Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

How to become a bubblegum pop star

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Step 1: Be born to cave-chested parents. Or purge.

Step 2: Hose on some primer and paint. Pluck out your eyebrows so they’re Filipino nail salon thin. Erase all personality, standardize your face so you look like every other club birdie.

Step 3: Make sure your belly’s showing. Don a booty mini. Can’t do much about the cleavage (see step 1).

Step 4: Shoot a skank vid. Grab yourself as much as possible. Tacky eyeshadow is a plus.

Step 5: Do a fawning interview with a British or Canadian desi Web site.

If you get around to it: Oh yeah, cut a track too. Just jack the beats from someone else, I’m sure she won’t mind.

If you have any, get rid of it: originality, singularity, musical talent

See also: D’Luscious, Sneha Mistri, Deeyah

As Jin tha MC said, ‘Don’t take this in a (personal) fashion. Nope, it’s just a good ol’ lyrical bashin’.’ Just how boring is bubblegum pop?

(thanks, sd)

Bhatt, James Bhatt

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Just to round out your celebrity trivia for the day –

Former James Bond star Pierce Brosnan is reportedly so fed up with American food, that he is planning to open an Indian restaurant in Los Angeles. According to femalefirst, the Irish actor is frantically searching in India for a chef worthy of cooking at the Indian restaurant he plans to open later this year.

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Shortcut to Nirvana..at a theatre near you

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Ever wonder what it would be like to join 70 million of your closest friends as they find their way to spiritual bliss? The new documentary, opening in limited release on a city-by-city tour, Shortcut to Nirvana tries to clue you in, just in case you couldn’t be there. The documentary chronicles the 2001 Kumbh Mela festival, one of the oldest, largest, and most fascinating festivals on earth. Kumbh Melas are typically held every 12 years, and the mela held in 2001 was an extra special mela as it was technically a Maha Kumbh Mela, which only occurs every 144 years, where the Ganga and Yamuna rivers meet, in Allahabad, India.

The film, by Maurizio Benazzo and Nick Day, attempts to offer a snapshot of the festival, and I think to try and do more would be an impossible task for a documentary. To view the trailer, click here and for news and theatre listings, click here.

To find out more about Kumbh Mela’s click here. Continue reading →

Seven chutney squishies, make it quick

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Desipina is again hosting its low-rent, highwire theater collection Seven.11 in Manhattan, and Anuvab Pal is contributing a new piece called Paris. The schtick is that playwrights of all colors contribute seven tales of 11 minutes each, all set in convenience stores. It sounds much like 11.9.01: September 11, a collection of short films 11 minutes, nine seconds and one frame long by filmmakers including Mira Nair, Sean Penn, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores Perros), Samira Makhmalbaf and Youssef Chahine.

As far as creative gimmicks go, this is a good one: even the Manhattan Project found creative benefit in time constraints, although nuclear incineration has been known to be motivating. This is the third year of Seven.11, so it’s clearly a successful franchise. The quick-witted Lethia Nall, who was so good in Alter Ego’s production of Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink, appears in both Paris and Soonderella.

Anuvab Pal’s PARIS: Paris is a play about an 11 minute conversation without consequence on a lazy Paris afternoon…

Samrat Chakrabarti/Sanjiv Jhaveri’s new musical SOONDERELLA: a fairy tale of a different colour… The only way to follow up with last year’s wildly successful A Very Desi Christmas, a pop musical adaptation of Scrooge, is with another 11-minute musical set in the convenience store…

It’s also a clear demarcation between Right and Left Coast desi stereotypes; the Left Coast analogue would be 80 tales of 86 engineers, but who’d go see it? Bugaboo and nerdcore call my bluff.

Seven.11, 4/1-4/18/05, Thurs-Sat & Mon at 8pm, Sun at 3pm; The Tenement Theatre, 97 Orchard St. (bet. Delancey/Broome), Manhattan; $15 General, $11 Students/Seniors; 800-965-4827 or TicketWeb (keyword:SEVEN.11)

Rough Riders

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This one is dedicated to all you out there right now, slaves to your computers, wishing that instead you had a powerful beast between your legs and the warm desert wind blowing through your hair. Outside Magazine recently awarded its 2005 Best Trips Award (Asia category) to Alexander Souri, the founder-director of Relief Riders International (RRI). As reported by NewKerala.com:

“Alexander Souri, who has worked on “The Matrix” and “X-Men”, is the founder-director of Relief Riders International (RRI) whose members made the trip in October last year to provide medical and relief supplies to people.

When I created Relief Riders International I never dreamed we would receive such international recognition so soon,” said Souri after winning the Outside Magazine’s Best Trips 2005 award.

“I dreamt of a new way to travel, a chance to see new lands and an opportunity to transform both the visitor and the visited. I am so honoured that Outdoor Magazine appreciated our vision.”

With nearly a million subscribers, New York-based Outside magazine is one of the best-known adventure travel magazines in the world. The magazine recognized RRI for its successful aid component, emphasising the high point of the trip was seeing villagers receive knowledge such as AIDS education plus food and supplies that they desperately need.

RRI is now making final preparations for its second Rajasthan Relief Ride, which begins Feb 25.

The inaugural 15-day ride, created by Souri to establish a living memorial to his Indian father, began at the majestic Imperial Hotel with a bus ride to historic Fort Mukandgarh.

