Author Archives: manish

Incredible advert!sing

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As I tried to catch some shut-eye at Chicago O’Hare yesterday, I kept hearing Indian music playing in the background and finally tracked down the source. This very slick ad for Indian tourism is running endlessly on CNN’s airport network. It’s part of the Incredible !ndia campaign, which used to be Incredibly L^me.

I agree with this critique:

Not bad but they need to do a few more urban-themed things… they all seem to focus on rural women spinning around with pots on their heads… There’s nothing wrong with pushing our history (indeed it is a big tourist draw), but by dropping in some stuff from modern India we can really change people’s perceptions. Remember, this is a bit like what Japan did with its Shinkanshens… India must be marketed as a nation where futurism runs alongside tradition. [Link]

The Turkey Welcomes You campaign shows off a modern subway system (watch clip), though it uses a lot of cheesy, Daler Mehndi-esque, gratuitous greenscreen.

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Reincarnation

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‘Try it, you’ll like it!’ my brother once told me before handing me a peanut butter, honey and banana sandwich. My brother was the king of weird food mashups. From my brother I learned that you can make a burrito out of leftover Thai, taco sauce on anything is tasty, and you can get away with Maggi spicy ketchup on fruit. Years later when I regularly dished lucre in the direction of Asia de Cuba and Sushi Samba, I thought back fondly. Bro, you should have patented.

On the advice of several Mutineers, I dragged the entire family to Avatar’s in Sausalito tonight. Sausalito clings to the Marin Headlands like an Italian fishing village, if only pescatores drove Ferraris. Avatar’s serves food which is a mashup of Punjabi, Mexican, Jamaican and California nouvelle. One of the owners charmed my parents into ceding control of the entire experience to the chef, his mother. The game was to try and guess the ingredients of each dish.

The pumpkin enchiladas were delish, the saag paneer enchiladas almost as good. The ravioli makhani reminded me of my favorite Indian food hack. We all swooned over the samosas with apple salsa sitting atop white and brown chutney drawn in patterns like cappuccino foam. The only dish which disappointed: the mixed veggies atop watery basmati with a mint chutney base.

The restaurant is simple and homey, but the menu is much more satisfying than at its chic Indo-fusion compadre, Tabla in NYC. A sister restaurant, Avatar’s Punjabi Burritos, sits just up the road in Mill Valley. This snack shack don’t lack — I’ll be back.

The late Avatar and his family and friends have created Marindian cuisine, which successfully blends Punjabi, Mexican and a bit of Jamaican flavors, ingredients and techniques…

Literally, if we find ourselves within 100 miles of the Bay Area, we are going to Avatar. [Link]

Related post: Indian food hacks

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Schmaltzland

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The new Samuel L. Jackson/Julianne Moore film Freedomland opens with Aasif Mandvi’s perpetually startled face, looking more and more like Orlando Jones. Mandvi plays a doctor in this movie, a cross between a crime drama and Do the Right Thing. He gets five minutes of good screen time before he’s deep-sixed. From pizza guy (in Spiderman) to hospital Hippocrates is from stereotype to stereotype, but positive nonetheless.

The rest of the movie, an Amber Alert child kidnapping drama, is a jumble of Moore as junkie, Jackson as old fart community cop and Crown Heights-style race riot. The racial politics are from a Nickelodeon after-school special, Jackson was better as an elder Jedi, and cornhole-in-chief Ron Eldard, that blue-eyed devil more robotically evil than Robert Patrick, wears the official cornhole chin-beard usually sported by French gendarmes.

The Chariots of Fire-like score, the simplistic life lessons and the low-glam Moore makeup make the movie seem like some kind of Oscar bid, but instead it winds up lost in Schmaltzland.

The NYT sniffs:

This week’s contribution to our national slag heap and an early candidate for worst film of the year is Freedomland, an inept, lethally dull drama… about a white child who may have gone missing in a New Jersey public housing complex, where the residents are all black. [Link]

Related posts: Ga-ching-a-ching-a-ching, Cereal Cyrano, Aasif Mandvi in ‘Spiderman 2’

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Drunken Durga

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Small comfort: A bar in Athens has been ordered to remove a Southern Comfort poster featuring a multi-armed Durga holding bottles of whiskey (via India-West):

Large posters inside and outside the Balon Oriental Disco Bar in Athens depict the Goddess carrying bottles of Southern Comfort Whiskey in her hands…

The Indian community in Athens has been trying for the last three months to have the posters removed but in vain. Letters have been sent to the American manufacturer of Southern Comfort Whiskey in Tennessee, America, to withdraw the poster. [Link]

Tacky? Yes. Boycott? Begone my NyQuil-flavored winter warmth. But there’s no need to go all Danish on their kundis. How very fundie-Muslim of them:

