Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

Meat gets Pressed

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Tim Russert, the host of NBC’s Meet the Press, has been doing a great job of late on Sunday mornings. My TiVo is always set for 8a.m. Did any of you catch his interview last Sunday with The Prince of Dar… Vice President Dick Cheney? Here are some choice quotes for those who don’t have the time to watch the entire episode which is still linked to NBC’s website (it is a great hour of Must See TV):

MR. RUSSERT: Pakistan has now a peace pact with the terrorists in the area where we think bin Laden is, creating what Richard Clarke, the former White House adviser on terrorism, calls a “sanctuary.” And reports from the RAND Corporation that the Pakistan CIA, the ISI, are in…

VICE PRES. CHENEY: ISID.

MR. RUSSERT: Yeah, are in cahoots with the Taliban. So if the Pakistanis aren’t willing to seek bin Laden, and have a peace pact with the terrorists, where are we?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don’t buy the premature question, Tim. I, I think it’s wrong and I think the sources you’ve quoted are wrong. The fact is we’ve captured and killed more al-Qaeda in Pakistan than any place else in the world in the last five years. President Musharraf has been a great ally. There was, prior to 9/11, a close relationship between the Pakistan intelligence services and the Taliban. Pakistan was one of only three nations that recognized, diplomatically recognized the government of Afghanistan at that particular time. But the fact is Musharraf has put his neck on the line in order to be effective in going after the extremist elements including al-Qaeda and including the Taliban in Pakistan. There have been three attempts on his life, two of those by al-Qaeda over the course of the last three years. This is a man who has demonstrated great courage under very difficult political circumstances and has been a great ally for the United States.

So there’s no question in that area along the Afghan/Pakistan border is something of a no man’s land, it has been for centuries. It’s extraordinarily rough territory. People there who move back and forth across the border, they were smuggling goods before there was concern about, about terrorism. But we need to continue to work the problem. Musharraf just visited Karzai in, in Kabul this past week, they’re both going to be here during the course of the U.N. General Assembly meetings over the course of the next few weeks. We worked that area very hard, and the Paks have been great allies in that effort. [Link]

This Sunday Russert will be hosting a live debate between Virginia’s Senate candidates: Senator George “Macaca” Allen (R) vs. former Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb (D). Russert is the master of using damaging quotes in the middle of his grilling and so you better believe that he will go after Allen and his use of the term “Macaca.” He may also ask a question or two about this “Ethnic Rally” that Allen recently held. You have to listen to this introduction:

The Macaca who is speaking on stage explains to the audience that if Allen were a cricket player he would dominate the Indians, and if he were a Bollywood actor he would be cast as a “God.” Rrrrright. Now I don’t mind so much that I don’t watch Bollywood.

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A Movie About Idi Amin and an ‘Opera’ About Gadhafi

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Chick Pea mentioned recently that there is a new film opening on Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who is infamous amongst desis for summarily ejecting Uganda’s 50,000 Asians in 1972. Most of the Ugandan desis got out, and many came to thrive in places like England and Canada. We saw this discussed in Mississippi Masala, and it’s referenced in the writings of M.G. Vassanji. Unfortunately, the 300,000 Africans (most of them fellow Ugandans) who died as a result of Idi Amin’s various military campaigns and programs of internal ethnic cleansing did not have the same second chance. This is a man who caused untold suffering, and who led his country down a truly catastrophic path.

A new film on Amin, called The Last King of Scotland (in reference to one of Amin’s more fanciful titles for himself), starring Forrest Whitaker, recently premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, and seems to be generating a fair amount of buzz. The Washington Post reviews the film, and while it’s too early to really get the film’s slant, it’s a little bit worrisome to me that the director is quoted in the article saying how he really wanted to show Idi Amin as a “complex” character, and his actions as partly justifiable:

“A lot of the things he tried to do were very popular,” said Macdonald, highlighting even the expulsion of the Asian business leaders as something that had resonated with Ugandans who became shopkeepers and business owners for the first time.

The Asians, expelled in 1972, had formed the backbone of the Ugandan economy before Amin came to power.

