About Taz

Taz is an activist, organizer and writer based in California. She is the founder of South Asian American Voting Youth (SAAVY), curates MutinousMindState.tumblr.com and blogs at TazzyStar.blogspot.com. Follow her at twitter.com/tazzystar

Slumlovin’ Fusion

Posted on February 28, 2009 by Taz

I’ve been away in Delhi for the past month where Slumdog Mania has hit with a frenzy, and stories of Frieda’s engagement/marriage or missing Slumdog kids were often the headline story. Oddly enough, soon after touching down stateside I realized that Slumdog Mania has taken the U.S. by storm too.

There were two signs that signaled to me this storm (besides of course the prolific amount of posts I had to catch up on here at SM). The first was when watching my nightly secret addiction, TMZ, I saw the infamous Anil Kapoor getting interviewed by paparazzi. Not Dev, not Frieda, but Anil. Kapoor. And not just once but a few times.

The second happened while flipping through the car radio, I heard what sounded like ‘Jai Ho’ but mangled. Because the girl was singing “Jai” pronounced as “Jay.” I was thrown off. It sounded like an evening of karaoke with the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack gone girl band.

Okay, so maybe the song isn’t that bad but I prefer the wholesome A.R. Rahman version. Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls (who I saw once at a secret M.I.A. show in Silverlake) apparently is a fan of Bollywood.

Nicole Scherzinger stated in a past interview with Desi Hits! that she wanted to go Bollywood, and now she has, and according to her the reward is plentiful. “It’s an honor to be able to collaborate with A.R. Rahman and be a part of the Slumdog Millionaire project in any way. The movie, the story, and the music was a gift and very spiritually uplifting for me. I can only hope and pray Slumdog Millionaire, and my version of ‘Jai Ho (You are my Destiny)’ touches and connects people all around the world”. [DesiHits!]

It is weird to see something that I saw as personal and desi go mainstream. It was just like the first time I heard M.I.A.’s Galang on a car commercial when she first hit the U.S. and I had this little pleasureful tummy flip. As if someone discovered my yummy little secret. But then when M.I.A.’s Paper Plane was picked up by the Pineapple Express trailer, my tummy just started feeling queasy. Seeing Slumdog Millionaire going through this process is giving me similar tummy flips – from when I watched the movie in an independent theatre back in the fall to sitting here watching Dev and Freida on the Tyra Banks show teaching Bollywood dances as I type this blog.

Abhi touched upon this effect earlier, but I wanted to know what all this Slumlovin’ fusion is doing to your tummy. Does it make you feel as uneasy as I do? Or does all the SM love reflect something more? Continue reading →

Partition. In Gaza.

Posted on January 15, 2009 by Taz

Flags flapped in the 75 degree perfect Californian weather, flags of Mexico, Cuba, the Philippines, the U.S. and of course, Palestine. I was standing in front of the Federal Building in Los Angeles, in solidarity with thousands of people of all races, ages, and religions. I was one of many who this past Saturday, congregated in their city centers to protest the attacks on innocent lives in the Gaza strip. As of this post, we are 20 days into the attacks and over 1,000 people in Gaza are dead.

The attacks in Gaza are highly controversial with a fierce tug and pull between the sides. LA’s Mayor Villaraigosa and NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg have both taken a pro-Israel stance, as well as the 390 members of Congress who this past week voted “aye” to the passing of House Resolution 34. The resolution “recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza, reaffirms the United States’ strong support for Israel…” On the streets it seems most people are angry about the situation on the Gaza side, not necessarily pro-Hamas, but more aligned with a ‘pro-humanitarian stop the killing of innocent people’ stance.

I knew how I personally felt, but what I wanted to know is, “Is this a South Asian American issue? As desis, why should we care?” Short of learning that Gandhi was an anti-Zionist, there’s not too much out there on the matter. But at Saturday’s protest, there were many desis out walking the street in solidarity. So I hit the streets and asked them why they were there. This is what they had to say.

