Come Home

Singer-songwriter Shaheen Sheik, a friend from college, just signed with Times Music in Bombay and is on a promo tour here this week. (Watch her video.) Last night she sang on a TV show with a name that’s a paragon of ridiculously nontransitive branding, the Tuscan Verve Zoom Glam Awards. Other nights she slums with the plebeians. That’s usually when I get to see her.

A few of us went to see her first performance at a downtown Bombay club called Prive, which is around the corner from the Gateway of India. It’s decorated like a Southern strip club (black lacquer ceilings, gold bead curtains and lap dance seats), albeit one with floating roses. It was an odd venue for folk-pop ballads, but Shaheen sang four gorgeous melodies and encored with a cover of ‘In Your Eyes.’ Like most desis of a certain age, the duet guitarist provided by the label knew Pink Floyd, the Eagles and Led Zep but was baffled by Peter Gabriel.

There’s an interesting tradeoff when Indians in the diaspora come back to promote their wares (Apache Indian, Salman Rushdie…) On one hand, the potential market is huge with a built-in cultural interest. On the other, the middle class is limited in size, and you earn less per unit than in your home market after currency conversion.

Ballads at Prive

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ToIletries

The Times of India paper edition, while better than its ad-littered Web site, still runs a few howlers:

In this story, Rang De Basanti cutie Soha Ali Khan wears a baby tee with a Lenovo logo next to a story written like ad copy which pimps the latest Thinkpad. This ran last week as straight editorial with no ‘advertisement’ label. And these paid-for stories are apparently common practice (thanks, Amit).

When a student newspaper quotes the ToI, it apparently qualifies as three-column news. Have some freakin’ self-respect. They call themselves the Times of India, not the Times of Podunkville Elementary.

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