Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

Scary

Posted on by

Each Friday NPR’s Morning Edition features a StoryCorp Project interview. You may recall that I had previously blogged about an interview between a Sri Lankan American husband and wife. This morning’s interview featured a really cute story (only ~1 minute long) from a Sri Lankan woman who came to the United States in 1969. I recommend that you guys stop reading this post right now and listen to this clip first. For those of you too lazy to follow my recommendation I will give you the lead in below:

Two friends interview each other in Pittsburgh

When Juliet Jegasothy came to the United States from Sri Lanka, she had already heard many stories about what life was like in America.

“We came to America in 1969, we were just newly married, and we came to Brooklyn, New York.” Jegasothy recently told her friend Sheena Jacob.

“I was so terrified to even open the door, because I had heard all these horror stories about crooks, and gangsters, and guns, in New York.“

Jegasothy soon encountered an American tradition that she was not prepared for… [Link]

I realize that I am jumping the gun and that Halloween isn’t until next Tuesday. However, most of you have probably been invited to some Halloween party this weekend (unlike some grad student I know who will be writing alone in his apartment dressed up like a blogger) and if you are a procrastinating slacker like me you could really use some costume advice STAT! After the jump I will provide you with some last minute ideas.

*WARNING* There is some scary sh*t past this point.

Continue reading →

Bollywood Fugly

Posted on by

white.jpg

A very happy one-week anniversary to “Ugly, Ugly, Bollywood Fugly,” a brand-new and already fabulous blog that aims to chronicle and record for posterity the more egregious cosmetic and sartorial effects of Bollywood film. But of course it’s fabulous: Sepia friends DesiDancer, t-HYPE, and Filmiholic are all involved! Just one week and it’s already a treasure trove of gems like the one above. With material like that, there’s nothing else to say… except for the fantastic captions that our fearless hunters-of-ugly have composed. Welcome! Continue reading →

South Asian via Africa Diaspora

Posted on by

Ever notice how sometimes there are certain themes in your life? This month it was the theme ‘everything is related to the South Asian diaspora via Africa route.’ Chick Pea’s mother fed me fried mogo w/ tamarind sauce, Yo’ Mom told me stories of her life in Africa as a child, and a friend of mine just got back from a summer social work stint working in the desi townships of Durban, South Africa. I’m very interested in the creation of political ethnic identities in the South Asian diaspora and was intrigued by hearing these stories, and seeing the different diaspora perspectives.

Appropriately, I saw an early screening of the movie “Catch a Fire” last Thursday, and haven’t been able to stop talking about the movie since. Starring Tim Robbins (as the German Afrikaner oppressor), and Derek Luke (as the freedom fighter Patrick Chamusso), the movie is beautifully crafted, telling the story of a South Africa man who gets caught up in love, betrayal and the fight for freedom.

Catch a Fire is based on actual events that occurred in the 1980s. While Nelson Mandela was locked up for treason in the Robben Island prison, the banned and exiled ANC was engaging in sabotage against the Apartheid government. Patrick Chamusso, on the other hand, had found a job at the Secunda Oil Refinery, the largest coal-to-oil plant in the world. He preferred his simple family life to the underground movements. His wrongful arrest and subsequent interrogation and torture by the South African Special Branch forever altered his outlook and led him to Mozambique where he joined the ANC and received his military training. He volunteered to single-handedly carry out the operation to blow up the Secunda Oil Refinery and as per specific instructions, only property was damaged by the explosion.

Robyn Slovo, who is one of the film’s producers, and Shawn Slovo, who wrote the screenplay, are actually daughters of Joe Slovo and Ruth First, pioneer white activists who stood up against the Apartheid government. Joe and Ruth joined the ANC, while in exile. [link]

Maybe I’m just a sucker for movies with men who play roles as fighters against injustice, like The Motorcycle Diaries. Or maybe it’s because in reality, Luke is paying for his on-screen daughter’s real-life education because she is the daughter of an HIV positive African woman. I’m not sure, but both reasons make my heart melt for this story, both on and off screen.

