Author Archives: manish

Appreciating anew

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Reentry can be disintegrating. I’ve lived London but reminders are for thanks giving: London’s public face, its point of initial contact, is desi, from the cleaners to the flight attendants and ticket agents to the young passport control dude asking fresh questions about my New Year’s plans with a wink in his eye. Did Southall grow up around Heathrow or was it waiting to yield up lovely X-ray screeners barely out of their teens? No matter, there are countries I love for their culture and hate for their food– being vegetarian in Spain means picking bits of ham out of hard, dry baguettes. Good food can only enhance the emotionality of a place, Italy obviously, and I might like Thailand. London Delivers. Samosas, aloo tikkis, paneer wraps, mango lassi at any old cornershop. God shave the queen.

There were raucous desi b-boys in pimp threads and bling bling swigging straight from the bottle on the tube last night. An English couple opposite stared, fascinated and appalled, their dining room gossip secure for the week. Cute Asians in bobs yelled ‘Happy New Year!’ in twee, drunken accents. Uncle types stole courtesy kisses from French strangers. The Eye of London turned Eye of Sauron with fields of slowly drifting sparks, world-ending grandeur, anime. It beat the gracious fountains of fire in Rome, high on a hill above the Piazza del Popolo, set to classical, the best I’ve ever seen. Rome’s crowd was friendlier, dancing arm-in-arm, a big public party; Barcelona was football aggression; but London had an excuse, it started to pour. Continue reading →

Happy New Year

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Happy new year or, as we say here in North Dakota, (smack) ‘More rum, in-tern!’ Inspired by a Rushdie fable, I’m spending a couple of days traipsing around Moorish country without a Moorish girl.

I have lost count of the days that have passed since I fled the horrors of Vasco Miranda’s mad fortress in the Andalusian mountain-village of Benengali; ran from death under cover of darkness and left a message nailed to the door. [Link]

True melodrama. Take that, writing workshop.

Orangedrinks. Lemondrinks. CocaColaFantaicecreamrosemilk… In pointy shoes and a puff… With his Fountain in a Love-in-Tokyo… [Link]

May all your Orangedrinks Lemondrinks dreams come true.

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The Man on ‘Black’

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Sanjay Leela Bhansali fan and Time film critic Richard Corliss just named Black to his top ten movies of 2005. Here’s the catch: like that famous Aishwarya Rai cover, the list is only for Time Asia. The same spot on the U.S. list is occupied by Caché.

Rani Mukherjee in Black

This is an unofficial remake of the 1962 U.S. film The Miracle Worker, about the deaf-blind child Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan… This is an unusual film for India: no songs, a running time under 2 hrs. and most of the dialogue in English… Amitabh… harnesses gravity and humor to his magisterial machismo in what may be his greatest role… In so many Indian films the deepest searches are for romantic ecstasy and for reconciliation with the father figure. By addressing both these needs, Black is more than a noble weepie; it is the ultimate Bollywood love story. [Link]

Heh, ‘unofficial remake’ Corliss may still be smarting over the collective global yawn over Devdas:

I wished Devdas had been in the competition for the Palme d’Or; it bested the Festival winner, Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, in verve, visual acuity and the hero’s sanctified suffering… it could also be the most visually intoxicating film ever[Devdas] could also be the most visually intoxicating film ever…

My devotion to Devdas was a minority opinion at Cannes. The pack of international critics is usually a tolerant one; I might say they share some of the Devdas hero’s self-flagellating tendencies, since each May they sit obediently through dozens of mopey minimalist movies. (This year’s prime example: The Brown Bunny, the notoriously painful American indie that only a handful of scribes walked out on.) Yet in 2002… exactly one critic — and by now you’ve figured out who — was there at the end… for TIME’s International editions, I went further, really too far, and named it the film of the year…

But you never heard of Devdas. That’s because no review appeared in the major New York or L.A. newspapers, or in most others, when the film opened last July. [Link]

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Bangla woman killed by celebratory gunfire in Queens

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A 29-year-old Bangla woman from Queens was accidentally killed two nights ago when a new army recruit fired celebratory shots outside her window:

Selina Akther was shot in the head and died instantly at the window of her fifth-floor apartment in the Queens borough of New York. Police arrested a US soldier who they said was on leave and had been drinking when he fired shots into the air. [Link]

It had been a night of celebration for the young Army private, who had just returned from basic training at Ft. Hood, Texas. “We believe he was out partying with his girlfriend and he comes upon his friends,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said at police headquarters. “He approached his friends, and that’s when he fires the shots in the air.” [Link]