“Amin made Ugandans feel proud to be African, and proud to be Ugandan. He was someone who tried to get rid of the colonial inferiority complex,” Macdonald said. (link)

That last sentence should be a reminder to people that it’s just as easy to commit injustices in the name of fighting colonialism as it is to do so the other way around. I should also note that it’s distressing to hear the director of the film speaking so appreciatively of a truly brutal dictator. (On the other hand, perhaps he’s simply trying to make the film sound non-depressing for the media.) Continue reading →

A good match

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There are a great many serious issues I want to write about this week but my time is scarce and I will leave it to the other bloggers to tackle them. Instead, I offer you terrific news out of New York from this past weekend. As most of you probably heard, Indian tennis player Leander Paes and his doubles partner Martin Damm (a Czech) won the U.S. Open Tournament.

Leander Paes won his first Men’s doubles title at a grand slam in five years by wresting the US Open crown with Martin Damm of the Czech Republic here on Saturday.

Paes and Damm scored a shock 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-3 victory over second seeds Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden and Max Mirnyi of Belarus in the final at the Flushing Meadows. Paes, 33, last registered a grand slam triumph in 2001 at the French Open with Mahesh Bhupathi, with whom he also won the French Open and the Wimbledon in 1999.

This is also Damm’s first ever major title. Paes has also won three mixed doubles titles in grand slams. Paes and Damm pocketed $400,000 as winner’s prize money. The lengthy opening set was a power struggle that stayed on serve to force a tiebreak. [Link]

Paes’ previous Grand Slam victory came at Wimbledon in 2003 where he won the mixed doubles championship partnering with tennis goddess Martina Navratilova. As you can see from the pictures below, when you got love for your teammate(s) you are nearly impossible to beat. Congrats to Paes and Damm!

“I can’t quit you.”

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5 years later (part 2) – The Towers

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I am a native New Yorker, both born and bred. I emerged into this world in St. Vincent’s Hospital, the same hospital whose emergency room treated 844 patients (a record for a NYC ER) in the aftermath of the attacks.

My relationship with the Towers goes way back. My high school prom was actually held at Windows on the World, although I didn’t attend. My reasons for not going didn’t quite fit the typical desi geek narrative. In a high school where most people went stag, there were actually four women who wanted to go with me, the apex of my high school popularity! Nor did my parents forbid me from going. However they wanted me back by midnight (they were concerned for my safety) and wouldn’t budge. Given that the prom was going to cost around $200 (just for the tux and ticket, no limo, and this was a lot of money back then!), I demurred.

Still, while I may not have had memories of my prom at the Towers, I have plenty of others. Every time some relative or friend would come through town, I would be dispatched to show them the sights. I didn’t go up to the top that often – I was too jaded and too thrifty for that. Instead, I would wait below, in the plaza between the buildings. There I could lie on my back, look up at the hulking masses that stretched far into the sky and contemplate my own insignificance, wallowing in adolescent angst.

The Towers were like Niagara Falls, a must see destination for uncles and aunties. There was always a sari squeezing into the elevator, excited to go up to the top of what may not have been the tallest building in the world, but which was at least the tallest building at the center of the world.

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5 years later (part 1)

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Five years ago last night, I was on an American Airlines plane between San Francisco and Boston. I think I was on the penultimate journey of AA Flight 11, the plane that was hijacked the next morning and was the first to hit the WTC, although I was too shocked to check my ticket stub to make sure. [AA 11 was an LA bound flight, my flight was LA to SF to Boston].

I remember waiting for the flight at SFO very vividly. It was delayed, so I sat patiently, nursing a novel. There were three wisacres in the padded reception seats facing mine, and they decided to pass the time by making remarks about how I was a terrorist, as if I was somehow deaf or couldn’t comprehend what they were saying. I lowered my book long enough to glare at them, and then went back to my reading.

That was in the good old days, back before such behavior was criminalized, back before I learned to shuffle, shuck and jive, to grin broadly like an idiot and look at my feet, back before passengers counted the number of times you went to the bathroom to pee. It was a long time ago.

I took a cab back to my place and fell into a deep dreamless sleep. Because we had arrived late, I decided to sleep in the next morning and was awoken not by my alarm clock but by my father, calling on the land line (back when I had roomates and no cell phone).

