Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

In search of the great American…Indian fast food restaurant

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For years I have been telling friends that what the U.S. needs more than ANYTHING right now is an Indian fast-food chain. If I am going to be convinced by advertisers to slowly poison myself with grease then I would much rather do so

Puff puff…give

at the hands of a warm samosa than a burger and fries. And what about those long drives across America? When we pull up to a gas-and-go we currently have a choice between tired old Subway and toxic McDonalds. We can’t find a warm nan filled with paneer tikka anywhere. Recently the Indian restaurant chain “Hot Breads” announced that it was trying to spread some of its love around the U.S.

The Hot Breads chain has had great success in India, but the company is really hoping to put the hot in Hot Breads as it begins franchising in the United States.

“We have great plans of opening up Hot Breads here,” said M. Mahadevan, who first launched the Hot Bread chain in Chennai, India, in 1988. “We have a plan here for nice growth.”

With over 20 locations in India in cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi and Pondichery, two in Bangladesh, four in Nepal, one in Paris and about 40 in the Middle East, there is no reason to think Hot Breads won’t fly in the United States…

Hot Breads features bakery items such as croissants and pastries with an Indian twist. In India, Hot Breads is touted for its French baking traditions, but in the United States it is the connection with India, and its pastries filled with spicy vegetables and meat fillings, that have connected with the India American customers. [Link]

Now please don’t get me wrong. Looking at their menu you will see that this is just a baby step. The food they serve seems to be sort of an Indian-French hybrid. The Taj Mahal wasn’t built in a day however. If enough people eat this stuff then maybe an establishment like Kati Roll will decide to franchise as well. Just imagine a bouncer at every highway truck stop trying to fend off paneer lovers and keep the peace.

Mahadevan said that Hot Breads has scored as a brand that Indian Americans are familiar with from India. He added that it gives Indian Americans a sense of belonging here because they can visit a store, smell the curry and Desi coffee and be reminded of Hot Breads they have visited in India. [Link]

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Charlton Heston, libertine

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The Beeb reports that Afghanistan’s Supreme Court once criticized godless liberal Charlton Heston for wearing shorts 40 years ago in a movie:

… [Afghanistan’s] Supreme Court sought to ban [a TV channel] for showing the Charlton Heston sword and sandals epic, The Ten Commandments, during Ramadan in 2004. “It showed the prophet Moses with short trousers and among the girls,” Wahid Mujdah, a Supreme Court spokesman, said at the time. “He’s a very holy person and Islam respects him. This is wrong.” [Link – thanks, WGIIA]

And that was when Heston was playing bearded ol’ Moses. I wonder what they’d make of Heston’s other works featuring homoerotic bondage and hot monkey love:

But after a little bronze-limbed tussle, I’m sure the Afghan judges and the former NRA president could have a heart-to-heart about the virtues of widespread AK-47 ownership.

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Aunty Baji #1

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The following post is brought to you by the good folks over at rubbish TV. Sandwiched between such mullet-tastic gems as Full House (Uncle Jesse = hot, just sayinÂ’) and Roseanne there was born a shiny new talent. A Great Brown Hope, if you will. Ladies and ladas, I present to you Rubi Nicholas, AmericaÂ’s Funniest Mom:RubiNicholas.jpg

Rubi Nicholas’s mouthful of a life became her comedy routine. She’s a Pakistani Muslim with a Greek Orthodox, stay-at-home husband who converted to Islam. They live in a Denver suburb with their daughters. They fit in just fine. “Except,” she says in her stand-up routine, “every time my daughter leaves her Barbie Jeep in someone else’s driveway they call the bomb squad.”. [Link]

The Nickelodeon show consisted of six weeks of Apprentice-style comedy challenges set in a New York City penthouse. Episodes are available on the Nickelodeon website.

