I know this is highly random, but ever since I read the email Sree sent out via SAJA, I’ve been curious about “her”, too. That and I truly believe that every brown person in Amreeka is two degrees apart:
You know your wife indulges your South Asia obsessions when she calls you from a cab to alert you to a pretty desi woman on Broadway. A pretty, very tall desi woman – over 15 feet tall, actually. See the photos below to see who my wife called me about (it’s a billboard for Microsoft’s Office 2007 on Broadway between 50th and 49th Street in Manhattan, near Times Square). Now, let’s test the “all desis know each other” theory and see if one of you can identify this model. [SAJAforum]
Bigger picture of our mystery model after the jump. Click to enlarge both images. Or not.
Anyone know who this lovely is? Has she popped up elsewhere? Can we have a thread that doesn’t devolve in to retarded commentary regarding weight and skin color? PLEASE?
If you have to wax immature and vicious, aim that shit at Office 2007, which has brought me (and everyone else in my office) nothing but pain. Soooo not intuitive…
I hear you on that. I see so many of them in my building. Little girls, some of them have to be accompanied by parents because they are 16 or 17 years old and they look so emaciated and scary.
Paging Dr Tripathi. He’s the authority on the hip/waist/fertility ratio.
True story. I’m interviewing at UC San Diego. One of the other applicants, Vamsi, mentions that she is from Pittsburgh.
“Oh my fiance (now wife and Asha’s mom) is from Pittsburgh. You don’t know Kavitha do you?”
“We took dance together for 10 years.”
She later mentions that she attended Wash U in St Louis for undergrand. So I casually mention if she knew Indhu, the only desi I knew that went to Wash U and also happened to be my chief resident.
“Oh my god. I knew Indhu from Pittsburgh and we had a lot of the same classes”
So the 6 degrees of Desi Kevin Bacon does hold some water.
It is a nice dress by the way.
All of youz r 2 young to remember Marlo Thomas walking through the city in the tv classic “That Girl.” This chick looks just like a brown Marlo, so the title of your post is deep. Theme song lyrics:
Diamonds, Daisies, Snowflakes, That Girl Chestnuts, Rainbows, Springtime… Is That Girl She’s tinsel on a tree… She’s everything that every girl should be!
Sable, Popcorn, White Wine, That Girl Gingham, Bluebirds, Broadway… Is That Girl She’s mine alone, but luckily for you… If you find a girl to love, Only one girl to love, Then she’ll be That Girl too… That Girl!
That and I truly believe that every brown person in Amreeka is two degrees apart
Heh. I believe it, and now I’m sorely tempted to go and try out the hypothesis on every desi person I know. If I end up with a statistically significant sample, I’ll let you know if you’re right or not! 🙂
Nice dress on the girl in the picture. Designer?
asha’s dad: you interviewed for a faculty position?
i don’t get the ad at all. but the girl is cute. and detachedly curious if that is possible.
My best friend is Mexican-American but looks very Indian. Whereas I don’t look very Indian at all… It’s become a running joke every time we’re introduced to strangers. Every now and then someone will chuckle when they hear our names, assuming we’re having a little fun at their expense…
As far as the billboard goes… why does she have to walk across town to use the new nifty keen Microsoft stuff? Sneakernet is so 1980’s…
Anna, please check if it is Roopa Unnikrishnan and end the hoopla. Looks like her and she lives in NY too.
So no one knows who she is, eh? 🙂 I’m kinda surprised. Maybe she ISN’T brown after all.
::
We switched to Office 2007 a week or so ago and every day I discover something new which is suddenly screwy thanks to the change. Yesterday, I found out that one of our databases was acting very weird; editing records was suddenly impossible, since it would erase, not edit whatever I was working on…not that I can get in to specifics. Of course, I have to “enable” content in order to even GET to said db, which adds an extra two steps to something which used to be rather mindless.
