Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

Yay, More Hope for Men!

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I wish I were a man. Really. Their problems seem so much more…significant, no?

At least, that’s how I feel after reading a Washington Post article entitled, New Wives Bring New Hope to Sri Lankan Widowers.

sepiarantfish.jpg Thanggod! Some good news about Sri Lanka, I thought, as I clicked the link and started reading:

Plunged into despair after the tsunami killed his wife and two of his four children, Ruknadhan Nahamani passed the first months after the disaster in an alcoholic fog, drowning his sorrows in the potent local liquor known as arrack . But grief was only part of the problem, he said.

“There was nobody to wash my clothes and take care of my kids when I went out to work,” said the wiry 32-year-old fisherman, whose teeth are stained red from chewing betel nut, a mild stimulant. “It was really difficult.”

But Nahamani is a single parent no more. In June, he exchanged wedding vows and jasmine garlands at a Hindu temple with a woman from a nearby village. “We are very happy,” he said outside his tent at a refugee camp as his new wife, Leelawathi, heated cooking oil for the evening meal.[link]

The man survived a tsunami and lost almost his entire family and lives in a refugee camp. Of course he deserves all the happiness he can find. sepiarantwomen.jpg But the grinchy pebble I call a heart couldn’t muster more joy when I remembered all the war widows in Sri Lanka. Some 40,000 at last count.

And the fact that women drowned in massively disproportionate numbers (three times more) during the tsunami because they’re not taught to swim.

And the fact that widows are still treated like amoral harlots in most of South Asia.

Where’s the bloody community support for them? Continue reading →

‘George Ka Pakistan’

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You might think George Ka Pakistan (George’s Pakistan) is a straightforward description of the political relationship between Dubya and Musharraf. Instead, it was recently Pakistan’s #1 reality show (via Uncleji):

The premise was simple: could a Gora (white man) become a Pakistani? Over 13 weeks, Fulton, a 27-year-old former public schoolboy, travelled the country to find out. He sampled Pakistan’s many delights – moseying through the tribal areas, dancing at slick Karachi parties, speaking bad Urdu and arguing with his electricity company… Fulton squeezed into tiny taxis, milked a buffalo and tried on a dhoti… [Link]

George Fulton, a TV and theater producer, ended up becoming a Pakistani citizen. Why? Lowe, twu lowe:

The ministry of the interior was so impressed with Fulton’s efforts that it offered him Pakistani citizenship… The downsides included the potential of being be conscripted into the Pakistani army in the event of war with, for example, India. But now, he says: “I’m going through with it”… he has fallen in love with a Pakistani woman, also a TV producer, and they plan to get married next November. [Link]

To paraphrase the National Front, if he’s a loyal Pakistani, why does he still root for England’s cricket team?  To be a true Pakistani, all he needs to do is obsess over India and talk nostalgically of his years in New York.

Fulton received… six marriage proposals (he politely refused them all). Then, in the final episode, the prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, received him in Islamabad and the show’s producers polled viewers about whether “George Sahib” had succeeded in becoming a Pakistani. Sixty-five per cent said yes. [Link]
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1-800-INSOMNIA

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Tomorrow night, PBS stations in the U.S. are airing a documentary on the human impact of outsourcing on call center workers (via SAJA):

1-800-INDIA
Tuesday, September 13 at 9 P.M.

… “1-800-INDIA” explores the experience of young Indian men and women who have been recruited into these new jobs requiring long hours, night shifts, and westernized work habits. The film reveals the human and cultural impact of a sweeping global trend, exploring its effect on Indian family life, on the evolving landscape of Indian cities and towns, and on the aspirations and daily lives of young Indians, especially women, entering the workforce.

Blogger Daniel Drezner penned an introduction:

Ironically, India itself now has some other pressing concerns because of the expansion of the global market for outsourcing services. Wage rates in Bangalore are starting to rise dramatically, and India has bottlenecks in its educational infrastructure that will limit the growth of the labor force. So other countries — the Philippines, Indonesia, Ghana — are beginning to compete. Nowadays you can even find Europeans and Americans working — if only temporarily — in India. Backpackers hiking through India stop off in Bangalore and work in call centers for a few weeks to pay their way…

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Bad memories

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In unfortunate news, particularly since it comes on the four year anniversary of 9/11, a NYC fire-fighter was arrested for a possible hate crime against a Bangladeshi immigrant.  CNN reports:

Hours after many New York firefighters gathered to mark the fourth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, a firefighter was arrested for attacking an immigrant worker and telling him he looked “like he’s al-Qaeda,” police said.