When she was a child she enjoyed calling her school and pretending to be her mother with excuses for absences, she says in her routine. She grew up in Pottsville, Pa., a coal region in the central part of the state. “Calling to let you know that Rubi will not be in school today. For today we celebrate the holy festival of the blind goat,” Ms. Nicholas says in a heavy Pakistani accent. And did somebody mention airports? “So a little bit about me,” Ms. Nicholas said in the final show. “I married a white guy to improve my airport cred. Yeah, and he had to become a Muslim to marry me, and he had to marry me because you know what they say. Once you go Pak … that’s right, you’ll never eat pork again.”

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Fill Your Paper

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Are you a woman, lady, dame, womyn, broad, chick, butch, babe, femme, and/or girl in your 20s or 30s of South Asian origin?

Is writing a hobby, passion, interest, craft and/or obsession of yours?

Are you creative, intelligent, insightful, and dedicated enough to write your own damn words?

Do the words “Opal Mehta” make you want to hibernate in cold storage for at least a year while hooked up to an IV of rosé?

If you answered ‘yes’ to these questions then, girl, it is time to get yours! Boys, you get to cheer loudly (including, but not restricted to, well-meaning tapori whistles). Zubaan, an independent feminist publisher based in New Delhi is accepting submissions for their “Book of New Writing by Young Women”, via Zigzackly, their criteria are as follows:

• The focus of the book will be on young writers in the 20s and 30s.
• The writers should be women of South Asian extraction, but may be based anywhere in the world. We are interested in non-resident Indian writers as well as those based in India.
• Stories can be of any length up, ideally anywhere between 2-5,000 words and should be complete stand-alone narratives.
• All submissions must be in English.
• The anthology will be of fictional writing, and we are keen to include a variety of genres – from humorous pieces to science fiction, fantasy, detective stories, and other forms which may fall under the general rubric of ‘speculative fiction’.
• Preference will be given to unpublished stories. [Link]

Emphasis on that brilliant sentence is mine. All submissions (along with a short bio) are to be emailed as word attachments to either Zubaanwbooks[at]vsnl.net or contact[at]zubaanbooks.com with the subject line reading “Submission for Young Writers Anthology”. Submissions are due by July 31st, 2006. ThatÂ’s one week less than three months from todayÂ…plenty of time to fix up some old pieces, create new ones, or turn that excellent blog entry of yours into short fiction. These SM pages are rife with prime examples of women whose writing deserves to be displayed within the pages of a freshly bound book. You know who you are, I am waggling my finger suggestively in your direction. Continue reading →

Brown illegals look like Ahnold

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In our earlier discussion about immigration reform, many readers asked “What does this have to do with us?” and “Why should legal South Asian-Americans care about illegal immigrants?” The short answer is an apparent non-sequitur: Ahnold Schwarzenegger.

Once an illegal, now a governor, someday a President?

Ahnold’s immigration history is similar to that of many illegal desis. Like them, he didn’t wade across the Rio Grande. Instead he entered the country legally and then violated the terms of his visa.

Ahnold first came to the US in 1968 on a B-1 Visa with the following rules:

“a non-immigrant in B-1 status may not receive a salary from a U.S. source for services rendered in connection with his or her activities in the United States” [Link]

However, in his own autobiography, Schwarzenegger said that bodybuilding supremo Joe Weider gave him an apartment, a car, and a salary of $200/week during this period.

A year later, Weider was able to sponsor Schwarzenegger for a H-2 visa, which allowed Schwarzenegger to work, but only in the area related to his visa. However,

…he violated the terms of his H-2 work visa by launching this bricklaying business in 1971… immigration attorneys across the country said Schwarzenegger would have been barred by visa restrictions from starting his own business… “That would be considered a violation of your status, and he would have been subject to deportation.” [Link]

None of this caught up with him though. We all know the Schwarzenegger Cinderella story – he made it big in bodybuilding, endorsements, real estate, and movies. He was never deported, and instead became a US citizen in 1983 (he still retains Austrian citizenship on the side). He married a Kennedy, hobnobbed with Reagan and Bush, was elected Republican governor of California, and is now angling to become the President of the United States. All of this was possible precisely because his previous immigration irregularities were overlooked. However, if the Sensenbrenner bill (1, 2) becomes law, others will be denied this chance and become felons. Continue reading →

Early Bengali Science Fiction

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Speaking of Satyajit Ray, I thought I might risk going out on the limb of historical obscurities and share an article by Debjani Sengupta (PDF) I came across that talks about early Bengali science fiction writing.

