Author Archives: neha

In Captivity

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Renowned Iranian-Canadian scholar Ramin Jahanbegloo was arrested in Tehran by Iranian authorities this past May under suspicion of espionage. He has been in detention for close to two months now without access to a lawyer and without any formal charges being laid against him. Jehanbegloo had returned to Tehran just days before his arrest after completing a four month professorship at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in New Delhi.

Canadian authorities have thus far been unable to secure Jahanbegloo’s release:

OttawaÂ’s campaign to have him either formally charged or released has consisted mainly of stern letters from Foreign Minister Peter MacKay to the Iranian minister of foreign affairs, and futile entreaties. A letter co-signed by the EU, which has greater diplomatic and economic ties to Tehran, protested the lack of due process, the fact that no charges have been laid, and that he has not been granted a lawyer. But it has made no difference. Canada has not been allowed consular visits. “Iran does not recognize joint citizenship, so theyÂ’re not in any way acknowledging his Canadian citizenship or connection,” MacKay said. “In fact, by some bizarre assessment, having Canadian or American or any other foreign connection is feeding perhaps the reasons for his detention.” [Link]

In addition to his visiting professorship at CSDS, Jahanbegloo recently published a book of dialogues with Indian thinker Ashis Nandy. Given his close ties to India, Jahanbegloo’s arrest has raised serious concern among his colleages there. CSDS director Suresh Sharma wrote an appeal to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad in May: Continue reading →

Fix Up, Look Sharp

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If this were a face-to-face conversation, our sassy Barmaid would be telling me about her Ritu Beri entry and I would follow up with…

It’s funny that you should mention Beri’s rubbish ideas on Indian design, Barmaid, particularly the bit about how it is limited. Just the other day I was partaking in some retail therapy and I happened upon my most bank-breaking pleasure, a little Queen West shoppe called ‘Delphic‘. Of course I had to go in for a teensy look, maybe try on a little of this and that, drool over some sneaks.

I took a tentative step through the door and what did I see? A lone mannequin wearing a twisted ‘Little Black Dress’, the shape of which looked eerily familiar. I mean really familiar. My eyes then darted right and on the rack there was a coat. A grey coat. With painful-looking needlework that I have only before seen in the kurtas I used to wear (back when I lived in a warmer climate). But the pattern did not resemble anything I had ever seen before, here or in that yonder homeland. Delicately I moved the lapels aside to reveal a name: Rashmi Varma. Ahhh, it made me feel good.

The nice shop lady informed me that Varma spends her time between Toronto and Delhi, where most of her pieces are made. I asked to see all the RV items they had, held up top after top to see if I could find even a hint of that proverbial ‘mango’. And you know what? Nothing. Just beautiful, expressive pieces like the Bihari dress, or the Kantha trench, or (my personal fav) the Dogri jersey pants. Hammertime.

Yes I do have faith in Indian fashion, perhaps not in Beri’s world of regurgitated design but efforts made in cloth have never been limited to haughty architects who like to point fingers while their own blinders are fastened in place. Hmph! Continue reading →

King Kaun?

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Roll Curtis Mayfield, Little Richard and Amrish Puri’s accessories in ‘Temple of Doom’ together and you end up one of NXNE ’06’s most charismatic personas. From all reports, King Khan, along with his sensational Shrines, made a serious impression on Toronto’s indie-philes last weekend. Irrelevant was the fact that all three of their shows were held in the SKETCHIEST corner of my fair city. One messiah, eight musicians, and a go-go dancer with only one vision: To rock your soul!

kk.jpg

King Khan’s unusual backstory begins in Quebec:

King Khan is born in Montreal in 1977, being the son of immigrants from India. The Khan siblings (his majesty, Lil’ Brother Gumbo and Sister Cocobutter) inherit far more than mere musical talent: “My great grandfather was the Johnny Thunders of the sitar. He played but never recorded anything and became a serious opium addict. My father tried to play sitar but chose the fast life over that and wound up down and out and addicted to cocaine. My mother can play harp like Bob Dylan.” [Link]

After being kicked out of the household at 17 by his father, Khan ends up being taken in by the Mohawk Indians on the Kahnawake Mohawk Reservation (near Montreal):

I learnt lots about being a punk from my Indian friends. We used to get drunk, smash cars, go hunting for white women. The Indians taught me about survival, being a real warrior, even it if involved drinking Budweiser, smoking Marlboro Reds and getting really high. They showed me the truth and then I met a big bad wold who told me that rockin’ and rollin’ is all that I can do. I saw the light. Even learned how to chew Red Man Tobacco, America’s Best Chew. The Mohawk Indians put the savage back into my soul, even gave me a home, for that I will always be grateful. [Link]

He had me at “Red Man Tobacco”. Continue reading →

Terror in the GTA (Updated)

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I woke up on Saturday morning, rolled out of bed and made a cuppa tea. “Terror plot near Toronto”, screamed my first email of the day and I almost choked on my chai masala (thanks, Abhi!). My blood pressure grew worse as I scoured the web for more and found only speculation, fabricated tie ins with Al Qaeda and fictitious “targets”. My five simple ‘W’s remained unanswered. Three days later a story has finally emerged in bits and pieces.

