Desi Hipster Olympics — Blegging for Ideas

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Blogger Zen Denizen has a post with the following idea:

My next project will be creating and hosting the Desi Hipster Olympics. I’ll post a tip on our favorite kill whitey group blog and let the games begin (or not). Categories to include: Kitschiest classic Bollywood references, best misappropriation of afrocentric or other suitable third world imagery for supposed desi struggles and most ironic use of a kurta. (link)

First of all, I want to say that if Zen is talking about SM I am truly honored we are her favorite “kill whitey” group blog. There is a lot of competition out there, and I’m glad to finally get some recognition. That said, I think it’s a great idea, though I suspect we could add to and/or adjust Zen’s proposed categories before proceeding to actually initiate some kind of meta-desi, pseudo-secular, indo-ironic competition. (I have never done anything very ironic with a kurta, for instance, other than perhaps actually ironing it.)

Readers, what would be good categories for a desi hipster olympics? Secondly, if you wish to prove your own hipness you are now welcome to begin doing so, though you should be warned that it’s always possible that an even hipper desi will come along and point out how passé your knowledge of retro-Bollywood cultural trivia, present-day underground desi musicians and writers, and quasi-desi fusion fashion actually is.

Obviously I’m at a huge disadvantage here in terms of my own personal hipness, being over 30 (bo-ring!), and living in suburban Philadelphia (so, so far from Brooklyn). The best I can offer this morning is the following short video, which does in fact feature a kurta and may also possibly be interpreted ironically. (I have to admit I grabbed it from Manish’s news tab):

And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

37 thoughts on “Desi Hipster Olympics — Blegging for Ideas”

  1. Oh you’re killing me man. Thanks to Ronak (he who considers SM too stuffy for his precious self πŸ™‚ at UB, I have been having a ball all day. These guys are the coolest. I love them all Toshiko, Maureen, Gursh and the Wizard – all of them !!!!

  4. So what does this “hipster” word mean? Is it simply a person who is hip? Hip like yuppy/frat girl or hip like artsy fartsy? Is it like a “pomo” – back in the day when I was in college, there were “pomos.”

  5. Some possible categories: Home and Family (race to see who is able to get off the phone with their mom (or nani) fastest, forensic debate about law school vs. medical school, race to set up a mandir in your apartment when relatives are coming over Fashion (who can wrap a sari on to a white friend who thinks “saris are so pretty!!”, best choice of ironic footwear with kurta) Culture Wars (best reproduction of choreography from “Don” (the original, of course), maybe an event on top of train-running to chaiyya chaiyya, name-dropping lightning round from Brooklyn’s bhangra DJ scene Cuisine (bhel puri assembly?)

  7. So what does this “hipster” word mean? Is it simply a person who is hip? Hip like yuppy/frat girl or hip like artsy fartsy? Is it like a “pomo” – back in the day when I was in college, there were “pomos.”

    Lakshmi, I think the word “hipster” comes from the 1950s, and originally referred to artsy fartsy people who wore their pants (relatively) low, at the hips. What it refers to now is hard to say, since technically everyone below the age of 60 wears their pants lower than people did in the 1950s. (But see the video at Zen’s blog for further clarification.)

    What is a pomo? Is it like momos? I like momos… yum, momos.

  8. what would be good categories for a desi hipster olympics?

    A variation of pin the tail on the donkey : “pin the blame on the honkey“.

  9. I have never done anything very ironic with a kurta, for instance, other than perhaps actually ironing it.

    in my last trip to desh I got a (maple leaf) red kurta*. I dont think it is ironic in itself but I have a feeling the xenophobic crowd may find it ironic when i wear it on canada day.

    *i’m pretty sure it’ll bleed murder in the first wash. it’s probably good for just one wear.

  11. Amardeep’s post: I am truly honored we are her favorite Ò€œkill whiteyÒ€ group blog.

    Now you know I am a fan of SM’s and especially yours, mainly because you sometimes take me back to my more literary years. But SM a kill whitey blog? Maybe I am not hip enough to see any humor in that.

