Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

Buzzword bingo

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Abhi posted earlier about The Bollywood Beauty. If you’re in the mood for a light, pulpy read, here’s what’s currently on the chick lit shelves at my local bookstore. While we’re at it, let’s play Orientalist buzzword bingo!

Bollywood Confidential by Sonia Singh

Raveena isn’t having much luck in Hollywood as an Indian beauty, so when her agent nabs her a starring role in a Bollywood film, she jumps at the chance and relocates to Bombay.

The Village Bride of Beverly Hills by Kavita Daswani. Exotic!

… Priya… finds herself the one chosen for matrimony and life across the seas in Beverly Hills… Luck lands her a position as a receptionist at the tabloid Hollywood Insider, and her exotic politeness wins over the red carpet community.

Singh previously wrote Goddess for Hire. Curry-scented!

A hip chick from Newport Beach… discovered she’s the incarnation of the Hindu goddess Kali… Saving the world, though, may prove to be a curry-scented breeze compared to dealing with her extended Indian family.

Daswani also wrote For Matrimonial Purposes. Cardamom-flavored!

… the Prada-loving fashion publicist still finds herself “oddly drawn to the age-old system of arranged marriage…” The only flaw in this heady, cardamom-flavored confection is the rushed happy ending…

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A Bollywood Beauty down-under

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We just don’t show enough love to our peeps down-under.  SM reader Sibyl sends us an excited tip about first time author Shalini Akhil, a Fijian-Indian living in Austrailia who’s just had her first book published. It’s titled Bollywood Beauty.

Kesh: born and bred in Australia: drinks at the pub; studies feminist theory; a fun-loving gal of Fijian-Indian background.
Rupa: born and bred in Fiji; scared to leave the house; makes own roti; the full-on ‘Bollywood Beauty’.

When Rupa comes to stay with her cousin Kesh, it’s a complete culture clash. And, the chai hits the fan when Rupa has to decide between new-found passion and the ways of the past.

In this delicious and highly spiced novel, Shalini Akhil dishes up tears, laughter, music and food, with a truly scary dinner dance thrown in . . . and a final scene to make you laugh and cry.

What got Sibyl especially excited was that not only did a draft of Akhil’s novel win a state literary award, but Shalini has two blogs.  In addition to the one on her website she has this more personal one on blogger, much of which catalogs her experiences as a newly published author. 

…last week thursday, mid mid-afternoon-browse i spied a copy [of my book] in mary martins southbank’s australian fiction section. i yelped audibly (the sales person near me turned around suddenly, presumably to see if i’d stepped on a chihuahua, or turned into one) and ran out the store bellowing ‘mark! maaark! come here!’. then i pointed at the shelf from across the store. he went over, knight in shining armour that he is, and fetched it off the shelf. my knees were seriously jelly… i blushed and ran to hide behind the greeting card shelf in a move i later recognised as cheap imitation of a classic bollywood over-reaction. then the bubbles subsided, and in a moment of classic mood-swingery, a voice in my head said:

hang on! one copy, spine-out? does that really warrant a bollywood duck-and-cover?

then the knight came through again, gathered me up in his muscular arms and whispered, i found the other four. face-out, new release section. and that was it, i had to leave.

Ahhh yes.  I think someday many of us working class bloggers would want to see the above scene play out in our lives (without the Bollywood ducking of course).  The story doesn’t end there.  Shalini is also a stand-up comedian:

In 2003 she entered ‘Raw Comedy’, run by radio station Triple J, and went on to become a national finalist.
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If he was brown, we woulda heard about it, right?

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More news on the double-standard front. In March of last year, the feds arrested somebody who had the components for both hand grenades and ricin in his basement. The perp lived in Hyattsville, Md, just a few miles from the DC border:

The manhunt, according to court documents and investigators, led last year to a suburban home in Hyattsville, Md., its basement stocked with parts for makeshift hand grenades and ingredients for ricin, one of the most potent and lethal biological toxins….. has since pleaded guilty to charges of extortion and possession of toxic materials. [NYT]

How deadly is Ricin?

