Author Archives: sajit

African-Indians

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We are all at least somewhat familiar with the phenomenon of Indian migration to Africa, mostly in the form of persons of Gujarati origin working their way to East Africa, but little has been publicized about the opposite, about Africans migrating to India. I wasn’t even sure something like this existed until I read an advertisement for a lecture, “African Elites in India,” which is being given this Saturday, June 10 at 2 PM at the Smithsonian’s Meyer Auditorium by Kenneth Robbins and John McLeod, editors of the book African Elites in India: Habshi Amarat. The book focuses on the story of sub-Saharan Africans who migrated, beginning around the 15th century, to India and subsequently gained positions of power and status on the sub-Continent. Who knew hyphenated identities went so far back?

“Known as Habshis, the Arabic word for Abyssinian or Ethiopian,” the duo’s book tells the story of a “little-known group of elite sub-Saharan African-Indian merchants, soldiers, nobles, statesmen, and rulers who attained prominence in India in the fifteenth to twentieth centuries but also on the Africans who served at the courts of Indian monarchs as servants, slaves, eunuchs, or concubines.”

It turns out the Africa-to-India phenomenon is not all that limited. In 1996, the Anthropological Survey of India reported sizeable communities of African ancestry in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, Gujarat, and the metropolises of Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai (link). For those of you who count yourself among the South Asian history geek-squad like I do, this lecture sounds fascinating. If you need more information, or to RSVP, you can call 202 633 0444. A book signing will follow the lecture.

Perhaps this answers why Anna, and so many other desis are often mistaken for Ethiopian. Incidentally, the Freer Gallery is also screening a few Sri Lankan films this month. The remaining two are Flying with One Wing (2002), which is showing tomorrow, and Guerilla Marketing (2005) which is screening on Sunday.

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Two Genres Birthing a Third

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Awhile back, almost a year actually, I first wrote about the reggaeton track Mirame, featuring South Asian beats, Reggaeton superstar Daddy Yankee, relative newcomer Deevani, and the production of Luny Tunes. In the time since that Post, and this one by Manish, Reggaeton has gone the way of Bhangra in mainstream hip-hop, perhaps even a bit further (how many Bhangra articles reached 7 pages in the ny times arts section?) and is headed either towards the path of continued success in the mainstream, or as Bhangra has, to remain popular for the most part only amongst its orginal ethnic fan base.

For those of us that try to follow some of the trends in desi hip-hop, it’s clear that now more than ever (it took awhile, didn’t it?) that desi remixers are coming out with tunes that reflect the current reggaeton vibe that has in the last couple of years eclipsed mainstream American hip-hop. Desi DJs such as New York’s Lil Jay (hear his Reggaeton remix of Bikram Singh’s Kawan here) and Scotland duo Tigerstyle (hear their remix of Mirala Bien featuring Labh Janjua here) along with others have been incorporating popular styles into their remixes for years, but the incorporation of reggaeton with Bhangra, or Bhangraton as the name is slowly catching on, just seems to co-exist with a certain ease that I can’t seem to hear when Redman raps over an Asha Bhosle hook. With Bhangraton there seems to be a natural synergy in both the rhythmic and vocal stylings. And so it’s not too odd to think that something more, perhaps something bigger could come of a formal connection between some Bhangra and Reggaeton producers.

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15 Park Ave Comes to the DC Metro

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Tipster Jenny informs of us of an upcoming screening of Aparna Sen’s 2005 film, 15 Park Avenue. The screening, a fundraiser benefiting the group Chai, Counselors Helping (South) Asians/Indians, an organization that provides education, advocacy, counseling and referral services to the South Asian community about mental health issues in the Baltimore / Washington metropolitan area, will be held at the Laurel 6 Cinemas, this Saturday (May 20) beginning at 1:30 p.m., in Laurel, Maryland. Konkona Sen Sharma (Page 3, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer), Aparna Sen’s daughter and one of the stars of the film will be in attendance for both a question and answer session, and the dinner that follows. More information and details on the screening can be found here.

15 Park Avenue, which stars Sen, Shabana Azmi, Rahul Bose, and Shefali Shetty (I loved her in Monsoon Wedding), is the story of two sisters and their struggle to cope with schizophrenia after a traumatic event triggers a delusional world for one of the sisters and is yet another example of the new cinema coming out of India. Indian film: it’s not just Bollywood anymore.

