Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

New South Asian Fiction Writers in Guernica / Asian-American Literary Festival

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I know the Mutiny community has lots of literature lovers, so I wanted to let you know about some sharp new writers, and where you can find them–Amitava Kumar and I have edited the fiction section of Guernica this month, and it features South Asian writers. Tomorrow, two of them (Tania James and Hasanthika Sirisena) will be joining us for a reading in Brooklyn as part of Page Turner – The Asian American Literary Festival. (There’s a day of great programming–we’re on at 3. Disclosure: Amitava and I are both on the board of AAWW, the sponsoring org.)

I thought it would be interesting to talk to some of the writers a little bit more about the stories they submitted, and writing in general. Sirisena, who won a prestigious Rona Jaffe Award last year, gave us a story called Murder The Queen. You can read it here. She agreed to chat with the Mutiny–Preeta Samarasan will follow next week.

Sirisena’s work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Glimmer Train, Narrative Magazine, Epoch, StoryQuarterly, Witness, Best New American Voices, and other publications.

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Pakistani Rock Queried by the NYT

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Let’s start with this song by the Pakistani rock group co-VEN, “Ready to Die”:

co-VEN was featured in a recent New York Times multimedia video by Adam Ellick (not embeddable) which can be seen here.

Other musicians mentioned in the Times story include Ali Azmat and the band Noori (identified in the video as the Noori Brothers). To me, Ali Azmat comes across as a blithering idiot in the Times video, but I found the comments from co-VEN more compelling — at least coherent. (For the most part, I agreed with the Pakistani journalists in the Times’ video, not the musicians.)

What was interesting to me was the fact that Ellick, in the Times video, seemed to be putting co-VEN forward as an example of a band that criticizes the west but not the Taliban.

I haven’t heard much of co-VEN’s other music (none of the songs on YouTube seem political) or looked closely at their public statements, but the lyrics to the song above are present in the YouTube video, and they seem more ambiguous than Adam Ellick suggests. While “Ready to Die” does put forward the idea that there is a pattern — and a long history of failure — to western policy in the Muslim world, I don’t necessarily think the song reflects Pakistanis in denial. You can be opposed to the “game of chess” co-VEN is talking about while also being opposed to what the extremists have been doing in Pakistan in recent months. I’m not sure co-VEN is actually willing to go there, but it seems like a stretch to put an interesting indie/metal band next to the more banal pop music of Ali Azmat and Noori, as if they’re all the same.

Oh, and one more thing: it’s a shame that this irreverent and upbeat song, Laga Re by Shehzad Roy, was apparently banned on Pakistani TV. (I wonder whether it might have circulated anyway through the internet etc.) Continue reading →

Q&A with Aasif Mandvi: “I Just Make Stuff Up”

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aasif_mandvi_sr.correspondent.jpgIf, like me, you’re addicted to “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart, then Aasif Mandvi needs no further introduction. If, for some reason, you don’t watch the show (what’s wrong with you? The internets flattened the world, remember? Click here to watch!) then you’ve seen him in everything from “CSI” to Spider Man 2, generally as a fleeting and funny brown presence. And if you happen to be a theater-going sort of person, you’ve seen him in all sorts of things, and may even know that he won two Obie Awards for his one-man play Sakina’s Restaurant. Multi-talented, is our Mr. Mandvi.

Anyway, the play was recently remade into a film (Today’s Special, also starring Aasif Mandvi) that’s been well-received in international film festivals. He was besieged by other press people (damn you, BBC!) at a screening in NY, but he kindly let me email questions which he promptly answered via Blackberry. Get ready for a formal exercise in true journalism (by that I mean ridiculousness):

What was it like to translate your play, Sakina’s Restaurant, into the film Today’s Special? Was anything lost in the process? Yes, we lost all the Monologues, and the fact that it was a one-man show, and we lost most of the characters in the play, and we came up with all-new characters and a new storyline and all-new lines for the characters to say and… come to think of it, I don’t think the two things are related at all.

Hmm… awkward.

[snip]

Your family left India for England when you were one, then moved to the US when you were 16, according to Wikipedia. How much did it suck to move as a teenager? Have you been back to India? It did suck, and yes I have been back to India…But don’t tell Wikipedia cos he doesn’t know yet…Shhh.

What’s the most offensive thing anyone’s ever said to you? I don’t remember the most offensive thing, but the second most offensive thing anyone ever called me was: a motherf@ckingdotheadtalibanterroristeatingpu##yfacedc@$ksuckera$$holesh!tstaincoloreddotragheadsandnegropakiwalacurrybreathingsh!tlicker.