“A lot of people were here for the protest,” said Omar of the band Elephant with Guns. “I couldn’t find my friend so I just joined the people I was with and started playing[he starts beating a hand held drum and chanting] one, two, three, four, we don’t want your racist war. Five, six, seven, eight, stop the killing stop the hate.”
“I thought it was great turnout and I was very inspired by it,” states Amy, a young professional. “It’s important for South Asians to be here because we need to show our solidarity. We went through it in India during our fight for independence.”
“I think that this is not particular to Arabs, to people of Middle East orgins, or to South Asian origin but I think that any community that has lived under any kind of occupation or the injustices of any type of colonization should be committed to this cause,” said Naaz, a PhD student at UCLA. “I’m from an Indian background. The types of atrocities that were committed under the British in India and the way that they systematically tried to divide people and divide Hindus from Muslims was unjust. We are still living with a lot of the scars of that British occupation…I think it’s about Western hegemony that is still continuing in the form of capitalism, and in new imperialistic projects, like Iraq, Afghanistan and maybe even Pakistan… As a community of color the west has been manipulating us for a long time.”
“South Asians tend not to be as connected to other communities in general,” said the Mad Guru, wearing an image he had designed pinned to the front of his shirt. “We can’t keep seeing problems as other people’s problems somewhere far away. I mean, you have to understand that if you don’t stick up for other peoples’ rights, then no one is going to stick up for your rights either.”

The protest was great, but there are other ways people in the South Asian community are showing support too. Some in the Sikh community jumped on board earlier this week. Continue reading →

Flying While Brown…Again.

Posted on January 5, 2009 by Taz

It shouldn’t be any surprise to people that we are ringing in 2009 with another one of these stories. (via RaceWire)

Nine Muslim passengers on a New Yearâ€™s Day flight on AirTran were kicked off a flight after others flying reportedly heard remarks about airport security. Because of the confusion, that was eventually cleared up, no one was able to fly.[RaceWire]

What could these “dangerous” remarks be? Did they say one of the handful of words that as brown people we are not allowed to say within a ten mile radius of an airport, including but apparently not exclusively, the following words: bomb, terrorist, Bin Laden, explode, die, Bush, fire, shoe, fertilizer, Allahu Akbar?

Mr. Irfan turned to his wife…wondered aloud where the safest place to sit on the airplane would be â€” the front? The rear? Over the wing?
But passengers sitting behind them evidently overheard the remark, saw Mr. Irfanâ€™s beard and his wifeâ€™s head scarf, and grew concerned…The worried passengers contacted flight attendants, who contacted Transportation Security Administration officials, and soon, Mr. Irfan and his wife were off the plane and being questioned in the jetway.[NYT]

Oh! The trigger word was ‘safest.’ How ironic.

Before long…the F.B.I. concluded that the incident was obviously just a misunderstanding, and told AirTran officials that the family was cleared to travel. But he said AirTran still refused to rebook them, offering only to refund their tickets. The F.B.I. agents helped the family get on a later USAirways flight to Orlando, but those seats cost them twice as much.[NYT]

It took me a while to get to posting this up because frankly, this is a dime a dozen story. In 2008 alone, the Transportation Department reported 87 cases of complaints alleging discrimination by airlines and only four were security related. Flying while brown stories happen all the time. I’m tired of blogging about stories like this and that these incidences are still happening. These stories are a part of our lives on the margin and being brown. I’m not implying that we should stand by the wayside and merely accept the injustice. Which is exactly what Mr. Irfan didn’t do. Instead he got organized. Continue reading →

Happy Holidays from the Bunker!

Posted on December 24, 2008 by Taz

Slow blogging time as many of the Mutineers are traveling far and wide to celebrate the holidays with loved ones while I am stuck holding down the fort with only Rajni to keep me company. I would like to take this time to wish all of you a Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Here in cold bunkers of North Dakota, holiday seasons pass rather uneventfully. Many books will be read. Movies will be watched. Rajni the monkey may toss a turd or two. And I suspect, with the cold weather, staying warm will be high priority. Maybe because the holiday season passes mutely in our home, I’m curious, how are you spending your holidays? Any particular foods or drinks that remind you of this season? Any fusion traditions that come up this time of the year? Or have you fought the snow storms and are spending your holidays in a warm tropical vacation spot? I’d love to hear how you plan to spend holidays.

From our bunker to yours – stay warm, safe travels, and wishing you and your family all the best for this holiday season! Continue reading →

Touched For The Very First Time

Posted on December 15, 2008 by Taz

Over at the addictive blog PostSecret, a desi-angled postcard for your procrastination pleasure on a Monday morning [tipster hat tip to Chick Pea].

My active imagination went into overdrive trying to figure out the story behind the image. Usually with most PostSecret cards the inspiration is pretty apparent but for this postcard, the story behind the image left me questioning:

a) Was it a guy that lost his virginity to an Indian woman? Or was it a girl that lost her virginity to an Indian man? Or maybe I was presumptive in thinking this was hetero-normative, and really it’s a queer drama being played out.

b) Was the comment filled with xenophobic hate by a non-Indian to an Indian? Or was it a jilted Indian lover that was upset that the other Indian chose another Indian to lose his/her virginity to?

A concerned reader over at PostSecret e-mailed the following to the site, the comment left underneath this postcard.

