Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

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While there’s considerable debate as to whether residents of Los Angeles read books, at the very least, we hold big festivals celebrating them. The tenth incarnation of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books lands later this month on the UCLA campus, and offers tons of signings, readings and discussion panels. Chitra Divakaruni, Pico Iyer and Ved Mehta are among the authors expected to hold court on the following topics:

Saturday, April 23

10:30 AM – The Challenges Facing Latin America: Politics & Art
Moderator: Marjorie Miller. Panelists: Ann Louise Bardach, Pico Iyer, Alvaro Vargas Llosa and Tom Miller.

11:00 AM – Writers in Exile
Moderator: Karen Stabiner. Panelists: Chris Abani, Ved Mehta and Loung Ung.

Sunday, April 24

11:30 AM – Fiction: Searching for Our Ideal Reader
Moderator Paula Woods. Panelists: Elizabeth Berg, Chitra Divakaruni, Janet Fitch and Lisa See.

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I’m a hustler, baby

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I’m a hustler, baby
I just want you to know
It ain’t where I been
But where I’m ’bout to go

–Jay-Z, ‘I Just Wanna Love U’

British author Preethi Nair self-published after her first novel was rejected everywhere (thanks, Punjabi Boy). She invented a PR persona out of whole cloth so publications wouldn’t catch on she was a one-woman band. She landed a three-book publishing deal, and the Beeb is filming one of her novels. Here’s the kicker: her fake PR persona was shortlisted for Publicist of the Year. Not content, Nair then turned her fictional life yet another novel. Meta, shameless, impressive!

Preethi Nair was born in Kerala, South India in 1971 and came to England as a child… she worked as a management consultant but gave it up to… become a writer… Jobless and having been rejected by most publishers, Preethi took the deposit out of the flat she was about to buy and set up her own publishing company… Not having enough money for a PR agency, she… appointed… Pru Menon (her alter ego) to shamelessly hype the book… she signed a three-book deal with HarperCollins. Preethi won the Asian Woman of Achievement award for her endeavours and Pru was shortlisted as Publicist of the Year for the PPC awards.

“100 Shades of White”, her first novel with HarperCollins has been bought by the BBC for a television adaptation and her third novel “Beyond Indigo” will be published in August, along with the reissue of “Gypsy Masala”. [Her own bio, natch]

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Kobe-inspired Kathak

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An Indian dance troupe incorporates Kobe Bryant’s moves into their latest creation:

The dribbling is quicksilver, strong and startlingly percussive. The jumps look effortless — and lofty. But this isn’t Staples Center, and instead of purple-and-yellow Laker jerseys, the garb consists of sherbet-colored silk kurtis, or tunics, cotton drawstring pants and hundreds of ankle bells. In fact, this isn’t a game of basketball but a rehearsal by Anjani’s Kathak Dance of India, a Diamond Bar-based company that Sunday at La Mirada Theatre will premiere a work inspired by hoops. “Kobe Bryant is my favorite,” gushes Anjani Ambegaokar, the 60-year-old dancer, teacher and choreographer who founded the company in 1985 but only began watching the Lakers on television a few years ago. “The kid is so graceful that the dancer in me started thinking, ‘How does he do that? He’s like an artist.’ I became interested in the rhythms of how they play the game and thought, ‘We can incorporate their moves and even sounds of bouncing balls into a Kathak-style piece.’” [Los Angeles Times]

Their new Kathak moves include a continuous shooting pattern dubbed “The Ball Hog,” a back-stabbing motion called “The Shaq,” and a simulated chokehold with crotch-thrusting labeled “The Eagle, Colo.”

Los Angeles Times: A jump shot, from Kobe to Kathak (free registration required)

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Hip-hop yoga: It’s about fucking time

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Everyone holding their breath over a hip-hop version of yoga can finally exhale:

(Russell) Simmons, the founder of Def Jam Records, released a video series on Wednesday titled, “Yoga Live”, with instructions set to 72 tracks of original hip-hop music — sounds that might have jarred the yogis of bygone days. Simmons said he tried to distil the spiritual from the physical in his tapes. “We packaged it intentionally in a way for people to digest the physical practice,” he told Reuters. “It’s not meant to get them worried about religion or spirituality.” [Reuters/Yahoo!]

