Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

Sari-nity

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Last year’s sci-fi flick Serenity turned out to be a WB-movie after all. The captain, a ramblin’ wreck from Duct Tape Tech, tosses his Conan locks and whines incessantly about the health of his ship. But the character is also as hilariously amoral as Han Solo and Indiana Jones. The movie is a whole lot more fun than it has any right to be, and when Heath Ledger’s squire gets shafted, it’s a moment of genuine pathos.

One of the conceits of the plot is that in the future, everyone will speak Chinese and import high tech machinery from India. In a couple of spots, the camera zooms in on hovercraft and spaceship parts prominently stenciled in Punjabi. (Presumably Mahindra Tractors is now Mahindra Tractor Beams.) Indophile also recently noticed that the costume designer drew inspiration from desi formalwear:

It’s ironic that a movie called Serenity bypasses desi philosophy for blingwear which evokes anything but. I say we give Brasilian-American actress Morena Baccarin a couple more turns around the fire and make her an honorary sepiate.

Related posts: A meditation on form, Use the shakti, Luke, “Khaaaaaaaaaannnnnn” Noonien Singh

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“Superstition must be utilized”

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This painting comes to us via SM tipster Omar Khan:

“An Execution in British India”- Painting by Vassili Verestchagin

As part of his article accompanying the wood engraving of the painting when it was published in Harper’s Weekly on November 17, 1888, [Harper’s Weekly art critic Clarence Cook] wrote:

“So with the other picture, the shooting of the Sepoys, Verestchagin does not say that this particular scene is an incident of the great mutiny. Shooting from guns is the only way, he says, that 60,000 soldiers in a strong country can keep in awe 250,000,000 natives. Superstition must be utilized. The natives do not fear to die, but they fear to die in any way that destroys the identity of the body. They cannot enter heaven blown limb from limb. Therefore this is the way to touch their souls with dreadful awe, and the English, says our artist, have always blown from guns, blow from guns today, and will blow from guns as long as India is held. [Link]

In the painting you presumably see Sepoy soliders in Delhi, captured during the 1857 Mutiny, fixed to the front ends of cannons, and about to be obliterated (although check the comments for a more likely explanation of what is being depicted here). I’m not sure that it is clear if this scene was actually witnessed by Verestchagin, but I like the description of the painting.

Verestchagin’s notoriety came from showing some of the most talked about events of the era. This scene was a standard British way to settle scores, and continued long after the war of independence in 1857. It was hotly debated in British and Indian papers between liberals and conservatives. To the former it was an excess of colonialism, to the latter an essential ingredient. As a Russian, Verestshagin was on opposite sides of the British as far as India was concerned. His American audience was also more critical of colonialism. [Link]
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Brook’s Qawwali Party

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Brook’s Qawwali Party is a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan cover band made up of non-desi Brooklynites who get together in Park Slope. Their stuff sounds like jazz qawwali with electric guitar interludes. Sometimes it’s pretty musically interesting, other times it resembles Muzak, especially in contrast with NFAK’s voice. The band obviously can’t replicate that voice, but they get by with phonetic chants of ‘Allah hu’ and clapping. In any case, it’s probably one of the only Sufi bands with Jewish members in existence

Listen here. Their next show is Feb. 10th in Park Slope, and it’s free.

Related posts: Sachal can sing, Sachal Vasandani sings jazz tonight (NYC)

Brook’s Qawwali Party, Friday, Feb. 10, 9pm-midnight; Tea Lounge, Union St. between 6th and 7th Aves., Park Slope, Brooklyn; free

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All-American girls in Calcutta

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There are few real news programs left on U.S. television. You have 60 minutes, Nightline, and PBS’ excellent series Frontline. Two weeks ago I watched all six hours of a brilliant documentary called Country Boys that followed the lives of two poor teenage boys from Kentucky into manhood. I thought it exemplified what reality TV could be if only it had a brain. SM tipster “Anu” forwards us another example by Frontline of a great documentary. Frontline’s Rough Cut series posts a short film by Sasha Khokha (only on-line) titled, India: Calcutta Calling-American girls explore their roots.

