Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

Shaadi Mubarak, Jesminder! (Updated)

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vat a hottie

Set your Tivo, sneak out of document review or make sure to watch NBC while on the Arc-Trainer tonight– Mutineers Olinda* AND JaneOfAllTrades alert us to a very special, all-new ER that you’ll be sari to miss:

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER–Back from Iraq, Gallant (Sharif Atkins) surprises Neela (Parminder Nagra) by telling her he wants to take their relationship to the next level. Kovac (Goran Visnjic) and Clemente (John Leguizamo) vie for the same job making the tension between them even thicker…Morris (Scott Grimes) shocks everyone when he stands up to Weaver (Laura Innes) during a medical procedure…TV-14

O M G .

I canNOT believe this…seriously, those story lines are the last thing I would’ve expected from this venerable must-see-TV veteran…Kovac mired in tension with another doctor?? That’s NEVER happened! And…and…Morris giving Weaver lip? What an episode! Who else will be glued to the TV tonight at 10pm? 😀 Continue reading →

Slightly Desi Daily Candy

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Fresh out of GMail this morning, it’s a missive from my belowed Daily Candy about some silver “fusion” jewelry which is designed and sold in Virginia:

Inspired by the sterling silver baby bells worn by tots in India, the ring adds a bit of cheer to any outfit. Use it to jazz up a casual look or add more pieces from the collection for a fancier occasion.

Worn by tots? I wear those…a “tot” am I? Newsflash: brown “tots” of all ages toy with payal/kolsu.

A bonus: Unlike the cheery adornments theyÂ’re based on, the rings do not jingle (thankfully). So your friends will have to find some other way to tell when youÂ’re approaching.

What? Why not? If they don’t make noise, then why bother with calling them bells? And if they are silent, how will I sing “I’m jingling baby (go ‘head, baby)” to myself, like a shameless idiot?

I’m serious– in my opinion, the delicate brightness of those tiny bells, trilling their metallic chime as they kiss the “S” clasp they are mounted near is one of the most gorgeous sounds around: feminine, whimsical, unexpected. Bells don’t have to hide until Chrismahannukwanzakah, not when they can chill with your ankles on a daily or weekly basis. Sheesh. Continue reading →

Lurid scapulæ

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East Village denizen Anil Gupta is one of the best tattoo artists in the U.S. (thanks, Ennis). He’s known for his miniature reproductions of fine art. Here’s Seurat and a quarter. It’s sly, painting pointillism at the pinprick end of a tattoo pen:

Gupta draws a straight line from gaudy to Gaudí, from Bollyboards to nipple art:

“So how did you end up reducing the world’s greatest masterpieces into miniatures?” … He explained that as the son of a man who illustrated giant movie posters for Bollywood, he used to paint eyes that were two stories high. “Maybe,” he said with a deep-throated chuckle, “inventing the miniature was my form of rebellion…” [Link]

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Liveblogging ANTM’s mercifully brief trip to Bollywood (Updated!)

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nicole.jpg Breaking News which is Meaningless: A brown-ish designer, Ashley Isham, is one of the four people America’s Next (Nowhere Near) Top Model contestants go on a go-see with during this episode’s “challenge” in London. Contrary to every model friend I’ve ever had, THESE hapless girls are being told to wear something in the “style” of each designer, i.e. wear preppiness to Ben Sherman versus the typical jeans and no makeup MY friends rocked whenever they did anything.

The twist? The girls have to assemble their punk, preppy, mod and BOLLYWOOD outfits at some flea market. Winner gets a photo-shoot. A Bollywood photoshoot. (UPDATE: There ’tis, above/left.) Oh my. What any of this has to do with being a supermodel is beyond this bear of little brain. Lovely Malayalee Julie of ANTM3, we hardly knew ye, and ye would’ve rocked the shit out of this trifling test.

With the words, “so, look BOLLYWOOD” still ringing in my ears as four confused girls run off to buy something, anything sequined– but will they look appropriate for a frolic through the Swiss countryside?– I hereby notify you that this train wreck is on UPN RIGHT NOW on the east coast. You mutineers on my home coast still have 2.75 hours to get ready for this spicy jelly (Thanks, ANTM fan Rani!).

Liveblogging, after the jump… Continue reading →

Ain’t no junk in her trunk

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M.I.A. says in an Urb magazine interview that she took a lot of flak for licensing ‘Galang’ for a Honda Civic ad:

Ahh, fake hipster outrage keeps me warm at night. Our own Sajit (Gandhi, not Ghandi) defends the TV spot in the story. The title’s a little familiar, too:

Read the whole thing.

Update: Another mag cover (thanks, Amardeep). Spin, spin, spin.

Related posts: Ga-ching-a-ching-a-ching, Lolita Was a Man Eatah

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‘Syriana’

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A long way from Lake Como

Syriana is a new film about the oil industry, Middle East politics and Beltway meddling, by Stephen Gaghan and Steven Soderbergh, the guys behind Traffic. It’s also the first major movie I’ve seen which deals with the shabby treatment of desi workers in the Middle East.

The trailer is cut like an action thriller, but it’s actually a thought-provoking, 2Å“ hour-long film on the moral ambiguity of America’s oil dependency. The thrust of the story, based on a nonfiction book called See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism, is that the U.S. uses the CIA to set up pliant dictators in oil-producing countries instead of those who might promote democracy. A Texan oil CEO utters this similarly realpolitik line (paraphrased): ‘The Chinese economy isn’t growing as fast as it could because they can’t get enough oil. And I’m damn proud of that.’

