Monthly Archives: June 2005

Sukhdev Sandhu wins best critic

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The author of that excellent Spiderman review was recognized for his talent in March. We’re slow over on this side of the pond:

Writer and journalist Sukhdev Sandhu won best critic at the British Press Awards… Currently the chief film critic for the Daily Telegraph, Sukhdev (pictured) also writes for the London Review of Books and Modern Painters… Sukhdev was educated at Oxford and has taught at New York University… He told AiM he was “a bit embarassed” about the award, as there were “tons of more deserving writers” than him.

“I wish there were more British Asian films I could rave about. They’ll come in time, I’m sure,” he added…

Don’t we all, Mr. Sandhu, don’t we all. Here’s a great passage from his review of the Indian Spiderman comic in New York magazine:

… people used to scoff at Japanese anime. Aside from the absurdity of being a purist about one of pop culture’s most pleasingly bastard and vulgar forms, those carpers, if they’re to be consistent, should bemoan the popularity of Indian religious iconography and henna motifs among Western fashionistas. Cultural exchange is a two-way process…

Hindi cinema has a long history of borrowing and adapting from Western sources, be they Busby Berkeley dance routines in the thirties, Chaplin-like heroes in the common-man social epics of the fifties, or Dirty Harry, a major influence on the wildly popular revenger tragedies of superstar Amitabh Bachchan… Hollywood animation companies have begun to outsource creative work to the subcontinent, where they can rely on a steady pool of ex-street painters whose former livelihoods waned because of crackdowns in illegal advertising and the rise of photography in film posters…

Sandhu’s the author of London Calling: How Black and Asian Writers Imagined a City. You couldn’t find a more recursive book topic, nor a more politically correct one 😉

Abhi’s previous post here.

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Kitchrie cultural fest in Queens

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Queens is hosting a big cultural festival this evening and all day tomorrow showcasing the desi cultures of Trinidad, Guyana, Suriname and the Indo-Caribbean diaspora in New York (thanks, Saurav). Kitchrie 2005 features food, music, dance and theater at the Rajkumari Cultural Center in Richmond Hill.

The festival runs from 6-10pm tonight and noon-10pm tomorrow, followed by a concert and afterparty. (I’m diggin’ the alternate spellings — kitchrie, Ramnarine, Baboolal, Bisham…) Click here for details.

Kitchrie 2005, Rajkumari Cultural Center, 83-84 116th St., Queens, NY (Richmond Hill); map; J, Z to 111th St./Jamaica Ave. or A to Ozone Park/Lefferts Blvd.; admission ranges from $5-15 Continue reading →

Kiss my desi chuddies, yaar

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Mutineers across the pond appear to be far more successful at embracing and extending the Queen’s English than their US-based brothren –

Badmash, changa, chuddie and desi are the latest Indian-origin words to enter the English language, courtesy the Collins English Dictionary. …the latest edition of Collins, to be published Thursday, goes a step further by officially acknowledging the role of Hinglish in the evolution of English. The edition is full of unusual and unexpected Indian words – this time thanks to popular Asian culture rather than colonial collision. Many words have a distinct Punjabi flavour. Hinglish words figuring in the dictionary this year include aunti-ji and uncle-ji, freshie (a new immigrant), gora (White), kutta (dog) and kutti (bitch), haramzada and haramzadi (described as bastards or obnoxious/despicable) and yaar (friend).

Personally, I prefer the terseness of “FOB” over “freshie” and, at least us poor Mallus (and possibly Tamilians too?) reserve “kutta” and “kutti” as terms of endearment for baby boys & girls. Remind me to be careful with that word next time I’m at a Bhangra blow out whoopin’ it up with 8′ tall Sikh dudes.

Previous SM coverage of Hinglish – here.

[a big SM hat tip to Francis Assisi!] Continue reading →

Wanta Fanta?—HELL NO!

