Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

Baller

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Sunkrish Bala will appear on Will & Grace tonight and Grey’s Anatomy on Sunday (thanks, Kiran):

Sunkrish Bala will be appearing on TV during Thanksgiving weekend. Look for him on “WILL and GRACE”– Thursday, Nov. 24th, 8:30PM on NBC and on “GREY`S ANATOMY”– Sunday, Nov. 27th, 10PM on ABC. These are guest starring roles and will likely feature him prominently. [Link]

Height: 6’1″ [Link]

He’s previously been on CSI:NY and My Name is Earl. He had a part in Desipina’s production of Barriers and played Rama in an adaptation of the Ramayana:

… I watched Cornerstone’s production of The Ramayana float effortlessly across the David Henry Hwang’s stage… a shortened and speeded-up version tailored to hold the attention of American audiences…

There is a silly but funny scene in which Rama tells Lakshman of their need to forge an alliance with the monkey kingdom. “Uh, I don’t think they like to be called that,” Rama’s brother delicately points out. There follows an argument about the socially sensitive term to use (Vanaras), although, Rama complains, he can’t keep up with all these self-descriptions — “Why can’t they pick one name and stick with it?” And later, when he hears the Vanaras actually calling themselves “monkeys,” Lakshman points out that “It’s all right for them to call each other that…” [Link]

Romantic lead, maybe? Going from cabbie to Latin lover, exoticized though it might be, would be one step up in the reductionist sitcom pecking order.

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Hari Puttar: Attack of the Clones

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Young’uns Shefali Chowdhury and Afshan Azad play Parvati and Padma Patil in the latest Harry Potter movie, the one with a goblet of masala pani. They’re Harry and Ron Weasley’s backup dates for Hogwarts’ Yule Ball:

Born in London in 1989 and brought up in a conservative Muslim family, Shefali is of Bangladeshi origin. Her parents had migrated to England from Sylhet, Bangladesh… She plays the role of Parvati Patil in the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire film. Prior to that her only recorded film appearance was an uncredited role in Kannathil Muthamittal in 2002.

She plays Harry Potter’s Yule Ball date in Goblet of Fire. Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter in the film… told This Is London: “I had a dance scene with Shefali. She was completely gorgeous.” [Link]

I counted ~8 British Asian kids in the movie, one with a long closeup. Somewhere between installments two and three, casting got the diversity clue.

This movie was lovely and lots of fun, it held my attention. Numbers three and four have both been much better than the slow, dumbed-down numbers one and two. Favorite scene: underwater with the merpeople. What is it about smart girls named Emma? The movie obliquely referred to 9/11, King Kong and being misquoted by the press. The over-the-top reporter reminded me of the purring, Eartha Kitt-like gossip maven, Kitty DaSouza, from Bombay Dreams.

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Sweaterhead confusion

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In the post below, Manish introduces us to young actor Neil Patil. I went through the images he has posted on IMDb, and was dismayed to find the photo below of Patil with what looks like a sweater tied around his head.

Let’s deconstruct this image, shall we? Photos on IMDb are carefully selected for the consumption of casting agents. It is unlikely that this is simply a snapshot of Patil clowning around with his buddies that got accidentally posted; it is one of only five photos deliberately chosen for display.

Why would he want to show this to casting agents? I’m trying to be as sympathetic to his aims as possible, but the only thing I can think of is that he wants to show people both that he’s willing to wear any type of silly headgear and that he’s capable of looking debonair doing so.

I have a lot of sympathy for young desi actors. The American film industry is a hard one to break into, and he’s just starting out. Nor am I offended by the picture – he’s not claiming to be a Sikh or anything else. He’s just a guy with a sweater around his head.

I’m simply confused. As somebody who has been called “raghead” more times than I can count, I don’t understand why he would want to put this picture up. Black actors don’t put up minstrel photos in their IMDb profiles, why would Patil choose to portray himself in this way?

p.s. Also – what’s up with the whip?

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Come on, Naureen

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In Wedding Crashers, actress Naureen Zaim plays the credulous babe on the other end of this exchange:

Hindu woman: French Foreign Legion?
John Beckwith: Yeah, we lost a lot of good men out there. [Link]

She soon falls into bed, bouncy and topless, with Owen Wilson. Like Yasmeen Ghauri and Rhona Mitra, she’s part desi, part white:

I am originally from Chicago. I am half Pakistani, and 1/4 Irish, and 1/4 German. [Link]

She has an advanced degree in glass blowing, like mine in home ec and underwater basket weaving:

I blew glass at University of Illinois, and actually received a degree in it. [Link]

After teaching the The Republic by Plato at an Ivy League university, she shoots a TV show: model boxing.

· · · · ·

Also from Wedding Crashers, actor Neil Patil’s resume shows Hollywood offers desis lots of ground-breaking, non-stereotypical roles without accents:

  • Terrorist
  • Cabbie
  • Limo driver
  • Valet
  • Indian wedding groom
  • Exchange student
  • Waiter

So here we’ve got Hollywood’s gender-specific treatment of desis neatly encapsulated in a single movie. Desi women are cast as random babes, men as servants and terrorists. It’s tribal: kill the men, fuck the women. About the only role I remember where the desi guy was neither mocked nor feared was Kal Penn’s in the little-seen A Lot Like Love.