It’s important to eliminate such worrisome items from yoga, as potential customers are already expected to have 99 problems (the bitch not being one, of course).

Reuters/Yahoo!: Yoga goes hip-hop as marketing takes hold

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Friedman on ‘The Daily Show’

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Tom Friedman of the NYT shills his new book on The Daily Show. He talks about his visit to ‘Bahn-galore’ and how the chairman of Infosys laid the smack down on lazy Americans.

Friedman’s big thesis is that Americans need to churn out more scientists and engineers, a good moonshot-like project would be energy independence from the Saudis, and wouldn’t it be nice if the President drove a hybrid car.

He’s a surprisingly fluid, comfortable public speaker with good message discipline: his opening schtick is lifted straight from his column and probably even from the book jacket. Conversely, Friedman has a line, ‘Have you ever met a 12-year-old who said, “I want to be an engineer?” ‘ Hello, ever met any desi American kids?

I’m not sure what he’s gesturing about here, but let’s hope it has nothing to do with threading.

Watch the clip.

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Happy Birthday to one whose music sounds like “cats meowing”.

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ravi sukanya.JPG Today, NPR’s Morning Edition surprised me with a lovely present, though it wasn’t my birthday they were celebrating. Ravi Shankar is 85 today, and the story I blasted on my way to work was produced in honour of that.

In the latest report for the NPR/National Geographic co-production Radio Expeditions, NPR’s Susan Stamberg travels to New Delhi, the capital of India, to meet with the artist…
…Shankar is totally in his element when he performs — sitting on his oriental rug, sitar nestled in his lap, the air scented with incense, he appears lost in a trance.
“Ravi Shankar’s music is like a fine Indian sari — silken, swirling, exotic,” Stamberg says. “It can break your heart with its beauty.”

Oy, Ms. Stamberg…we could’ve done without the dreaded “E”-bomb, but we forgive you.

SM readers (and Mutineer Manish) might enjoy the legend’s take on why he is known as “Pandit”; personally, I was more amused by the piece’s description of Shankar’s wife as one “…in a crowd of Ravi’s lovers”. Ahem. No sex please, we’re Indian. Wait, too late for that–listeners are treated to Sukanya Shankar (“Ravi’s merry, dimpled wife”) trilling, “what you do to me!” in answer to a befuddled/barely-risque question that her husband poses.

Oh and yes, there is the obligatory Norah Jones ref; they played a snippet of “Don’t know why”, since THAT wouldn’t be predictable, at ALL. 😀

Enjoy the interview (and some “pillow talk”) here. Continue reading →

“I care about my brother Nikhil. Do you?”

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Several tipsters sent us this NYTimes article about a new Indian film that surprisingly has not stirred up much controversy as of yet:

Late last month, a low-budget drama called “My Brother Nikhil” opened in movie theaters across India, telling the story of a gay man’s struggle with his family and his country after contracting the virus that causes AIDS.

Quietly, gently, “My Brother Nikhil” has tested the limits of the Indian cinemagoer’s sensibility.

Commercially, it is no runaway Bollywood blockbuster; nor is it meant to be. Rather, its impact lies in having served up a story about love and loss – sentimental staples of contemporary Indian cinema – with a gay man at its center, and having done so without kicking up the slightest fuss from India’s cultural conservatives. As one review published in the latest issue of Outlook, a mainstream newsweekly, put it, “The two lovers seem just like any other couple.”

Playing here in Mumbai, formerly called Bombay, and in about a dozen other major cities in India, “My Brother Nikhil” is part of a new breed of Bollywood pictures known here as the “multiplex movie” – appealing to an urban middle-class audience, peppered with English phrases, and easy on the song-and-dance numbers and potboiler story lines usually associated with Indian commercial cinema.

