Author Archives: sajit

Film on Calcutta’s Red Light Kids shortlisted for Oscar

Posted on by

Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman’s Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids, a documentary about children of prostitutes in Kolkata who try to start a new life, has been shortlisted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of the contenders for the best documentary feature Oscar, according to rediff.com

A portrait of several children who live in the red light district of Kolkata where their mothers are prostitutes, Born Into Brothels, celebrates New York-based photojournalist Briski’s efforts to change the lives of the youngsters. She gave them cameras and taught them how to take pictures, leading them to look at their world with new and hopeful eyes.

Earlier in the year, the 85-minute long film distributed in North America by THINKFILM was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival where it garnered top reviews. Winner of the Audience Award at Sundance, it has been shown at over 20 other film festival winning prizes at most of them. The final five nominees for best documentary will be announced along with the nominees in 24 other categories January 25, and the 77th Annual Academy Awards will be handed out February 27.

Tamyra Gray Joins the Cast of Bombay Dreams

Posted on by

The struggling Bollywood inspired Broadway show, Bombay Dreams, recently added some starpower to its lineup to gather more interest in the fading show, and to make some needed revenues to break even. In order to do so, the show replaced youngster Anisha Nagarajan, with American Idol/Boston Public star Tamyra Gray. Debuting in her first Broadway show, Gray will be a part of the cast for 12 weeks portraying the idealistic filmaker Priya.

Jay Sean’s Me Against Myself

Posted on by

The British Asian Pop sensation Jay Sean has been making waves in the UK in recent months, beginning a few months back with his hit collaboration Dance with You, and now with the release of his top 40 full length album, Me Against Myself, which debuted at 29 this week on the British Charts. Featuring the top ten charting hit singles, “Stolen” and “Eyes on You,” Sean is tipped to be the British Asian to actually be the one that finally makes the crossover into the mainstream. Lets hope so.

The Telegraph (UK) too has praise for Sean, whose real name is Kamaljit,

[for many] the best tracks will be two hidden ones, from his earlier incarnation, including You Don’t Know Me, about the difficulties of trying to make it as an Asian in the hip-hop arena. The title track sees Sean dissing himself for making music ? presumably the poppy stuff ? that “you pretend you are into”. The intro skit has his producer-mentor Rishi Rich telling him, in a posh English accent, to cut out the conscious stuff, that UK hip-hop doesn’t sell and he should write songs about girls. Clearly highly talented, and currently attracting the attention of demi-god producer Timbaland, it will be fascinating to see how Sean resolves his musical schizophrenia.

The Independent (UK) ran an interesting, yet cliched profile of Jay Sean, entitled: “Betwen Two Cultures”, about ten days ago. Click here to read it. Regardless I want to offer an SM Big Up to Jay Sean! Continue reading →

Bugging Trees to Stop Logging

Posted on by

The Independent (UK) is running an interesting story on the embedding of microchips inside of trees in the Indian state of Kerala, in order to curb illegal logging of the precious and aromatic sandalwood tree.

Forestry officials will then be able to use a satellite to monitor the trees. Not only will any attempt to cut them down be detected – the Forest Department will be able to trace the movements of any smugglers who try to take timber out of the area. The trade in contraband sandalwood is one of the most lucrative in India. The “bandit king” Veerappan, wanted for more than 120 murders before he was gunned down by Indian police last month, may have started out poaching elephants for their ivory, but soon moved on to the much more profitable business of sandalwood.

I do think the enforcement of illegal logging laws are important, but I am sure there are better uses for this technology/resource in India.

The New York Times on Bride and Prejudice

Posted on by

The Sunday New York Times had a few pieces this past week on Gurinder Chadha’s forthcoming (yeah it has already released in the UK and in India) Bride and Prejudice. In one article, entitled “The Class Acts” NYT columnist Karen Durbin describes the film as a “gaudy, bawdy Bollywood musical” that has a lot going for it. But as Durbin writes,

“none of that would matter without Aishwarya Rai. As Lalita Bakshi, the latest and by far the most glamorous incarnation of Jane Austen’s tartly independent Elizabeth Bennet, Ms. Rai doesn’t just carry the picture. She also saves it from its occasional leaps into the taste void, as when she tosses off the lyric, “I just wanna man who’ll give me some back/ Who’ll talk to me and not to my rack!” with such deadpan aplomb that you almost don’t wince. But she’s more than just a knock-down, drop-dead gorgeous face. She’s even more than a talented singer, graceful dancer and vibrantly confident actress in at least two languages.