I haven’t yet seen the film, but from the other work that I have seen, either featuring Konkona Sen Sharma, or the direction of Aparna Sen, 15 Park Ave should be worth your while. Hey, its even been called “hauntingly beautiful.” (link)

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Satyajit Ray’s Haunting Poetry

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If you find yourself a connoisseur of good cinema or have a thing for really good art-house Indie (as in Indian) films, and are in the Washington D.C. area, make sure you try and stop off to see the National Gallery of Art’s screening tomorrow (May 7) of the 1955 Satyajit Ray classic, Pather Panchali, a story of an impoverished family in a Bengali village circa 1919, and the movie that many would say placed Satyajit ray on the international film map. In celebration of the film’s fiftieth anniversary (which would have actually been in 2005), Partha Mitter, research professor at the University of Sussex, will discuss the work of his friend Satyajit Ray. The lecture will be followed by a screening of a 35 mm archival print of Pather Panchali from the collection of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This event is free, open to the public, begins at 4 PM, and should last around 2 hours and 15 minutes. Amazon.com calls this film an “essential video” in its editorial review, and goes on to say,

“this truly remarkable feat of storytelling is a must-see kind of movie. Ray reveals a gift for presenting stories that unfold gently, one engaging scene at time. This film delivers an amazing emotional punch that will linger in your consciousness for some time, not in spite of, but because of its simplicity.”

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That Silver Isn’t Vegetarian

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While I was sitting in the mandap during my wedding a couple of weeks ago now, I was a bit concerned about all of the Indian sweets I was consuming. It seemed that every two minutes another mithai was being prodded in my direction, and the thought of all the ghee, the sugar, the gor (molasses) etc that I must have inhaled was a bit frightening. It wasn’t until last week when I read these articles in India-West (Link 1 and Link 2), I realized that as a vegetarian, I should have been concerned with something else. According to the story,

Varak, that gossamer-thin silver sheet that covers Indian mitthai, is made by placing thin metal strips of silver between the steaming intestines of a slaughtered animal or its hide and hammered into a thin foil. A substantial number of cattle, sheep and goat are killed specifically for the industry, according to animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi.

I used to think it was real silver that was just wittled down, perhaps by a machine? Apparently, there is no such thing as machine-made varak, so chances are, if you are vegetarian and you eat mithai or anything else with that silver gossamer on it, you are unwittingly eating an animal by-product. It pains me to think that many unknowing vegetarians, who perhaps think Indian sweets are vegetarian-friendly, have been consuming an animal by-product all these years. What’s worse is followers of the Jain religion, a religion that holds the notion of ahimsa or nonviolence in high regard, and the strictest of whom will wear a face-mask so as to not kill any living thing by breathing, have been using varak to decorate their “religious idols and the tirthankaras in their temples.”

I was enraged following the McDonalds controversey a few years back in which it was found that McDonalds was wrongfully telling customers their french fries were vegetarian, when in reality, the fries were frozen with a beef tallow additive, and the news in this article doesn’t make me much happier. While we all know that gelatin is found in marshmallows and gummy bears, I was surprised to see that certain cereals like Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats, actually contain gelatin, as does a now-former favorite of mine Lucky Charms. With the increasing popularity of vegetarianism, one would think a vegetarian friendly substitute for gelatin would have been created by now.

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It’s Not Just a Better Seat

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The Onion does it again…

Air India Now Offers Business Caste Seating

April 12, 2006 | Issue 42•15

MUMBAI–Air India, the subcontinent’s largest airline, announced it will offer upgraded Business Caste seating on all flights starting in July. “More legroom, wider seats–and no need to associate with the manual laborers,” a spokesman for the airline said Tuesday. “Our business travelers must have lived good past lives to deserve this. (link)

Something makes me believe that the fine folks over at The Onion may have actually flown an Air India flight while researching this story.

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Language Barriers

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According to Karsh Kale, the London born and New York raised producer/dj/musician, the title of his third studio release (and most recent album) entitled Broken English, was based on the concept of trying to

“create songs in English, but to give them a sentiment and a sense of universality, so it works in places where English is not their first language. But at the same time, you still understand the sentiment of the songs. That was the original idea of Broken English (link).”

I must admit, I was really looking forward to this third album. To this day Kale’s debut Realize continues to be one of my favorites, and I love its remixed incarnation Redesign. I was however slightly disappointed with Liberation, the follow-up to Realize. For me, Realize had set the bar so high that no follow-up could have topped it. Don’t get me wrong, Liberation was good, just not great. Perhaps it was Kale’s departure from the familiar drum and bass and dance vibe that I was used to, or maybe it was that I thought the cinematic feel of the album was a reach.