If injected or swallowed, the toxin penetrates the body’s cells. It then knocks out the cells’ protein production machinery, leading to cell death. If ricin is inhaled, acute respiratory collapse occurs as the fragile lining cells of the air passages and lungs are destroyed. Once a person is exposed to ricin, there is no known antidote. Minute quantities of ricin are lethal, and they vanish from the victim’s body in hours with barely a trace, making it a notorious stealth murder weapon. [cite]

You’d think this would have been front page news instead of the middle of a long article about cyber extortion in the NYT Magazine. A dangerous criminal was arrested a stone’s through away from the nation’s capital with the precursors to a biological weapon! This guy was more of a threat than Jose Padilla: ricin is more dangerous than a dirty bomb, and he was far closer to creating a WMD than Padilla ever got.

However, this guy wasn’t brown. His name was Myron Tereshchuk. He was a 43 year old white guy, a tech entrepreneur. If his name had been Sandeep Patel, with the same profile and biodata, you can bet that his mug shot would have been plastered all over the evening TV news shows. As is, it got buried below the fold.

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Rize and hustle

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Do I even need to say it? Mangal Pandey / The Rising, the film about our namesake rebellion, comes out in the U.S. today. It stars Aamir Khan, Toby Stephens, Rani Mukherjee and Amisha Patel. A.R. Rahman did the music, Ketan Mehta (the director of Mirch Masala) directs this story. Watch the trailer and do your mutinous best

In 1857 Mangal Pandey (Khan) is a sepoy, an Indian serving under the command of Britain’s East India Company, which by then had controlled the subcontinent for a century with its own laws, military and government. Mangal’s a close friend of the sensitive British captain William Gordon (Stephens), but the introduction of a new gun cartridge drives a wedge between them. Greased with cow and pig fat, it’s deeply offensive to both Hindus and Muslims. And a small standoff develops into a full-scale indigent rebellion. [Link]

It’s the McDonald’s beefy french fries scandal writ large!

Gordon’s character has been written with great care, so as to present a saner side to the British who would all otherwise fall into the stereotypical category of moustache-twirling villains. [Link]

Check U.S. showtimes here. American prints are usually subtitled.

Here are photos from the premiere in Bombay. Here’s the movie’s official site.

Previous posts: 1, 2, 3

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Bhutanese Gothic

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Grinchness continues to cut its green swath across the subcontinent. First Pakistan and Afghanistan banned Indian films. Then, just a couple of months ago, the idyllic Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan banned Indian entertainment channels (via Desi Flavor):

Telecast of some Indian news and entertainment channels has been barred by cable operators in Bhutan, after local media labelled them as a threat to their cultural values, the Lok Sabha was informed on Thursday. “… the above decision was taken by the cable operators themselves, following a series of articles, which appeared in the media in Bhutan,” Reddy said. He said it was alleged in most of the articles that some of these channels were “culturally degrading and were undermining Bhutanese cultural values, besides distracting students from their studies…” [Link]

“Bhutanese kids… suddenly saw these big men [pro wrestlers] beating each other up on television,” he added. “They couldn’t understand it. There were several pained letters from kids saying ‘why are they doing this?’… “[Young people] want and need what they see on television – the fashion, the clothes, the whole changing lifestyle, going to bars, drinking,” Kinley Dorji said. “A lot of these ideas have come from television. And they want more now.”

Others, though, see the whole debate as largely irrelevant. They point out that the vast majority of Bhutan’s population – 70% – do not even have electricity, let alone television. [Link]

You’d think if Bhutan really cared about moral degeneracy, they’d ban public drunkenness and penis art. ‘Culturally degrading’ and ‘distracts from studies’ is kind of the whole point of watching TV. I’ll grant the argument if the Powers That Be take crappy reality shows off air. Leave Beauty and the Geek — that isn’t a reality show, it’s fantasy

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The Engrish Raj

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Author Sujata Massey writes hapa mysteries set in Japan (thanks, tilo). Her Bengali father once lived in Cambridge — alert Jhumpa Lahiri!