A report by the Toronto Star says the Canadian Security Intelligence Service began monitoring internet sites, which the suspects allegedly used, and in 2004 brought the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in on the case to facilitate a criminal investigation. Toronto mayor David Miller was informed of the investigation this past winter due to growing concerns about the groupÂ’s activity. Upon learning of their plot to build a bomb using ammonium nitrate, investigators intercepted the delivery of three tons of fertilizer to certain group members in a massive sting operation. There have also been reports of a connection between the Toronto group and two U.S. citizens, one was indicted while the other was arrested on terror charges earlier this year.

Shortly after the operation, on Friday night, RCMP officers arrested 17 Canadian residents on terror-related charges in a raid on their homes. Many of these suspects are long-time Canadian residents, five of them are teens under 18 years of age while the oldest two in the group are 30 and 43 years of age.

Details of the suspects are being revealed slowly as trusty journos bang on doors and beat on windows to answer that one as-yet elusive ‘W’. Who? Continue reading →

Like No Business I Know

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projectorroom3.jpg Technics aside, a perfect photograph usually involves both, an absorbing subject matter and an image that leaves an imprint as if it were a memory of one’s own. Take these qualities and wrap them around India’s filmi phenomena, turn the roll into a series and what you have is the stuff that dreams are made of. Bollywood dreams, to be (slightly inaccurately) exact.

Jonathan Torgovnik‘s extensive travels throughout India in the early 90s led him to rural India’s nomadic cinema halls and the masala movie sets of Chennai and Mumbai. On the way he managed to create a completely riveting contribution to the study of Indian cinema in the form of Bollywood Dreams (Phaidon Press, 2003). This (unbelievably perfect coffee table) book feels like a deeply personal photo essay as well as a tribute to Indian cinema’s grass roots. All seen through the eyes of a former combat-photographer for the Israeli army.

Online exhibitions of Torgovnik’s work with the Indian film industry can be found at Digital Journalist and foto8. A short (5min.) self-narrated clip of his photographs can be found at Google viddy. His website too is chock full of goodies, like the Mumbai laughing clubs series, which is reducing me to fits of giggles just thinking about it. Or the Satosh series, which is pure breaking my heart. Either way, I can’t stop looking. Continue reading →

Love Makes the World (Record) Go Brown

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While you Amreekan desis are out winning your spelling bees and geography bees, we Canucks are out here breaking records. World records, people! club dj 030s.jpg Sri Lankan-Canadian Suresh Joachim is at it again and this time he’s partaking in one of my favourite activities, karaoke. Starting at 11:00 AM on the 31st and continuing on for fifty hours…:

Suresh Joachim will be singing his way into the record book. This electrifying record is organized by M.M. Robinson high school in Burlington. Suresh Joachim and the students are joining to raise fund for the Canadian Red Cross. The current karaoke world record is 25 hours & 45 minutes and was performed by Mark Pearson (U.K) in 2004. [Link]

Joachim currently holds 33 world records and since Cicatrix introduced us, Joachim has run a hundred klicks on a treadmill, crawled one mile in thirty six minutes, worked a pair of turntables for seventy six hours, moonwalked for twenty four hours, and gone on a thirty one hour couple dance marathon. [Link]

Joachim wants to break the record for holding the most current records, he’s doing it for the children:

The most remarkable demonstration of SureshÂ’s commitment to help suffering children will be the World Peace Marathon. This incredible journey will begin at 12:00 a.m. on December 25, 2007 in Jerusalem and end at 5:00 p.m. on June 24, 2008 in Sydney Australia. During his voyage, Suresh will travel through 88 major cities, in 54 countries passing a symbolic peace torch to dignitaries in each place. [Link]

With this marathon Joachim hopes to petition to make June 24 ‘World Ceasefire Day’ and raise $1 billion for the Universal Fund for Suffering Children. Continue reading →

Girls On Film

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In March of this year, MTV Canada was relaunched after a failed attempt on digital cable a few years ago. Many rolled their eyes and chose to swear undying allegiance to their beloved Much Music, but I was rather looking forward to the Big Satan taking over Toronto’s Masonic Temple as headquarters. Heck yeah I want to know what those pretty kids on 8th and Ocean are up to. More earth-shattering relationship how to’s on Laguna Beach, s’il vous plait. Most importantly, I wanted to see if they would hire any desi VJs, which they did do in the form of one Aliya-Jasmine Sovani. She doesn’t get much air time while sharing the MTV Live stage with six other VJs and what I have seen has been aptly described as “a woman so perky she makes Kelly Ripa look like Sean Penn in mourning.” Sadly, I don’t gel too well with perk peddlers on TV.

