Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

Brain hemmorage kills actor Puri

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Veteran actor Amrish Puri died Wednesday morning at a hospital in Bombay. He was 72.

Various reports indicate that Puri suffered a brain hemmorage, and was in a coma at the time of his passing. He was also undergoing treatment for malaria, and was in the hospital just one week earlier for a surgical procedure.

Puri, who started acting at a late age, is best known for his roles in “Mr. India,” “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge,” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”

He is survived by his wife, son and daughter.

Rediff: Amrish Puri is dead

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So, Bruce Springsteen Inspired Rabbi to Make a Sufi Album in Punjabi

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Rabbi Shergill.jpg It sounds like a joke right? So, Bruce Springsteen, a Rabbi and a Sufi walk into a bar? Well, I did take some liberties, he’s not a Rabbi, he’s a Sikh (oh, that makes it simpler) named Rabbi Shergill who recorded a song commonly referred to on the web as the “Bulla ki Janna” number (I have no clue, I just found him b/c Mira Nair compared him to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.)

Shergill is a crossover fusion artist who combines Western and Eastern music, but the articles I’ve read aren’t precise. Sometimes they say he draws upon Heavy Metal, and othertimes Rock. Sometimes they say he employs Punjabi Folk, other times Sufi Music (which is punjabi, and not classical, but hardly folk either). Here’s his backstory:

Shergill fell in love with music after he went to a Bruce Springsteen concert while at school. Now he has a fan following that includes the likes of Amitabh Bachchan and V.S. Naipaul. [cite]

I like his look and attitude:

But why an album in Punjabi? “Did you know Punjabi is the ninth most spoken language in the world?” is his swift retort before he adds, “It is my pride.” [cite]

He clearly has the ambition to match:

He asserts that he aims big – big stadiums, a large audience and loads of fame. “My father’s anonymity, despite his talent, made him scream aloud. I want to be heard. I use my ego to further my cause.” [cite]

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‘Bhowani Junction’

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Aishwarya’s crossover plan is running on IST: old-time starlet Ava Gardner, who’s currently being impersonated in The Aviator, crossed over way back in the ’50s. Gardner starred in Bhowani Junction, a 1956 film about an Anglo-Indian struggling with identity in post-Partition India.

I haven’t seen it, so I’ve got no idea whether it was more respectful than Gunga Din and its ilk. The character does try ‘going native,’ and she does wear brownface, though it seems subtle. Money quote: ‘I thought I could overcome my guilt by becoming a Sikh!’ Reel Movie Critic has the plot summary:

Ava Gardner delivers a stellar performance of a ravishing nurse in the English army in India in 1947… She initially is romantically involved with another “chi-chi” (half-breed)… She is the victim of an attempted rape by her brutal co-worker, Lt. McDaniel (Lionel Jeffries), which sends her into the safe and strict arms of a traditional Indian, Ranjit [Singh] Kasel (Francis Mathews).  Draped in a sari, she makes bold political/racial statements by showing up at various military events dressed in traditional Indian attire. But she seems to appear to her British colleagues to be trying too hard to claim her new ethnic identity… Ultimately she has a romance with a stoic, brave Anglo-Saxon British Officer… she realistically declines to return with him as his wife to live in England, certain she will be treated like a half-breed outsider in that society.

Chowk fills in the backstory:

… it is quite similar in theme to Deepa Mehta’s ‘Earth 1947’ which also deals with Partition through the eyes of a Parsi girl, another outsider to Indian society… Fifty years on, people still talk about when Ava Gardner came to Lahore to film this movie. I think every man of the previous generation fell in love with her then… it says a lot about an actor or actress who is willing to take on a complex role in a different culture – like Christopher Lee who took on Jinnah back in 1997.

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First Cell Phones, now TV sets at IG International

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Besharam!

