Author Archives: manish

President Singh

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Manmohan Singh and Dubya are frolicking together like puppies. Bush even matched his tie to Singh’s turban, although G. Kaur couldn’t talk Laur into a sari. It’s all happening right now.

Bush rolled out full pomp and pageantry for Singh’s visit, with a bewigged fife and drum corps marching across the South Lawn during the welcome ceremony…

Administration officials say the pomp was designed to emphasize the growing importance to the United States of India, a rising economic and military power whose newfound affinity for the United States is something Bush considers a major foreign policy success. [Link]

An American army band played the Indian and American anthems, and Singh will address Congress tomorrow. In return, Singh promised Bush a reenactment of the Salt March, with be-lungi’d freedom fighters marching across the lawn to a fountain at Rashtrapati Bhavan. (Elapsed time: 30 seconds.)

  

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Code jock

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At age nine, Arfa Randhawa from Faisalabad, Pakistan, became the youngest person ever to pass a Microsoft certification exam in programming (via Slashdot):

Sitting down for a personal meeting with Bill Gates this week, 10-year-old Arfa Karim Randhawa asked the Microsoft founder why the company doesn’t hire people her age…

She has created basic Windows applications, such as a calculator and a sorting program, primarily in the C# programming language… The institute instructors assumed it would take Arfa about a year to go through the process of certification for developing Windows applications. But after four months… she passed the required exams….

“I saw her doing something extraordinary, making presentations,” said her father, Amjad Karim, who serves with a U.N. peacekeeping force in Africa and came with his daughter to Microsoft this week… he first noticed something unusual when she started displaying a remarkable memory, perhaps photographic, at a young age…

Later in the afternoon, she sat outside with S. “Soma” Somasegar, a Microsoft corporate vice president, and described her vision for a self-navigating car. [Link]

BillG evinced some curiosity:

… he asked her at what age Muslim women start wearing the “Hijab”… Arfa… extended an invitation to him to visit… The Microsoft chief reportedly accepted the invitation and said that he would visit Pakistan in the near future. [Link]

Arfa says she wants to build satellites or software. She has stiff competition in Mridul Seth of Bangalore, who at age eight became the youngest to pass the Microsoft system admin exam.

Somasegar blogged their meeting here. Related post here.

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Desi finally corrupts Hollywood

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The guy who played Cooter on The Dukes of Hazzard complains that the new Dukes movie has too much humpin’ ‘n cussin’:

“… to take a classic family show and do that is like taking ‘I Love Lucy’ and making her a crackhead or something…” [Link]

“… the “Dukes” movie is a sleazy insult to all of us who have cared about the “Dukes of Hazzard” for so long… I think the whole project shows an arrogant disrespect for our show, for our cast, for America’s families, and for the sensibilities of the heartland of our country… Sure it bothers me that they wanted nothing to do with the cast of our show, but what bothers me much more is the profanity laced script with blatant sexual situations that mocks the good clean family values of our series.” [Link]

Cooter then took a big bite of apple pie, saluted the flag, and then rolled himself back underneath a replica of the General Lee. [Link]

Good clean family values? These good clean family values? 🙂

Cooter says the song ‘Dazzy Dukes’ is a church hymn, cameltoe is what you find on a dromedary, and Bo and Luke’s ass-tight jeans are heartland values. So director Jay Chandrasekhar, stoner flick impresario, is now officially the first desi to corrupt Hollywood. And he’s Tamil, no less.

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Desi victims of the London bombings

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Confirmed desi victims of the London bombings (via DBS):

Bank worker Shahara Islam, 20, was travelling towards Liverpool Street on the Tube on her way to work at [Angel station]. She is British, of Bengali origin. The family are practising Muslims. Her uncle Nazmul Hasan, 25, said: “We are absolutely desperate. Her father has broken down several times but has spent hours at all the hospitals searching for her. “The bizarre thing is that I missed a call from her at 9.45am yesterday, approximately an hour after the explosion (near Liverpool Street) went off.” [Link]

Her mother Romena is riddled with guilt because she insisted her daughter should go to work on that fateful day even though she was a little reluctant. Shahera wanted to take the day off because she had an appointment with her dentist in the afternoon. [Link]

… Islam… was a model Muslim and attended the mosque every Friday. [Link]

Shyanuja Parathasangary, 30, has not been seen by her parents since she left the home they share in Kensal Rise on Thursday morning to go to work. Her mother, Ruth, said she boarded a train at Kensal Green at 8.55am and arrived at Euston station at 9.08am. Mrs Parathasangary believes her daughter may have then got on the route 30 bus to take her to work at the Royal Mail offices in Alder Street. She said: “She did not say anything when she left, she just gave me a sweet smile.” [Link]