“Beta, turn on the TV,” he said.
I did. And I saw. But I did not yet comprehend.

I stayed in the living room all morning, watching events unfold on television, and talking to my father in NYC. I was lucky, I never had any trouble getting through. I didn’t realize then how much everything would change. How much, even five years later, things would not be the same as they were just 24 hours before.

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9.11 + 5

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On Monday evening the BBC Radio Five Live’s program “Pods and Blogs” has invited me on the air to discuss the five-year anniversary of the attacks which took place on September 11th, 2001 in NYC, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania. Anyone interested can listen here at 9p.m. EST/6p.m. PST ( I will probably be on ~20 minutes into the program).

The truth is that I don’t yet know what I am going to talk about or what profound statement I can possibly make in my minute of air time. There is just so much that has occurred in these past five years that to draw any kind of grand conclusion or offer a sagacious reflection seems impossible. From a federal government facility I watched (like many of you) my federal government and its citizens get attacked on that day. Later I learned that a friend had perished in New York. If I had to condense all of my thoughts five years later down to a single word it would be…”disappointment.”

On September 11th, 2001 I believe that our nation was handed, hidden beneath the shock, the sadness, and the loss, an opportunity to lead. Our generation was given a chance to become the greatest generation. In the 1940s, faced with the threat of a fascist and racist power bent on world domination, the United States and its men and women rose up to defend much of that world, not only through our arms but through our thoughts and ideas. Our allies admired us because of our spirit and our tenacity. They admired us for our can-doism and they admired us for our morality. That admiration lasted through the Cold War and past the end of communism. On September 11th we showed everyone why America was, decades later, still worthy of that admiration:

A California man identified as Tom Burnett reportedly called his wife and told her that somebody on the plane [United 93] had been stabbed.

“We’re all going to die, but three of us are going to do something,” he told her. “I love you honey…” [Link]

You can wade through all of these interview files for additional reminders of how Americans responded when called upon to lead. Even the President got it right at first:

I can hear you, the rest of the world can hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. [Link]

However, shortly after is where my disappointment begins. Five years later can it be said that anyone (even our closest allies) really “hears us?” Can it be said that America is admired for how it responded in the years following the attacks? Does anyone feel safer? I am disappointed because we have not honored the memories of those who perished by living up to the examples that they set for us. Sacrifice and inner strength and not blind fury or angry words were the weapons that Americans used on that day.

In her op-ed piece about the five-year anniversary, Peggy Noonan admires the concise last words uttered by many that died that day and notes that “crisis is a great editor.” If that is true then it is a shame that these days we seem to waste so much time with empty rhetoric and actions which divert our nation ever farther from our chance at greatness.

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An Exhibit at the Asia Society

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There’s an ambitious exhibit of Asian American art at the Asia Society in New York, called “One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now.” saira wasim buzkushi.jpg The New York Times has a detailed review. Among the 21 artists whose works are being exhibited, at least two are desi, Saira Wasim and Chitra Ganesh.

Saira Wasim, who is from Lahore, trained in painting classical Mughal miniatures before moving to the U.S. recently. She was part of the “Karkhana” group that had its own show in New York not too long ago (see Manish’s post from last year). She does these great collage-like miniatures that often parody either political figures or scenes of cross-cultural misunderstanding.

Among the images of Wasim’s I’ve come across on the internet, my favorite so far is “Buzkashi” (Goat-grabbing), pictured above (click on the image to see the full picture). Here is how Wasim characterizes the painting on her website:

So this painting depicts ‘One Man’s show’ of Military Dictator of Pakistan, Perverz Musharaff sitting on a presidency throne and his imperialism is shown with four arms like Hindu god Shiv.

The basic constitutional structure of the country evolving around his regime; army generals are celebrating ‘martial law’ by dancing and wearing Hawaiian sandals.