The Indian Supreme Court is currently reviewing the ban on homosexuality in India.

“My Brother Nikhil” has faced none of the protests that six years ago greeted “Fire,” Deepa Mehta’s film about two women in love. Actors and athletes have been plugging “My Brother Nikhil” in television spots, an extraordinary marketing ploy in an industry where few people plug movies that are not their own. “I care about my brother Nikhil. Do you?” is the punch line. “This film has shown it’s possible to show a committed gay couple,” said Vikram Doctor, a journalist here who is active with a support group called the Gay Bombay Group. “It’s passed the Censor Board without any comment. Theaters have not been attacked. There’s no catcalling. It’s treated respectfully by the audience and the filmmaker. I’m happily surprised.”

View movie trailers and listen to the soundtrack here. Continue reading →

A whole boardroom full of brown contestants

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What comes next was ENTIRELY expected if you think about it. From Rediff.com:

After the huge success of the reality show Indian Idol on Sony Entertainment Television, Freemantle Media, which conceived the programme, is set to tap the huge potential of the Indian market for reality shows.

Freemantle Media will host The Apprentice, one of its most popular shows in India. “We are planning to introduce The Apprentice later this year. The show will be telecast on the Star network,” says Gavin Wood, director of production, India Freemantle Media.

One of the most popular television reality series in the world today, The Apprentice will be conceived on the lines it is aired in different parts of the Asia, Europe and the United States.

Yes, yes. We will export cut-throat corporate world behavior to the third world now. I wonder if Laxmi Mittal will be the tycoon.

“India is a land of great creativity, talent and passion. The spark among the people is truly amazing,” says Wood.

“Although the television Industry in India is young, it is very professional and has high quality standards which is lacking in many other countries where the industry is much older than in India. The television sector with its wide reach will be a major driver of growth in the entertainment sector,” Wood explains.

What they don’t seem to understand is the potential trauma that rejected contestants could suffer in Indian society. Just imagine being fired, coming home and having to listen to your Indian mother point out the fact that the other people’s children haven’t been fired yet. Continue reading →

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Dabbas for dummies

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If you, like I, have never actually lived in Bombay, here’s a great primer on why office workers use the O.G. FedEx (via Kunjan):

A restaurant meal costs five to fifteen times more than home-food. To them, the dabbawalla brings the security of a cheap, clean, tasty and often still-warm, home-cooked meal… Bombay alone can sustain a dabbawalla network of this size and complexity because it alone, among Indian cities, has a quick, efficient and far-flung suburban railway service.

Not to mention that many have religion-based dietary restrictions. Density and train availability is also why some businesses only work in Manhattan and like cities; Bombay’s north-south orientation is strikingly familiar. Here’s how the routing system works — each packet is marked with hops, destination and recipient name, and handoffs are made at railway stations:

The outer case of Mohile’s dabba is marked with a black swastika, a red dot, a yellow stroke… Different marks on other dabbas tell the career at which stations en route he must pass them on to other waiting links in the crosscross network. At Victoria Terminus, the hub of commercial Bombay, Mohile’s dabba enters the last phase of its journey. Dabbawalla No. 4 waiting on the platform, picks it out together with other boxes marked with his symbol, the white cross. The black circle on Mohile’s case indicates its exact destination: the BMC Building. By 12.30 he has carried his crate up four flights of stairs and left Mohile’s lunch-box along with some 20 others in a corner of the canteen. Mohile, coming in at 1 p.m. will recognise his dabba from his name on an attached tag.

The dabbawallas’ perseverence puts the U.S. Postal Service to shame, and they charge only 35 rupees a month:

Some months ago, a dabbawalla waiting on his bicycle at a traffic light was hurled off the road by a lorry gone berserk and was smashed to death… The mukadam [dabba boss] got to hear of the accident within minutes and contracted the secretary of the Association… asked him to look after the police formalities, collected the dead man’s dabbas, and being familiar with the symbols, got them to their destination — just 30 minutes late…

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