Khan Takes on Manhattan

Dear Mutineers,

There are exciting happenings going on in the bunker nowadays for those interested in all news Bollywood and Hollywood. Taz just came back from Sundance (where she met Aamir Khan and Sendhil Ramamurthy) and today Cicatrix and I will be around in NYC, covering the My Name is Khan press conference featuring Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Karan Johar. If you’ll remember, we talked about Khan’s new movie back in August, where we found out he was going to meet President Obama (played by Christopher Duncan). And of course there was that whole Newark airport incident (which some of you suspected was a publicity stunt done to promote the movie, much like his joining Twitter). Continue reading

Houston’s Gandhi District

For those of you who have been there, you know that the entire portion of Houston outside the 610 loop, and between the 6 and 9 hand of the clock, is Asian. Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Pakistani. Asian. Hillcroft street is where all the South Asian businesses are concentrated, much like Chicago has Devon St.

Businessman Aku Patel watched as two workers installed the orange-trimmed Mahatma Gandhi District signs atop a Harwin Drive street sign.

The owner of Karat 22 Jewelers on Hillcroft Avenue and other members of the South Asian community have waited seven years for these temple-shaped signs to go up in southwest Houston.

“It’s a great feeling,” Patel said proudly as he stood in the drizzling rain and watched Zane Frazar and Ron Mitchell install some of the 31 signs that will decorate street signs along Hillcroft Avenue, Harwin Drive, Fondren Road and Westpark Drive.

Leaders of the India Culture Center and Indian merchants have long wanted to rename Hillcroft Avenue Mahatma Gandhi Avenue, but municipal rules require 75 percent of commercial property owners on a street to sign a petition in support of changing the name before the City Council can consider it.

More than 76,000 people of Indian descent live in the Greater Houston area. [Link]

Two weeks ago I was in Mexico City. A waiter realized my companions and I weren’t Mexican and he said, “Indios como Gandhi, no?”

“Si, como Gandhi,” I thought, silently defeated. Don’t get me wrong. I admire Gandhi greatly. He’s my om boy. But how many Indians have lived on Earth since the dawn of man? And yet the most expedient way to describe us is that we are “como Gandhi.”

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Super Secret Supper Club

This will be my second SM post exposing an underground eating establishment. Part of the allure of an underground restaurant is that it remains somewhat hush hush, hidden from the hordes of hipsters waiting to overrun it and then subsequently Facebook about it. Last weekend I went to my favorite Vietnamese sandwich shop in Houston. Tofu, carrots, and greens inside a hot 8″ French bun for only $2.95. Magical. But on this visit, for the first time, it was packed and they were playing Jay Z and L. Fiasco over the sound system. The always empty parking lot was full so I had to park on the street and a bird shit on my car. So then, why would I ruin it for the select few D.C. residents who already know about this supper club I am about to expose? Because that’s my job. I see brown and I expose it, wherever it may be.

HUSH is a secret supper club in the U Street neighborhood of Washington, DC, offering Indian vegetarian meals you won’t find in any restaurant. At HUSH, the meals are sumptuous, fresh and organic. At each supper, the chef will give a spice tour and explain the origins of each meal.

Both the salon and dining room are designed to please the eye and relax the mind. Reserve a seat at the social table where strangers become friends, or request a table in the Salon for an intimate meal. [Link]

How it Works

Hush is run by a chef named Geeta who claims to be well versed in topics such as Jainism, anthropology, and food politics (a topic that combines my two favorite…topics). That’s all she is willing to reveal, although if you follow her tweets you may uncover more.

NEXT SUPPER CLUB DATES
Saturday, February 6 at 8 PM – FULLY BOOKED
Saturday, February 13 at 8 PM – FULLY BOOKED
SINGLE HEARTS – Sunday, February 14 at 7 PM [Link]

I like her Single Hearts concept:

‘Single Hearts’ – Sunday, February 14 at 7 PM open only for singles unburdened by love or lawful bliss (No married cheats on the prowl, please) Noah’s Ark Style – one man for every woman at the table.

Alright hordes. Go do your thing. Book her solid. And while your at it, ask her what she thinks about blogs.

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How you doin’, Kamaljeet?