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My Thais

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The Thai clothing retailer Jaspal, which the NYT calls ‘Thailand’s Gap,’ is currently running a big ad campaign with OC actress Mischa Barton. It’s one of those cushy, overseas-only gigs so ably flèched by Bill Murray, who shilled Suntory whiskey in Lost in Translation. The company’s name implies its founder is Sikh. It’s probably another incarnation of India and Thailand’s long history of mixing:

The Thai alphabet is based on Mon (Burmese), Khmer (Cambodia) and South Indian scripts, and the language has many Sanskrit words… It is the only Southeast Asian country never to have been taken over by a European power… [Link]

The Thai language is liberally sprinkled with words from Pali and Sanskrit (the classical languages, respectively, of Theravada Buddhism and Indian Hinduism). [Link]

Thailand, which is 95% Buddhist, seems tolerant of minority religions, with Hindu shrines as good luck charms in downtown Bangkok (thanks, Mark IV):

Ramakien statue at Wat Phra Kaew temple

“This temple [in Chiang Mai] is one of the biggest in Thailand. We also have one big Sikh gurudwara here which is 120 years old. The same devotees go to both the gurudwara and the temple. On Tuesday, for our weekly satsang, you will find a large number of Thai devotees here…” I spoke with one Thai devotee here, Anuma, who said she was a “Buddhist Hindu” and a devotee of Mother Durga…

… the Sri Mariamman temple [in Bangkok]… was built by South Indians who migrated from the Thanjavur District in Tamil Nadu to Thailand about 150 years ago. It was the first Hindu temple built by the immigrant Indian community… “The reason why so many Thai people are visiting the Mariamman temple is that She is considered to be the Goddess of Protection. During World War II, when a lot of places here were destroyed in the Japanese occupation, the temple remained absolutely safe.” [Link]

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Recycled fashion (bags, not heads)

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Here’s the latest in socially conscious accessories:

Ragbags are fashionable products made from recycled plastic bags collected by ‘ragpickers’ in the slums of New Delhi. Plastic rags are collected, washed, dried and separated by colour. The plastic bags then go into a machine, which presses them into thicker and more durable sheets. No dyes or inks are required. It takes about 60 plastic bags to make one sheet. The sheets are then cut, lined with cloth and stitched or moulded into the various products. [Link]

The collection includes shoulder bags, backpacks, shopping bags, organizers (large and small) and wallets. The shoulder bags come in a variety of different color schemes including “Pakistan” and “India”, neither of which matches either country’s flag.

Most of the stores carrying these goods are in the Netherlands, but Americans can purchase them in Brooklyn and Mendocino, or they can go online. Check the shop locator for an outlet near you.

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Pipe dream

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Serendipity is a pretty lame romantic comedy that’s a staple of cable reruns, where I had the misfortune of running into it this morning. Like Bollywood, it peddles soft-headed romantic fatalism in a one-joke script.

It does, however, do a very funny New Age parody. John Corbett (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) hams it up as Lars, a self-absorbed New Age musician. This schmuck in a silk kurta plays an instrument ubiquitous at Indian weddings while his hype men play tabla and sitar.

As Lars watches the cheesy, Yanni-like music video his record label put together, he complains, ‘You can’t fight off an army of bloodthirsty Vikings with a shehnai. It’s illogical.’

This little fudge cake of brilliance is probably the only shehnai joke in Hollywood history, and definitely the only one involving Vikings.

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Why You Think the Net Was Born

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Thanks to Manish and the rest of the Sepia Mutineers for welcoming me to guest-blog here.

There’s a new Bollywood film out carrying the same name as one from the early ’80s. However, while the old movie was directed by Shyam Benegal and is a modern take on the Mahbharata, the new one is a Mahesh Bhatt production, directed by Mohit Suri, about the international pornography trade. The 2005 version of Kalyug follows the idea of an age of decline, but focuses on sexual degeneracy specifically. At least in the (intentionally?) punningly titled article “Kalyug exposes porn trade,” the movie is entirely negative about this industry. Says Bhatt,

I got the idea of making Kalyug after reading the India Today article on a honeymooning couple, whose lovemaking scenes were recorded in a hotel and distributed throughout the world. People all over the world want to see reality sex, not fictional sex. Human trafficking has become big business everywhere; it’s the third largest international crime after drugs and the arms trade. Desi Indian women and porn sites are a huge craze abroad. That’s why victims of natural disasters like famines and earthquakes are sold for these pornographic rackets. They are drugged, brutalised and blackmailed into joining the flesh trade.

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The browning of Netflix

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Bollywood films constitute roughly 50% of all new films added by Netflix this week!

This week alone, Netflix announced 79 new Bollywood releases

in their All DVDs Releasing This Week section. That’s more Bollywood films than films of any other sort of individual genre, probably almost as many films as released in all other categories combined. To give you an idea of how significant this is, just imagine if half the new releases at Blockbuster were Bollywood flicks!

The new films are pretty eclectic, with movies from the 1950s to the present, including golden oldie Shree 420 and compilation DVDs like Dance Songs Forever.

This comes in the same week that GV Films announced their intent to create a legal Bollywood (and Tamilwood [is that even a word? – ed]) film downloading system:

Film buffs worldwide will soon be able to download digitised versions of Indian movies from an online channel that will be launched in Mumbai in 2006. Movie lovers can download the movies by paying between $1-5 a movie, depending on how old the film is and whether it was a big hit — apart from its running time. GV Films is known for hit productions in Tamil like Mouna Ragam (1986), Nayakan (1987) and Anjali (1990). It has also bought rights of hundreds of other movies in various other Indian languages. Though the production house has a large library of nearly 6,000 films to pick and choose from, it is in the process of acquiring more movies. [Link]

What’s going on here? While GV films is targetting their offering specifically at NRIs, it’s not entirely clear to me who is renting the Bollywood films from Netflix. Is this clear evidence of the mainstreaming of Bollywood as “serious foreign film” or are these suburban uncles and aunties who don’t want to drive to little India to rent their desi DVDs any more than they want to drive to Blockbuster to rent their American films? One way or another, it’s a fascinating trend. For those of you interested in Bollywood (I’m afraid I rarely watch the movies, so the titles mean little to me) the list of films is below the fold.

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