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M.I.A. signs with Interscope

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Billboard.com reports that powerhouse music label Interscope Records has signed U.K. rapper M.I.A., and will release the controversial musician’s upcoming album “Arular” in the U.S. by mid-April (via Nirali Magazine). She’s currently touring the country, and will appear at the immensely popular Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in May.

Billboard.com: Sources: Interscope signs M.I.A.
Previous posts: M.I.A.: step up to blow up, Steel balls and pots, M.I.A. looked directly into my eyes!, and Military chic

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The Wedding Planner

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Voice of America gives a little preview of what many of us will be doing through the spring and summer months: going to the elaborate Indian weddings of people younger than us.

The bride is always beautiful.

And Sumit Arya’s job is to make sure she looks perfect. Originally from India – he’s a wedding planner.

“I’ve been raised half over here and half in India, so I do combine a lot of the ideas when it comes to wedding planning,” says Mr. Aray.

Sumit and his wife Shika make a bride’s dreams come true. Their Expos are one-stop shopping trips, where a traditionally-minded bride can find everything from jewels and exquisite silk, to a Hindu clergyman to officiate.

Vimesh Thakkar, a Hindu pundit says, “I go all around the U.S.A. As a matter of fact, next month I am going to Puerto Rico. Nowadays, people want the ceremonies in resorts. So I go to Mexico and other places to do [weddings].”

Must be nice. Maybe I shall become a clergyman. What?
The transcript of the videoclip can be found here. Continue reading →

Vikram Chatwal’s Coolest Years

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Of the many entertaining shows on VH-1–The Surreal Life, Strange Love, Fabulous Life of…, etc.–My Coolest Years–Rich Kids, features our own ABCD version of Paris Hilton–Vikram Chatwal.

My Coolest Years is 10 episodes of fun teenage reflection. Each hour episode dedicated to the personal stories of a particular clique. If you grew up in America in the last 30 years, you’ll recognize the types. We all had to pick one. To hang out with. To hook up with. To torment. To be. (Or not to be!) We’ll hear from the Metalheads, Geeks, Hippies, Bad Girls, B Boys, Jocks & Cheerleaders, the Rich Kids, the kids who were In The Closet, their “First” Times (wink wink), and their Summer Vacations.

But, what exactly do we learn about Vikram?

Where did he grow up and what did he drive? Vikram resided in a 10,000 square foot penthouse apartment and drove Porsche’s, Mercedes’, and BMW’s. Cliche, isn’t it?

Did he have a nanny? While the other rich kids were being watched by Olga the swedish exchange student, or Marie the French Au Pair, Vikram was reared by Raju, the male nanny, who would come to school to serve Vikram lunch.

What was his secret stash? When other kids were hiding porno mags, alcohol, and cigarettes, Vikram like a good little desi-boy, hid gaudy jewelry from his parents.

To watch Vikram, and the other rich kids in all their splendour , check out the next episode of My Coolest Years–Rich Kids on VH-1 airing next on March 22.

More Sepia Mutiny on Vikram here, here and here. Continue reading →

Velvet rope burns

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As y’all know, someone guessed the password reset hint to Paris Hilton’s T-Mobile account and posted her possible social networking profile (via Defamer). In the friends list is a woman by the name of Rohini. Could it be Rohini Reiss?
 
Los Angeles magazine did a gabby cover story in 2001 about Reiss, a twentysomething velvet-rope butterfly whose father is Indian:

Rohini grew up in Northridge, where she lived with her dad–who is Indian and worked for Boeing–and her mom, who is British, until the couple’s marriage difficulties overwhelmed them and Rohini followed her mother at 16 to a small apartment in Sherman Oaks…

… They were amazed at this gift who wore no makeup, who could smoke massive amounts of pot and still beat them on Super Mario or Zelda…

… in L.A. a woman so inclined can arrive out of nowhere… and insinuate herself into the highest echelons… They are fresh arrivals like Christie Prody, who left Minnesota to stand outside O.J. Simpson’s gate until he came down off the Exercycle to take her number… Rohini and Jessica were over the rope, smiling past the paparazzi who shouted, “Who are you? Let us take your picture!” and into the club…

The anthropology of dating inside the L.A. Scene, on the other hand, is as complicated as a structuralist’s interpretation of a Balinese cockfight. As Rohini explained it once over lunch, there are four major motifs: (1) Men (and some women) are always attempting to have sex with as many partners as possible; (2) No one wants anyone else to know who they are sleeping with; which leads to (3) Couples passing as single people in clubs to avoid detection; and finally (4) The Slut/Angel/Slut typology…

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Preity Zinta defies reaper of grim

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Bollywood actress Preity Zinta writes about a pair of year-end brushes with death in a column for BBC News. Her first experience came during a concert and dance show entitled “Temptation 2004” in Colombo, Sri Lanka:

I am waiting in the left wing for my finale. The music is pulsing through the audience, and the pyrotechnics are lighting up the inky black night.

Suddenly I see a man in the front row flying to his left. Then I see Shah Rukh looking to his right and left. Then I see the dancers disappear.

What is happening?

I stepped on the stage and leaned over. I saw a pool of blood in the front rows. The security men grab us from behind and ask us to leave.

A bomb has exploded in the front rows – two people are dead, more than a dozen injured. The concert has come to a bloody end.

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