Fasting, feasting

On this unholiest of days, I thought I’d share 2.0 passages about coupling from 1.5-gen books. Lavanya Sankaran takes joy in the idea that dilly-dallying men deserve what they get in The Red Carpet:

And certainly, a convent-educated accent was an asset… This involved, primarily, keeping our knees together… Innocent of the depredations of Man (or Boy), at least until their parental duty was done. Delivered, one girl, unsullied, to the marital bed. Her price far above rubies…

For a decade, it seemed, [the bachelors] had been festooned with women, all sorts, from the cute, the silly, the please-domesticate-mes, to the independent, the fiery, the I’ll-sleep-with-but-won’t-love-yous, and further beyond, to the Plainly Bizarre. And they had frolicked and gamboled with happy abandon, and no awareness of the fate that quietly awaited them…

All those women, those sillys, those feistys, those Saturday-night mainstays, had simply vanished. All of them. Together. Birdlike, in a great migratory movement… these chicks had flown. They had married, dispersed, dehydrated. [Link]

In Moth Smoke, Mohsin Hamid’s East Village/Karachi romance ends more happily:

I lost my virginity in New York, twice (the second one had wanted to believe he was the first so badly)…

The scene is the East Village, a little before midnight, on the steps of a fourth-floor walk-up on Avenue A. The date is important… Halloween… So there I am, trudging up the steps… when I see this cute desi guy in a white shirt and black trousers, looking ridiculously out of place but very comfortable at the same time… He catches my eye as I pass and says “Hi,” but I ignore him, because the last thing I want to deal with tonight is some conservative boy from the homeland with nothing to say…

But at some point (you saw this coming) I find myself on the fire escape with the brown boy I’d seen before. We’re dancing, just the two of us, and his name is Ozi and he’s wickedly sexy, and what the hell, we spend the night together…

He proposed during a snowstorm in March, looking cold as only a Pakistani man in America can… Before I knew it, I was showing him off at South Asian Student Association parties, enjoying the horrified jealousy on the faces of my prim and proper colleagues. Yes, Mumtaz, that slut, had bagged herself a prince, which meant there was one less out there for them…

The summer after we graduated… we were married in Karachi by the sea. [Link]

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Temple Lady says…

In King Kong, a powerful ape crosses the sea to rescue a beautiful woman held by his enemy on an island. He enters the capital city, leaping to great heights and leaving destruction in his wake. Where have I heard this before?

Could it be… Ravana?

In the 1933 movie, King Kong varied noticeably in height. At different times, he might be as small as twenty feet, or, in the city, as tall as fifty. [Link]

He could grow as big or as small as he wished… Hanuman grew tall and mighty and with one giant leap began to fly through the clouds to the walled city on the island. [Link]


And check out this issue of The Incredible Hulk. A buff, loincloth-clad beast with the initial ‘H’ leaps back to the mainland to return to his leader. Well, isn’t that special?


I’m accepting royalties on behalf of sage Valmiki. You can send checks to my home address.

Related posts: Yeti kitsch, My Thais, ‘Sita Sings the Blues’

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Father figure

First they tell us turmeric in food is good for your health. Now they tell us speaking more than one language protects against senility. By the time they tell us oversized, gold-rimmed aviator glasses are better than Viagra, we’ll all have turned into our fathers:

Researchers are finding that bilingualism — be it in French, Greek, Portuguese or Hindi — has lifelong benefits.

“Does bilingualism protect you from cognitive decline? Every study we’ve done suggests that it does,” Prof. Bialystok said… while both groups started showing cognitive decline by age 60, the rate of slowing for bilinguals was much slower…

Brain-imaging research released this week shows that the physical inability to silence mental noise is key in making the elderly prone to distraction and poor multitaskers… the elderly lose the ability to power up brain regions, such as the frontal lobe, needed to focus on a task, and to turn down activity in inner brain regions that are most active when a person is in idle or default mode.

In contrast, the brain images of people between ages 20 and 30 displayed a far more dramatic see-saw effect activating and de-activating regions as they shifted out of idle to task. The study found this pattern begins to dull in middle age and actually results in cognitive deficits beyond age 60. [Link]

Researchers say the only thing better than Dad is Gamer Dad, so fire up a Ramayana game and start swinging that priapic mace:

A new study of 100 university undergraduates in Toronto has found that video gamers consistently outperform their non-playing peers in a series of tricky mental tests. If they also happened to be bilingual, they were unbeatable. [Link]

In 2000, a video game based on the Ramayana legend won Thailand’s national game software competition… The prize-winning game portrays several wars between King Rama and Ravana… Rama and Laksman must successfully manoeuvre through four rounds of fight in order to rescue Sita.