Continue reading →

Let Alpana Select The Wine, Please

Posted on by

alpana singh.jpg

A little while ago, Taz mentioned Alpana Singh in a post on influential desi women under 30. I recently discovered that Alpana, in addition to being the youngest person ever to pass the Master Sommelier exam, hosts a show called Check, Please! on Chicago Public Television. AND she has a book out: Alpana Pours: About Being a Woman, Loving Wine, and Having Great Relationships. The general vibe she’s going for in the book might be described as “Shiraz and the City”; the idea for it came from watching couples order wines at upscale restaurants:

Singh cringes when she thinks about the drop-dead gorgeous woman who dined at Everest with an equally great-looking date. The guy proceeded to order a $490 bottle of Champagne — and the unsure woman asked for a Diet Coke. That’s when she knew it was time to birth Alpana Pours.

“I may not be a relationship expert, but I saw five years of relationships” by advising couples on wine. “It was like [having] ringside seats,” says the Monterey, Calif., native.(link)

To sum up (ladies, are you listening?), Alpana declares: “Looking super hot in a really expensive dress can be immediately undermined if you order a diet cola.” (The book also has chapters with titles like, “Pairings: Wine, Hooking Up, and Dating” and “What Wines Go With Bingeing?”) While I’m definitely not the demographic Alpana is, um, catering to, I guess I’m fine with it as long as no one is serving Tunatinis anywhere, ever. Continue reading →

Amjad Ali Khan & Co. (featuring a desi discount)

Posted on by

amjadandco.jpg

As SM loyalist (if a mutiny can have loyalists, that is) Janeofalltrades spotted, I was part of a conversation on the radio yesterday about Gandhi-giri, the trend of “Gandhi-ness” that’s developed in India this year and that Amardeep blogged a couple of weeks ago.

We were discussing Gandhi’s legacy and the music that celebrates it with Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, who as many of you know is perhaps second only to Ali Akbar Khan among living practitioners of the sarod. The connection? Khansaheb has been taking part in the centenary commemoration, this year, of Gandhi’s satyagraha movement of non-violent resistance, which he launched in South Africa in 1906 and brought back to India on the eve of World war I.

A few weeks ago, Amjad Ali Khan traveled with prime minister Manmohan Singh to a commemoration in South Africa and gave two concerts in Durban. Like Ravi Shankar before him, Khansaheb has composed ragas dedicated to Gandhi and has also adapted some of Gandhiji’s favorite folk and light classical songs.

This Saturday, October 28, Amjad Ali Khan gives a similar concert honoring Gandhi’s legacy at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The concert begins at 8 P.M. Tickets range from $25 to $90. Sepia Mutiny readers may purchase tickets at half price: charge by phone at 212-247-7800 or in person at the Carnegie Hall box office mentioning the promotion code “PrimeArts.” The discount applies to all tickets in all seating categories; it is not available through online booking.

I should also mention that performing with Khansaheb will be his two sons Amaan Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan. The two are in their late twenties and I can report that not only are they excellent sarod players in their own right but they are also rather easy on the eyes. In fact they were jointly named “Most Stylish Person in Music” at MTV India’s 2006 Style Awards. They have their own non-classical recordings that I hope to report on shortly once I get hold of the CD. In the meantime, I hope to see many of you on Saturday. [Photo credit] Continue reading →

The Exotic

Posted on by

Let it go down in The Historical Archives of the Mutinous that I have officially posted way too many Paris Hilton references in this Mutiny-Wallah stint for my own good. But, gosh darn it, she makes it so easy!

The 25-year-old heiress to the Hilton hotel fortune will shoot for her friend, Anand Jon, an American fashion designer of Indian descent who is introducing a line of high-end evening wear for India’s stylish elite.

“For her, India is the land of exotica and beauty. In fact, her response was: ‘I finally get to visit the exotic’. She loves Indian culture and the Indian influence on clothes,” he said. [link]

Ugh. She used the ‘E’ word. Ironically, as I had posted earlier, even though we’ll be able to see her model clothes for India’s stylish elite, they still cannot watch her music video on TV….

In August, Indian censors issued an “Adult” certification — which means it cannot be broadcast on any TV channel — for the blonde socialite’s new music video “Stars Are Blind.”