In the wake of FRONTLINE’s broadcast last week of David Sutherland’s film Country Boys, about two teenagers coming of age in rural Kentucky, FRONTLINE/World presents Sasha Khokha’s video Calcutta Calling, about three teenage girls growing up in Minnesota… The twist in Khokha’s story is that the three girls — Kaylan Johnson, Anisha Pitzenberger and Lizzie Merrill — were all adopted as infants from an orphanage in Calcutta, India. Their Midwestern American parents raised them in loving families as all-American girls who sing in the choir, play soccer and shop at the mall.

Still, the girls know they are different. If nothing else, their brown skin sets them apart in Minnesota. People are friendly, but sometimes look at them as outsiders.

Khokha is allowed to accompany Anisha, Kaylan and Lizzie when they go back to India with their American parents. This is the first time they have returned to the land of their birth. It is a chance for them to learn more about their origins and to explore their dual identities. Surprising, honest and poignant, Calcutta Calling follows these bright-eyed girls closely as they venture into a country that both delights and disturbs them. [Link]

While watching the film I KNOW that many of you will have the same conflicted reactions as me. These girls were all raised in white families and in white neighborhoods. This is an entire step removed from Indian Americans that, despite being born here, still retain cultural ties to India through family and community. Except for their skin color, these girls have no connection to Indian culture whatsoever. And yet…their brown skin instinctively causes you to sometimes unfairly judge their often shallow reactions as the film unfolds. For example, one of the three girls helps a small child color in the picture of a girl while visiting the orphanage back in India (see picture at right). It isn’t until she is done that she realizes that she helped the child draw a girl with blond hair instead of black. The movie also brought to mind some of the issues we have been discussing on SM in the past week. All three of these American families adopted girl children from India. In the end you can’t help but appreciate that these three girls at least got the chance to meet each other. All three feel that in each others presence they finally belong.

I strongly urge readers to set aside 20 minutes to watch this film. For best viewing use the Quicktime option instead of the Real Media player and enlarge the screen size in the pop up window. Also keep in mind that by posting this I am going to substantially increase traffic to their site. I had no problem viewing it but some of you may want to wait until an odd hour.

Click here to watch.

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Yeti kitsch

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The Imagineers at Disney World in Florida have erected a mandir to the abominable snowman next to their new Himalayan-themed roller coaster. Expedition Everest opens in spring (via Boing Boing):

Yeti another mandir

The artificial mountain is not a reproduction of Mount Everest; it is the fictional “forbidden mountain” guarded by the yeti… One of the highlights of the attraction is an encounter with an enormous audio-animatronic yeti… Although moderate by contemporary roller-coaster standards, Expedition Everest is unique for having its trains travel forward and backward as a result of the yeti’s interference…

Riders approach the attraction through the remote village of Serka Zong in the fictional kingdom of Anandapur, which is located in the foothills of the Himalayas. Several village buildings that had been used by the Royal Anandapur Tea Company have been repurposed… the legend of the yeti is communicated vividly through a mandir… and a makeshift museum that documents yeti sightings, the yeti’s significance in Himalayan cultures and a so-called “lost” expedition that ran afoul of the yeti many years before… [Link]

Disney is taking over Times Square immediately after Valentine’s Day:

Disney plans to transform the exteriors of the W Hotel and the adjacent Argent building at Broadway and 47th Street into a gigantic backdrop of Mount Everest. An aerial acrobatic troupe will perform there Feb. 15 and 16 on a stage 57 stories high, rappelling down the mountain and coming face to face with a Himalayan yeti — the legendary abominable snowman. [Link]

I’ve never felt entirely at ease in simulacrum cities like Orlando and Vegas, miniature Matrices. There’s something odd about Imagineers daubing tilaks onto idols of yeti which look like ‘roid-crazed Hanumans, leaving offerings of plastic fruit and hanging a poster of Krishna stealing butter. Disney movies like Aladdin and Pocahontas often mince cultures into purposely inaccurate baby pap which plays to stereotype.

(And in the other direction of mashup done badly, I can’t stomach the weak-ass rap in Bollyflicks. French and Spanish rap has coalesced as the language of the barrios, but Little B rapping is as silly as Nic Cage going gangsta.)

But let’s not be yenta about yeti. At first glance, the props around this roller coaster look pretty cute. I love the hand-painted signs.

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