Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

Aarti Sequeira Brings her Paarti to The Next Food Network Star

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Attention, foodies! There’s a contestant who specializes in Indian food on the current season of The Next Food Network Star (Sundays 9p/8c.)

Aarti Sequeira is a Los Angeles-based food blogger and the host of Aarti Paarti, her own Internet cooking show. After working as a journalist for a few years, Sequeira’s life took a Julie and Julia-esque turn after her marriage:

A few years later, a freshly-married Aarti moved to Los Angeles, with no job prospects. Cooking dinner for her husband, actor Brendan McNamara (director and cameraman on Aarti Paarti, as well as fellow popcorn jig-er!) became the highlight of her day. She worked her way through both The Joy of Cooking and her mum’s carefully typed out recipes, each dish turning out just a little better than the last. She began to fantasize about each night’s dinner, usually as soon as she had finished her lunch, which she had fantasized about when she finished breakfast, which she’d fantasized about since going to bed the previous evening (seeing a pattern here?).

(Here’s an interesting fact about Sequeira’s journalism career: she was the co-producer of Sand and Sorrow, the 2007 documentary about Darfur that was produced and narrated by George Clooney.)

Watch a clip from the season premiere below. During her introductory package Sequeira said that her goal is to “simplify Indian cooking and make it easy for the average person. I cook rustic family meals with a lot of specific Indian spices: garam masala, turmeric, cardamom pods.”

It gets a bit emotional at 1:48 as Sequeira describes what winning would mean to her parents, who live in India:

I am very curious to see the kinds of recipes Sequeira will come up with over the course of the season. The first dish she made on the show was a very simple rasam. You can find the recipe she used here. Continue reading →

The Chaiwallas Behind the BOOMbox

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cwbblogo2.jpgI’m not quite sure how I stumbled into Chaiwalla’s BOOMbox, but it quickly became my blog addiction. I looked forward to posts like like a fat kid to cake – I was guaranteed good music tinged with Desi flavor, sometimes with a video and more often than not with a free music download. I was beyond curious to see who were the chaiwallas behind the BOOMbox and to figure out how the heck they had found enough addictive music for daily doses. Little did I know that the six-month long project had taken off, going from blog to record label, with their first album by San Francisco based DJ Janaka Selekta dropping this July.

I got the chance to interview Umar Akbar and Tarun Nayar, the duo behind the BOOMbox for the mutinous horde. And for your listening pleasure, the chaiwallas are providing a FREE DOWNLOAD off of Janaka Selekta‘s forthcoming album “Pushing Air” EXCLUSIVELY for Sepia Mutiny readers.

Reborn by Janaka Selekta from the album “Pushing Air” by chaiWalla’s BOOMbox

What is Chaiwalla’s BOOMBox? Why did you choose to use blog as format?

Well CWBB is the story of a Boombox that’s been put under a spell by a Shaman. Unfortunately the boombox is still only 80 watts, so its not that loud but the blog can be heard on millions of computer speakers simultaneously, which is why we did it.

Who are the two chaiwallas behind the BOOMBox? Where are you based?

Well the real Mr. Chaiwalla is actually out saving the world from really bad music and villain’s, so he has entrusted us, Tarun Nayar and Umar Akbar with his sacred mission. We are based out of Western Canada.

Do you guys make your own music?

Yes, 1/2 of CWBB does. Tarun Nayar is a band member in Delhi 2 Dublin and is currently touring there new EP Planet Electric. Tarun is also scheduled to release his solo project sometime this Fall under CWBB. Continue reading →

14-year-old Desi Girl Wins Spelling Bee

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Congrats, Anamika Veeramani!

The fourteen-year-old eighth grader from North Royalton, Ohio became the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion last night. Anamika won the trophy and $40,000 in cash and prizes after correctly spelling “stromuhr.” (If, like me, you weren’t familiar with that word, it’s “an instrument for measuring the velocity of the blood flow.”)

