personally struggle with reconciling my own views on being appreciated and respected for the culture I come from, versus ethnic objectification.
Saheli– I think that when the incorporation of cool desi things goes wrong is when it smarts a bit. Like disco yoga. WTF is that? I’m not a hater, but that kind of stuff really steams my idli.
I’m in the “net-good for desis” camp. Sure there’s a lot of posing and hijacking and fake spirituality that comes along with it, but in the end at least it leads to a (hopefully) better understanding of the culture.
If nothing else, at least the less-secure of us can claim some punk-rock-esque faux street cred (eg, “I was into Bhangra before they even added ‘Masala’,” etc etc).
Silver linings and all that.
The next step for Indians will not be of becoming cool but to become a visible minority like the Asians. I personally think that Indians would soon be lampooned culturally at a much bigger scale once the Americans realize that the population of Indians in the US is growing rapidly plus the whole call center stealing jobs thing. Something akin to the what was done to the Asians in the 80’s when the factories started moving to Japan. Also with the great number of people coming on work visas from India, the caricature of the Indian would be the FOB techie and the romantic mystification of India would stop. The next step after that would be to become normal. Cool will be the last step before the Indians become mainstream. Desi Dancer’s comment “make fun of our lunchbox contents, call us dot-heads, point out our moms’ mustaches ” is right on. I think the Indian first generation immigrants need to take some responsibility. A lot of these things are avoidable if the parents would only care. Also everything Indian is not that chic once you get out of the big cities on the coasts. I am doing a lot of travelling these days in the ‘heartland’ and not everything Indian is considered ‘cool’.
vinod, i’ve got your six on this one. what are we so afraid of? it seems a bit petty to think that people don’t have a “right” to our vast, teeming culture, when such a viewpoint would make nearly all of us hypocrites.
the brown people i know are salsa fanatics, muy thai wanna-bes and most ubiquitously…”gangstas”. if we want to swivel our hips, kick the crap out of punching bags and…kick it, then the least we can do is let other people sweat to high-pitched females singing syrupy filmi over remixed beats. i wonder if some introspection is necessary, i mean, what are we looking for? and whatever y’all decide that is, can you say that you express it towards the cultures you like to participate in?
if any of us has a right to hold a grudge, it’s me. my arm was broken in three places when i moved away from san francisco, in grade school. if they weren’t calling me “sand nigger”, it was “stupid hindu bitch” or “cow-worshipper”. do i hate the craven shit heads who hurt me when i was little? sure. would i “punish” them by grounding them from bhangra and bindis? never. revenge is a dish best served cold…everyone worth their hipster salt can spot a tool a mile away, and those who bandwagon on this or anything else desi aren’t going to get any extra “cool points” from appropriating our culture, not from those who matter. you don’t have to fret, my pet. the weird smells and sounds you got teased for decades ago aren’t going to empower your erstwhile oppressors.
vinod is somewhat right…after all, how can having more people like desi culture be bad? eye-roll-inspiring maybe…but it’s when we reach out to others and let them in that everyone benefits. being insular and clutching our incense, fabrics, foods and music to our heaving chest accomplishes nothing. it also gives me less people to mock mentally and amuse myself with. $135 kurta? smirk
ANNA, “my arm was broken in three places when i moved away from san francisco, in grade school ” Was that a racial thing ?
one look at a squat toilet would probably encourage a more selective enthusiasm for desi things.
Anna– next time you’re in NYC I’ll show you a few ridiculous places. The cold revenge is letting people pay that much and not telling them the price in Rs…
since they were calling me the aforementioned epithets while assaulting me, i’d be inclined to say yes.
Sorry to hear that.
Al Mujahid,
What do you mean? Responsibility for what?
Maitri,
Laugh all the way to the bank.
