Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

West Bollywood

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“He is so sexy. Sexy man!” she screamed. [Link]

bachchan-rai-guru.jpg

And this was no tween pining from behind a roadside barrier. The ‘she’ in question paid upwards of $100 for a ticket to the premiere of Mani Ratnam’s Guru, held at the gorgeous Elgin Theatre last night. As in, she was inside. And still screaming. Frenzy does not even begin to describe the spectacle that is a Bollywood West premiere. Short video of the madness here. Had TMBWITW not discovered my (sizzling) relationship with Abhishek (call me!) perhaps I too would have been a part of this much-hyped affair. Kaash…

Last September, when Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, the story goes that far more people turned up at its screening than at the Babel screening which happened on the same day. Brad Pitt in the flesh could not conjure crowds like the Bachchans and SRK. The year before, Lisa Ray and John Abraham appeared on an Eye Weekly cover after Water’s debut. Eye is a highly popular Toronto magazine that provides excellent insight into arts and culture happenings. Its covers are usually dedicated to indie bands and other hippy shit. To think that John Abraham, he of little faith in barbershops, is now actually a part of that hippy shit…It makes me proud.

If there’s one thing Toronto does well it is luring film dollars to town. Hence the frothy excitement generated by Guru’s premiere among suits on both sides. Numerous Bollywood productions have used Hogtown as their backdrop and City Hall is finally realizing that there’s more to film than production. With South Asians poised to become the largest minority group in Canada within ten years, the domestic market for such films is – to put it lightly – huge. Ever so in love with all things multiculti, our Mayor Miller personally extended an invitation to Bachchan and Rai to grace the premiere with their fairy dust. Continue reading →

More Triumphant Cultural Inroads

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“Kind of like the Indian Robert Redford and Brad Pitt, only crank up the handsome and rip off the knob.” That’s how Stephen Colbert described Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan in a segment Tuesday evening making fun of celebrity feuds. (Apparently there’s some ruckus about Big B not turning up at SRK’s New Year’s Eve party.) Trump v. Rosie and Angelina v. Madonna were the other two targets, but with a full half of the segment devoted to Bollywood clips and mangled names of Indian stars (“Let me tell you something: If Pree-etty Zinta is there, you better fucking show up”), the item — which wasn’t all that funny to begin with — came out in a weird space between derision and, ultimately, a kind of respect. Watch for yourself, but to my eyes this was a more sophisticated intro to Bollywood than anyone in the studio audience might have expected. I suspect we have an alternadesi mole somewhere on Colbert’s writing staff.

As you might expect the Indian press is all over it. “The short spoof may also have been aired keeping in mind the fact that the show is extremely popular amongst Indian Americans,” this report speculates. Continue reading →

Posted in TV

India’s Next Top Hot College Chick

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It sounds pretty simple:

1) Put up a website called “India’s Hottest College Chick Contest“

2) Sit back in Chandigarh, Punjab (where the owner of this site resides) and collect all the “hot chick” pictures emailed in.

It makes me wonder why we didn’t call our website “America’s Hottest Desi Blog-Lurker Contest” (although I may still lobby my bunkermates for this change).

Does anyone actually fall for this kind of crap? I had questions:

1. What is India’s Hottest College Chick Contest?

– India’s Hottest College Chick is an all-online contest. The contest shall take place totally online. The contest shall be full of interactive content, contestant related stuff, games, debates, interviews, clips, podcasts, vote-outs, attitude and loads of masala! The winners shall be adjudged on the basis of voting only. The contestants shall actively interact with the audience.

2. Who wins the contest and how?

– As stated earlier the contestants who remains till the end i.e the one who survives throughout the vote-outs and the contests shall be the winners. The top five shall be awarded prizes. The last remaining shall win the grand prize of Ddamas Jewelry set….

3. Can I participate?

– Ofcourse! You must follow the minimum eligibility criteria of being a girl first(Phew!). [Link]

If I use the phrase “kids these days!” does that mean I’m officially old? But seriously, what the hell? Can any dude with a web address become the next Hugh Hefner? And this little entry from their blog made me squirm:

Just a 48 hours after opening up with the registrations and a few (Indian)Broadband issues later we’re finally on! With nearly 57 registrations the moderators Raman and Ish are having a busy time compiling and reviewing profiles and sending approval mails. [Link]

“Compiling and reviewing?” Is that what they call it nowadays?