Jay Sean, the brown (whom we’ve known about for years) who crooned “Down”, was on The Wendy Williams show two days ago. Behold:

After he performed “Down” and “Do you remember , Williams exclaimed to her guest, “You are, STUNNING!” She followed up with “You’re exotic and spicy, what is your background??”. Mr. Jhooti let her know that his “heritage” was Indian and immediately clarified that he did not, in fact, live in a “wigwam”, i.e. that he wasn’t THAT kind of Indian.

Other scintillating bits from the show included Jay swatting down rumors about Ashley Tisdale, a mention of how the New York Post named him one of NYC’s most eligible bachelors and Sean’s confirmation that he’s already got a bird. So all you single ladies (all the single ladies)…and single men (all the single men), if you were in to him…you’re tatti out of luck. 🙂 Continue reading

Working the prefrontal cortex since the Gupta Empire

There were two stories relating to human cognition today that really had me thinking about the way we…think (how appropriate). The first involves the game of chess. You know, the game of kings invented so long ago in India:

Chess is commonly believed to have originated in North-West India during the Gupta empire, where its early form in the 6th century was known as caturanga (Sanskrit: four divisions [of the military] – infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariotry, represented by the pieces that would evolve into the modern pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively). The earliest evidence of Chess is found in the neighboring Sassanid Persia around 600 where the game is known under the name became chatrang. [Link]

Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion (the current is India’s Viswanathan Anand) has penned a brilliant (absolute must-read) essay/review of the new book, Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind. The title of his essay could have easily been, “How I Learned to Stop Battling and Love the Computer.” It chronicles his victories over the machines, followed by his losses, followed finally by a type of brutally efficient partnership. Let the human worry about strategy and the machine about tactics.

…I narrowly defeated the supercomputer Deep Blue in a match. Then, in 1997, IBM redoubled its efforts–and doubled Deep Blue’s processing power–and I lost the rematch in an event that made headlines around the world. The result was met with astonishment and grief by those who took it as a symbol of mankind’s submission before the almighty computer. (“The Brain’s Last Stand” read the Newsweek headline.) Others shrugged their shoulders, surprised that humans could still compete at all against the enormous calculating power that, by 1997, sat on just about every desk in the first world.

It was the specialists–the chess players and the programmers and the artificial intelligence enthusiasts–who had a more nuanced appreciation of the result. Grandmasters had already begun to see the implications of the existence of machines that could play–if only, at this point, in a select few types of board configurations–with godlike perfection. The computer chess people were delighted with the conquest of one of the earliest and holiest grails of computer science, in many cases matching the mainstream media’s hyperbole. The 2003 book Deep Blue by Monty Newborn was blurbed as follows: “a rare, pivotal watershed beyond all other triumphs: Orville Wright’s first flight, NASA’s landing on the moon….” [Link]

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Tea with Chachaji

Chachaji060s.jpg

Himanshu from the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC) passed on information about an event I thought mutineers around NYC and Stanford would find interesting. Tea with Chachaji is an off-Broadway family musical based on the the book “Chachaji’s Cup” by Uma Krishnaswami and directed and choreographed by Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj. It tells the story of a boy, his great-uncle and a teacup. Produced through a partnership between IAAC and Making Books Sing, the musical stars Raja Burrows as Neel, a young boy whose great-uncle, played by Tony Mirrcandani, teaches him valuable lessons about life through stories about a teacup brought over from India. Continue reading

Peter Jackson and Patrick Christopher Sing ‘Indian Girl’

Warning: Video = NSFW unless your boss is the kind of person who is okay with explicit lyrics…

Ennis tipped me off to ‘Indian Girl,’ a song by 24-year old Canadian rapper Peter Jackson (no, not the LOTR guy) featuring Patrick Christopher. From what I recall of my childhood trips to Canada, desis had all but taken over certain parts of the communities I visited. When we strolled down the streets of Toronto, I felt like I was more in Pakistan than Canada. So it’s hardly a surprise that a song like this would emerge from Canada. Continue reading

On the Road to Sundance

Under an odd twist of fate, I find myself for the first time in my life actually interested in the glitz and glamor of Hollywood relocating to the cold hills of Park City, Utah. As mentioned in a previous post, I have had a minuscule bit of involvement with the book-to-movie feature film The Taqwacores which will be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24th. I have recently been asked to join the Taqwacore madness at Utah, from staying in the rented 4 bedroom punk house with 30 other actors and/or punks, to checking out the punk rock shows in Park City and Salt Lake City featuring The Kominas and Al Thawra. I will be blogging about my Taqx experiences for those two weeks at the tumblr site Taqx at Sundance. Additionally, I will also be crossposting/blogging for MTV Iggy about movies, actors and potentially interviews.