The worldÂ’s seventh nuclear state in spite of her national debt over forty billion dollars and spending on defense budget over 3.5 billion dollars a year. Here goat is symbolized as innocent public. (link)

Wow. I’m surprised there hasn’t been an outcry about her work yet (maybe there has been one, and I missed it). Continue reading →

Posted in Art

Brothers Gonna Work It Out

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The apparent suicide of Moses “Moss” Khumalo in West Rand, South Africa comes as a shock to the global jazz community. 26 years old at his death, the saxophonist was a star on the rise, having performed at venerable New Orleans venues such as Snug Harbor (with Irvin Mayfield) and The Red Room while only 21. In fact, it was in this city that he was discovered as a potential jazz great.

Given the New Orleans proclivity for rearing some of the world’s best musicians, this is yet another loss for its rich musical history at an already bad time. As Mark Clague, assistant professor of musicology at U. Michigan says, “Born at the confluence of Latin, Caribbean, African and European peoples, the music of New Orleans thrives on such a diverse human resource. Today, [its] musicians are scattered. Diaspora is a disaster for New Orleans music.”

Here are just two directories of our displaced or affected music community, all the way from the locally-popular to world-famous greats like Irma Thomas and Henry Butler. Thanks to efforts like Habitat for Humanity’s Musicians’ Village and other grassroots work, New Orleans musicians like Fredy Omar are able to return home. Continue reading →

Desi Sesame Street (w/video)

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There’s now a Hindi-language version of Sesame Street being broadcast on Indian TV, called Galli Galli Sim Sim. It’s filmed in Delhi, and it appears to be the second twenty-seventh adaptation of the Sesame Street idea . And no, I don’t know what the heck Laura Bush is doing there. galligallisimsim.jpg

After the jump, you’ll find a Youtube link with a clip that I think you’ll enjoy. But first, an introduction to the “muppet” characters on Galli Galli Sim Sim:

*Boombah, a hedonistic lion who believes he is descended from one of India’s historic royal families. Coincidentally, Boombah bares a resemblance to Goleo VI from the 2006 Fifa World Cup, a puppet constructed by The Jim Henson Company.
* Chamki, a schoolgirl dressed in the uniform of an Indian government school
* Googly, Chamki’s best friend, named after the cricket delivery and with a cricket ball-like nose
* Aanchoo, a storyteller who is transported to other places when she sneezes (link)

Any show with a hedonistic lion is all right with me. I also like both “Googly” and “Aanchoo” as character names. Though I don’t think they’ve got anything yet to compete with the name “Snuffleupagus”. Continue reading →

Posted in TV

Namesake: for export only?

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“The Namesake” had its world debut on Saturday, at the Telluride film festival [Thanks Gautham]. We first blogged about the movie almost two years ago [We also blogged the casting call, but got no couch privileges]. The trailers [Quicktime, Real, WMP] for the movie look excellent, so I’ve been wriggling with anticipation just waiting for its release.

For those of you just tuning in, this is a film based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s first book novel, directed by Mira Nair, and starring Kal Penn, thus making it a desi-American trifecta. The tagline is for the movie is “Two worlds. One journey,” a phrase so wonderful that it is destined to replace “blend of East and West” in matrimonial ads. Since Kal Penn even gets a blond girlfriend, I’m sure that at least one of the mutineers will go watch the movie for that reason alone.

I have no doubt that this movie will do well with the artsy-fartsy non-brown American crowd. Mira Nair is skillful at pushing the line of prurient exoticism just far enough to maximize general interest in the movie, while never selling out.

However, this is a movie that will do well in the states but flop “back home” in India. India loves movies like Krrish, and despite annual announcements of a new Bollywood realism, I doubt that Indian audiences will take to The Namesake. “Why is the boy [Kal Penn] not dancing?”

We can get a glimpse of what the popular response to the film is likely to be from the reactions to it while a scene was being shot at the Taj Mahal. Even though the movie stars Tabu and Irfan Khan, one person stopped a journalist (confusing him with Mira Nair) to inquire:

“Are you the director Mira Nair? Why don’t you cast (Bollywood star) Shah Rukh Khan in your film?” [Link]

Another onlooker asked:

“Why is the boy [Kal Penn] not dancing?” [Link]

That’s right – a realistic portrayal of life in two countries, and people wonder why nobody is dancing. I think that pretty much sums up how Indian audiences will feel about the film. No song, no dance, no interest.

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