Her mother is from Bonne, Switzerland. Her father is a Calcutta-born Bengali. They met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and she grew up in Philadelphia and Berkeley… she spends each day writing about a half-Japanese, half-American antiques dealer cum detective living in the seedier streets of Tokyo. [Link]

Her books’ titles (‘pearl,’ ‘kimono,’ ‘samurai’) pitch Asian exoticism, which, to be fair, is common in mass-market mysteries. One booster disagrees, but the name of his bookstore undercuts his argument

“Sujata really evokes a modern, quirky Japan that most Americans aren’t familiar with,” said Joe Guglielmelli, co-owner of The Black Orchid mystery bookstore in New York City. “She’s the only mystery writer out there who’s doing modern-day Japan…” [Link]

Massey chose a Japanese father and an American mother for Shimura to go against the grain. So often, Massey explains, it’s the other way around: The wife is Asian and the husband is American. “Asian women are exoticized,” she sighs… [Link]

She writes about the baffling and often funny Engrish popular in Japan (Hinglish ain’t no slouch either):

She prefers collecting the details of Japanese life… a “Milk Pie Club” sweat shirt; a brand of chocolate pretzels called “Pickle”; the “That’s Donald!” slogan on another passenger’s clothes. [Link]

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An update on those Kids

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The New York Times follows up (tip from Angana) on those Kids with their Cameras [see previous posts 1,2,3]:

The children’s story is by now well known, thanks to the sad, beautiful film that Ms. Briski and Ross Kauffman made about the youngsters’ pinched lives in Sonagachi, the largest red-light district in Calcutta. Their world opened up when Ms. Briski, a photojournalist struck by the children’s plight, decided to give them cameras and teach them photography.

Avijit actually makes his observation in “Born Into Brothels: Reconnecting,” a short three-years-after addendum to the original film that shows the ecstatic reunion of Ms. Briski and most of the children. They were between 8 and 12 when “Born Into Brothels” was shot; they are entering adolescence now, taller, more mature and, thanks to her efforts, attending boarding schools. They appear to have been rescued.

Ms. Briski’s life has changed, too. In 2002, she founded Kids With Cameras, an international nonprofit organization that is building a school for the children of Sonagachi, partly with money from the sales of her students’ photographs. (Kids With Cameras has also established programs in Haiti, Jerusalem and Cairo.)

There were several comments following one of our previous entries that didn’t quite like the message this movie sent or the idea that Briski was “rescuing” these kids.  Most comments however were positive.  Anyone who has seen the movie can attest to the fact that their story is powerful.  If you live in New York then you can decide for yourself this weekend at an exhibit of their work.  I’m curious as to what became of the children:

Open to the public, Kids with Cameras: Calcutta will be presented at ICP, 1114 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd St., Aug. 10 through 14 from 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm. The CINEMAX Reel Life presentation Born Into Brothels debuts TUESDAY, AUG. 16 (7:00-8:30 pm ET/PT), exclusively on CINEMAX. In tandem with the premiere, Born into Brothels: Reconnecting, a short update on the children featured in the documentary, will be available on CINEMAX On Demand beginning Aug. 11; Born Into Brothels will also be available on CINEMAX On Demand beginning that day, in advance of its CINEMAX debut.
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The only time I’m not “from India”

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Outrageous, bold and deadlyÂ…no wonder the media loves it. Every single time I turn on the TV or glance at Google News, I catch the latest development in the saga of Jennifer and George Hyatte, the outlaw married couple whose adventurous last few days read like a gangsta rap wet dream.

A US inmate has escaped after his wife shot dead a guard who was escorting the prisoner outside a courthouse in the state of Tennessee, authorities say.
Police say George and Jennifer Hyatte fled the scene in Kingston in a vehicle which was later found abandoned.
A hunt is under way for the former prison nurse and the escapee, who is described as “extremely violent”.

After that daring escape, the terrible twosome was on the run; they headed to Ohio (said, A, O, way to go Ohio) and got in a cab with one deliciously skeptical Mike Wagers. Wagers, their driver, made small talk that would later lead to a dramatic capture:

“The cover story they gave me didn’t really seem to wash too much,” Wagers told The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith Thursday. “I mean, I could kinda see through that. But I had no indication that these guys were really dangerous or they were on the run.”
They claimed they were heading to a sales conference of Amway, the household goods manufacturer. But, says Wagers, “They didn’t strike me as the Amway type, because, to be honest, they weren’t very pushy about their product. And I’ve dealt with (Amway salespeople) before. So that was my only real suspicion.

