The author of that excellent Spiderman review was recognized for his talent in March. We’re slow over on this side of the pond:

Writer and journalist Sukhdev Sandhu won best critic at the British Press Awards… Currently the chief film critic for the Daily Telegraph, Sukhdev (pictured) also writes for the London Review of Books and Modern Painters… Sukhdev was educated at Oxford and has taught at New York University… He told AiM he was “a bit embarassed” about the award, as there were “tons of more deserving writers” than him.

“I wish there were more British Asian films I could rave about. They’ll come in time, I’m sure,” he added…

Don’t we all, Mr. Sandhu, don’t we all. Here’s a great passage from his review of the Indian Spiderman comic in New York magazine:

… people used to scoff at Japanese anime. Aside from the absurdity of being a purist about one of pop culture’s most pleasingly bastard and vulgar forms, those carpers, if they’re to be consistent, should bemoan the popularity of Indian religious iconography and henna motifs among Western fashionistas. Cultural exchange is a two-way process…

Hindi cinema has a long history of borrowing and adapting from Western sources, be they Busby Berkeley dance routines in the thirties, Chaplin-like heroes in the common-man social epics of the fifties, or Dirty Harry, a major influence on the wildly popular revenger tragedies of superstar Amitabh Bachchan… Hollywood animation companies have begun to outsource creative work to the subcontinent, where they can rely on a steady pool of ex-street painters whose former livelihoods waned because of crackdowns in illegal advertising and the rise of photography in film posters…

Sandhu’s the author of London Calling: How Black and Asian Writers Imagined a City. You couldn’t find a more recursive book topic, nor a more politically correct one 😉

Abhi’s previous post here.

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Writer Ranbir Sidhu just finished a novel while locked in an architect-designed habitat for 30 days, 22 Å“ hours each day. The publicity stunt by Queens artist collective Flux Factory resembles another mentally focusing experience known as ‘poverty.’

The novelists lived in the gallery, in individual habitats built for them by architects and designers who, like the writers, entered a competition. Evenings, they ate together, meals served by local chefs. In addition, they could leave their pads for 90 minutes a day to shower, do laundry or walk on the building’s roof… There were nice writerly touches, like the two empty Scotch whiskey bottles perched on a shelf and a stack of books – including Strunk and White as well as Kafka – lined up near Mr. Bailie’s computer… “I liked the boundaries here… I knew what was expected of me. I was supposed to stay in my room a month and write a book.” [NYT]

Here’s an excerpt from the rough draft of the novel he wrote while on the hamster wheel:

“Here, check this out.” Cyrus clicked on a couple of pull down menus. “This sorts into gender. It compares violence against male body parts to violence against female body parts and plots them both against hits. Do you see?… It’s the violence against women that’s really getting us our customers…

“One thing we found that’s strange is this. Violence against dicks. Our readers don’t like that. You cut off balls, interest falls through the floor. You cut off the dick, and man, you lose the whole fucking stadium. There is silence out there.

“Our characters get to keep their dicks,” Cyrus said. “Unless they’re black or brown.”

Here’s Anna on National Novel Writing Month. For speed writing, few compare to the prolific Robert Louis Stevenson, who supposedly wrote Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in under a week while binging on cocaine. (I assume he believed in method writing.)

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Sheba Mariam George, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, is set to release a book next month titled, When Women Come First: Gender and Class in Transnational Migration:

With a subtle yet penetrating understanding of the intricate interplay of gender, race, and class, Sheba George examines an unusual immigration pattern to analyze what happens when women who migrate before men become the breadwinners in the family. Focusing on a group of female nurses who moved from India to the United States before their husbands, she shows that this story of economic mobility and professional achievement conceals underlying conditions of upheaval not only in the families and immigrant community but also in the sending community in India. This richly textured and impeccably researched study deftly illustrates the complex reconfigurations of gender and class relations concealed behind a quintessential American success story.

When Women Come First explains how men who lost social status in the immigration process attempted to reclaim ground by creating new roles for themselves in their church. Ironically, they were stigmatized by other upper class immigrants as men who needed to “play in the church” because the “nurses were the bosses” in their homes. At the same time, the nurses were stigmatized as lower class, sexually loose women with too much independence. George’s absorbing story of how these women and men negotiate this complicated network provides a groundbreaking perspective on the shifting interactions of two nations and two cultures.

