Author Archives: manish

The tipping point

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Hey y’all,

We’re testing a new feature which lets you post your tips as news stories directly on the site. Click here or on the News tab at the top of the page to try it out.

We’re thinking of this as a place to track media coverage of the sepia revolution beyond what fits on the main page, and faster than we can get to it. For example, there are loads of stories in the MSM this week about Mr. Dubya Goes to Delhi. And there’s lots of ephemera that’s fun to check out, but doesn’t really fit as a full blog post.

While you’re reading, you can help out by flagging reader-submitted stories which are spam, duplicate or just plain lame. Just click the ‘Flag this’ link at the bottom of any story.

This is an experiment, so please have at it!

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Now is the time in Torino when we dance

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Check out this video of an Armenian ice dancing couple performing to a Hare Krishna bhajan in Torino (thanks, Masked Tipster). I don’t think the Blue One looked quite like this. Nothing says religion to me like than a half-naked dancer hanging upside down off a man’s shoulders flashing mudras

‘Sex sells,’ said American Jamie Silverstein, 22, referring to itty-bitty costumes… Anastasia Grebenkina of Armenia wore a backless outfit except for a small swath of cloth that covered her bottom. [Link]

For the dance enthusiast, an ice dancing performance is like a five-minute clip of “Strictly Ballroom” – on acid. Incredible holds, tight twizzles and … hydroblading? Hell yes.

For the chick-flick fan, ice dancing is all the drama without the shitty, sub-par dialogue. When Italian pair Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio stumbled into a heap of sheer, neon Lycra, they stood on the ice for almost a minute, shooting each other the classic “f– you and your sequined appliqués” look. They didn’t speak for more than 24 hours after. “Beaches,” “Hitch” and “My Best Friend’s Wedding” don’t have a blade to stand on.

And men will find themselves enchanted by the ladies’ bare-it-all, barely there leotards of ice dancing, where salsa meets slutty and strategically placed daisies are the only things preventing Armenian skater Anastasia Grebenkina from landing on the cover of a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue. [Link]

Grebenkina and Vazgen Azrojan didn’t medal with this acrobatic routine. But with only four competitors from India, two from Pakistan and one from Nepal, sadly, it actually increased the Olympics’ sepia quotient. Continue reading →

Baby steps

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The recent verdict in a scandalous Delhi killing argues the well-connected can still literally get away with murder. Our Most Favored Flatulation Guy Trebay summarized the case in the Village Voice in ’99:

A man refused a late-night drink at a tony hot spot pulls out a gun and fires it twice… the alleged killer was the son of a former cabinet minister, his victim was a onetime model, the bar was in the most stylish shopping complex in the city, and the murderer waltzed away in front of hundreds…

Demanding whiskey, Sharma was told by Malini Ramani that he could have a sip of her drink for 1000 rupees, or about $35, her sister claims. “It was a normal remark, and I guess only a madman would react in such a violent way,” Malini would later say. Sharma apparently approached Lal next and, when she told him the bar was closed, pulled out a .22 and fired. It was the second bullet that caught Lal in the forehead. Sharma then walked to the courtyard and smiled his way out through the crowd. [Link]

Seven years on, it’s not that the tabloids beat the broadsheets, it’s that every broadsheet has turned into a tabloid:What India lacked until lately: a headless body in a topless bar

Since liberalizing its trade policies in the early ’90s, the vast subcontinent has become a kind of dumping ground for Western culture. It’s a phenomenon observable in everything from the upper-class vogue for New Age anodynes (reiki and Viennese voodoo are currently the rage) to the more obvious glut of MTV.

What India lacked until lately… was Amy Fisher­-Joey Buttafuoco­-style saturation coverage. It lacked a headless body in a topless bar. In the weeks since Lal’s shooting, the capital’s major papers have printed dozens of stories daily under headlines that wouldn’t be out of place in the Post… In a country where Hindu newspapers still print pages of ads for traditionally arranged marriages, and where such stop-the-presses headlines as “Pachyderm Tramples Tigress” are commonplace, there’s an unfulfilled hunger for the Dynasty-style dross of the West. Not since the days of serial killer Charles Sobhraj has a crime so deliciously fit the bill. [Link]

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Posted in Law

Holy hai

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The Beeb is running some absolutely gorgeous photos of a major Jain festival which only comes around every 12 years. Jains from all over India and the diaspora gathered in Shravanabelagola, Karnataka for the Mahamastakabhisheka festival. They washed and anointed a 58-foot-high, 1,000-year-old statue of Bahubali with haldi, kumkum and rice flour.