Genius.

What about you? Have you enjoyed the fervent courtship of an Amway-ite? I know theyÂ’re everywhere but I was never approached, annoyed or harassed until I moved back to DC this year. Continue reading →

An ode to my beloved

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The first thing I’ve always noticed is how she feels to my touch.  Even if left out all day, there is some warmth left at her core that rises up through my fingertips.  A person’s true beauty is on the inside and despite the fact that I always take time to admire the texture and taste of her outer shell, every crease and fold and hard bit, it is what’s inside that I think about with the greatest anticipation.  In there, a secret garden she hides.  And the way she smells…mmmm mmm mmmm.  It can make you hop right out of bed in the morning.  Is there any better way to break-fast?  Even in college I could always count on her at the end of the night when nothing else would fill me up, and the partying just wasn’t fun anymore.  I’m not the only one that lusts after her though.  True beauty is easily recognized and doggedly pursued.  The folks at The 92nd Street Y (thanks to the anonymous tipster) not only recognized her, but delved into her past to uncover the things even I didn’t know:

…we thought it might be time to pay tribute to the humble samosa.

The deep-fried, fist-sized triangular pastry is traditionally filled with either spicy potatoes or ground lamb and is India’s great contribution to the world of fast food. Traditional samosas come in all sorts of variations; in the Punjab they’re smaller and more akin to Western potato puffs, while in southern India wrappers are traditionally made from Lentil flour. There’s samosa chaat–where samosas are doused in chickpea curry or yogurts and chutneys to make for a quick, messy meal on the go–and regional variations like Bengali dessert samosas filled with rosewater or Myanmar’s samosas, which substitute wonton wrappers for the thicker shells used in India.

But the samosa is also the product of a thousand years of culinary heritage. Variants of this uniquely Indian food can be found everywhere from Cape Town to Singapore to Tashkent to Tel Aviv. A samosa/samoosa/samsa/sambusek/burek world tour (with recipes) after the jump.

Food historians have established, however, that the samosa originated not in India, but in Persia. The sanbusaj, originally a Persian term for any stuffed, savory pastry or dumpling, started showing up in Persian, Arab and Turkish literature starting in the 9th century, when poet Ishaq ibn Ibrahim-al-Mausili wrote verse praising sanbusaj.

Wow.  I am truly humbled to follow in the footsteps of the poet Ibrahim-al-Mausili.  I am a blue-collar samosa eater.  I don’t need the finest green and brown chutneys.  Just give me a little bit of ketchup and you’ll shut me right up.  That’s right, I like to go slumming.  I also refuse to see any movie at a theater longer than two hours unless there is an intermission with warm samosas in the lobby.  I LOVED Lord of the Rings, but it was so long that every time Gollum said “my precious,” I kept thinking about samosas.  My mom makes them the best.  Cashews and tofu sometimes.

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Writers less frequently heard

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Looking at all the comments following Amardeep and Manish’s book reviews yesterday made me realize that we have an awful lot of avid book readers.  This article in the Hindu from a few days ago is therefore particularly relevant, especially to those who, like me, search for the hidden gems:

The British Council, along with editors Mini Krishnan and Rakshanda Jalil, has launched a website for women’s writing from South Asia: www.womenswriting.com. The site intends to promote internationally, voices that are less frequently heard and, therefore, focuses only on writing from women who live and work in the region.

The site features a unique, searchable database containing up-to-date profiles and work from some of South Asia’s most talented women writers — short excerpts, biographies, bibliographies, prizes and photographs. The site developed from a conference organised by the British Council India in 2003, UKSAWWC, which brought together women writers from the U.K. and South Asia, many for the first time. The database can be searched by author, genre and nationality.

There is an entire list of authors and their stories on the site that one can browse through.  Rest assured that there are book critiques as well. 

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