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For years those silly Mentos commercials ruled the television airways as the most annoying and obnoxious commercials ever. They’d plant themselves in your head while some ad exec somewhere smiled diabolically. Recently that honor was emphatically stolen by Fanta softdrink and its stupid television commercials where a bunch of Fem-bot looking women ask you (or shout at you) “Don’t-cha Wanta Fanta, Don’t-cha Wanta Fanta…” until you break down and submit to their will, hoping that it hurts so good. Well SiliconIndia.com has this headline today: U.S. FDA rejects Indian consignment.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has rejected consignments of MNCs Coca-Cola India, Hindustan Lever, Procter & Gamble and Britannia from India on the grounds that they are ‘unsafe’ or not conforming to U.S. laws.

According to information sourced from the USFDA, a shipment of Fanta sent by Coca-Cola India from Mumbai to the U.S. was rejected on May 19 on the grounds that it contained ‘unsafe color’. The regulator said the ‘article appears to be, or to bear or contain a color additive which is unsafe’. Coca-Cola and Pepsi have been under fire in India for allegedly allowing higher pesticide content than permitted internationally.

Hmmm. I wonder if that unsafe color was yellow#5. Seems like the Fantanas evil plot has been thwarted and I shall never taste Lol…errr, I mean “Pineapple” on my lips. There were other items rejected by the USFDA as well. This one REALLY caught my eye:

A shipment of “decongestant vaporizing ointment” sent by the Indian subsidiary of U.S. FMCG major Procter & Gamble was also rejected by the USFDA on May 25 on multiple grounds including the grounds that “the article appears to be a new drug without an approved new drug application” and “the article appears to be a non-prescription drug and fails to bear the established name of each inactive ingredient…”

Come on. By a show of hands now, how many of you got rubbed down with some sort of ointment from India when you were a kid, that was supposed to cure the area in question whether you had a cough or a broken leg? The USFDA doesn’t know what it is talking about.

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Sachal can sing

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Last Monday, I went to hear Sachal Vasandani croon jazz at a hole-in-the-wall, basement club in Manhattan. He’s friends with my cousin the conductor. The bar was packed with University of Michigan music alumni, a more raucous crowd than the usual jazz audience. Vasandani and his band had the early show, the 7pm show before the headliner comes on.

Because of the friend connection, I wasn’t expecting more than a pleasant evening out. And though I love jazz classics, I’m not fan enough to dig the dissonance of an improv jam session. Vasandani emerged from the gloom of rear stage. He was tall and floppy-haired and stood a bit stiffly, like a pre-makeover John Mayer. He wore a blazer, but he wasn’t as natty as chart-topping young fogies like Harry Connick Jr. and swing band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. We plunged into our sidecars and lemon drops and waited for the show to begin.

When Vasandani opened his mouth, we utterly forgot about the drinks. The first time you hear a magnetic singer pull from his bag of vocal tricks, it’s like falling in love. Those who hadn’t heard him before were shocked. I wore a silly, involuntary grin and told my cousin, ‘He’s really good!’ He smiled smugly. Listen to Vasandani singing ‘Embraceable You’ (thanks, Ankush; warning: it’s a crappy, mono WAV clip that doesn’t do him justice).

After a few standards, Vasandani cut loose with a couple of original compositions by the band and one by a friend. His voice seems to emerge via ventriloquism; it’s bigger than his body can sustain and more classic than his look. He’s like Charlotte Church in terms of the surprise factor. He has a very mainstream, full new jazz sound; he’s won a slew of awards, and the NY Sun has compared his sound to Connick Jr.:

Sachal Vasandani was a total surprise: He looks like the leading man in a Bollywood musical but is a very traditional jazz crooner…

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Get some culture tonight…if you’re in DC

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Need something to do this humid evening in swamp city? I’ll be at Chorduroy’s concert in Clarendon, but if rockin’ covers of songs like “Float on” and “A Little Respect” which sound even better than the real thing aren’t your thing, I’ve got an alternate bit of lovely for your friday night.