I haven’t seen the film yet, I am going to tomorrow, but Durbin’s description sounds so good, I don’t know if I have the heart to tell her that Rai doesn’t sing. I especially don’t want to tell her, b/c Durbin seems to think Rai’s performance is Oscar worthy. She proclaims that Ash’s performance in Bride and Prejudice is one of “five performances no one should miss. Especially not Academy voters.”

Also in the the Sunday Times is a review-ish type piece by Polly Shulman entitled “Dear Reader, Elizabeth Has Returned. And She’s Wearing a Sari.” Shulman does an actual comparison of Bride with the original Pride, including a comparison of dialogues. Shulman writes,

The provincial Indian setting offers a dowry of matchmaking mothers, colorful scenery and extravagant song-and-dance numbers that can seem captivating or vulgar, depending on your level of pride and prejudice. Perhaps because in an interracial, cross-cultural romance those traits can come uncomfortably close to racism, the “Bride and Prejudice” script plays down its title attitude. Here, Darcy is less snobby than misunderstood. For example, he refuses to dance with Lalita (Aishwarya Rai), the Elizabeth character, not because “she is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me,” as Darcy tells Bingley in the novel, but because he hasn’t mastered the drawstring on his Indian kurta-pajama suit, and his pants are falling down.

Retesh Bhalla, The Desi Wrestler

Posted on by

The Washington Post has run an interesting piece on Retesh Bhalla, aka Sonjay Dhatt, the professional wrestler (yes WWF style) whose name-tag is “The Original Playa from the Himalaya,” or more specifically from Northern Virginia. Retesh, a young desi, a student at Northern Virginia’s George Mason University, wears jeans and sneakers by day, next to unsuspecting classmates, but by night, and most weekends, for that matter, he is Sonjay Dutt, “The Original Playa from Himalaya,” a guy who flings himself off the ropes of pro-wrestling rings, performs dazzling twists and flips, and then lands — with theatrical impact — onto, well, big guys wearing spandex pants and too much baby oil.

“From India . . . ” screams the announcer, as Dutt bursts out of the tunnel, struts down the ramp, then leaps onto the ropes, whipping the crowd into fierce applause. Dutt, now 22, was still pretty young when he got hooked. On Saturdays, he and his father would watch wrestling on television all afternoon. Ric Flair. Hulk Hogan. Dusty Rhodes. He taped the shows, bought the magazines, begged for the action figures. Then decided he wanted to grow up to be a wrestler, just like other little boys grew up wanting to be John Elway or Michael Jordan. At first, his parents thought it was amusing. Saw it as a phase. Assumed he’d grow out of it. Certainly didn’t take it seriously. “My parents?” says Dutt, as he prefers to be known. “They laughed in my face, of course. They had the same idea that every Indian parent has for their child. Being a doctor or lawyer or something to that effect. I chose totally the opposite.”

Click here to read the full article, you really should.

The Times on Caste in the Diaspora

Posted on by

The New York Times (free subscription required), in its Sunday edition has run an interesting take on the role of the Indian/Hindu caste-system in the Indian diaspora in America. I use a hyphen because followers of non-Hindu faiths found in India (Sikhism, Islam, and Christianity etc.) continue to have remnants of the caste system as part of their cultural traditions as referenced in the NYT piece’s example of Pinder Paul, who the Times describes as a

“spirited 50-year-old Punjabi Sikh (the Sikh faith absorbed some caste distinctions) who came to New York City in 1985 and worked as a dishwasher at Tad’s Steaks. Now he and his wife spend seven days a week running the Chirping Chicken outlet he owns in Astoria. He could cite no instance of outright discrimination, but said looks and gestures sometimes betray upper-caste condescension. “Our friends who came here from India from the upper classes, they’re supposed to leave this kind of thing behind, but unfortunately they brought it with them,” he said. Yet in a paradoxical demonstration of the stubborn resilience of caste, Mr. Paul is active with a local Dalit group and said he would prefer that his son marry a Dalit. “We want to stay in our community,” he said.”

The Times use the story of Dr. Bodh Das as their lede, a “silver-haired cardiologist in the Bronx,” who they compare to Tivye from Fiddler on the roof, and his attempts to ensure that his three daughters marry into the same familial caste they were born into.