Firefighter Edward Dailey was arrested Sunday afternoon on charges of criminal mischief and felony second-degree assault, Police Sgt. Kevin Farrell said. It had not yet been determined whether the charges would be upgraded to a hate crime, he said.

Dailey, 27, is accused of breaking a piece of Plexiglas off a curbside news stand and throwing it at a 51-year-old man who works there, Farrell said. Dailey had said the man, an immigrant from Bangladesh, looked “like he’s al-Qaeda,” Farrell said.

So discouraging to hear this type of thing happen at all, but even worse on the anniversary.  I’m sure they’ll be a case made make a case for PTSD.  Newsday.com has more:

Dailey, who lives on Long Island and works in Jamaica, Queens, was valedictorian of his Fire Academy class last year, according to the Daily News.

The arrest came on a day when many New York firefighters gathered to mark the fourth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center. Police said Dailey had been drinking after attending the memorial service for a fallen firefighter he had known from their previous jobs as emergency medical workers.

In  related news, filmmakers  Valarie Kaur, who blogs at DNSI, and Sharat Raju have a trailer of their upcoming film titled “Divided we Fall.”

A turbaned Sikh man was murdered four days after Sept. 11, 2001 by a man bent on eliminating anyone “Arab-looking.” He screamed: “I am a patriot!” Similar stories of hate crimes swept across the nation in the aftermath.

Armed with only a camera and a question, an American college student journeyed into the heart of a suffering nation in search of answers. She met people, some born and raised in America, others who came seeking a better life and adopted a new land as their own home. All believed in the American dream. Captured on film are their stories — hundreds of them. Stories of sadness. Of unimaginable loss & fear. Of hope, resilience & love.

Two filmmakers. One camera. 14 American cities. Four months on the road. 100 hours of footage. And the question: WHY?

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Both clean and dirty at once

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It has been 75 years since Lux soap was first manufactured in India. To mark the occasion, Hindustan Lever is making its first ad for Lux staring a male Bollywood actor. In it they present Shah Rukh Khan in a bathtub full of rose petals. Equal opportunity objectification for men is beginning; you’ve come a long way baby!

It seems that the actor had long wanted to star in a Lux ad:

A spokesman for Hindustan Lever, the Indian arm of the multinational Unilever, said the firm had learnt of Shah Rukh Khan’s desire to star in a Lux commercial, following in the footsteps of actresses Hema Malini, Juhi Chawla, Madhuri Dixit, Kareena Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai.

“Our advertising agency somehow managed to hear that Shah Rukh had told his co-stars Juhi Chawla and Hema Malini while shooting for a movie that they are the real stars as they get to sit in elaborate bathtubs and advertise for Lux,” the spokesman, Paresh Chowdhury, told the BBC. [BBC]

And of course, a sudsy SRK made perfect sense for the manufacturer as well: Will desi men start threading their chest hair to emulate SRK?

“The target audience, which is basically women between six and 60, love him because he comes across as vulnerable,” he told the BBC. “You could have had some macho actor get in tub but he would seem unreal.

“Shah Rukh Khan is a man with a very strong female side – he is not ashamed of not having any hair on his chest – yet he is a man’s man.” [BBC]

Is Shah Rukh Khan the metrosexual desi man for the next century or just a passing fad? Will desi men start threading their chest hair to emulate SRK? One thing is for certain, Indian TV will never be the same again.

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We are wanting to rock you!

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The Washington Post features (thanks Maisnon) the hottest new band from straight out of my ‘hood.  The H1Bees have earned plenty of street cred in their Gaithersburg, MD area.  Now it’s time to go national:

The computer programmers arrived in the United States unknown to each other but united in their quest to rock.

On the surface, they were not unlike many others who have left India over the past decade on the H-1B visa, a guest worker program for highly skilled professionals. They wore glasses and mustaches and collared shirts. They could exterminate Y2K bugs and code Java and link Unix.

But as they toiled in cubicles, they dreamed of banging on keyboards of a different sort, of a world where C-sharp is just a musical note, not computer code.

And then their worlds became one.

“H1Bees,” an album recorded in a Gaithersburg basement-turned-studio, will be released today, its music a mix of Indian and Western beats with lyrics exploring the high-tech immigrant’s experience in the United States.

I wonder if they have a manager yet.  I know the area well and have been looking for the right horse to back.  They got a funky throwback type of sound.  To be quite honest I like them better than M.I.A., whose stuff is just noise to me. 