Subject: Indians aren’t bad.
I am an Indian American and honestly, I think people should feel honored to have sex with Indians. I mean, we DID write the Kama Sutra.

Amen to that. What do you think is the story, morning glories?

Sweets for the Sweeties

Posted on December 10, 2008 by Taz

Eid Mubarak! Monday marked the end of pilgrimage for millions of Muslims in Mecca, and here at my home we celebrated the only way Bengalis know how to celebrate – with Bengali sweets. The table was heavy with juicy plump roshugullahs, creamy shemi, sweet gager halwa, and moist pistachio burfi. And of course, pecan pie.

With mishthi fresh on my mind, my ears particularly perked up this week when I heard on NPR a story about how a couple of food scientists played with making the classic birthday cake better.

An electrified, edible birthday cake with LED light bulbs instead of candles is just one of the concoctions that Patrick Buckley and Lily Binns have dreamed up for The Hungry Scientist Handbook. The wiring is edible, but Buckley says figuring out how to make it wasn’t easy.
“We went through filtering gold out of Goldschlager and trying to lay traces of gold leaf on top of the frosting, which just wasn’t quite robust enough,” he says.[npr]

Have you guessed the desi angle yet?

Eventually they settled on Twizzler Pull-n-Peel licorice rolled in varak, a silver foil used as a garnish in Indian cooking. The foil is edible, Binns says, but only in small amounts.
These wires are essentially the inverse of a traditional wire, Buckley says. “The electricity’s getting conducted on the outside.”[npr]

The perfect desi-American fusion mishthi. For nerds. Continue reading →

Set Your DVR for a Couple of Britz

Posted on December 1, 2008 by Taz

The last mini-series T.V. movie that had me this on edge with anticipation was probably back with Stephen King’s ABC movie The Langoliers. Until tonight.

I just finished watching the first part of Britz, a BBC America movie and am in awe. Given the recent terrorist attacks, I thought the movie was oddly yet gratifyingly timed. Both main characters are Pakistani Muslims born and raised as “Britz.” The movie takes them on antithetical journeys through their search for justice.

In “Britz” (BBC America, 8 p.m.), writer and director Peter Kominsky (“The Government Inspector”) reacts more to the July 7, 2005, London Tube bombing that killed 52 â€” known there as 7/7 â€” than America’s 9/11.
But instead of re-enacting that tragedy, he concocts a fiction about a pair of second-generation Muslims in Northern England, a brother and sister who go starkly different ways in reacting to the anti-terror precautions of their time.[courant]

My dad and I were both on the edge of our seat watching this – and there are not many movies that both of us can sit through together. The first part of the movie looks at brother Sohail’s life (played by hottie Riz Ahmed). Sohail detours from his law school to join the M15, the domestic spying operations. As the token Muslim Urdu speaking spy, he quickly gets involved with investigating Muslim terrorist cells. The story takes us on the complex journey on how he is fighting for justice for Muslims through being on “the inside”.

The concluding part, which shows tonight (Dec 1st) on BBC America at 8pm follows the story of Sohail’s sister, a medical student and political activist, Nasima (played by Manjinder Virk).

Part two follows the story of Nasima … who spends much of her time campaigning against repressive government policies and witnesses at first-hand the relentless targeting of her Muslim neighbors… Nasima is not only forced to question her liberal views but left feeling so angry at, and estranged from, the country of her birth, that she embarks on an extraordinary journey that eventually takes her to a terrorist training camp in north-west Pakistan.[bbcamerica]

Besides being a thriller around hyphenated Muslim characters around the struggle for identity, I was particularly compelled with how the movie addresses the idea that ‘terrorists don’t simply exist, but are created.’ Continue reading →

I’ve Never Cuddled Brown Before

Posted on November 25, 2008 by Taz

I always imagined that my great (Desi-)American (nonfiction) novel would take readers on the misadventures of a single desi girl, with the first chapter starting with The Cuddle Party. That’s right, a party where people cuddle. I have been borderline obsessed with this idea for the past few years, and thought it would be a perfect first misadventure. The parties are usually gender balanced, cost a small fee, and are moderated to take you on a journey through the power of touch. Not an orgy. Just of hugging and cuddling.

I never actually made it to a party, though I had every intention to. I thought I had missed my opportunity when I found out last month (through the Cuddle Party LA listserv – yes, I subscribe) that they had cuddled their last party. Never to fear, intrepid Current TV reporter and fellow brown girl Tania Rashid to the rescue. [via boingboing]

Three points of interest for me from the video:

I love that Tania’s biggest fear before going into the party was exotification of the small brown girl by the big white slimy people. And her mocking quote, “I never had brown before.”
I love that her source of empowerment from the experience was her ability to say “No.” May not have been the point of the cuddle parties, but hey, at least the brown homegirl got empowered.
I love Current TV and their user generated five minute long shows. A voice like Tania’s (young, brown, female) would have been lost if it wasn’t for spaces like Current.