After being shot, Ms. Akther lay bleeding on the living-room floor by the bullet-pocked window for about 20 minutes until her husband saw her and realized she was not breathing…

According to a law enforcement official, Private Carpio was extremely remorseful, and was cooperative in trying to help police find the gun, which he said he threw away after firing into the air. The official, who requested anonymity because the investigation was continuing, said Private Carpio had told investigators that while home on leave, he had visited his goddaughter, drank some beer and vodka, left his family and bumped into some old friends, and then, he said, did “something real stupid.” It was not until the next morning that he saw on the news that a mother had been killed. [Link]

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Purification

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The use of fire in achieving moral purity:

Hindus in India are cremated upon open grounds upon wooden pyres…The body is to be set alight only by the male child of the deceased, or the closest male relative. [Wikipedia]

Thousands of alleged militants, human rights activists, and ordinary Sikhs in Punjab were summarily executed by security forces… Their bodies were then cremated to destroy the evidence… His investigation led him to enquire into the purchase of firewood by security forces. He found that thousands of so-called unidentified or unclaimed bodies were being secretly cremated by the police with this firewood. [Human Rights Watch]

Today’s WaPo:

But the detainees were moved elsewhere to similar CIA prisons, referred to as “black sites” in classified documents… The agency is working to establish procedures in the event a prisoner dies in custody. One proposal circulating among mid-level officers calls for rushing in a CIA pathologist to perform an autopsy and then quickly burning the body, according to two sources. [Washington Post]

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Beebful of Russell

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Here’s yet another Russell Peters comedy clip. A thinner Peters makes an appearance on the Beeb and does a shout-out to Meera Syal, who’s sitting in the front row.

Madhuri Dixit and Vinod Khanna in Dayavaan

You’ve probably heard most of the material before, but there’s a cute joke about what porn would be like if it conformed to the standards of Bollywood censors. Contrary to popular belief, there have been oodles of smooches in Bollywood films, including by the faux-virginal Rai, and even some toplessness.

Way back in 1933, Devika Rani shocked people with her lingering kiss with Himanshu Rai in Karma. [Link]

… [Dimple Kapadia] created as big a splash with her comeback in Saagar when she flashed her exposed breasts to the camera for a few quick frames… a shocking first for a mainstream actress in a Bollywood film. [Link]

Mrs. Kapadia presents! This gallery of kisses through Bollywood history is way too rrro-man-tik to be saved for V Day.

For readers of different suasion, try Dosti: Friends Forever (trailer). Bobby Deol and Akshay Kumar gaze deeply into each other’s eyes, vowing eternal love and loyalty… on motorcycles. They were trying for ‘Yeh Dosti’ from Sholay, with Deol as the younger Dharmendra. What they got instead was Brokeback Hillstation. A film culture which only mentions gays when ridiculing them, affords lots of room for hot hetero phrendship.

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Float like a butterfly, sting like a blog

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Eleven Indian politicians were thrown out of Parliament yesterday over the Questiongate scandal, only the second time that any parliamentarian has been stripped of his or her post for being corrupt.

Whatcha gonna do
when they come for you?

Ten Lok Sabha members and one from the Rajya Sabha were expelled at the end of a long debate on the five-member probe committee’s report recommending expulsion. [Link]

It is the first time since 1951 that any MP has been expelled for corruption and the biggest single expulsion ever. [Link]

The prime minister also weighed in:

“At no cost should we allow Parliament’s image to be tarnished,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said while speaking in the upper house. [Link]

Cobra Post and Aaj Tak carry on Tehelka’s fine muckraking tradition. Predictably, the BJP, which took the brunt of the demotions, focused its fire on the messengers:

Lal Krishna Advani, the leader of the Opposition, summed up the BJP’s mood. “It was stupidity more than corruption that is the issue. The MPs fell for the lure of money…” During today’s debate, many of them targeted the media and called for legislation to rein in the electronic media. [Link]

To the corrupt politicans I say:

You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.” But only slightly less well-known is this: “Never go in against Sepia Mutiny of Britain when page rank is on the line.” [Link]

Related posts: The cultural implications of Questiongate (updated), The Mutiny claims its first victims

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Not even a mouse

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‘Twas the night before Christmas,
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a mouse…

All along, I thought desis were good at forming cliques. Actually, it turns out they’re good at click farming — hiring people to click ads on your own Web site to earn pay-per-click payments fraudulently.