Beyond that, in Word or Excel, the new toolbars/GUI are pretty but useless. I’m constantly going, “wait…where’s format painter again?” or similar. Worse, when I tried to do a simple word count, it took me 15 minutes to find something I used to be able to discover via “properties”. It’s just not logical. Everything requires extra clicks to do…and nothing is where I or my coworkers would expect to find it. I’m not trying to be hip, alternative, contrarian or all Pitchforkian-holier-than-thou; though I adore my Mac so much, my exbf was jealous of it, I swear my issues with Office oh-heavens-no are genuine.
It is not Roopa chechi. If you don’t want to play along in the “Are we less than 2 degrees apart?!”-desi game, fine, but don’t accuse me of “hoopla” or make inane allegations– our billboard babe looks NOTHING like Roopa Unnikrishnan.
Also, it matters not where a model lives; what on earth made you think she has to be local??
My two cents on this – if she is in fact desi, and is a model at all – she might be a model who works mainly in the desh, and that might make it difficult, even with the fantastic site stats here at SM, to positively ID her. One more reason I would think she’s in the desh is her hairstyle – don’t know if anyone brought that up, but it looks very desi-from-the-desh to me. And I think the street scene she is superposed on is in Europe, judging by the looks of the dudes behind her.
Anyone? Or is it just hip to hate Microsoft? The GUI now comes with “ribbons” instead of toolbars (check out Anna’s comments (#108) on the GUI). Functionality wise, the major additions have been to support XML (XML-based file formats for documents and spreadsheets) and for collaborative work (Sharepoint Server 2007 and Groove). You can check out this review of the new suite from PCWorld, which found it to be a worthwhile upgrade. The collaboration features sound pretty cool (assuming your definition of cool includes being able to manage data in a corporate or small-business setting :)), but I believe that’s pretty much it.
If you are a home user, I think your current Office software probably already supports all the features you need.
But it looks like there are yellow NYC-style taxis in the picture. The street lights do look sort of European.
It works both ways. I studied abroad in Peru and was assumed to be mestiza when I was in Lima and an indigenous Quechua-speaker when I was in Cusco. My good friend is Mexican (and I’m Punjabi) and people are always asking if we’re sisters, that’s how alike we look. The belief that South Asians or Mexicans or Peruvians or whoever should “look” a certain way is pretty flawed.
When I made that correction, I had no idea who the original poster was. I don’t know if it was a South Asian or a Latino/a or a first-gen or a third-gen or a whitey who has studied Spanish or whatever. I just saw it written, noticed it didn’t make sense, and added in what I thought was missing when I commented. I was not trying to make any commentary about the Spanish abilities of whoever posted it – I honestly do not care. I’ve had enough “real-world interactions” to know that no one should be judged according to their grasp of a particular language.
heyy! I know Roopa – she was a year junior to me at Good Shepherd School in Madras. Represented India at the Asian Games in Rifle, or whatever it is they called.
Nice!
Diesel, Sonia, and Filmi,
Diesel was right when he pegged bubblebuster (I prefer to think of him as “rompeculo”) as an Anglo troll. If Rompeculo has studied Spanish at all, it is only at the most basic level, as shown by his syntax. It looks suspiciously like something vomited out by one of those cheap translation programs. Both of you caught him on the syntax, so “right on yer”, as the Aussies would say. (Oye, Diesel, somos todos hijos de los conquistadores, a pesar del mito inventado por nuestros nacionalistas-romanticos que somos hijos de tainos. Como ya te apuntaste, las personas mayores tenemos derecho de criticar. Siendo su servidor de epigrafe un viejo, ademas de ser graduado de la “Inter” en San german (1974) y la “UPR” (1977), considero que tengo derecho).
Speaking of Latin America, it’s worth noting that Panama has had a respectable Indian (both Hindu and Muslim, as well as some Sikh) community ever since the digging of the Canal. Needless to say, there are some very attractive Indian-Panamanians.
It is simple. she is the Sexxy5@biPrinc3ss.