As Dr. Das’s experience shows, the peculiarly Indian system of stratifying its people into hierarchical castes – with Brahmins at the top and untouchables at the bottom – has managed to stow away on the journey to the United States, a country that prides itself on its standard of egalitarianism, however flawed the execution. But the caste system, weakening for a half-century in India, is withering here under the relentless forces of assimilation and modernity. While it persists, its vestiges today often seem more a matter of sentiment than cultural imperative. Sometimes, the caste distinctions, recognizable by family names and places of origin, linger as a form of social snobbery. Keerthi Vadlamani, a 23-year-old chemical engineer from an affluent Brahmin family in the south-central Indian city of Hyderabad, said, “Some people are stupid enough not to mingle with a Dalit, to cold-shoulder them. “You won’t invite them home, you won’t go over to their home,” he said. Other upper-caste Indians here say that they do not bother to probe someone’s caste and that most compatriots will do business with anyone. Few Indians would admit to such behavior as refusing to eat in a restaurant because its food was cooked by an untouchable, something many upper-caste Indians might have done 50 years ago. Mostly caste survives here as a kind of tribal bonding, with Indians finding kindred spirits among people who grew up with the same foods and cultural signals. Just as descendants of the Pilgrims use the Mayflower Society as a social outlet to mingle with people of congenial backgrounds, a few castes have formed societies like the Brahmin Samaj of North America, where meditation and yoga are practiced and caste traditions like vegetarianism and periodic fasting are explained to the young.

The Times has an interesting take on the whole thing, but kudos to them for exploring a facet of the Indian diaspora that has remained, at least to my knowledge, relatively untouched by mainstream journalism.

Posted in Uncategorized

Arundhati Roy to be Awarded the Sydney Peace Prize

Posted on by

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Booker Prize winning Author Arundhati Roy will be awarded the Sydney Peace Prize on November 3. Roy will deliver the City of Sydney Peace Prize lecture on the same date, while also launching her newest book, “The Chequebook and the Cruise Missiles: Conversation with Arundhati Roy.”

While many disagree with Roy’s politics and her foray into journalistic activism, I have to admit her ability to move minds through her amazing prose is quite impressive.

As a result of her activism, she is now probably better known for her critiques of the coalition of the willing in Iraq, for criticising the giant US corporation Enron for exploiting and sacking Indian workers, and her critique of globalization, which she has called “a process of barbaric dispossession which has few parallels in history,” than for her prize winning novel, “The God of Small Things.”

Can an American Idol save a Bombay Dream

Posted on by

Playbill.com reports that singer Tamyra Gray, who shot to stardom in the first edition of TV’s “American Idol,” will make her Broadway debut in the struggling Bombay Dreams on Nov. 9.

Gray, who placed fourth in the hit TV singing competition in 2002, will assume the role of Priya, the earnest film director in the Bollywood-themed musical, for a limited engagement of 12 weeks. Priya is currently being played by young desi actress Anisha Nagarajan.

“I have been an admirer of Tamyra Gray from the start and am thrilled she’s joined the Broadway Company of Bombay Dreams. She’s going to be wonderful”, said the composer of the show, A.R. Rahman.

Playbill.com is also referring to a Variety story that suggests Bombay Dreams is headed for celluloid. Variety reports that the musical, originally produced on the London stage by Andrew Lloyd Webber, may make the stage-to-screen leap via Really Useful Films. In fact, a motion picture is currently being developed, and shooting will most likely be done in India. Austin Shaw, the managing director of Really Useful Films, told the industry paper, “It’s effectively a Bollywood film in a Western style, so it makes sense to shoot it in India.” Farah Khan, the co-choreographer of Bombay Dreams, is in the running to helm the motion picture.

Namesake Casting Call

Posted on by

Mira Nair’s Next venture, the making of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Namesake onto celluloid, is holding a casting call for Bengali/South Asian actors.

Shooting in Calcutta and NYC December/February 2004 – 2005.

Seeking the following roles: GOGOL – 4-7 years old to play 4. Born in the United States, his parents are from Calcutta. Speaks English and Bengali

GOGOL – 16-21 years old to play 17. Born in the United States, his parents are from Calcutta. Speaks English and Bengali.

SONIA – 12-15 years old to play 13. Born in the United States, her parents are from Calcutta. Speaks English.

MOUSHUMI – 15-20 years old to play 16. Plump and intelligent. Has a British accent.

If INTERESTED IN BEING CONSIDERED FOR THIS FILM, please send snapshot and letter (non-returnable) to: Cindy Tolan “The Namesake” Casting Search 145 Sixth Avenue, 7th Fl. New York, NY 10013