On the late-night community access channel, Dr. Khemfoia Padu, who appears to be black, dons a saffron turban and shills pills with whale tails.
Dr. Padu is the Director of The Natural Healing Foundation… He is a licensed Chiropracter, Herbologist, Nutritionist, as well as a Theologian and Martial Artist. [Link]
I’m not sure whether the pagri pitches desi mysticism, evokes black musicians who wore turbans or references turbans in Africa.
Erykah Padu’s turban may be genuine, but I’m thoroughly irritated that desi culture is associated in the U.S. with hippies and New Age. You can’t go to an all-veg pizza place without drowning in ads for crystals and tarot cards. That ain’t right. A subculture has branded a billion and a half people, the tail wags the wog.
In one freakish conflation of the Indian revolutionary movement with American hippies, a town in Massachussetts actually banned a Gandhi statue. It was the absolute height of clusterfuck ignorance:
Gita Mehta details the extent of the hippie infatuation with South Asia in her classic book, Karma Cola. Westerners seek instant salvation; Easterners the quick rupee. Gurus could pack entire astrodomes in the ’60s, levitation was believed to signal salvation, and Western disciples believed above all else in moksha through easy sex and hard drugs. At one point there were over 100,000 hippies trekking all over South Asia searching for enlightenment in woolly-minded religious platitudes and a variety of uppers and downers. Religion and opium for the masses: no wonder Sherborn, Massachusetts, would have none of it.
Sherborn is the town where a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, peacemaker, spawned two death threats and a legal challenge [in 1994]… Residents of Sherborn were incensed that the statue of Gandhi had been erected next to a war memorial. Columnist Alex Beam of the Boston Globe called Gandhi a “simpering second-rate peacenik” and claimed his message of peace was an insult to the Revolutionary War town of Sherborn: “Sure, he freed 100 million people, but at the end of the day he was just another yellow-belly who never picked up a gun.” A hippie, not a peacemaker — this is how Gandhi plays in much of America.
Hippie beliefs have mutated into the New Age, which continues to feed the fascination with the lore of South Asia. The sale and bastardization of South Asian traditions is a big business. Watered down South Asian food, music, and philosophy play much better in suburbia than do the originals. Not only is this view of South Asia inaccurate, it is also outdated: hardly anybody is interested in the South Asia of today. There are five times as many classes on Harappa and Hanuman as there are on South Asian politics and economics. Those who do take the time to read about South Asia find condescending books by Barbara Crossette, V.S. Naipaul, or Mother Teresa, and come away with an impression of crushing poverty and an attitude of superciliousness. [Link]
In the decade since I wrote that essay, people finally are interested in the South Asia of today. Even if it’s only in the business angle, it’s a welcome change.
A turban is never disturbin’, at worst, it’s only dat turban.
Enthusiasm is one of my favorite things, so I can’t really hate on respectful enthusiasts of any stripe. Also I often describe my high school as a cross between hippie commune and British boarding school, and it was one of the happiest parts of my life. So maybe I’m just being ornery. But I hazard that if you took a real dive into the “hippie community” such as it actually exists, Manish, you might find a much more clueful knowledge–and continuum of style–of modern, living South Asia than you’d think. I know a lot of surface-hippies who spend more time travelling and working in India, and have a much bigger clue about local economies and village life, than a lot of Indian-Americans. That said,
There are five times as many classes on Harappa and Hanuman as there are on South Asian politics and economics.
That’s the real problem. Big, big problem.
Well, at least he looks like he respects the turban.
With regards to sepia-ism being accepted by new-age hippies, I really don’t mind so much. I don’t particularly love hippies or hippie-culture, but that’s another rant, completely.
However, I think that “sepia-ism” is transcending new age hippie culture. Alot of people, even in the mainstream, seem to be interested in brown culture as of late, whether it’s food (yummy), movies, the ladieeees, clothes, bindis, etc. It’s still at the superficial “exotificaton stage”, but better that than the “what’s that red dot on your forehead?” of the 70’s! Maybe it’s just another stage in browns becoming slowly accepted into the U.S, U.K. Canada, etc. (Notice I say accepted and not integrated, b/c we’ve integrated pretty successfully for a while now.)
Stage 3: Avoiding geting our asses kicked by 27 year old valedictorian firemen…..
Westerners seek instant salvation; Easterners the quick rupee.
snort I have always found it ironic that these ‘hippies’ turn their noses up at a religion that DOES preach “instant salvation”* to embrace one that places more emphasis on deeds. Instant salvation? Hah! Now you actually have to be good.
Just an observation.
*Most Protestant strains of Christianity say “pray this prayer and let Jesus in your heart, and that’s all you have to do” … theologically you can get ‘saved’ and then just ask forgiveness for whatever horrid things you do afterwards, and it’s the same as getting ‘saved’ and living an angelic life.
Remember reading that essay a few years back Manish. We still a flavor, and the only way to sell ‘US’ is to don a turban and maybe some faux indian font in the devanagri style (haven’t seen one using nastaliq now that would be phat) Shuffle dem feet, BOLLYWOOD style! And..stop ruining it for the rest of us who still might have a chance to make millions in the few places left where one of us isn’t already hustlin. So…when are we going to come out with our version of nu-metal linkin park music? I think mixing heavy metal with sitar riffs and bollywood style singing should sell very well in the markets?
The R&B singer Isaac Hayes (aka, “Chef” from South Park) used to wear a turban back in the late 1970s.
There is a picture of one album cover he did in such garb here (caution it’s a 1000X1000 pic, may take time to load).
I have no idea why he wore the turban during this “Groove-a-thon” phase. It might have been a new agey thing, or it might be that he understood the intrinsically funkadelic power of the pagri.