Anamika is the third consecutive Indian-American spelling bee champion (following Kavya Shivashankar last year and Sameer Mishra in 2008.) An astonishing 8 out of the last 12 spelling bee champions have been Indian-American. Slate’s Explainer column thinks the phenomenon can be attributed to the community’s “minor-league spelling bee circuit”:

The [North South Foundation] circuit consists of 75 chapters run by close to 1,000 volunteers. The competitions, which began in 1993, function as a nerd Olympiad for Indian-Americans–there are separate divisions for math, science, vocab, geography, essay writing, and even public speaking–and a way to raise money for college scholarships for underprivileged students in India. There is little financial reward for winners (just a few thousand dollars in college scholarships) compared with the $40,000 winning purse handed out each year by Scripps. Still, more than 3,000 kids participated in NSF’s spelling events this year due in part to what NSF founder Ratnam Chitturi calls a sort of Kavya Effect. “Most American kids look up to sports figures,” he says. “Indian kids are more interested in education, and they finally have a role model.”

For their part, Anamika’s family told the AP that they don’t know why Indian-Americans thrive at the bee:

[Anamika’s father Alagaiya Veeramani] guessed it has something to do with a hard-work ethic.

“This has been her dream for a very, very long time. It’s been a family dream, too,” said Veeramani, explaining that his daughter studied as many as 16 hours on some days. “I think it has to do with an emphasis on education.”

16 hours a day! Here’s hoping you have a relaxing summer, Anamika. You earned it. Continue reading →

Winking at Aziz at the MTV Movie Awards

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Hey Aziz Ansari! I’m gonna be one of those infamous seat fillers at this year’s MTV Movie Awards 2010 on June 6th! You better be winking at a brown face you see in the audience, because I’ll be winking back…!

First of all, how did Aziz Ansari get a gig like hosting the 19th Annual MTV Movie Awards? I mean we’ve written about his rise in fame here, and here, and here… but damn! A national awards show? Is it possible that he could just be the first Desi to host a national televised award show? Moving up. Second, how precious are those baby pictures? (h/t Ami)

Stephen Friedman, the general manager of MTV, said Mr. Ansari’s pop-cultural tastes made him an ideal embodiment of the millennial-generation viewers whom the channel wants to reach.

“He’s playing with music, our sweet spot, but doing it in a way that creates a visceral connection with everyone in our audience,” Mr. Friedman said. “This guy gets us in a much more immediate way than other comedians. He’s grown up with the audience.”

What Mr. Ansari won’t do is exploit his minority status for laughs, or make it the focus of his comedy. You won’t hear him opining about his parents’ background as Tamil Muslims from India, and he said he’s tired of people’s assumptions that he encountered rampant racism growing up in the South. [nyt] Continue reading →

Ack! They are Back!

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I was the biggest Badmash comicstrip fangirl. Biggest. So it was with giddy excitement that I opened up my e-mail announcing a new Desi comicstrip hitting the interwebs by Badmash boy Sandeep Sood. ACK! (“Amar Chitra Katha”) is a “comic that places two bit characters from the Mahabharata into modern-day Jersey.” With a plot line like that, how can you not be just a wee bit curious? ACK-2-final-texture.jpg

See Issue 1 to Ack! right here. The comic strip is only two weeks in, so who really knows where the story can go from here. At this rate, just about anywhere. Who woulda thunk of Jersey-fiying the Mahabharata? What was Sandeep thinking?

I first learned about Hinduism through comic books…So, like a good, inclusive Hindu, I allowed these stories to merge with the other epics I followed on Saturday mornings and then recreated during the week. Continue reading →

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

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There’s nothing more uncomfortable than accepting an invitation to a dinner party only to discover over the salad course that your host’s girlfriend is a virulent racist. Just ask Sir Ben Kingsley.