Continue reading →

Burger Raja

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While growing up my mom would do ravivar, which translates into Sunday in Gujarati. This was a tradition passed down to her from her mother, and basically every Sunday my mom would only eat once during the day. When I was a kid, it sucked for Sunday lunch because it meant eating a full-on Gujarati feast, when all I really want to eat was a grilled cheese and some bugles. Things looked up for dinner though, when my sister and I were allowed to choose our poisons. This often led to a visit to Burger King for a Veggie Whopper and onion rings. The Veggie Whopper, for those of you that haven’t had the pleasure of having it is different than the BK Veggie which was only recently added to the menu, and is essentially Burger King’s signature Whopper without the meat patty. As ridiculous as it may sound, it was one of my favorite foods order. I know that for most vegetarians, a fast food burger joint doesn’t quite fit the bill as an ideal place to grab a bite, but my sister and I loved Burger King. And that Burger King presented some semblance of a vegetarian option set it apart from its competition. While I was always on the fence about allying myself strictly to Burger King or McDonalds – you never know when you will crave a McFlurry – when the news came out a few year’s back that McDonalds had been deceiving its vegetarian customers by incorporating that unnecessary beef tallow ingredient into its french fries, I moved completely into the Burger King camp.

So I was glad when I saw the news that fast food eaters in India would soon be getting a choice in where they can hang out and munch on American style burgers and fries. From this story in the Economic Times, it seems Burger King will soon be joining the burger wars in India as it begins to scout out locations and business partners with which to start its joint burger venture in India. And with its opening,

Burger King is likely to shake McDonald’s monopoly in India by launching its own brand of burger restaurants. The company, best known for its price war with Big Mac in the US, has mandated Kotak Mahindra to scout for a partner in what is a growth market for global fast food companies. Industry sources feel that even though McDonald’s is firmly established in metros like Delhi and Mumbai, Burger King’s entry is likely to start a burger war of sorts. Innovation in product offerings and location of outlets would play a crucial role in drawing customers in the long run. In the short term, McDonald’s would lose some customers to Burger King out of the sheer curiosity factor. However, this would happen only if both are located in the same catchment area,” said an industry source.

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Little Mosque on the Prairie

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As SM regular Badmash notes on the news page, the new sitcom “Little Mosque on the Prairie” has its debut this evening on the CBC, Canada’s public broadcasting network. I hope that many of you Canadian mutineers will check it out and report back on what, from the clips available on the show’s site and news reports, looks like a smart comedy that takes on anti-Muslim prejudice without straying from the tried-and-true writing and directing approaches that make situational comedy work. Here’s the synopsis:

LITTLE MOSQUE ON THE PRAIRIE is a new comedy from CBC Television about a small Muslim community in the prairie town of Mercy, many of whose residents are wary of their new, more “exotic” neighbors. The series takes an unabashedly funny look at the congregation of a rural mosque and their attempt to live in harmony with the often skeptical, even down right suspicious, residents of their little prairie town. The sitcom reveals that, although different, we are all surprisingly similar when it comes to family, love, the generation gap and our attempts to balance our secular and religious lives.

You can get a sense of the show from the CNN report linked above. (If you can’t stand Paula Zahn, forward to 00:38 for the start of actual piece.) The airport scene is classic. The humor is pretty direct and there’s lots of room for slapstick but that’s what makes the format work. Also check out this story about the show from the CBC itself. It’s mercifully Zahnless but shows fewer clips.