Still unconfirmed:

IT worker Neetu Jain, 38, is also feared dead in the No 30 blast. She had been evacuated from Euston station and caught a bus. She made a mobile call 10 minutes before the explosion. Her Muslim boyfriend Gous Ali, 32, said: “Neetu is a very spiritual, down-to-earth, loving person and she would not hurt anybody. Her family are of Indian origin but she is British and she embraces all faiths and cultures. I am a Muslim but nowhere in the Islam of the Koran does it say that this is acceptable…” [Link]

Jain apparently narrowly escaped a subway bomb only to succumb to the bus bomb:

It is ironic that the 37-year-old computer analyst, who could not take the tube as she was evacuated from the Euston Tube Station, decided to take a bus. She never reached her office. [Link]

Here are photos of all the missing.

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One-Track Uncle

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When growing up desi, you learn through painful experience to avoid One-Track Uncle at family parties. Whether it’s the greatness of fifth-century India, the importance of religion, American politics or the problem with ‘yooth’ these days, One-Track Uncle has a favorite harangue which he’s made his own soliloquy. And there are usually several of them at a party. With a little samosa and a little beer, you can usually get a circle of uncles launching monologues at each other and pretending to listen. They’ll politely ha-ha and not so subtly change the subject back to their own particular obsessions.

If only they had blogging back in the day.

So it surprises me not at all to find that One-Track Uncle also appears at the grandaddy of all circle jerks, the presidential press conference. Meet Raghubir Goyal, an Indian reporter whose obsession with Pakistan has become the subject of much humor inside the Beltway:

“The 32-minute pummeling was perhaps the worst McClellan received since he got the job two years ago… [he] robotically refused to answer no fewer than 35 questions about Rove and the outing of the CIA’s Valerie Plame.”… Pummeled by tough questions, McClellan time and again reached for a lifeline. His first… was “Raghubir Goyal of the India Globe, who reliably asks about Pakistan — and did so again…” That gambit had a payoff for McClellan: Once it seemed clear that the mumbling Goyal was just warming up, CNN chose to cut away from its live coverage of the briefing. [Link]

The idea is it becomes a feeding frenzy in the press room — you’re just getting hammered with question after question you don’t really want to answer, but if you’re careful you can call on somebody like Mr. Goyal, who’s known to all as Goyal, who will predictably ask you about isn’t it time we start bombing Pakistan, because he’s representing an Indian point of view… you can pretty reliably change the subject… [Link]

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Meet Talibert

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Orwell’s Ministry of Truth (‘Freedom is slavery’) could hardly have done better than the neo-Taliban running Pakistan’s nuttiest province. Americans are familiar with daft states. We call them ‘Florida’:

A controversial new law critics say will seek Taleban-style moral policing has been presented in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province… The proposed law calls for the establishment of a new department to “discourage vice and encourage virtue.” … hardline religious parties have enough seats in the provincial house to pass the bill.

It will be headed by a cleric called “mohtasib” – one who holds others accountable – to be nominated by the government. The principal duty of the cleric will be to “ensure adherence to Islamic values in public places”… the mohtasib will be required to ensure people pay adequate respect to azan (call to prayers), pray on time and do not engage in commerce at the time of Friday prayers. The mohtasib will also stop unrelated men and women from appearing in public places together and discourage singing and dancing… [Link]

Having already banned alcohol and wedding feasts, they’re now trying to persuade people to like their fundamentalist sect better by beating them in public. It’s motivational genius!

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Two birds with one stone

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The Arab sheikhs on their annual bird hunts in Pakistan also run side errands: kidnapping or buying little boys for use in sport.

Intense media interest forced many of the Gulf kingdoms to ban the use of children under 15 for camel racing. “The move failed miserably because child traffickers simply got fake passports which stated a four-year-old’s age as 16,” says Mr Burney.

Most of the repatriated children hail from the south-east Punjab districts of Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan and Rahimyar Khan… These districts are the preferred hunting grounds for Gulf sheikhs, some of whom go there every year to hunt the houbara bustard… The three districts are also home to the Cholistan – one of Pakistan’s two main deserts and one of the few areas in the country where camels are regularly used for travel and trade. [Link]

These 40,000 kids are imprisoned, and many are raped:

… the boys are kept in terrible prison-like conditions where they are deliberately underfed to keep them light so the camels can run faster. [Link]

It is not uncommon for child jockeys to fall off and be injured while racing, and their illegal status means race track owners are often reluctant to take them to hospital… the boys often arrive with broken hands or broken legs. And many, he says, have been sodomised.