Gawker.com published this blind item a few days ago:

“Ben Kingsley told a story on The View this morning about an unpleasant dinner he had at the home of a Hollywood actor: ‘There are times when I wish I could have said or done something differently. [For example] The last time I was here, there was an old Hollywood actor who invited me back to his home. He was with his aging German girlfriend. I was instantly nervous around her. During the meal, she said “Are you Jewish?” And I said, “No as a matter of fact, I’m half Indian and half English.” And she said “Oh my god, that’s even worse.” [audience gasps] So, I did not drop my knife and fork and say “F* you.” I stayed in a state of rage throughout the dinner. Why? Because everything happens for a reason. And now here I am with you and [pointing at the camera] if you’re still around, you racist old witch…[gesturing to The View panel] these girls have now heard it, and you know who you are! You know who you are!’

Nearly everyone reading this can relate to this story at least a little. I certainly know what it is like to silently sit in a state of rage after hearing a racist remark at a party, wishing I had either a) called the person out, b) immediately gone home, or c) both. I have to admit that I’m a bit jealous that Kingsley got to verbally tear this woman to shreds on national television. Who hasn’t imagined doing that?

Watch the video below for the full effect of Kingsley’s tale (complete with faux German accent.) The look on his face as he shouts “You know who you are!” is priceless.

How have mutineers handled situations like this? What would you have done differently if given a do-over? And any guesses as to who hosted this ill-fated dinner party? (Most of the Gawker commenters think it’s this Hollywood legend, which, if true, would make me more than a little sad.) Continue reading →

M.I.A. in the N.Y.T.

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I’m wondering what readers think of the long profile of M.I.A. in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. The author of the piece, Lynn Hirschberg, seems to have gotten pretty much unprecedented access to the Sri Lankan/British/American star, who recently had a child.

For Hirschberg, the high point in terms of subversive M.I.A. performances was the Grammys in 2009, when M.I.A. appeared on stage with four male rap stars, nine months pregnant. Apparently her contractions started while on stage! But Hirschberg also has some pointed comments on some of M.I.A.’s recent work, including the strange (I thought, awful) video to “Born Free.” Here is Hirschberg’s account of it:

Unlike, say, her performance at the Grammys, which was a perfect fusion of spectacle (a nine-months-pregnant woman rapping in a see-through dress) with content (Maya’s fervor was linked to the music), the video for “Born Free” feels exploitative and hollow. Seemingly designed to be banned on YouTube, which it was instantly, the video is set in Los Angeles where a vague but apparently American militia forcibly search out red-headed men and one particularly beautiful red-headed child. The gingers, as Maya called them, using British slang, are taken to the desert, where they are beaten and killed. The first to die is the child, who is shot in the head. While “Born Free” is heard in the background throughout, the song is lost in the carnage. As a meditation on prejudice and senseless persecution, the video is, at best, politically naïve. (link)

I’m not so much interested in M.I.A’s particular politics, which I’ve disagreed with in the past. Yes, she has a very emotional, oversimplified account of recent events in Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers in particular — let’s not have that fight again.

I’m more wondering what kind of image of the artist and performer we get from this article. Does M.I.A. really know what she’s doing? She’s had an album that was a big Indie hit (“Arular”), and one major commercial success, with “Paper Planes,” (off “Kala”); and there were several other solid, highly creative tracks off that second album. Given how important her producers are in her creative process, is it even fair to say that she’s at the helm of her own ship? Do you think she’s due for another success with her upcoming third album, or is her current direction a musical misfire, born of too much self-indulgence?

Finally, what did readers think of the second single off the as-yet unreleased new album, XXXO? Continue reading →

We Regret To Inform You That Your Condolences Cannot Be Accepted At This Time

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Topography_of_sri_lanka.jpg

As Amardeep noted last week, we are at about the one-year anniversary of the end of the war in Sri Lanka. For the occasion, Groundviews did a special edition, to which I contributed a short story. I’m cross-posting it here.