Which I definitely thought was inappropriate.

(More with Aasif on being Muslim, the secret to getting hired at The Daily Show, sleeping with Margaret Cho, and light sabers. After the jump.) Continue reading →

The Family Gold: An open letter to South Asian parents

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Earlier this week I received a phone call from my mom asking me if I had heard of the egregious criminal activity that has caused many South Asian Americans in the DC area (specifically Northern Virginia’s Fairfax and Loudoun counties) to become worried and to take steps to protect their family jewels. My mom, probably typical of most desi moms, is overly sensitive to ANY criminal activity or health hazard (seemingly anywhere in the world) that has ANY chance to impact me…by whatever stretch of imagination. If Ebola breaks out in the Congo then I receive a call from my mom that evening. She just wants to make sure I am not hanging out with friends that have recently returned from the Congo…just to be safe. She is, of course, worried about her jewelry. It has all been safely relocated to a safety deposit box at an undisclosed bank.

When Raman Kumar’s Centreville home was burglarized in late February, he became an early victim in a crime spree that has continued across the county and into Loudoun, spiking last month.

“This is no ordinary burglary,” Kumar told the hundreds of residents, as well as numerous police officers and detectives, gathered at Colin Powell Elementary School in Centreville last Thursday, Oct. 29. He said the burglars who have been targeting the homes of South Asian residents for their gold jewelry were obviously well organized and well equipped with sophisticated equipment and information.

Three similar burglaries had been carried out that day, one in Oak Hill, one in Chantilly and another in South Riding, bringing the total to around 30. Two days earlier, two homes in Lorton had been burglarized, as well as one in Centreville and another in Fair Oaks. As in previous cases, the perpetrators broke in through back doors and windows in the late morning or afternoon and ransacked the master bedrooms, making off with gold jewelry, electronics and other valuables. In cases where homes were armed with security systems, those systems have been defeated. Any fake gold has been left behind…

Police believe South Asians are being targeted because they traditionally pass high-karat gold jewelry heirlooms from one generation to the next, and the price of gold now is especially high. Some victims have reported tens of thousands of dollars in losses. [link]

Since desi gold is on our minds, I would like to take the opportunity to address some fundamental “best practices” advice regarding gold within our community. Gold holds a special significance in desi culture and thus, demands a special discussion. I believe the following discussion will be even more useful if it can generate a conversation with our parents, many who are getting up there in age (hint: forward this post to them and see what they think):

1) Take a digital picture inventory of every valuable piece of gold (or otherwise) jewelry in your possession

You have collected a lot over your lifetime, loaned a lot out, and maybe even lost a lot. Take the time to document everything so you know what you have and can communicate to others what you may have had stolen. Plus, I know some of you will like flipping through an album of all your jewelry just because you can. Don’t be ashamed.

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Straight shooters, shorts and more at SFISAFF

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It’s a good thing that the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge reopened this week after freaking out unsuspecting motorists by dropping 5,000 pounds of metal last week. But even if it hadn’t Bay Area indie film fans would have found a way (BART still works, right?) to get to the Seventh Annual 3rd I San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival happening tonight through Sunday, November 5-8. That’s because the festival screenings include some very interesting short films, documentaries, and feature films from South Asia and the South Asian Diaspora. (You can view the SFISAFF trailer after the jump and all the film trailers at thirdi.org and at the end of this post.) Continue reading →

BROWNSTAR Revolutionizes the Mutiny

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It took me a moment before I realized that the two witty kids I was walking the late night streets of Boston with were the infamous BROWNSTAR duo. They had come to the Boston Sepia Mutiny meetup last month, and afterwards we went on a hunt for DJ Kayper. They were hilarious, and I had heard about them through the spoken word grapevine. The BROWNSTAR REVOLUTION duo is a two member poetry/theatre/performance duo, consisting of the NORTHSTAR (Pushkar Sharma) and SOUTHSTAR (Sathya Sridharan). Started in 2007, this duo has been hitting up open mics, college stages, and poetry lounges sharing their words with anyone that will listen. There performances can’t be categorized, but has all the potential to revolutionize.

BrownStar Revolution – “Unification” (August 2009) from Jon Truei on Vimeo.

I knew I had to bring the BROWNSTAR to the Mutiny. I had the chance to hit up Sathya and Pushkar in a gchat interview to ask them some questions about the BROWNSTAR REVOLUTION. Here’s what they said.