  12. Amardeep, well, I think that pomo is short for “postmodern” but the “pomos” at college I knew dressed like the kids from the band Weezer and majored in art/film. Aah hipster jeans – aka peekaboo thong jeans – that’s interesting to know…thanks for the info.

  13. And oh, not to be a complete party pooper, how about kabaddi for Desi Hipster Olympics? Kurtas won’t work, though. The object of the game is to wear nothing that the opponent can grab on to and oil yourself profusely to slip out of the enemy’s grasp.

  14. Floridian,

    Kabbadi has to be my favorite spectator sport, langotis will go well with the oil you talk about πŸ™‚

  15. And oh, not to be a complete party pooper, how about kabaddi for Desi Hipster Olympics? Kurtas won’t work, though. The object of the game is to wear nothing that the opponent can grab on to and oil yourself profusely to slip out of the enemy’s grasp.

    nono… to be a hipster oly it should be a competition in which there is no competitive zeal but there is immense self-awareness and the need to project languor (as opposed to langur, which I’d associatE with thekabaddi).

    how about kabaddi while wearing yak fur thongs where the kabaddigas take frequent hemp-chai breaks and kvetch about their parents and roll their eyes in embarassment when said cheerleader parents haggle with the chaiwallah at the sidelines about the price of chai, “Oai! Ae kee? i will take half cup for 2 dollars only.”.

  16. I think an event HAS to be “Say something in Indian!”

    Two contestants (could have roots from any part of India) are at podiums, each with a buzzer in hand. Randomly selected American friend yells out a word or phrase, and the first one to answer wins. The answer need not be correct, nor does it have to be pronounced correctly; it only has to sound right and have a confident delivery.

    This is from a 22 year old in Dallas, so I don’t know if I qualify or not.

  17. Dude, Brooklyn is over. The yuppies are running amok here now. No self-respecting hipster, brown or otherwise, would be willing to share sidewalk space with a $200k+ couple pushing a $3k Bugaboo stroller down Bedford Ave. Jackson Heights is the new Williamsburg, son!

  18. Dude, Brooklyn is over. The yuppies are running amok here now. No self-respecting hipster, brown or otherwise, would be willing to share sidewalk space with a $200k+ couple pushing a $3k Bugaboo stroller down Bedford Ave. Jackson Heights is the new Williamsburg, son!

    There are two possible responses to that, and I’m torn:

    1) It’s actually hipster poverty that’s over, bra. Those $200k+ couples and their fancy strollers are the new new hipsters — the lifestyle hipsters, whose goal is merely to look like artists and musicians. Meanwhile, the impoverished actual artists and musicians stranded in Outer Queens are actually wannabes, and therefore, less hip.

    2) You’ve proven how hip you are by denying that I even have a valid premise from which to determine the locus of the hip. Thank you, may I have another.

  19. Oh my god. RAH you stole my line. Brooklyn is so over. It’s all about SoBro or Shaolin, now. Um, not that I know much about either place.

    if you wish to prove your own hipness you are now welcome to begin doing so

    If you have to prove your own hipness it automatically negates any hipness you actually had.

  20. So what does this “hipster” word mean?

    To continue on the discussion in previous comments, I think that “hipster” has nothing to do with wealth. To me, hipster conjures up images of trust-fund babies working on their “next” project between classes at NYU and scoring Diesel jeans/weed in the East Village.

  22. 2) You’ve proven how hip you are by denying that I even have a valid premise from which to determine the locus of the hip. Thank you, may I have another.

    Amardeep, you just made me laugh out loud at work.. YES YES YES!

    (from a person who spent four years in un-hip Ridgewood, watching the locus of hip move slowly out the L train line from Bedford Ave… it was encroaching on Jefferson when we left.)

  23. From the Hipster Handbook:

    Definition of a Hipster Hipster – One who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool. (Note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term “cool”; a Hipster would instead say “deck.”) The Hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream. A Hipster ideally possesses no more than 2% body fat.

    by posting that I’m not sure which end of the hipster ironic spectrum I now stand on.