[Bahubali] is considered to be the originator of the concept of ahimsa or non-violence by the Jains, the basic tenet of their religion… he was the first to have attained salvation…

One thousand and eight small metal vessels containing water are placed neatly in the courtyard below the gigantic sculpture, considered divine. At day break, a select group of priests, chanting hymns, arrange the pots in a traditional geometrical pattern. Devotees then lift these vessels and climb up the 600 stairs to the top of the enormous statue… The statue is bathed with unending quantities of milk, sugarcane juice, pastes of saffron, sandal wood, and therapeutic herbal lotions. Powders of coconut, turmeric, saffron, vermilion and sandal wood are then sprayed on the statue. Precious stones, gold, silver, petals and coins are offered in reverence. The spectacular finale to this 10-hour ceremony is a shower of flowers from a helicopter. [Link]

The digambara (nude) form of Bahubali represents the complete victory over earthly desires… [Link]

Perhaps it was to prevent these charismatic scenes of religious ecstasy that the Puritans to the west took a rocket launcher to the Bamiyan Buddhas.

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Playing Monopoly

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As Abhi posted earlier, there’s a big outcry in the U.S. over the sale of a British port operator to one based in Dubai. What few people have pointed out is that in the international edition of Monopoly, when you buy P&O, you get India for free:

Yet nowhere else has the deal for P.& O., as the company is known, drawn much anxiety… in other countries it will vastly increase the company’s reach. In India, for instance, Dubai will take control of about half the country’s container shipping operations, but there has been little public outcry there. [Link]

Through this deal the Gulf-based company will have in its kitty India’s three major container terminals… Mumbai… Chennai… and… Gujarat; apart from a share in… Vishakapatnam.

Also, with the development… by Dubai Ports in Kochi, a majority of the Indian container shipping is expected to be in the hands of the Gulf-State backed company… “Dubai Ports is going to rule the India container industry…” [Link]

The deal’s purported security risk would affect desi Canadians as well as Americans via Vancouver:

But what’s at stake, specifically, is the Centerm hub in Burrard Inlet, which handles about a quarter of the shipping containers passing through Canada’s third-largest city. Centerm is where P&O — and soon, Dubai Ports World — makes money by loading and unloading shipping containers…

Vancouver’s ability to safeguard against terrorism is crucial for the continent… In 1999, Algerian al-Qaeda member Ahmed Ressam cooked up a massive bomb in Vancouver… he had been hoping to… [set off] the bomb in… Los Angeles Airport. In 1985, Sikh terrorists placed deadly bombs aboard two Air-India jets at Vancouver’s airport. [Link]

Flat-earther Tom Friedman piles in for the free-marketers:“This is about keeping ‘a bunch of Arabs’ out of our country”

“I think it’s a shameful and has slightly racist overtones to it… This is about keeping ‘a bunch of Arabs’ out of our country, that’s what this is really about. And it’s a bad thing, not only because it doesn’t reflect our real values.”

Friedman points out that American companies like IBM, FedEx or UPS run around doing business in the Arab world. “What if they then turn around and say, ‘You’re not going to take ours, well, we’re not going to take yours…’ ”

“Both sides are guilty of it. When people ransack a Danish embassy in Damascus and the government allows it.. We have nativists in our country. They have nativists in their country that are going to always want to push these issues. Government’s job is to restrain that.” [Link]

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Hingrish

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The LA Weekly journalist who attempted a Rang De Basanti review has apparently never used a film database in his life:

Veteran character actor Atoll Kukri (Chanting Bar) is equally impressive… The students, whose ranks include superstar Aimer Khan (Lagan)… [Link]

As fun as a ‘chanting bar’ sounds, he means Atul Kulkarni (Chandni Bar) and Aamir Khan (Lagaan). But the mistakes aren’t a language thing, they’re a sloppiness thing. He even gets the British lead’s name wrong:

… a group of slackers at Delhi University is hired by a British indie moviemaker (Alice Payton) to portray the heroes of the terrorist phase of the Indian independence movement… [author:] David Chute… [Link]

This quality review was brought to you by the Yeh Le Wickly’s Daoud Choot.