Very true. A lot of people don’t realize that there has been a lot of migration to Latin America, making it even more diverse in addition to the Europeans, indigenous, African, and mixed populations from the colonial age. There are huge Asian and Arab populations throughout the region. My Spanish professor is a Korean who was born in Bolivia and raised in Chili.
“Regardless, I think that generalization of South India doesn’t hold.”
I don’t know, I’ve found that generalization to be mostly true… I find less than half the cover models of the various Tamil magazines (vikatan, etc.) moderately attractive, and one thing that is common amongst all the cover models are their light skin. However, I know plenty of better-looking tamil girls out there, but I suppose they do not have the requisite skin tone to be considered for magazines/tv-shows…
What part of the following do some of you NOT understand?
Further comments about skin color will be deleted with prejudice. Do you know who the model is? If so, comment. Do you have something worthwhile to say? Comment. Are you just gagging for a discussion on colorism? DO NOT COMMENT.
The model does bear some resemblance to Roopa U, and that’s a compliment to both women (but that’s not her in the ad).
Are you referring to the security alert? You can disable those if they’re annoying http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/access/HA100806061033.aspx
Theres definitely a learning curve, but I think its worth it. Its like getting used to T9 on your mobile – its hard at first, but you develop speed very quickly.Did you notice you can use the scroll wheel on your mouse to slide the ribbon? I guess you wouldn’t if your mouse doesn’t have a scroll wheel but..
ms word 2007 ate my homework today. helll-oo-o why is there no ama citations style option in this new doohicky??!? am i just part of the citing underclass? doth ama citation-ists not bleed?
i had to revert back to word 2003 by the evening and start from scratch. watevz…
I don’t like the ablist pejorative employed in the post.
In fact, there appears to be some filter that prevented me from even typing out the actual word with quotation marks around it.
ret_rded?
You know, generally I cringe when I see it, but for some reason I didn’t notice it in that sentence until you pointed it out. Probably because I was focusing on the sentiment of the rest of the sentence, with which I agreed vehemently.
It goes to show how the issues with which one is most primarily concerned can determine what one picks up and what one filters out.
I agree with you, Boris.
Boris, why do you people have to politicize everything? jk 🙂 That was actually my first reaction when I finished reading the post.
…but, you know, I believe in a hierarchy of oppression and all, and I’m already a hypersensitive commie for calling out racism, classism, sexism and heteronormativity in everything, so I told them retrds that the gays are getting too powerful for us to say “that’s gay” so we have to say “that’s retrded”. I mean, what are they gonna do, write a letter? baha!
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Bad sarcasm aside, if you were serious in your complaint, I’ll go out on a limb (cuz I’m fully abled!) and say that Anna is considerate enough to not have used the term “ret*rded” if she recognized it in the way that you and I do. Still, it’s a point to be taken 🙂
(wow, the filter thingy really doesn’t let you say ret*ard!)
Wow, I sounded like an asshole in my last comment. (It’s late and I’m getting inane.) My point: let’s avoid ablism. Good night all 🙂
lirelou No romanticization here-my grandfather’s mother was from Spain-I’m just saying that correcting language, even in the event of trollery could be construed as rudely classist and you don’t have to be a Taino to sympathize with that. It’s not really even a new idea. But who the hell am I to scold anybody about it either? We can talk about it more if you like, but not on this thread
…and the award for staying on-topic goes toooooo
COACH DIESEL!
Coach, we heart you. 🙂
Gracias SM Intern/Anna. I know how you like to keep a thread neat;) Besos.
this chick is average looking. she is not of model status and does indian girls injustice; since it is a rare occasion they are actually featured, a good one should get the call.
in a dec 2006 sports illustrated (vince young cover) there was a devastatingly hot indian girl in the kool cigarette ad. i stared at the ad for an hour the first time i saw it. perhaps i missed that thread, but if anyone knows her name please post.