The movie opens with a shot of desi oil workers struggling to get onto a crammed Tata bus. Later in the movie, a shady oil company merger triggers layoffs. A Sikh foreman gets on a megaphone to Pakistani workers, telling them they’ve been fired, they must surrender their badges, and unless they find another job soon they have to report to immigration within two weeks and be deported.

Casting sees desis’ brown skin as closer to the popular conception of a terrorist than light-skinned ArabsThe Urdu-speaking Pakistanis are portrayed as naïve young villagers who just want to make a better life for themselves. Two of the young men become radicalized after racist Arab security guards beat them. They end up in a madrassa limned in sympathy, in stark contrast to the unwelcoming society around them. A striking-looking Arab evangelist preys on their insecurities and inevitably turns them into C4 fodder.

If you think that’s a spoiler, you haven’t been paying attention to desi roles in the movies these days I’m noticing an odd trend at the movies. Like The War Within, they pick Pakistanis rather than Arabs to portray suicidal terrorists. It doesn’t at all fit with recent history as most Pakistan-based suicide attackers have focused on India. They don’t seem as attached to pan-Arabism as, well, Arabs, and 2nd gen idiots in London notwithstanding, they’ve got nowhere near the presence of Arabs in global terrorism. It seems more and more like casting sees desis’ brown skin as closer to the popular conception of a terrorist than light-skinned Arabs. On the other hand, perhaps this casting was driven by simple plot imperative.

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55Friday: “This Woman’s Work” edition

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Happy holidays, sweet readers. Today is Black Friday and that’s actually a flawless description of the moment I’m typing in now. I’m feeling rather overwhelmed by the dark…mostly because I’m staying with my little sister and she’s sleeping, so I can’t turn on any lights. 😉 I’m also supposed to be vewy, vewy quiet, so she can hunt wabbits in her dweams, but she’ll have to tolerate the clickety-clacketing, since I have pirated wifi and as long as I have the mighty iBook and a connection, the 55 will go on. 🙂

I spent my day in transit; six hours of flying through three airports (with a two-hour layover) and one misplaced, gate-checked, carry-on bag later, I was back in the state where I once played as a toddler. I arrived in mukluks, the memory of last night/the season’s first gorgeous snow fall in DC dominating my thoughts like a new crush. Still swoony for Frosty, I stopped cold once I left the artificial climate of the airport and saw…a giant cactus. In 70 degree balminess. What an amazing country this is, from one end to the other.

My ultra-vegetarian family never did celebrate Thanksgiving (“such a typically American approach…to be grateful ONCE a year”), so I didn’t mind traveling today, but I looked at my fellow passengers on each PACKED leg of the journey and wondered about them. Surely they were trying to get home to a TurDuckEn or something brined or deep-fried. Maybe it even tasted familiar.

What did you eat? Did you create your own holiday with the family you chose vs the one you were born to, or did you go home? Did anyone gobble an all “brown” feast, with nary a cranberry in sight? Where YOU responsible for all that cooking?

Thanksgiving is for family but it’s usually staged by women. My Uncle in Maryland was a rare gent who cooked with Auntie, side-by-side; she handled the Amreekan fare while he made a most excellent sambar, to go with the Mallu portion of the menu. I remember adoring him for that. Most of my friends, no matter their ethnicity, had just their mothers stressing out over creation.

Women are the keepers of traditions, the path to religion and the source of life itself, which is why the following statistic (Thanks, Kenyandesi) left me queasy:

One in six women worldwide suffers domestic violence — some battered during pregnancy — yet many remain silent about the assaults, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.

No, I’m not surprised that women are such targets, or that the pain is so widespread…but to put such an accessible number on it–again, “one in six”– is like a bracing slap in the midst of all this fuzzy, post-prandial contentment.

:+:

Each week I throw out themes because you seem to enjoy them, but I try to emphasize that no one minds what you write your nanofiction about, so long as you just write. So go ahead, write anything, and then leave your contribution (or link) to our beloved weekly project in the comments below. Continue reading →

The Desi News Network

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There’s an old saying that on Christmas day, the only biz going are Chinese restaurants packed with Jewish patrons. When the other 80-90% of the country is distracted by holidays, superbowls, and the like, some interesting, if otherwise overlooked, ethnic combos rise above the fold.

I’m a news / TV junkie and usually keep the feed on in the background when I’m working from home. The last 30 min may have been a milestone for desi’s on TV news.

Today’s CNN Situation Room was anchored by the dapper Ali Velshi standing in for Wolf Blitzer who was undoubtedly enjoying time at home with his family. Relative to CNN’s usual fare, Sit Room is a more “raw” up to the minute format featuring a heavier mix of live reports on the big stories.

So, instead of the same Iraq update loop that gets run on Headline News, for ex., the update goes straight to the on-the-scene reporter – in this case, Raman Aneesh – posing with mic in hand in front of a row of Hummers. And, for an update from the international desk, he turned to Zain Verjee.

20 minutes of namebrand news, an unbroken string of Desi reporting talent. Pretty cool.

A quick check on Fox News revealed anchor John Gibson interviewing Fox’s Baghdad reporter, Ms. Reena Ninan.

Now, at least when I did the quick check, MSNBC chose to deal with reporters on vacation by doing something different – they ran a documentary on the life and times of Michael Jackson

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