The offending poster was removed from the discotheque as a result of direct communication from the Greek Embassy in New Delhi to the authorities in Athens to have the poster removed immediately… The offending poster was removed from the discotheque as a result of direct communication from the Greek Embassy in New Delhi to the authorities in Athens to have the poster removed immediately as otherwise there would be a strong reaction from Hindus worldwide. [Link]

Das says that the community wants to round up all the existing posters and burn them… members of the Sikh faith in Athens joined forces with the Hindu communities in their protest. [Link]

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Artless Art

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The Daily Show just posted some disturbing clips from a new anti-American blockbuster in Turkey, a pretty Westernized country. In Kurtlar Vadisi Irak / Valley of the Wolves Iraq, American soldiers (including Billy Zane) machine-gun children and sell them to a Jewish doctor (Gary Busey) who harvests their organs.

Jon Stewart compares the repugnant Turkish screenplay, redolent of Spielberg’s monkey brains, with the fact that Arabs are the go-to villains in Hollywood. One of the clips he shows is True Lies with Brit Asian actor Art Malik, middle name ‘Complicity,’ playing yet another Middle Eastern bad guy.

Art Malik (born as Athar Ul-Haque Malik on November 13, 1952) is a Pakistani-born British actor… Malik also played the villain Salim Abu Aziz opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies (1994)… He also played the role of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef in Path to Paradise, a 1997 made-for-TV film about the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. [Link]

Watch the clip, it’s at 5:30. There’s also a funny bit immediately preceding about astroturf ‘rioters’ in Pakistan torching a KFC over the Danish cartoons instead of a perfectly delectable CBH next door. ‘CBH,’ of course, would stand for ‘Copenhagen Boiled Herrings’

Related posts: White guys in turbans, Fire licks wood in Pakistan, The Danish cartoon controversy

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Aussie drugrunner gets death in Bali

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A 24-year-old Aussie from the Sri Lankan Tamil community was sentenced to death this week for running a ring smuggling heroin from Bali to Australia:

Myuran Sukumaran

Bali Nine “enforcer” Myuran Sukumaran today joined Andrew Chan in being condemned to death by firing squad for attempting to smuggle heroin from Indonesia to Australia. [Link]

I doubt the codename helped their credibility:

The court heard that Sukumaran assisted Chan in strapping bags of heroin to the legs and bodies of Renae Lawrence, Czugaj, Martin Stephens and Scott Rush… On April 5, it is alleged, Sukumaran gave Lawrence $500 and a Nokia mobile phone. He instructed her to call an Australian contact codenamed ‘Pinocchio‘, the court heard. [Link]

I bet they prefer the sound of ‘hakuna matata‘:

Cheers from some Indonesian anti-drug activists echoed in the court as the judges announced the words “hukuman mati“, meaning death sentence. [Link]

Maybe they should’ve read the fine print:

During the trial [a drug mule] said he was so excited at the offer of an overseas holiday in Bali that he was blind to the possible reasons behind the free trip. [Link]

I don’t think this is the judge they had in mind when they made Judge Dredd:

Judge Suryowati said she looked down at the bench in front of her, tears welling in her eyes, as [the chief judge] announced Sukumaran would be executed. [Link]

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Aiyo’ money, aiyo’ problems

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Dhaavak and AB tell us that Tamil script is found not just on Indian and Sri Lankan banknotes, but also on those of Singapore and Mauritius:

Anyone know whether other South Asian languages are found on banknotes outside the subcontinent? I would have guessed Trinidad (40% desi), Guyana (44%) and Fiji (38%), but not so.

Trinidad: According to the 1990 census, Indo-Trinidadians make up 40.3% of the population, Afro-Trinidadians 39.5%, Mixed-race people 18.4%, Whites 0.6% and Chinese and others 1.2%. [Link]

Guyana: … the three largest groups are the Indians or Indo-Guyanese (43.5% in 2002) who have remained predominantly rural, the Africans or Afro-Guyanese (30.2%) who constitute the majority urban population, and those of mixed origin (16.7%). [Link]

Fiji: The population of Fiji is mostly made up of native Fijians, a people of mixed Polynesian and Melanesian ancestory (54.3%), and Indo-Fijians (38.1%), descendants of Indian contract labourers brought to the islands by the British in the 19th century… A 1990 constitution guaranteed ethnic Fijian control of Fiji, but led to heavy Indian emigration; the population loss resulted in economic difficulties, but ensured that Melanesians became the majority. [Link]

Guyanese notes carry the signature of Bharrat Jagdeo, former finance minister and current president:

Bharrat Jagdeo (born January 23, 1964) is the socialist president of Guyana (since August 11, 1999). He had previously been a member of Janet Jagan’s cabinet, and became president after Jagan resigned for health reasons. He is the youngest head of state of the Caricom countries…

After obtaining a Master’s in Economics in Moscow in 1990, Jagdeo returned to Guyana and worked as an Economist… In March 2001, Bharrat Jagdeo won a second term in elections that underscored Guyana’s bitter racial tensions. The reelection of Jagdeo, a member of the Indo-Guyanese majority, caused rioting among the minority Afro-Guyanese, who claimed widespread election fraud. [Link]

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‘Yasmin’ in Queens

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If you’re in New York, come see Yasmin this weekend at the QMA. The movie stars the lovely Archie Panjabi, sans Jughead.