Although she hasn’t visited the country before, Hilton is well known in trendy Indian social circles and CD copies of a notorious sex romp involving her and an ex-flame can be bought locally for as little as $2. [link]

Who is this desi man that runs in Hilton’s party circuit? First and foremost, he’s a blogger. Anand Jon is also a famous ‘American fashion designer of Indian descent,’ though a quick glance through his Spring 2007 collection didn’t exactly blow my LA-fashionista-mind. Maybe if Paris Hilton’s wearing it, or one of ‘India’s stylish elite,’ it would be more appealing…? Frankly, I find the gratuitous use of the word ‘exotic’ in describing his fashion as well as without seeing a brown skinned woman wearing his gear on his catwalk a little irksome.

Mr. Jon developed a passion for metals and fabrics growing up in South India, under the tutelage of master artisans and his grandmother, one of the most influential women in his life. During these formative years, his deep involvement in the Yogic disciplines set a metaphysical yet playful flavor to all of his creations. Anand Jon often pays homage to his heritage, while also embracing the cosmopolitan vibe of New York City and the raging progress of modern technology.

We can be sure that of one thing- that with Brangelina in India this year, and Paris Hilton going to Mumbai next year, that the Indian paparazzi are hitting jackpot on the tabloid photo front. I wonder if all this means Paris Hilton post-India will get inspired to add ‘exotic Hindu beats’ on her next album release… I can hardly wait.

Continue reading →

“The Billionaire’s Sleep”/ Tokyo Cancelled to be Filmed

Posted on by

Manish’s post on Tokyo Cancelled a few weeks ago reminded me that I needed to finally pull the book down off the shelf, where it has been resting since S. brought it back for me from a brief visit to Bombay some months ago. I read it and was well-pleased (though perhaps not overwhelmed) by the imagination at work.

After a visit to Rana Dasgupta’s interesting homepage, I was intrigued to discover he’s signed off the filming rights for one of the stories in Tokyo Cancelled to a young Australian filmmaker named Robert Hutchinson. Hutchinson spent six weeks in India this past spring doing research on it for the screenplay he’s writing, and kept an interesting blog about it here. Aside from the fact that he misspells “Hindutva” at one point, Hutchinson has some interesting observations to make, both on India and on the script in progress. Here is how Hutchinson summarizes the plot for the film version of “The Billionaire’s Sleep,” which follows Dasgupta’s story quite closely:

Rajiv Malhotra is a billionaire who inherited an Indian steel empire and turned it into a trans-national concern with a focus on India’s ability to provide outsourcing services to the rest of the world. For him every moment of every day in every timezone is an opportunity to provide efficient services. His obsession with utilising every second of the day means he has never been able to sleep. This inability to sleep has also meant he is infertile and has not been able to produce an heir to his empire. His decision to have a ‘perfect son’ made for him through the use of genetic technologies is the inciting moment of the story. From that moment powers beyond his control come into play. (link)

That’s just part one. Note that it’s Dasgupta who uses the name “Rajiv Malhotra” (there is also a real person by that name, you may have heard of him; hard to know if any connection is intended).

Part two is where it really starts to get interesting: Continue reading →

Anita Delgado: Desi(red) in India

Posted on by

Maharani Prem Kumari aka Anita Delgado

While there may be no direct desi connection to the Desi(red) campaign featuring Penelope Cruz that Ennis wrote about below, Cruz certainly has at least one strong connection to the Des. It turns out Cruz in her directorial debut, will put on celluloid the story of Anita Delgado, the flamenco dancer from Andalucia who created a stir when she agreed to marry an Indian king –Maharaja Jagatjit Singh Bahadur– in 1908. The film, based on the the book Pasion India by Javier Moro is tentatively titled The Princess of Kapurthala, and much of the shooting will reportedly occur in the congested and oh-so-regal streets of Old Delhi and in the palaces of Kapurthala in Punjab. Cruz will play the part of Delgado, while the rest of the Indian cast is scheduled to be finalized when she heads to India in January to scout for locations.

Sounds promising, right? Well according to the IBNnews website, the film project seems to have rubbed the Kapurthala royal family the wrong way, even before casting has begun. The website reports that…

“The heir of the [Kapurthala Royal] family, Tikka Shatrujit Singh, is ready to go to court over the issue to seek an injunction on the movie, which is based on his grandfather Maharaja Jagatjit Singh.”