I think this might be a good stocking stuffer during Christmas for many Mallu moms. Apparently it wouldn’t be a good idea to let any men in the house see it though. You know, bruised egos and all. Continue reading →

Deepak Chopra’s daughter released a new book, entitled “100 Promises to My Baby”:

As she eagerly awaited the birth of her first child, Mallika Chopra began to craft a unique gift that would express her profound loving commitment to the baby growing inside of her. 100 Promises to My Baby is that gift – one that reflects her deep awareness of the sacred responsibilities of parenthood. Here the author shares the vows she made to help her child – and all children – grow up feeling cherished and secure, look at the world with wonder and curiosity, and learn spiritual values that enrich life and contribute to making the world a better place. [Rodale Store]

The first, and possibly most important, promise:
#1. You’ll never have to patronize any of grandpa’s “spirituality” seminars.

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The infamous Ajai Raj is an English major and campus journalist who idolizes Hunter S. Thompson and swears like Cartman. He complains about being busted for pot:

The Pigfucking Establishment had other plans. My roommate and I were awakened at 3 A.M. by two grinning Austin Police Department officers and a greasy-haired fat fuck of an RA who gets his jollies by hanging around with his thumb in his ass until he smells marijuana so he can inform the Justice League in exchange for a free raffle ticket. No shit– as the cops cuffed me for having an ounce of grass, this fucker got a chance to win a free microwave. Or to suck off a sheriff, as far as I know or care.

I was led in handcuffs into a waiting room full of crazy yelling degenerates, wife beaters, whores, thieves, and contemptible crying cunts… my balls were fondled by leering criminals posing as representatives of justice… according to our “justice” system, a straight-A college kid holding a bag of weed is as bad a criminal as a guy who beats his wife and kid. I learned that in Texas, a cop can decide to arrest you for no reason at all and you can sit in jail for 72 hours before you’re even charged with a crime…

The law is sticking all kinds of fingers in my asshole right now, but with a few savvy business deals, I can plow through this shit and come out smelling like roses. Ironic, really–to get out of this drug charge, I’m forced to arrange bigger drug deals than I ever intended to. C’est la vie, non?

Raj worships the original gonzo journalist…

Hunter S. was, and is, my hero. No other writer has had a greater impact on my way of thinking…

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The long-awaited debut of “Spider-Man India”:

Gotham Entertainment Group (GEG), based in Bangalore and New York, has launched four issues of the comic in the United States and will introduce the first of the four-part series in India next month, in a deal with Marvel Enterprises Inc. [Reuters/Yahoo!]

The first issue is available directly from the publisher. Possible drinking game: Take a shot every time you catch a peek up Pavitr Prabhakar’s dhoti.

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By the title alone I think I’m going to like this book. Little Brown & Company has offered Kaavya Viswanathan a $500,000, two book deal. The Financial Express provides the details:

YouÂ’re 17 and want to get into USÂ’ Harvard University, but first what do you do about those infernal jumping hormones that every gal goes through post-teens. Being an Indian, you donÂ’t indulge your sex-oriented daydreams (study first, pleasure later). So the next best option is to pen them to paper and get rid of the hots.

In a huge first, US born Kaavya Viswanathan did exactly that and more. Little Brown & Company, a respected 109-year-old publishing house offered Kaavya a $500,000 two-book deal with the first one to be out next spring titled How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got In. Considering that first-time writers get $10,000, Kaavya sure made a killing.

Writing is also the way I get rid of my “hots.”

The New York Sun (registration required) goes into more detail:

Ms. Viswanathan began writing the novel while still at the Bergen County Academy at Hackensack. She’s the only child of her Indian-born parents, Viswanathan Rajaraman, a neurosurgeon, and Mary Sundaram, a gynecologist.

“Everybody in my family, including my parents, won science prizes,” Ms. Viswanathan said. “I was the one with the writing gene – and I’ve no idea where that came from. My parents are still in a state of shock. When I’ve gone home on some weekends, they look at me working at my computer and surely wonder, ‘Who is that strange person?'”

What I can’t help noticing is that a 17-year-old writer, seems to like writing about day-dreams and possibilities, and getting wild, whereas older writers like to focus on why Indian men (or women) suck.

“The main character is a girl of Indian descent who’s totally academically driven, and when she senses from a Harvard admissions officer that her personal life wasn’t perhaps well-rounded, Ms. Mehta goes out and does what she thinks ‘regular’ American kids do – get drunk, kiss boys, dance on the table,” Ms. Viswanathan said.

Can I get a “hell yeah?” Please, anyone? 🙂

Desilit Daily comments: I can’t tell if this is more likely to sell to desi high school students applying to colleges, or to the parents desperate to get them in to Harvard…

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