Both segments introduce us to the show’s creator, Zarqa Nawaz. This sister is no joke! She’s a British-born, Toronto-raised practicing Muslim mother-of-four, who “had a Bachelor of Science degree from U of T in her hands when she realized that medical schools had screening committees to keep people like her out of the health care system.” She went on to broadcast journalism and film, and has lived for the past ten years in cosmopolitan Regina, capital of Saskatchewan: Continue reading →

Live Longer, Smell Worse [Was: Pour Some Haldi On Me]

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“Tasty curry might have a fringe benefit,” headlines USA Today… today. The article is more specifically about the reported health benefits of turmeric. It’s not exactly a scoop, as a scientific paper on the topic was published two years ago and picked up by Manish in this January 1, 2005 post. Still, given the attention span of the typical USA Today reader (and who is that reader, anyway, other than the nameless masses of khaki-panted, cellphone belt-clipped, laptop warriors waking up each morning in the Marriotts of the land?), I suppose it’s information worth recycling from time to time. Plus we get a heart warming story to go with it:

Then Jayne took an Indian cooking class that emphasized fresh vegetables and curry spices.

She began to whip up an Indian dinner once or twice a week — and soon she noticed she wasn’t always looking for a late-night snack. And the curry in the food offered her a bonus: It seemed to ease the pain and swelling in her joints.

“I have arthritis,” says Jayne, 55. “But I’m moving better now.”

Preliminary research suggests Jayne may be right. A study in the November issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism suggests turmeric, one component of curry spice, almost completely prevented joint swelling in rats with arthritis. Other studies have suggested that the spice could protect against diseases such as heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s…

Tipster Adi points us to the article as picked up on the news aggregator site RedOrbit.com, where we get the benefit of reader comments. Made-up Indian names, comparisons of desi food to the excrement of various animals, and discussions of desi body odor and penis size are all on the menu. I won’t reprint any of it here but those of you who think racism against desis is no big deal might find it instructive to take a look.

Meantime, pass the lime pickle.

Continue reading →

DesiDeals.net

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Like many desis, I love me some deals. I know I am playing into stereotypes here, especially because I am Gujarati, but come on EVERYONE likes good deals. The enjoyment for me isn’t just finding a good deal, but the whole process: it is the hunt, the chase, and the glory in opening the mail and finding that rebate check that you thought might not ever come. Suffice it to say, I spend a good percentage of my time on the internets perusing some favorite deal sites.

But while I like finding good deals, one of my pet peeves is really poor customer service and the feeling that I have been taken advantage of. So when I was visiting one of my new favorite deal/consumer rights blogs, The Consumerist, (part of the Gawker family of blogs) I was a bit dismayed to hear the tale of our desi brethren, Mahesh, who reported on his parent’s really poor experience on United Airlines.

Mahesh’s parents flew from Omaha, Nebraska to Colombo,Sri Lanka, but at LAX, United Airlines (UAL) refused to honor their tickets, saying that they had not “been approved, authorized and authenticated.” The family ended having to pay $2860 extra to complete their journey. Apparently, Sri Lankan Air Lines, a United code-share partner, could not find the reservation Mahesh’s parents made. Mahesh wrote three letters of complaint to UAL and so far his parents have only received two $300 coupons in return. When Mahesh scoffed at the sum, United wrote, “our policy does not permit us to respond with the generosity you had anticipated. (link)

It seems that instead of writing letters, which I am a big fan of, now when desis are wronged, we blog. So as a good South Asian, Mahesh has started his own blog detailing his battle with United Airlines’ Customer service at evilunitedairlines.blogspot.com. His story is really messed up and I hope the airlines eventually do the right thing and refund the extra three grand his recently operated-on parents had to hand over to get home.

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Hee Hee! He Said “Bhenchod!”

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Beneath the horrendous headline “Gangsta Raj,” New York Times reviewer Paul Gray opens his treatment of Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games with the kind of snark that will dissuade anyone who only reads the first paragraph from buying the book:

This immense, demanding novel can be recommended, with scarcely a cavil, to well-educated Indians who have lots of free time, are fluent in (at the very least) English and Hindi, and have a thorough knowledge of South Asian politics; Hindu, Muslim and Sikh religious practices; and the stars and story lines of hundreds of Bollywood films. Longtime Bombay residents will have an extra advantage, since they will know, without consulting a gazeteer or Google, why the city is now called Mumbai. Prospective readers who donÂ’t fit this profile will have some catching up to do.

In the end, it’s a positive review, though the term “damning with faint praise” sure came to my mind several times as I went through it. And do the Gray Lady’s editors know they just printed the words sisterfucker and motherfucker?