Your parents will be so proud:

Friday, June 10, 2005 PERFORMANCE Ramesh Misra, sarangi; Nitin Mitta, tabla 7:30 pm, Meyer Auditorium Enjoy this rare opportunity to hear a solo recital by Ramesh Misra, a master of the sarangi, the traditional fiddle of South Asia. Misra was a student of Ravi Shankar and has played before worldwide audiences for more than forty years. This concert is made possible in part through support from the Parnassus Foundation.

Just imagine how pretty the Mall will be, with the sun setting over the befuddled tourists:

Freer Gallery of Art – Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Auditorium
12th Street and Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20560
Phone: 202-633-4880
Metro: Smithsonian (Orange, Blue lines)

Hmmm. Chorduroy aren’t on ’til 10ish…wonder if I could hit both. I love me some live tabla. Did I mention that this event is FREE? You can’t beat that with a bat.

via DCist. They helpfully suggest that you get to Meyer Auditorium early if you want some music. Free stuff goes fast, you know. 😉 Continue reading →

Quark CEO out

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The CEO of the dominant page layout software company has suddenly parted ways with his employer after a two-year reign. Kamar Aulakh was a 10-year Quark veteran and former VP of R&D:

“… effective immediately, Kamar Aulakh is no longer with the company,” read a statement. Aulakh became Quark’s president in 2003 and ultimately succeeded Quark’s mercurial CEO Fred Ebrahimi in February 2004. [Macworld]

Hailing from Aulakh village in Gurdaspur district in Punjab, he is a product of Punjab Engineering College (PEC) here. Remembering his school days in Shimla, he says with a sense of pride, “I went to Bishop Cotton School, which helped me develop strong foundation. After doing graduation in mechanical engineering from PEC in 1974, I went to the USA where I did Masters in Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois and MBA from Indiana University…” Based in Switzerland, he visits India and Denver regularly. [Chandigarh Tribune]

The unexplained departure could have to do with declining sales. Quark is privately held and doesn’t disclose its financials, but it’s struggled in its move from Mac to Windows. It could be a clash with the emotional chairman, Farhad ‘Fred’ Ebrahimi. Or it could be something else entirely.

QuarkXpress is the #1 page layout program by market share. Aulakh put Quark’s 1,300-person development center in Mohali, a Chandigarh suburb where Dell has also invested. That center is Quark’s main campus, larger than its Denver campus in headcount:

… along with the Chairman, Mr Fred Ebrahimi, a team from the company visited Bangalore, Noida, Gurgaon, Delhi and Hyderabad. Since I knew the city, I convinced him to visit Chandigarh as well. To my surprise, he was bowled over by the planned location and cosmopolitan lifestyle of the city and decided to opt for this location. [Chandigarh Tribune]

In India, Ebrahimi will soon start building a dream city in Punjab, spread over 5,000 acres, bringing state-of-the-art construction technology to the country.  Quark City, will boast India’s biggest shopping mall, a host of technology campuses ranging from IT to bio-tech and the works, and housing apartments each worth a crore. To make things happen, the Punjab government has eased archaic building restrictions. It also plans to give the SEZ status to Quark City. [Economic Times]

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That rice is yucky

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It’s no secret that I adore Wikipedia, after all, I inflict my preference for it on you whenever I can. 😉 SM tipster bl00t sends me somewhere that looks and feels familiar, but only in structure. Confused? Let me quote from the “wiki” on India:

Under Culture:

India has a rich cultural Heritage, but it doesn’t really matter because it is quickly being displaced by the more evolutionarily fit American Culture. The Taj Mahal, a burial plot for some woman who died a long time ago, is important because it is featured in many American Saturday morning cartoons.

Under Origin of Name:

Christopher Columbus named India after the Native Americans who first colonised the region. Some people claim that the Vikings discovered India first, but they aren’t really an oppressed minority so we can ignore them.
Because India’s name had to rhyme with Pakistan, it was given the name Hakistan in the finest tradition of Hackensack, NJ. (It is also called Hindustan by some ignorant fools).