The wiki suggests the family opposes the film because they feel Javier Moro’s novel, on which the film is based, distorts the truth, especially the allegations of the Maharajah forcing Anita to have an abortion. I don’t know what is going to happen, but if you think about it, the screenplay almost writes itself. An Andalucían flamenco dancer, after refusing the advances of an Indian Maharaja, finally gives in to his charms and shifts from Spain to live in India in 1908, during the heyday of British rule. I really hope the film gets made. Just think of the potential of some wicked latin influenced bollywood dance sequences, a la Shakira’s Bollywood-influenced rendition of Hips Don’t Lie from the 2006 VMAs.

Related: India in Andalucia

Continue reading →

What in Samhain…

Posted on by

such bullshit.jpg

Oy, I need to start having the intern go through your submissions. After innocently clicking “original” Sonia’s news tip about a Halloween costume she had seen, I clawed my big Mallu eyes out, AGAIN at all the inappropriateness I found. Owwww. Look for yourself, if you dare. —->

Recently, I mentioned to mutineer SJM that since he’s moving back to DC and I have a costume in mind, we should plan to do something fun for St. Pumpkin’s day, even if all we can come up with is adding to the cluster#^@% which is Georgetown on Halloween. The black and orange holiday is huge around here. Thousands converge on M st, in costumes both quotidian and cunning. This pink outfit merits neither of those words; this is plain annoying. If I see someone wearing the schmata on the right on the same street as my beleaguered, yet beloved Amma’s Vegetarian, I might have to rip off my bamboo earrings (at least two pair), hand Salil my Fendi bag (but keep my bad attitude) and invoke the “Manish Vij-Anti-Exoticism” law of 2005 as I beat a kutthi down.

From the website which sells this…thing:

Adult Hindu Costumes – This Adult Hindu Goddess Costume includes a Hindu Goddess costume satin coined top, wrap skirt, Hindu Goddess costume chiffon drape & coined headpiece. The Hindu Goddess Costume is available in Womens Standard.

I know I don’t have to ask you to correct me if I’m wrong, but when coins are used like that, isn’t it more of a belly dancing thing? Or also likely, a case of mixing up continents? When my little sister and I were young, we learned and performed Greek folk dances in authentic outfits which were lovingly made by all the Grandmothers at our church to resemble classic costumes of Crete, Macedonia, Peloponnesos et al…some of those ensembles had coin headdresses and trim similar to what you see on our…um…Hindu Goddess here. It’s like they weren’t even TRYING to exoticize accurately. Sheesh.

But who cares about that– it’s on sale! Click here and you can save 20% by purchasing your Hindu Goddess Costume now (don’t forget to wear it with the retch-inducing nude pantyhose). For just under $32, you, too, can wear an outfit even Diwali Barbie wouldn’t touch. The best part? My wrath and beat down are FREE, especially if Mr. Walker is my other escort for the night. Continue reading →

I see brown people

Posted on by

You know how sometimes you just get … browned out to the point where everything you see has some sort of desi connection? Well, it happens to those not of the subcontinent as well. Here’s what happened to Saheli’s friend ToastyKen:

Not Aishwarya

While I was driving, I caught a glimpse of this Gap ad in a bus shelter. “DESI(RED).” I immediately assumed it was pun on the words “desired” and “desi”. I only got a brief look as I sped by, so I figured it was a Desi model in the picture. (“Was that Aishwarya Rai?”)

“Hm,” I thought. “I didn’t realize the word ‘Desi’ was so mainstream now. Maybe they’re trying to project a multicultural marketing message or something?” But I didn’t really think that hard about it. [Link]

Of course, it’s not Aishwarya, it’s Penelope Cruz. And it’s neither an appeal for brownbucks nor a critique of socialist influences in “I love Lucy”, it’s part of the new (product)red branding exercise / fundraiser “designed to Help Eliminate AIDS in Africa.” It has nothing to do with us, even though we like to imagine that everything does. It’s purely a koinkydink.

As an aside, while I often find myself defending Bono, in this case I agree with the conservative critic Michael Medved’s opinion of the campaign (assuming he’s correct):

… [Medved] called the campaign a “scam” because, he wrote, it is merely an excuse for companies “to jack up their prices on ordinary merchandise to ridiculous levels, and not all the difference in price is actually going to the charity…” [Link]
I’m afraid I’m too desi (i.e. cheap) to buy in. I’d rather buy the regular gear and send a check for the excess directly to the charity of my choice without having the Gap or whoever skim its percentage. To me, that’s the desi and desi(red) way of donating.

Continue reading →