  24. Jackson Heights is the new Williamsburg, son!

    NOOOOOOOOO!!! Don’t tell me they’re coming to Queens!!

    I suffered through a high school filled with Manhattanite and Brooklynite hipsters who thought New York was so great because of how ‘diverse’ it was, but looked down on me for being from Queens!! (“I would only ever go there if the Yankees were playing at Shea Stadium”) People are crazy. Plus they don’t know what they’re missing in terms of desi food, since they insist on sticking to E. 6th St. Whatever… more Jackson Diner mango lassis for me! mwahaha!

  25. People still wear Diesel jeans?

    Thank you for pegging me as a non-hipster with that sentence Tamasha. May I offer up a 7-ForallMankind? How about a Paper-Denim-&-Cloth? Maybe, even…gah..Muji?

  27. I suffered through a high school filled with Manhattanite and Brooklynite hipsters who thought New York was so great because of how ‘diverse’ it was, but looked down on me for being from Queens!!

    Nala,I can well believe this. I live in Manhattan and work in Queens. I’ve been on the receiving end of silly comments like, “Ha ha you take the Orient Express to work”, from people who go on and on about how they love Manhattan because it’s so “diverse”. Oh, the irony.

  28. (I have never done anything very ironic with a kurta, for instance, other than perhaps actually ironing it.)

    Good one πŸ™‚

  29. how’s the trickle of nyc hipsters (i guess who are m mostly transplants?) to philly doing? is there much of a hipster trickle to the bmore, whose metro areaa i grew up in? from dc maybe so far. hey it’s the cheapest major city in the megalopolis.

  31. Hey , Hi . I stumbled on your blog and i simply cant push away from it. I am enjoying your writing immensely.

    I am not Asian but i am BROOKLYN !

    ..so..i thought i would say hello.

    take care – Jayson

  32. Re Lakshmi‘s question at #4

    So what does this “hipster” word mean? Is it simply a person who is hip?

    Some descriptive clues for who/what a hipster might be can be found here, and here. For a more taxonomic approach, see this excerpt from Josh Aiello’s “A Field Guide to the Urban Hipster” πŸ™‚

    Aah hipster jeans – aka peekaboo thong jeans – that’s interesting to know…thanks for the info.

    You’ll find the notion less interesting when you discover that 50% of all wearers are hairy-ass hipsters. The type who you’ll find working part-time at places like “The Bottomless Cup of Coffee”.

  33. 7 train? πŸ™‚

    Nala, not the 7 train, I take the R to 63rd Drive.

    I have to confess I had never heard of the word “hipster” until recently so this thread has been fairly educational for me.

  34. Is it like a “pomo” – back in the day when I was in college, there were “pomos.”

    I’m in uni now, and pomo is still the word thrown around by segments of the hipster academic set

  35. also, pretty much all the desi hipsters I know hang out with white people only. I guess I just haven’t been fortunate enough to meet this ‘kill whitey’ ‘proud to be brown’ brand of desi hipsters. And I never got the impression that SM was a ‘kill whitey’ blog (despite being a play on the Sepoy Mutiny).

  36. The desi hipster olympics would have to include offering your white loftmates samosas, best use of indian iconography never used to pray to, MIA trivia, Who can read SepiaMutiny the fastest?, Most stylish Bata chapal, most mentions of MF Husain in a conversation, Who can buy a white friend a Lahiri or Roy or Rushdie book the fastest, the phonecall with parents was good, and something involving satyajit ray maybe?

  37. Mother$%^@ing Sudhir Khandelwal stole my thunder today! I was all excited that not one but THREE SMers had commented on my blog. Surely that makes it a desi blog they read and hence eligible for the uber-sexy, elusive right hand column link, right? But no, I guess I’m disqualified from the ranks of the establishment for life. sniff

    Thanks anyway for my 14:59 via this desi hipster post, Amardeep, much appreciated πŸ™‚