The Thai threesome turned to the epic Ramakien, as the Thai version is called, for its unmatched fighting scenes and more than fifty interesting human and semi-human characters… [Link]

Related posts: My Thais, Haldi may help prevent Alzheimer’s

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Why they hate Bollywood

I recently debated the future of Bollywood among American desis with a couple of second genners who aren’t fans of the cinema. ‘Asoka’ thinks assimilation will make Bollywood irrelevant in the U.S. desi community, because the movies are poorly-written. I argue improvements in quality, distribution and filtering point to a bright future. The ever-reasoned ‘Birbal’ split the difference. Names have been changed to protect them from the Bollyfans who walk among us.

· · · · ·


‘Asoka’
Bollywood will vanish among desi Americans

“I‘ll bet you $20 it doesn’t change. U.S. desis, especially the new generations, are more assimilated. They (and I’m one of them) will never be into Bollywood. I view Bollywood as an example of the excesses and frivolity of our culture and not something I am interested in preserving for myself or my offspring. I can count the number of friends I have that like Bollywood films on one finger (men and women)… even the girls I know don’t like Bollywood, and I have as many if not more female friends than male friends.

“The U.S. model will never mimic the UK model unless we start forming ethnic ghettos here. If that happens then I think you’ll be right. What it comes down to is that most Bollywood stories suck by western standards. Production value means nothing when the best Bollywood film would be a C-list Western film.

“The reason that smart Bollywood commentary is lacking is because there isn’t much coming out of Bollywood that can be considered smart… The last Hindi film I saw was Mr. and Mrs Iyer, which I thought was decent. The last Bollywood film I saw was in India and Toral from The Apprentice was in it. I’ve seen Devdas and KKKG and thought they were so bad I wanted to rip my eyeballs out. The only Bollywood film I actually liked was Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, and by American movie standards it was just okay… Yes, if you are [non-desi] it is exotic and quaint…

“I go to [Indian film festivals]… they have some great Hindi language film and Tamil language films. I both enjoy them and would take my kids to see them someday. They are not, however, Bollywood films, which in my view tend to advocate materialism and shallowness, bigotry against other races, and bigotry in their representation of 2nd gen Indians living abroad. For those reasons I would not expose my children to Bollywood films.

“I still think it’s about the ghettos. We will see in 10 years. I think if you [polled] under-26 Sepia Mutiny readers, they [would] overwhelmingly be non-Bollywood watchers.”


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Secret Angry Asian Men

From time to time, Ennis and Vinod remind me of the awesomeness of the Secret Asian Man comic strip. They’re drawn by Boston artist Tak Toyoshima, and although only a few are specifically about desis, there are tons of parallels.

Jet Li and Aaliyah in ‘Romeo Must Die’

If Secret Asian Man hooked up with Angry Asian Man, we’d have Secret Angry Asian Men. And where you find Secret Angry Asian Men, mutiny hangs thick in the air. (Whereas around Fat Happy Asian Men, you find muttony hanging. Very different.)

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Gettin’ Sikhi wid it

The last thing you want to hear in bed: ‘Smallville’

The Partition trailer is now online, and it’s giving me déjà vu (thanks, Jay):

Partition: In the midst of one such massacre, Gian [Singh] finds Naseem, a 17-year-old Muslim girl, and takes her under his protection. They gradually find themselves drawn to each other but, as their remarkable story plays out, the obstacles to their happiness prove all but insurmountable… [Link]

Gadar: During [Partition], Tara Singh, a truck driver, rescues a young woman named Sakina, both fall in love with each other and get married. When things calm down, Sakina decides to travel across the border to Pakistan to visit her father… [who] tries to separate her and Tara… [Link]

From the trailer at least, it looks like a straight rip, but like Gangsta M.D., it’s in the reverse direction from usual. Director Vic Sarin’s pitch: Gadar meets The English Patient, minus the anti-Pakistan jingoism. He’s even kept the scene where Sunny Deol goes apeshit in front of his home to defend the girl from a raging mob.

Jimi Mistry plays a hot turbanwala, Neve Campbell stars as a Brit. Kristin Kreuk’s bare back is seamless, her desi accent not. She actually sounds a whole lot like Sheetal Sheth attempting the accent, which says something about assimilation.

I have zero problem with a non-desi lead actress here. This looks like a tightly-focused young love story (the score reminds me of trifling period romances like A Knight’s Tale), not an epic history of Partition. There are plenty of light-eyed Muslim women, and it’s not like they cast Jessica Simpson as Indira Gandhi.

No, my question is: Kristin Kreuk?! Undeniably cute, but so chirpy she makes Tweety Bird sound like Droopy Dog.

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Community cable, the gift that keeps on giving

Some Black Israelites wear very Sikh-looking turbans and beards (thanks, Ennis):

Remember that Marley song?