One boy shows me the scar he was left with after being trampled by a camel. Crudely stitched, it stretches from his chest down to his hips… “There was a child in the camp, and because he wanted to leave the camp and go to Dubai, one of the racetrack owners ran over the child in a truck and killed him,” he tells me. [Link]

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Toronto arts fest uncloaks

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Toronto’s fifth annual South Asian arts festival, Masala Mehndi Masti, just posted a lengthy schedule for this year’s event (thanks, jo). You can also see it by day or by category.

The free festival runs from August 3-7 at Harbourfront Centre in the shadow of the CN Tower. With 80,000 attendees in 2004, it’s the the largest such festival in North America. Toronto’s desi population of 500K is 2 Å“ times the size of New York’s. It may be the city outside the subcontinent with the most desis.

Just a few of the events:

  • Lots of new bands
  • Kathak-flamenco fusion
  • Brits: Sonik Gurus, Rhythm, Dhol and Bass
  • Kalapani, a play about the Indian middle passage to the Caribbean
  • Your Palace in the Sky, a performance piece about the Air India bombing
  • Tina Sugandh
  • American Daylight, an indie film about Indian call centers, featuring Koel Purie
  • Sam and Me, Deepa Mehta’s first feature film
  • Short films
  • Sketch comedy
  • Spoken word
  • Shayari

Neha comments about last year’s fest:

… I found the music portion incredibly varied, from Rishi Rich to qawwali parties… The Filmi festival was on at the same time, which focused on South Asian Canadian films… if you get lost just let the Hondas lead the way.

Related post on the Artwallah festival here.

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Cereal Cyrano

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The ubiquitous Aasif Mandvi is in a new televised cereal ad running in the States. General Mills, maker of Wheaties, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cheerios, is touting its switch to whole grain. The ad is filmed faux documentary style with washed-out colors. Mandvi plays a man-on-the-street having a hysterical paroxysm (NSFW) over cereal.

O Cheerios,
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more fibrous and more laxative…

I last saw Mandvi in Spiderman 2 playing Tobey Maguire’s demanding pizzeria boss. He’s got one of those faces which directors turn to for immigrant flava: he was in Analyze This as a doctor, Mystic Masseur as the lead, Die Hard 3 as ‘Arab cabbie’ (natch), American Chai and ABCD. He’s been all over the boob tube with guest appearances on CSI, Law & Order and Sex and the City, and he did a popular one-person play a few years ago called Sakina’s Restaurant.

Previous post here.

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Blood brother

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SM reader Ravi Swami is an animation designer, and I love what little of his work I’ve seen. His demo reel includes retro desi artwork, war propaganda-style satire, psychedelic flying Bugs and a kitschy robot that’s a cross between Sky Captain and Futurama.

Swami mashes up kaleidoscopes, lotus mandalas, Indian revolutionaries and multi-armed deities. Behind a Bollywood theater, London’s Erotic Gherkin lurks erect. It’s all set to the moody atmospherics of Domenico Modugno’s original recording of ‘Volare,’ popularized again by the Gipsy Kings. Watch the demo reel.

The Spitfire beer ad is quite witty: pouring a draught becomes a visual pun about rolling a fighter plane. Brill! The reel also includes a snippet of an animation called ‘Mr. and Mrs. Singh.’ Its visual style is tremendous, 3D with a watercolor look:

A few years ago Ravi developed a short film with Gurinder Chadha which was to be shown before the film Bend it Like Beckham. When the Channel 4 animation department folded, so did the short. A real shame because… such a high profile film [could] have helped to resurrect the feature film trailer as a legitimate forum for quality animation shorts… [Link]

Most of the desi bits in the demo reel are from his short film ‘Blood Sutra,’ with director Rajesh Thind and a title shared by a Vijay Iyer album. As part of a public health campaign, the short fights desi superstitions about donating blood. Paper doll doctors dance bhangra at the hospital; a phillum poster announces the debut of an Indian starlet, ‘Heema Globin.’

… Rajesh and Ravi have also gone for a rapid-fire episode series… Shorts within a short if you like. This approach may have something to do with Ravi’s early obsession with Zagreb School Animation and the ‘Mini-mini’ series. The influence of the animated one-minute gag can certainly be seen in ‘Blood Sutra.’ Ravi’s views on the irony of the communist Zagreb School evolving into the capitalist Red Bull adverts could spawn a whole Ph.D. thesis… [Link]

Most who mine old Indian health propaganda (‘An Ideal Boy‘) do so purely for art’s sake, winkily adorning a coffee table book or T-shirt. But Swami re-applies the parody to the source. What can you say about making doctor cutouts do a silly dance, then sticking them back in a hospital? It subverts without subverting. I’ve never had so much fun watching a health film. Watch the short (3:01).

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