So it goes here. Those who plunge into the novel soon find themselves thrashing in a sea of words (“nullah,” “ganwars,” “bigha,” “lodu,” “bhenchod,” “tapori,” “maderchod”) and sentences (“On Maganchand Road the thela-wallahs already had their fruit piled high, and the fishsellers were laying out bangda and bombil and paaplet on their slabs”) unencumbered by italics or explication.

Seriously though, I still haven’t read the book (the US edition comes out this week, hence the review) but one thing I appreciated about Chandra’s last book, the amazing collection Love and Longing in Bombay, is precisely how he manages to introduce large amounts of local color and vocabulary in ways that connect even if you don’t know what exactly every term means. Surely the review could have taken a more productive approach than to lead with this literalist harping? Continue reading →

“Ji Hain! Lahore!”

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This is brilliant. Via SAJA, here’s the story of the Pakistani-American brother who has bought land in Lahore, Virginia, and has great plans for its use:

We spoke to the present American owner of a portion of the town’s land, and also the Pakistani American who has recently bought that piece of land to develop it to match the Pakistani town of Lahore. The new Lahore will have a school, a museum, an airport, and a replica of the famous Shalimar gardens in Lahore, Pakistan.

The report, for the Voice of America’s Urdu TV service, is by journalist Imran Siddiqui and features great local characters who are interviewed in English.

This opens up a lot of possibilities. For instance, there is a Delhi in New York, Delaware, California and Ohio. There’s an Agra in California and Kansas, and another in Oklahoma where there seems to be no shortage of land to build your miniature Taj. There’s also a Bombay in New York, population 1,192, with a tantalizing but undeveloped backstory:

The town of Bombay, comprising township Number One of Macomb’s purchase and. all of the St. Regis reservation on the American side of the boundary, was erected from Fort Covington by an act of the Legislature passed March 30, 1833, to be effective on the first of May following. Its name was chosen by Michael Hogan in compliment to Mrs. Hogan, who was a native of Bombay, India.

There are also Calcuttas in Ohio and West Virginia, a Madras in Oregon, and even a Lucknow in western Ontario. I couldn’t find a Thiruvananthapuram. Continue reading →

Doin’ Her Thang Thang

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This is a sister called Shakti who is making commercially-oriented urban pop music and is based as far as I can tell in New York (thanks tipster Sonia!). She’s another MySpace-era striver who has a single on iTunes, a website with more bells and whistles than she has material to fill it, an embryonic line of fashion accessories, and a producer-songwriter-laptop wizard behind her looking to become the next Timbaland. (He has another artist called Asia Minor.)

She’s also generous with the Indo-flavored exotica, announcing “Namaste” on her website and putting forward, in her various materials, the full complement of noserings, silk scarves, saris, and the like, combined with the racy iconography of today’s commercial R&B. There’s also a Kama Sutra reference and a camel (not together). And there’s some really ugly short promotional clips online that truck in cab driver and 7-Eleven nonsense.

And the music? It’s pretty good on balance, although the single for sale (and yo, what kind of viral marketing strategy is it to put your first record out and charge folks for it?) called “Do the Thang Thang,” hardly does justice to Shakti’s extensive classical and jazz training AND Berklee School of Music bachelor’s degree AND Chicago Music College master’s degree with lyrics like this:

Do the thang thang
Freak your body body
Don’t hurt nobody body
Let’s get naughty naughty.

There are a couple of remixes that make things a bit more interesting, thanks in part to the singer on the bhangra version (a free copy of which is floating around online).

The song on the YouTube clip here, “Let Me Dance,” I like a lot more. Now the Orientalism police (which I occasionally roll with, I admit) won’t be feeling Shakti’s thang thang overall, but if you suspend that reservation for a minute the sinewy groove and bedroom themes might just get to ya.

What I can’t figure out is the end of the line that begins “Just like the Kama Sutra…” It occurs twice in the song. Any sharp ears out there able to decode it? Conferral of the official Sepia Mutiny seal of approval might just depend on those hard-to-make-out words… Continue reading →