Sovani used to produce for Much Music and switched over to MTV to work in front of the camera. This left me wondering why Much wasn’t adding any brown to the VJ payroll. After all, they hired my supremely cool childhood idol, Monika Deol, in the late 1980s. My mum was never as horrified at my solitary whinin’ to Shabba Ranks videos if Monika announced them. Oh Monika, you were everything and everything was you. A Canadian music channel is nothing without proper Canadian representation. Continue reading →

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Lies, Damned Lies, and Logistics

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In a tiny country on the Arabian Gulf, 2006 could go down in history as pivotal in the struggle for recognition among a largely South Asian migrant labour force. Earlier this year, a short while after the Ports fiasco threw a spotlight on all things Dubai, 2,500 Asian construction workers rioted in Dubai at the site of what will be one of tallest skyscrapers on the planet. This was only the tip. Kicking off the aftermath Human Rights Watch released a condemning report on worker abuse in the U.A. of E:

One of the world’s largest construction booms is feeding off workers in Dubai, but they’re treated as less than human,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “It’s no surprise that some workers have started rioting in protest. What’s surprising is that the government of the UAE is doing nothing to solve the problem.”

Migrant workers comprise nearly 90 percent of the workforce in the private sector in the UAE. They are denied basic rights such as freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. [Link]

In addition, they urged countries to involve improvement of labour practices when negotiating free trade agreements with the U.A.E. This type of international media coverage has put a considerable amount of pressure on government to amend existing labour laws. Though the U.A.E. Minister of Labour, Dr. Ali Bin Abdullah Al Ka’abi, denied all claims present in the Human Rights Watch report it took him a heartbeat’s worth of time since to announce that worker unions could be legal by end of year. Continue reading →

The Pleasure, The Privilege Is Mine

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After ManishÂ’s departure, the bunker basement has been full of weeping, moaning, mewling sounds. A pouting face appears around every corner as inhabitants go through their stages of loss. The monkeys, they loved him so.

Rajni, my roommate, has turned into an insomniac. Baboon Scotty smashes one bottle of Jager an hour against the common room wall. Yazad, the Mountain Gorilla, shaved off all his fur and is running around naked and morose after declaring that hair is the sole cause of all strife. Rochelle, the Orangutan who used to leave anonymous love notes in ManishÂ’s mail box, read something about marriage in the comments and is now wandering the halls with a broken keyboard, yelling, “IÂ’ll CUT that wench!” Bonobos Rohan and Junaid finished two bottles of kaju feni and are starting to reek like rotting garbage. Kinjal, a wee Spider Monkey, is lying face down on my hammock, simply butchering “Bucky Done Gone” in her screechy voice, on repeat. And the worst reaction of them all comes from Mithun the Rhesus Macaque, sweet Mithun, he ripped his red sequined jumpsuit to shreds and has sworn off dancing forever!

In my life, I have encountered a fair bit of human sadness but this is too much to bear. Oh lordy, I am weaker than ever in the face of monkey melancholy. Wanting to help my new friends, I decided to buck up and enlist the help of Dino, a wise Chimpanzee and a distant relation of Nim Chimpsky. We rigged massive sets of speakers in every room and are hoping to produce enough sound to blow the roof off this sucka depression. Manish should be thought of with coy smiles and appreciative laughter only, no? Our plan is simple. Choose one tune that is so bloody sad it makes grown adults cry on a good day and play it nonstop at a very high volume for five hours straight. We call it, “Operation: Tough Love”. Continue reading →

Lights, Camera, Meetup!

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Hear ye, hear ye, the time approaches for SM’s first meetup of 2006 in Ka-ney-da, the True North strong and free. The womb that is Toronto shall play host to an enchanting evening of food, drink, witty banter, and dance fights. Vive la revolution!

Date: Sunday, May 21, 2006
Time: 6:00 PM
Place: Little Tibet – 712 Queen West

We shall feast on momos and po jha. Tibetan food is veggie-friendly and delicious. If you have any hard and fast objections to place or time please shout them out in the comments. I am open to compromise if you threaten with absence 🙂

Pretty please to be making RSVP before I make reservations on Saturday, my email addy is currylingus[at]gmail[dot]com. I want to make sure we can all snag a seat without the wait wherever we end up going. By all I mean ALL. I know youÂ’re out thereÂ…give me a holler and come out to play! I was the onliest attendee at last yearÂ’s Toronto meetup, which was hosted by Manish. Shame shame! You have a lot to prove T-dizzy, like how many momos you can eat in one sitting, how long you can go without saying the “K” word, and how many pictures you can pose for while making “SM” gang signs. Continue reading →