I respectfully disagree with this point of view. To say that someone, because she is average looking, “does indian girls injustice” is rather harsh. It’s saying that if someone is to represent us, then only certain (elitist-looking) people can. What gives her the authority to represent all “indian girls,” as you put it? There is so much diversity and complexity within the community, so why should only “a good one” get the call? What makes her not “a good one”? I’m super tired so I’m not articulating my thoughts well, but hopefully ya’ll get the point. What is your criteria for a “good one” who WOULD do us “justice”?
I noticed in 1968-69 Vietnam that Indian films were quite popular. Part of the reason was that the Vietnamese consider Indian faces, particularly the eyes, to be quite beautiful. Many Vietnamese singing and screen stars had large, almond eyes, sometimes naturally so, sometimes surgically assisted. Weterners often scorned the latter as “trying to ape westerners” but were ignorant of the fact that Indian films and beauty stars were the model, not Westerner ones. Later, I married a Vietnamese, and so return there occasionally to visit in-laws. Bollywood films still (often from pirated DVDs) still find a large audience, and Vietnamese continue to envy the expressive eyes that are a trademark of Indian beauty in both males and females. My wife has an uncle who never misses a Bollywood film. Of course, Central Vietnam was taken from the Cham Empire, a series of Hindu states, in the fifteenth through sixteenth centuries (with some holdouts as late as 1820), and the Mekong Delta was taken from the Cambodians back when they were dropping the Hindu faith in favor of Buddhism. (Thus the French term “Indochina”) Even the Vietnamese national dress, the Ao Dai (pronounced Ai Yai in the south/central, Ao Zai in the north) looks very much like an Indian dress (pants and tunic) with Chinese touches. Within the Delta, some Indian goddesses have been incorporated into the local Buddhism, and the Can Tho city museum has a few Hindu gods and goddesses from the Cambodian period on display. Unfortunately, as they were carved from wood, they are not well preserved, but I credit the local authorities with at least showing people that Can Tho was once an outpost of Indian civilization.
Microsoft used Flickr to hire amateur photgraphers for some of its Vista Desktop Wallpapers. Who knows may be this was also from an amateur street photographer.
Vanity Fair went an awful lot of trouble to
dear sonia,
the girl from the kool cigarette i spoke of would definitely do all indian girls (and boys, no doubt) a lot of justice. models ALWAYS represent the beauty of their ethnicity, even moreso than the product they are selling. i don’t remember one occasion when on the thousands of occasions i have been appreciating female beauty at its height (ie viewing models) and not wondered where she is from. the bottom line is that when americans think of indian girls they do not automoatically correlate them with hotness, and to me that is wrong since proportionately there are just as many hot indian girls as other brown girls (brasilian, latin). sonia, you sound like someone who would say “why is it so important to be hot?” the answer is very long and complicated. the short one is that it just is. sorry.
Sonia #113
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That’s so funny what people thought you were. It has happened to me in central america as well, and my very Indian dad has been accosted numerous times by people trying to speak Spanish to him, and he looks really “Indian” to me. Lots of people also think I’m Russian, because of my brown hair and my international first name, which is actually Indian but homonyms of it are found it every country. I get a lot of the “you don’t look Indian” treatment from people (less common in desis though) and even met a lady who I think was Bengali who said she herself didn’t look Indian (??) When I ask those people what typical Indian features are, they can’t answer!
The poster girl is pretty though. I don’t have any idea who she would be, but she has a look reminiscent of Priety Zinhta (sp?)
Actually come to think of it almost all the technology ads today, SAP, Microsoft, Verizon, Intel etc have some kind of desi scenario in it. Two non-tech ads that come to mind:
AETNA billboard featuring smiley desi doc somewhere around exit 12 on NJ Turnpike SECRET magazine ad featuring desi mom and her two daughters (her secret? She has a favorite daughter…)
Dear Zen, Actually the ad around NJ Turnpike featuring the smiley doc is not of Aetna but if Horizon BCBS of NJ.
Hii..The poster girl is pretty though, may be this was from an amateur street photographer.
Love that blue dress !!!!
Her name is Saima. I know her.