Scripted by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty)… [Yasmin] explores what it means to be Asian, Muslim and British. Having rebelled against her Pakistani upbringing as a teenager… Yasmin (Archie Panjabi of Bend it Like Beckham) has grown adept at juggling her Westernised… life with her more traditional culture at home. But after the attacks of 9/11, she finds herself ostracised at work, and increasingly subject to overt Islamphobia. When her husband is snatched by the police and held without charge, she finds herself forced to re-evaluate her faith, her culture and her relationships.

Followed by discussion with members of Families for Freedom, VISIBLE Collective (creators of Disappeared in America), and Not in Our Name, who advocate against the roundups, sweeps, and indefinite detentions of Muslims, Arabs and South Asians.

(with Third I)

Saturday, Feb. 18, 2-5pm, $5 museum admission; 7 train to Willets Point/Shea Stadium; follow the yellow signs to the Queens Museum of Art, next to the Unisphere

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Filmi salsa

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Dance troupes in salsa competitions often come up with elaborate themes to set themselves apart from the endless parade on stage. Some of the themes are quite inventive. One Korean couple even dressed up as Ryu and Chun Li from the Street Fighter video game.

At the Women in Salsa event last year, a salsa troupe from Philly/South Jersey opened their performance with ‘Daya Daya Daya Re’ from Dil Ka Rishta. Longtime readers know that I love Hindi/bhangra/salsa fusion. The video clip isn’t advanced salsa, but it’s fun to watch.

Dancer Alpita Patel probably chose the music:

Alpita has 8 years of training in… bharatnatyam… she was introduced to salsa in 2004… her dance styles include hip-hop, modern, jazz, and Indian folk… Alpita has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Rutgers University and currently works full-time for the State of New Jersey Judiciary. [Link]

Techie salsa dancers are teh hott

Bollywood choreographers often lift salsa spins and armplay. They should rip from it completely. Please, please bury that standing-head-thrust move which makes male stars look like retarded monkeys.

Watch the clip (WMV format). For more advanced performances, watch this (trick dips) and this.

Related posts: High aspirations, Theater town: Buying salsa shoes on Broadway, Salsa by Lady Liberty, Thursday nights: Salsa with a ballerina, Bhangra to salsa: Mixing dances freely, The salsa competition

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The state of union

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In Jharkand, saffronists have hit upon a new way of ‘encouraging’ marriage: shotgun (or, in this case, lathi stick) weddings. But raksha bandhan is months away:

Hindu right-wing activists in Jharkhand claimed to have married off five romancing couples on Valentine’s Day Tuesday, saying they were celebrating the day even though it was against Indian culture… At the rock garden, three couples were spotted. Two of them were made to move around a banyan tree and take an oath of marriage – in a symbolic wedding…

Activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) even forced a couple to tie the symbolic brother-sister thread of rakhi when they refused to get married. [Link]

Some students were flippant about it:

The move is now being welcomed by courting couples, who are thanking the moral police for adding velocity to Cupid’s arrows. “It is indeed good news. We must thank them for being concerned about our marriages,” said Ruchika, a student of a management institute in this Jharkhand capital. “My parents will finally come to know about my love.”

Priya, an engineering student, echoed similar sentiments, saying: “I hope they stick to their word and ensure my marriage with my boyfriend…” [Link]

But the saffronists couldn’t even stay consistent:

… even Saamna, the [Shiv] Sena’s mouthpiece, could not resist cashing in on the spirit of love by publishing an article on possible gifts to buy your beloved today. [Link]

In Delhi and Srinagar, more political theater, yawn. Funny how the saffronists are a mirror image of Muslim fundamentalists:

About 50 Hindu activists wearing holy saffron-coloured scarves held a noisy protest in a popular market near the Delhi University campus… They burnt greeting cards which they were carrying and shouted “Down with Valentine’s Day”. [Link]

About two dozen women separatists, veiled in black from head to toe, rummaged shops and burnt Valentine’s Day cards in Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital… “Valentine’s Day spreads immorality among the youth,” Asiya Andrabi of the Dukhtaran-e-Milat (Daughters of the Muslim Faith), a group of women separatists, said in a statement. [Link]

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