And ‘Natural Healing’ is in Chinatown font. In fact, if the character spacing was any larger I’d really believe this was an african-punjabi-chinese called Hea Ling. It is pretty impressive how they are trying to cover all exotisms. I’d caricature alien cultures too if I were an enterprising (or is it unscrupulous?) marketer. Perhaps you would not feel that bad if this were an infomercial at noon.
the intrinsically funkadelic power of the pagri.
Once again, I must demand a t-shirt.
Speaking of pagris, someone answer my bleg about my bleg about black turbans please–is black okay or not okay? What are the smaller turbans called?
Saheli
Most of the Sardarjis in my family wear black pugris – no problem at all. I dont know what you mean by small turbans – different people tie their pugris in different styles and there are a plethora of styles – people in India tie it different to people from Kenya and people in England have started to tie it in another way – plus different sects tie it differently for example the Naam Dhaaris have their own style. Depends on where you are and what you are doing – sometimes you can just do a wraparound if you are lounging about the house while most of the time you do the full starched nine yards or you can wear a kesri or a patka – it all depends on loads of things.
But its no problem wearing black – loads of people wear black dastaars.
If you go here to this blog of one of the 3HO Sikhs in New Mexico and click on the video you can see a demonstration of how to tie a Nihang dastaar – this is a cool video and the dastaar is brilliant too – I love this style – pure warrior saint and the colour blue is great.
Here are a couple of other styles for the women – casual – Formal – and Erykah Badu style.
These New Mexico Sikhs are very serious about their Sikhi and the women are as much Khalsa as the men – hence the pughri – which most Sikh women from Punjabi background do not wear.
Keep an eye on that blog – the guy who runs it seems like a really nice guy and he is going to set up a whole site with videos of how to tie turbans in different styles.
So…when are we going to come out with our version of nu-metal linkin park music? I think mixing heavy metal with sitar riffs and bollywood style singing should sell very well in the markets?
Swami is kind of headed that direction, although not so much Bolly/sitar as Punjabi lyrics and MCing over rock grunge. He’s been talking with Beastie Boys and System of a Down about tours and such. Frankly, I think he’s the most interesting thing going on in the UK scene right now. Nitin’s got the whole bland adult-contemporary thing going on, and no one else is playing live with instruments, just producing and DJing.
Thats very true But they do Khalsa with side order of dodgy sex yoga and dodgy cult like behaviour for a sweet dish.
Allegly. But top marks for Sikhnet. Maybe I’m too harsh on them. after all the Unclejis do much worse and they are less devote for sure.
Some might be like that. Others are not. People say that some of the gora Sikhs knowledge of Sikhi surpasses that of most people. And because they come to it on a religiosu tip they leave all the Punjabi hang ups and baggage at the door and go straight to the source – you know what I mean about the baggage – all the hypocrisies and flab that Punjabis attach to Sikhi.
There was a programme a few months ago called Desi DNA on the BBC and the presenter went to America to check out the desi scene there – she was a Sikhni and a clubber type fashion victim super cool MTV presenter type – and she visited one of the gora Sikh gurdwaras and when they started doing ardaas in Punjabi and reading from Guru Granth Sahib she started crying – because these goray had so much knowledge and devotion.
Man, try a google on plural). All kinds of weirdness. I was trying to find pix of these gyalz, a tribal bellydance group in Oz that I’d seen online ages ago.
I know they’ve got that on their website. here the link for the cult like sweetdish. Like I said I’m accept what you said about them as indivials its the 3HO weirdness I find disquieting… nuff said back to the dastars
Uncleji,
As far as I know the New Mexico guys are into kundalini yoga, not the “sex yoga” version.
They’ve done a great job with the Sikhnet.com site, which I know you’re familiar with.
One for your fundie nephew — With regards to the main pic at the top here, maybe I’m being puritanical about this but I’m not too comfortable about the fact that the guy’s wearing a saffron/kesri coloured turban — and that too, tied in the Sikh style. I’m sure you know about the religious connotations of that colour within Sikhi.
Fundie mode now switched off
in US there’s Alms for Shanti— 2 of the guys from the very rockin’ Indus Creed (aka Rock Machine)– experimenting with hard rock & western instrumentation set against some very traditional instruments (ranging from tabla and an arsenal of percussion instruments to kanjira, shenai, and sarangi)
Is that a dolphin fin in the background or a clockwork wind-up key coming out of his shoulder?
hmmm Need to upgrade the radar Kundalini yoga includes White Tantric yoga, I hadn’t even realised it till the nice sikhnet webmaster mentioned in his blog. its on the 3ho website. I have to confess I’ve never met a 3HO sikh ( though i’ve met other gora sikhs) so I reserve my judgement. Your right about my Uncleji’s safari suits
I’ll say thats a whale and swimming up his backside. No wonder his face is wearing a paining expression
Most of the Sardarjis in my family wear black pugris – no problem at all.
Sweet. Goth Bhangra band, someone, please?
😀
Since most bhangra is upbeat music about wine, women and friends, this would be hard. Though a guy with a full beard, pale skin, black lipstick and facial piercings would be interesting.
Of course, he already married Carmen Electra. Throw a turban on this dude and we’re done. He was even a Red Hot Chili Pepper!
Dr. Khemfoia Padu… shills pills with whale tails.
Aaaauggh! My eyes! My eyes!
Since most bhangra is upbeat music about wine, women and friends, this would be hard.
Damn. Why did Dead Can Dance have to break up before recording a dhol-powered goth dance version of the Rubbaiyat? 🙂
Yikes, my eyes as well.
Dude, Dead Can Dance are back. They’re performing in Chicago in October.
Erykah Badu’s “Turban” is not that at all. It is called a Gele and is a West Afrikan woman’s protective covering.