Karma Cola.
my moment came when I was at a club. i think this was right around when “beware of the boys” hit the mainstream radio (we all know it had been circulating the desi radio for ages before that). i was a tad bit tipsy but proceeded to get my “balle balle” on.
all of sudden these two white girls approached me: “oh. my. god. that is SO cool!!!!!!!!!!! show us!!!!” being in a good mood i proceeded to demonstrate the basics of “the light bulb dance”.
the next day i remembered that moment though and i thought, if i was sober i would’ve probably said something to the extent of “oh NOW indian music is cool enough for you?”
it is definitely a good thing in that people don’t just see india as smelly curry and poverty. but at the same time, like a lot of people have mentioned it’s hurtful that NOW people are buying into it when they are the same people who may have teased indian kids as a child. we’ve always had these things around, they’re not new so what makes them so much better now than before?
When “we” make an inch of progress, you can either celebrate or sit back and complain that there’s still a mile to go. I’ll put a bet down on the attitude more likely to make further progress down the road & is the more fun one in the meantime. While progress won’t be monotonic, “they” will certainly be far more attracted to our honey rather than our vinegar. What’s different now is that between Punjabi MC, Masala Bhangra, Bend it Like Beckham, we’re creating some interesting honey that we all find quite palatable.
I know some of us wish we could “fiat” into being a perfectly knowledgeable & appreciative white/American population that idolize desi culture as it exists in a perfect desi-only goldfish bowl. But guess what, it ain’t gonna happen. All Knowledge, no matter how Good or Just takes time & effort to disseminate. And we’ve gotta expend the time & effort.
It’s much more about population. Without people running into desis personally, there’s a big ‘why should I care’ element. British Asians are ~7x as numerous as a proportion of the UK population as desis in the U.S. Jews are ~3x as numerous and have been here longer.
India has an advantage in that people are fascinated by it, it’s culturally opposite. And another way to get mindshare is to have large numbers of desis building careers in pop culture and entertainment, as has happened in the UK. But population is still the #1 factor.
Also, you let Americans off way too easy: many are not culturally receptive to learning about other states, let alone other nations. It takes two to dandia.
what? it’s cool for white kids to be into indian culture? sigh… next time please TELL me before i end up so…mainstream.
i was more fascinated with my indian friends’ lunches and never made fun of them… does that make me “edgy”?
Seriously though, I am one of those people you are talking about here… and feel that I am constantly trying to subvert the stereotype of the “hippie” who JUST LOVES Indian culture without really delving past the surface.. I would like to think that I have more substance than that, and that my connections to all things Indian are those that grew up around relationships with good friends that happen to be Indian, rather than having preconceived ideas about an “exotic culture” and then deciding to try it on without wanting to understand the context.
I have gotten both of the attitudes expressed in above comments – the “this is very curious, but probably good” attitude from people who hear me sing in Hindi and are surprised that a white girl sings their language without an accent, and the “stop trying to recolonize us” glare and cold shoulder from total strangers pretty much every time I visit an Indian grocery store. That’s really ok (although I’ve developed a phobia of Indian stores now) … I realize that people who look like me and people who look like you have a somewhat dysfunctional history, and with the current “hipness,” as it were, of Indian culture, what else are they going to think without actually knowing me? For all they know, I might actually own a pair of those Ganesh flip-flops from a couple years back.
As for my friends – they don’t care what race I am, and vice versa. I teach them to make arrabiatta sauce, they teach me to make dal, and all is right and good in the world. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?
just my 2(hundred) cents…
Why do women in India shave their arms ?
Actually most women in India get their arms waxed
Yup, that’s how it’s supposed to be. They, too, have something we wish to discover.
I am often reminded how cool it is that people like me intrinsically possess both western and eastern sensibilities, and can switch between the two cultures (or be both) with ease. In turn, I point out that it took a bit of work to hang on and be proud of my multi-faceted heritage, in the face of discouragement from all sides when I was young. It was worth it, because I needed something from each of my cultures and from ones that I have never even been part of.
Still, $20 Bollywood bangles and $135 kurtas? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA! Don’t worry, I laugh the same way at people who spend obscene amounts of money on anything inherently inexpensive.