The Jan. 2006 issue of Wired mentions this widely-disseminated ToI scare story from last year:

With her baby on her lap, Maya Sharma (name changed) gets down to work every evening from her eighth-floor flat at Vasant Vihar [in New Delhi]. Maya’s job is to click on online advertisements. She doesn’t care about the ads, but diligently keeps count — it’s $0.18 to $0.25 per click.

A growing number of housewives, college graduates, and even working professionals across metropolitan cities are rushing to click paid Internet ads to make $100 to $200 (up to Rs 9,000) per month… “It’s boring, but it is extra money for a couple of hours of clicking weblinks every day…” [Link]

Because search engines make their money whether the clicks are from legitimate customers or from scammers, they are only weakly incentivized to prevent the fraud. Those being ripped off: the small businesses who advertise.

Clicks are bought to boost number of hits for web ads or online advertisers who are not tracking user location. [Link]

Users are careful to avoid triggering anti-fraud algorithms by not clicking too often:

“I have no interest in what appears when clicking an ad. I care only whether to pause 60 seconds or 90 seconds, as money is credited if you stay online for a fixed time,” says another user. [Link]

Similarly, spammers are using image captcha farms in India — hiring people to enter the anti-spam picture codes which Web sites require to prove that you’re not a spammer.

Against this backdrop of outright theft, gold farming starts looking legitimate.

Related posts: Why isn’t gold farming big in India?, With a little help from my friends

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About last night

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A Sikh, a Sri Lankan and a regular Joginder walk into a Whole Foods café. Cicatrix has her hair blown straight and at this very moment can pass for brown Japanese. I’m sometimes confused with Latino. But Ennis the turbaned Sikh? People recognize. There’s no mistaking where he’s from.

Ennis makes a food run downstairs. Here’s what he hears in the sushi line: ‘Sat sri akal, sardarji!’ It’s coming from the chefs rolling seaweed serpents behind a chic bar. They’re actually Tibetan, not Japanese. They say they get hired to work the sushi counter because ‘assi chinki lagde ne’ (we look East Asian).

So Punjabi-speaking Tibetans pass for Japanese by resembling the Chinese because it fools Americans. It’s like Sepia-ites inventing black ancestry to win street cred in North Dakota

The conversation turns to accused shooter Biswanath Halder, a longtime ranter on Usenet (one prescient 1993 reply was titled ‘Mr. Biswanath Halder, please calm down‘). There’s disbelief over the mechanics of the rampage. I explain that a thousand rounds don’t take much space at all. Ten small boxes, neatly packed as chocolates. The turbaned man looks worried and says, ‘Keep your voice down.’ It’s just a Sri Lankan, a turbaned guy and a pajamahedeen shootin’ the shit, saying things now off-limits to brown people in public.

Related posts: Indian enough, The talented Mr. Rupinder, Shazia Deen / Dancing Queen

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Your palace on the ground

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An Air India flight Monday from L.A. to Delhi turned into a comedy of errors which delayed the passengers by two whole days (thanks, Saheli). First day, a tire blew out on takeoff:

As the plane took off, Gursharan said, it shook after a tire burst, startling passengers. The Boeing 747-400 flew over the ocean and circled, dumped fuel and then returned for a bumpy emergency landing. The landing gear dug into the runway, leaving a 7,000-foot-long field of debris that took 40 employees hours to clean up… [Link]

And the Concorde proved that runway debris is murderous.

… the teenager and his family turned on the news to see footage of their plane landing amid a shower of sparks… Airport officials said the pilots made a wise choice to take off, explaining that, if they had aborted, they might not have had enough runway to stop the heavy, fully fueled aircraft. [Link]

Next day, different plane, an engine problem led to a minor passenger revolt:

Flight 136 pushed back from the gate… 2 1/2 hours late… one of the four engines was malfunctioning… the flight crew didn’t provide more detailed information, passengers said, leaving them trapped on the packed jumbo jet for about five hours… Finally, Wenz, the professor, said he just walked through a door that attendants had opened. He climbed down the stairs and off the plane to wait on the tarmac. Other passengers, he said, followed. [Link]

Taking a Delhi-to-Chennai train would’ve been faster than this flight. Last year, an Air India crew forgot to drop landing gear. So if you’re flying Air India, here’s a cheery thought: it may not be Jet Airways, but it sure beats Aeroflot.

Related posts: Air India more efficient than ever, Open skies and Air India

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