Taz: For those of those of the mutiny who may not know, who exactly is BROWNSTAR?

Pushkar: We’re a performance poetry duo, two-man spoken-word show.

Sathya: We’re more than just that though. We’re theatre; we’re comedy; we’re poetry. We like to throw everything into the pot and create something that isn’t always seen on stage.

Taz: How did you get your start? Did you start doing poetry first? Or performance first?

Sathya: I’ve been performing and writing in some way all my life, mostly being a clown for my family, or friends. I was a Drama and Eng Lit major in college, where Pushkar and I met. He directed me in my first show in college. I’m pursuing acting as well as this whole Brownstar thing. Ideally, I like to think of myself as an actor who likes to write poetry on the side. Continue reading →

Feather Meets Dot in a Brown Faced Way

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For Halloween this year, I had an Indian friend dress up like an Indian (feather, not dot). She thought it would be ironic (in a way that I’m sure this man would not have gotten). No painting of skin tone was involved. I was thinking about her as I watched this.

The blogs are a buzz with the latest from America’s Next Top Model, Season 13. The short girl season (all the girls are under 5’7), Tyra Banks takes them to Hawaii where she photographs them in a sugar cane field. The twist? She takes the pictures of the girls as “hapas.” Hapa is a Hawaiian term for people who are of mixed race. For the shoot, Tyra gives each of the girls two races that she wants them to embody in the photo. A race other than their own. She paints them all brown and gives them props to achieve it.

The racial mixes — Laura was Mexican and Greek, Erin was Tibetan and Egyptian, Sundai was Moroccan and Russian, Jennifer was Botswanan and Polynesian. and Nicole was Malagasy and Japanese. Who were we gifted with? The model named Brittany was given “East Indian” meets Native American i.e. feather and dot Indian. Fast forward to 6.29 to see Brittany get her face painted. Her picture after the jump. Continue reading →

Black Lips Are Bad Kids in India

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I always wondered how it is that American bands end up touring in India and how they are received – I know that the big concerts in Delhi are usually far more hard rock bands rather than anything that the kids here are listening to today. I was surprised then to watch this short documentary of the Black Lips, a very non-hard rock band, go on tour in India. You may recognize their song Bad Kids from (500) Days of Summer. (The ending of the movie is NSFW; hat tip to rockistani).

I thought the video was amusing, raw, and fun, ending on a spectacular rock star note. And for those who want to see how the movie ended and are curious about the “NSFW” rating without watching the whole thing, I’ll tell you after the jump. Continue reading →

Q&A with DJ Kayper: “What Is a Girl to Do?”

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She’s young, talented, cute, and smart. Serious about what she does, no ego, respects the roots of the music she loves. In short, she’s amazing, and sepia loves her.

>>burning envy<<

Seriously, though, it’s hard to hate DJ Kayper. She’s just too amazing. We squeed back in September, when Abhi blogged about her gig at the House of Blues in Houston. Taz and the rest of the beantown mutineers tried to catch her Boston show a few days later as the final touch on an fabulous night. Her skills are ridiculous, her taste is excellent, and she’s so low-key it’s always sort of exciting to get to know anything about her.

So of course I tried to get to know all about her. Recently fired off a batch of unconscionably inquisitive questions…and to my immeasurable delight, she answered them all! Even about being a DJ with breasteses!!

So let’s start with the obvious question — how did an Indian girl from Croydon get into hiphop?

I grew up during the golden era of hip hop and was influenced a lot by what my older brother was listening to. He listened to all types of music but in the early ’90s everyone was a fan of hip hop so that’s really how it all started for me. Continue reading →

Pakistanis, Slackistanis & Gossip Girl

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“No more news, please. No more news.” That’s been my early-morning refrain while checking news websites ever since 9/11. But inevitably, there is news from Pakistan. This past year, very few mornings have gone by without Americans waking up to read “Ten Taliban Members Killed in Pakistan” or “Militants Take Over Swat Valley, Close Girls’ Schools.” There is always news and it is always bad.

A new movie, Slackistan, wants to change that perception of Pakistan. Directed by British-based Hammad Khan, Slackistan is about a bunch of bored rich kids in Islamabad. And that’s it. That’s the plot. But that’s okay because they’re all hot. Oh yeah, and there’s probably an existential crisis or two thrown in for good measure. So basically your average American stoner movie sans the weed. At least that’s the impression I get. Watch the trailer for yourself and tell me if you see anything other than glamorous side-profiles of perturbed-looking young adults.

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