We Regret to Inform You That Your Condolences Cannot Be Accepted At This Time

a short story

We regret to inform you that your condolences cannot be accepted at this time. At present, both our pain and our hope defy that word, which has been offered and denied us, which we need and do not need, and which in any case we cannot accept, because they (your condolences) will not reach from what has happened to what will come.

We find the word condolences stunning in its insufficiency for past and future.

We evacuated our homes in the light; we vanished from our homes in the dark; we walked away from our families, toward the weapons, and wished that we could turn around. Our bodies entered the earth in places we cannot now identify, and so we are everywhere, blown to dust. By both dying in and surviving this place, we will live here long after your condolences become a ghost in your throat.

We joined others’ battles, willingly and unwillingly; we walked forward on paths not our own when the paths we would have chosen were closed to us. We were incidental; we were vital; we were enemies; we were friends; we were disputed; we were uncounted. In a small country, we felt far away from you. In a small world, we felt far away from you. We were your people and not your people.

We could not wait for you to remember us.

Continue reading →

Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby / Let’s Talk About You and Me

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Let’s talk about the old men in the corner who will stone us – if
We talk about sex

I know this news is more than a month old, but the charges against actor Kushboo dragged on for so long that I think it’s perfectly acceptable to drag on their well-deserved death. You might have heard that late last month, the Indian Supreme Court quashed all defamation charges against her. It was alleged that in a 2005 interview with the Tamil edition of India Today, Kushboo denigrated the good name of Tamil women by insinuating that they all have sex before getting married. For this, she was lampooned in the Tamil press, and there were street protests in Tamil Nadu – one particularly memorable for a donkey bearing her name.

First, a wee bit o’ background. Kushboo is a star of Tamil film and more recently television. Those in the know will relish taking apart the previous sentence in the comments section as the understatement of the year. They are welcome to. I will simply say that both of my grandmothers watched her serial “Kalki” and watch her weekly quiz show “Jackpot” – brought to you by Arokya Milk – with a devotion not seen since… dare I say Doordarshan’s Ramayana?

kushboo.jpg
Photo by Scott Carney

The big stink started with India Today’s 2005 annual issue on SEX – the most blatant attempt to boost ratings since… dare I say Doordarshan’s Ramayana? (Kidding, kiddiiiiing). The issue features a sex survey, and each year is different. The theme of the 2005 survey was “Sex and the Single Woman.” The Tamil edition of India Today interviewed Kushboo for the issue and the dignity of Tamil women hasn’t been the same since. I can’t find anything on India Today’s site (so I don’t know if what I’m giving you is the real deal), but here’s a version of the interview which the author transcribed. I humbly offer the following translation. Please feel free to correct.

Continue reading →

Pass the Mic: Interview with Riz MC

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I was first blown away by Riz Ahmed when I saw him perform on Britz. It was only afterwords that I realized that Riz wasn’t just an actor – he’s also known as Riz MC. Straight out of the U.K., his lyrics are dynamic and controversial and his sound dances on the edge of gritty hip hop and electro sci fi. Amardeep’s written about Riz MC’s controversial lyrics in the past. I had the chance to sit down virtually with the infamous Riz. Here’s what he said.

Taz: Though you’ve been MCing for a few years, MICroscope is your debut album. Why did you wait so long to release your first album?

Riz: I guess you could say it was because I was busy filming. But in reality, I also wanted to take the time to find my sound and set out a unique style of music and lyrics – dense lyrical ideas with bold simple electronic or totally acoustic sounds. This album took 18 months to make.

T: On your website you say that “the album is coupled with a groundbreaking live show and a trans-media online experience.” What exactly does that mean?

R: There’s a live show that goes with the album. It’s a gig or concert but it also has a story line in which the audience is involved in moving forward. It’s pretty unique as a concept and in the way it’s performed. There’s a short film that ties in with it too. Both the website for the album and live shows are cutting edge digital interactive. So it’s an album, show, film, and website all set at different points in the same story world. Continue reading →