The languages differed: Tamil, Hindi, COBAL, BASIC. The journeys seemed parallel: Young man leaves India to earn U.S. dollars, works hard, buys car, returns home to marry, gets green card, buys townhouse, has kid, decides to stay.

“H1Bees,” Devarajan said. The album, which will be sold via South Asian Web sites and stores for $6, boasts songs in English, Hindi and Tamil. By setting their sagas to music, they hope to duplicate the success of other immigrant artists catering to diasporas, much of it via the Internet.

Listen to a sample track here. For those about to rock, we salute you.

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Where did the love go…

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Oh nooooo…..just two weeks ago, Jhaan mentioned Satya Paul: Indian fashion designer, creator of beautiful saris, a man who didn’t rush to the tacky embrace of East-meets-West “fusion” clothing, the very antithesis of my favorite whipping boy, Anand Jon. sepiasatyaredsari.jpg

Well, apparently succumbing to the siren song of “global presence,” Satya Paul presents his April 2005 India Fashion Week collection in NY tonight. From the press release:

Satya Paul, the premier Indian designer label recognized internationally for its haute couture, saris, fabrics, neckties and accessories, is unveiling a dazzling new collection of apparel and drapes in New York. The collection will be modeled by Indian beauty queens and film stars at a gala benefit at the Broadway Ballroom of the Marriot Marquis, on Saturday, September 10, at 7:00 pm.

But wait! Before you grab your wallet and run out the door – there’s more:

The multi-media show will highlight a fusion of the East and West. The mythological Sita – heroine of the Indian epic, the Ramayana – will be “teamed” with Madonna, the entertainment legend. The Madonna who appears in Satya Paul’s collection mirrors the star in her self confidence and sophistication. At her core is Sita, the woman of timeless elegance, mystery and purity. Satya Paul’s collection brings out the sensuality of the East, blended with the gritty worldliness of the West.

Just so you don’t miss this fusion, the collection is named Madonna Meets Sita. The timeless Eastern elegance of Sita, wrapped in the Western confidence of Madonna….get it?

(I wonder if they’ll play “Like a Virgin” as the models strut the ramp…..I’m sure Madonna wouldn’t resist a man with ten heads, either…..j/k!! don’t send Hanuman after me too!! ) Continue reading →

They come baring gifts

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Check out how this Brit-influenced Bollywood review reads in American English:

[Salaam Namaste] has a frothy first half and an emotion-filled second half with the climax that warms the very cockles of your heart. And, as a bonus, there is a cameo by Abhishek Bachchan at the fag end. [Link]

Someone needs to take a rubber to the end of that review. It’s the kind of movie review-cum-double entendre which I’d never plunge into. At least not without a safe word.

Not that Americans don’t do the same, only it’s intentional. Ang Lee’s new gay cowboy Western is entitled Brokeback Mountain. The subtlety of the encoding is truly humbling. Heath Ledger and Donnie Snarko stare longingly at each other for the entire length of the trailer, but heaven forbid that they act. The love that dare not, is the wet sari that must not.

I say let the rainbow flag fly. Bollywood has long repaid the compliment.

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Monster’s ball

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A moment of silence, please — I have truly depressing news to report. Long years of eating English food have wreaked havoc upon the visage of an Oscar-winning desi actor:

Ben… Kingsley… plays… FAGIN! Aww yeah! That’s like Samuel L. Jackson as Ravana or Hanuman vs. the Rock. (And I think we know which one wins.)

Kingsley hams his way through an Oliver Twist revival by pedophile filmmaker Roman Polanski due out this month. Charles Dickens meets a suitable boy — the paid-by-the-word weepies collide in copyright-free drama nirvana. But seriously, after the melo-hungama of Dickens, surely Ben-ji could find it in his heart to pay Bollyrespects?

Polanski struggled with the eternal, Shylockian question of ‘who is a Jew’:

Born in 1837, Dickens’s Fagin The paid-by-the-word weepies collidewas larded with ethnic stereotypes from his first appearance as “a very old, shriveled Jew… Alec Guinness, in David Lean’s 1948 version, spoke in a droning lisp and appeared with hooded eyes and an enormous prosthetic hook nose… it also resembled anti-Semitic caricatures in… Nazi Germany. At a theater in Berlin the audience was so offended by Fagin’s characterization that it rioted… in Carol Reed’s 1968 film version… he played with gay stereotypes, mincing his way through “Pick a Pocket or Two” and twirling a frilly pink parasol in “I’d Do Anything.”

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