Under Trivia:

Indian food is known internationally for its spiciness and funny names such as sari, salwar kameez, Buddha, and condoleeza rice.

Under Economy:

India is currently involved in a takeover bid for the region of Kashmir, a key garment district which is home of the famous sweater.

Right.

Now after reading all that, I can’t decide if it was funny, slightly amusing or almost insulting. If only it had some Asian-looking Orcs in it to make it obvious for me. Alas, it lacks such glaring evidence of prejudice. What say you, dear readers? Did it tickle your phunny bone? Do any of you feel like editing it? Continue reading →

The animals were loaded two by two

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There is a controversy brewing at the Tulsa Zoo in Oklahoma. Zoo officials there want to display an exhibit that explains the creation of animals by means of the biblical account. We all know that creationism is on the rise at an alarming rate in school districts across the country. Now they want it in the zoos as well? Why? Well it turns out that the impetus for this stupid idea might be one Ganesh. USA Today reports:

The Tulsa Zoo will add a display featuring the biblical account of creation following complaints to a city board about other displays with religious significance, including a Hindu elephant statue.

The Tulsa Park and Recreation Board voted 3-1 Tuesday in favor of a display depicting the account in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.

The vote came after more than two hours of public comment from a standing-room-only crowd.

Zoo employees, religious leaders and others spoke in opposition, saying religion shouldn’t be part of the taxpayer-funded scientific institution.

But those who favored the creationist exhibit, including Mayor Bill LaFortune, argued that the zoo already displayed religious items, including the statue of the Hindu god, Ganesh, outside the elephant exhibit and a marble globe inscribed with an American Indian saying, “The earth is our mother. The sky is our father.”

Is this merely a petty attempt to counter the Ganesh statue with some Christianity? Lord knows we don’t want decent God-fearing Oklahomans to go to the zoo, get converted, and turn Hindu on us when they see a Ganesh statue in front of them. We might as well battle that possibility with some Genesis. So why was the Ganesh statue there anyways?

Zoo officials argued that the zoo, as a scientific institution, does not advocate religion and that displays like the elephant statue are meant to show the animal’s image among cultures. The same exhibit includes the Republican Party’s elephant symbol.

And of course I have to finish with a quote that will make you smack your forehead in disgust:

“I see this as a big victory,” said Dan Hicks, the Tulsa resident who approached the Tulsa Zoo with the idea for the exhibit. “It’s a matter of fairness. To not include the creationist view would be discrimination.”

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Kindergarten Cop

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Honestly, you just have to ask yourself one question. Do you feel lucky punk? SM tipster Sabeena alerts us to this story at the BBC.

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At a time when most children prepare to go to school, Saurabh Nagvanshi is off to the office.

Saurabh works at a police station in Raipur, the capital of India’s central state of Chhattisgarh. He is five years old.

He is part of an Indian system that allows a family member to take the post of a government employee who dies while in service.

There is no age limit and many families have no alternative but to send young children to work to make ends meet.

Saurabh has to feed a family of five and so his mother, Ishwari Devi Nagvanshi, holds his hand and takes him the 110km (68 miles) from Bilaspur, where they live, to Raipur.

Rest assured, Saurabh has been known to strike fear into the dark hearts of criminals:

He is quiet. If you try to talk to him he will either run away or hide behind his mother.

All joking aside this is a story that tugs at the heartstrings. There are a number of children in predicaments similar to that of Saurabh’s who are covered in the article. The money they bring in is a necessity for their poor families, but it comes at the expense of their childhood. Some human rights groups are raising objections to the system:

Subhash Mahapatra, president of a human rights organisation called Forum for Fact-finding, Documentation and Advocacy, goes further.

According to the Geneva Convention, he says, employing children as police officials and making them work at such a young age is against Indian and international laws.

“It is very similar to the definition of child soldiers as outlined by the United Nations,” he says.

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