The article is from the journal Sarai, which is published in Delhi. Some of the articles offer some truly impenetrable jargon -– even with writing on familiar topics (Bollywood, Call Centers, and so on). But there are also a number of well-written and informative articles on things like Parsi theater in Bombay in the 1800s that I would highly recommend.

On to Bengali science fiction. Even the fact that it existed as early as the 1880s may be a little shocking, since most studies of Bengali literature tend to center around Tagore — who was extremely doubtful about modern technology. (Read his account of flying in an airplane here.) But the effects of the industrial revolution were being felt in urban India in the 19th century just as keenly as they were in Europe and the U.S., and at least some Indian writing reflected that. Probably the best, most enduring writing in this genre came from a single family –- Sukumar Ray (in the 1910s and 20s) and his son Satyajit Ray, who was a highly accomplished writer when he wasn’t making making world class art films. Continue reading →

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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Fun With The Reviewers: Deepa Mehta’s Water

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deep mehta water 5 5 06.jpg You might have decided to skip this one, perhaps on the basis of Sajit’s negative review from a couple of months ago. Or you might go with the positive reviews in half a dozen respectable newspapers (and USA Today) as well as the 88% reviewer approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and risk your $9.50 to support a highly respected Desi filmmaker. Personally, I will probably go see it.

Meanwhile I’ve been surprised by some culturally clueless and simply inaccurate comments from reviewers.

First, the hands-down most facile, offensive, goofy comment I’ve seen in any movie review this year comes from “Metromix,” affiliated with the Chicago Tribune. At the tail end of an almost laughably abbreviated summary, the reviewer tries to gear up readers for the film with a fashion-oriented tagline: “Bonus: Gear up for that summer ‘do: The widows all have buzz cuts.”

“The widows all have buzz cuts.” Wow. That one sentence couples the triviality of the film review business with a shocking level of ignorance. I know these folks have short deadlines for copy, but could they at least look up something on the subject of Hindu mourning rituals before publishing a review of a film on Hindu widows?

On the other hand, it might be offensive, but at least “All the widows have buzz cuts” is pithy and sharp — the kind of outlandish thing you expect the “naughty” character in a Salman Rushdie novel to say. I’ll leave it to readers to give the final verdict. Continue reading →

American Made

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My friend (and fellow Michigan Alum) Sharat Raju will have his short film American Made featured on PBS stations across the nation next week. The film, originally shown beginning in 2003 at various film festivals (including Artwallah while I was serving on the film committee), features a Sikh family on the side of a desert road trying to get their broken down car running again.

American Made began with a trip through the desert by writer/director Sharat Raju. While driving along Highway 14 north of Los Angeles, he noticed a car pulled over on the side of the desert road and began to wonder what would happen if no one stopped to help. What if there was someone who looked suspicious? What if it was a family who looked foreign, not American? What does an “American” look like? This internal debate was the seed for American Made, and Raju easily found real-world examples of the xenophobia that swept through the country in late 2001. His Indian-born parents, although having lived in the United States longer than they lived anywhere else, suddenly felt like outsiders in their own home. Although they were American, being “American” now seemed to mean something different, something less inclusive than it had been. This feeling of alienation was not exclusive to a single race or group. One community in particular felt this change in the social climate perhaps the most — the Sikh religion in America. [Link]

Kal Penn (credited as Kalpen Modi for this film even though he was already going by Kal Penn) has a supporting role in the film where his character spends most of the time trying to get his cell phone to work. PBS has been good at featuring stories about South Asians on its nationwide networks. This film is being shown starting on May 9th as part of Independent Lens program. In addition, you can find a slew of South Asian related films on the PBS Frontline page. Hell, last month a PBS show even had me in it (yes, that was an absolutely shameless plug 🙂 .

In any case, I hope SM readers get a chance to check out this film next week. Sharat is also the director and co-producer of the movie Divided We Fall which we have covered before.

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