Where do I get in on this cash cow rodeo?
Manish, something interesting regarding your post that population is the #1 factor to gaining cultural acceptance in other countries
Its interesting to note that in the Desi Dancer’s link the statistics show that Chinese women are more likely to marry outside their race than women of other races. For all other ethnicities including Indian, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Blacks and Caribbeans, the men are more likely to marry people of other races. Its similar to the situation of East Asians in the US. Is it because of the emasculation of east asian men or the excess exoticism of east asian women ?
For SG, “Al Mujahid, ‘I think the Indian first generation immigrants need to take some responsibility. A lot of these things are avoidable if the parents would only care’. What do you mean? Responsibility for what? “
Well for starters the parents can start packing lunch boxes and dressing up the kids in a manner which wont let to the kids being ridiculed.
Al Mujahid- another topic for probably another site, but growing up mixed-race is hard in its own ways… not just from outside, but even people within a family will hate on a mixed-race couple and their kids. (actually, that’s most of the problem, in my experiene. Outsiders are more inclined to find it exotic or novelty, whereas so-called Family thinks “not in MY gene pool!!”)
A friend of mine was in town, so we decided to check this out, for shits and giggles. They’re offering the class at the Berkeley RSF, so it was free with my student gym membership. Being both Sri Lankan and a cultural dilettante, I can’t really give any insight into the authenticity of the “moves,” if there is such a thing, but I do have to admit that it was kind of fun. At first I felt like kind of an ass “screwing in the lightbulb” in time with about 25 other people, but the little routines that the instructor put together kind of grew on me by the end. The instructor (I think her name’s Sheila Jain?) didn’t really make any kind of big claims about cultural significance; she started off by saying that masala means “spicy” and bhangra is a punjabi folk dance, then she pretty much started in with the lightbulb-screwing-in. Oh, and every once in a while, she would try to get everyone to yell “balle balle,” but that wasn’t very sucessful. When the class started, it was all women and mostly non-desi, but later 4 desi guys showed up, so overall, the ratio was mainly non-desi and female. So in conclusion, it wasn’t exactly culturally enriching, but I had a good time and would consider going again if I could find someone to drag along.
Wow…I can’t believe no one responded to Andrea’s comment. That’s a little disturbing. Not that I’m going to do anything to correct it, other than to point out that it was thoughtful and worth reading.
Wow…. call me a wide-eyed cultural optimist BUT, I think this stuff is actually a net good for desi’s overall.
I don’t think anyone’s going to argue that an escape from invisibility is bad. The question is what form it takes; are we going to have our desi cultures exclusively fetishized and commercialized or is there going to be more substantive appreciation too? By which I mean having courses on South Asians, not being forced into a pan-Asian identity when you don’t want to be, having looser immigration policies for poor people in third world countries, and, most importantly, being allowed to express your individual identity in whatever way you want, including but not limited to your ethnic identity. Something like this blog is a step at taking some of the agency back in how we portray ourselves to the outside world and I think it means a lot more than a bhangra class that’s attended primarily by White people (as nice as that is).
And also, will there be a recognition that a lot of us weren’t always treated that well, whether through broken arms or epithets or just generally being made to feel $hitty? That we’re not a uniform group, but come from a region with a variety of cultures and classes and genders and sexual orientations that’s as diverse as Europe?
A minor but relevant example: when i was at Yale in the late 90s, there was one permanent history course on South Asia in one of the best history departments in the country; the kids in the South Asian Society had to raise money themselves to get a Hindi class there by pouring over alumni lists for “desi-sounding names” and calling people; they were then accused by the Administration of wanting an easy-A course. Now they have all this talk about how South Asia is so important and blah blah blah.
Oh, and the institution is named after Elihu Yale, an East India company trader, because he gave some of his money that he took from South Asia to the school in the 18th century.
I think sharing the culture is a good thing. It will help others understand us more, and be more tolerant.