A steamy adult movie screened on television sets at the international airport in New Delhi has baffled authorities, who had installed them for entertainment of passengers. “I have conducted preliminary inquiry of staff in the electronics department. They said the movie was part of an AIDS awareness programme,” Indira Gandhi International Airport officiating director Mandeep Lal told the agency on Saturday. The adult film appeared on all television sets installed in the airport, prompting passengers to complain to the authorities. But it was taken off the air only after 20 long minutes.

GASP! Didn’t they get the memo? THERE IS NO SEX IN INDIA! All of those humans come from a highly sophisticated form of Vedic cloning. The Kama Sutra is a trick by Westerners to weaken young, pure, Indians and take their mind off of schooling.

I know what happened. These guys were watching a video, and accidentally tripped a switch and … no?

Lal ruled out the possibility that the staff in the electronic department were clandestinely viewing the adult film in the cable operator’s room without realising it was being screened on all TV sets. “We don’t allow any such things (adult films) to come even near our office,” he said.

Well. Allrighty then. Any ideas?

[Via Amardeep, story from the HT]

The tufani entrepreneur

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The PR machine formerly known as Mira Nair says fast and cheap is where it’s at (via India Uncut):

When you have a big budget, like a Harry Potter, you have that many more people to answer to. You are simply one part of the machine that takes it over. It’s actually the freedom, the creative freedom, that is imperative for me. It comes only when the stakes are really low financially. That’s why I had total freedom to make a Salaam Bombay, or to make a Monsoon Wedding or to make a Namesake… If you have a big budget, you have that many more men in suits to deal with…

I like to do things unobtrusively and quietly, without much fanfare. People often don’t know what we are up to until it’s over. And that’s the secret.

She whips out her population and lays it on the table:

Let’s just face facts: our Indian cinema audience is now bigger than the Hollywood audience. So it’s not about wanting to be what they are, it’s about them opening their eyes to us…

On desi provincialism:

The extraordinary irony in making Mississippi Masala was that the African-American community and the Indian community were remarkably similar — in their love for family, in their communal sort of way for operating, in religion even, in that sort of emphasis on family bond and God for instance. But would an Indian ever cross the track into an African-American family? No way.

Kumar’s ‘Salon’

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Salon writer Stephanie Zacharek loves how Harold and Kumar shows unremarkable, assimilated hyphen-Americans instead of relegating minorities to ethnic curio shops (thanks, Razib):

“Harold & Kumar”… may have said more about race in America today than any other movie of last year. .. [W]hat’s most impressive about “Harold & Kumar”… is that it didn’t dawn on me until the movie was nearly over that its two protagonists weren’t your usual average white kids… There’s something freeing in the way “Harold & Kumar” treats its characters’ ethnic backgrounds not as a novelty, as a stumbling block or even as an advantage, but as a simple fact… Race is an issue in “Harold & Kumar,” but it’s not the issue…

Of course, Zacharek is using Spanglish as her benchmark, so make of that what you will. I think we know her inspiration for the story:

“Harold & Kumar” is a reminder that our great land is made up of people from many nations, and a few of them are quite stoned. Let he who is without sin light the first joint.

Here’s more on how Harold and Kumar deals with race.

Quick, call the desi cultural conspiracy! Stat!

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Tyler Cowen reports that, in a step backwards, “Lasagne has replaced chicken tikka massala as the favourite dish of Britons.” [The step backwards is Tyler’s interpretation, not mine. I’ve always been fond of Lasagna, and indifferent towards CTM]

Although Tyler is quoting the Beeb, he fails to quote the whole three sentences of the passage, which would explain their methodology for arriving at such a conclusion:

Lasagne has replaced chicken tikka massala as the favourite dish of Britons. Sainsbury’s sold 13.9 million lasagne ready meals and just 7.4 million chicken tikka massalas last year. Tesco sold 9.8 million lasagnes and 6.3 million chicken tikka massalas.