In any case, I approached Broken English anxiously, mainly because I had found many recent diasporic desi releases to be trite and mechanical. I was hoping Broken English would be different, and different it was. Wait, is that innovation and musicanship I hear? When I first started listening, I heard hints of Nitin Sawhney through the innovative and non-overtly desi touches in the production, vocals, and instrumentation. Yes the album has Bollywood and Bhangra, as well as the tablatronica that Kale is known for, but it also incorporates hip-hop and rock. All of which work surprisingly brilliant together. While overall, the album presents an eclectic and lush soundscape, Kale stayed true to his roots and kept a few tracks purely South Asian, including among others, the nicely paced “Drive,” and the beautiful duet “Some Things are O.K,” featuring vocals by Sabiha Khan and longtime Kale collaboratorVishal Vaid.

This album is clearly no East meets West hybrid, and there is no American curry or other Indian food adjectives available to describe the sound. It is what it is: purely American in every complex way that makes an American, an American. You get that sense immediately with the opening track, Manifest (click here for free official download): where MC Napoleon raps alongside Vaid’s vocal, while a dhol loop echoes in the background. This is followed by one of my favorite record’s on the album, “Dancing at Sunset,” featuring Todd Michaelsen’s English vocals alongside Carnatic strings and an eloquently placed tabla break and Hindi vocal. Continue reading →

A Mutiny through Sound

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For those of you into ethnic drum and bass, british-asian hip hop, or good live music in general, and if you are in New York this Friday night (3/17), I highly recommend attending the upcoming New York Sub Swara show featuring some of the top south asian musicians/producers around, including State of Bengal (best known for that Flight IC 408 track from Talvin Singh’s Anokha record), Navdeep of Mutiny fame, DK aka Bollygirl (Avaaz/Kollektiv), and DJs Bobby Friction and Nihal (BBC Radio 1), among others of course. Click on the image for more information, but rumor has it that pre-release copies of State of Bengal’s upcoming album, along with some of the most innovative in diasporic desi sounds will be available at the show.

The show starts at 10 p.m., is $15 in advance, or $20 at the door, and is @ Downtime, 251 W 30th Street (Between 7th and 8th). 21 and over.

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The Third Element

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Sitting in the Hirshhorn museum’s Ring Auditorium after waiting for over an hour on Saturday, I really wanted to like Water, Deepa Mehta’s last in her trilogy of films based on the elements. I wanted to write a glowing review of it for you all, but after sitting through it (and the really, really long introductory conversation between Mehta and the Smithsonian’s Manjula Kumar) I came away simply underwhelmed. It wasn’t that the movie was horrible, it wasn’t. It was just unimpressive. I think back to Mehta’s Fire, it was unique for the time of its release and blessed with the presence of Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das; I found Earth, the second installment of the trilogy phenomenal, visually stunning, musically evocative, and well directed. Contrastingly in Water, I saw a cast of mostly uninspired acting, drab sets, and music that just faded into the background (perhaps by design?).

The film was shot in Sri Lanka, and while watching the movie, Sri Lanka’s lush landscapes easily gives the non-India locale away. I can’t say for sure that in 1938 there were no palm trees in Varanasi, but I am not buying that the city’s ghats were surrounded by them. I found Seema Biswas (Shakuntala) of Bandit Queen fame and the relative newcomer Sarala (Chuyia) playing the young widow excellent, but the beautiful Lisa Ray (Kalyani) was mediocre at best. Shakuntala’s dutiful strength and Chuyia’s naïve intelligence were indeed stark contrasts to the rather forgettable Kalyani (spoiler warning: one of my favorite scenes shows Chuyia sitting amongst the praying widows, fearlessly blurting a question to the pundit asking, “what happenned to male widows?”).

I wanted to be moved by the climactic scenes featuring MK Gandhi, but I found them artificial and contrived, which only added to the hokey vibe of the movie. The film, it’s not bad, but I didn’t find it great. For the curious however, it’s a decent timepass.

Related posts: earth, fire, WATER, Water Is Finally Here, Is Deepa Mehta Back in the Game?

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Introducing New Guest Blogger: DNSI Dave

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Please welcome our new guest blogger Dave Sidhu, of the excellent Discrimination and National Security Initiative Blog. The other mutineers wanted to do the full hazing ritual on him but I had to intervene since Dave is a friend. We both went to GW and wrote together at the now defunct Satya Circle. Dave is a civil rights attorney with the federal government and will be starting a federal clerkship this year. You will be proud to know that Dave has also lived next door to Zerobridge’s Mubi and Mohsin Din for the last 22 years and and is a card-carrying member of everyone’s favorite group, the Federalist Society.

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