African American and African Caribbean Christianity had long developed a comparison of their experience in the New World with that of the Jews held in slavery in Egypt, particularly as regards the Book of Exodus… [Link]

We know where we’re going; we know where we’re from
We’re leaving Babylon, we’re going to our fatherland

Exodus, movement of Jah people…
Send us another Brother Moses gonna cross the Red Sea…

— Bob Marley, ‘Exodus

A small number took the analogy literally and moved to Israel:

The African Hebrew Israelite Nation of Jerusalem is a small religious group whose members believe they are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. With a population of over 2000, most members live in their own community in Dimona, Israel. The Black Hebrews practice polygamy. [Link]

In contrast, the guy on TV was ranting against Israel even while sitting beneath a Star of David:

Some Black Hebrew Israelites, like Israelite Heritage, are anti-Semitic, and focus on Jews, as Edomites and Khazars acting on behalf of Satan and secretly controlling the United States. [Link]

Related posts: Da Star in dastar, Everyone recycles

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White guys in turbans

More white guys in badly-tied turbans, no beards, speaking in that bad simulacrum of a non-existent accent, folding their hands and calling each other Akmed, wearing nametags that say ‘Singh.’ That’s Scott LaRose with a very complicit Art Malik on the left (thanks, BB).

It’s like an entire generation modeled their insulting stereotypes on Peter Sellers. And, like Bollywood, TV and film for black audiences tend to be even more casually racist about desis and East Asians than mainstream media.

But then you should never take a movie like Booty Call (1997) seriously, not even in reruns It’s got characters named Lysterine, Yoyo, Ug Lee and Bunz.

Watch the clip (12MB; you need a BitTorrent downloader: Windows, Mac).

Related posts: Peter Sellers still outsells actual desis, Giants, dwarves and lemurs, Goodness gracious, Peter Sellers is alive, Mr. Birdie Num-Num gets a biopic, ”The Party” remake

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You know everything’s changed when…

You know everything’s changed when you see a black kid wearing this throwback varsity jacket on the subway and realize that…

  1. After 7/7, you could never wear it on the subway, and

  2. Subway cops are now inaccurately suspicious more of you than of him
Fritz Pollard formed this African-American football team ([New York Brown Bombers], named for African-American heavyweight boxer Joe Louis) after the NFL adopted a policy of segregation. [Link]

… the Brown Bombers [were] a professional team that played in Harlem for three highly successful seasons – funded by a loan from John D. Rockefeller Jr., a friend from Pollard’s days at Brown. The Bombers’ roster was a Who’s Who of black athletes at the time, including players from basketball and baseball leagues as well as former NFL stars. The Depression and the war ended the Brown Bombers’ run in 1938. [Link]

By the way, the Brown Bombers jacket is not actually a bomber jacket, and the Brown Bombers are not the same as the Bronx Bombers, the Brooklyn Bombers or the London bombers.

Related post: Worst timing ever

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Wax dummy

A new off-Broadway play about a desi student’s loss of innocence is running off-Broadway through Feb. 25. Huck & Holden refers, of course, to two iconic characters in American lit (thanks, SD).

Here’s a positive review:

Navin’s story begins deceptively, as a collegiate, slapstick coming-to-America tale about a young man just arrived from Calcutta, who’s as clueless about American literature as he is about sex. But as Navin (Nick Choksi) begins exploring his newfound independence, and his burgeoning feelings for the pretty young librarian Michelle (Cherise Boothe), the story transforms into one of unexpected soul and depth…

And, of course, there’s Kali, fancifully realized here as the embodiment of chaos working to establish order, and dazzlingly portrayed by Nilaja Sun. Her careful steps, strenuously stylized hand gestures, and ugly-meets-beautiful dance to cover Navin and Torry’s fisticuffs make her a hilarious and horrifying joy to watch. [Link]

And one more faint:After discovering Navin with a porn mag called Brown Honey, Torry teaches him how to wax a girl’s @ss

Navin’s introduction to the American way of life is explored almost solely through sex, particularly as embodied in the person of Michelle (Boothe), an African-American library worker who befriends Navin while undergoing a breakup with her tough-guy boyfriend Torry (McClain). There is obvious comic potential in this particular culture clash, but the action coasts entirely on the undignified level of racial burlesque, replete with a contrived scenario in which Torry, after discovering Navin with a porn mag called Brown Honey, proceeds to give the naïve Indian a tutorial in how to wax a girl’s ass…

Michelle receives visitations from the Hindu goddess Kali (Nilaja Sun), incarnated here as a trash-talkin’ mama whose caricature, if borderline offensive, at least breathes some life onto the stage. Still, if you’re not fond of stereotypes, do yourself a favor and read some Twain and Salinger instead. [Link]

Huck & Holden, Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce St., Manhattan; through Feb 25, Tue – Fri at 7pm, Sat at 3pm and 7pm; buy tickets

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