I think Tania and I could be fast friends. She definitely had more bravado than I would have in the same situation and I think I could use having a girl like her around as I go on single desi girl misadventures. Now, I wonder… do you think she’d be down to go with me to a Polyamorous Society meeting? Continue reading →

Alicia’s Tacky Tikka

Posted on November 24, 2008 by Taz

I was just watching the 2008 American Music Awards noting that asymmetrical and gold bead worked dresses were in (how gorgeous were Leona Lewis’ and Nicole Scherzinger’s dresses?) when Alicia Keys walked out onto the red carpet. Now, we’ve seen plenty of desi cultural appropriation attire on the red carpet over the years, (remember Madge’s desification?) but Alicia’s tikka and earrings just made me tilt my head to the side and go, “Huh…”

You’d think with five nominations, her stylist could have spent a little more time on the red carpet outfit… I can’t get over how cheap the combination of the ‘plastic’ earrings with the tikka looked. I kinda can see how the one shoulder dress slightly resembled the swoosh of the auchol over the left shoulder, but still. It’s a stretch.

[Full length fashion disaster after the jump.] Continue reading →

Desis in the (White) House!

Posted on November 22, 2008 by Taz

We have talked extensively here about one particular South Asian American member of the Obama-Biden transitional team. But are there others? Facebook informed me earlier this week that Parag Mehta left his job as the Director of External Communications at the Democratic National Committee — the highest-ranking staff position held by a South Asian in the Democratic Party. Now we know why, he is the latest South Asian to join the Presidential Transition Team.

Parag Mehta, 31, has been named the deputy director of inter-governmental affairs and public liaison of the Obama-Biden transition team, charged with outreach to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other minority groups.
He said that besides outreaching to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, his mandate would also include reaching out “to lesbians, gays and bi-sexuals and also a couple of issue areas. So, I will be reaching out to these groups too besides Asian Pacific Americans.” But, Mehta explained that “the office is not just for minority groups. The office also includes small businesses, doctors, lawyers, rural farmers-so it’s a pretty large portfolio.”[IndiaDem]
The central Texan native was deputy political director for Howard Dean’s 2003 presidential bid, and directed the campaign’s ethnic outreach. Prior to joining the DNC, Mehta served as the deputy political director for America Votes. He holds a masters degree in public administration from Syracuse University and served in both the Clinton and Bush administrations as liaison to the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.[NewAmericaMedia]

Mehta will be leading a conversation in a post-election webinar hosted by SAALT this Tuesday, November 25th at 1pm PST where people can ask him questions they have on the transition team. Working next door to Mehta in the transition team office is another desi face, Nick Rathod.

Nick Rathod, 33, has been appointed director to the Office of Inter-governmental Affairs. Rathod is the national outreach director of South Asians for Obama and one of its founding members. He also co-founded South Asian Americans Leading Together.[NewAmericaMedia]

Lawyer and former Clinton insider Preeta Bansal’s name has also been floating around the transition team.

Reports also suggest that the former solicitor general of New York, Preeta Bansal, currently a senior advisor on the Obama campaign, may be considered for the position of Solicitor General in the Department of Justice.[AsianWeek]

Other desi names that have been popping up in regards to the transition team are that of Arti Rai, Anjan Mukherjee, Rachana Bhowmik, Subhasri Ramanathan, Natasha Bilimoria and Puneet Talwar. Also rumored are Neera Tanden, Hrishi Karthikeyan, Dave Kumar, and Kris Kolluri.

Though considered just a “temp job”, this may be one of the most important temp jobs I’ve ever seen. What is remarkable to me is just how transparent and AAPI-accessible the transition team is, especially compared to every past presidential transition team. From the President-Elect’s Change Website, to broadly being able to track the transition team at Public Citizen’s Becoming 44, to having conference calls hosted by APIA Vote to explain the transition team process for the APIA community, I feel that I finally have the transparency I need to hold my elected official accountable.

As far as accessibility, I’m pretty confident in saying that there has never been this many desis involved in a Presidential Transition Team before, and I can say with certainty that this will only lead to an increased representation of South Asians in the White House. Not just any South Asians, but leaders that our community has looked to in the past to advocate for our community – people that we have as facebook friends, in our Gmail contacts, and most importantly, readers of Sepia Mutiny – are going to be in the White House. And there’s something just thrilling about that. Continue reading →

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