If the best way to find a country’s national dish is to look at their choice of frozen food entr&eacutees, then clearly we are losing ground to the Italians. Still, I doubt that curry will be easily dislodged from that special place in a Briton’s heart: even racist yobs eat curry before going out to work it off with a spot of PakiBashing. I suspect that curry has simply become so British to most Brits, that to them Lasagne is a far more exotic food item, one with a bit more pizzazz. They’ll be back. If not, we’ll deploy our secret weapon: Gobi Aloo.

Speaking of frozen CTK, when I spent a few weeks living in London I conducted a taste test by trying different frozen versions from different supermarkets. What I found was that the higher end supermarkets (like Sainsbury’s) had used superior ingredients (thus accounting for the higher cost of their entr&eacutee) but fewer spices, and that the best frozen CTK came from the lowest rent supermarket, a rather shady Safeway in a place I didn’t want to be caught after dark.

p.s. anybody know how to get accents above my “e”s, I’m embarassed to say “entree” Thanks Andrea. And merci for letting my spelling error pass unremarked! p.p.s. I have no idea what stat means, I’ve just always wanted to say it

‘Chaos Theory’… it’s like buttah

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Here’s a chance to catch one of my favorite plays by one of my favorite playwrights while scratching your desi sense of economy at the same time. A free staged reading of Chaos Theory by Anuvab Pal is taking place Mon 1/17 and Tue 1/18 in Manhattan.

Chaos Theory is an intensely romantic, delayed-gratification talkie for people who dig wordplay — you Before Sunset, Raincoat, Tumhari Amrita, Woody Allen fans. Y’all know who you are, you silver-tongued scoundrels.

The reading is being put on by Pulse Ensemble Theatre; Rajesh Bose, Sanjiv Jhaveri and Rita Wolf (My Beautiful Laundrette, Homebody / Kabul) star, Alexa Kelly directs.

Chaos Theory, 1/17-1/18, 7 PM, at the American Place Theatre, 520 8th Ave. (36th/37th), 22nd floor, 212.695.1596; free admission

Harold and Kumar Sign on for Two More

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The Arizona Republic is reporting that both John Cho and Kal Penn have signed on for two more sequels to the wildly popular (at least with the Sepia Mutiny crowd), Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle film. The writing has begun on the first sequel with the internet rumors being correct, it is entitled “Harold and Kumar Go to Amsterdam.”

Whether or not it’s going to be made depends on the financial receipts from DVD sales and rentals,” Kal Penn adds. “If you liked the movie, please rent or buy it – it’ll assure that we’ll bring you another one next year.”

As indicated in another SM post, the “Extreme Unrated” DVD of the film went on sale this past Tuesday, so go out there and buy it now! Continue reading →

Fisking the ‘Bride and Prejudice’ campaign

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The U.S. version of the Bride and Prejudice trailer was recently released (thanks, Abhi). It’s getting heavy promotion, it runs before The Aviator in New York City.

What happened in the marketing speaks volumes about how the world perceives Americans. The trailer has been recut not as a musical but as a romantic comedy. The U.S. version cuts down the bhangra centerpiece and the pajama song from the international trailer. The plot has been simplified, like the U.S. version of Bombay Dreams; the subplot with the second male lead has been removed.

In a nod to the U.S., Martin Henderson gets a lot more lines, the R&B artist Ashanti is featured prominently in the voiceover, Indira Verma makes a crack about American Idol, and there are a couple of Baywatch, L.A. and surfer shots that weren’t in the international trailer. India’s Third World-ness is played up for comic effect, there’s no mention of Amritsar in the subtitle and there are precious few turbaned guys for a film set in Punjab (the ones who do exist hurry by, out of focus).

I watched the trailer live last night and heard very little audience reaction. Either it fell flat, or the audience didn’t know what to think. The serpent dance sequence at the very end drew a few titters. It wasn’t what I expected from a New York crowd, which is generally pretty down with desi culture.

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