My mind is spinning with the prospect that this little blogger now has a press pass to access one of the coolest film festivals there is. And what an amazing year to join the madness. There are a few films at Sundance which I think are Sepia Mutiny worthy to keep an eye on over the next year:

It looks like a cute movie, and definitely is the shoe in for that one movie for this year’s Desi diaspora flick. I am really excited at the prospect of speaking to both Gurinder and Sendhil about their experience working on the film. Continue reading

Rasika Mathur Skates Into the Moshpit

the_three.jpg Kick, kick, push…. went our Sector 9 skateboards along the coast of the beach of Santa Barbara; my board was painted with surf waves, and hers was appropriately painted with an image of Ganesh. I was skating with Rasika Mathur, comedian, actress, and funny person extraordinaire. When I found out that Rasika was a skater chick, I knew that I just had to conduct our interview while skateboarding on the beach.

You may have seen her on MTV’s sketch comedy show Wild N Out or on the film festival circuit promoting her rap music sari tutorial, Sari (W)rap. Or maybe you’ve seen her in character as Nilam Auntie in a viral video. I caught up with Rasika just after she had just flown back from being on set in Ohio for The Taqwacores motion picture. Directed by Eyad Zahra, the movie was adapted from Michael Muhammad Knight’s fictitious book The Taqwacores and will be premiering on January 24th at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie revolves around the lives of punk rock Muslim characters that live in a punk house in upstate New York and their subsequent exploration of identity and shenanigans. The movie features Maxim sexpot Noureen Dewulf playing the burqa clad riot grrl Rabeya as well as featuring American Dreamz Tony Yalda playing the flamboyant Muzzamil (on the right in above picture), amongst others.

Playing the role of the activist Muslim punk chick character Fatima is Rasika Mathur. I first met up with her before she left for the movie set. She wanted some inspiration for her character, so I hung out with her for a day, taking her to the mosque and teaching her about “DIY”, “NOFX” and “circle pits” . I made her promise when she returned from set, that in exchange, I’d get a Sepia Mutiny exclusive interview. So here it is, my interview with Rasika Mathur.

On working on a “Muslim” focused movie, after being raised in a Hindu home:

It really helped me to expand my mind and break my perceptions. You took me to a mosque so that I could get some real hardcore research and so that I could get what the heck this book was describing this whole time. Maybe the best thing that people can do to become tolerant is to literally put themselves in other people’s shoes by doing a film. Because you have to study what the role is and I shifted my perception by doing this. Continue reading

See Gul

My friend Adnan, who I have previously blogged about, is touring the film festival circuit with his new animated short, Gul (flower). Next up is the Slamdance Festival in Utah starting Jan 22nd.

“Gul” (flower) A short film by Adnan Hussain (Trailer 2) from Adnan Hussain on Vimeo.

Gul, a young girl, is awakened by her mother’s dying breath. She struggles to recall her past. A child’s view illustrates conflicts between abuse, self determination, human rights, and the environment. Her world manifests through visual poetry. Raw, expressive, painted style computer animation is scored with masterful Sindhi Folk music from the villages of Pakistan. With all that she finds, can love create hope in the face of oppression? [Link]

I am really excited by this film for two reasons. First, Adnan is a phenomenal talent and I think more people should be exposed to that. When we used to go out to bars/music venues in LA he would bring his water colors. In the time it took me to down a glass of whiskey he had already completed a painting of the band on stage. Who needs a camera in their phone when you have skills like that? Second, the movie “looks” really original. I can’t remember seeing anything else that has the look and feel of the film that I am seeing in the trailer above. If I recall correctly, Adnan also worked on the 2007 film Beowulf.

If you get a chance to see this film let us know what you think.

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