First of all, the key characteristic of terrorism is targeting civilians rather than military or political figures — unlike the miscreants in Iraq, Kashmir and Sri Lanka, the events of Indian independence covered in this film hardly qualify. And second, that’s Alice Patten, 25-year-old daughter of Chris Patten, the last British governor-general of Hong Kong:

… her father Chris Patten… had absolutely encouraged her to do the film. He told her it would be a life-affirming [experience]… [Link]

Alice first drew world wide attention when she stood sobbing during the ceremonial British handover of Hong Kong… [Link]

… Prince Charles… was “really sweet” when he fixed her a stiff gin as Britannia sailed out of Hong Kong on June 30, 1997… I cannot resist reminding her of the lugubrious final moments of the handover of Hong Kong. The bagpipe droned, the rain poured down, the Patten girls sobbed. “Sssh!” says Alice. While Prince Charles and her father (with the help of a Vick’s inhaler) maintained dignified control and her mother achieved a certain composure, the girls did not. So the cameras focused on them, because their distress seemed best to capture the poignancy of the moment when the Royal yacht – and with it the British Empire – sailed out of Hong Kong harbour and into history. [Link]

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Everyone’s a little bit outsourcist

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New documents show Al Qaeda pays Afghanistan recruits in Pakistani rupees, and they break down the salaries (via Daily Show):

Military officials… read a document known as the “al Qaeda employment contract…” It was seized after 9/11 in the home of an al Qaeda operative in Kandahar, Afghanistan…

Monthly salaries are spelled out, 6,500 Pakistani rupees… if you’re married, 1,000 rupees… for bachelors. An extra 700 rupees per wife if you have more than one…

Married members get seven days of vacation every three weeks. Bachelors get five vacation days every month… they also get 15 days sick leave a year. [Link]

A draft of al-Qaeda “bylaws” stipulates extra pay of 700 rupees a month for each additional wife as well as 20,000 rupees for married members to buy furniture and free health care. [Link]

The Pakistani rupee currently trades at 60 to the dollar, so it’s apparently cheaper to hire a terrorist than a second-tier software developer. Given the relative skill sets, I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. And bachelors get screwed on pay — I wonder why they’re incentivizing men to get married even though they’re likely to die.

Jon Stewart jokes that the vacations are fantastic, but the pension’s non-existent. Personally I’ll never say any software ‘bombed’ again.

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Electrohop therapy

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My friend Milind Parate’s band Atomati is playing a show at legendary NYC nightspot CBGB this Saturday. Milind has a day job so square, he had to be a rock drummer for street cred His old band Ladyjane had some great tunes which reminded me of the Sundays. And a great logo. Milind says, ‘p.s. please bring lighters and friends.’

So last night I saw two emo bands play and they got super pissed at each other. They were getting ready to fight and they all busted out razors and started cutting each other’s wrists. [Link]

Umar and Mohan

After Atomati, you can walk over and check out the beatsmithfools behind DD Pesh. Mohan Arora and Umar Rashid spin electrohop in LES the same night. These guys are my neighbors with the odd but endearing habit of buying me beer on their own birthdays. And they put Kishore Kumar next to Quincy Jones. Listen to ‘Morning Raaga Pt. II.’



Related posts: Zerobridge, Hipsterville, W’burg: The dungeonmasters of Galapagos Bar

Atomati, Sat. Feb. 25, 9:30pm, CBGB Lounge basement, 313 Bowery at Bleecker, Manhattan
DD Pesh, Sat. Feb. 25, 10pm, Crudo, 54 Clinton St., Manhattan

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What happens in Vegas, stays in Chennai

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Now that the the Amish are phone phreaking…

An Amish teenager will pay a fine and restitution to a neighbor for illegally tapping into his telephone line… The Amish traditionally shun telephones and other modern conveniences in their homes. [Link]

… and godless Chinese churn out Hindu idols…

Nowadays, factories in agnostic, communist China are producing Ganesh, Krishna and other Hindu idols out of plastic and porcelain at such low cost and high quality that Indians are lapping them up. India’s newfound love for mass-produced, “Made in China” images of their gods is driving many in the poorest sections of the nation’s traditional idol-making industry out of business, repeating a pattern seen in its toy-making industry. [Link]

… it was only a matter of time before India started writing software for that den of sin, Vegas (via Digg):

… software development for casinos will now happen in India — a country in which gambling is illegal. [Link]

Bally Systems, [the] world’s largest casino technology [company], is making India its largest… software… development centre… [its] development facility in Chennai will have 250 engineers by mid 2007, against 70 at present. [Link]

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